All great change in America begins at the dinner table. Ronald Reagan

Today, my dinner was delicious! Yes I made it, but no I'm not trying to brag! I though I'd share my "recipe." I call it, Spaghetti Squash with Pesto, Garlic, Onions, Tomatoes, and Parmesan Cheese. By the way, that title is copyrighted (what IS the past tense of that word?) so don't even try to take it.
Here it is:

1. Heat 1 tbl of olive oil, then saute 2tsp of minced garlic and some chopped onion in a pan over medium-high heat.
2. Add some pesto ( 1 tbl?) and some chopped up cherry tomatoes...I think I used 4 of the big ovally ones.
   
3. Heat through, then add some cooked spaghetti squash and cook till hot
4. Salt to taste and sprinkle with Parmesan cheese.

Yummmmmm! I am enjoying it as I type. I LOVE IT!!

That's all I have the energy to type up tonight. I hope you like it!!

Yearbook day?

Its the last day of school!! Time for summer break!! (Maybe if I use enough exclamation points I will forget that I only get three weeks off!!!!) When I come back, I will have ONE more semester of school "on-site" before I move to VANCOUVER WA!
Clinic this semester was great - my clients were...an adventure...and I learned a ton from them and from my supervisors. I also got to do fun things like paint a cucumber and a tomato (yeah, for real, we did that).
I don't really have much else to say - I am hoping that I actually make it through the day. Its going to be a long, non-stop day including clinic, conferences, meetings, thesis work ( I mean, hanging out with Dusty), work, institute, Andys, and a movie with the girls! Ok, well I only need to make it through thesis work, and the rest is fun stuff lol.
So, if you don't hear from me for a while, its because I got stuck in the clinic, and please come save me.

This summer, my 21st summer in existence, I have become an OLD LADY!! Really, what the heck? I'm not even a cool old lady, just the kind that doesn't do anything.

• On any given night, including Friday and Saturday, your best bet will be to find me at my apartment, alone, not hanging out with anyone. (This is not a pity blog-I could have gone somewhere, I just chose to go home.)
• I have gone to bed early more times this summer than I have in a long time! There has been a few times when I have been in my bed a good 4 hours earlier than normal.
• I don't know if you know this, but I am really from the wrong decade. My choice of music on a regular basis is not music that is current...
• I'm known as the mother, or even grandmother figure among some groups of friends, because I cook/bake all the time, always have random things with me, and do things like...make butter in speech therapy sessions...who does that?
• My sense of style/fashion is so far from trendy, or even current, its not even funny. I was definitely put at the bottom of the list of stylish people. (again, not a pity blog - I just speak the truth Kye Browning)
  

Its funny that I feel so old these days because all of my friends at school are telling me how young I am! "Devery you're just a baby!!" Ok ok, yes, I'm not even 22 yet, but that doesn't mean I graduated in 2009!! (Cylie Cornell!!)

Here's another list - this is a running list that I will continue to add to.

Amazing Questions I Am Asked At School About Being Mormon:

• Do you celebrate Christmas?
• I heard that you believe when the statue falls off the temple in St. Louis, that the World ends...true?
• "We could rent a 14 passenger van" "Dev, could you hook us up with one of those?" "...did you just ask me that because I'm Mormon?" "Yeah...I was being totally serious."

Alright sorry for all of the random stuff - and that its been so long since I posted. In general its been an awesome summer, I am having a BLAST! Haha, last time I told someone that exact thing, they said "What's his name?" Nope, there's no "he" involved, unless you count Dusty, my thesis. (I had to name him because I'm spending so much time with him - and its a cowboy name because when I was little I wanted to be a cowBOY when I grew up. A thesis is pretty grown up right?)
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Ehhhh, the curse of not knowing how to end this blog...so its just going to stop.

7 year old client: "Do you have children?"
Me: "Nope, I don't have any kids."
"Are you even married?"
"No, no I'm not married."
"Do you have a boyfriend"
"...No, I don't have a boyfriend either."
"Devery, do you even have a crush?"
"...why are we talking about this? Wait, do you have a crush?"
"Well, I might be lying right now: No."
"Oooh so you do have a crush??"
"Ahhh ok ok, you're right, I do. But I don't want to talk about right now."
"Whats her name?"
"I cannot tell you that."
"Oh come on, you can just tell me her name."
"I might be lying right now..."
"No no, just tell me. At least what does it start with?"
"Its close to a 'z', and close to an 'l'."

...to be continued...hopefully. (I'm dying to know what letter is close to a 'z' and an 'l'...

If we are attacked we can only defend ourselves with guns not with butter

Yep, this girl just made butter. I was looking for an activity for my one of my speech therapy sessions with a 7-ish year old boy. I went on the Zoom website (yep, the pbskids tv show from WAY BACK WHEN! I loved that tv show soooo much! I hyperlinked the website btw so you can find the hundreds of exciting activities on there.) and was looking at different activities and came across homemade butter. It was so easy! 1. Put heavy cream in a jar 2. Shake the jar for 10+ minutes until it becomes butter. I thought...I can handle that. That is about as many steps as it takes to make a pop-tart!

This is not the butter we made, but it was similar!

I was a little bit nervous because I didn't know if my client would like it, but it turns out that it was the perfect activity. He is working on the /er/ sound, so /r/ at the end and in the middle of words. As luck would have it, buttER works!! So while we shook it, we talked all about butter and what you put butter on etc... (Anything to get him to say that word a lot to practice his good /r/ sounds. He had so much fun, and when we were done he said "Its like speech-made butter! Get it Devery? Get it? Speech-made!" I had baked some biscuits that morning so he ate it on a biscuit and thought it was so great. He was so proud of himself, so we decided to take some out to his dad and brother. I can now say that I have made butter from scratch! We had such a good time, and it actually tasted pretty good.

I love being a Speech Therapist! Some of my favorite activities we have done in sessions are the butter, making homemade pretzels, making beads then painting them, shadow puppets, marshmallow bowling, potato stamps, planting a flower, and video taping things and watching it. Holy cow I'm going to be getting paid to PLAY! Ok ok, its more than that, I promise. The activities are just kind of to "trick" the kids into learning to speak well. I have learned so much in grad school though. Our scope of practice is HUGE. It covers articulation (learning to say sounds appropriately), voice disorders, langauge disorders, swallowing disorders, laryngectomy rehab, acute care, long term car, cognition, TBI, Aphasia, accent reduction, reading, spelling, deaf/hearing impaired, etc... So much! It is such a great profession!

On This Day in History

Alright, not in history, but today.
Here's your bulleted list of Monday, July 5:

• Played Ultimate Frisbee and Soccer with the missionaries at 6:30 AM
• Worked on my thesis till noon
• Worked at the Bakery till 6:00
• Worked on my thesis from 7-10ish, and finished the Prospectus portion (well, a draft of it anyway)
• Went to bed BEFORE 11:00 pm. Ok, well that one technically has not come to pass as of right now, since I'm blogging...but it will, in less than 32 minutes!! I can hardly wait!

Yeah, thats all I've got today folks. Sorry its so uninteresting. It was actually a really good day, I love being busy (and not being at school too....)

Good night!!

Weekend Blogging

I think I'm going to try to do a weekly thing. I am going to post a "Mormon Messages" from YouTube every sunday...or very late Saturday night in this case. I found a great one for today. I remember loving this talk when he gave it, and it has such a good message!



Ooh, hey want to see a (hopefully positive) couch transformation?? This is the couch that I was given:

Yes I am very grateful for it!! I cannot not be grateful for a free couch! However nowhere in the rules does it say you can't call a free couch ugly...vomit-colored, if I may.
Three trips to wal-mart and one encounter with a staple gun later, this is what it looks like.


Its ok if you want to be impressed, I'm expecting a call from TLC later. I'll probably be the star of a new show. It will most likely be about interior decorating on a budget...or maybe 400 things you can do with a king size sheet and a staple gun...I'll keep you posted on the details.
But seriously, I know it doesn't look amazing and obviously homemade, but it looks better than it did initially yes??

Good Morning July!

I celebrated the initiation of the new month by coming to school at six in the morning. Yes, I promise I have been very productive; I just found an extra minute to finally watch this video all the way through, and as much as I dislike Lady Gaga, and definitely really like this video. I found it extremely amusing and entertaining :)

The thought running through my head as I watched this was: "Dang I really want to be friends with these guys." I mean really, they are probably a blast to hang out with!

Anyway, here it is, I am welcoming in the new month with this....

(yep it will probably be on my facebook as well)