#NerdsUnite: The secret life of a veterinary technician

<editorsnote> Nerds, meet my buddy Lindsay. She and I met ... well, somewhere in the social space. I think we might have started talking through this site directly, then through facebook - maybe ... I'm not sure. But she's awesome. I talk to her on twitter almost every day, and she's really rad and TOTALLY a big huge animal lover. Like crazy huge!! In these series of posts she will be talking about her life and random adventures with sometimes more than two legged creatures. I guess there's only one more thing left to say ... HIT IT LINDSAY!!</editorsnote>

#TalkNerdyToMeLover's @TheCraftafarian

My boyfriend got the job! He’s getting

I'm almost afraid to be happy about life right now. It keeps improving but I guess I'm just waiting for the next stupid thing to happen. Now that I re-read those two statements, it sounds awfully silly to be so worried. David got his promotion to lead server so now he gets full time hours, full benefits, vacation accrual (WOO), and a little raise. He's super happy and I'm really happy for him, he really deserved to have something great happen. He told me that he is rethinking the culinary school business and maybe wants to do hospitality or something more involved in a restaurant then just cooking. As long as his new job keeps being as awesome as it has, he will probably stay there for a while. Which is great, as I've been at my job for almost 4 years and absolutely love it. Damn, there goes moving to Colorado anytime soon. Oh well, there's always the future.

My pet sitting business is going extremely well, too well. I'm freaking exhausted. I've had to recruit my mom and two brothers in case of any more reservations. It's great though because its really helping fill in the gaps with bills. Soon with us both working full time we will get back to normal. I need to make some new business cards and possibly t-shirts for everyone to wear when they are working. Oh and my etsy shop has been getting a little bit of traffic here and there, I've sold a few more things which is great. And my friend had me make a her 7 month old a crocheted apple hat. So now that I can make more of those and keep it stocked. One of the pet rescues that my clinic works with has invited me to participate in a fundraiser they will be having. She said I can sell my items there and donate whatever I would like to the rescue. I can't wait to do this! I plan to crochet a few different hats, make some cat nip toys, maybe a few dog bandanas, and then jewelry of course. Yay!

What else is going on...

Oh yeah! Football season started so David and I have our fantasy league (I'm not totally sure I know what I'm doing) and his dad has season tickets for the dolphins so if Dad can't go, then I get to! So we are trying to plan a little vacation to Miami for a weekend so we can play on the beach, relax in a hotel room, and go to a fun game. Hopefully this will be after I get a newer car as the current one seems to be getting cranky. If you are trying to watch football games, play fantasy, or whatever else I would definitely recommend reading Derek's series of posts: http://www.talknerdytomelover.com/home/tag/derek-jimenez.

Financially we are almost back. David's school and other stuff will be dealt with quite soon. My cat's surgery will be scheduled likely by the beginning of October. We have a vacation coming up soon!! And possibly a newer car for me. I need something with crazy good gas mileage so I am seriously considering hybrid cars. That's all this week nerds, my boyfriend made me a yummy apple martini so I'm off to enjoy that!!

Peace, Love, and Pawprints. 

#nerdsunite

Click here to follow Lindsay on Twitter!

#NerdsUnite: The secret life of a veterinary technician

<editorsnote> Nerds, meet my buddy Lindsay. She and I met ... well, somewhere in the social space. I think we might have started talking through this site directly, then through facebook - maybe ... I'm not sure. But she's awesome. I talk to her on twitter almost every day, and she's really rad and TOTALLY a big huge animal lover. Like crazy huge!! In these series of posts she will be talking about her life and random adventures with sometimes more than two legged creatures. I guess there's only one more thing left to say ... HIT IT LINDSAY!!</editorsnote>

#TalkNerdyToMeLover's @TheCraftafarian

Life has been on an upward trend for us lately.  David has been working more hours at his new job and just interviewed for a promotion there, we will find out in the next few days. I know he's qualified for the position and he really deserves it. He works so hard! That would mean full time, full benefits, and a raise! This new job although he's not making as much or working nearly as many hours (but at least he gets paid for EVERY hour he works) is leagues better than his old one. I'm actually getting to have days off with him and he's not exhausted and grumpy all the time from being unappreciated, overworked, and cheated out of overtime. This job actually has management that thanks him and makes sure the entire staff takes break/eats. They do mealtime per shift and always have food for the staff if they choose to eat it. Sounds pretty nice!

As I told you guys last week we have our internet back! YES. Although apparently they reset our wifi network name and password to a default or something and we don't know the login information. That's next on the to-do list, it's such a hassle to call customer service. At least we have internet when we plug in via Ethernet to the modem-router-thing. I'm serious, it's not your regular modem and router combo. It's this all in one box that Brighthouse has with their super crazy fast "lightning" internet. Once we got that back I started getting caught up on my blog/website stuff. I'm redesigning (I guess that's what you call it) the look. I just tweak a little bit at a time. Usually I learn as I go, it's an interesting and time consuming process. I'm trying to make it more organized, more appealing to the eye, yet professional-ish. Bah, I'm just doing what I want, whatever. Hehe :)

Thanks to family and friends (and social media, yay!) I've sold a few items from my Etsy shop (http://www.etsy.com/shop/craftafarian). I can't wait until I can find some time to create some more things to add to the shop. I want to add some crocheted items, maybe some stuff for pets (cat nip toys, etc) and David suggested adding some jewelry made with old or foreign coins after they are polished up. I thought that was pretty cool. The money from the sales has been a great help lately--plus a portion of it goes to local pet rescue: Faith, Hope and Love Rescue Inc. This rescue has been helping my clinic find homes for our foster kittens by alternating weeks at their featured adoptable spot at the local pet store.  In fact, one of the kittens I fostered at my apartment for a few weeks was adopted this week. It was bittersweet as I was kind of sad but also happy that she finally found a home. I hope they bring her to our clinic to get spayed so we can see her again.

School has been going really well. I'm attending San Juan College's Veterinary Technology distance learning program aka online. I'm only taking one class and its just the first few weeks but I'm really enjoying it. I've been trying to be very diligent about studying. The tests and quizzes are timed so even if you wanted to try to look up the answers you really don't have time.  One class in process, 29 left to go until I've completed the AAS in Veterinary Technology and I will have been educated enough to take the national exam. Good times.

Once we get but on track will all the bills, get David's school and other stuff situated, get my cat's surgery, then we should be saving for hopefully a house. *happy dance* Yay, future.

<3

Lindsay

#nerdsunite

Click here to follow Lindsay on Twitter!

#NerdsUnite: The secret life of a veterinary technician

<editorsnote> Nerds, meet my buddy Lindsay. She and I met ... well, somewhere in the social space. I think we might have started talking through this site directly, then through facebook - maybe ... I'm not sure. But she's awesome. I talk to her on twitter almost every day, and she's really rad and TOTALLY a big huge animal lover. Like crazy huge!! In these series of posts she will be talking about her life and random adventures with sometimes more than two legged creatures. I guess there's only one more thing left to say ... HIT IT LINDSAY!!</editorsnote>

#TalkNerdyToMeLover's @TheCraftafarian

Thursday night was my friend Michelle's first art gallery in Downtown Orlando. It was at a club/lounge place called 57 West. They have been having gallery hops downtown every third Thursday of the month and this club is one of their stops. It helps local artists get their work out there and they only pay commission if they sell any pieces. We had an awesome time! It didn’t go quite how I thought it would but it was an incredible yet short night--good thing as Michelle and I had to work at the clinic at 730am the next day.

My boyfriend David and I got there right around 6pm which was when the gallery showing was. It was supposed to be 6-9p but the place was also a bar/lounge so they were open for more than the exhibit. Michelle showed us around and pointed out where all her paintings were. There weren’t many people there yet so we got a drink and sat down to chat as we waited for others to arrive.

Once more people arrived and the rest of our group I started to walk around and took some photos but since it was also a lounge the lighting was pretty terrible. Good thing a friend came who is in school for photography so she had a better camera and skills. I played with several settings and got a few good shots but I soon left it to the more experienced--plus the band finally came! That was the first interesting thing that happened: the band playing was melodic dissent (local band) and it turned out that David knew the lead singer. The play sublime-reggae sounding stuff (love!) and promised to open with "Badfish". They had to do sound check and as we were waiting Michelle's husband G arrived. David and I were getting hungry and thought about leaving but apparently the party hadn’t started. G was over at the bar and as we went to say bye he brought over a bottle of vodka, bucket of ice, and mixers. He came over and counted heads, went back to the bar, and brought back enough glasses for us all.  He asked us all to grab a few things and head upstairs to the loft area. I saw Michelle as I was carrying a mixer and glasses, gave her a silly grin,  and mouthed "oh no!"

It was really cute because she hadn’t seen her sister in a long time and the family surprised her by arranging to have her sister show up from New York!

Drinks were made and passed around, they didn’t taste very strong at all. I still had a buzz from my martini when I first arrived but I really wasn’t feeling anything from these drinks. In fact, the bottle was almost gone already! G said he thought it had been watered down. He took a swig right from the bottle and immediately knew they had diluted it!!

They went downtowns to talk to the bartenders and manager--the situation was remedied and a replacement bottle was sent back up. The band was awesome, I knew all the songs they covered and really enjoyed their original. The drinks, finally fully alcoholic, left us silly and smiling. I felt like we all connected really well, especially because we stayed almost all night with Michelle and her family. Not to mention when we tried to leave G convinced us to stay another half an hour. David and G really hit it off and will probably goof around in G's home studio sometime. When Michelle and I talk about our dudes they always have so much in common.

One of the artists/rich dudes/gallery hopper/reiki-dude was crazy trashed and super hilarious as he walked around talking to everyone with his girlfriend’s bright blue silk scarf around his neck. He was talking about light from within and making it big. He was a funny soul--strange but nice.

Finally we could no longer ignore our hunger and grabbed some pizza a few blocks away. I was in bed by 1230a and back at work by 7:40a. A little tired but ok.

Great night, art, people, music. Ah, happiness.

#nerdsunite

Check out my etsy shop!
www.etsy.com/shop/craftafarian

Click here to follow Lindsay on Twitter!

#NerdsUnite: The secret life of a veterinary technician

<editorsnote> Nerds, meet my buddy Lindsay. She and I met ... well, somewhere in the social space. I think we might have started talking through this site directly, then through facebook - maybe ... I'm not sure. But she's awesome. I talk to her on twitter almost every day, and she's really rad and TOTALLY a big huge animal lover. Like crazy huge!! In these series of posts she will be talking about her life and random adventures with sometimes more than two legged creatures. I guess there's only one more thing left to say ... HIT IT LINDSAY!!</editorsnote>

#TalkNerdyToMeLover's @TheCraftafarian

We are still hanging in there! The boyfriend has been getting around 20 hours the last two weeks at work so we are headed in the right direction. However somehow we neglected to pay our cable/internet bill and that has been disconnected. Sad times, luckily we both have iPhones and therefore internet.

Thanks to some help from parental units I am still going to start school this semester. I officially registered for veterinary medical terminology and made my first payment--I still have to order my book but I have about a week till class starts. I’m really excited! I’ve been a vet tech for almost 13 years and I am on my way to earning my license! this also means I will be able to attend conferences for a discounted rate! Eventually (I recently decided this) I will go to vet school. :)

Today I went to the Aveda beauty school for a friend as a hair model (she’s a student) and got a new haircut/style. My hair is really thick and since she’s a student and has to check in with the instructors it took forever!! But it was free, kinda, they ask that you do make some purchase when you have services done so I got a roll-on tube of natural headache oil stuff. I already have something similar so I knew I would like it. My hair had gotten so long and the girl took off about 6 inches in length then a bunch all over by putting in tons of layers. I wanted to cut it shorter but my boyfriend would die (oh the things I do to keep him happy--well he does deal with my crazy ^.^). It’s kind of short in the front but I really like it. So that was fun.

I finally listed a few pairs of earrings I made on my etsy shop. (www.etsy.com/shop/craftafarian) I use natural gem stones and hypoallergenic metal when possible. $1 from every sale goes to a non-profit animal advocacy group: currently our local SPCA. The rest will go to supplies and other bills. Eventually my kitty needs surgery and the money will go towards that. One thing at a time.

My damn phone died partway thru the haircut so I should be able to share photos next time! Next week (Thursday evening) I will photographing my friends very first art exhibit during a gallery hop in Downtown Orlando.

<3 Lindsay

#nerdsunite

Click here to follow Lindsay on Twitter!

#NerdsUnite: The secret life of a veterinary technician

<editorsnote> Nerds, meet my buddy Lindsay. She and I met ... well, somewhere in the social space. I think we might have started talking through this site directly, then through facebook - maybe ... I'm not sure. But she's awesome. I talk to her on twitter almost every day, and she's really rad and TOTALLY a big huge animal lover. Like crazy huge!! In these series of posts she will be talking about her life and random adventures with sometimes more than two legged creatures. I guess there's only one more thing left to say ... HIT IT LINDSAY!!</editorsnote>

#TalkNerdyToMeLover's @TheCraftafarian

My boyfriend got the job! He’s getting 20-30 hours a week! We are super happy! Even with the new job life has been slightly more difficult with the boyfriend being without for two weeks. We are definitely a little behind but we have been moving bills around so we can make sure to pay "on time".

He started this week and already has been scheduled for 26 hours next week. So we will catch up slowly but surely. In order to make ends meet we have been pet sitting a lot and I’ve been making jewelry to stock my etsy shop. It’s a lot of work to create, take photos, edit said photos, post on etsy, etc. whew!

Ive also got a few klout perks for moo cards that I need to use for my businesses: my pet sitting business and my blog/etsy shop. I'm hoping to share some creations next week as I’m busy with pet sitting, kennel duty, my pets, and all that other stuff I mentioned.

Oh and since I'm no longer managing social marketing for my boyfriend’s old job I’ve been working on helping family and friends with theirs. I'm no expert but I figure since I'm fairly successful I should be able to give them a few tips.

Hope everyone is doing well!

#nerdsunite

Click here to follow Lindsay on Twitter!