Another brush with meditation fame

This is Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche. He is a Tibetan meditation master who is visiting the Center for Spirituality & Healing this week and giving several lectures about meditation.

I am helping interview him today about his background, what health means to him, how he takes charge of his health, etc. We'll be using his interview and others to promote our newly redesigned website Taking Charge of Your Health, which is the site I manage content for at work.

Should be fun and interesting! This is the second meditation master I've met from Tibet. Who else can say that? :)

Research sucks

Lit searches suck. I hate researching this TBI project. I'm supposed to be finding articles about group therapy for social skills and/or cognitive rehab for adults with traumatic brain injury. I've been working on finding articles since 7 pm tonight and have really only found three articles that have group therapy, one of which is only listed as a resource on another article and is nowhere to be found in the depths of this damn OVID database, another of which is only available via interlibrary loan (so let's hope it gets here on time for my project due date) and the last one of which I actually got to save as a pdf and will get the privlege of reading tomorrow morning.

In closing, this is why I would never want to be a professor and do research for a living.

Ish.

Stacy or Taylor?

Saturday afternoon, I got to catch up with my niece Finley, who is already almost 3 months old!

She has been really busy growing a few more chins (I mean pounds). She is also very good at smiling and being really alert! Way to go, Finley!

For those who know her parents, let's do a poll. Who does she look more like: Stacy or Taylor? I think she is a good combo of both, but this pic looks more like baby Stacy.

Drumroll, please...

I got such a good deal at Old Navy today (using my 30% off coupon, of course).

Purchases:
1 pair of khaki pants for me
1 sweater for me
2 camis for me
1 sweater for Eric
1 shirt for Eric

Grand total after discount - $33.57

Don't you love feeling like you cheated the system? ;)

Children's Hospital

I got the offered the position at Children's this summer! I'm excited to keep on working with kids, but this time in a medical setting! I'm also hoping that I get to do some work with infant feeding and swallowing. I haven't talked to my supervisor yet, so I don't know much about what I'll be doing, what my hours will be, etc. I just got a voicemail yesterday while I was in class telling me the good news. So I await all the fun details...

Ridiculous, yet real, deal at Old Navy!

Okay, so remember how I recently subscribed to that blog "Never Pay Retail Again"? Well, I seriously love it. I got this email today that gave instructions about how to get 30% off your entire purchase at Old Navy. The instructions sound almost fake, but I did it, and it worked. If you don't click on the dolphin (and this will make more sense when you read below), you only get 20% off two items. So it's totally worth it to just wait for the dolphin to jump so you can get 30% off your entire purchase. And.....the dolphin will jump again, so if you miss click the first time, just wait. It will jump again.

Here are the instructions if you, too, want to get some discounts at Old Navy:

Go to www.oldnavyweekly.com (click HERE) and click "start hunting"-- once there (and I realize that this will sound ridiculous!)-- you must first match up the mannequin heads correctly-- the order is Kelly, Amy, Heather (from left to right) -- and then wait until you see a dolphin jumping behind the mannequin with the purple tank top (it might take a little while)-- you have to click on the dolphin WHILE IT IS IN THE AIR-- and then, and only then, will you get a 30% off your entire order coupon-- told you it would sound ridiculous, but--hey, it works!

You can either print the coupon immediately or email it to yourself-- it claims one time use coupon but I just compared with a few friends and they are all THE SAME CODE-- but since the site does have a limited number of coupons-- go get yourself one NOW!

Mom voice

I was paid a very nice compliment by my supervisor in the St. Paul schools today. The compliment? I am developing a good mom voice and I don't even have kids yet!

Why is this important to a speech-language pathology student? Um...hello? I use a freakin' mom voice so much that it annoys me. Some kids just know how to push my buttons. Some of the sentences that I know I've said in the past week include the following:

• Please don't throw your trash on the floor. Use the garbage can.
• It is not okay to put down other people.
• It is not okay (or funny) to not listen to your teachers.
• We do not talk like that at speech.

Despite the need for the mom voice, I am still enjoying my practicum in the schools. The days go by really fast -- there is always something to do, and every day is different. I am learning a lot and feel like I would easily fit in a school setting, if that ends up being the path I'll take. Who knows....

The one thing that is sad sometimes is that a lot of the kids come from some pretty tough homes. There seem to be a lot of parents in jail or families living in homeless shelters. It's odd to hear kids and parents just mention things like that so nonchalantly. Like a parent at a meeting the other day mentioned that her kid goes to a tutor everyday. When we asked where, she said, "at the shelter." It's just not brought up as a big deal, and the mom didn't seem ashamed or anything. Not that she should be. It's just very different than I would think I (or one of my friends/family) would bring something like that up. I actually admire her matter-of-factness. I think sometimes I care too much about what others might think of me. Anyway, it's really interesting. And about the whole tutoring program at the shelter -- that made me super happy that really great programs seem to be alive and kicking in places that really need them. So yeah, schools can be frustrating and sad, but they are also filled with a lot of energy. And I laugh a lot at what these kids say and do.

In other SLP news, I had a phone interview with Children's Hospitals and Clinics today here in MSP. (Enough abbrevs for you?) It only lasted like 10 minutes, so I really have no idea how it went. The interview was for a summer practicum at one of their locations (either hospital or clinic). So we'll see. If I don't get it, it's okay. Then I'm thinking I'll work with adults this summer and take a break from kiddos. I'm also hoping for a lighter load of practicum this summer seeing as how I'm getting married and all. :)

Super Indy

You know it's going to be a good day when your brother emails you with the subject line "a lil something I made for ya..." and then it turns out to be this:















Rob used a pic that we took last summer of Indy jumping toward her soccer ball and made this fabulous work of art. Nice work, Rob!

It's official

Eric and I are getting married on August 22, 2009 at Chateau LeVeaux, a resort on the north shore of Lake Superior. Check out the website to see how cool it looks: http://www.chateauleveaux.com/.

Things we've checked off our to-do list so far:

- wedding dress! (Stacy and Mom helped me shop for dresses on Sunday and Monday, and I ordered one on Monday night! It's whimsical, according to Stacy. It made me feel like I was floating, and it also made me want to dance, so I thought it had to be the one. :))

- location for ceremony and reception

- lodging for guests (we're going to have the entire resort all to ourselves!)

- ceremony music (cousins Jess and Joe Carey)

- hopefully food will be figured out soon

There are still lots of things to do, but we are having fun trying to straighten it all out. Next step is finding someone to marry us. Anyone know a great minister or other type of officiant in northern MN? Oh yeah, and we are trying to find a bluegrass band for the reception. Anyone know of any good groups that are either up there or would travel?

Anyway, just wanted to update on wedding planning. It's very exciting now that it's all official and really happening in only 5 months!

For your viewing pleasure, I leave you with this picture of our ring bearer. See how good she is at carrying things already?

I heart being thrifty

After reading an article on Yahoo about cheapskates that spoke to my heart, I found this super cool blog: http://neverpayretailagain.blogspot.com/. It has helpful info about current deals and coupons to help you save money.

Bookmarked it, and I'm feelin' good!