I finished studying last night around 2am and hit the pillow. I got a good 5.5 hours of sleep and then got ready for school and my A&P test. It was a challenging test. I felt pretty well prepared for the test--I knew all the answers on the practice exam and was ready to go but the questions were *very* hard. I think this teacher's medical background makes him focus a lot on the minutae of diagnosing and prescribing. He asks a lot of diagnostic questions. One of the lab instructors was really surprised to see our tests because of the detail and emphasis on medical issues rather than just anatomy and physiology. That's ok--I'm headed to medicine so I need to know it.

I was so tired after the test and I had a 3 hour break so I got in my car and got the 2 coats out of my trunk. I rolled my seat back, covered up and went to sleep. It took me about a half hour to relax enough (and warm up enough) to fall asleep. It was raining really hard so I listened to the sound of the rain on my roof and let my mind wander. I fell asleep and slept more than 2 hours. It was bliss. Of course, I was supposed to be eating lunch and researching for my chemistry paper (the rough draft is due next Monday) but I really needed the sleep. It was lovely.

About 6 weeks ago, Ed gave me the registration renewal form for my car and said "Don't forget to take care of this," and I promptly put the form in my backpack and forgot all about it until 7 days after the registration expired. I didn't have a chance last week to do it but I took care of it today. It was virtually painless. And my car passed with flying colors. Yay! My car is a 1991 Camry and I was afraid it might not pass the emissions test but it had no problems at all. What a relief.

I have a tooth that is irritated. It hurts when I bite down on it. It was fine last week and in the last few days it has gotten tender. I have been clenching my jaw at night and my jaw is slightly achy so I'm probably putting too much pressure on it. I should see the dentist just to be sure, though. It could be fractured or something like that. It doesn't seem to be sensitive to hot or cold, though, so maybe it's just a pressure bruise. It doesn't ache all the time, just when I bite down hard on it. If I chew softly on it for awhile, it seems to actually hurt less. Does that make any sense to you?

Dinner alert: I made pan-seared salmon tonight. It was delicious. I was going to grill it but the big rain put the kaibosh on my grilling plans. I seasoned the small filet with salt and pepper and then seared it in olive oil and agrulimino (olive oil press with lemon rinds). The salmon got a great crust on it and tasted so good. I drained it well so it wasn't greasy at all. I made Mom's curried rice, too. And green beans. I made a lemon-dill butter sauce for the fish, too, but we used it very judiciously. Joey liked it all.

One surefire way to get her to try something is not to offer it to her. I gave her a bowl of green beans, which she loves, and a bowl of white rice and then served Ed and me the salmon, curried rice and beans. She kept looking at our food and then her food and finally asked me for a bit of salmon. She loved it and asked for several more bites (she didn't like the crusty outside but loved the tender inside part which was fine with me). Then she asked if she could taste the curried rice and then asked for some. If I had put it all on a plate for her, she would have turned her nose up and been difficult about it, I'm sure. She likes lots of non-kid kinds of stuff but she can still be difficult when it comes to tasting things for some reason.

Did you know there is a website called cocoaplanet.com? It has really fancy, gourmet chocolates and info about the chocolatiers who make them. What a delicious website!

I need to quickly do my chem lab pre-lab assignment before I go to bed so I have to go. Later...

--L