Don't let me forget...

Almost daily I tell my sweet husband something that begins with, "Don't let me forget to..." and then I fill in the blank with some mundane but important activity. Most of the time it's things like "Don't let me forget to pay the rent," or "Don't let me forget to call my friend back," or "Don't let me forget to brush my teeth again."

**That's a joke, guys--dentists always brush their teeth AND floss, and you should, too.

Inevitably my sweet husband forgets to remind me of whatever task I asked him to remind me of and yet somehow the simple act of asking him to remind me actually reminds me to do it. With that concept in mind, I ask you--Don't let me forget to tell you about all the wonderful things that have happened in the last month that I have failed to blog about!

There's been a hand-drawn map,

a Thanksgiving celebration,

a Christmas party,

another Christmas party with a celebrity guest,

and on Thursday--the end of another semester of dental school.


I'll tell you all about it--just don't let me forget, ok?

Parents of the Year

Once, or perhaps even twice this week during class my mind has wandered off into far away places. I think that the quickly-approaching Christmas break has me thinking of Santa and time with family instead of gum disease and cavities. During one such time (I can't say when for fear that one of my teachers is secretly perusing my blog in search of students who don't pay attention in class), I decided that I would read my email instead of listen to the lecture.

I had received an email from another student whose mind had also wandered--it was titled "Parents of the Year Award." I opened it not knowing what was inside.

I soon had to literally cover my mouth to stifle the laughter from escaping. It was a series of pictures of kids and their parents (or rather, their parents not paying attention to them) getting into trouble. At certain points I couldn't hold in my giggles and some strange, airy snorts escaped into the classroom. My teacher was confused because there's certainly nothing funny about gum disease.

Regardless of my teacher's opinion of me now, these were too funny not to share...but try to read them when you're not in class.

Christmas Cheer

Red Hot

Well, immediately after posting about how white my skin is, I have to recant my story. I am now red hot.

It all started on Black Friday. We were at Grampy's farm for Thanksgiving, sitting around the old kitchen table waiting for our bellies to digest the waffles we had just eaten into manageable quantities. While we waiting to be able to move again, we browsed through the innumerable ads included in the Black Friday edition of the paper.

We saw toys and trinkets, gadgets and makeup, cars and coupons--all great deals. The bargains that intrigued us the most were the TVs. We have a great TV in our living room (his name is Stevie the TV). We bought that one with the gift cards we got at our wedding showers.

In the guest room, though, was a hulking monstrosity of a TV that I had bought very cheaply while I was in college. It was a big rear-projection TV that took up way too much space of the already cramped room. In addition to the space issues, the TV also had developed some other issues. The power button on the remote barely worked, the only numerical button that functioned was the 5 (great if your favorite channels are 5 or 55), and the only other working button was mute. It had to go.

So with the promise of a great deal lurking in our minds, we decided to go look at TVs when we got back to San Antonio. We stumbled upon a great deal at Best Buy last Sunday night, but were intimidated at the thought of making a big purchase without letting the idea marinate a while first. After a sleeping on it, the deal was too good to pass up--we bought it, on the condition that we would count this as our Christmas presents to each other.

Meet Evie (the other TV):

Soon after our purchase, though, I felt like our Christmas gift exchange was too anti-climactic for me. I thought we should still buy each other gifts, just on a smaller scale--a $10 limit.

A few days later I saw a new wrapped gift under our tree. Jeffrey told me that he had already bought my $10 gift, but that I needed to open it before Christmas because it would be important for my happiness. I opened the paper and found a most wonderful gift...

a foot heater!!

Jeffrey had been thinking of my little cold toes while he was shopping and had bought me the heater to keep them toasty through the winter.

Of course I immediately opened and used the heater, and promptly gave myself a heat rash on my feet. (Isn't your body supposed to protect itself from that kind of self-inflicted injury?) I never felt my feet getting too hot, but I sure felt the burn and the itching for a few hours after the first use!

Eventually I turned on my brain and moved the heater a little further away so that I wouldn't be quite so red hot.

And just to make the story a little more interesting...

Friday afternoon I got an email from a lady at school telling me that I had won a prize from a random drawing after a survey I had filled out online. The prize? A $250 gift card to (you guessed it) Best Buy. Four days too late for our TV purchase! But I have this sneaking suspicion that I could find another impulse buy to use it on...

Dreaming of a White Christmas

I always hope for a white Christmas, but I didn't think that the song would ever apply to my own skin. I went to the store this weekend to get some new makeup base after I noticed that my current base was starting to make me look like an oompa loompa--a bit on the orange side (I guess that base was left over from a time when I regularly saw the sun and had a bit of a tan).

I matched my skin to a more appropriate shade and was shocked to find that my new shade is the lightest one made by the whole Maybelline company. I am a 1. I'm basically an albino ghost. All the darker makeup shades have exotic names like "Brazilian bronze" and "Sun-kissed sunset." I'm pretty sure mine is named "Ghastly" or something.

Now, I know I'm not the most tan girl on the block, but if I'm the lightest shade, what must Nicole Kidman wear for makeup? Chalk? Whipped cream? White-out?

At least this Thanksgiving I know that I can be thankful for being melanoma-free.

Jeffrey and I decorated the apartment for Christmas last weekend, and it looks beautiful! I wanted to show you on the blog, but my camera battery was dead. I thought it just needed to be charged, but it turns out that it's really dead--as in, dead as a doornail. I've ordered a new one, but you'll just have to be giddy with anticipation waiting for the pictures--just imagine: red houndstooth wrapping paper, lighted garland, Christmas dishes set out on the table, and stockings hung by the chimney with care!

Murphy's Law

Murphy's Law is a completely un-scientific saying that goes something like this: "Anything that can go wrong will go wrong."

Clearly, Murphy was a second year dental student in Operative dentistry lab when he made this law.

Operative dentistry is basically the class where we learn how to drill and fill cavities. Like all of our classes, it has its high points and its low points, a few fun things and a few annoying things.

One of the annoying things is that Murphy's Law seems to apply to all of our practical exams. During practicals we work on dummy heads (to be clear, I'm actually talking about manikins--that's not how we refer to our live patients) and drill and fill plastic teeth. The practicals are timed and graded, and, (as I mentioned before) are often the time in which things go wrong.

Disasters happen. Mistakes are made that have never been made before. Drills take on a life of their own. Instruments break, teeth fall out, and other minor catastrophes commonly take place during these two hour exams.

Just today I had a bur break off in the middle of drilling, a screw came loose that was holding in one of the teeth, my filling material squished into places in my manikin that I had never even seen before, and a huge chunk of tooth just broke off for no good reason. The last straw came when I felt my left hand go entirely numb below the elbow because I had been holding it at an awkward angle for 2 hours. Murphy's Law. I had to finish the practical by balancing my mirror on a plastic part of my "patient." (I hear that that's not really acceptable behavior with live patients...)

One of my friends thought he was doing really well until he noticed that a piece of metal he had been using to protect a tooth had inexplicably fractured and caused major tooth damage. Murphy's Law.

If things don't improve soon, I'm going to be forced to go into the "grill making" business--if you know what I mean...



Because nothing says, "Dental school was hard--I dropped out early and this is all I'm qualified to do" like a sparkly grill.

Tonight

Tonight is the first really cool night of the season here in San Antonio, so for me that means a fire (professionally built using only leftover cereal boxes as kindling and tiny gardening tools for pokers), a dinner by the fire, making homemade wheat bread, talking to my husband about Thanksgiving and Christmas plans, and reading over a few notes for my test tomorrow.

I like tonight.