There's a New Sheriff in Town

 Hello y'all!

I apologize for this post being so late. I meant to post after my first week but I got busy with work stuff and getting settled into a groove down here.

Well, everything is going great with work! I really like it so far and everyone I work with is nice and helpful. I can't help it that not everyone is as friendly and outgoing as myself so I have to curb myself a bit to not scare these people.
I spend most of the time at the clinic, which is less than 10 mins from my apartment. I am the only OTR and have 3 COTA's to supervise, 2 of whom do just home visits. It's nice to be the HBIC for OT and make some solid decisions. The OT dept has kind of been in a mess since there has been some turnover. And since that turnover blew through, all of these goals are shit and need major updating. Now that there's a new sheriff in town, shit is going to change. I just don't think the goals have been updated in a long time (they can be updated much more regularly than IEP goals) and there just needs to be a new direction. The evaluation process is not difficult, just tedious as they all are. That being said, there is far less redundancy and that is wonderful. I'm working with kids from about 18 months to 14 years old.
I'll try to stay off my OT soapbox after this: Here are goals I hate:

• puzzles and shape-sorting- these are ACTIVITIES, not goals. 
• shoe tying- i'm just going to leave it at that
• grasping "pellets"- pulled straight from the PDMS-2
• sensory goals
• anything that is not somewhat developmentally appropriate for the child

OK, moving on. So I've been doing some driving for supervisory visits with the home COTA's and evals. 

The purple lines indicate towns I've been to (so far) from Tyler. The line near Longview is for Hallsville. 

Bucolic scene in Jacksonville, TX

They are lovely scenic drives for the most part. I drove through Big Sandy TX yesterday and stopped at a cutesy lil store called Nannie's Porch. Probably just the kind of place you can see me at. 

Anyway, let me talk about something. That something is country dogs. I love all dogs and want to save them all. However, this girl is not used to unleashed dogs out and about. Twice now on these visits, when pulling into a driveway, I've been told "don't worry! they'll move!" or "keep going, you won't hit them!" And while they likely right, what if I am that one time where someone actually hits the dog? I pulled into the wrong driveway last week on going to a re-eval and their dogs did not want me to get into their driveway. The owner told me that the dogs would probably chase the car down the road. And they did. One the way back out to the main road I passed this house again and the female pitbull (looked like she'd recently had puppies) ran after my car for probably almost a quarter mile and then stopped in the middle of the road looking at me drive away. I feel like if she could talk she'd say "and don't come back again!" Also, my first home visit the grandma offered me some tea and how could I refuse? 

Mirrored Wayfarer glasses are LIFE. 

Faulkner Park

So my daily routine is me coming home after work (imagine that) and taking Bella out for a walk after I change. We've usually been going to the Rose Rudman trail because it is nice and not secluded. This week we tried out Faulkner Park; more of a nature trail. And of course I'm freaking out any time Bella goes near anything that resembles poison ivy or the like because that's the last thing I need. 

Rose Rudman Trail

Faulkner Park 

I don't have too much else to say at the moment. I'm enjoying myself and starting to find new things to explore. I went to the apartment pool today and heard my damn dog barking the whole time because who knows why. I live next door to the pool. It was a nice day out though and I think I'm going to do it tomorrow again. 

That's all for now. Here's a picture of the sunset a couple days ago. 

Peace, love, and SPF,

LMJ