California Comfort

Hey there,
It's been a while since I last posted and I thought an update would be nice. The last few weeks have been good and have been very comforting.

Tom came up from San Diego and met Jackie and I in San Jose. We watched the Husky game that Saturday-- it was the blackout game so to support my darling siblings I wore all black (was not about to wear that god awful purple). That night, however, we went to dinner with Eric's uncle and I got to watch my Coug game. :D We got killed, Halliday just isn't pulling his weight this season. On Sunday Tom took us down to San Francisco and gave us a grand tour of the city. I had never been there before (just drove through) so it was really cool to see the nice part of town instead of the ghetto area that we drive through. We started off on a submarine tour of a submarine from WWII. It was SO cool and Tom showed us around all the little buttons and crannies and why they designed the vessle the way they did. It was a pretty amazing experience. We got ice cream at Ghiradelli's and lunch at a fish and chips place on the warf.



 

I went to Stanford for a food summit conference and learned a lot about what is going on in the 'food world' in the Bay Area. Some people are trying to get as colonial as possible and get down and dirty in the fields while others are trying to get tomatoes to grow in our kitchen drawers and underneath skyscrapers with special lighting. It was pretty interesting.

Mike and I broke up a few weeks ago. He has a promise to a future job that would keep him in San Jose pretty much forever. He knows how much I love home and how much I love you guys so we broke up and I get to come back to you ASAP. Since that happened Friday night of my weekend down in the South Bay, I went to my roommate Jacque's mom's house and stayed there. They fed me well and made me a very warm bed. Jackie (my sister) and I went to Santa Cruz on Saturday and checked out the town, we also drove up to Pescadero for THE BEST artichoke soup you'll ever have in your entire life. Why do people not make artichoke soup at home? It should be on every menu at every restaurant. Then we went over to Eric's aunt and uncle's house where I got to cuddle with their golden retreiver and watch some basketball. They were very nice and very welcoming-- I'm glad Jackie has them down there as a part of her California family. On Sunday I drove back to Lakeport and got ready for the week, ready to move forward!

My preceptor for foodservice has become our "Lakeport Mommy". She's really more like one of my aunties. Jackie, (yes, another Jackie) has completely taken us under her wings and welcomed us into her house like her own children. Her husband Glen has made dinner for us on multiple occasions and they even took us out to the casinos for my very first casino experience... no I did not win... Jackie and Glen live with Jackie's 2 siblings Sharon & Kevin. Kevin has Down's Syndrome and is a pretty funny guy. Sharon also works at the school and is also one of my adopted aunties. Jackie and Glen's two golden retrievers just had puppies last week and we got to be there to help birth them! I never thought that I would have my hands deep in kanine placenta but it was actually pretty fun! I wanted to show you pictures but the picture uploader is no longer working to my liking...

Jackie (my sister) came to visit and helped deliver the puppies as well. We went to Ceago, a winery in Lucerne on the other side of the lake and it was beautiful. Once I figure out the picture thing I will show you the beautiful picutres we took at Ceago. We hung out, ate really good food and watched some movies. The puppy delivery was really the highlight of the weekend.

I've been doing a lot of cleaning, cooking, and homework. I'm in clinical now down at St. Helena Hospital in Clearlake. This was the hospital that I originally really didn't want to be in but I put my hands up and let go, and I have to admit God really did put me there for a reason. Everyone is so nice and eager to help me learn, I've calculated tube feeds and TPN (IV feeds) and really felt comfortable in my surroundings there. The chaplin is an Australian woman who has a very similar attitude as Barry. She is Seventh Day Adventist, like the hospital, but boy if she was a pastor I would definitely go to her church. I think she has a good understanding of God's love for us, and trust in us, and our commitment to God. It comforts me and makes me feel good.

I'm about to go play with the puppies, they're 8 days old and we're hoping they'll open their eyes today! I'll send pictures along when I can figure out how to add more than one.

I love love love you and can't wait to see you at Christmas!

Love,
Lindsey Grace

Beginning of October

Hello hello,

It is Wednesday, two days into October and I can barely believe that it's already October! It feels like I haven't been home in AGES, but it also feels like July was just yesterday. Since it is officially October, we have officially started using my recipes at the school I'm working at!! Today we made white chicken chili and it was absolutely delicious. Most of the elementary school kids ate it and the kids who chose it at the high school loved it also. However, middle school kids are twerps and would not even try it. DOES ANYONE HAVE ANY IDEA HOW TO GET A-HOLE KIDS IN MIDDLE SCHOOL TO TRY FRESH COOKED DELICIOUS FOOD THAT DOES NOT COME IN A PLASTIC BAG??? I am completely at a loss with those kids. I consider a recipe a success if I can get the 3rd graders and the high schoolers to finish their entree.

Olivia and I are trying out the recipes at home first to make sure they're tasty and make sure it's possible to make for 700 kids. The other night we made orange chicken, I could have died it was so good. Last night we made a lentil curry soup in the crock pot for dinner-- so easy and SO delicious. I wish we could use that recipe for the kids but I doubt they'd touch curry. Tonight we're making a homemade teriyaki sauce for teriyaki chicken with pineapple chunks in it. We also made "Aloha Muffins" that are pineapple and banana muffins that we had for the kids this morning, and they loved them!! One of my little girls at the elementary asked Olivia "who made the muffins this morning?" and we smiled big and said "we did!!" She said she wanted them again soon!! We're trying pumpkin overnight oatmeal for Friday-- hoping that goes over as well as the muffins did.

Other than that not much has gone on. We've been working out, watching some movies and planning our October trips down to San Jose. Tom is in San Diego this month so I think we'll meet up in San Jose the weekend of the 12th. We have the 14th off from school because it is a teacher in-service day so it works out quite nicely.

That is all for now!
Love,
Lindsey

I just found out I can put pictures on here!

Hiking Mount Konocti

Wine Tasting in Kelseyville

The Cobb Waterfalls

Yellow watermelon

Back At It

Sorry, all, for not keeping up with my blog. I've had a VERY stressfull time down here and have been pre-occupied with many things. Good news-- I have a preceptor for my acute care and I am going to graduate on time!

So, what else is new? I've been visiting San Jose to see Jackie, Eric and Mike a lot. The drive isn't bad and my roommates live down here so we trade off who's driving. I'm currently in San Jose right now and loving the bug-free atmosphere. Olivia wants me to move down here in March to get an apartment and study for the RD exam together. I'm seriously considering it seeing as Mike is here and having a study buddy would be very beneficial. I want to make sure and visit home though because I miss my family more than the world. Also, once we get an apartment down here I'll have to drive up and grab Tessy because there is no way I'm leaving her outside longer than I have to!!

For the last week we have been housing a 3 year old cat who we named Peter. He was hit by a car a few weeks ago and lost his back leg. He is also a bobcat and has no tail. Needless to say, he's a little weird looking. But he has THE BEST personality. He loves people, but he is not used to being inside (we think he was a runaway) so the sound of flushing toilets, sinks, TVs, etc. freaks him out a little bit. But he LOVES to cuddle and LOVES attention. His one fault is that he has been having stomach problems which we found out by him first pooping in my bed, then pooping on Olivia's floor, then pooping in my clean laundry of my sheets that he pooped on the first time!! Right now he's here at Jackie's house-- I'm a little worried because we've been here since Thursday afternoon and he hasn't pooped yet-- unless he has pooped somewhere in Mike's laundry that I haven't found yet.... Jackie wants to call him Charlie, but I am still calling him Peter, Poopy Peter.

I have been working at Lakeport Unified School District for my food service rotation and I absolutely LOVE it. I got to add many new recipes to October's breakfast and lunch menus incorperating scratch cooking with commodity foods and trying to keep the kitchen staff calm while trying all these new things! The kids are absolutely adorable, and are sort of tolerating the new recipes. The elementary and high school are trying and liking everything, but the middle school kids are middle school kids and think its cool to starve and act like the food is poison. It's pretty entertaining, and our preceptor is very very generous and nice-- she never used to eat vegetables and she is trying everything we make and says she likes it so it makes me feel good. One of the kids the other day in the lunch line looked at the kid next to him (who I had just said hi to) and said "is that your mom?" --- I THOUGHT I LOOKED LIKE I WAS 16 NOT 36. They have also told me things like "you look like a girl" (obviously) and "the monkeys on your shirt look like my stuffed animal"

Other than that, we've just been cooking a lot-- Olivia makes really good Asian food, Jacque makes really good Italian food and I am the Mexican professional. We eat very well.

Love you all,
Lindsey

P.S. I still love getting mail!

Cleaning Day!

I don't quite remember when I wrote last so I will tell you all about my week.

Monday:
We had just got home from our trip to San Jose, the weekend kind of took all our energy out of us so we watched a lot of TV after work.

Tuesday:
Nothing (besides work-- which was still pretty much nothing)

Wednesday:
We had the RD come in to work, and I did nothing. I do believe I went to the gym after work though and that was quite refreshing.

Thursday:
Nothing-- I read Harry Potter at work. That was fun.
Oh I also chose a resident for my case study. She is blind and had been living independently for many years before she fell and had to be admitted to the nursing home. She was telling me about the FULL meals that she would make on her own at home, using all of the appliances that normal people do in her kitchen. She is seriously a rockstar.
After work we went to a Tribal Health Fair where one of the dietitians in the area asked if we could come check it out. It was small but nice, there was a lot of helpful information about nutrition and healthcare for the people in need. Also there was a free dinner, cooking demos, and prizes! Since I'm the luckiest person on the planet-- with my 3 raffle tickets that we had WE WON the raffle and got a $50 gift card to Walmart. I know what you're thinking "Ew, I don't want that prize" but in Lakeport, it's a pretty nice prize. We were happy, we had Indian Tacos for dinner-- unfortunately I was the only one brave enough to get ground turkey on my taco and I was the only one who ended up having food poisoning (or unagreement) from our meal. At least it tasted good.

Friday:
Literally nothing at work- I finished Harry Potter OOTF (pretty fantastic, reading these books never gets old.) We went out to dinner to a place called Jimmy's which is a Taquaria/Greek restaurant. The man who helped us (obviously a family business) was quite gorgeous, and is starting up a career in realestate. Why do these people live in Lakeport?!?  I had a gyro though and it was quite delicious.

Saturday:
Olivia and I had a meeting with our program director for breakfast in Windsor. We went to a place called the Omlette Express which was quite good. It was also a very good meeting, Olivia and I were concerned about getting the experience we needed in acute care here since our hospital is only 25 beds and doesn't offer the variety typical placements do-- our program director gave us the green light to start looking for preceptors in San Jose so we can do our acute care there! Olivia's dad has already offered to let us live at their house-- we'll see if Jackie will let me sleep on her couch for 6 weeks though ;)
After the meeting we went to Walmart to cash in our winning $50. Then I remembered that I had a gift card to Pier 1 Imports also, so we went 15 minutes south to Santa Rosa and popped into Pier 1. I got a painting for our living room and a mug that has cow udders for the base and is spotted black and white like a cow for the cup part of the mug. I LOVE it. Next door to Pier 1 a linnens store was going out of business so we stopped in to see what kind of deals we could get. I wanted to get a fitted sheet but couldn't find one I liked- however I did find REALLY cute place mats that were only 90 cents each, so of course I bought them.
Once we got home from Santa Rosa we took a quick nap then went grocery shopping. We stocked up on some really good fresh fruits and veggies-- I love living with food people! Not that my parents didn't buy great produce, but we have different food every night (mexican, chinese, italian, etc.) and it never gets old! Then after grocery shopping we went to check out the Taste of Lakeport. Instead of being all about food like the Taste of Edmonds, it's all about wine here. It was $35 to participate and we're quite poor so we did not join in, but it was good to see normal looking people out in town having a good time. Then to top of the great day we watched The Lucky One right before bed.

Sunday:
And now to today. Cleaning day! I started off my day folding my rather large pile of laundry that had come out of the washing machine a few days ago. Since I am an early riser (benefits!) I decided that washing my car before breakfast was the best idea so that I didn't have to be out there in the heat of the day. I washed it really thoroughly, came in for Sunday Funday breakfast (banana pancakes with turkey bacon) then went back out and vacuumed and washed the inside windows of my car. I LOVE HAVING A CLEAN CAR. And somehow here it gets dirty FAST.
After cleaning my car I borrowed our neighbor's (she's really cool, I'll talk about her later) pressure nozzle for the hose and sprayed all the webs and bugs off of the outside of the house. Then when I thought I was done I remembered I needed to do my balcony so I had Jacque swing the hose up to my balcony so I could spray from up there. Then I took my broom that I bought from my new favorite store (the Kelseyville Lumber store) and some soap and scrubbed off all the bird poop from my balcony. It's so clean now! I scrubbed our back deck also and fed the pathetic palm trees in the back. It felt good to be outside and not bad being wet out there either-- our water doesn't exactly get cold but it was still refreshing.
Jacque and I connected the propane tank to my brand new grill. Jacque and Olivia cleaned most of the inside of the house: kitchen counters, dishes, cleaning the stove, bathrooms, windows, mirrors, etc. I vacuumed and swiffered and MAN does it feel GREAT to have a spic spac clean house. I'm sure my back will hate me for it later but it sure does look nice in here.
I threw in Pitch Perfect to motivate me to iron my work clothes. I just love that movie, it will never get old. We put up the painting that I got at Pier 1 yesterday and finally put up our "Lake House" sign. It's been a VERY productive day and it's only 4pm!

I have a conference this week along with another team meeting in Santa Rosa. Jackie, Eric and Mike are heading up on Friday for Labor Day weekend and I'm really looking forward to that. All is good!

Love you all,
Lindsey

Really ready to come home.

The last few weeks have been very frustrating. I finished up at WIC and absolutely loved it, then I went to extended care after. It's a 90 bed facility in Clearlake and a lot of the residents have been there for quite some time and already have their diet plans figured out. We figured out that both of our "acute care" facilities aren't actually acute care so we plan to talk to our directors about all of it.

We went to San Jose over the weekend and had a BLAST. Normal civilization is such a wonderful thing. It was in the 90's, we relaxed, shopped and Eric was an AMAZING brother-in-dating and changed my headlight which proved to be a very difficult task. I owe him a bottle of tequilla-- and not the cheap kind. We also went out to a place called Campbell and met Olivia and her friends there. It was a cute little area, felt a lot safer than Jackie's neighborhood, and had a really great time.

Unfortunately we had to come back to Lakeport, but Jacque finally came with us and moved in!! We are adjusting to being back in Lakeport.. temps are in the 90s-100s and there is a wildfire in Chico that is sending over a plentiful amount of smoke our way.

Really missing home right now, wishing that I had my kitties with me or I was just home with my kitties. I could really go for some Agua Verde or Taster's Wok right now.

You all know my address, little mail would be wonderful.

Love you,
Lindsey

1st rotation down

So I have officially completed my first rotation as a dietetic intern. WIC was so fun. On Wednesday I taught a class to moms about transitioning their baby from the bottle to a sippy cup and protecting their teeth with fluoride varnish and frequent brushing. In California they don't fortify their water with fluoride so the kids get tooth decay even worse than at home.

Yesterday I got to hold so many tiny babies! We started with a mom with 1 month old twins, the mom was still very weak from her c-section so I got to hold them during their appointment. Then another mom came in with a 1 week old, THEN another mom came in for a lactation consult with a 1 week old who I got to hold for a long time. All of the babies smelled like sweet little baby smell and I was a happy girl. For lunch one of my co-workers invited me over to her house and her mom made us lengue and frijoles y chiles. The chiles were fresh out of the garden and EXTRA spicy. I loved every single bite. I also brought cupcakes with rainbow chip frosting as a going away treat for everyone.

Today was my last day and we had a travel clinic in Lucerne. Pretty boring day at work but today my other co-worker had us over for lunch. She's the mama of us younger ladies and HER mama made us fresh tortillas and soup of pork and beans. It was delicious. I don't think my dad would believe how much pork I'm eating! But it has been really good. The other thing we had that was really really good was arroz con leche. Take horchata, warm it up, put rice in it and add a whole lot of love and we now have my new favorite thing on this planet. This co-worker also invited us over tomorrow for her granddaughter's 5th birthday party. I'm sad to be leaving but it is nice to have new friends I can hang out with during my time here!

Jackie and Warren are on their way here right now and we are going to have a fun-filled weekend!

Love you all!

Ouchie Monday

Oh man. Yesterday was filled with so much activity that I had no energy left for today. Somehow I woke up around 4 and couldn't fall back asleep. So naturally once I got to work I immediately became extremely sleepy and could barely keep my eyes open. We had clinic this morning, it wasn't very busy though. Then after lunch was office hours. During lunch, though, I went to the post office and mailed off my ballot (I'm such a good citizen) and a package to my mama. I also got some flat rate envelopes and a book of stamps! Safeway is right across the street from the post office so I went in and got a few things I needed for the house along with two packs of cards so I can finally write to people without sending a "thank you" card. When I finally got to eat my lunch I poured my salad dressing over my salad, put the top back on the container and started shaking-- not too much longer the top popped off the container and half of my salad flew all over the lunch room. Not fun.

My office work was completed in a matter of an hour so I had a good 4 hours to sit there and do nothing. Luckily one of my co-workers asked if I would go with her to the storage unit so I jumped at the chance. It was also good because she is pregnant and I would rather blow out my back than have her lift something heavy. My legs are VERY sore from the gym yesterday, I was having trouble getting up and down all day, but lifting a few boxes of breast pumps wasn't so bad.

When we got back from the storage unit I decided that there was no good reason why I couldn't sit quietly and read (since most of the employees were on their computers playing solitaire) so I opened up my Kindle app and dove deep in to the magical world of Harry Potter. It helped time pass, but it was still a very long time before the clock finally said 5:00.

On my way home I stopped by the one recommended nail salon to get my eyebrows waxed. The ONLY Asian population in Lakeport was found in this salon. It made me feel more at home because there really are no Asians here. The woman who waxed my eyebrows was Vietnamese, just like my eyebrow lady at home, and she said she originally moved from Vietnam to San Jose but then came up to Lakeport because her sister was here. She did a pretty good job on my eyebrows though so I feel much better knowing there is one place I can trust.

For dinner Olivia and I made a Thai quinoa salad with red peppers and mango. Olivia made the dressing with oyster sauce, brown sugar, and a lot of spices. We also made butternut squash fries that went really well with honey mustard. At the same time, I made the next few days lunch with my signature southwestern quinoa salad. We used a lot of dishes but we cleaned up quick and had delicious food!

Tomorrow we go to the courthouse for WIC to encourage the Lakeport "supreme court" to support mothers who breastfeed more. They don't want us looking like WIC employees so they said be as casual and "normal" looking as possible. Yay no ironing for tomorrow!

Love you guys,
Lindsey

Saturday Exploring

The wind has turned. Olivia and I started out the day with a GREAT workout at the gym. We're still getting oriented there but its still so good. After that we came home and showered, I invented a delicious breakfast-- a Costco blueberry muffin with cream cheese in the middle, all warmed up. It made me happy. Then we went downtown Lakeport and walked around to all the shops.  It made us like Lakeport just a little, and we got Renee's milkshakes to tour us around town.
Jackie kept telling me to go to one antique shop where they have a Siamese kitten running around. We didn't find him until we were almost leaving the store but man did that little fluff ball make me feel good. I really wish we could have pets here because I miss Tessy times a million.
When we got back from perusing around town I finally got to break open my vacuum and give the whole house a good cleaning. I feel so much better now that it is clean. Or now that I know its clean the way I want it.
Before I knew it I looked up at the clock and it was 5 pm. Who knew? Looking forward to Sunday Funday.
Linds

Friday!

Well, today we went to a town called Middletown and had a "travel clinic" in a local church. Wow, I thought that Clearlake was bad-- this place was not white trash or thug low-income people-- they were LOWWWWW income. And on top of being low income they are out in the middle of no where and most of them didn't have cars. Did I mention that there is no YellowCab/ taxis here? Needless to say, we had a lot of frustrated moms and a lot of children that I just wanted to give them all a nice house. There was one baby who was two weeks old--- reminded me a lot of Jesse because he was + for heroin at birth, taken away from the birth mom and in the NICU for a week. He was such a cute little bug and very well behaved/ not bothered compared to how I remember Jesse being. The foster mom was very nice and let me hold him, this is not her first foster child and seems to know what she was doing. I was just happy to see one baby getting the help he really needed. Hopefully he gets adopted to a nice family and doesn't show any signs of physical and/or mental delays.

Tonight Olivia and I went to the Concert in the Park at Library Park in Lakeport. It wasn't the best band, but it was still really fun-- we got to see most of the population of Lakeport, and one lady brought her donkey! When we asked her to take a picture of us with the donkey she got a picture of the donkey with Olivia's chin and my belly. It was quite entertaining. Also, we went to the Konocti Casino booth and we BOTH won a free night stay at the Konocti Casino Resort. Hello fun free weekend. The guy running the booth couldn't believe that we both rolled a 6 & a 5 to win the free room. We were pretty happy.

Another exciting thing is that Olivia and I signed up for our gym last night! It has more machines than my last gym so I have a little learning and orienting to do but so far I really like it. There is spin class and cardio kickboxing after work each day so they will keep us active. There's a lot of bros there, but there is also the head of the police department and an undercover cop who are both regulars so it makes us feel more safe.

This weekend I FINALLY get to vacuum because my vacuum finally came in the mail! My phone case came also, but apparently it was fit for the Samsung Galaxy S4 not the Samsung Galaxy S4 Active. So I need to return that case and I already ordered a new one to come! Even though this phone is supposed to be Lindsey-proof I am still so scared to damage it when there's no case on it!

This weekend we'll be washing cars, vacuuming, cleaning windows and the pool and grocery shopping. We're also hoping to walk around Lakeport while some of the businesses are actually open, and make sure we get plenty of gym time!

Missing you all lots,
Lindsey

Bugs bugs bugs

Welp, today we went to Healdsburg for our team meeting and on the way home I noticed a bug bite on my ankle. After coming home, making DELICIOUS chicken parmesan and not as delicious but still okay spaghetti, I noticed that my ankle was quickly becoming a cankle. Olivia was looking up bug bites online and luckily it doesn't look like it is a bite from my recluse spider "friends"... I called my parents, they weren't too concerned if I would wake up in the morning and told me to put some ice on it. Rude. If it's still bad tomorrow I'll have my preceptor look at it or maybe go into Urgent Care. Sure hope I don't die 3 weeks into California living.
That's all for today.
If I die, here's one last I love you,
Linds

keep on truckin

Well we are on week 2 of rotations. I'm still at WIC and really enjoying it. All of the people at WIC are super funny and welcoming. One of the ladies is going to teach me how to make ceviche next week :) On Friday my preceptor and I worked at the Clearlake farmers market that had about 5 booths, but it was pretty good looking fruits and veggies. Also, with our WIC farmers market program, we had at least $650 circulating throughout the market in an area where the farmers could really use it so it made me feel good. The only negative thing that happened was that a woman with an infant and a teenage boy who has mental disabilities took advantage of us and came to the market and got free checks from us for a second time (they're only allowed one ticket per season) anyways, she just made us feel very violated since we're there to help people and she was so sneaky hiding behind her disabled son. Just made me mad.
Saturday morning we went to the Kelseyville farmers market which was much better than Clearlake's. We got a HUGE Walla Walla that made me feel more at home. We also got some summer squash, a jalapeño, and some very helpful information on recluse spiders.
After the market we tried to hike Mt. Konocti, which turned out to be a major fail because by the time we got there it was already about 11:30 am and 105° outside.  We only made it 1/4-1/2 mile in then had to turn around.  The rest of the day was spent grocery shopping (thank god) and ironing.
Sundays have officially become our traditional Sunday Funday. We started off with a trip to our new gym and sweated our butts off. Then we had our first Sunday fun day breakfast and made waffles with whip cream and berries! It tasted as good as it sounds. The only bummer was that we forgot to get vegetable oil so we had to use olive oil in the waffles... It turned out alright with a little added honey. The next part of our Sunday fun day was not so fun, we have nightly bird meetings out on our pier and they keep pooping all over the place. We started scrubbing but our little brushes just were too puney for the amount of scrubbing needed, so we quickly gave up. But after that we headed to Ukiah and finally got some normal life experience by shopping at Ross. I got a really pretty canvas for our living room. Then we went over to see the other interns who live in Ukiah. We went to Ukiah Brewing Company for dinner and I was able to have a drink because they sold half pints!! ... And I had a burger and fries to help soak it up. We walked from dinner to the park where Ukiah was putting on their summer series of the concerts in the park. It was SO fun, the band playing was called The Brothers Comatose, I played them once or twice on my radio shown at KZUU, they were AMAZING. So much fun, so many crazy people dancing-- it was like folklife but a little different. Definitely going back for the next one though!
Its bed time now,
Lindsey

Hello! I am officially out of 1999 but still surrounded by 'the past' all around me. We got internet and TV set up yesterday but I didn't get a chance to try it out because I was in Ukiah till 9:30pm getting my new phone at AT&T!! Shout out to Tom for being an amazing brother and helping me transfer over to his plan so I can actually communicate from the land before time.  Needless to say, I'm pretty excited to have my email and phone calls back-- had over 200 emails in my inbox!!
My rotation at WIC started yesterday and I love it!! Everyone is really nice and worldly enough to know what WiFi is :) I got to observe and participate in some nutrition counselling yesterday, today was an office day so I did a lot of reading and went to Clearlake with the office LVL (basically the office manager-- she prints the WIC checks on clinic days) and we did a grocery audit making sure they are up to code on their permits and have the appropriate stock and pricing labels on WIC foods.
Tomorrow we work in the Clearlake  office so I'll be carpooling with Olivia in the morning. Friday we get to work the farmers market in Clearlake which should be really fun!
This weekend we're thinking of hiking near Mt. Konocti, cleaning, exploring the restaurants around here and going to a music festival in Ukiah.
Ukiah is a town not too far away, but the drive there is really pretty. You pass by a place called Blue Lakes, which is gorgeous, and if any of you come to visit THAT is where I'll take you to swim.
The ants are still here, this evening we found a colony in one of the cupboards with food in it. We had to throw out a few boxes of crackers but other than that everything was well sealed. I think I should start counting how many ants I kill like Legolas and Gimpy killing Orcs. I think I can catch up to Legolas pretty quick. We also have A LOT of birds who like to hang out on our pier in the late afternoon and evening. Not really sure what's up with that but its pretty odd.
Olivia and I have been VERY sedentary after work this week so we are very eager to join a gym. The "expensive" gym is really old and dirty and its main appeal is the pool which is clean. However, there is another gym right next door to WIC .. It is smaller than WSU Rec but still bigger than Snap Fitness. Its a definite bro gym like Golds but it is new and clean which is a big perk. There are also a lot of young people there, its nuts the amount of young people here. Either gym we end up in Olivia and I will get a 'family' plan so its cheaper for us.
I think that's all for tonight. Sending love from the dial-up days,
Linds

Orientation Day: 4

Well, turns out I was completely wrong about what was going to happen today. We started out the day with a pop-test, SURPRISE it was the RD board exam for 2 1/2 hours. Luckily all of us did alright, in the 50-60% range, and that's pretty darn good for not having any warning or studying or anything!
Also today we got our rotation schedules, unfortunatley one of our preceptors backed out two days ago so my schedule is only set for the next two weeks and I get my full schedule later this weekend. We also had a HILLARIOUS lab coat presentation this afternoon where we each were presented with our whitey-tighty lab coat and a jar of Oxy-Clean!
Olivia and I went to a Thai Bistro for lunch today, which was delicious-- why did we not find this place earlier in the week?! Then after our work day we went to Target in Santa Rosa and spent a significant amount of money.
Now we're back at the house and Maryann, a fellow intern -- who also happens to be a trained chef, made us curry for dinner!
Last day tomorrow!
Linds

Orientation Day: 3

Yesterday was a fun but long day. We got our new Nexus tablets that I am currently posting from. They are Android based so I am somewhat familiar with the set up. We also covered our medical terminology yesterday which I blew out of the water. I only got stuck on one term, angina pectoralis, that I hadn't come across in my studying.. Either way though I should have known the definition because of undergrad but I'm okay with getting 1 out of 50 wrong!! (It means chest pain for those of you who are curious)
Lunch yesterday was very similar to the day before. PB&Is are okay, but definitely not my ideal weekly lunch. It finally warmed up around here, though, so Olivia and I decided that it was a day worthy of some more Cold Stone :) This time I got a cone and boy did I make the right choice.
We also worked on our Spanish in the late afternoon that I am still failing miserably at. I downloaded an app that will hopefully help my struggles and if all else fails I think I might have to download Rosetta Stone. Luckily I am not the only one who is failing miserably at Spanish.
We went to Costco in Santa Rosa last night and stocked up on the basics like TP, PT, and laundry detergent. I couldn't walknoutnof there without a case of black beans though!! On our way back from Costco we went to Boudin for dinner. It's a San Francisco based company that makes REALLY good sourdough bread. I wanted to try everything so I got an Italian chop salad to start and a chili bread bowl to fill me up. Thank the lord for soup and salad combo deals!
Last night I also was on the phone a lot trying to figure out Joe to get internet in Lakeport, my parents have been WONDERFUL  helping me sort everything out and gathering information (while getting loopy out wine tasting!) Apparently most of Lakeport is still using dial up internet. I'm literally moving back to 1999.
Today we get our rotation schedules and maybe working on a counseling refresher or more Spanish is my guess. Maryann, one of the other interns, is making us chicken curry tonight and another intern, Rhea, is making me cupcakes for my birthday tomorrow.
Still haven't figured out the phone situation for when I get back to Lakeport, but other than that all is good!
Missing my kitties,
Linds

Orientation: Day 2

I never knew learning could be SO exhausting. 8 hours of sitting in the same spot, going through different PowerPoints and contributing to discussions, and staying awake throughout the whole thing is HARD!! The beds we have in the apartment are equivalent to vinyl concrete so I woke up around 4:30 in the morning and couldn't get back to sleep. I finally got up out of bed around 6 and took a shower. Luckily Olivia is also an early bird so I didn't bother her by moving about the room. Today we were able to have breakfast (thank you Target!) and I also got some tea so I didn't have to drink the coffee that GGDI supplies.

Today we worked on ethics for roughly 6 of the 8 hours that we were there. It is interesting to see that a lot of the interns didn't have the same/amount of preparation in these areas as SPU gave me. Medical terminology, Acadamy of Nutrition and Dietetics resources, conditions that dietitians are confronted with-- I felt like I was familiar with 98% of it and a lot of the people around the table had blank stares. So shout out to SPU for a fantastic program!

Lunch today was also a LOT more healthy than yesterday. Olivia and I made PB&J sandwiches, bananas, a fruit leather, and for our "junk" food we had Pirate's Booty. And HOLY water, I don't think I've drank so much water in my life-- but it helps me stay awake!

We figured out that the TV in the apartment works, so I'm currently indulging in some House Hunters as I write this, frozen pizza is in the oven and I plan on studying some medical terminology tonight. Tomorrow we have "technology" day. We get our tablets that are Android based. We also have a medical terminology quiz tomorrow but Joan said it is multiple choice so I am not worried at all.

Really loving this program, really enjoying the other interns, wishing it was warmer than 58 degrees.

Sending love,
Lindsey

Orientation Day 1

The beginning of a crazy adventure has officially begun. We headed out Saturday morning from a somewhat-warm Edmonds morning and quickly drove into a very warm Oregon and eventually stopped for the night in Redding, CA. Apparently Redding is THE place to be  because we had to drive around to 5 hotels to try and find a hotel room and ended up back at the first hotel settling for a one bed, one hide-a-bed room. Life is so rough, right? We got to Lakeport on Sunday afternoon, 92 degree weather and a little bit of a culture shock. I thought Pullman was a small town-- I was WRONG. We stopped by my house and got to see the outside. It was like a dream come true until I looked in the lake and it was like a swamp full of algae-- rest assured they are in the process of killing the algae and according to my mother they scooped a lot of it out today. My phone has very minimal service there so I will be getting a new plan as soon as possible-- watch out for a possible new phone number for me!
After a quick visit to Safeway for lunch and a study session of medical terminology I was headed out to Rohnert Park for orientation check in. I ignored my Program Director's advice and went from Lakeport to Hopland which is 500 thousand times windier and cliffier than Olympic View Drive. I wanted to die. And there was a beat up old van behind me that was riding my bumper for half of the way down the hill, I said "sorry buddy, I'm not going faster than 20 mph." When the opportunity presented itself, the van found a long enough (in his opinion) straight patch in the road that he went ahead and passed me. He pushed a good 40 mph off the cliff and I never saw him again... A little farther dow the road I racked up another 3 or 4 cars behind me but found a little off patch that I was able to let them pass me. Eventually the road of death ended and I made it to the 101. We got checked in to Sonoma State's on-campus apartments -- I wish WSU had these things when I was there. The girls are all really nice and welcoming, most of them are in their 30's and married but it's nice to have them here with me! We went to a Mexican food market for dinner, HUGE hole in the wall place with DELICIOUS food. Since I'm trying this whole new living in a new state thing I also decided to try some new food (one bite, but still) and had some lengua (BEEF TONGUE) and it was actually alright, it just tasted like some pot roast. But for my main dinner I had chicken tostadas, just to clear the air on that one. We got back to the apartment and studied up on our medical terminology and went to bed!
Alright, so now we're finally at orientation! This morning we started with a ceremonial ribbon cutting which was really fun as the inagural class! Then we went through some housekeeping things, expectations of the internship and played a few games to study up on our medical terminology. For lunch my roommate Olivia and I went to Subway which was completely NOT filling... so we went to ColdStone also :) After lunch we sat through some really boring lectures on fire safety and knife safety, cultural competency and a case study- all stuff we have already learned. After that we practiced some Spanish-- I was able to recall frijoles and tomate -- super skilled, I know. We had a really long day today,  but the group is REALLY nice, our directors couldn't be better and they really want to just see us succeed.
ALSO, they told us today that even though we are a new program, GGDI got 130 applicants and all ten of us were hand selected by Joan and Susan because we stood out and fit the program. It made me feel SUPER cool because I didn't apply to any other programs with that many applicants, I mainly applied to programs with 50 or less applicants. I guess it just made me feel like I actually deserve to be here and I actually am smart and I was chosen over 120 other people!!
We went to Target after we got out today and grabbed some groceries for the week. Mylena, one of the interns here at the apartment made us quesadillas, guacamole, beans and salad for dinner-- I kinda feel like I never left home with the special treatment! It won't last long though because we got frozen pizzas for tomorrow night.
Missing home a bit, I'm wondering what Otis is up to right now and also if Tessy is getting any love from anyone in the neighborhood. I am also just missing familiar stores other than Target and Safeway. Target won't last long because it is only down here in Santa Rosa, but I heard there is a Ross in Ukiah!
The crops around here are absolutely gorgeous, vineyards for as far as you can see. I saw some corn crops, onion patches, and orchards on my way to Rohnert Park. Today we learned that the "wine country" is actually beginning to be a problem in the area because they are not producing enough edible food for the communities around here. Also, with the amount of alcohol production, alcoholism is a large problem in this area as well.
Throughout the week we will get our schedules, electronic tablets, have a few more quizzes/exams and get FREE lunch on my birthday!
Miss you all so much already,
Lindsey