My Random Thoughts

Every Clinical Laboratory Science student I've talked to has, at some point in their schooling, diagnosed either themselves or someone around them with some kind of rare and crazy disease that they've read about. Many disorders present with the same nonspecific symptoms: fatigue, lethargy, headache, malaise, etc. Show me one person - a student especially - who's not worn out and prone to the occasional headache!

So as a CLS student, it was with a very weird sort of delight that I discovered that I actually do have a disorder. But here's the thing: my disorder is in MY WORST SUBJECT!

Chemistry.

Ugh.

I went to the doctor the other day, thinking that I was messed up from my trip down the steps on my butt a couple of weeks ago, and in the process made a comment about being very tired lately. I've been anemic before, and thought it was happening again. Well, as it turns out, my hemoglobin (iron) is fine.....but my thyroid is messed up!

Dang hormones! I never understood them in the first place.

I guess I will go read up on thyroid function now. That will be one section of the board exam that I'll be sure to pass.

 

My poor blog, it's become so neglected. I promise one of these days I'll actually have something worthwhile to say. In the meantime, I'll try to scrape together a TonT.

Loathe:

• Being tired all the time.
• Watching my poor boy and his friends get crushed in three baseball games over the weekend. This was his second (and last) tournament of the season. We got to the point where we were just hoping for them to make some plays because there was no hope for them winning.
• Having to hear my little boy say, "I stink at baseball!" and try hard to fight back tears even though he was around his friends. :(  (For the record, he doesn't stink. He has some things he needs to work on, but I maintain that he's got potential to be a solid player, even if he never becomes a star.)
• Knowing that Joey's team that's been practicing for 5 weeks on a team we paid $60 for him to be on got crushed by a team of kids mostly a year older than them, that's been together since March, whose parents paid $500 for them to be on. Seriously! In third grade!
• Not losing weight like I've wanted to since we restarted South Beach a couple of weeks ago. I've lost 2 lbs. I started closer to my ideal weight this time so knew the weight loss would be less dramatic, but still I was hoping to see some better results. Oh well. Plug away, I guess.

Love:

• Watching my kids when they don't know I'm watching.
• Watching a project at work that I've been leading for almost a year finally come to fruition. We're working on getting everyone trained and will implement on July 21. The new process isn't perfect, but what process ever is? It's WAAY better than what we currently have. I feel such a sense of accomplishment, and I daresay I'm looking pretty good to the higher-ups! I had a great team, though...which goes a LONG way. I'm proud of them.
• Cuddle Time: a ritual in our house where all 4 of us pile onto Brian's & my bed and just watch something on TV. And cuddle. :) The kids are always asking, "Can we have Cuddle Time?" I love that they want to do it, even when we have to say no.
• The unpredictability and variety of midwestern weather. Last week it was pushing 100; today it's not even 70. As they say, if you don't like the weather in Minnesota, just wait a few minutes. Gorgeous weather is always nice, but I need it to change now & then. I could do without snow, though.
• Even though the games were not so great, at Joey's tournament last weekend I got to meet all of the parents. It was so much fun. In particular I spent a lot of time talking to the mom of a boy that Joey has gotten to be good friends with over the last half of the school year. Now they're on the same team for both tournament and house league baseball. I like her a lot. And the really cool thing is that they're thinking of switching their son to Schaeffer Academy after he finishes elementary school, just like we plan to do with Joey! Crazy. She said she's been praying for a good friend for her son, and to think that my guy might be the answer to her prayers just about makes me want to cry. In a good way.
• Holidays! Because they equal days off work!
• That Brian checked out the X-Files movie from the Bookmobile today. I'm finally going to see it, Kelly!

Are you bored yet? LOL

As aforementioned, I fully plan to give this blog some attention once I actually start having coherent thoughts again. :)

Thanks for the well-wishes regarding my coccyx. It hurts like crap this morning, but I'm pretty sure it's not broken because while it's painful, I can still move around. I had already decided to take today off of work, which turned out to be a good thing even better than it normally would have been. I couldn't imagine having to spend all day in a desk chair. I haven't gotten any rest, though, since this morning we had to take the van in for some work and also run some errands. This afternoon will be at least physically more restful, as I'm planning to listen to some hematology lectures online. I might have to have Uncle Rico come over & take care of things for a while.

So yeah, we took the van in this morning for that oil-change-and-27-point-check deal that GM has been offering. We were afraid the brake lines were leaking fluid, so wanted them to look at that as well. So we took it down there (as the driver of the getaway car, let me tell you that driving a stick shift was not fun this morning) and they told us it would be ready in an hour. We ran to Wal-Mart & Kohl's and it was probably more like 2 hours when we got back there. They told us that in fact, the brake lines were not leaking, but the brake pads were bad, the tie rods were bad, and the water pump was bad. Sheesh. So by the end of today and eleven hundred bucks later, our van will be good as new. Oh wait, that's not entirely true. They gave us a whole list of things that really need to be done, but can wait a while. Sure, I'll get right on that. Good thing this is a 3-paycheck month (I get paid every 2 weeks so 2 months out of the year I end up with three paychecks. It feels like a nice bonus and seems to always be very timely).

We did our periodic Sam's Club shopping today as well. We've decided that we're going back on the South Beach Diet starting either Sunday or Monday, so we stocked up on things we can eat in Phase 1 - the no-carb phase. It's going to be hard - I think harder than it was last time. I'm not as motivated, plus I've been so carb-dependent with all the junk food I've eaten to get me through the spring semester. It was so bad. I've put on somewhere between 5 and 10 lbs but it feels like a lot more since I haven't exercised regularly since February and I'm losing muscle tone - especially noticeable in those trouble spots. So just to warn you, I'll probably be blogging about my diet again - it helps me stay focused, even if no one reads it.

I guess the big news of the day in our house is this:

BEFORE

AFTER

He looks like a different kid! Maybe it's just because I haven't gotten used to it yet, but I'm missing the long hair. But at least he'll be able to get his baseball cap on.

Check out the place where he got it cut: http://www.thebarbershops.net/ I only wish they did women's hair.

One other interesting thing....a week or so ago we accidentally got a package delivered to our house. It had the right address, but the name of the daughter of the family that lived here two owners ago. So we called them and when they came to get it, I asked if they'd like to see the house. It seems like kind of a weird thing to do, but I know in the places we've lived in, I would LOVE to see what has been done to them since we left. I thought they might get a kick out of it, and they did. A few things were the same as when they lived here, and many things had changed. (They sold the house in 2000, we bought it in 2003.) They had a lot of memories here, and they liked being able to come back through - I could tell they were feeling reminiscent. They were so nice.

All right, well, it's off to work I go! Schoolwork, that is.

I just fell down the wood stairs in my house. Gonna feel that in the morning.

My father-in-law informed me yesterday that he read in the weekend paper that the school we'll be sending Bailey to next year just got approval from the state to go to a 4-day school week, as a cost-saving measure. We don't get the paper and the online version didn't say anything about it. And the school's website doesn't say anything either.

Three questions come to mind about this:

1. Is this official? Don't the parents get to vote on it? We signed the statement of faith which means that we get to vote on important matters. So either that doesn't take effect until fall when she's actually a student, or the vote took place before we were "in the system," or the parent vote hasn't taken place yet because they were waiting for the school board & the state to approve it first.
2. I find it a little bit curious that they didn't at least mention this to us as a possibility when we were interviewing. On the other hand, that was way back on March 2, so maybe the idea was still so far in its infancy that it wasn't worth mentioning. Maybe it hadn't even been born yet.
3. What will we do with Bailey on those off days when the rest of us suckers are at work/school? She regularly stays home by herself for a few hours at a time while we go out, and we have a security alarm, so she would probably be fine staying home by herself. Maybe I could give her a chore list or something. I would also have to find out if there's a state or city law concerning how old a child has to be in order to stay home alone, and for how long. For some reason I'm thinking it's 10, but I'm not sure. My mother-in-law said that Bailey could come to their house, but I don't know how serious she was. Also, we were hoping to completely do away with any day care costs as far as Bailey's concerned.

So I guess we'll see. Hopefully we will be hearing from the school soon so that we can figure out how this will all work. I'm not against it; on the contrary, I think it's a smart idea. Do you think I could convince the Mayo Clinic to follow suit so I could work a 4-day week? Nah, probably not.

It's been a busy weekend! Completely consumed by running & marathons. It all revolved around the Med-City Marathon - which, in case you didn't know, is so named because Rochester has given itself "The Med City" as somewhat of a nickname. (I like it.)

So Saturday morning was the Med-City Kids' Marathon. They run 25 miles in 1/2-mile increments, and then run the final 1.2 on race day. Honestly, I'm not sure how hard my kids trained. They both swore up & down that they ran all of the 1/2 miles - and I don't think they lied. They did both have to walk during part of their mile, but that's ok - they both still finished. Maybe we should've carbed them up on Friday night. :)

 

 

 

 

 

Brian was planning to run the marathon on Sunday with his friend Erik, so Saturday night we had Erik and his family over to our house for the big carb feed. Spaghetti, mac & cheese, garlic cheese bread, and a salad for good measure. I was pretty carbed up myself, although I had no good reason to be (other than the fact that I'm going to have to temporarily give them up soon). Brian slept surprisingly well last night - I'm not sure I would have been able to. At 5:30 this morning I took Brian & Erik out to the start line in a neighboring town.

By the time I'd gotten home & showered, it was time to go out to cheer them on at the first designated marker, Mile 9. For some reason I forgot the camera at this stop. Then it was on to Mile 14:

 

Erik's wife Erin was also helping to cheer them on with their kids. We staggered the stops so that they'd have plenty of support & sustenance when they needed it. She saw them at Mile 17, and then Bailey, Joey, & I caught them again at Mile 20.

The nice thing about the later part of the race was that the runners were spread out enough that I could get out on the trail to get a good picture.

We next stopped at Mile 24. Eventually they started to approach the finish line.

As they turned that last corner to the finish line, I actually got choked up. Just because he'd worked so hard for this, and I was (and am) so proud of him for sticking to it and doing something that was stinkin' HARD. There's no way I'd ever even attempt it.

Their two goals were to finish without having to walk any of the race, and to do it in under 5 hours. As you can see, they made the time goal, and they also didn't have to walk. They said it helped a lot to have all the support that they did. What was really cool was the random support that all the runners get as they're running along. You don't have to know the people running, you just cheer for them as they run by because they're undertaking such a huge thing. It's like a giant support system.

So after we had a bit to eat, the guys headed off to the massage they'd booked. Before the massage they could barely walk, and afterward, Brian was feeling pretty good. I suppose now he thinks he's going to need a massage after every marathon. :) I think they're out in the hot tub now with margaritas - a well-deserved treat, I'd say.

I'm getting ready to go to bed but thought I'd hop on Vox for a second. It's a lot of work catching up on blogs!

If you are my Facebook friend then you might have seen that somehow I've actually managed to get A's in four of the five study guide courses I've taken this semester. Which is a shocker when you consider I've been averaging somewhere around an 80% for most of them. I guess that's considered good for these study guides, though, as they're meant to prepare us for the board exam and according to the coordinator, if we get a 70-80% then we're doing well. I can't help but hope that the boards aren't as tough as the study guides. Oh well, whatever. As long as I pass.

Oh yeah, I say "four of the five" because I'm still not done with Immunology. I was supposed to be done the 15th. I'm such a slacker. I'm getting there. Problem is, though, that the summer semester has already begun, in which I'm taking Hematology, with a lab that starts June 1. I think the assumption is that I've at least STARTED the lecture material before the lab. Yikes. I'm using Monday and also taking Tuesday and Friday of next week to get caught up, i.e. get done with Immunology. I've pretty much lost interest in it.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Moving from the "being a student" to the "being a teacher" front, my CLS students finished their blood bank rotation today. They've completely spoiled me for any future classes I will ever have because they were so fun and all did so well. I will miss them but I'm happy to be able to focus on other things at work for a while, such as the huge project I've been leading for the last 11 months - I'm ready to wrap it up! And I know the students were ready to be done, as this is their last course before graduation.

Sheesh, what in the world am I going to do with myself with no school, no students, and the competency assessment procedure off my back? Maybe I'll get my personality back and will blog more!

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Tonight for supper I attempted to recreate the hamburger with cheese, bacon, & fried egg that I had for lunch the other day. They were pretty good, although not quite as good as Newt's. (Completely irrelevant side note: on that webpage for Newt's, the two blondes at the top of the page are my coworker's daughters.) Brian and the kids loved them, though. (The hamburgers, not the blondes.) I was going to take a picture to put up here but I didn't know where the camera was and I was hungry. Trust me when I say my hamburger looked stunning.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Brian's going to run the Med-City Marathon on Sunday, his first ever. Tomorrow, Bailey and Joey are running the kids' marathon, where they had to run 25 miles in 1/2 mile increments. Tomorrow they will run 1.2 miles and then will get a medal. They'll get to cross the same finish line as the big people when they run the grown-up race. I'm hoping to get some pictures. Tell me why it is that my kids can run a mile without hardly trying, and for me to run a mile I have to train up to it and even then I can barely do it. I think my lack of endurance can only be explained by a mitochondrial disorder. (OK, not really.)

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

We got a new roof this week thanks to some hail a few weeks ago. Insurance paid for it, minus the deductible. The guys who did the shingles did a nice job, but in the process wreaked plenty of havoc. Apparently they were thowing stuff down from the garage roof & somehow chipped the paint on the garage door. So they decided to go into the garage and look for some spray paint to "fix" it. (I know, right?) Well, in doing so they tripped the security system (we had been told they wouldn't need to get into the house so we'd set it when leaving for the day) and with no one around to disarm it, the police were dispatched. Then the dumb thing started going haywire and had gone off two additional times by the time Brian got home from work. I sure hope we don't get a fee from the police department. A guy came today and fixed that, so I guess we're good on the alarm system.

The roofers also messed up our DirecTV antenna while they were working, so we were without that for a day or so. (Thank goodness we could get the American Idol finale over the antenna!) When the guy came to fix it yesterday, we had figured all that was needed was a slight adjustment. Nope - we needed a whole new dish because whatever those crazy roofers did, they bent up the actual dish. How one would do that I have no idea, unless they dropped it. Anyway, that's all fixed and I think between the two repair calls the cost won't be too bad.

But the roof does look nice.

 

I haven't done this in forever! 

Today I loathe:

• My inability to finish this semester strong. I'm really struggling. It's not that I've lost interest in the subject matter, but I have lost interest in spending all my time on this. I'm fantasizing too much about actually having free time. :)
• Thinking about American Idol tonight, I will be very upset if Danny goes home. He's way better than Kris. Everyone knows Adam's going to win, so in a way I think tonight is the finale, Kris vs. Danny.
• That I heard this song on the radio today coming home from work and I can't figure out what it is! I didn't get a good enough grip on the lyrics to google them, the radio station doesn't post the songs they've played, and of course the DJ was no help. The song had kind of a Maroon 5-ish feel to it (but I know it wasn't M5), and there was a very simple but catch bass line at the beginning and throughout that had a very string-ish sound. (Does that make sense, it was the type of sound you'd hear in a band room, not on the radio.) Any ideas on what it might be? I'm streaming Maroon 5 on Pandora to see if it comes up (which I think it did sometime over the weekend).

Today I like:

• Awards night at AWANA. Not only that it's the end of year for the kids (which means we get our Tuesday nights back until fall), but they both finished their workbooks this year - which is no small feat! My kids make me proud. :)
• Brach's Milk Maid caramels. Yum.
• As aforementioned, American Idol. And speaking of reality TV, I'm happy that my team won on The Amazing Race.
• My students. We are on week 5 of 6 so I think we're all tired (and this is their last rotation before graduation so they've got to be so ready to be done!), but they're so good - smart, positive, cooperative, always have their stuff done, let me know if they're going to be late/absent. I got lucky but now I'm going to be spoiled for next year!
• That I borrowed an immunology book from a coworker that is actually helping me understand this stuff!
• This necklace & bracelet, part of what I got for hosting a Silpada party. I love how colorful & pretty they are.

OK, gotta go. Happy Tuesday!

So it's Mother's Day, which normally makes me feel kind of weird, because I don't want to be honored as the mother I am - which is to say, a mother with many shortcomings. I do ok, but there are a lot of things that I "should" be doing as a mom that I'm not. Volunteering at school, playing games with my kids, fixing all their problems, etc. And I'm certainly not the most compassionate mom ever born. But I am who I am, and while there are better moms out there, there are also much worse ones. So today I stayed home from church (again) to try to keep up on my schoolwork, and after the rest of them had come home, Joey was hugging me and singing a little song he made up that went, "Happy Mommy's Day, to the best mommy in the world!" I kind of giggled (mainly because he's cute) and he said, "What? You are the best mommy in the world!"

That made me stop and think a little bit. Because while I'm thinking about all the bad aspects of my abilities as a mom, all they see is the good. True, they have little to compare it to as I'm the only mom they've ever had, but they've seen me at my worst and still have unconditional love for me. I'm sure that when they grow up they (like most adults) will have a mental list of Ways My Mom Messed Me Up, but for now there's none of that. It's humbling. And it makes me want to do my best to be the best mom for them that I can be.

Happy Mother's Day to all you moms reading this!

I'm so tired. It's only 6:30, on a Friday night even, and I'm thinking about going to bed. I make mysefl laugh because I so don't have a life. Ah well, it's all good.

Do you ever think about how your life might have turned out differently had you made different decisions at different points of your life? I don't regret anything in my life other than not having done all this school stuff 15 years ago when I should have done it. That and maybe not having gone to med school. But it's intriguing. For example, I met my husband while on a work trip over spring break at my college. I didn't have the money it cost to go, and my parents came up with it - I don't even remember asking them for the money. And how drastically did my life change? He is truly my other half. But what if we had never met that week? There were lots of Spring Service Projects - what if I'd gone on a different one, like the glamorous trips to New Orleans or Mexico, instead of to boring South Bend, Indiana? Would I be married to someone else? Who would my kids be? Or would Brian and I have met in some other capacity at another time because we were meant to be?

Also, the way I came into my job. It's a long story, but I kind of fell into blood banking. Now I love it.

I also wonder if seemingly random conversations or decisions affect our lives in certain ways, with long-lasting impact that we don't even realize. Unintentional things that people have said and done to me have impacted me deeply, some for the good and some for the bad. I wonder if those people know that. More gravely, how have my random comments and actions affected other people?

You know, every now & then you'll see a TV show or something where a person goes back in time and sees how every single decision they've made over time leads up to their current situation - which often, as the plot turns out, isn't as bad as they think.  It's interesting to think about, isn't it?