Amy Pickett

H1N1

The flu news has been driving me nuts lately, and by driving me nuts I mean, it's been keeping me up at night. Ginnie gets her vaccine on Monday for it, but until two weeks she gets the 2nd dose she still won't be protected. And for all of the deaths the media has such an easy time posting, they don't post how many people have gotten over it with no complications, or with help from antibiotics. It's very hard to keep it all in perspective right now.

I remember chatting with a mom when she was in the early stages of pregnancy a year or two ago, and I realized halfway into the conversation that she was picking my brain about what the symptoms for miscarriage were. At that point I stopped the conversation and said, "You really don't want to talk to me about this. What you need is reassurance, and I can tell you that according to statistics, you'll be fine." And she was. I wish the media would do the same regarding the flu.

Two Excellent Vegetarian Recipe Books

People always ask funny questions about what they can possibly feed us when we come over for dinner, and these two books really underline my philosophy on cooking:

• Vegetarian Planet, by Didi Emmons and

• Passionate Vegetarian, by Crescent Dragonwagon (what a name, eh?)

Using these books is different that learning to substitute meat in your meal. It's more like learning how to cook without relying on meat - it's just relying on really good recipes. I think meat-eaters would enjoy most of the recipes in these books too - there are lots of adventurous recipes and some good everyday ones too. So there ya go.

Crisis of Vacation Brain

We went up to Denver and visited with Neale's sister and her family for a long weekend, and it was a ton of fun. I love seeing Ginnie and Ariana have such a good time together - they're both at fun ages, and I think they've really bonded this year because of the visiting efforts between households. Ginnie got to chase down an ice cream truck, because they live in the Big City and actually have ice cream trucks! It was quite the effort, too - we had Dave and Neale chasing that thing up and down streets, until Dave caught it and sent it our way. Ginnie's eyes got huge when she realized what the guy in the truck was selling! They also played in the wading pool in their backyard quite a bit, and we got to sample Dave's beer, which is very good. We even did blind taste-testing to make sure it was good and it was better than some German import we tested it against. So lots of beer and ice cream I guess. We went to the pool, the library and the park, several restaurants, and basically had a great time.

On the way home I started yammering at Neale about whether or not I should go ahead and finish this stupid degree I'm working on. Stupid, you say Amy? Yes. Kind of. I'm really worried that I won't be able to do the distance grad degree since New Mexico doesn't fund SLPAs (assistants) and that is what I have to be employed as to get the grad degree. The school district here has been pretty much as unhelpful as they can possibly be, so the best I can hope for is to finish the degree and work as a TA in the schools, and hope that they need a TA for one of the SLPs and that I get assigned to one. Or, I will have commute to UNM in ABQ, and there are days when I feel very optimistic that we could pull that off as a family, and there are days when I ask myself "What. the hell. am I thinking." Albuquerque is a good two hours away, and even two days a week that seems like it would be overwhelming for me to know that I can't be there for my family those evenings. On the other hand, it wouldn't last for forever, and who knows.

So right now I'm really not sure how to proceed. I'm going to hope that one of the three SLPs I emailed will get back to me this week when they go back to work, but if they don't it will be really demoralizing...more so that I already feel. I mean, I'm offering to volunteer for them. Free work, people. Take me up on my offer already. I also need those observation hours, sooo, let's go people. I also checked the schools' employment vacancies and they have two SLP vacancies suddenly. This is encouraging to me because that is promising employment at the end of this long process. But I need someone to WORK WITH ME!

Ok, I'm done with summer

I've never been a summer person. I far prefer the other three seasons, and this year I was done with summer after the 4th of July. Now I'm really done with summer, since the monsoons are slowing and it's just plain hot again. I like fall, with its routine, the pretty colors, the crisp air in the mornings, the festivals and events I can look forward to (even if I don't go), like Zozobra, and the balloon fiesta in Albuquerque, and of course Halloween, and I've enjoyed going to Ginnie's preschool's Fall Fiesta, too. This is our third and final year with the preschool, and also the first year we don't have to volunteer to run it, since we've already fulfilled our volunteer hours. Neat!

So bring on fall! My pumpkins are not going to be ready in time for Halloween though, thanks to the hailstorm. Oh well.

Redheads are a pain

And in other weird science news...redheads now have an excuse to be complete wusses. I don't know if I buy this, but for me being even just part-redhead (depending on sun exposure) this might explain a couple of weird things that have happened when I had my gum grafts done and when I woke up after my thyroidectomy. I had to go back in to get something cleaned out after the grafts were done on my gums, and the tech starts numbing me, and kept numbing me, and I was still squirming around while she was doing this cool laser-cleaning thing that was very painful...finally she got frustrated and said "I can't BELIEVE you can still feel this!" Hm! And then when I woke up after getting my thyroid out I was immediately in complete pain - to the point of panicking - and the nurse started getting angry with the surgeon and the anesthesiologist for not sending me out with more pain killers in my system. I guess maybe there was something else going on here...anyway, I actually think I have a fairly high pain tolerance...sometimes...but maybe I'm using my defensive pessimist side to compensate for being a complete wuss.

Pocket Sport and the Lazy O logo

I finally researched and decided what my Bike Friday bike was going to be, and since Neale's so ga-ga over his I went ahead and ordered it. I'm pretty excited about it. It will be nice to have an option for longer rides and in case my Rodriguez acts up. Here it is - the components are nicer than my Rodriguez, and it has bar-end shifters! neat! The Pocket Sport is the stock option of the lower-end version of Neale's bike. ha, that makes it sound cheap. Did I mention that it folds?! So the true test is going to be if the ligament in my right hand is all better. I've taken time off of traditional drop bars because braking really hurt, so hopefully there won't be an issue there.

Neale's sister April drew up our Lazy O Bee Ranch logo, which I think is so hilarious, and totally what we were thinking of! Can you find the Lazy O? I love the idea of herding bees!! Thank you April!

Comb honey

Neale and the bees have made nice, and in a show of friendship the bees gave us a bar of capped honey (well, not fully capped unfortunately, but it was a problem bar. they needed to make room for a renovation in the hive, apparently).

Now what...

My anatomy class ended on more of a whimper than I had hoped. Several things happened at once this week which all lead to me not studying as much as I probably could have for the final exam. One, Neale stayed late at work a few times, Ginnie was in tantrum mode, and I just got to the end of my rope with giving a care about the class. Oh well, I still got a high B on the last test, and a very solid A average in the class. I'm happy. As Neale said, I didn't study any more than I needed to. That is certainly a difference between the student I am now and the student I was before Ginnie came along. I can be happy with my scores in the class, because they were plenty good enough, although not perfect, and I got to spend time with Ginnie still.

We've been approached to host an exchange student this fall. I've been testing the waters with friends and family and the response is completely positive, which is encouraging, because this was a little unplanned. Now we're looking forward to it, and I'm happy that we can put our scads of living space upstairs to good use. We actually have everything we need for the student - bed (with a new mattress no less), desk, lighting, and the only thing was a dresser. Since we never actually bought a new dresser for Ginnie when we got her bed a couple of years ago, I went into CB Fox and got a great deal on a six drawer dresser. They were running a 20% off sale, and threw in another 10% off for a "scratch", which basically got me a larger dresser for just a little more than what a three drawer dresser would have been. Neat! It's the low kind of dresser that can take a mirror on top, to turn into kind of a vanity for her for when she's into the vanity thing. So now the cute little dresser that was a hand-me-down from the Robinsons will belong to the exchange student while she's here. We just need to finish cleaning out the bedroom upstairs of stupid odds and ends we should have gotten rid of a long time ago. We're giving her the north bedroom upstairs, with the twin daybed and the desk, and we'll still have the south bedroom with the queen-sized bed for guests, not to mention the pullout downstairs.

So after that little errand for the dresser we ran around town taking pictures to send to the student, and then ran home and got the application and pictures together for the exchange program. Did I mention we started teaching our bike class today? I think I'm the queen of multitasking. Ginnie got to spend what sounded like a fun evening with the babysitter tonight. That's good, because I really haven't been able to do much fun stuff with her this week.

Happy early birthday to Neale and now I'm totally wiped out. More bike class tomorrow, which don't get me wrong, is pretty fun. And then Neale's off to Las Vegas (maybe), and then when he gets back we're off to Denver for a few days, and then home in time for our student to arrive. Oh well, you can't say we don't live life to the fullest. I guess we could try skydiving.

There are days...

when I need a reminder that there is a world outside of this town, and so today Ginnie and I headed for Santa Fe. We met up with her grandparents, and we had good time poking around a yarn shop on Paseo de Peralta (ok, that was mainly me), and then over to Hobby Lobby and then to lunch. I found out that Home Depot carries the 12 foot length redwood boards we need for the deck, which means that we don't have to buy the 18 foot ones the guy at Ace was trying to talk us into. This is good, because the joists under the seams between the short boards on the deck looked a little rotted. Just under the seams though, so I think we'll be getting the 12 foot boards, thank you very much.

I decided to skip the chaos of Neale being out of town next week on top of me having my final exam by moving the final exam to this Friday. This means that this is study week, which is fine. I'm ready to be done with this stuff. I'm still scratching my head a bit as to why we're doing an Embryology section, because the relevant thing (cleft palates and lips and their variations) is rushed over in lecture. I basically got from lecture that the palatine arches or folds or whichever fail to fuse at the midline (or their fusion is interrupted) because of environmental, hereditary, or unknown factors. Soooo, we had to learn about mitosis again because of that?...what's the point? Well, at least it's interesting. I think it's pretty amazing, this cell differentiation stuff. But I guess it's not that amazing if you take into account how much control DNA has. Anyway, I'm ready to move on from this class. And also, on those early pictures of embryos, up to six weeks or so, those aren't their eyes on the front of the prosencephalon. Those'd be their nasal pits. The eyes are on the sides of the head. So there, I finally done learned somethin'.

I'm already itching to get our bedroom painted, which is my project for the weeks I'm off from school. That and the baseboards in the living room, hallway and our bedroom. Ginnie's baseboards could use touching up, since pulling the carpet up exposed more of the boards. Today I briefly entertained the idea of painting the mudroom, which may still happen. It desperately needs it, although it would mean draining the water storage container and moving the freezer...hmmm, we shall see. It would probably end up the color of the dining room or living room, since I don't care too much about what color it is, and I still have plenty of that paint.

Other things to look forward to until mid-August: the rest of season 4 of Battlestar is out in 7 days, which means I'll have something to watch on TV. It is amazing how much TV we don't watch anymore, so I get excited when something I want to see is about to come on the boob tube. Also, Lisa and her family hit town in two weeks, and then we have a Denver trip after that. A Denver trip without crazy amounts of snow and ice and scary freeway traffic because of the two former things. yay!

Tonight it is raining steadily, which feels very homey to me.

complete deck remodel

We've scrapped our original plan to try to salvage as many boards as we can for the deck. The boards were too rotted and old to put up with nail-pulling and prying off of the joists. Joists, apparently, are the long boards that sit on top of the support beams. The joists look questionable in areas, and that pretty much means that we have to rebuild completely. If we put a good board down on a bad joist, that would mean revisiting the same issue in two years instead of 25. sigh Of course it's the demolition that is taking the longest. I hate pulling nails. I hate pulling staples. And we've done a lot of that with the carpet removal last November, and now this. PLEASE let the home remodeling end!

This afternoon our daily rainstorm moved over, and we threw the tarp over the exposed joists (this was before we decided to scrap them all). Well, the dogs forgot that we had been pulling boards, so the Dink jumped up onto the tarp and promptly sank underneath the deck. Haha. Poor guy. He struggled for a second, and then sat down and looked up at me like "Ok, I don't know what to do." Of course Jada had to come and check in out, and wound up doing the same thing! Dogs! They cracked us up today.