Acorns Away!

I'm always a little sad when my Peanut goes home. We had a nice weekend! Started out Saturday morning with a trip to the city. It was a beautiful fall day, cool in the morning, warming up in the afternoon. First stop: his new office. I love seeing where people work; it's so much easier to talk on the phone with someone if you can imagine them in their surroundings. Grabbed a coffee and a Milano. Next stop: Indian restaurant for chicken tikka (my favorite) and Vindaloo (one of his favorites) and about 8 pounds of naan (bring it on). With full stomachs and an Indian-food stupor setting in, we sauntered around the city, stopping at a little Indian market, the Open Center, and the farm market at Union Square. Saw some good looking produce, bee-buzzing-honey, and pumpkins galore. In addition, I was sort of blown away by the amount of crazy people we witnessed. I'm sure there are just as many crazy people in the suburbs, but it just manifests differently or something. Took a mid afternoon train home and ran a couple of errands before making dinner and calling it a night at my place.

Woke up early to get on the road for a birthday breakfast for my sister. Some family members were missing due to other commitments, which was weird because it often feels like I'm the one who can't make family gatherings for one reason or another (ahem, school). It was nice! The rest of the day, B and I lounged. We did manage to go grocery shopping so at least I'm ready for the week.

Can I just say...it was a BEAUTIFUL THING not having to study this weekend! See, I left out that I took the comprehensive exam on Tuesday of last week! Four months of prep work, and it's over. Now, please pray that I passed! We should hear in a couple of weeks. Please God, please God, please God! That was a TIRING four months of my (and my poor boyfriends life). However, during the time I had to study I also started my crazy clinical training schedule, so part of my exhaustion was/is also from juggling client hours between two sites.

It's been so long since I blogged, and I'm sure I have more interesting things to talk about, but for now I have dishes to do and pajamas to put on and all that good Sunday night stuff.
Hopefully tonight I can sleep through the noisy acorns that have been falling onto the roof, rolling down it, and bouncing off my decks, front and back....

The 2nd Law of Thermodynamics...in Action

More accurately, my closet is teaching me about the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics this very moment. If you saw it, you would scream! It's the classic scenario: the closet is literally stuffed to the gills and I stand there every morning complaining about having 'nothing to wear'. It DOES take a finite amount of energy to maintain an organized closet, and I'm totally all out!

Anyway. Back to the other stuff...like my exam coming up in two weeks, and class starting back up tomorrow (honestly, where did the summer go? I didn't even see it while it was here). I am logging some good hours at my internship sites, though, so at least my anxiety about having enough hours to graduate when the time comes has been somewhat reduced.

This coming weekend is Labor Day weekend; yay for the long weekend! I'll be with clients part of Saturday and studying throughout the 3 days...and the fun things my boyfriend and I have planned are a birthday celebration with friends of ours we haven't seen in a long time on Sunday and a kirtan on Monday. Jai Uttal and Krishna Das will be there; we've seen Krishna a bunch of times (and it's always great) but Jai, we've never seen! We were talking about the kirtans we've gone to in 2010 and so far we've seen David Newman, Krishna Das, and Dave Stringer. I don't think I'm leaving anyone out? Last year we saw Krishna, Snatam Kaur, and Bhagavan Das. Bhagavan takes the cake for most far out. It was an experience. Did I ever talk about it?

The birthday celebration reminds me; we had my birthday celebration with my family this past weekend. I got some very nice gifts :) One being a new CamelBak water bottle that I constantly carry with me. I also got some sweet Kat Von D perfume. I love her! She rocks. I just got some cool things this year...including a Kindle (waiting by the mailbox!) and a Swatch watch (that was from my honey.)

I think it's too late for me to try to make any more sense, so...
G'night!

2nd Law of Thermodynamics

A principle from physical sciences, aka the law of entropy.
This law postulates that all entities tend toward a state of decay. Every system will have a maximum structure that, over time, erodes. And every system has a finite amount of energy to maintain itself at that maximum structure. For example, the organization of a closet. Over time, it will become messy. The amount of energy it takes to main the high probability state of an organized closet uses more of the finite energy a system has vs. the energy it takes to maintain the low probability of the homeostasis of a messy closet.

A) This will be on my test in a couple of weeks. B) I have no idea what that says. and C) When I pretend that I do know what that says, it is somehow eerily representational of my life at this moment. I am maintaining my maximum structure with a finite amount of energy and I think I may become a bit of a messy closet shortly!

My schedule is idiotically crazy, as it has been for a little while now and it seems to be gaining crazy-momentum. Juggling work and driving here and there and making appointments and phone calls is one thing. The other thing...the harder/hardest/most painful thing, is managing the constant anxiety I am feeling surrounding my sessions with clients. I am so so so so SO NEW at this and boy, is it clear to me.
In general, I consider myself (after some hard work over the years) a confident person. In this moment, in my clinical training, I am experiencing a big blow to that (goodbye ego, whatever was left of you!) The second guessing of my abilities and extremely low self confidence is sort of taxing. Even though I recognize the process and know that whether or not I'm good at being a therapist doesn't determine whether I'm good or not at being a person, it's still totally brutal feeling like I'm sort of sucky at what I'd really like to be good at.
My saving grace is that before I started seeing clients I read in one of my textbooks somewhere that these exact feelings, these serious check ins about my capabilities will happen. I will find myself experiencing anxiety, changes in eating habits (great) and sleeping habits (no!!) and major doubts in my competency.

I wonder when it changes?

I ordered a book from Amazon today called "Doing Family Therapy: Craft and Creativity in Clinical Practice" by Robert Taibbi. While it looks like a great guide for the beginner therapist, what sold me on it was one sentence about being afraid but doing it anyway...

Green Wheels

Oh by the way, we were out fooling around this weekend and stopped by Toyota (well, on the heels of Bob's Tacoma antenna being broken off at the car wash, we drove over to order him a new one). We've both been drooling over the Prius for a year + now, and on Saturday we drooled some more. I test drove a Corolla S, which was adorable and fun (and different from the Jeep I currently drive!) Talking about it and glancing over at our beloved Prius', we strolled over again and actually took a look at some nice used ones...now there's an idea! They actually had a good deal on a couple and it got me all excited again about buying a new car. My Jeep is great, and has lasted us a LONG time; I'm preparing for its demise though, as it is 13 years old and will probably need to be replaced at some point within the next year. I wanted to have an idea of a car to turn to so that when it dies or before it dies, the process of getting myself into a set of new wheels will be a bit easier.

Prius Love!

Itchy and Scratchy

Well, it's been a really long time since I've blogged! I've been chugging away at work, clinical hours, finishing up a summer course, preparing for my fall comprehensive exam and...now fighting a case of poison ivy!

Yup.

I pulled ONE weed out of my flower box last week and am now covered in the stuff. I even washed my hands after pulling the weed; I gave it a long look before I touched it and was slightly skeptical. It didn't look like poison ivy, actually, so God knows what I actually have...yikes. It's on my ear (!) neck, back, arms, and a little bit on my face. Sooo cute!

...whatever it is, calamine lotion, rubbing alcohol, and oatmeal baths are my friend.

Stayed home today to try and mellow it out of my body, as well as not scare my coworkers. Do have a lineup today, so I have to figure out what to do with the rest of the things on my agenda.

I've been in a shopping mood lately. Probably an unconscious effort to break out of routine and do something that feels good NOW. This hard work in the long run will feel good, but come on, there's nothing like instant gratification to fuel the fire! This weekend I shopped the sales at EMS and Anthropologie.

I need to take advantage of my 'day off' and study a bit...maybe take a nap in there somewhere.

Happy Monday!

Stress Be Gone

How badly do I want these? LOL. I like that they're a) New and Improved and b) High Potency!

Double Windsor Dress, please