It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

Hi All... I hope you received my Christmas cards! The past month has gone by quickly and I cannot believe it has almost been six months since I've been in California!! I'm also quite excited to be going home 10 days from today. I sit here and update my blog with a nice glass of Lodi Zin and my DVD of A Christmas Story.

Within the past two weeks, I have been getting into the Christmas spirit. I chopped and decorated a tree. I put lights on the house. I also made my own wreath with Jen's tree clippings, some wire, and fake berries. I made cookies--sugar cookies, Aunt Wanda's break-aparts, and Rugulach (spelling?). I've been trying to give them away and have been quite successful. I took my favorite neighbor a Tupperware full. They must have been pretty damn good, as the next day he told me that he was coming over to rake and mow my lawn next time he grooms his own. Yay! for a season of giving. Must have been the sugar cookies ;).

The first weekend in December was my first weekend on call... by myself. I was looking forward to finally showing myself that I have the skills necessary to be confident on my own. I now have a temporary truck, with a box...while I wait for my boss to retire and grant me his truck. My first night, I came home from work, changed clothes and headed to my friend Liz's house, about 30 minutes away (and in the direction of most of our farm clients) for dinner and a movie. This was also her first weekend on call, so we figured it would be fun to hang out. About 5 minutes from her house, I remembered that my pager was on the belt of the pants that I changed from earlier. I had to go back and get the pager (no calls, of course), and on the way back to her house, my truck ran out of gas. After making several phone calls and rummaging for a key to the gas tank, I was set. The night was quiet and over the next two days I visited two more of my friends, finished a load of wash, cleaned the entire house, bought several christmas gifts and re-linened my bedroom.

The following Monday at 7:30am it snowed!! Okay, maybe just flurries for about 10 minutes, but it still was exciting. Everyone complains a bunch here when it gets cold, I just am thankful that it'll never be as cold as it was in Ithaca

We had two holiday parties at work, both of which were really nice. We had dinner at one of the nicest grills around town, and I had some amazing salmon. We played the white elephant gift exchange game. I received an Oakdale phone book and a giant universal remote. Oh well, better luck next year. For our in-clinic party, everyone gets a "stocking" (aka rectal palpation sleeve), and everyone must buy 21 small gifts to put in these stockings. In the end, you have an awesome goody bag of trinkets, cookies, etc. It was fun!


One of my goals for the upcoming year is to run a 5K race on my birthday. Today I made it half way there without stopping: 1.5 miles running on the treadmill, 40minutes on the elliptical. What isn't really helping are all of the great cookies, cheesecakes, brownies, chocolate, etc that are being sent to the clinic. I also have a tub of the best coffee icecream in my freezer.

Within the past week, I met two pretty intellectual and well respected people who were quick to comment on how young I looked. I am quite tired of the "you are too young to be a vet" comment. I tried the makeup... and it doesn't seem to be working... tomorrow, I'm getting my hair highlighted (and maybe chopped). We'll see if it puts some years on me. Too bad the current state of fog (literally) prevents the sun from pruning my face...

Plans for Christmas aside from being on call include: going to Sherlock Holmes (for those who have not seen Incredible Mr. Fox--highly recommend it!), and having prime rib dinner with my friends Angela and Jake. I get to make Tiramisu (don't quite know how, but I'll tell you how it goes!)