Card Catalog is labeled!

I know it’s been a little slow to get Card Catalog all ready for his life with me.

Here he is assembled and polished:

Then it was time to get the drawers labeled. I admit I was inspired by the multicolored cardstock used for the labels in this card catalog:

However, I chose a more subtle color palette of white, pale blue and green, to somewhat match the adjacent wall color.

Then came the job of figuring out what the heck to put in all 45 drawers. I certainly used this blogger’s list as inspiration. But so far, I only have 22 drawers labeled. I’m sure the rest will come in time. And no, I’m not going to write out the list of all 22 drawer titles. If you’re that interested, just ask.

A cheap set of alphabet rubber stamps from Hobby Lobby helped me create uniform lettering on the drawers, mimicking typewriter-esque labels. I knew my handwriting would fail me.

Must say I’m quite pleased with the results:

 

I’ll leave you with some of the lovely peonies that just started to bloom this weekend. Have a great week everyone!

My domesticity continues

From my blog searching and perusing, I was in awe with this post about using an antique college card catalog cabinet (alliteration!) for awesome organization.

Source: smallnotebook.org

This website talks about the popular demand of buying antique card catalog cabinets. Apparently anything less than $500 is a bargain. They also list a wide variety of uses for them.

And so, I started to look around online and see if I could find one for myself. What piece of furniture could be more perfect for an OCD organizer? Little drawers for every type of household doo-dad? haha

The amazing thing is I found one located here in Knoxville!! Of course, this is all very impulsive – I just started reading about these things today and I’m already to hand over $500? Well… I’m hoping I could get it for less than that, although it’s actually a pretty good price.

Part of me thinks I’m being ridiculous. Why invest in a huge piece of furniture when I’m hoping to move in the next year or so for grad school? It’s been nice living in furnished homes, and just having to box of my belongings, but now I’ll feel like a real, grounded, person who owns furniture. haha.

But think about it – a great investment, awesome storage/organizing capabilities, and will probably make me the talk of the town :)

And here is a recent blog post of a woman who was determined to find her own card catalog – even made a road trip out of it!

I’ll keep you updated on what happens.

In other domestic news – I planted my new, organic squash seeds today, and am hoping to start practice my first embroidery stitches tonight :)

 

The Working World

Can you believe today is the first day of fall?! I tell you, the last few days have sure felt like it – gray, rainy, cool. But today, in honor of the seasons changing, it was sunny, blue skies and mid-80s!! How lovely :)

Today was also my second day at work at the psych hospital. Lots to learn, that’s for sure. The staff are all nice for the most part, haven’t been able to meet everyone yet, but I’m getting there. The patients are not all nice, but I suppose that’s to be expected. The hospital’s census is up, mostly with angry adolescent males, so there are always fun stories floating around the nurses stations. It’s been weird to have to carry keys and unlock every door you go through, but I understand why. So far, my patients haven’t given me any serious trouble. I’ve had a few who I don’t think wanted to talk to me (nothing new for a dietitian), and a few who were angry with me, but no once has yelled or become violent. It just seems strange to approach someone who’s just tried to kill themselves and act all enthusiastic about lowering their cholesterol. How important can that really be to them? But actually, I had one patient yesterday who was very excited and motivated about getting his numbers down. I also think he wasn’t all there mentally… oh well. Lots of challenges, that’s for sure!

AND… who watched the season premiere of House last night??! A great 2 hour special from a psychiatric hospital. I have to admit, it made me a little more excited about going to work today. Too bad we don’t have House as a patient! Actually, he’d probably be the worse kind of patient to counsel. Never mind :)

From the social chair

I successfully hosted an Easter Brunch at my place today after church for the interns. I was so proud – got my place all cleaned up, food prepped the night before, easter decorations in place, and ready for fun! We had a great turn out, I think 12 of the 16 interns showed up, which is a rare treat. 

Foodwise, anytime you have a bunch of nutrition people in the room, you know there’s a lot of good food. Let’s see…. banana bread, quiche, fruit salad, potato casserole, chicken salad, ham, french toast with homemade syrup, and Easter Candy (dove’s dark chocolate eggs… and peanut butter M&Ms). 

I hard boiled a lot of eggs for us to decorate, after failing at all attempts to “blow” eggs. Yeah, not happening. But it’s just as well, I think if we’d only had shelled eggs to work it, there would have been a lot of breakage. 

My quiches turned out well. I used the leek and mushroom quiche recipe from Smitten Kitchen, as well as making a batch of spinach mini quiches that my sister is famous for (although she uses bacon instead of spinach… can you tell who the dietitian is?!).  The mini quiches went fast … I prob should’ve made a double batch instead of making the big quiche… the individual ones just work better as party food. But nonetheless, I have leftovers now for me!

After all the guests left, a few of us went to our first Nashville open house for an adorable house around the corner from me. Not that we are really in a position to buy a house… but we love it, and are trying to find a place we can all live together in after the internship. I wonder what the realtor thought of us. It was such a great house, probably bigger than we need (and obviously way too much money than we’ll ever have) but it was fun dreaming. 

Now… time to rest and recuperate. I hear the storms coming outside, the wind is really picking up. And my foot is killing me (12 miles yesterday!) so perhaps this afternoon is best spent on the couch with my copy of Chocolat. I went to the park yesterday, late afternoon, and had a great time reading and people watching. Lying on my blanket, here was my view: