Why only have one job when you can have two!

I'm the proud new employee of TWO companies.  Count them, one, two!

I will be working part time for a pediatric home health agency and a private practice in Dallas.

The pediatric home health agency is Care Options for Kids (where my sister-in-law, Amy, worked).  They have been amazingly flexible with me and the pay is wonderful! My supervisor is an experienced clinician who owns a private practice as well as working for Care Options, so I feel like she will be a good resource.

The private practice is Bliss Speech and Hearing Services.  Basically, Bliss is my dream job.  But right now I am going to start full time with the potential of moving up to full time by January. They do all types of therapy but the owner Brenda and two of her other therapists specialize in Auditory-Verbal Therapy.  I will get a chance to observe as much as I want and also to be supervised in AVT! Oh and they'll pay me too!

I'm so excited! I literally get the best of both worlds.  I honestly NEVER thought that I'd being doing my CFY like this... but here I am... doing it like this.


So cheers to keeping an open mind and staying positive. Can't wait to start working!

Memorial Day

Memorial Day weekend went quite well this year!

It was definitely different, because normally I spend it at the bay, but it still turned out well.

Friday William cooked steak and we hung out at home (okay we left to go get Sonic Blasts!).  Saturday William went and got Starbucks around 8:30 for us.  Then we went to Sangria for some brunch and of course some sangria. We were tired of staying home so we headed to the outlets in Allen.  We wandered around for a few hours.  I bought a super cute dress and short sleeved sweater, musts for this 100 degree weather we are already having. We went home so William could take his meds.  Then we packed up Lucy and headed for the dog park around 5.  It was still hot as heck and William and I spent most of the time we were there trying to pry Lucy out from under one of the picnic tables.  She just layed on or under them most of the time we were there... totally defeating the purpose.  We decided to get some good ol' pizza for dinner. We spent the evenings watching Deadliest Catch reruns!

Sunday we slept in realllllly late on accident.  We got up and cooked some delicious chicken for lunch. Then we went to Sonic to get William's first soda in a week.  He just couldn't wait any longer. We headed home and got ready for my sorority sister, Erica's wedding. We made a late night stop after the wedding at Cafe Brazil which was delicious!

Monday I hung out most of the day and then went to listen to the Dallas Symphony and watch fireworks! So fun!

Here are some pictures from the weekend!

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A year ago today, I wrote this post:

So I'm in Houston this weekend for a very exciting event.  My best friend Jonna is getting married! I'm super jealous of her.  We have shared a lot of experiences over the past couple of year but I'm sad to say that she won the race to the knot.  Although at times I thought that bride wars might erupt, we kept it clean and i graciously moved aside so she could have the glory of getting married first...

So here is to Jonna Lamb... sadly probably the last time I will type her name that way.  For all the drives to College Station, all the times we ate cookies, cookie dough, copious amounts of ice cream, cyclones, the fun times playing phase 10, the margaritas in my blender, the tornado slumber parties, sonic runs, target runs, heb runs, slc runs, the year of extreme, hungry girl, cooking and freezing, whispers during meeting, burning our faces off at homecoming, kinappings, the times you watched lucy, all the hugs, kind words, and sincere apologies, being with me on april 12, 2007 and any other day i needed you.

On the off chance you read this before sunday.  Thanks for everything.  You helped me survive all things Phi Lamb and Baylor and everything else too.   And before people start to think I'm writing your obituary... I can't wait for everything to come in our future.  I can't wait to visit you in CS. I can't wait for you to stand beside me as I take the leap you are on Sunday.  I know you will continue to be there for me (like you have shown this week... which I am so thankful for) and I will always be there for you. I'm so happy for you and Bryan.  Congratulations Mrs. Sonnier!

Who knew that we would be across the street neighbors in our new "married" lives.

I love how life keeps the people who mean most to you in your life even when you think your paths will be tough to cross again!

Happy Anniversary Jonna and Bryan! We have loved having yall so close to us.  I know Jonna has been a lifesaver for me! Can't wait to see what God has in store for our friendships in the future.  Yesterday Jonna said "we have to keep taking pictures like this forever", Jonna's not really mushy so I was literally shocked that this came out of her mouth... (I didn't tell her that until now)... but I guess yall have accepted that you are stuck with us as friends! Kinda made me tear up a little bit....

The World of Apps

So I do not have an iphone and therefore ignored the world of apps (these are applications that can be purchased-some are free- and downloaded to your phone for use).  I recently discovered that I own a ipod touch! Okay, okay... I already knew I had one but had not discovered the amazing potential it has.

So I hereby solemnly swear to use my ipod touch to be the very very best therapist I can be.  How in the world can my ipod help? Ahhh... yes... apps!

1. Percentally

I'm pretty convinced that this app can revolutionize the world of data collection for SLPs! This app allows you to take data with the touch of your finger.  For instance, I can set up a folder for each of my clients.  Within their folder there would be tallies set up for each of their goals.  These can either be dual tallies (so a spot for right and wrong answers) or single tallies (so just the number of times something is done).  Best of all it takes this data and converts it to percentages automatically! It tracks the data so I can save it from session to session and every BETTER it transfers it all to my computer so that I can submit it to medicaid or wherever else it needs to go!

2. ABA flashcards

These cards are great... they include a picture and the printed word. I can flip through hundreds of them on my ipod which saves me the pain of making them myself or buying therapy grade cards!

3.  iReward

This app is awesome.  It would be great for anyone with kids, not just therapists.  I plan on setting up different reward systems for each of my kiddos.  It basically digitally doles out colored stars or smilies up to your specified amount while displaying a picture of the anticipated reward.  So I plan on saving myself some moolah by NOT purchasing a million packs of stickers and using these nice digital ones!


I'm sure I'll be adding to this list.  What do you think? Sound cool? iPad/iPhone/iPod usage is one of the biggest growing trends in education/therapy.  There were several companies at TSHA presenting on them.  Lots of school districts are working on using these devices in the classroom.  They are really inexpensive options compared to many older technologies.  For instance, there is an Augmentative Communication Device for the iPhone/iPod that contains over four thousand symbols and buttons for use.  This is a lot.  It can easily become a person who is nonverbal's entire speaking system.  After making a sentence on the ipod by choosing from picutres, the device can speak for them.  It's awesome.

So let's do some math... an iPod starts at $199, the software I talked about above is about $129 (one of the MOST expensive ipod apps).  So for $340 a person has verbal language. NICE!
A Dynavox (which is one of the most widely used AAC devices) starts around $7,000.  What the heck! School districts struggle with paying for the for children and sometimes evaluate kids for eligibility and essentially say that they aren't worth the cost of one! Imagine the possibilities.  Even the iPad at $499 is world's cheaper (and also has a much bigger interface which is great for users with mobility issues).  Plus, kids are rough on technology.  A child I worked with this semester beat the heck out of dynavox (on accident) on a regular basis.  He had his attached to his wheelchair and would frequently run into walls and doorframes with it.  Or someone would knock it off his desk... imagine breaking a $7,000+ piece of equipment.  Not cool.  You could buy 20 of the ipod combinations for the same price!

Plus just think how good these kids will feel.  They don't have some weird device, they have an ipod or ipad. I'm all for reducing the stigma of disabilities!

Look around you? How could you use technology to help your life? I wish I was a computer programmer... I would write all kinds of apps!

Drool

I'm completely drooling over my recent retail therapy purchases.

I used my graduation/birthday money to buy a new computer.  My poor old plastic Macbook survived 4 years of being hauled to college/grad school.  I used it every day for at least 8-10 hours a day for the past year and a half.  It has actually had to have it's plastic body replaced twice, and is currently missing the "up" key.  It also no longer stays charged for more than 1 hour... which is sad because I used to be able to leave my charger at home during the day.

So I took the plunge.  The new macs are not only faster with larger hard drives (typical upgrades from year to year), but they have aluminum 'unibodies'.  Basically the entire thing is made from one piece of recycled aluminum.  No seams and no plastic.  It's keys are back lit which is great for dark classrooms (good thing I'm done with school).  It's overall a much better design and I'm hoping it will last me quite a bit longer.

I will also be working from home in my new job (more on that later), so I figured a new computer was starting out on the right foot.  

My dad also decided to get me a new camera for my birthday/graduation.  I've been playing around with an older Canon DSLR for the past few months and have enjoyed it.  However, I knew it definitely wasn't a stopping point for me in terms of cameras.  It was way too big and heavy for me.  This camera's body is half the size and weight. I love it.  Introducing my new camera: The Nikon D50000

It has a multi directional LCD screen! So much fun! I can't wait to use it. 

Regarding the job:

I am going to sign employment papers at Care Options for Kids on Monday.  This is where my sister-in-law, Amy, worked when she lived in Dallas.  It is a home health agency that primarily serves low income kids on Medicaid.  They pay exceptionally well and I feel extremely comfortable with the company's vibe.  I'm anxious to start working. I'm sure I'll have more details on Monday!