100

It's my hundredth post! Wow! Too bad it's not gonna be anything long, exciting or profound. Just a little update.

So... I've had a few more days of school, and it's still great! Our second-years have been awesome - I went out on Friday night to one of the zillion events they planned for us and had a blast meeting people! Today we were matched up with our "big siblings" (basically a second-year buddy to give us the inside scoop on how to survive!), and mine is a SUPER sweet girl named Christina. I think we're going to get along marvelously. And she's already offered to give me whatever textbooks I decide I need as I get started with "real" classes (next week) - at least the ones I don't want to buy to have long-term. SWEET! That'll save me some serious money. We've already been told by many second years that most of the "required" texts are unnecessary, if not completely useless, so I'm gonna try to save some money there. We also had reps from Welch Allyn and 3M Littman give a presentation today on medical equipment that we're supposed to buy (stethoscope, oto- and ophthalmoscopes, blood pressure cuffs, reflex hammers, etc). THAT was a nice big slap in the face. Especially considering they haven't given us our financial aid money! It's over half way through the month and our budget was supposed to include this month! Grr. $650 of our included budget is set aside for equipment, but even if I bought all mid-grade to crappy stuff, I'd still be spending nearly $800. I'm at least getting a nice stethoscope. And the second years are all telling us we won't even pick up the other stuff once all year, but do I really want to be the jerk who goes in to do a physical and has to come back out of the room to borrow someone's otoscope (the light/magnifier that docs use to look into your ears)? PROBABLY not. But the oto/ophthalmoscope set is like $360 at the cheapest (which is a AA battery powered piece of junk, more or less). I don't know... I'm gonna have to feel this out a little more.

I've had a few cool lectures, particularly today - one on CRAZY new radiology teachnologies, one on robotic cardiac surgery... good stuff. I think they're trying to ease us into the endless onslaught of information by giving us some "fun" lectures first. How nice of them ;) They REALLY do seem to care a lot about student well-being, I have to say. So much of our orientation has been directed toward making sure we're aware of all the resources available to help us de-stress, keep up, do better on exams, keep a decent social life, manage our time... I feel very lucky to be at a school that gives a crap about our quality of life (as opposed to "that other medical institution across town" as it's affectionately referred to by our professors... lol). And I'm learning so much about the areas in which our school and our medical center are leading the country (and in some cases even the world), which is cool and encouraging and exciting :) They also sent us on a Duck Tour of the city yesterday (those boat/bus-looking things that cruise the streets carrying tourists with quacking whistles - they drive on land and right into the water where they act as boats and carry you around the harbor). That was pretty cool and I actually learned a lot about Baltimore that I didn't know!

Tomorrow I actually have a full day of ICM (lectures and small group) so it'll be much more like a "regular day" of class. And by "full day" I mean 8-12 :) We're talking about health issues around the world, medical ethics... fun topics like that (and I'm not being sarcastic - I like that stuff! I could definitely see an MPH (master of public health) in my future if it weren't for having to take out an extra year's worth of loans). I actually am seriously considering taking some health poilcy classes at our Law school (across the street). a) I'm really interested in health policy, and b) it'll get me some elective credit to give me either more flexibility or time off during 4th year. We shall see. Anyway, about this post not being long... I'd better go. I suggested we get in bed and fall asleep watching TV early tonight (which we always said we'd do, but really haven't done much), and now my poor hubby is in there waiting for me. Later kids!

Becoming A Doctor: Day One

I'm official ;) I have an ID card and everything. My name was on all the lists. No one looked at me like I had 10 heads and said "What's your name again? I don't see you listed here." They're really gonna let ME take a stab at being a doctor! Lame and corny as it sounds, I found myself feeling so honored all day, just to be there. Hearing professors and Deans (all doctors themselves) give speeches about how special we are and how accomplished we are and how proud they are to have us, and then realizing that I was included in that group... it was pretty crazy. Hearing them refer to us as "student-doctors" and discuss how we should go about assimilating the role of "doctor", what patients will expect of us when we walk into a room... all very surreal. Amazing, actually. And for as hot as it was, as sweaty as I got in my "professional attire", as long as I waited in line for my student ID, as badly as my poor feet hurt, as SOAKED as I got running three city blocks in my heels (with incredibly sore feet) when it started DUMPING rain on me (and my school bag and my new laptop bag) as soon as I left the building to head for the parking garage... as bad as all those things kinda sucked, it was a GREAT day!

I got to meet TONS of fabulous people, many of whom I can definitely see myself becoming close friends with. I found out that there are about 8 or 10 other married students in my class (which made me feel a LITTLE less like a dork being an "old married person" in a room full of 160 20-somethings), they fed us an AMAZING lunch, we got fitted for our white coats... many good things happened today! And the sohpomore class student council has social events planned for us all around Baltimore every night until next Friday (except this Sunday). That made us feel quite loved :) And tomorrow we're out at noon (which more closely approximates a normal class day at my fantastic medical school)! Although I do have to go in very early tomorrow and camp out outside the parking office to compete for one of 200 BioPark parking permits available for students. I have three parking options: Lexington garage rooftop for $33/month (Perfect!FULL). Lexington Garage for $5/day ($100/month, and first-come first-served, and a decent walk to my class building... PWNED). BioPark garage for $100/semester, guaranteed space, with a shuttle over to my class building (sounds like a plan!). So yeah, for that deal I'll get up early and go fight for a permit! We actually have a few "real" lectures tomorrow for ICM (Introduction to Clinical Medicine). ICM is a year-long course that consists of lectures and patient visits and such, sprinkled throughout the basic curriculum (so it's not a class that meets regularly). All 160 of us have the same schedule every day - there are no different courses to register for or various sections of courses, we're all together all the time. And we only have one course at a time, which means only one exam at a time and only one set of material to learn at a time (and I'm ALL FOR THAT). It's really one of the best systems I've seen in my travels to various medical schools - I don't know why everyone doesn't do it this way! I think there's a lot of pressure on schools to make it extra difficult (like the material itself doesn't take care of that!), like medical school is a rite of passage that should be as miserable as possible (this same sentiment seems to be pervasive in residency programs as well). I'm really glad that the powers that be at my school seem to have gotten over that, and it apparently occurred to someone, somewhere along the line, that we might produce better doctors by making the learning process simpler and more efficient. Who knew?!?!

So I think that's it for me today. I've been sorely neglecting the football watching that I should be doing right now. GO RAVENS!!! There are FAR too many Redskins fans amongst my new classmates for them to lose tonight... I can't handle that.

Since I'm starting school in two days, I figured I'd better get a blog post or two in this week - who knows what'll happen after that! On Friday we enjoyed an evening with the Schenks, in celebration of their last few months in their fabulous house. Ron and Ben built a fire in the fire pit and we drank wine (and/or beer) and told stories and laughed all evening - it was a perfectly relaxing evening ;) Saturday was spent sleeping in, cleaning up around the house a bit, watching a movie, and then heading up to PA to hang out with some of Ben's work friends and the wives. It was the perfect crew of people, and we again had a BLAST just sitting around enjoying a few beers, bitching about work (and/or our husbands deserving raises...), telling stories and laughing. Long night though! Sunday we got up and headed down to E-burg for Lacy's 10th birthday party, which was quite the celebration! The kids (plus Ben and Chris) had a giant water balloon battle outside, we ate TONS of food (as is customary ANY time we gather at Ben's mom's), and we caught up on everyone's summer trips and vacations and goings-on.

Then it was on to the INCUBUS concert! I have to say, when we arrived I wasn't really in the mood for a concert. The crowd, the drunken teenagers, the battle to get back OUT of the parking lot, etc. We arrived late enough to miss the openers, but that meant that we were buried in the back corner of the parking lot and had to wade through crushed beer cans, weave in and out of corn hole and frisbee games, and generally duck, dive and dodge drunk a-holes, just to get to the front gate. At which point there was a line to wait in, lots of people skipping the entire line, and people already being escorted out by security because they were too wasted to function. Literally, some girl was being carried out by her boyfriend - he was behind her with his arms up under her armpits keeping her upright, and her feet were practically dragging beneath her as she attempted to put one in front of the other to move forward. Her head was completely slumped and rolling around... it was pitiful. The security guard got them out onto a bench outside the gate and left them there! Sad. So needless to say, by the time we got in and found our seats, I was a little peeved and not really feelin the whole concert vibe. We only had to wait about 20 minutes for Incubus to come on though, and once they did, I was FINE for the rest of the evening :) Apart from my knees really hurting (Ben and I kept asking each other questions like "How's your back holding up?" and "Are your knees OK?" and "Do you want me to sit down with you for a few minutes?"... we're gettin WAYYY to old for this shit!). Incubus never disappoints. They played for about 2 hours, and they played "our song" - the one we had our first dance to at our wedding. They actually did it acoustically and Brandon (lead singer) played the bongos which made it even cooler because it was an awesome version that we hadn't heard them do before. The whole thing was kick-ass, really. It's so fun to be at a concert where you know every word of every song and they're just rockin out! And at the end of it all, it only took us about 20 minutes to get our of the parking lot, so I couldn't really complain.

Yesterday wasn't all that exciting - just another trip to E-burg for my second TB test (so we visited some parents while we were there), followed by dinner with Ben's friend Aaron at our place, and then Ben and Aaron left with thier friend Gary for the O's game while I went shopping for "professional" clothes for clinic at Old Navy. Good times ;) Today was Ben's first day back to work after over a week off with me :'( and I had to get up early to take the kitties for their neutering. That all went just fine - they did very well and are almost completely back to their normal routine this evening! While they were under the knife, I hit the emissions inspection station (PASSED!), the MVA (transferred my car's title from my dad's name to mine... to the tune of $60!!!), and to my dad's for lunch and a movie. Oh, one thing I do have to mention about the vet and the surgery... I don't know if you've ever experienced anything like this, but I had to tell them whether or not I wanted them to perform CPR on my kitties in the event of an emergency during surgery, and if so, how much! My options were "none, call me first", "CPR up to $100", "CPR up to $300" and "CPR with no limit"... ?!?!?! Holy crap! How am I supposed to put a price on my kittens' lives? Plus it only made me think more about the possibility of an emergency and made me feel nervous all day :'( I really didn't want to leave them!

Anyway, school starts on Thursday! I feel completely and utterly unprepared, so that's sweet. I feel a little overwhelmed with having to learn a whole new campus, a new system, finding different offices, getting a parking permit, picking up books, etc. Thank God Tara will be there with me! I won't have to feel so alone! I'm sure I'll have plenty to blog about over the first few days of school though. So for now, I'm gonna get back to snuggling and watching Old School. AFTER my husband puts his snake back in its cage. YES I realize how suggestive that sounded, and YES I'm referring to his literal snake, the ball python that lives in my office. Ew.

Couch Vacay

Hey kids! I'm reporting live here from my loveseat, where our asses have been parked since Monday evening ;) Ben took off to spend the week with me, since I'm on my week-and-a-half-long break between work and school. We didn't make plans to go anywhere or do anything, we're just enjoying some much-needed R&R!

Well, that's not COMPLETELY true - we did go to NC to visit my aunt, uncle and cousins over the weekend. We left Friday morning, dropped the kitties off at my dad's, and made the loooong trip out to southwestern NC (just north of Charlotte). My new little cousin Carson is just PRECIOUS at 4 weeks, and is basically a doll most of the time (though he is a bottomless pit)! We had a VERY nice time relaxing on the couch, meeting the new little guy, catching up with my aunt and uncle and my cousin Nikki (who is 12 and towers over me!), doing a little shopping, and cruising the adorable town where they live. We stayed til Monday morning, at which point we were just DYING to get home and see our kitties (I missed them so much!). Here's the brief photo journal...

Baby Carson at 4 weeks - cutie!!!

Enjoying (or not enjoying) some tummy time on Saturday

Me and my super grown up and sophisticated *little* cousin Nikki, who is now significantly taller than me at 12 years old. You miss so much when you're 7 hours away!

The Keyser family (well, none of us are Keyers anymore, but we look like it). Nikki, Me, my aunt Suzie, and Carson

It really was a pretty ride through the Appalachian Mountains, but after 7 hours I was MORE than ready to get the heck out of the car!

So that was our weekend - lovely and relaxing (minus the drive)! Our first day of actual couch vacay was yesterday (Tuesday), which we spent watching movies and working on a few housekeeping projects here and there (scrubbing our front door, beginning to organize the loft, general cleaning, etc). I think we watched 3 or 4 movies! We also hit Target for a few important items (kitty litter, deoderant... you know, the usual) and I got a few "professional" tops and a pair of cute flats to start my new wardrobe. This is going to be a LONG process, but I have to start dressing like I take myself seriously (in hopes that some day patients might take me seriously too). We do have a dress code for clinic days, and they prefer that we dress relatively nicely for class too (we're not in Kansas... er, Gettysburg...anymore) - no more rolling out of bed and out the door in the morning. Uhg. I guess I need to get used to waking up earlier and earlier anyway! This week isn't helping though. We got up at 11 today... glorious ;) Just one more reason why I don't need to have children right now! LOL! Once we finally got up and had a little breakfast (or in my case, a Lean Shake... I have GOT to drop a few pounds), I did my Jillian Michaels DVD. Whew. I thought I'd up the ante and try level two, which was a BIG mistake. I nearly had to be resuscitated. My heart was thumping and I started getting dizzy and I just had to sit down in the middle of it! Ugh what a mess I am. I have got to get this cardio-respiratory shit under control. I feel so helpless trying to stay in shape when my lungs can't seem to handle much if ANY strenuous physical activity anymore. I'm afraid it's getting worse. And I was supposed to go to the pulmonologist yesterday but I'm between insurance providers (my previous coverage at work and coverage through ben) and it was gonna be a major PIA to sort it out if I went yesterday, so now I have to wait til SEPTEMBER 25TH for the next available appointment. Ugh. I just know that I can't control my weight by diet alone (I'm far too weak, especially when I'm sitting around the house all day!), and I want to be in good physical shape too - being thin but incapable of running a mile isn't what I'm working for. I need to talk to the pulmo about what types of exercise I can do without collapsing. Anyway, moving on, we did manage to completely unpack, organize and clean out the loft, so I do have a functional office space now (YAY!) in time for school. And we did a little more shopping today (groceries and such, nothing "fun" really) as well, and watched yet another movie :) I've had a MAJOR 'tude all day though. I've apologized to Ben multiple times, but I'm just feeling large and ridiculous-looking, all my clothes are tight... it just puts me in an awful mood. And it's "that time" of the month too, which doesn't help a thing (though I don't usually tend to be a PMS-er, but it certainly isn't helping me feel any less large and bloated!). And I had a pounding headache for most of the day, because creamer and dieting don't really mix (so coffee is sorta out of the picture for now). I've just been a mess.

Tomorrow is "the big day" for the kitties - snip snip! Poor things don't even realize it. I'm sure they wouldn't have been NEARLY as snuggly with me today had they known what I'm about to do to them tomorrow! They were actually quite uncharacteristically snuggly today - at one point or another (and once at the same time!) each of them actually laid down and slept on me... too cute :) I just love them... they're going to make a cat person out of me yet! And their incredible sweetness today got me thinking... what if something happens tomorrow? What if they don't wake up after the surgery? Now I'm all nervous :'( Poor things. I wish I could be there with them! Ugh I'm such a nerd. What am I gonna do when it's my own kids?!?! Not that I'd ever have my child neutered... you know what I mean. LOL :)

This weekend is gonna be another busy one, of course. We're going to a Housewarming for one of Ben's friends from work on Saturday, Lacy's 10th birthday party on Sunday afternoon, and the Incubus concert on Sunday night at Merriweather (HOLLERRRRRRRRRRR!!!). Next week I have to have my second PPD in two weeks (tuberculosis test... it's for school) on Monday, and orientation for school starts Thursday! Holy smokes! I got my first textbook last week - my boss at work gave it to me as a 'thank-you' gift - and I've found a few others on the school classifieds MUCH cheaper than the bookstore prices (not that I ever buy books from the bookstore anyway... AMAZON!!!). So the med school train is pretty much barreling down on me! But it's pretty exciting :)

That's all for now! I'm gonna go hit the hay early I think... we have to get the kitties out the door by about 7:15 (yuck!), and then we're going to visit Frank, my dad, Ben's mom, my mom... basically the tour de e-burg. And we're taking the snake too because we have an appointment for the vet to check him out as well when we pick up the kitties at the end of the day (we suspect he may have a respiratory infection... FABULOUS). So it's shaping up to be a long day, but a nice one :) LATER!

I know, I know.

I'm really sorry. It's been FOREVER! I don't know if we've really been that "busy", per se, I guess I just haven't had much to blog about (since we haven't really been "busy" doing much). We did have our housewarming party last weekend, which was pretty laid back and enjoyable. We got to spend time with a variety of friends, I cooked all day, I got to see Sarah's new bling and talk wedding stuff... all in all, good times ;) We also had my friend Leanne here visiting last Thurs-Fri-Sat, which was tons of fun! Leanne and I had a lovely girls' night with lots of beer, kitty fun, movies, etc. on Thursday night while Ben visited his dad, and Janelle and Sarah came up and hung out on Friday evening with us and made dinner (sweet!). Unfortunately Leanne had to get back home on Saturday for a grad party so she missed our party, but we had a great time while it lasted!

Leanne snuggling with little Squidward

Lewis hanging out on Leanne's legs... LOL! They LOVED her - she let them sleep on the couch with her at night ;)

And this week was my LAST WEEK OF WORK!!! HOORAY!!! I've been waiting SO long to be finished, and now here I am - a free woman again! Today was my last day, a half-day followed by a group outing to Just Cakes in Bethesda for cupcakes, brownies, and other horrendously fattening treats :) Then I made the long-ass commute for THE LAST TIME, took a nice (WAY too long) nap, and soaked up my freedom.

Speaking of fattening treats, I've officially decided that it's time to start paying attention to what I'm eating again. I'm flirting dangerously with the upper limits of my weight gain tolerance. I really don't tolerate ANY weight gain well - no one does - but this is generally the maximum that I'll stand for before taking drastic measures. I think they call it "yo-yo dieting". It's not severe, I only fluctuate by 5-8 pounds when I go through these phases, but I've noticed that it's definitely a pattern for me. I lose some weight, start feeling good, get into a good work-out regimen, and then something happens to make me fall off the wagon. I injure myself, I get sick, I go on vacation... and then I start sliding down that slippery slope toward completely abandoning it all. And then one day it hits me that I've been COMPLETELY ignoring what I'm putting into my body, eating whatever I want whenever I want, and I look in the mirror and IT SHOWS. Ugh. So I'm in one of those ruts at the moment. Part of my problem is this athsma issue I've been having that's keeping me from running. I just can't run like I used to. I'm usually wheezing and feeling a lot of tightness in my chest by about 5 to 10 minutes into my run, and by 20 minutes I feel like I'm going to collapse and I have to stop. Running really is my work-out of choice - it's so rewarding and I feel like I've really kicked my ass and accomplished something when I'm finished - but lately it's just not working for me. I'm trying to get more diligent about doing the Jillian Michaels 30-day shred DVD that I bought, so we'll see how that goes. It's hard to get started because every time I start it again, it KILLS me and I have to skip at least the next day or even two because my muscles simply aren't functioning. Once I get into the swing of it I know I'll be able to do it daily, I just have to allow myself to ease into it WITHOUT allowing myself to fall off the wagon during that day or two between work-outs. Ugh. The endless battle.

I really should be getting to bed. We're leaving tomorrow morning for a long weekend in North Carolina to visit my aunt, uncle and two little cousins - the aunt who just had the baby boy a few weeks ago. I can't wait to meet him! I went to Target today and did a little baby shopping (ALWAYS fun!), did some laundry and packed for the trip. I'm hoping to take a day trip with my cousin Nikki (she's 12) while we're there to get her out of the house for a day since she's sorta cooped up with her mom and the baby all the time while her dad is at work. We're thinking some kind of amusement park or water park or something - apparently there are a few nearby. Should be fun! And of course there will be lots of baby-cuddling and photo-snapping ;) We're dropping the kittens at my dad's for the weekend (he's all anti-pet these days, but you should see him with the kitties - he loves them!) and then heading out west and down south (they live in western western NC). It'll be about a 7 1/2 hour ride, so like I said, I'm off the hit the sack. My psycho husband who apparently enjoys torturing himself is already dead to the world for the evening - he's working tomorrow morning 5-8am to make some OT money. It's much needed, but he always seems to pick the WORST days to do this stuff - it's always when we have a zillion other things to do and he wants to try to squeeze in a few hours in the extremely early morning, so he can be exhausted all day and pass out early. Ugh. But I really can't complain about having a husband who will go the extra mile to provide for his family ;) I just hope he doesn't think this means I'm driving...

So, be looking for an update next week with lots of cute baby pictures! We're both off all week so I'll have no excuse not to blog. We do need to organize the office before school starts, and the kitties are getting "the snip" on Thursday, but other than that we're pretty wide open! Vacation on the couch... there's nothing quite like it ;)

Another crazy weekend

Whew. So... Friday. Friday I came home from work and tirelessly cleaned the apartment for our guests, Mike and Sarah. Ahh, Mike and Sarah. How we LOVE Mike and Sarah :) Mike was Ben's best man at the wedding, and Sarah is his sweet-as-pie Kindergarten-teacher girlfriend. I state her occupation because it describes her personality so perfectly - SUPER friendly, SUPER sweet, creative, fun, and all smiles. As you can see below, they're simply picture-perfect! Anyway, they're just a blast to hang out with, so we had them down for drinks and sparkling conversation (since we're all poor and can't really go out... more on why Mike is poor shortly...) and had a lovely, relaxed evening just talking and laughing and playing with the kittens.

...and the snake. ew. This is the first time I've ever held him, and it may be the last, I won't lie. He's just gross. I'm sorry. This lasted about a total of a minute, and it only happened because I'd had a few glasses of wine.

Lewis really likes shoes. Here, he's sitting in Mike's shoes :)
And this is just a really cute one of Eddie sleeping on my leg later that evening...

Then came Saturday. We got up around 9:30 and got ready to go down to Amberly and Chris's. Ben spent the morning/afternoon helping Chris replace the brakes on Amberly's Jeep Liberty before they go on vacation next weekend. In the meantime, I watched the boys...

Leo spent most of our visit watching train videos on YouTube... the kid LOVES trains. And you just can't resist Evan's cheezy grin ;) He's totally mastered it - EVERY time you point a camera at him, this is what you get! He's a great subject ;)

Waiting patiently for daddy to come back inside and play...

Being good for me :) I even got him to go down for a nap! I was very impressed with myself! LOL :)

Me & Smeebo had a great time watching train videos, eating hot dogs and watching "Over the Hedge". He was an angel all day!

Leo refusing to smile nice for the camera, probably because he never sees Ben smile nice either (he usually only ever sees Ben making faces similar to the one he's making!)

Evan obviously looks up to his big brother Leo ;)

That brings me to why I was watching the boys... Amberly was at the hospital with Lace :'( Unfortunately Lacy came down with a respiratory infection last week that was causing her a lot of chest pain and shortness of breath, and she was running a fever of about 103, and after failing to respond well to oral antibiotics she was admitted to the Hopkins Children's Center on Friday afternoon. Her chest X-ray showed large mucus build-ups in the bottom of each of her lungs, which the doctor said were cutting her lung capacity nearly in half. For anyone who isn't familiar with CF, CF patients accumulate mucus build-ups because their tissues don't regulate salt/water balances correctly which leads to really thick mucus (as opposed to the nice liquidy wet mucus in a normal lung), which is a lovely environment for bacteria and viruses to live and grow in, making CF patients far more susceptible to serious respiratory infections. Anyway, after a long weekend of strong IV antibiotics, she had a PICC line inserted today (Peripheral Intravenous Central Catheter). It's basically a really long IV line that runs from a vein in her arm into the right atrium of her heart to more directly and aggressively administer antibiotics. Three times a day she'll have to hook up a portable IV pump to her PICC line and sit around for an antibiotic drip, over the course of a few weeks. She's had a PICC line once before so it isn't new to her. The last one was inserted in the OR under general anesthesia, but this time around she was brave enough to have it inserted by a nurse at the bedside with a local and a mild sedative! Amberly said she cried a little but did amazingly well, and when I was in to see her this afternoon she was completely back to normal, bouncing around the room. So please keep her continued progress and recovery in your prayers. Especially since they're leaving for family vacation in the Outer Banks on Saturday!

So, back to Saturday... When the guys finished with the brake job, we headed over to Frank's to take him out to the store (well, two stores). Which of course wasn't a quick trip, but it was realtively uneventful and painless :) Then we shot down to Eldersburg to stop in and visit with my dad for an hour or so, which was just lovely! I really do miss being at home with him and seeing him every day, so it felt great to spend a little time at home and catch up. I'm hoping to get back down there again this weekend for a more extended visit. We had to get going to get home for our next evening of visitors - Janelle and her roommate Sarah (not Mike's Sarah - we'll call this one Sarah M.) came up for dinner :) Just like our lovely Friday evening, we had a lovely Saturday evening of casual drinks, more sparkling conversation, and DELICIOUS dessert! And the kitties got even MORE attention - they had a GREAT weekend ;) I hadn't seen Janelle since the wedding, and hadn't seen Sarah M. since the last time we hung out at their place which was God-knows-how-long ago, so we were thrilled to finally get to spend some time just hanging out and catching up with them. It was a good time.

Oh, so I was saying, about us all being too poor to go out Friday night... yeah, something else fun happened on Saturday night - Mike proposed to Sarah!!! YAY! It was so fun to kinda watch it all unfold, since we knew it was coming ;) Not that we actually got to SEE it, but we got theplanning updates and news ahead of time, and then got the phone call when it happened and all that. Talking to her on Friday night when the boys went out for a beer run, I was just biting my tongue listening to her trying to guess when it was coming and talking about wedding plans! Hee hee :) I'm SO SO SO happy for them! Mike has been through a lot and he's such an amazingly wonderful guy, and he deserves this SO much. And Sarah is just so awesome and it's so obvious that she recognizes and appreciates what she has in Mike - it's just wonderful to see! I'm sure they'll have a FABULOUS wedding too, because Sarah is just so creative. They're just so perfect for each other... I can't wait!

Then came Sunday. Whew, it was the never-ending weekend. We got up and went over to Hopkins to visit Lacy, who was of course in great spirits because that's just the kind of girl she is, plus she was definitely feeling a lot better. It was a relief to finally get to see her and see that she was getting back to her normal self and not feeling too miserable. Plus we got to visit with Amberly and Ben's mom, which was an added bonus! It had definitely been a little while since we'd gotten to just sit down and chat with them for more than a few minutes! Then we made the drive from east Baltimore out to Carroll Valley, PA for a cookout with Tom & Amy and Mark & Susan, and the dogs of course ;) That was filled with the usual fabulous Amy Smith food, lots of laughs and fun with the pups. And lots of drinks of course - had to drive Ben home from that one! But we somehow managed to get into bed at a reasonable hour anyway, to start up another hectic work week.

Speaking of getting to bed at a reasonable hour, I gotta go get a shower. And you're probably MORE than DONE reading yet another novel of a blog post from yours truly, so I should let you go anyway ;) LATER!

Ahhh progress...

I think we're making progress with Mr. Ray Lewis. Eddie has always been a snuggler - a "people cat" if you will. When we went to pick them out Eddie was the rambunctious one, playing with all the other kittens and being very sociable, while Lewis hid under large pieces of furniture for the majority of our visit. But Lewis was just too cute to pass up - we really loved his coloring and he had been the first one to catch our eye when we came into the vet's office and were checking out the kitten cage. I was a little concerned about his skittishness - he didn't want to come out until we got most of the other kittens out of the room (after narrowing it down to the two we have, we asked the lady to take the others out so we could get to know them without all the craziness - at the time we thought we'd be choosing between the two but THAT obviously didn't happen!). And even when we did get rid of the others, he was very hesitant to come out, backed away when you tried to pet him, and didn't particularly want to be held. Sounds like a kitten everyone's just DYING to take home, doesn't it! LOL :) But I tend to be a sucker for shyness, and when we finally were able to pick him up and hold him for a few minutes, he was very sweet. So we had hope that he'd come around. When we were deciding whether to take one or two, we were actually just going to take him and leave Eddie!

I will say that I'm SO glad we brought Eddie home, because having just Lewis would've been a little disappointing for a while - it's taken him a few weeks to warm up. I was very hesitant about taking two (financial reasons mostly - I was afraid to commit to two animals' worth of vet bills), but Eddie has already been worth his weight in gold - he's just SUCH a sweetheart. Despite the toilet fiasco (see post below). But anyway, back to Lewis, we're really starting to notice a change in him now. He's always first in line to greet me when I get home from work, and he's starting to jump up on the couch with us and let us just sit and pet him more. It used to be darn-near impossible to pick him up, but now he has no qualms about letting us pick him up and hold him for a bit. He even let me trim his nails!

But this morning was the most exciting progress so far :) It's not at all rare for me to wake up to Eddie in my face. Ben usually crawls out of bed a few minutes before I do and opens the bathroom door so they have access to the bedroom at that point (we've been keeping them locked out of our room at night so Eddie can't crawl all over us!). But today, when I felt the little paws land on the edge of the bed and looked down expecting to see my sweet little Squidward peering up at me (if you know Ben I'm sure you can track the progression of that nickname), I was shocked to see Lewey instead! I sat up and he came right up into my lap, purring his little face off and rubbing his head all over me :) He even laid down in my lap, which he NEVER does (he's usually far too active to sit still). I know this probably seems QUITE silly to the rest of the world, but it just thrilled me :) And Ben was very excited too - he's been very worried that Lewis is just going to be one of those cats that you never see. So I think we're making great progress with Lewis, and we're going to end up having two awesome kitties when they're all grown up!

Gotta go check my fish. I got in TWO experiments yesterday (LOTS of fishy babies!), but so far today has been a no-go. I was expecting this, given the unusual success of yesterday's breeding - Lord knows THAT can't happen twice in one week. Whatev. Today is my "farewell lunch" so I'm getting even more excited about my impending fellowship termination :) I know I still have 2 1/2 weeks left, but it's fun to start doing these "wrap-up" activities!