Is It Really Brave?

After one day of post vacation wrap up I was bored with that so no more of that. The one thing I did want to write about was my flight home from vacation, which was hell.

First, Greg didn't take a good morning nap.

Second, Charlotte had caught another cold from a little boy in Colorado.

Third, Greg didn't take a good afternoon nap, but he did take one.

Result, one sleepy boy that didn't want to sleep. One hacking girl that might at any time puke all over everyone. She was a very cute time bomb.

Most of the flight went really well considering. I tried to get Greg to sleep while I could, but he didn't want to and then the seat belt sign was turned on and no more of the walking the plane. As the pilot told us we were beginning our dissent into St. Louis Charlotte fell totally asleep and Greg decided to scream. And by scream I mean beet red face, full lung force, screaming. Yes, my child was that child and I was that mom. There was nothing I could do. I tried everything, but nothing helped.

Then we landed amid screams and I had to wake Charlotte up to get off the plane because I can't carry two bags and two kids and make it through the narrow aisle. Make no mistake, I could probably physically carry all that for the short trip to the stroller, but the aisle was in my way. But Charlotte was so very asleep that she would not wake up. Would. not. do. it. When she did wake up she started to cry and then tried to go back to sleep on the seat. So there I am with two children crying and dragging them off the plane. As I strap them into the stroller the other passengers are filing past me staring at the show the three of us are putting on. Every so often a kind woman stops me and says that I shouldn't feel bad, there was nothing I could do, it was unavoidable. Which sort of just makes me feel worse because that means they all know it was me.

Awful. Just awful.

But that wasn't really what I wanted to talk about. What I wanted to talk about was the reaction that I have gotten every time I have traveled without Dan. I hear over and over again how brave I am for doing it alone. Do single mothers get this sort of reaction where ever they go? "You're so brave to be flying with two kids alone!" Did I somehow give off an alone and helpless vibe? Because here's the thing. As bad as that flight was, having Dan around really wouldn't have changed a whole lot. He wouldn't have been allowed to get up and walk the aisle with Greg after the seat belt sign was on. Carrying Charlotte would only have worked for so long. She was sick and just wanted to be in bed. It wasn't a matter of being brave, it was a matter of doing what had to be done. We were in Denver and we needed to be in St. Louis, so we went. It just strikes me as odd is all.

You Mean Like On Vay-Kay?

We're back from vacation #3 in 3 months. Sadly, I couldn't take any photos of this one because when unpacking from vacation #2 I stored the battery charger some place really safe and now it's missing and the battery died. So no photos. So now I'm going to have to write everything down. Lucky you.

First, I forgot to bring with us the object d'art my daughter made for her aunt and uncle and when she realized it she was sad and "frustrated" with me. So we ended up using markers on the plane to create another piece of art on the air sickness bag. Katie and the ear doctor loved it. It's on their fridge.

On Thursday we went to the Denver Children's Museum. If we lived there I would probably get a membership because it is awesome for kids Charlotte's age. Charlotte's favorite part was probably the 4 and under section with small houses that she got to play in. Greg also loved that section. Well, I'm guessing he did because that's where he decided to start moving his feet in a forward direction! You got it. He has always liked standing, but previous to last Thursday he didn't even really lift his feet up. Then Thursday he decided to start moving around.

He's pretty cute all wobbly and hanging from my hands sometimes, but clearly moving toward a target. As soon as I can find the battery charger I'm going to share a movie with everyone because now all he wants to do is walk from toy to toy. Not very good for mommy's back.

I think that's it for today.

A Reminder

After yesterdays post, I thought I'd share a little of what I read that was 100% what I needed to hear. So here it is.

Sleepy

I probably shouldn't post right now because I'm tired. I'm very tired and that's all I can think about. tired.tired.tired. Saturday I woke up thinking, "Today's the day my house will be rid of wallpaper. I will not stand for it one more day." So I spent the entire day doing just that. And NOTHING else. I'd like to tell you all that I'm very proud of my victory over the wallpaper. In fact the paper in the kids room practically fell off on its own in defeat. Then Sunday came around and I can't bring myself to do anything but the bare minimum on Sunday. (Interpret that however you want.) So today I woke up thinking, "Oh crap, I've got a lot of cleaning, organizing, and packing to do before Wednesday." Or at least that's what I would have been thinking had I woken up on my own.

What really happened was that my son has decided that if Dad's up, so is he. He has awakened at 5:30 everyday for a week. Up until today Dan's been gone out of the house by then, but not this morning. Mostly I just ignore the cries for as long as it takes him to quit and go back to sleep, which he generally does within 15-60 minutes of the initial cries. Today however, not only did he wake up, but so did Charlotte, and so did the cat, and Dan didn't leave quite so early so they never went back to sleep. We all started our days at 5:30. So I can't really write what I was thinking when I woke up this morning because it's not something I would ever say out loud.

So then I got working on cleaning the house and do you know how hard it is to clean the house when every half hour or so you have to stop and take at least 10 minutes to entertain the kids? I've spent all day cleaning and I've only touched the upstairs, but you should see the beauty that is my bedroom. My sanctuary as I like to call it. Oh, but if you saw the kitchen. I'll get to that next, right after my nap.

Family Date Night

Today Daniel unexpectedly came home from the hospital early. Two hours early! I knew I had to jump on that opportunity for time with him before he decided that the best use of his time would be to sleep. (Probably it would be the best use at this point, but he's strong. He can handle sleeplessness.) I quickly came up with four options for a family activity for us to do.

1. Go miniature golfing.
2. Go to The Magic House.
3. Go to Monkey Joes.
4. Go to the Mall and let Charlotte run around the indoor play area.

After an hour of hemming and hawing, guess which one he chose? If you guessed #4 you win. Pat yourself on the back for knowing how my husband's two top priorities are: to not spend money and to run around the least ammount.

It ended up being such a wonderful family date night. Charlotte played to her hearts content and then we walked around a sporting goods store where she played some more. Dan and I got to talk about stuff, and Greg has decided that he likes to flip backwards off my lap. He does this while I'm holding his hands. On our way out we walked through Nordstrom where I happened upon a wonderful little hat that was on sale. So I decided to take some of my Christmas money and buy it. It is really cute and I'm happy. Dan said, "I thought you didn't wear hats." I told him, "I don't wear them because I don't have them." So now that I have one I'm going to have to experiment with it.

Choices

I'm really sad that Charlotte can't have all her clothing when we go on vacation. This is because with the restricted choices that I pack for her she ends up being fairly well put together most days. This does not reflect her typical awesome clothing choices at home. For example, we went to the Magic House the other day and as I looked around at all the other little girls there I felt a little chagrin at what my daughter was wearing. Among all the matching outfits with tights, boots and matching hair bows was my daughter. That morning she had chosen to wear a long sleeve off white shirt under a bright white T-shirt with little hearts on it. Did I mention the short sleeve shirt was backwards? Oh! Also she wanted to wear brown pants and since her brown pants were in the wash she decided to take another pair of pants and turn them inside out so the brown was showing, along with all the seams and the tag which was in the front because she insisted on wearing that backwards too.

Today at least everything is on right side out and forward. It is a hot pink dress with red pants on, but that's not bad right? The bad part was her insistence on wearing the purple hat with it.

Am I a bad mom because I don't really want to fight over clothing? There are just so many, many other things I do have to struggle about. My entire day feels a little like one long negotiation wherein I'm trying my best not to loose my patience. I do take a stand on Sundays and for photos, but other than that I figure I've got it made when she's actually wearing clothing.

Karma

When I was little, I want to say in the neighborhood of 5, my sister and I did a bad thing. A very bad thing. While my parents were busy with something else we got out a 5 gallon jug of honey and decided to give ourselves a snack. Did I mention our snack was a five gallon jug of honey? Seriously what were my parents thinking having something like that lying around? It seemed pretty innocent in our minds-or maybe just mine, I can't speak for she who got me into every danger of my childhood. By the time my mother caught us we were shoulder deep in honey and had pet the dog several times. Honey everywhere. Needless to say the incident has made its way to family lore.

Well, this morning karma came and bit me hard. Our breakfast routine has pretty much cemented itself over the last year. I get the bowls, vitamins and place mats ready while Charlotte gets the cereal out of the pantry. As I was getting the vitamins ready I heard a pretty loud thud, but as there was no accompanying crying I ignored it. Big mistake. By the time I found out that Charlotte had knocked the 5 lb (80 oz) jug of honey off the shelf and the lid had flown off, half the contents were on the floor. At that point, or perhaps after I had it cleaned up, I kind of smiled to myself. What goes around comes around I guess. At least it wasn't on the child, or any dogs.

The First Photo

For Christmas Daniel's parents gave us a new computer and I love it. It if didn't break it I would pour chocolate sauce over it and eat it I love it so much. Today I just downloaded our Christmas and winter photos off my camera onto the computer. Here are a few of them to remind me that we are managing to have some fun along the way.
Sledding down our front yard.
After Charlotte made her snow angel she made mommy and daddy make them too. She also insisted on wearing the 12-18 month size snow suit. It was pretty funny on her.

Snow fight with Daddy.

Christmas Day. Greg sure does love these balls.

Charlotte loves to dress up. She got to be a construction worker with her Christmas presents.

Snow Day 2

Yesterday, after it snowed through the night, we ended up with 3-5 inches, in my estimation. You know what that means? What it means is no school. If there is no school some smart (read: despirate) mommy sends her school aged child out the door with a smart attempt at earning money. What that leads to is said child bundled up carrying a garden shovel asking if I want my steps shoveled. They'd gladly shovel them for the sum of $10. And when faced with the cute faced, industrious, little bamboozler I cave and say sure. Then about 15 minutes later I'm out $10 and only half the steps shoveled and the sidewalk not even touched.

To sidestep this entire situation I got out first thing in the morning and shoveled the darn things myself. Then the little sharks wouldn't even come knocking on my door. As I was doing this a neighbor from a few houses down was dusting off her car to leave for the day. On her way back inside she remarks to me, "Not just a man's job is it?" I laughed and agreed with her, and then got to thinking. As I went to the back of the house to shovel a pathway to our car I decided that there are very few jobs in our house that are strictly "man's jobs." In order to be a totally Daniel's job I have to hate doing it enough and be able to and step around it long enough for him to do it when he gets home from the hospital. Which has slowly cut down on the jobs I consider just for him. It used to be taking out the garbage, puke, and dead animals, but none of those things can I step around if they crop up during the day. I just have to suck it up and do them. Sure he does the bulk of those jobs, but they surly aren't just man's jobs. So are there any of you out there with "man's jobs" in your relationship?

Back in the Saddle

Well, with the first week of surgical rotation under our belt, I figured I'd tell you all how it's going. Daniel loves it. He came home the other day delighted because he actually got to scrub in on a pediatric orthopedic case. It was a trauma case, so a little tragic, but also pretty awesome on a learning sort of perspective and also it sounds as though the patient will be able to make a full recovery after some time.

On the home front it's been a little difficult. Mostly because it's giving me a taste of whats to come. It's hard, but we're making it through. On top of him not being home I've got a stinking cold and a deep bruise in my foot where I think I must have stepped on some sort of toy. So I'm limping around the house with my head about to explode. On the plus side I've cleaned out the sewing room and put toys in it. Yesterday Charlotte, Greg and I spent an hour in there playing with a few of our old toys. When I said it was time for Greg to take a nap and me to go Charlotte said, "But I don't want to go! I love my playroom!" Which I thought was pretty funny because it was all our old toys. Hopefully I'll be able to organize all the displaced items soon. With my hurt foot and all it might take me a while though.

Crazy

My mother was crazy. I thought a few months ago as I stood at the kitchen sink hand washing the last of the pots and pans from dinner. I had just made a dinner to be proud of, two vegetable sides, a main dish that turned out nicely, and even a little something for dessert. It had taken a long time to create, but was oh so good. Greg was now in bed dreaming his baby dreams and I was half listening to Daniel read a story to Charlotte and half thinking my own thoughts about how my mom was crazy. I love listening to him read to her or play with her or teach her something. Lately he's been trying to give her a little Spanish vocabulary. He'll say para agua (or however you spell umbrella in Spanish) and she'll repeat palalala.

Back to my point though, my mom's crazy. I had recently been made aware of what is apparently a common debate in marriages, that being whether dirty dishes go on the counter or in the sink, and my total ignorance of this debate I put squarely on my mom's shoulders. You see in my family growing up neither of those options were acceptable. Dirty dishes went in the dishwasher. If it was full you would empty it in order to get your dirty dish in. If it wouldn't fit into the dirty dishwasher you hand washed it. In fact once I remember being on vacation at my cousins' house and my aunt upon finding a dirty cereal bowl in the sink heatedly asking my cousins, "When is is OK to put a dirty dish in the sink?" And trying my very best to telepathically give them the right answer never, never, NEVER. And then they said, "When the dishwasher is full." Wherein beatings commenced.

So there I am at the sink, the dishwasher swooshing away merrily with its cleaning job, finishing putting away the last of the dried pots and pans (because a job isn't done until the last tool is put away), and generally cleaning the kitchen. The stove top is sparkling and the floor is swept. I'm feeling pretty good about my job and thinking about how my mom was crazy about overreacting to having to do so many dishes. Though it had taken me almost an hour to get the kitchen to this height of cleanliness I actually had been enjoying myself. It had been kind of nice to have the moment alone.

Afterward, Daniel got Charlotte ready for bed and I collapsed, exhausted from the day's tasks into the recliner. As I looked around I noticed that the books hadn't been put away, but that's no big deal, and the blankets hadn't been folded, but again not that hard to fix. So I get up and fix them. Dan comes down to do some research on the computer and I decide to go into my sparkling kitchen to get a glass of water.

On entering the kitchen I get so much more than a glass of water. I come to have a greater understanding of the eye twitch that my mom would sometimes get when provoked. Right there in the middle of the spotless counter, my daughter had left a spilled cup of juice. And as my eye started twitching I realized, yes, my mother was crazy, and I made her that way!

The Aftermath

We made it through the holidays and now we're back. Charlotte stayed up until 1:30 AM last night because we got in late, but other than that we mostly feel normal. Our Christmas vacation was unbelievably awesome. I actually had time to spend with my husband. Since we don't usually get that I sometimes forget how awesome and fun he is to spend time with. We basically spent two weeks watching HGTV and let me tell you there is nothing like spending two weeks of beautiful homes, and remodel homes, and homes to sell to give you the renovate, redecorate bug. My new jobs I've decided to do are:

• Finish taking down the stinking wall paper finally! You'd think I could finish that project, but since I'm almost done with it I somehow feel like it will perhaps finally declare defeat and jump off the wall by itself.
• Rip up the linoleum on the stairs. And also the metal treads. I've wanted this done for a while, but it has never been to the top of my list. I guess it still isn't, but I would like to have it done.
• And finally I'd like to repurpose the sewing room. Let's face it, I haven't done any serious sewing in a while. What I'd like to do is transform it into a play room that could also give me easy access to set up sewing if I would like. Mostly I feel like we have this wonderful space that has a door closed to it all day every day and we could really use that space.
• Also, and this is totally optional, I would love to sew a quilt for our queen bed that is about a foot wider than either of the quilts we currently use on it. Since neither quilt was sewn for a queen size bed, it's probably time to get cracking on that one.

More on these projects to come. (Hopefully)

Dance As If No One Were Watching

A few nights ago Grandma and Grandpa took all of us to see The Princess and The Frog and it is a very good movie. Perhaps my favorite part was during one really exciting jazzy song my daughter turns to me and loudly whispers, "Hold my popcorn. I need to dance!" Then proceeds to give me her popcorn and dances right there in front of her seat in the movie theater. She then danced again at the very end of the movie. So it was a big hit for our family.

Out Of Commission

Sorry for the looooong lack of posts. Our pretty new, sleek laptop broke. I took it in and as it turns out that enter key Greg pulled off ended up messing up the whole keyboard and the LCD screen also needs a total replacement. I swear we didn't do anything to it, but hp swears that's the only way this could have happened. So now we're waiting on the parts and everything. I had to get out our old laptop. This thing has serious issues that make it rather impossible to do anything. So I'll probably be unplugged until the new one returns home.

Terrifying

Today Charlotte went to the dentist for the first time, which is so not the terrifying part to this post. In fact I enjoy going to the dentist very much. But that's where the story begins. We were going to the dentist. Our neighborhood is set up very much like a lot of city neighborhoods were around the time it was built. The houses ring a block that has an alley intersecting it so our backyard looks onto our across the alley neighbor's backyard. That alley way is the access to people's garages or parking pads so you don't have to park on the street and worry about getting parking tickets each month during street cleaning day. Who can even remember when street cleaning day is? I can't so I'm really glad we have an alley and back parking area. I like the set up a lot. In fact it has facilitated me getting to know a whole slew of neighbors that I normally wouldn't have seen and quite a few handymen/maintenance guys that regularly use the alley for access to whatever house they're working on. But none of this is the terrifying part to my day. Back to the story.

I backed out of our parking pad and then pulled forward so that I could get out and close our gate. As I did this I noticed some man walking a ways further down the alley. I thought nothing of it because people use the alleys as short cuts all the time. So I put the car in park and jump out to close the gate.

When the gate is closed I turn and look towards my car to get back in it, but said man who I thought was much further down the alley is now loitering at the front passenger side bumper of my car. As I step toward the car he walks across the front of my car and starts sauntering down the driver's side of the car. Of the running car that my children are strapped into. My stomach flips upside down and my heart is in my throat when I casually say, "Hey." Usually when I say that even people who I previously thought were shady will say "How you doin?" and suddenly turn friendly. Not this scary man. He just keeps sauntering down the car looking in it and then down the alley ahead of him and then back in it.

I have made it to the back of my car and would have advanced into the driver's seat but for this figure who makes no motion to show he even sees me. Luckily he doesn't decide to steal the car and kidnap the kids. And I receive a momentary lull in terror. Then as he reaches the end of the car he drifts back to the center of the alley, which means he's heading in my direction. What am I going to do? Just as I'm in full panic mode he walks on.

What was going to happen? If the kids hadn't been in the car would I still have a car? What if he had taken my babies? What if he had attacked me? What if he was just on some sort of drugs? I have no idea, but as I got into the car my whole body was shaking from our brush with disaster.

**UPDATE**
After reading comments I just thought I'd add that I DO feel safe in my home and on my alley. I know who my neighbors are and our neighborhood. The city of St. Louis is big and noisy and diverse, but I have grown to enjoy it quite a lot. Moving here I have had to learn to really listen to my instincts about people to avoid and when to realize what I'm feeling is just preconceived fear of the unknown. I don't think that it would be a good idea to let one crazy experience in our alley jade me against living here. My more important lesson is to not be in such a hurry that I don't analyse any situation.

As far as hand guns or any other weapons I personally wouldn't feel comfortable carry them on my person. Also, I can't ever see myself feeling comfortable shooting anyone, ever. For me I think it would be good to practice and get comfortable using self defense of some nature. Or I could get my mom's T-ball bat and wear it as a necklace? If you want to carry a weapon, more power to you, but its just not for me.

Warm Fuzzies

There are probably about a billion better things you could be reading right now, but I just wanted to take a minute to tell everyone how much I love my husband at Christmastime. He loves Christmas. He loves everything about it and wishes it would snow every year for him. Unless you know him very well you would never know he is so passionate about the season because he has a very quiet, subtle passion. But when you know it seems like a little secret you share with him and the others that know him and it adds so much to the holiday spirit. I catch him humming "It's the most wonderful time of the year!" in his little hum all the time and I just love it. I love how he's instilling that joy and excitement into our kids. I also loved listening him tell Charlotte the Christmas story the other night while doing dishes.

Tonight, even though he has to take the shelf exam on Friday, when I asked that we drive around the town to look at Christmas lights he agreed. Also, when I started singing Christmas songs in the car (something I'm sure my sister would have said, "let's listen to the professionals" to) he chimed in and the two of us key surfed our way through a half hour of the songs. He even suggested some of his own. No wonder Charlotte loves to sing in the car. (Her favorite one right now is the "pum pum song" which is The Little Drummer Boy. After days of singing this song over and over she asked us tonight if the boy was "hitting his head" which put an interesting new twist to the song.)

I am just amazed at what a wonderful leader he is for our family and I love him for it.

What's Not Getting Done

When I came back from Thanksgiving break I realized that I had litterally two weeks to "do Christmas" at our house before heading back to family for the holiday. And you want to know what happens when you have a two year old, a six month old, and two weeks to get everything in? A lot of stuff doesn't get done. Because I hosted Joy School this week, and went to the library story time that Charlotte loves, and cleaned up after three accidents in the bathroom, and other errands that I do on a regular and an irregular basis we didn't make Christmas cookies. In fact, Daniel made us some peanut butter cookies with mini kisses in them and I think we might call that good. Since next week we have Christmas parties, finishing making some presents, more Joy School festivites, dentist appointments, flu shot boosters, Daniel taking the shelft, Music Makers and getting ready for vacation errands I probably wont be doing extra stuff then either. We're pretty lucky we have our decorations up at all. Most of what I'm not doing is stuff I didn't want to do anyway, but there's one thing I'm pretty sad I'm not fitting in. I'm not doing Christmas cards this year. After we went and got great family photos and everything. I just can't fit it in. So Merry Christmas to everyone I love.

In His "Off Time"

Just look at what my sweet husband installed last weekend!

First the before:


The fireplace surround is cement pressed into a broken brick pattern and then painted red.

And then the after:


Doesn't it look beautiful? In case you can't see it we picked 3"x6" travertine tiles with smaller tiles as accents. Then Daniel, who is incapable of just doing something plain, installed the tiles on the floor in a herringbone pattern. We ended up with only 4 tiles to spare. Pretty good judgement I'd say. Also, he installed a working, ventless gas log insert! It is so much fun to actually have a fire in our fireplace!

A Popular Subject

Wow! I guess a lot of you liked the last subject so I guess I'll flush out our thoughts on residency a little more. Dan wants to go into Orthopedics and is thinking of maybe specializing in either knee and hip replacement or pediatric orthopedics. Those specializing opportunities sort of color our preferences for residency since he'd need to do a year fellowship in pediatrics if that's the route he wanted to go. It would be really nice to have a year fellowship at the same place as his residency since we wouldn't really want to move our kids that much, but then again kids bounce back and he's not totally sold on the pediatric business.

Keep in mind that Dan has a list of somewhere in the neighborhood of 30 programs he's going to apply for. I once made the mistake of asking him where they all were, but then stopped listening at around 15. There's just too many possibilities and we really have very little say over where we end up. That's why I've chosen to focus on three. Three seems to be the number that my brain can actually handle.

Anyway, Daniel talked to his advisor after she'd met with someone from University of Colorado and she said it was sort of a long shot for him, even with his good board score and grades. There's just a lot of applicants and there's only really two spots open for students who didn't go there for medical school. She said though if we even wanted a shot at all he'd have to do an away rotation there. We'd really like to live in Denver because it's close to my sister and easily within driving distance to Dan's brother. We could also drive to other extended family on both sides even though that would be a long drive. Also, they have a pediatric fellowship and Daniel really likes how the residency program is set up. Knowing nothing about the programs I have no comment on that. On top of that Colorado is awesome.

She also raised concern about U of U. It is a little less difficult to get in, but, like Janelle said in the comments, their reputation is to stay away from our demographic (that being married with children and active in the Latter-Day Saint religion). Luckily Daniel didn't attend BYU as an undergrad because we've heard they really shy away from those students. I have no idea anything about the program other than Dan said it was "really good." We'd like to be in Salt Lake because it's fairly central to both sides of our extended family. Plus, I have a Grandma in Salt Lake that I'd really like to be able to live close to for health reasons.

The Mayo Clinic is also very competitive program, but each year a few students from Daniel's medical school go there for residency. They don't have a pediatric fellowship though so that's one drawback. But Daniel pretty much loves the way their program is set up. It has a lot of one on one instruction. I have heard NOTHING but positive reviews from people who have lived or vacationed there. Everyone loves it. The only cause for concern is that I looked Rochester up in my gardening book and it has the same climate zone as Siberia. SIBERIA! My husband is thinking of taking our family up to Siberia to become frozen Popsicles. He knows what a wimp I am.

So last night after reading the email from his advisor Dan said, "I guess I'm going to have to ask her what she thinks isn't a long shot for me."

Pushing Ahead

We're about halfway through third year in medical school and do you know what that means? Well neither do I when it comes to the actual schooling aspect of medical school. I guess my question should have been, do you know what that means for me? because honestly, that's way more interesting than say plugged sweat glands. Which, by the way, if Daniel ever starts to talk about those you should plug your ears and run away. At first you might think it could be one of those gross but oddly captivating stories. Then you realize that you just wish you didn't know what you now know. Trust me on this one. Saddly I know what I'm talking about.

Back to the point. Half way through third year. What happens now is that everyone starts seriously thinking and talking about where they want to apply for residency, where they want to realistically live for residency, where they'd be OK with living for residency, where they would rather poke their eyes out, but would live anyway if that's where they got matched to in residency. You know why all our friends are talking about this? Because next year they do away rotations, which is basically a month long interview where the program gets to see you at your very worst because you're still learning this stuff, but you want to make a good impression. Good luck with that one Sweetie.

Anyway, the point here is that we're talking and thinking and looking forward to moving, but we're still not done with our projects here! Or maybe that's not the point I was meaning to make, but it doesn't matter because it certainly is true. Maybe I'm seeing all these projects and getting a little panicky because I got home from vacation last night to realize that I have literally two weeks to get all our holiday stuff done before going back on vacation. Aaaaahhh!

I remember what my point was supposed to be now. My point was that I was thinking about all these places to live and realized that it doesn't really matter to me where we live as much as I previously thought it would. I think I can say with pretty good confidence now that I have lived in a variety of places in the US. Corvallis, OR-small college town filled with big-store hating, tree loving outdoorspeople. Clarkston, UT-filled with, well I don't think you can say that any place that has a population of 750 is "filled" but mostly you've got farmers. Spokane, WA- good sized city in the northwest, pretty average America I'd say. St. Louis, MO- big city. Lots of people. Lots of differences.

Anyway, I can pretty much say that I have loved every place I've lived in. Truly loved them all. Mostly people who know me can't believe that I spent a year living in a single wide in the middle of nowhere, but I loved that too. The middle of nowhere has great people living in it. So does St. Louis. I love the sights and sounds of the city. I love the sights and sounds of the country. I love it all. So I guess it doesn't really matter where we end up for residency.

PS. But just for the curious. As of right now the tops of our list for away rotation applications are:

• Mayo clinic in Rochester, MN
• University of Colorado in Denver, CO
• University of Utah in Salt Lake City, UT