Picking up pecans.

Mochi has finally inspired me to systematically rid the yard of pecans. Year round she trawls the yard for little blighters, and I worry she might accidentally ingest the webbing between the nut meats, but she seems to have a gourmand's technique with her pecan picking. So, I've vowed to go out and pick up at least 100 pecans on every non-rainy/snowy day for the foreseeable future, the less for my little fiend to gobble. This is day 2, and I've picked up about 4 pounds of them.  There are quite a few on the ground with the hull still on, and the shell is still wet, and I skip those as to not introduce moisture in my big bag o nuts. I'll run these by the local pecan shed and have them hulled, which is about $1.25/pound, which saves HOURS of hand-straining busting of nuts. You still have to pick them apart, but the work is SOOOO much more efficient with professionally cracked nuts. 

The yard is littered with leaves that have dropped. It's supposed to be in the 60s in the next few days, and I have a few hardy xeric perennials to put in the ground to establish over winter when it will (hopefully) be more moist. I'll try to rake the leaves into a mouldering congregation so as to expose more nuts. Mochi is like a truffle pig, rooting around in the yard.

I have so many projects brewing in my brain, but they are all back-burnered until I'm out of school in a few weeks. School comes first.  School comes first.

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Speaking of school, I realized this weekend that I hadn't washed clothes in a few weeks. It's a statement on how much clothing I have that I always had clean drawers, every day. I walk into my house and see it is a shambles, and I sort of beat myself up for being a lazy bum and not taking care of business, but nursing school semesters are a GRIND.  Yesterday I had an epiphany, and I've been looking at this entirely wrong.  I have 6 hours of lecture time a week, and on Clinical weeks, I've had 13 hour clinical one day at the hospital, 8 hour clinical at the mental hospital and a 4 hour clinical at the SimLab.  That's not counting drive time.  Also, for every hour spent in lecture, the rule of thumb is that you should study three hours, so that adds 18 hours. Prep time for SimLab is at least 2 hours.  Patient care plans after the 8 and 13 hour clinicals take about 3 hours each.  This comes to a grand total of about 57 hours on clinical week. Add to that all the extra things Mental Health made us attend and required follow-up reports on, and it's a grueling schedule.  Yeah, I'm going to forgive myself about the laundry and the messy house.

Fortunately for me, my clinicals are finished. I have one report that I'll hopefully complete today that is due by midnight tomorrow, and I have tons and tons of studying to do. I finished my major Mental Health assignment for the semester last night about 1AM and submitted it online. I'm just trying to wrap everything up so I can focus solely on studying for the next test.

Oh, and LouLou is having a transmission issue. It's most vexing, indeed.

It'll all be okay, though.

For today, here is a wonderful quote upon which I stumbled this week, though I read My Uncle Oswald many years ago (clearly I need to dig it out and re-read!):

“I began to realize how important it was to be an enthusiast in life. He taught me that if you are interested in something, no matter what it is, go at it at full speed ahead. Embrace it with both arms, hug it, love it and above all become passionate about it. Lukewarm is no good. Hot is no good either. White hot and passionate is the only thing to be.”
― Roald Dahl, My Uncle Oswald