Bad Dogs

First a couple of things, its snowing again. Just a real light snow but consistent. Snowed all day yesterday too. I’m not doing anything today.

This morning about 7am, I was woken up by my cell phone telling me I had a voice mail from twenty minutes earlier. I would figure if that notice alarm woke me up that surely the phone ringing would have but again, my phone has failed to ring. It was already 7 and I didn’t have the truck so I called Dr. Farrell to see if he would take the call since it would be 45 minutes to an hour before I could get there. He agreed and apparently his truck is still in the shop anyhow.

Yesterday, I had to do farm calls-horse vaccinations and coggins at two places with my own car. It was fine and all. Of course, there were horses that were jerks about getting blood drawn. I’ve got to figure out the best way to approach that. Its frustrating for me.

Joe went to St. Joe for the weekend. Like I said, I’m not going to do anything. Work upstairs some, clean the house. Possibly, buy myself a birthday present-a vintage dressmakers form.

Anyway, this post is about how much of jerks my dogs are. Every last one of them.

Riley by herself can be pretty good. Her favorite place is still underneath the futon. Sometimes she’ll get up on the couch with me but you pet her wrong or move or Sadie jumps up here too and Riley is back underneath the couch and is upset. And she doesn’t really come when called.

Sadie’s housebreaking issues have seemed to resolve mostly. Outside, her incident of running away is significantly decreased. Add in an unseen rabbit or cat in the backyard though and all that coming when called or staying close is out the window. Sometimes shaking the treat container helps bring her back, sometimes it still takes a minute. Letha suggest training the dogs to a whistle. I think I might start this weekend on it.

Mary is the one that I can’t deal with though. The instant that she hears that you are awake-one time of the alarm going off, getting out of bed to go to the bathroom-she starts whining. Its this high pitched annoying yelp and then a cry. We’ve tried ignoring it. We’ve tried yelling at her about it-sometimes a firm ‘MARY, QUIET!’ will get her quiet for just a little while. Its not that she needs to go out. She can go all day in her crate, but of course, she’s been whining all day too according to the neighbors. I’d like to stop it so I can sleep without guilt or without waking up. I’ve been thinking about getting one of those no bark things (because the dogs bark too much at pretty much everything-doorbells in real life or on TV, things going on outside (kids riding bikes, people on walks, people getting out of cars, the mailman) and Joe coming home) but I don’t want to punish the corgis that are being quiet. Maybe a shock collar if it would work from upstairs. I could shock her when she started whining. Knowing Mary though, she wouldn’t get it. Maybe sneaking downstairs and spraying her with water when she whines? That involves lots of work and not being in bed on my part. I really also don’t like Mary barking at me in the morning or when I get home from work. It feels like my head might explode especially after a long day of working with dogs.

More and more, I’ve really decided that I’m a cat person. Bess can be a jerk but its simply because she’s a cat. She’s cute and nice. She doesn’t listen because she doesn’t have to. She’s a cat. Sure, I love cuddling on some dogs-especially some goldendoodle puppies but eventually those puppies will grow up into a jerk dog. Sigh.

Dentist

I just got back from the dentist for the third time in as many weeks.

When I looked into finding a dentist that was covered by my insurance, there was only one in Carlisle. Good enough. I spent like a month trying to get in but the women that answered the phone were always so nice and accommodating.

My first trip was just for a cleaning. You have certain expectations when you go for a cleaning. I left feeling like these weren’t exactly met. My teeth were hand scaled and polished. I was told to set up an appointment for the next week for some fillings. Nothing was really explained beyond that. Okay, I thought, I have two cavities. Not a big deal. Not a big deal that x-rays weren’t taken. I figured they would be before the fillings were done.

I went back the next week and had two cavities filled. Wow, it hurt to get my teeth blocked. They numbed the area with gel and then used the novicaine needle thing. Wow did it hurt! Mostly when they did the tooth next to my implant. I think it was because of the metal rod of the implant. No x-rays were taken. I had to argue with the dentist about putting in a white filling in one of my front teeth. He was like, ‘it doesn’t last as long.’ And I wanted to be like, ‘So? I’m 27 and getting married in one year.’

Today, I went back to get another cavity filled. Apparently, after my last visit, I had earned a reputation of being a ‘jumper’.  I can’t help that it hurts to have a needle inserted into your gums no matter how small it is! Of course, the cavity that I thought was going to get filled didn’t. And I have to go back in two weeks and get another two cavities filled.

My multiple visits to the dentist have made me think about several things.

If I can, I should keep my appointments to the morning because this afternoon, they weren’t very careful with the instruments. At one point, I know the sucky thing was attached to the tissue underneath my tongue. And I’m pretty convinced that the dentist was trying to break through my jaw with his mirror!

I’m glad that my animals are under anesthesia when I do dentals on them.

I also wonder if I’m as clear to my clients in the afternoon as I am in the morning when I see appointments. I hope so. And in general, I hope I tell my clients everything because I don’t feel like I was told that I have five cavities. Like every week, they keep telling me I have another one and have to go back and get it filled.

I’m not letting Joe go to this dentist because I don’t think he’s very good. He’s nice, but not very through in telling his patients what is going on.

Wedding Planning

As you may have noticed from many of my previous blogs, I’m planning a wedding. As you may have also noticed, I don’t know much about it and am sort of stressing out about it.

In my life, for being two weeks shy of 28, I have only attended a handful of weddings-a couple of cousins, a family friend, our horseshoer (like 20 years ago!), Joe’s sister, one of the techs from work. I’ve never been in one…technically, I am going to be in one (finally!) in October. Despite being one of Tiffany’s bridesmaids (I might also officially be the maid of honor), I haven’t done ANY wedding planning. I feel like I might be a little behind the curve for most women my age.

Wedding planning is going very slowly. I’ve purchased a half dozen or so wedding magazines and tore out what I felt was relevant. I have these pages in a binder which I have grand plans for once I get around to doing some more organizing. I bought a book entitled ‘Wedding Planning for Dummies’…which is now MIA.

Joe and I are planning on having the wedding in Missouri. Most likely in Columbia as it is central between our two hometowns. This alone makes things much more difficult. Not easy to go taste wedding cake when you’re over a thousand miles away. I suggested hiring a wedding planner for this reason. Some people found it to be reasonable, others did not. I’ve mostly decided against it because anyone that really knows me knows that I am completely anal retentive when it comes to planning and organizing. Keeping house and being calm…not so much.

These are the things I do know:

1)      Our wedding colors are royal blue and white with yellow accents.

2)      The wedding will be sometime in Spring of 2012. We’re working with the date of March 30^th, which is a Friday night. This is because we are trying to get into Ellis Library on MU’s campus. I studied there a lot throughout college and always thought the north reading room was beautiful. This is posing more of a problem than I thought as we will have to pay for security guards and for furniture removal and replacement. The library is working on getting me a price. If its not going to be there, then probably we’ll move the wedding to DeSoto with the reception in Festus. Then the date gets all wacky. We can’t get married in the Catholic church (the only reason to go to DeSoto) before Easter (April 7^th); April 14^th is the date of the wedding of one of my mom’s coworkers who is my age. Sigh. I hope Ellis isn’t too expensive.

3)      Our theme is going to be based on ‘Birdhouse in My Soul’ by They Might Be Giants. Its not going to be nightlights but birdhouses.

4)      I know who my bridesmaids are and who I plan on having taking pictures while getting all pretty.

5)      I really like the idea of using forsythias, yellow and white lilies and white roses.

6)      I like color (blue) accents to my wedding dress options and my bridesmaids will probably be wearing short blue dresses. Sorry ladies.

7)      I bought 30 small wooden birdhouses to be painted (blue, white and yellow) and then be used for table number holders.

8)      I have 200 small light blue boxes for favors. But nothing to put in them and no idea exactly how many people Joe and I are inviting.

9)      I plan on having the mules take us away from Ellis. Other options include a Crown Victoria of 1989 vintage.

I took a quiz in a bridal magazine where they had a bunch of pictures and you needed to pick up to twelve of them that spoke to you. I picked a zebra, a corgi, some vintage books, umbrellas, a white coo coo clock, lemons, a nest with blue eggs and a sewing machine. From that, you could determine which pictures you circled most of (C) and that would tell you what wedding style you had. Apparently, mine is called ‘garden vintage’. As Joe said, well its good to have a name for what I’m doing. I guess. From the article, I did gleam the idea of using milk bottles in part of the centerpiece. Joe didn’t seem as enthused so we might need a trial run this spring with some options and forsythia branches stolen from bushes that are surely somewhere in the neighborhood.

I’d really, really love if my peeps would come see me sometime this spring (March, April) to help me pick out a wedding dress. I’m probably going to stick with David’s Bridal for ease and cost. There is however this nagging feeling at the back of my head that tells me I should go elsewhere too. I don’t know. Oh there’s also the fact that I have to lose some weight. I’m pretty comfortable where I am right now, but wouldn’t 30 less pounds be even better? Or 40 less pounds? It would.

Maybe tomorrow, after finding nothing on TV and doing the dishes, I can sit in Joe’s bed and work on my wedding binder. Lots of cutting and pasting, which we all know is another one of my favorite things to do. Or maybe, I’ll just take a nap.

Veterinary Medicine

Originally, I was going to have this blog be about cutting DAs and my eternal quest to avoid doing such. Then it was going to be about how I felt unprepared to do pretty much everything and that veterinary medicine was a lot of just making stuff up. I do plan on touching on both of these subjects, but something even more fascinating happened when I had a really, really bad day on Friday morning.

Friday morning, I woke up a little early because overnight, it had snowed some and there was a chance that the roads would be bad. I was going to work large animal in the morning and then go do small animal at Holly Pike. I had one call on the book for some coggins and vaccines with a new client. My first problem was that the number on the book and the phone number on the computer were different by one number on the area code. Eventually, I got through to the people and told them I was on my way. I set out and right off the bat, started going the wrong way. I easily get north and south confused for whatever reason around here. Very quickly, I figured out my mistake and was on the way. On my way there, I had to dodge and accident on one of the back roads. I found the driveway for the house rather easily. It was long and somewhat hilly. One side had trees and woods and the other was just a field. I put the truck (Dr. Farrell’s) in four-wheel drive and was doing fine. At one point the driveway split into two smaller driveways and I saw the house at the top of a big hill. Up the hill I charged only to find out once I was up there that in fact it was not the house I wanted. So I turned around and as I backed up and tried to go forward while turning down the hill, I slid sideways! And kept sliding! I tried going forward, tried going backwards hoping that I would catch on some snow or gravel and be okay. There was no such luck and I ended up with one front tire in the ditch only inches (maybe a foot) from a tree. I threw it in reverse and tried to get out. The back end of the truck kept sliding. I got out and kicked snow and ice under the tires hoping to get some purchase but it didn’t help. I placed the floor mat under the front tire that was in the ditch and still no luck. At this point, I was convinced I was stuck and was in a hysterical fit. I called Dr. Hasco sobbing. Well, not really but super close and maybe a little bit. He promised to come help once he was done with his herd check and I told him I would keep trying to get unstuck. I did finally manage to go flying backwards out of the ditch. At this point, I had noticed that if I could go up further up the driveway, there was a roundabout to turn in. However, no matter what I seemed to do, I kept sliding back down the hill. Even in drive, I kept sliding down the hill. And getting dangerously close to a telephone pole. I finally gave up on turning around and backed down the long icy hill. Successfully, I might add. So then I went on to my horse call. At which, they asked if I wanted to start with the good horse or the bad horse. I started with the bad horse, a Norwegian Fjord named Scotty. He was rather spooky when I approached but I let him smell my hand and eventually he calmed down enough to let me pet him and do a quick physical. And then I tried drawing blood on him. It didn’t happen. So we moved to the stall from the small pen and tried again. I managed to get a cc or so before realizing that it probably wasn’t going to happen. I also realized that having the owners hold Scotty was just impeding me so I took him and did manage to get all four vaccines into his neck and then one up his nose! The one up the nose, I’m the most proud of since horses aren’t known for liking that one. The other horse was super good for the whole thing and then I tried to get some more blood on Scotty without any luck. From there, I had another farm call-a heifer with mastitis. However, getting there wouldn’t be so easy. I managed to pass the road; it was unmarked. I was all the way down in Shippensburg when I called the farmer and asked where the road was. I found it and got to the farm. I didn’t find much wrong with the cow other than she had some severe mastitis. She wasn’t systemically sick. I gave her an IV to help get her eating and suggested some intramammary treatment. I was getting ready to leave when the farmer came out to the truck and asked if I would look at another cow. I did even though it was twenty to twelve. After that, I hurried back to the clinic and then up to Holly Pike. The remainder of my day went well enough and I didn’t get any calls that night while on call.

So regarding DAs. I’ve been getting better at doing them even though they still take me way too long. I still get stressed about them. More recently though-say the past month-my boss has been assigning me to do a lot more of them for practice. Since then, I have become incredibly superstitious about them. If I have a dream about veterinary medicine-any form, any topic-I’m certain that I will have to cut one that day. Joe hates me being so superstitious but I can’t help it. Its who I am. I try to dodge doing them but unsuccessfully. The last two that I did were really rough because its been particularly cold. The farm that I did both at has an open barn to do them in which isn’t bad in the summer but miserable in the winter as I found out. The first one, the cow wasn’t even twisted and I didn’t really want to cut her but the farmer insisted as the cow had been on and off her milk for a couple of weeks. The day before she was twisted. This DA actually went really well…or would have if I could have felt my fingers when I got to the suturing part. It was windy that day and about 23 degrees. The foam on my bucket froze! The next week, I went out in the afternoon to cut another one. It wasn’t as windy but the temperature was about the same. This cow was twisted and full of gas. Dr. Farrell told me as soon as I got on the farm that this one wasn’t going to be easy. Minus having a hard time getting the gas out without getting my arm smashed against her rumen and spine, it wasn’t that difficult. Of course, by the end, I couldn’t feel my hands or feet. I keep saying that I’m going to buy a pair of heavy boots but still haven’t. Its  hard to find a pair up to all of my specifications-insulated but not too warm, waterproof and most importantly, in my size. Men’s generally aren’t small enough and women’s…well, not many options.

Anyway, I don’t feel like vet school prepared me for some of the things I face. It certainly didn’t prepare me for driving a vet truck in the snow. The first day I did it, I realized that because its so heavy on the back end that stopping and curves will send you fishtailing regardless of speed. It also didn’t prepare me for cutting DAs in barns, much less the cold. Not to mention how I have to cut them. I didn’t know much about Lyme disease before I got here. Sometimes I think about what I’m going to do, make sure I can in a book and then get going. Like my dog bite from the other night. Veterinary medicine is all about making things up and looking good doing it.

Oh, meanwhile, last week, I had my first parvo puppy. He wasn’t too bad off and I implemented some top notch treatments. The puppy did really well and was howling for food by the third day. Yea!

HaHa-the post office.

So the other day in the mail I received one of my magizines in a white envelope from the post office. One of those ones that says essentially 'sorry our machines fucked up your mail.' Inside was my pony club journal. The only thing I found wrong with it was that the plastic wrap was torn and the corners a little bent.I've received the magazine in much worse shape than that many times before. The only other thing was that it was the issue from October/November but its tardiness is rarely the fault of the post office. I just had to laugh outloud that the post office was seemingly so concerned about this minor damage, yet I had in a month or so prior received a box that while initally looked undamaged, inside contained the crushed remains of a birdcage I had purchased in Missouri. These crushed remains mind you had been repackaged into another box with my address cut out of the orginal one and then taped onto the new one. While I know accidents happen and that kept me from being furious, the fact that in that instance I had not recieved any sort of note or apology was what irked me. Enough that I went and complained at the post office. Maybe I'm on some sort of 'don't piss her off' list...I'll have to ask one of our mail men clients that providing that his puppy doesn't bite me!

Snow, Farm Show, Dentist

So Monday night after work, we went to the Pennsylvania Farm Show. I had written health certificates to send animals to the show-two market hogs that were super friendly and one market goat. I had also heard some good things about it in particularly the food court. When I got home from work, I did some internet research and determined that I really wanted to go, snow or not. Apparently, snow during Farm Show week is also a given. When Joe finally got home, he was in a foul mood but I hussled him to the farm show. Once there, it was really crowded and we wandered around completely lost because there was a significant lack of maps to be had. We visited the PVMA booth where Joe had to fight the urge to tell the vet manning it that I too was a vet. Then we found the arena where the mini pony pull was to be taking place but there wasn't anything happening. We wondered around the barns some looking at rabbits and chickens in depth before going back to the food court. At the food court, every producers association was there hawking their particular goods-potato, honey, maple, apple, livestock, dairy, etc. Joe and I ate some potato donuts and honey waffles. I also had a maple sundae and pulled pork sandwich while Joe had some amazing smoked trout soup. We bought some maple syrup and honey products before going home. The Farm Show was pretty cool-its like an indoor wintertime state fair minus the carnival rides. There are lots of events that we didn't see including the butter sculpture. Maybe next year, we'll actually be able to go during the day and see more stuff. The bad thing though is that its going to be even more crowded. Let's hope that Joe's in a better mood.
Tuesday, I went to the dentist. I left feeling like there wasn't much difference in how clean my mouth is. He handscaled my teeth and polished them. Next week, I have to go back for two cavities to be filled. Hopefully then some xrays will be taken.
Tuesday afternoon as I sat around doing nothing, the sky looked like that white-gray cloudiness that means that there will be snow any minute. Eventually, it did start snowing and by the morning when it stopped we had about four to five inches. Most of the snow from the previous week was gone. Early in the morning, the borough would plow the street! And I would go to work. People in this state love snow! Or they love removing it! Everywhere I looked as I went to work, there were people shoveling sidewalks or snowblowing driveways. People in Missouri don't get so excited about it. Here its like they are looking for an excuse to break out the snow shovel. Two inches? Sure, I'll shovel the mile long driveway! I'd love to! They must spend all summer long polishing that snow shovel for the eventual winter snow fall. Joe and I take more of a lackluster approach of maybe Joe will shovel off the sidewalk, maybe the driveway. I push him into doing it to prevent our elderly neighbor from doing it for us. I know sure as the world he would. And then give us something from his freezer.

7am Emergency Phone Call

This morning, just before 7am, I woke up with a sudden start as my work cell phone, which I do carry with me pretty much all of the time, started to ring. The ring tone that I have set for emergencies (i.e. numbers I don't know) is this crazy dance techno thing. Its scary enough in the middle of the day much less waking you up out of a fairly deep slumber.
With lots of confusion, because I was positive that I was not on call, I answered. Through lots of static, I spoke with one of our Mennonite farmers and he explained his emergency and that he wanted someone to come out to look at his cow. I was still in deep confusion wondering what day it was because if it was Saturday morning, I sort of was still on call from Friday night. However, I did realize that it wasn't Saturday morning, but Sunday. So I assured the farmer that the vet on call would call him once he knew when he could get out there. I stumbled down the stairs, called the actual vet on call and then called the farmer back telling him that the vet would be there shortly. When talking to the vet on call (Dr.Farrell), I know that I continued my confused babbling as I told him that I didn't think the answering machines had been changed. He said he'd have someone change them. Then I went to bed still in a major panic.
This wasn't the first time that I've mistakenly received an emergency call on my off weekend. Normally, though its a small animal client from Holly Pike that only listens to the message long enough to get the first number they hear-who is on from Friday night (me). I pass those messages on too. This was the first time that Newville has screwed up though.
Eventually, I would fall back asleep and get up a little after 10am. This morning, I had a trip to a wedding show planned in Camp Hill. Joe was already at work so I was going alone. Once there, I talked to only a few vendors because so much of the stuff-cakes, venues, transportation-I couldn't do with a Pennsylvania vendor. It was sort of depressing realizing that 1) I still don't know anything about planning a wedding and 2) going to one of these things really shouldn't be done solo. It should be with your mom or friends. Meaning that I need some Pennsylvania friends. Joe and I have discussed this lots of times. Neither of us know how to go about getting friends as adults minus the people we work with. Somehow, I feel at this age, we're just as likely to get sucked into some sort of orgy cult as we would be into a legitamate friendship. The people Joe works with are Newville trash and those that I work with are great but in actuality, it would be nice to have some people as friends that aren't related to the veterinary profession. I realize that one thing ties me to many of my friends but that's beside the point. We've been friends long enough that its not just that anymore. Sigh. I need some friends. Anyone want to move to Pennsylvania?

Bent And Dent, Snowfall and My Burning Desire for the Dentist

Today, Joe and I went to a grocery store called BB's. Its a dented canned store ran by some Amish people. (Joe was particularly amused when he saw a battery powered floor cleaner.) I've heard about this store though work and its variety of names-BB's, bent and dent, the Amish store. And being that I finally figured out the hours and where it was and was off today, Joe and I decided to go.
When we got there, we rapidly realized the mad house that was to ensue inside. The parking lot was super crowded! And there was a peacock standing in the enterance. Giant doesn't have that. So once inside it was again very clear that this was a happening spot for Cumberland County. (In the back of my head, I kept thinking that even though Joe and I were there for fun, that there were definantly some people that used this store as their only source of groceries. And that we should feel sorry for them.)
So we walked around pushing our cart and filling it with deals and expired items. Some highlights include a can of ackees (which is some Carribean fruit), a jar of Marmite (which is terrible) and drumroll...Hy-Vee egg noodles! Did I need egg noodles? (Did I need anything that we bought?) Not really, but finding something from the best grocery store ever really touched my heart. $40 later we had several bags worth of things we didn't need. Including some cereal which I'm thinking about snacking on right now.

So we got our first snow the other night-Thursday into Friday. Maybe three inches of very wet powdery snow. When I let Sadie out into it in the morning, she was like WTF? The other two dogs loved romping about it and Sadie rapidly figured out the fun as well. Friday into Saturday we got about another two inches as well. People in Pennsylvania are crazy about snow. The least little bit and they are out with their snow shovels in the driveway and sidewalks rapidly cleaning away the snow. Its crazy. The streets however, well you're on your own. I had large animal calls in the AM-initally just a goat health certificate then a DA to cut. (If I dream about veterinary medicine, I will have a DA to cut.) As I set out, I got lost-a common occurance and then rapidly realized that the vet truck doesn't handle well in the snow. Its very heavy in the back but because of the weight, when you apply the antilock brakes, it wants to skid with the weight pushing it. And then if you take a curve a little to fast, it fish tails but I lived.

So recently, I've noticed that my teeth really hurt but luckily, I've had a dentist appointment for about a month. So today, I noticed that I might have a giant cavity on one of my baby teeth. Sucks but explains why my teeth hurt so much. The other sucky part is because my teeth hurt so much I can't or don't want to chew on that side of my mouth but I'm missing a tooth on the other side so it really doesn't help either. My mouth sucks.

Slowly but surely, I'm working on getting old posts saved over to this blog from Xanga and MySpace. MySpace isn't helping and its a long copy and paste process.

Panic and Doubt

I'm a very creative and imaginative person. Being this way has allowed me the fantasticness of writing blogs and hopefully really engaging my reader.
However, this does have a downside. Being imaginative can cause your mind to race wildly out of control leading to impossible scenarios which you are destined to face. Of course, a majority of these are never actually faced but by then my mind doesn't care. They are real enough. And of course, every little mistake which really could easily be forgotten is not because I am certain that because I wrote my license number not my accreditation number and didn't mark off the extra spaces on the health certificate that the pigs I wrote it for will die. I'm constantly worried that I will have done something that will kill an animal (in particlar if steroids are involved) or make the client not want to see me again (in particular the large animal clients).
Then yesterday too, I spent a large amount of time on my day off stressing out about wedding planning. Joe likes to say that I make myself stress out oun purpose, that I like it. Then maybe something about liking the attention. I'm sure that there was more said but I probably wasn't listening.
Regarding the wedding stress out: I got an email from the lady at the library after several months of not hearing from her-no one's fault in particular. Of course, even though planning the wedding is part of the New Year's resolutions-that have yet really started. I don't really know where to start and its now going to become a bit of a problem. I was thinking about a wedding planner which would be helpful since several states separate me and where I plan on having my wedding. I posed the question if a wedding planner would be to extravagant to Joe's mom, Joe and Amberle as well as my mom. Joe's mom is strongly opposed to such a thing saying that I have plenty of people that can help. But I don't! No one is in Columbia either...well, Martha and Tiffany but still that's a lot to ask. I'm pretty confident that if anyone can plan a wedding on their own its me but how do I know if the caterer is any good? Who do I ask about alcohol and the best way to go about it? Oh well, I'll figure it out with lots of panicking in between.

Day One

Hello all! Well, I’ve finally done it. I’ve switched blog hosting sites. I’ve been thinking about doing it for a while. I have moved from Xanga to MySpace. But one after another, those websites and their popularity have fizzled out. It’s a shame that FaceBook doesn’t have a blog site. Anyway, I figure that Blogspot/Blogger won’t die anytime soon because some major blogs are hosted on it. I also figure that the new year is a good time to make changes. Hopefully, I can drum up some increased interest in my goings on and maybe end up with a book deal and/or movie, ala Julie and Julia.

I suppose I should introduce myself. My name is Leslie Pope. I’m 27. I am a mixed animal veterinarian so technically, I am Dr. Leslie Pope or Leslie Pope, D.V.M., which ever you prefer. I live in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, which is a town of about 18000 people in south central PA. It’s near Harrisburg and lays on I-81 and the Pennsylvania Turnpike. Carlisle isn’t a bad town. It has a Target, Kohl’s and Old Navy but not much else.  I work in Carlisle as well as in a vet clinic in Newville, which is just west of here.

I live with my fiancé, Joe, in a three bedroom duplex which alternates between being too small (pretty much all of the time) and being too big (when I have to clean, which is also all the time). Our neighborhood is quiet and supervised by the elderly couple across the street, Stan and Lil.

Joe and I are both from Missouri; he’s from St. Joseph in the Northwest part of the state and I’m from DeSoto just south of St. Louis. We moved out here after I graduated from vet school at the University of Missouri in Columbia in May 2010. I also earned a BS there in animal science in December 2004. Joe works in Newville at a warehouse for Office Depot.  We’ve been together for just over five years and have been engaged since May. We’re planning a wedding for March 2012 to be held back in Missouri.

We have lots of pets as you might expect a vet to have. Three dogs-Mary, a 3 year old Briard mix that we adopted from a research lab at MU when she was 9 months old, Riley, a 4 year old corgi that I’ve had since she was a little pup and Sadie, a two year old corgi that we adopted in April. They all get along rather well. Sadie is actually asleep on my arm as I type. We have a rabbit that I’ve had for several years. His name is Lil Teddy Kellerman; he’s a Netherland Dwarf and a bit of a jerk. Then there’s Bess Truman, the cat. She’s a three year old domestic long hair that we got from the humane society to replace perhaps the most wonderful cat ever, Roosevelt. Bess hates the dogs and likes to sleep on my pillow. Needless to say our house is constantly and forever full of fur.

I pretty much don’t do anything. I like reading (I just got a Nook for Christmas from Joe!), writing, cooking and watching TV. I spend an inordinately large amount of time in front of the TV doing nothing. Most of the time you can find my laptop on my lap overheating because I’m on Facebook playing FarmTown. I  know, pathetic.

I guess that’s pretty much me.

So my plans for this blog include bringing over old blogs from both Xanga and MySpace in a vain effort to entertain you. I hope you enjoy and leave lots of encouraging comments. And then come to see my movie when they make one of me.  

[EDIT: Watch for my assorted old blogs as they get added on day by day. Of course, there's some major issues going on with MySpace. Fuck!]