Wanna Get Something From Me?!?!

This post was on a friends blog. I made one of the 5. Although she didn't require me to repost this in order to get something. I figured I would do it so that I could get a chance to tap into my creative side. And plus...it is always nice getting things.

The first 5 people to respond to this post will receive something made by me especially for you. It doesn't matter where you live in relation to me...I will get it to you.

Of course there are some restrictions and limitations:
1 I make no guarantees that you will like what I make!
2 What I create will be just for you.
3 It will be done sometime this year.
4 You have no clue what it will be...and it can be ANYTHING
5 I reserve the right to do something extremely strange.

I will not make anybody repost this. But if you think it will be fun to make something for someone else...by all means pass it along. The first 5 people to leave a comment will win a FAB-U-LOUS homemade gift by me!!

My one year blog-iversary!

So it is my one year anniversary as a blogger. And this will be my 32nd post. That amounts to about a post every other week, I'd say that is not too shabby, especially considering that we don't have kids to blog about.

To celebrate my one year blog-iversay, I thought I would share with all of you some of our feelings and plans for 2009. I guess you could call them resolutions, but I don't want to call them that because we won't stick to them :)

2009....Wow! I can't believe it is here already. Jer and I moved to the Dirty Jers (NJ) in August 2005, and honestly at that time it felt like this year was so far away. But it came in a flash thanks to busy school schedules, busy jobs, and great friends to keep us crazy busy (oh! and don't forget the occasional visit from the Mama Hafe and other family, and the frequent visit from Amelia which kept the B&B hopping!)

2009 brings with it a mix of emotions. First of all we are excited that Jer graduates from dental school, but at the same time we are not so excited to have to figure out where to go next. We look forward to moving on with our lives, but at the same time are nervous about the future.

Just a few of things we would like to get accomplished this year:
1) We would both like to get into an good excercise regime again.
2) Decide where we are going to go
3) Get Jer a good job
4) Find a way to consolidate our student loans at a very good rate (any advise here would be appreciated)
5) Make sure that if we were to leave this area, we leave with no regrets (meaning let's get the best out of NYC before we leave)

So there it is. Not a grand list of things to do. But I think some difficult things to do. Wish us luck.

Amy vs. Clueless McDonalds Employees

Picture by: Welcomeconsumer.com

Now I know when you go to McDonald's you aren't expecting rocket scientists to help you out, you expect that some oblivious teenager is going to take (and screw up) your order. This is a given.


However, I naively assumed that the employees at least had some common sense...clearly I was expecting too much.


So, the other day Naomi Wolff and I were watching little baby Gavin Leishman, who just happens to be like 8 weeks old (so he eats every 2 hours). Well the 2 hours were up and I figured I needed to get some warm water to make him a bottle. We were at the church for a baptism, so I went to the kitchen...no warm water...all of the warm water was used in the baptismal font. Gavin was still still sleeping so I figured we could wait a little longer.


Right after this we walked across the street to the McDonald's. I got myself some tasty nuggets (with sweet and sour sauce....of course), and both Jer and I ordered a drink. I then thought that this would be a good opportunity to get some warm water (baby was still sleeping, but it had been about 3 hours since he ate so I knew if he woke up he would be hungry).


So I ask the cashier if I could get a warm cup of water. Clearly since a "warm cup of water" is not on the McDonald's menu, she was confused about what I was asking for.


Her (going forward to be refered to as McD Cashier) response: "I'm sorry we don't give out courtesy cups". This immediately surpasses my "limited tolerance for stupid people". Here is how the next 7 minutes played out.


Me: "I am not asking for a courtesy cup, I just ordered two drinks, just put some warm water in one of the cups"


McD Cashier: "We don't have water"


Me: "You make coffee, therefore you have hot water, just put some hot water in the cup"


McD Cashier: "I will have to check with my manager to see if I can do that"


Me: "Why? I just want some warm water in the drink cup that I already paid for"


McD Cashier then goes over and starts to fill the cup with hot water from the coffee machine.


I tell her to stop half way because I will need to cool it down before I use it to make a bottle for the baby.


McD Cashier is about to give me the cup....enter Clueless McD Manager.


Clueless McD Manager: "No, no, no. You can't give her that" takes the cup and walks over to the ice machine and fills it to the top with ice.


All the while I am trying to tell the guy that all I want is some warm water and I was planning on putting some ice in it to cool it down a little because I am going to use it for a baby bottle. I guess I was thinking that he was worried about giving me boiling hot water and was nervous about me spilling it on my self and suing McDonald's. Well as you will soon see, I assumed wrong. He obviously didn't hear my ravings.


So they give me back the cup and now the hot water that McD Cashier got for me is cold, which completely defeats the whole purpose of me asking for the hot water.


Now I am just annoyed, so I give up...after all, Gavin is still asleep.


So Jer dumps out the cold water and we both go over to fill up our cups. We are standing next to the soda machine and then I hear this....


Clueless McD Manager: "This is why we don't give out courtesy cups..." implying that we were given a courtesy cup and were stealing soda.


Me: "I'm sorry, what? I paid for this cup"


Clueless McD Manager: "You did?"


Me: "Yes! I was just trying to get some warm water in the cup that I paid for to make a bottle for a baby, look here is the receipt?"

Cluless McD manager was about to say something, but then Chad Wolff (got to love him) pipes in and says: "What we're trying to say is that you aren't the sharpest tool in the shed and that your customer service stinks!"

Conversation over.


I still didn't ever get any warm water. We went home after we finished eating. By the time Gavin woke up, his mommy was on the way over to pick him up, so she was able to feed him.

I lot of trouble for nothing.

As My Bestest Friend Amelia Stated....

"Probably the best Photobomb in the history of Photobombing" (yes that is me in the background)
I am quite proud of this picture...I have been practicing my photobombing skills for some time now, and have just never been able to get the timing right.


By the way...Amelia is the gal on the right...but perhaps here is a better picture...

No? Well perhaps maybe this one....

Well if you haven't yet ascertained why we are friends, maybe these photos will help you see why...

(Don't ask me why my hand is where it is...I could not even begin to explain)

(Picture taken by Amelia)

If you are guessing that maybe one reason we have been friends for so long is because we both are seemingly incapable of taking a normal picture (especially when together)...that is correct. My excuse is that normal pictures are boring, and as my family is well aware, I'll go for the crazy pose 99% of the time. I don't know Amelia's excuse....please enlighten me dear friend if you are reading this.

Fortunately for someone...and I am not really sure who that someone is, maybe our grandchildren some day...we do take the occassional good picture

Yay Amelia!

Dominican Republic Trip

Okay shocker, that's right, this may be the one and only time I post an entry on our blog. It is more like a blog about random stuff Amy thinks about. Now everybody gets to know what I am married to, and I think I'm super lucky! Oh, that was so sweet :)

I thought I better let everyone know about the trip. It was really awesome, and is something that will stay with me forever. Seeing all these people who want to go to the dentist, I know, its unheard of. Our day consisted of meeting for breakfast around 7am, leave for the clinic around 7:30am, arrive at the clinic around 8am, work all day with a 15min lunch break, and then end the day somewhere around 5'ish. When we would show up to the clinic in our personally guarded (by the Dominican Republic Air Force) bus, this is what would be waiting for us...lines and lines of people. Some of these people started to wait for us at 4am.


Our dental clinic is actually an emergency room. The clinic consisted of a Diagnosis Room, where the patients were screened for their dental needs and oral cancer. In the Diagnosing Room we had three stations.

Then we had two rooms for Restorative. Between the two rooms we had 7 stations where we would do cavity fillings. Let me tell you, by the end of the week my back was killing. As you can tell from the pictures we didn't have dental chairs. The patient would sit down in a plastic chair and we would have to bend over or kneel down to see into their mouths.

Then we had one Oral Surgery Room, with 3 stations. This room was basically for pulling out teeth. We did do a couple of biopsies for cancer.

Then upstairs we for the pediatric room. We had 2 pediatric residents and a pediatric dentist come with us. They had some interesting stories, for example, a kid throwing up and urinating on one of my classmates, but luckily I was never selected to join them upstairs. As much as I love hanging out and teasing kids, I do not like treating them.

I wish I had all of the numbers to tell you guys but I don't. I know we treated over 300 patients and there were still many more that needed to be treated, but we ran out of time and had to turn them away. I'm pretty sure we did over 2,000 different types of procedures. For instance, the one day I was in the Oral Surgery rotation we extracted 83 teeth (remember that is between 3 students and an oral surgeon). When I was in the Restorative rotation, I would be doing somewhere between 2 to 8 fillings on one mouth in one visit. So each day you would work your butt off and sweat till your clothes were soaked through. It was awesome :)

Then the worst part of the trip was coming home after working to these really fancy condos that were right on the beach. You go straight to your room and change into your bathing suit and then hit the waves. I mainly did body surfing. The waves sometimes got the better of me. I came home with a cut up nose from the waves forcing my face into the sand. I literally ate the sand. I also had a bruised shoulder and lower back. Good times, good times.

Here's a few other pictures in this filmstrip.



You can also check out all the pictures one of the faculty members took. Make sure you click on the link to Dominican Republic 2008 (Nov 8-16). I'm warning you though, you could be there for hours looking at all of the pictures. Check it out at: www.nyucdoutreach.com