Week One

I have a little crush on my second quarter of nursing school.

Endocarditis? Cardiomyopathy? Beta-blockers? QRST complex? Music to my ears. First quarter was apparently all about "milk before meat" and it left me a little unimpressed. Second quarter is starting off quite nicely with information that requires pulling out the poster paper and markers to draw large intricate diagrams to map out complex interactions and compensatory mechanisms. It's like a huge puzzle. This is the stuff I loved in A&P and I'm so excited to be working through it again.

I looked around my lab today and saw 18 students in white lab coats hanging IV bags and drawing up syringes and I couldn't wipe the silly grin off my face.

Home Owning is for the birds.

Yesterday I talked to the mortgage company about our house hunting progress.

Right after that I called Roto-Rooter to fix a clogged kitchen drain.

That "clogged drain," like most home repairs, turned into much much more. I just wrote a check for $4600 to Roto-Rooter to replace what turned out to be a cracked sewer line caused by a sinking foundation. Luckily, my landlords are mailing me a reimbursement check today.

I'm just wondering why on earth we are looking to buy a house? Do you know that we've paid $1000 LESS per month to rent this house than we would if we had bought it? Do you know that the landlords have paid $8000 in home repairs on this house since we've lived in it? And the house has depreciated in value AT LEAST $100,000 since we moved in? That means we've saved $126,000 by renting. Okay, with taxes maybe that's more like....$110,000.

That $110k more than makes up for the weird sea-foam green carpet I've had to live with as a renter.

Tell me again why home ownership is so important?

I can see all obstacles in my way...

Madeline told me she couldn't see the board at school a few weeks ago. I thought she just wanted glasses because we'd told her how cute she looked in her friend Emma's glasses. Nope. Turns out she is a little near-sighted. She picked these out herself, and absolutely loves them.

Christmas Recap

Can we just rewind three weeks and do that all over again? It went by way too quickly.

Christmas break was so wonderful. We spent a weekend in Portland with our friends, the Burrells. We made yummy food and did a little Christmas shopping (new tires for my car...woohoo!) and went to a "dollar movie" at Kennedy School. Let's not talk about the part where I smacked my head while getting into the Burrells car, or the big bruise I'm still sporting on my forehead as a result.

Then when we got back home the girls had a little party with some friends from school where we made our tradiational graham cracker gingerbread houses.

We made(and ate) lots and lots of cookies--a couple batches each of gingersnaps and mint chocolate chip cookies...mmmmm.

Christmas Eve we weren't sure what to do. Since moving to the NW, we've gone to the Nelsons on Christmas Eve. We weren't about to drive to Portland and back in one day, so we decided to try something new. Night skiing, our first choice, was closed. We ended up having a Jewish Christmas Eve--going out for Chinese food and then walking through the Botannical Gardens to see the light displays.

We had a great Christmas at home...the girls both got (imitation) American Girl dolls from Santa. They were a big hit, which was shocking because the girls have never played with dolls. For some reason, Madeline has asked for an AG doll for the last three years. I guess Santa finally gave in.

He also gave in and finally brought us an Xbox. He even brought it early so we could stream Netflix movies while I could actually watch them. That Santa sure is a thoughtful guy.

But the highlight of our holiday break was our trip back to Utah. I'm still struggling with returning back to Seattle. It was just such a great trip, so good to see family, and so hard to leave. I really felt a sense of HOME while I was there, and returning to Seattle hasn't eased that for me. Madeline didn't make things easier by weeping as she said goodbye to all her cousins, and begging her aunts and uncles to bring them up to Seattle to visit. :( I'm already looking at graduate school options for me in SLC.

We got in a few days of skiing while we were there--two days with kids up at Brighton, and one day without kids at Snowbird. The girls were cruising down black diamonds--and not just any black diamonds: UTAH black diamonds--by the time we left. Cory brought Logann and Aidan up to snowboard with us the last day (their first time, and they did great!), and the girls loved having them up there. I can't wait until next year when we can all ski/board together.

Kolby and I skied at Snowbird the day after a big storm. Oh my. That was absolutely the best day I've EVER had skiing. Absolutely amazing snow. I don't know what that white stuff is we have on the mountains here in Seattle, but it's not snow. It's a snow-like substance. A snow product. A faux snow. Snow colored rain. Something. But what we skied on in Utah? That's the snow I remember. Soft, dry, powdery heaven. In real mountains.

But it's all over. We're back home. I'm happy to have my bed and my own space again. I'm happy to have a reason to stop eating all those damn cookies. But I'm sad it's all over.

I went back to school yesterday feeling incredibly homesick for Utah, and guess what? My new professor talked for the first five minutes about her 20 years in Utah living as a ski bum by day, nurse at the U of U hospital by night. She even pronounced Alta correctly.

Green, but not totally Grinchy

Today was a pretty crappy day. Just the usual Christmas crowds and hemorrhaging money kind of crappy day.

But then I went to the grocery store with the girls, and I scored a parking spot right up front without even trying. I told the girls, "Girls, you know what this means? It means it's going to be a good trip to the grocery store."

And it was. I got the last bag of dark chocolate and mint chips. Really, I don't think a trip to the grocery store can get much better than that.

A rose by any other name

The girls were asking me today what other names I had considered when I was deciding on names for them. Madeline thought "Ricky" should have been on the list of names for her. Amelia thinks we made a good choice for her name, but suggested "Bitsy" and "Starlight" should have been up for consideration as well.

Conspiring

I love these photos from Kalee's wedding. They just look like they're up to no good. And pretty pleased about it.