Friday, September 29, 2006

confident and ready to tackle

So the doctors visit went well. I literally came in with a post it with all sorts of complaints on it. Items on the list varied greatly- small issues like "my hump hurts" (I have slight scoliosis) to the crushing exhaustion I feel almost all the time.

So now I have 7 follow- up appointments in the next week. Woo hoo! They did a bunch of blood work to check the exhaustion and if that comes back without any issues, we are going to try looking at increasing my prozac prescription.

During my girl check up (my uterus looks great by the way) the doctor noticed a little bump in my right boobicle. I have known about it for a while, but at my last check up they thought it was caffeine related. So next week I have to go in for a boobicle mammogram and biopsy. I am bummed. My right boobicle will now have a divot. ;)

I guess there are worse things!

Part of me feels really empowered by going to the doctor. It is an incredible feeling to be able to take action over your health. I also can't stop imagining what life could be like if I didn't feel compelled to nap all the time. Life is looking good.

Wednesday, September 27, 2006

ow

So this guy is friggin amazing. His name is Dean and he is running 50 marathons in 50 days in 50 states. Today he is in North Dakota and it is his 10th race. wowzers. Read about his journey here Come support him as he runs the TCM route on October 23. Or run with him. . .

His mission? Inspire people to become active.

Me? I am inspired to take a nap.

On a related note. . . I am finally going to the doctor today to figure out why I am always soooo o o o o unbelievably tired. . .

Tuesday, September 26, 2006

back to the grind

We are back from a restful weekend. Pictures are on the flickr account. I am working my tail off to make up for the three day weekend now! Uff dah.


Current project: grading
*Perhaps I reveal too much of my own consumer behavior to my students? You be the judge.
This was written in one of the essays.

"I have a huge brand loyalty to diet coke. As you do."

Umm.

There are also pictures on flickr from Shawn's visit.

Sunday, September 24, 2006

tinkering kaput

I am blogging on the north shore. It doesn't get much better than that does it? I have decided to return to the template where you all fell in love with me. . . the good ol' dots. I hunted and tried out some other templates but nothing seemed to fit the same way. Like a good pair of jeans that covers my unbelievably long legs in just the right way, I am home.

Last week I was telling my students about branding and the discussion centered on how brands define who we are and how we want the world to see us. I guess I could use my quest for the perfect template as an example of personal branding. Dotty, Spotty, Dark, Colorful. Full of Holes.

The double vision Sarah Lynn didn't think it would be the best idea to tell my students about my blog. I can't imagine why. Although, I am sure some enterprising student will find it.

PS. To another lovely Sarah: I am teaching marketing on Thursday nights.

Friday, September 22, 2006

personal boundaries

The unthinkable has happened.

The husband has walked in on me while peeing. I never wanted to have the kind of relationship where this is okay. It isn't that I don't feel comfortable with my body or natural processes blah blah blah. . . I just think it is a slippery slope.

First it was popping zits and now public peeing. What else?

listening

love and memories: OAR

You were amazing to me
I was amazing to you


playlist: SHAWN !

Wednesday, September 20, 2006

two unrelated statements

1. I am tinkering with the site. More changes to come.
2. I left the house this morning wearing navy tights with a black skirt. hot.

Sunday, September 17, 2006

personal boundaries

So I am not sure if I covered this or not, but I am teaching a class at my alma mater on Thursday nights. This particular Thursday was grueling. . . . long day at the 'real job' and straight to class all while dealing with an amazing headache behind my left eye. All day I could only focus 8% on my tasks at hand while the rest of my thoughts were consumed by the throbbing pain of my eye. I almost ended up just staying in St. Joe that night just so that I wouldn't have to squint at the road with my one remaining, good eye.

Upon arrival at home, I realized that migraine wasn't a brain related at all. . . it was a deep zit in my eyebrow. To which my husband (who has a secret love of popping zits) offered to help extract the pain. I balked initially but went ahead with it.

My dad fondly tells a story about putting hemorrhoid cream on my mom's posterior during pregnancy. For the past 20 years I have understood this to be the pinacle of marital familiarity. Gross but comforting in a weird way. For 20 years I have wondered if I would ever feel comfortable enough to let someone apply salve to my sacred spaces. Thursday I let my husband pop a zit to relieve a headache.


I guess we have arrived.

Wednesday, September 13, 2006

anna strikes gold again

This time of year always makes me think of freshly sharpened pencils and backpacks sans pen marks and without the gum wrappers floating at the bottom. It is indeed the time for crisp thinking and life lessons. Go Anna go! There is something about the way this woman thinks that I just love.



Frightening—And Fantastic by Anna Quindlen
Newsweek.
We live at a time when we can't afford to let them accept the Samaritan's ride. But we also can't afford to think that Samaritans don't exist.

Sept. 18, 2006 issue - In May, as part of a program to prepare them for college, the seniors at my daughter's high school heard from a nationally recognized expert on date rape. In August, as part of their introduction to life on campus, the students at the liberal-arts college she is now attending heard from a nationally recognized expert on date rape—the same expert, offering the same warnings about the perils of sexual assault.

Those perils are real. So are the dangers of binge drinking, drug use, unsafe sex, Internet predators, bicycling without a helmet, riding in a car without a seat belt and smoking cigarettes. And perhaps it's also a little dangerous to say of all of the above: enough!
I'm the world's biggest fan of education and information. I was happy that my kids learned early how the seed and the egg got together, at school and from their parents. I like the idea of lung-cancer patients' visiting classes to show teenagers just how glamorous smoking can be once you've had chemo. Every time I hear that little snicking sound that means my kids are belted in, I feel a faint sense of well-being, even though they're not really kids anymore. I've always wanted them, and their friends, to have all the information necessary to make smart choices and avoid dangerous situations.

But for a long time I've had the uncomfortable feeling that the result has been a generation enveloped by a black miasma of imminent disaster. It's not that they hear about the dangers of drugs: they hear about them in school presentations, public-service announcements, print ads, TV movies, "After School Specials," cable documentaries and, of course, from responsible mothers and fathers. They've heard about them in elementary school, middle school, high school and college.

The net effect could be that the drumbeat of danger becomes persistent white noise, unremarked, unheard, unheeded. But that wasn't my concern when I realized that my daughter was going to hear the same warning about date rape in summer that she'd just heard in spring. Once, someone asked me what single quality I most wanted to pass on to my children. Without hesitation I replied, "Joie de vivre." Love of life. That sense of waking up in the morning and thinking that there may be good things ready to happen.
That fantastic feeling is easily lost in a frightening tide of bad tidings. Once, people drifted into unexamined marriages with illusions about a lifetime of romance, or torrid sex, or two hearts that beat as one. Today people plan weddings dogged by divorce and adultery statistics, hearing ubiquitous warnings that marriage is hard work and they might want to try couples counseling even before the ceremony. While once everything was unspoken, now it seems that everything is out there.

Or everything but this: that lots of marriages are happy or at least contented, and pulling in harness can be more satisfying than going it alone. That amid the guys who try to pin you down at a party, it is not so unusual to find one who lights you up and makes you laugh. That sometimes people do stupid things and take stupid chances and get away with it without ruining their lives. A life of unremitting caution, without the carefree—or even, occasionally, the careless—may turn out to be half a life, like the Bible with the Ten Commandments but no Song of Solomon or Sermon on the Mount.

A little more than a decade ago, one of my sons told me very sadly that he didn't understand how he was ever going to have children. At first I thought he meant that he didn't know how he would afford them, or have the patience to raise them. It turned out that he couldn't figure out how he could someday impregnate a woman. When I told him that a day would come when it would be safe to have sex without a condom, he looked at me as though I had lost my mind. Clearly he'd gotten the message. But he'd gotten only the deprivation, not the joy.
So this is a plea for parents to remember to have That Talk with their kids. No, not the one about smoking cigarettes or driving under the influence. That's the one they will certainly get. What they need to hear occasionally is about the pleasures, not just the perils. Even when we talk about September 11, we can tell a tale of human goodness as well as evil, a tale of those who saved strangers as well as those who murdered them. For all the sleazebags who will try to lure a kid into a car, there are many Good Samaritans who are just concerned when they see a 12-year-old trudging along the road in the rain. I suppose we live at a time when we can't afford to let them accept the Samaritan's ride. But we also can't afford to have them think that Samaritans no longer exist. All these lectures, lessons and cautionary tales can't be to preserve a lifetime of looking over one shoulder. As Oscar Wilde wrote, "We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars."

oddly accurate insight into my professional life

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHEbB7qh72M

Just another day at the office

So yesterday I spent the entire day in training which all in all was really cool. . . and pretty comical.

I won't bore you with the finer details of angioplasty but I will say that I used Chicago Cutlery to dissect a heart and heard a sales rep use the phrase "that patient was fatter than a tick on a coon dog."

Who says the world of angioplasty isn't sexy?

Sunday, September 10, 2006

picking a fight- clarification

Brev and I are not in a real fight.

Saturday, September 09, 2006

a good weekend

Friday night was pretty shitty outside and I was feeling it inside too. I took a bath and painted my toenails. I had felt oddly cold all day

Saturday
Andy turned 21 this weekend. It turned out to be a reunion for my friends from first year Kate and Nicole. Then, Nicole, her friend Jorge, Brev and I went up to good ol' St. Joe for a little celebratin'. It was really super- great. We ended up at a house party playing beer pong and the cops pulled up. . . . so those of us in the garage had to be super quiet. ;)

Sunday
We had lunch with Brev's cousin's who are expecting their first child in two weeks! Then we came back and cleaned- and I set up the "impulse buy" in the office. This evening I hosted book club. We didn't get to talking to the book, but we did talk about plenty of other things. I really like this crew of ladies.

*More on the "impulse buy" at a later date.

Wednesday, September 06, 2006

picking a fight

Kind of.


Hey Brev. . . remember when used to write on your blog? ahem. What is with this last update in May?



*To get the full impact of this 'fight' it is important to note that Brev is working on his laptop 1.5 feet away from me.

official home of the wood eating mammal

Idea taken from the good folks at A.S.S

Sunday, September 03, 2006

Golden Times!


It was fun, actually it was great. Peruse the photos on flickr if you like!