Nyquil will help you get your zzzzzzzzzz's

I have had a serious sore throat for the past two or three days. Two nights ago I tossed and turned all night because it hurt so much. So last night I took 2 nyquil soft gel tabs. Holy Lord. I think I could have done five tequila shots and been better off. I fell right to sleep but woke up late and now it is noon and I am still in some sort of hazy fog. I just sat through two hours of statistics and was like, yah man, i have not a clue what is going on here. Note to self: Nyquil: never again.

Our house, circa 1927

Our house was built in 1917. I think it has almost always been mostly university professors who lived in this neighborhood. I did a google search of our address, and came up with the owner of it in 1927. He was the head of a department at the U, and still has a professorship named after him. I emailed that department and they gave me the name of his son, who has to be in his 80s, also a professor at the U. I emailed him asking about the house and he sent me these pictures. The first one is taken from our backyard looking onto other neighbors backyards.


The one above is our house, before they put the second floor addition on.
This one is just the edge of our house but is neat to see anyways. I would send this pic to my neighbor of her house if she weren't such a butthead.

Eatin'

I made two yummy things tonight-

Fava Bean Salad
http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Fava-Bean-Salad/Detail.aspx

I used canned fava beans- they were already seasoned with lemon and cumin. Very delish. I have only ever had them fresh.

Quinoa pudding
I just made it up- quinoa with vanilla, FF ricotta, cinnamon and some sugar. Yum for a low cal desert.

The Solution to World Peace

And I birthed her....

Week 3.1

And I am having it handed to me. As in my A**. Who knew that one class could take up hours and hours? We cover 1 chapter a day, and are almost completely finished with a 400 page book after 14 days. So there is daily homework ( that I havent done in like 2 weeks), a chapter a day to read ( 50ish pages) and then a weekly graded assignment that takes me around 6-8 hours plus several visits to the TA, which I am seriously feeling is like the walk of shame. I slink into her office and feel like I ask idiotic questions that are just short of 'please do my homework for me'. On top of that I am doing summer research hours that were super slack but there is a paper due next week so it is really intense. I have been doing some kind of homework for the past five hours. Now it is 11:15 and I have to create a bar chart in excel and me and excel hate each other. I just called campus IT for help with trying to do the chart in another program (SPSS, CDP are you with me!) that you can connect to remotely from the University. The IT person had never heard of either SPSS or the remote connection. I really wanted to start screaming into the phone but just hung up instead.

Trying not to use this blog for complaining so I will go now.

Updates

I miss my cell phone. I usually talk to my sisters and my parents at least once a day. I have one class that is two hours a day and there is no cell service in that building. Then my office is in a basement and there is no cell service there either. Finally, I have been riding my bike to school every day for the exercise and because parking is a huge pain. See below for what happens when you are dialing a number while riding a bike and hit a pothole.


I fulfilled a lifetime dream and got sea monkeys. Remember the ads for them in the back of kid magazines? Right after we planted(?) sowed(?) dumped (?) them in the water, it got temporarily coldish out. They need temps of 75 or so to live so they all died pretty much as soon as they hatched. A few days later it was hot as Hades out for days. Bummer.



My girls have been cuddling with Aunt Sarah every night for days and days. I keep finding her everywhere.






I keep finding notes written for me when I go to the bathroom. I love reading them.

The kids favorite jungle gym is Daddy Jeep. They can mess around on it for hours.

4th of July

We had only lived in our house a week before the 4th of July our first year here. We were still trying to grasp that it got dark at 10 o clock at night. The girls had been in bed for two hours and we had just gotten into bed. All of a sudden we were woken up to an hour and a half long fireworks display that beat any city run operation. Whoever puts it on doesn't advertise and stays anonymous. These are some huge amazing boom booms and it is hard to believe it just some joe random setting them off in the park. Last night we ended up leaving before they were done because there were about 8 tired kids and the fun wore off after 45 minutes. Here is a video I took while standing at our back gate.

Lord Almighty, I thought this day would never come!

That sounds very southern, doesn't it? I guess it fits with the sweet tea I am drinking here in my office in Michigan. I never in a thousand million years thought I would live somewhere that is cold. But here we are, and here we are staying... because.......

After ten long years of:

-80 hour weeks

-months and months apart:
example 1: 8 trips to Africa in this calendar year (I can't even add up the domestic travel)
example 2: a 6 week trip to Ethiopia when #1 was 3 weeks old
example 3:6 weeks of night float PGY1, 12 weeks PGY2, 6 weeks PGY3, 6 weeks PGY 4

-one move to Grenada, one more to NYC, one more to SF, one move to Georgia and one move to Michigan

-one MD, one MPH and one MSc

-$280,000 ( yes, that is correct but god bless the gobment for paying for a chunk of it)

My beloved is done with any and all aspects of training. Period. Forever. No more degrees. Ever.

Congratulations!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am so very proud of you and all that you have accomplished!! Never in my wildest dreams did I think the Publix bagboy and the girl with the barf bucket would someday be where we are.