I saw this several years ago, but was reminded of it while perusing Offsprung.com. Enjoy.

37 Record-Store Clerks Feared Dead In Yo La Tengo Concert Disaster

Okay, so my period is supposed to start today. I told you about that weird spotting thing on Sunday... Am I pregnant? When am I going to take a test? Poor Jack. Oh well, he wanted as much sex as he could get, knowing full well that I could get pregnant... I wanted it too... The bad thing is, I'm supposed to go out with Mary Katherine tonight, but if I might be pregnant, I obviously don't want to drink. But, I don't want to take a test yet, because it might not be definitive... Oh, I don't know what to do. I don't know. I just don't know...

This assignment I have at work is KILLING me! It is such a drag and is taking so long!! I can't wait until it is over.

Okay, well, I've really got to get back to work now. Maybe I'll take a break later and go get stamps... The weather here is perfect right now--the high is only supposed to be in the upper 70's today. Fall is in the air... Great day for a walk.

Cheers.

--LG

This is so damn funny

I'm really sorry if this offends anyone, but this article is so funny I had to post it.

Ain't Nobody Telling Me What My Baby Allergic To

home again

Poor little M. She's still sick. That fever just won't go away. It's not very high, so I'm not terribly concerned about it and I know the doctors can't do anything for her. She's missed every day of school this week. Yesterday J. stayed home with her and we were sure she'd be going to school today. But, I took her temperature this morning and it was back up to 101.1. I took just before she went down for nap now it it was 99.9. Oh well. She'll be okay.

I talked to a rather incompetent nurse at her doctor's office this morning. She was full of old wives tales! "Oh, these kids keep getting sick because the weather keeps changing" and "Don't let her run around. She needs to rest rest rest." Yeah, she does, but if she feels good enough to dance around, I'm not going to discourage that. Remember, I worked in an infectious disease lab with a doctor who conducts clinical trials involving colds and (used to be) the flu, so I learned a lot about how it all works.

Anyhoos. I took M. to work with me for 3 hours this morning. I just had to get something done (which, of course I didn't get anything done). At least I put in some time.

My friend Q. is coming to visit with her family on Sunday. M. better be feeling better by then! I'm excited to see her. Her daughter and M. went to preschool together. I've only know Q. since last June (she was my boss), but we really hit it off and we have daughters that are only two months apart. She's very sweet. We're going to take them out for lunch at one of the many exquisite Chinese restaurants around here.

Other than that, not much else is new. Q. was going to meet the Chimney cleaners at my house in Charlottesville this morning and pick up all the manuals for my appliances. I should be able to send everything to Realtor on Monday and then, hopefully, everything will be set and we can close in the next two weeks! I'm so excited to sell my house!!!

We're going to pay off all our debt, except for our student loans. We'll pay off my car, the $10K home equity loan we took out to buy a new roof and to fix up the house, the credit card that we racked up with moving expenses and buying new things for our house her (we've really been rather modest), and we'll pay off the furniture that we bought!! It's so exciting!! Plus we won't have the electricity, water bills, and mortgage on the Charlottesville house anymore! Wow, we're going to have and extra $2000 per month now! :) I'm so excited! It's going to make such a difference for us! That's extra $24000 over the next 12 months. Maybe we will stay in this house until May goes to first grade, but it we rented a town house, we could probably save another $700-$1000/month on rent. Then we could save $36,000 in a year. That's more than we'll be spending to pay off all those bills...

Okay, well, M. is having a hard time going to sleep, so I need to go rub her back. Hope you all are well and not full of this horrible sickness going around! For once I'm not getting it!

Cheers.

--LG

Cinnamon Apple Crumb Cake

This recipe is from Karen's Country Kitchen. I doubled the recipe and cooked it in a 9"x13" baking dish (I plan to take some to work tomorrow). I would check it after it has cooked for 30-35 minutes, but I needed an extra 10-15 minutes (use a wooden toothpick or skewer to check--if the toothpick comes out clean or mostly clean, it is done). I also used more apples than it calls for (and they were red) and I didn't have enough regular flour so I replaced a little more than half of the regular flour with bread flour. Lastly, I substituted half of the sugar in the crumb topping with brown sugar.

Delicious!

Ingredients:

* 2 cups flour
* 3/4 cups sugar
* 1/2 cup plus 1 tbls. milk
* 6 tbls. butter
* 1 egg
* 2 tsp. baking powder
* 1/2 tsp. salt
* 1/2 tsp. nutmeg
* 1 tsp. vanilla
* 1 tsp. cinnamon
* 2 finely chopped green apples

For topping:
* 1/2 cup sugar
* 1/3 cup flour
* 1 tsp. cinnamon
* 1/2 tsp. nutmeg
* 1/4 cup softened butter

Directions:

* Preheat oven to 375 degrees
* Combine all batter ingredients, mix well
* Fold in apples
* Pour batter in 9 inch, greased, baking pan
* Combine topping
* Sprinkle topping over batter
* Bake 30-35 minutes at 375 degrees

it's under contract!

We did it! Our house is under contract! Yip yip hurrah! Why does that look like it's spelled so wrong? Oh well. Yes, so our house is under contract at the price to which we lowered it-$189,900 plus we're chipping in $2,750 in closing costs. We also got our realtor to chip in $1,000 and the buyer's realtor is chipping in $750. Our realtor has done a great job, but she kind of pissed us off at the end, here. You know, we lowered our price by $5,100 and J. told Realtor that that really left us with no wiggle room. So when these people made their offer, Realtor started trying to pull at our heart strings: "Oh, they're a young couple with a new baby and they just love your place. They're just starting out and this is all the money they have, yada yada yada." J. finally told her "Look, we're not in the business of charity!" Jesus, J! But, it's true. You know, when we bought our house 4.5 years ago, we were just starting out, too. And, we had even less money to put down then these people. We put down 3% and these people have 10% to put down. Give me a break--why should we feel pity for them? We have to buy a house in an extremely expensive market here and need every penny we can get!

Anyway, I finally came to the realization that no matter what our listing price is, no one is going to want to pay what's listed, so we are going to have to give some. So, ultimately, I guess we're okay with it. It is such a relief to be over the biggest hurdle. These buyers don't even want a home inspection (which I think is stupid on their behalf. I mean, there is not anything wrong with our house, but I would certainly fork out the $350 to get one if I were buying). They did ask for a chimney cleaning and they want the warranty info for all of the new appliances/roof/heatpump. So, my dear friend, Q. will let the chimney people in and Realtor will take care of the mandatory termite inspection. We have a closing data of March 30, but the title closing company said we'll probably be able to close earlier! I'm so excited and relieved to be in this state!.

I'm home with my sick daughter. She has a nasty cold that keeps her fever above 100 (101.4 last night). I guess it could be the flu and it's not as severe because she got her flu vaccine. I don't know, I just know that she hasn't been to school all week. Poor baby. Hopefully she can go tomorrow. We'll see. She's probably getting stir crazy.

I'm making an apple crumb cake. It's almost done and smells so good... Mmmm. If it's good I'll post the recipe (I haven't tried it before).

M. and I are going to NM for Easter weekend--about 5 days. J. can't go because he doesn't really have the leave yet and may be doing some test flights. It'll be nice to see my grandma, in particular. We haven't been back since last May for J.'s sister's wedding and that too was only for about 5 days.

Time to go.

Cheers.

--LG

we got an offer!!!

Hey, hey, hey! We got an offer on our house finally. It's for $187,500. We just lowered the house down from $195K to $189.9K, so I don't think we're going to go for it. Plus they want us to pay all their closing costs and get the chimney cleaned (but, they don't want a home inspection). No on the closing costs, okay we'll give them the chimney cleaning (even though we didn't use it the entire 4 years we lived there).

Are we being unreasonable? They saw they the house before we lowered the price and liked it then, although mentioned that they thought it was more than they wanted to spend. But, come on. We lowered the price more than $5000. Why should we give them any more? I know, I know, the market is slow--tell me about it, our house has technically been on the market for almost 6 months! But hey, we've gotta buy a house, too, and in an exorbitantly expensive market (the DC area!). So we need every penny we can get.

Oooo, I'm so excited, though, at the thought of paying off all our debt!! I blogged about that the other day. We're going to pay off everything except our student loans!!! I'm so excited to do it! :)

Okay, well, I have things I need to do now so that we can play and have our play date tomorrow.

I'll keep you posted on what happens...

Cheers.

--LG

many dreams still to fulfill

My daughter is sacked out on the couch. She fell asleep in the car on the way home. My husband is on his way home (stopping for a movie for M. since she'll be wide awake soon and not ready to go to bed when she's supposed to). SO, I thought I'd take the opportunity to blog for a few minutes.

I'm doing really well in my job. I meet with my supervisor every two weeks and she seems very pleased with my progress. I've almost finished everything on my L-O-N-G orientation checklist, so that's great. I've learned a lot of SAS and think I can actually be a productive, contributing statistician. My job will pay for me to take a 2-day SAS course ($1050!) in a couple of weeks, on the SAS Macro Language. That's not something I got in grad school. In fact, grad school didn't really teach me much about SAS (and I thought I knew a lot coming in to this job)! Anyway, I'm starting to try to think about my future and where I want to go in this company. Not that I can really move up much as far as a title goes, but I don't want to get stuck doing reports all the time, I want to actually do analysis. I won't become a PI unless I get my PhD and that's not out of the question. They'll pay for at least part of it, if not all of it... We'll see.

I think I'd like to stay in that job at least 6 years so that I become vested in the company (they contribute 15% of my salary to a profit sharing and 401(k) plan).

What else...

I'm getting together with a friend from work who lives with her boyfriend who has two kids. We're getting our kids together on Sunday. That will be nice. It'll be nice to have a "couple" friend. My co-worker, ME, is only 24, but she's very bright and together, as well as mature and she loves her boyfriend's kids (they are 2 and 5). My daughter is 4, so I think she'll enjoy playing with them. And they live in the same town I do.

I've been on a Built to Spill kick since last night. I used J.'s elliptical trainer last night and rocked out to Perfect From Now On, which I haven't listened to in a while. It truly must be one of the best albums of all times. I love it. I've seen them two or three times and they are just as good live. Doug Martsch becomes kind of fatherly, though, in raucous crowds. It's amusing. I had a headache when I came home, but desperately needed to exercise and I rocked out to BTS and shook the headache right out of my head. Then I followed up with two glasses of wine. It was a good night...

...Except when I bawled on J.'s shoulder because I want another baby so badly!!! I really do. It's this raw, innate need that I have. If I see other babies, especially if their mothers are holding them tenderly I tear up and get all emotional. It's insane. He has to give in because I honestly think I'll die and regret it for the rest of my life if I don't have another one. And, I really ought to do it soon because even if I got pregnant right now, M. would be almost 5 years older than it when it is born! I was never all about having kids close together in age, but really, beyond 5 years apart starts to seem a little too far, in my opinion. Maybe not. And if it happened, it would just be, but the sooner the better, right? I mean, I don't want them to be ten years apart. Plus, If I had a baby, I could give it a couple of years and then get my PhD (J. would cringe if he read this!). I don't want to be 40 when I get my PhD. I'd like to have another kid and get my PhD before I'm 35 (I'm 29 now)...

Wish me luck! Time to go. Have a great weekend.

Cheers.

--LG

All I'm gonna do is complain...

Blah. That's how I feel. I have cramps, my head hurts and I haven't been able to focus all day. It's been a terribly unproductive day. I hate that!

I feel like I haven't done anything today. I've read a lot, but it's dry, man. And meetings. Oh, the meetings. O! Lament!

I'm trying to convince the hubby to go to New Mexico to visit family Easter weekend. M. has that Friday and the following Monday off from school, and I have off that Friday. And, the following weekend I am going to a meeting in Florida (the meeting is on a Saturday) so in order to make up for that weekend day worked I should take off another day. If J. doesn't want to or can't go, I think I'll take M. anyway. It'll be a short visit, but I don't know when else we'll go...

Oh my god I have four meetings tomorrow!!!!! How am I supposed to get anything done? I really don't understand the need for people to meet weekly. Maybe if we're working on something really important that requires a lot of input from many different people frequently. But come one. Just let me do my work, people!

So much time is wasted in meetings. And then one of the nice guys I work with always brings treats. Yeah right, tell me to have self-control when it's almost lunch time and I'm hungry!

Enough bitching for today...

Cheers.

--LG

Bite the bullet

Alright. I give in. I give up. I'm sick of worrying about it. I just want it sold. I don't care anymore. I'm tired of trying to get the carrot that's dangling in front of me, just out of reach!

What am I talking about? We're finally going to lower the price of our house. Remember, we originally put our house on the market last September at $199,000, but we had a horrible realtor who didn't bring anyone in to see it (just three people in 2.5 months). So, we fired her and and got a new, reputable realtor who put our house back on the market at $195,000. At that, she thought we ought to list it at $189,000 but when we asked her to provide us with evidence (market comps), it didn't give us a single good reason why we should sell so low.

Anyway, our house has been on the market (this second time around) now for 75 days and I can't bear it another second! The only proactive thing we can do is lower our price. And our realtor said that it should be a drop of $5,000-$8,000. Well, fuck $8000, but, very begrudgingly I'm consenting to $189,900. I see no reason in hell why we should have to do this other than we just want to sell the house. I just wrote the check for April's mortgage, but that's it. I don't want to pay another penny for it. Maybe we'll get multiple offers and it will bring the price up. Ha ha ha. Wishful thinking.

I hope we are doing the right thing. It feels so wrong.

Cheers.

--LG

I did it!

I did it! I went running yesterday. Even though it wasn't very far, I'm very proud of myself for finally getting off my keister and doing it. And then I was energized to do a lot of other things. For instance, I washed my and J.'s cars in 35 degree weather. It was cold and our cars were filthy from all of the snow and de-icer, so it was a lot of work. I also got out my flute and played for M. some. Of course it's snowing here. It's been snowing maybe 45 minutes and there's almost an inch of snow on the ground. But I can't let that deter me. I have an elliptical for bad weather!

We were going to get up and go to Whole Foods and Target this morning, but we both seem to be putting around, not actively pursuing it, especially now that it's snowing.

This is what I get for being cheap. I bought some decently nice looking shears at Target last weekend for our sliding glass doors. When I finally put them up a couple of days ago, one is about two inches longer than the other. Damn crap! So now I'm gung-ho on these pretty shears I found in the latest Crate and Barrel catalogue, but of course they are $99 each. But, they're really pretty. Maybe I can find something less expensive.

I'm a little stressed out about our finances. We are making a lot of money with our new jobs--in fact I never thought we'd be making so much. But I'm finding that it's much tighter than I expected. How can that be? Well, for one thing I just had to change our W-4 withholdings because I was afraid not enough tax would be taken out. So now, we both have to claim zero and have an additional $140 and $160 taken out of our paychecks! That's about $800 per pay period that we are having withheld for taxes. It should end up being that we pay over $18000 in taxes this year!! It sucks. And I'm a diehard liberal who doesn't mind paying taxes when they are used for the good of all. But right now I'm feeling like what's the point of making so much money if it all has to go to taxes?

It's not really that it's all going to taxes. We have a lot of other expenses, too. We're paying $2700/mo in rent. We haven't sold our house yet, so that's another $890/mo we're still forking out. M.'s preschool costs us $1042/mo. Our last gas bill was $255. $255!!! This damn house we live in is too big! Then my student loan is $270/mo, we took out a $10000 home equity loan in November to help us with moving expenses and to upgrade our appliances and buy a new roof on our house in C'ville. So, that's another $230/mo. Car payment: $240/mo. Phone/internet: $80/mo, cable: $17/mo, electricity: $70/mo, credit card bill and furniture bill--whatever I feel like paying on it. The last payment I made was $1500 on the credit card (total bill of $6000) and the furniture total was ~$7000 with no interest for two years. I've been paying ~$250-350/mo on it. J.'s student loan won't go back into repayment until July, but that will be another $400+/mo. Augh!!!!!!!

The thing is, the whole time we were in grad school we paid off the credit card debt that I had as an undergrad ($5000) and lived relatively debt free except for student loans, a car payment, and our mortgage. But starting a new life after graduation cost SO MUCH MONEY!!! On top of trying to set the house up for selling, we developed a leak in our roof and had to replace it. Our house wasn't selling so we thought new appliances would spiff it up (we got rid of hideous mustard yellow, early 80's appliances). And the actual cost of moving and putting deposits down for everything--the house, the preschool, etc. was enormous. We had to take out that home equity loan to cover all of it. Perhaps we wouldn't have had to get it if I hadn't put all of our savings into my student loan--$10000 which I did to pay off the higher interest student loan before I consolidated them--I still think that was a smart thing to do.

I thought my sign-on bonus of $6000 would go to pay off something, like the credit card or something, but only ~$2000 of if has. I did fall prey to "move in to a new place, must have some new things" syndrome and maybe I spent $1000-$1500 on stuff. But this house is three times the size of our old house and we had our parents visiting when we first moved here so we HAD to furnish all the bathrooms and get bedding, etc. There was some extravagance and while I don't regret it, I see how easy it is to want new stuff.

As it is, our basement is almost completely empty. We have an empty dining room (it's the wrestling room, where J. and M. wrestle!), and our formal living room is pretty makeshift. Luckily we do have nice new furniture in the family room and in our bedroom, but that's all we bought as far as furniture goes. I grew up using the furniture my mom had in her bedroom as a little girl (child-sized) and that's what was in our bedroom until we just bought this new stuff.

But still, I'm thinking this house is too big (regardless of the expense), so maybe we should move into a townhouse with $1000 less per month in rent. It would be a big help. I know once we sell our house it will help a lot, but I don't know. I just want to have most of the debt paid off before we buy a house so that we can qualify for a nice house. And that's what stresses me out. I know I don't have to pay so much per month on our debt right now, but I so desperately want to pay it off like imagined. I thought we'd be almost debt free within 6 months of moving here. Ha ha ha!!!

It's time to brave the weather and go return these shears and venture out to Whole Foods. Have a great Sunday. Listen to Beethoven's 5th today and you'll have a good day (unless of course you associate that piece with something negative).

Cheers.

-LG

Get off my lazy butt!

I really need to start running again. When M. was 16 months old I started running for the first time in my life. I always hated running prior to that but I always wanted to like it and do it. I guess this will give away where in VA I lived, but oh well. Every year in Charlottesville there's a Women's 4 Miler Training Program which lasts 12 weeks, beginning in June. It culminates with the Women's 4 Miler, a benefit run for the UVa Breast Care Center. The training program gets 800-1000 women every summer, many of whom (maybe even a majority) have never run a day in her life before. It's really something to look across the bleachers during the "pep rally" every Saturday and see the sea of women of all different sizes. Check out Charlottesville Women's 4 Miler for more info...

Anyway, I did the training program with my friend Mary that summer (2004) and we ran the 4 miler. It was such a great accomplishment for both of us. We continued to run three times a week for the whole next year, even in the dead of winter when it was 25 degrees outside. During the week, we always ran after our kids went to bed, usually around 8:30pm. We'd meet somewhere in C'ville, usually around UVa or downtown and run. It was wonderful. I think that's what really cemented our friendship. But, Mary's knees started bothering her and she didn't want to do the training again the next summer. I started to do it myself, but wasn't thrilled with the lady who led the "advanced group" of runners, so I stopped going. Mary and I kept running together on Saturday mornings, but we kind of did our own thing during the week. We both ran in the 4 Miler again that year (2005), but after that Mary deserted me! She decided she really didn't want to run much anymore. I tried not to take it personally, but she really was what kept me going.

Nevertheless, I was determined to keep it up on my own. Luckily I was still in grad school and didn't have class until 11 or 12:30 or something like that on Tuesdays and Thursdays, so I would take M. to preschool and then go back home and run. Sometimes I would go after class before I picked up M. At any rate, I must admit that many weeks I only went running 2 times, but I still kept it up. Last summer I decided to give the training program one last try. I went for about 4 weeks and then decided I just would rather do it on my own. The biggest thing was that often the runs wouldn't get going until 8 or later and in the summer in Charlottesville, it's already really hot by then (muggy!). But, I kept it up. I ran really well all summer, almost up to 5 miles, even. Then, something in August happened. My in-laws came to visit the first week in August and the week happened to be extremely hot--like over/near 100 degrees every day for a week! Even going running at 6 am was too hot. So I didn't run that week. Then I went to Seattle for a conference for most of the next week and even though I took my running stuff, I didn't go.

Ever since then, I just haven't really been going. I was working a real job by then and didn't have the luxury of going during the day. And since Mary didn't want to run anymore (although we still occasionally did), I couldn't really run by myself at night. Mary and I did go on a final run a couple of days before she moved (Dec. 1, 2006). We moved on Dec. 16 and I've gone 3-4 times since then, but not in the last 1.5 months or so. Pathetic!!

The worst part is that I REALLY could've benefited from the stress relief running provides all last fall. August-January was hellacious because J. and I both were interviewing for jobs like crazy, he was trying to finish his dissertation (which was stressful for me, too), we were trying to sell our house, and we were moving. It was crazy, but I wish more than anything that I kept running regularly during that time.

I bought J. an elliptical machine for his birthday (a month ago) and he's been really good about using it. J. loves to run, but he got Lyme disease several years back, which went undiagnosed for about 5-6 years and it damaged his joints. So, running if painful, although he can do the low impact elliptical machine without any problems. But I've only used it once. Why? I don't know. My excuse is that I'm just so tired every day from work and everything that goes along with that. But, that's really a pathetic excuse. Really pathetic. I keep telling myself that once it gets warmer (it was really cold here for several weeks--highs didn't go above 28) and is light earlier I'll go. But why procrastinate? I've got this elliptical machine in my basement and a lake to run around in my backyard.

Please, someone, kick my ass!! Have a great weekend!


Cheers.

--LG

TV drains the life out of you!!!

Why do I stay up so late? I'm really not a big fan of TV, especially cable--it's such a waste of one's time to sit and mindlessly watch garbage. Now, come one folks, I do like to watch some TV (like NBC on Thursdays) and I'm sure if I had ever watched any of the shows on HBO or TNT or whatever all those Emmy-award winning shows are, I'd probably like them too. However, I haven't had cable since I lived at home with my parents (10 years ago, now). In our last house in Virginia we got broadcast cable at $10/month but that was just the local stations because even with an antenna, reception was poor. So, when we moved to MD I thought we'd do the same thing. I called the cable company and they had the same thing for $15/month. Okay, so I signed up for it. But, we get 100 channels--basic cable. I don't know if it's a mistake, but it's not worth my time to correct it if it is. Is it?

Anyway, the trouble is that I get mildly addicted to the Discovery Health Channel. I love watching surgeries and births. Now, I usually won't even turn on the TV (and it is never on while my daughter is awake), but along comes my husband after M. is asleep and our chores are done, and he turns it on. And then what does he do? He often falls asleep on the couch, leaving me watching the damn thing.

Well, okay, you say, why don't you just run it off? Good question. But that TV stupor sets in and the set migrates to the Discovery Health channel and before you know it, my husband's gone to bed and there I am watching surgeries until midnight! And then I have to get up at 6am? WTF?

Kill.
Your.
Television.

(except tonight).

Cheers.

--LG

thawing out

I told you all that I have the baby bug. I can't kick it! I had my annual OB/GYN with a new certified nurse-midwife (CNM) this morning. She's in a practice with 6 other CNMs. I loved my CNM in Virginia and I'm sad not to see her anymore. The woman I saw today was okay. She wasn't terribly personable like Debbi (my last CNM) was. But, maybe that comes with time and with seeing her (them) for pregnancy visits. The worst part was that her looks reminded me somewhat of the horrible bitch that I worked with (Monique) whom I described several blogs ago. But, there are others I can see. Not that I'm pregnant. Gotta work on my husband for that one...

So, what's new here? Not too much. J., M., and I went to Baltimore on Sunday. We went to the B&O Railroad Museum. It was pretty interesting. M. didn't think it was that cool unless she could go in the old trains (which she could in a few). We also went inside the old USCGC Taney, which M. thought was pretty cool. I couldn't handle being on a ship for months at a time. I'm too claustrophobic and I get sea sick. What a wimp.

J. and I went on our first date since moving to MD. We went out for sushi (mmmm, mmmmm good) and then we saw Pan's Labyrinth. What a beautiful movie. The movie has gratuitous violence and I think it would have been just as good without the gore (I kept my hands over my eyes for most of it), but oh well. It was the vision of the artist, no? The creatures were amazing and the little girl was a phenomenal actor. I wish the Academy Awards acknowledged foreign language actors. I highly recommend you all see this movie. It was very touching. Also, here's a cool site about the making of the creatures: http://www.thedougjonesexperience.com/panDDT.htm

The snow is melting and it is warm outside (55 degrees). It feels wonderful and I'm afraid it's going to bring on spring fever. Yesterday was the first day in a couple of weeks where it finally got above freezing. I better plant some flowers soon... Have a great one!

Cheers.

--LG

snow and babes

Ah, the sinuses are clear, and I guess I'm back to normal. I thought about kicking my tea-caffeine habit I have formed over the past year, but why? Tea provides so many great antioxidants that aren't found in decaf tea and I'm convinced that this has been the reason that I haven't had a single UTI since I regularly started drinking tea (when 2-3 per year was the norm). I don't want to "need" to wake up with a cup of tea, but I can't help that it's addictive.

What's new here. Well, I desperately want to have another baby and my husband is adamantly opposed to it. He loves our daughter but I think he thinks she's a lot of work (of course she is, she's a kid) and now that we're finally passed all the toddler stuff (she just turned four) he thinks he's going to have his life back. He thinks it means we can travel and do all the things we did before she was born. I think that he changed so much during grad school that he doesn't have it in him to do all the things we used to do. He's the one who desperately didn't ever want to mess up M.'s schedule as an infant while I was all about (within reason) making her conform to our schedules! And yeah, it's true that if we stay up late, M. is still going to wake up at 6:20am! There's no relief in that. But, is it worth missing my favorite band? Yes, once in a while it is!

Work kind of kicks our asses, so we're tired a lot and that makes J. not want to do fun things on the weekends. I mean, we're only 6-7 weeks into our new jobs/lifestyles, so maybe all of this will change. He actually did suggest that we use our tax refund to go to Hawaii! Now that's something. And, it will happen. Hopefully we'll have enough leave to take a week (10 days). My grandma lives on the Big island and my aunt and her family live on Maui. They haven't met our daughter yet. I'm excited about this.

Anyway, I bug J. constantly about wanting a baby. I'm all for adopting or having another one. I always thought I'd have one baby and adopt a second. I'm not giving up. I am an only child and while it's been fine, I would like to know what it's like to have two and have the children have each other. And, I hope it's a boy because while I love my little girl and of course would love another girl all the same (especially if we adopted), I'm so curious to watch a boy grow up and perhaps demystify some of the things that make boys boys!

I've been listening the The National and Band of Horses a lot lately. I really like The National (Alligator) but it's different--I mean it's that great indie sound, but the deep voice is really different. Band of Horses has some great songs, but I'm not ecstatic about the album (Everything all the Time). I bought J. the Silversun Pickups CD and the first PostSecret book for Valentine's Day. Neither is very romantic, but I thought the book was cool and he's been wanting the CD.

Well, we're having a snow storm and my daughter's preschool is closing early, so I better get some work done before I have to leave.

Cheers.

--LG

Here comes that afternoon lull in productivity. What on earth can I do to avert this? I start checking my email every 3 minutes--all my accounts. Then I start to do work but I immediately remember that I haven't check my hotmail account in the last hour. So I check that and maybe there's some new spam. Oh, wait, there's a link saying that Brangelina is having more babies, I better check that out. Then I look at the first line and am immediately bored, but then there's a link to the weather. Click. It still says the high today will be 28 degrees. That hasn't changed since this morning. Oh, I hear footsteps coming down the hall. Click (to different screen). Oh it's just so-and-so. Click back to hotmail. Nothing. Click on my home icon to my personalized Google page. Still the same NYT and NPR headlines. No new mail. Okay, back to work. Click on SAS. Immediately open Firefox again and check my bank account. Back to work. Oh, wait, I haven't (quick someone's coming, click back to work) checked my home voicemail in the last 45 minutes. Check that. Nothing. Augh!

I know. I'll blog about it. Cool.

Cheers.

--LG

drudging through the afternoon blahs

What is with the afternoons? I can't concentrate on work to save my life. I think I need to make a point of going for a walk every day around 2pm so that I can remain productive. I've just piddled my afternoon away. I've done some stuff, but seriously! My eyes feel foggy and I have the attention span of my cat (complete with blank stares mixed with intermittent interest in something).

I don't think it's a caffeine problem. I'm just a tea drinker, so I don't require the mass amounts of caffeine that coffee drinkers do. I don't know what it is.

We have an offer on our house, finally. However, they are offering $20K less than our listing price, which is a joke. Our realtor knows it and their realtor knows it. They're just trying to see what they can get away with. They made a "verbal" offer last weekend to us and to the house across the street (and probably to 10 other houses) to see who would take their low price. I think everyone in town laughed at them. But, they like ours best and our realtor said they are sending a written offer. And they want $6500 in closing costs. Closing costs won't even be that much!! What are they doing? It sounds like their realtor knows they're a little ridiculous and is encouraging our realtor to have us counter with what we said in response to their verbal offer--which was just $3K less than our listing price. So, we'll see. I haven't seen the written offer yet so any conclusion I come to is merely based on speculation at this point.

At least we have an offer. And, the buyers really like our house and are desperate to get out of their apartment, of which their lease expires at the end of February.

Today is my daughter's 4th birthday. I can't believe she is already four! I can't believe that my husband is so adamantly against having another! I mean, I was never all about having more than one, but I can't believe that J. won't even entertain the idea. Surprisingly, I've talked with a lot of men who want more babies and their wives don't. I figured my situation was more common, but not out of those I know. I just can't believe that I'll never hold my own baby again (not that M. won't always be my baby). It makes me very sad. And, I'm all about adopting or whatever--I don't have to be pregnant again. I always thought I'd have one baby and adopt another. Who knows, maybe we still could.

I encourage you all to check out the PostSecrets blog. I have a link on the right-hand side of my blog. It's really neat.

Have a great evening and keep warm (with the windchill, it's about 5 Degrees F right now!).

Cheers.

--LG

Friday, at last

I finished my fifth week of work. Hey, I'm more than a third of the way through my orientation period. That's good. I think I'm feeling more comfortable with my job and not as stressed. People are really nice, so that's always a plus.

Now if I could just kick this sinus infection...

Cheers.

--LG

I feel like I'm floating. My head is foggy and my eyes just want to close. Thank you, dear daughter, for the cold that turned into a sinus infection! I'm amazed at how productive I've actually been at work the last couple of days in spite of this.

I'm leaving for the doctor in 20 minutes. I hate taking antibiotics (and all medications) but I've had enough sinus infections in my life that I KNOW when I have one. I just hope the NP that sees me doesn't try to second guess me. I know the importance of not taking antibiotics when they aren't necessary, but for me sinus infections and UTI's are two things that I know when I have them and I know when they need to be treated.

I need just one good night of sleep. I dreaded going to bed last night because I knew that I wouldn't sleep well. And sure enough, at 4:30 this morning I finally woke myself up from my tossing and turning stupor and got up to pee. Then I got the fever chills so I took some Advil. I actually slept all the way until 6 after that.

Okay, I'm off.

Cheers.

--LG

I'm spilling my needles...

Whew! It's been a crazy couple of weeks. My new job was kicking my ass! It's getting better, but my second week was intense. I have a billion orientation requirements that I have to meet, such as going to internal classes, reading a gazillion SOPs, talking to people who have various jobs in the company, to things like designing my own clinical trial (from a statistical standpoint). But, on top of all that stuff, I've been working on projects. I learned a lot of SAS, S-Plus (statistical analysis software packages) and statistics in grad school, but there is so much I haven't learned. It's just been so stressful submersing myself in other people's code and trying to figure out what it does.

But, I'm doing it and I'm doing it well. I've even found mistakes in other people's work. My main project is really interesting. We're looking a class of drugs used to treat a medical condition for women who become pregnant while taking these drugs and their effects on the mental and physical development on the child. It's an observational study, as it is known that these drugs are teratogenic (causes birth defects). However, it's better for the mother to take the drug to prevent her disease from taking it's toll on her body, jeopardizing both her life and the child's. What is unknown is which drug causes the least serious side effects for the fetus. That's where our study steps in. Sorry I can't tell you more details, but I better not.

Aside from that, I've been okay. I'm getting used to my schedule, although J. and I are often so tired when we get home that one of us falls asleep on the couch almost every night after our daughter goes to bed. We finished painting the bedroom and it looks much better now, although the color is a little too orange or something. Oh well. This isn't our house.

I'm happy to say that I've kept in contact so far with Mary and Amber. I hope that I continue to do so--particularly Mary. I really miss her. Luckily I'm so busy that I don't have time to feel lonely.

I'm exhausted. I stayed home this morning with M., as she was sick. J. stayed with her this afternoon. She keeps waking up at 3:30 am and wants to fight us going back to sleep. It takes its toll! How did I get through the first year of her life?

I got the new Shins cd in the mail on Monday. I used to go to parties in Albuquerque where they'd play (back when they were Flake Music). I did hear them as the Shins in someone's backyard in 1999 and I went to their first CD release party at the Launchpad. It was for my bachelorette party (I got married the next day). Anyway, I don't know what I think, yet. There are great songs, but the whole thing is so Depeche Mode meets the Beach Boys meets Beck--all bands that are great. It's just different. It's a lot less poppy than Chutes Too Narrow and there are some songs that could be on Oh, Inverted World. Well, it's way better than most music out there and I'm sure it will grow on me. Check it out. Oh, and if you ever hear the alternate version of Spilt Needles, it's much better than the one on the album. It's on the Phantom Limb single which will be released on Feb.1.

Cheers.

--LG

New job

Maybe I'll get better at writing more often. I'm trying to get into the swing of things. I started at my new job on Tuesday. It's the usual orientation/blur of information thing right now. I have a million SOPs (standard operating procedures) to read and I've been enrolling in health care and life insurance, etc. The only thing I think that I have left to enroll in is our profit sharing plan and the 401k. I just need to figure out which funds to choose.

My first day was a little awkward because my boss was out of town so I got pawned off on a woman who is a very smart capable woman, but she's lacking a little with the bedside manner. There was no "hi, how are you, welcome to your job" and she didn't seem prepared for me at all. She did take me around to meet a few people, but I basically had to introduce myself and then the three of us would stand there like "okay, so..." so I'd tell them "nice to meet you" and then run. It was horrible. The next day I pretty much kept to myself, going through a couple of things that she suggested I read. Yesterday was better--I talked to one of the other statisticians for a long time (who was very nice) and I finally got to talk to my boss for a short time. He's very nice. Hopefully we'll have a chance to meet later today and talk more about my project assignments and all that.

I think I found the super-secret way home which is great because my first day I got stuck in traffic forever and it took 50 minutes to get home, and that wasn't even including picking up my daughter from preschool. I was very upset by that. But, even with picking up my daughter yesterday we were home in 30-35 minutes. :)

We have painted half of our bedroom now. The house we live in is huge and it appears to be really nice, but J. and I have all these theories about the people who own the house and our neighbors, who actually built the four houses in our little cul-de-sac. When you walk in there are beautiful wood floors, but just in the entry way. It has a very nice staircase. The lay-out of the house is good for the most part, although I think the formal living room is retarded. It's just too secluded. The carpet is nice plush Berber carpet, but it was laid poorly and bunches a little-like it wasn't stretched properly. And this problem is throughout the house. Also, the bathrooms have nice tile in them, but the kitchen is just vinyl. I don't mean to sound snobby and I'm not, as we put vinyl in the house we own in VA. But, when you have a really nice house that costs $800,000, why would you put vinyl floors in? and, the windows aren't cut straight so their nice cloth blinds don't fit in all the windows. it's ridiculous.

Then the paint. Everything in the house is some shade of blue, but none of the paint really matches and I keep noticing touch-ups that don't quite match. It's also all flat paint which when I rub my finger against feels like nails on a chalkboard to me. And, I think they just painted the sheet rock! I don't think they put down dry wall mud, at least not much if they did!! I don't mind the blue--I'm quite fond of it and had three blue rooms in our other house (two bathrooms and the kitchen had some blue in it), but not the way they did it. There's an ugly old lady-like stencil in the living room and dining room that I don't care for. But the worst is that this big, huge master bedroom has mauve paint with red sponge-painted over it! It's hideous!! Anyway, I spent last weekend painting half of the bedroom. It's a really huge room (like maybe 18'x16' or so) but that wouldn't be so bad if it weren't taking FOUR coats of paint to cover--two primer coats and two color coats.

So, I'll finish this weekend and then I'll be much happier.

Okay, back to work now.

Cheers.

--LG

smoldering plastic Christmas on my knees

I got Sufjan Steven's Christmas album as a late Christmas present from my hubby, ahem, I mean Santa. After reading the supplemental material in the album, however, I feel slightly ridiculous that I got it as a last-minute gift for Christmas! Oh well. I'm sure I'm not the only one. I love Sufjan's music and although I don't know him (duh), I envision him to be a very kind, good-hearted man. However, I also picture him crying in the bathroom regularly and perhaps being a bit of an emotional wreck. Alas! he's still beautiful and I hold in him such high regard as a musician.

I'm also reading Fall on Your Knees by Ann-Marie MacDonald. It's such a bewitching book. For the most part, the story keeps you going, not wanting to put it down. I'm almost done. It's a good read and really interesting the way the author incorporates the Gaelic and Arabic ancestry, as well as how well she seems to capture the Zeitgeist of Nova Scotia and New York during the early 20th C.

It was an odd experience having read all of Sufjan's stuff from the album while listening to it and to then continue on reading the book. I can't explain it, but it did give me a Creepy feeling, although not the Creepy Christmas Feeling Santa Sufjan talks about.

Cheers.

--LG

Lo, How A Rose E'er Blooming by Sufjan

Long haul

It's been a while since I last wrote. The last time I wrote was the day we moved. Now we're pretty much settled down here in MD. We don't live quite as close to Rockville as I am finding I would like. I mean, we're close, but considering the traffic, it's a pain. When we buy a house we might try to move a little closer in, although it probably won't be that much closer (maybe 4 miles) because my daughter's preschool is here.

The house we are renting is ENORMOUS. I don't know the square footage, but it's three stories, 5 (really 6) bedrooms, formal dining, formal living, open kitchen, family room, rec room, 3.5 baths. And, we overlook a little lake. I mean, it's in our back yard. It has a great running trail, though it's probably only 1.5 miles around. But, there are great side walks/walking paths all over the area.

I'm getting used to the size of the house, but all last week I felt stupid in this huge house. We have a completely empty dining room (we have an area in the kitchen for a table) and the living room we made into a music room--it has the piano, book cases with CDs and sheet music, my guitar, flute, piccolo, and ukelele. Our furniture for the family room and the master bedroom came today. It's beautiful--especially the bedroom. It's great to get rid of the ugly blue sleeper sofa that was J.'s parents for years. Unfortunately, the bedroom is this horrible sponge-painted red and the rest of the house is various shades of blue. The blue doesn't look so great with our deep burgandy sofa and chairs, but we'll just have to deal with that. I did buy paint last week for the master bedroom, but I haven't yet had a chance to paint it. It's a huge bedroom and that red is going to take a couple of coats of primer first. Plus, J. started working last Friday, so it's kind of hard to paint with a 3 year old around.

I start work next Tuesday (Jan 2). I'm excited, I think. J. has been so exhausted all this week. He's been leaving around 8 in the morning and getting home close to 7pm. He doesn't have his badge yet (he works for the government on a base) so he has to be escorted around until he gets it. The guy who is showing him the ropes doesn't like to get to work until 9am, so that's why he's been going in so late. But, once he gets that badge, I fully expect J. to start leaving home at 7 or 7:30am, getting him to work at 8 or 8:30 and he will then leave work at 4:30 or 5 everyday, getting him home between 5:30 and 6. Because 7 is too late and then poor M. doesn't get any quality time with her daddy.

I'm giving him lots of slack right now because it's all new. The first three days poor J. got lost on his way to or from work. It's a long commute and I think that's what is wearing him out right now.

Okay, well, I have a bucket of floor cleaner waiting for me to mop the upstairs bathrooms.

We've had two showings on our house already (it's been on the market for 1.5 weeks), so that's much better than the last realtor did, already!

Cheers.
--LG

Bye, Virginia

In about one hour I expect to be leaving Virginia for good. J. and I have cleaned our house like you wouldn't believe. Whomever moves into it is very lucky to be moving into such a clean house.

I'll write again when I have internet service established in Maryland, which should be Monday. Take care!

Cheers.

--LG

T minus 3, folks

Tomorrow is my last day of work. I have a lot to do, but it's just not going to get done. But, I am of the mindset that I truly find this work interesting (I work in demographics right now) and so I plan to finish this project. My boss is hoping to keep me on on an as-needed basis. I have mad skills, yo.

In my new job I will be a biostatistician. Right now I'm a "Research Assistant" which is a faculty position, but I'm not really using any of my statistics background. I use my programming skills (and my husbands--talk about mad skills, yo), but the rest is just data manipulation and summary statistics. It's not a challenging job, but perhaps I'm mistaken about what "The Real World" is like. I guess I expect to have a job where I'm constantly begin challenged and learning new things--like in grad school. In grad school, the learning curve is so high, but once you buckle down and do it, you've mastered yet something else and it's awesome. I need that sense of accomplishment in my life, constantly (at least on a regular basis). If I'm not learning something new and/or being challenged, I get bored.

My new job should be challenging. I'm sure there's plenty I don't know about the practical application of statistics, but I'm hoping that it won't get stale quickly. I'd like it to remain challenging for at least a year. Then I'd like a sense of whipping out projects expediently and competently. After 6months to a year of that I'll be ready to go back to school and get my PhD.

The PhD has been a goal of mine since I was little. I've taken several detours as far as the field goes, but the goal is still there.

As a kid I wanted to be a doctor. That held until mid to late high school when I became a very accomplished musician. Then I started college as a music performance major. I was even accepted into the Eastman School of Music for flute performance. unfortunately, my parents had too much debt and couldn't qualify for the loans to send me there. I wish I had know then what I know now about student loans, as I could have financed it myself. Anyway, that's another story.

So, I stayed in my hometown and studied with a great flute professor who, of course, decided to leave the school for the next year. I didn't want to move to Iowa with him so I stayed, was unimpressed with his replacement, and changed majors to astrophysics. That was cool. I LOVE(D) astronomy. I had three summer internships with national research institutions in the US and in the Netherlands. of course I was set to obtain my PhD in astronomy. Well, my last post described the diversion there.

Now, I have a MS in statistics and it's only natural to go for the PhD. I love academia, I love learning, I like teaching, and although I'll be making a good living with just an MS, I will have much more responsibility and less room for boredom with a PhD, never mind an awesome salary.

Well, that's another chapter in my life, still to come. T minus 3, folks.

Cheers.

--LG

Good jobs are hard to come by

My colleagues took me out for lunch today as a farewell. I still have another week, but since Mike was up here for our staff meeting this morning, we decided to make it into an event. It was very nice. I work with very nice, intelligent people and I hate to leave them. I think it's rare that you find a group of people to work with where you like everyone! It's a far cry from the job I had before I went to grad school.

BACKGROUND:
I got a degree in astrophysics but I didn't do as well as an undergrad as I could have. I dated an asshole for the first three years of college and made him the ultimate priority. By the time I finally got my head out of my ass and became really serious about school and my future, I was already suffering academically. I had no trouble securing wonderful astronomy internships, here in the States and in the Netherlands, for three consecutive summers. I did well in my astronomy classes, but I dragged through some of my upper-level physics classes due to not focusing in the pre-req courses. At any rate, I did REALLY poorly on the physics GREs and that was the sole reason I had a hard time getting into astro grad school. My husband (we weren't married yet) and I applied to a lot of top schools so having rotten physics GRE scores didn't help me at all. Luckily I was admitted to two schools, one of which is here in VA, and where are are now (until next week). Unfortunately, I was admitted on a probationary status and thus was treated as not a real grad student. The department gave me support in the form of 5 graderships, which was absurd to keep up while attending classes. Halfway through the semester I dropped my courses and just kept my grading jobs.

It was tough. I loved, LOVED astronomy and walking away from it was one of the hardest things I've ever done in my life.

What to do with myself? I was stuck here in this fairly small little city for at least 4.5 more years while J. finished grad school. I applied for a couple of teaching jobs, as well as a few other things, but what I was seriously thinking about doing was going to med school. After talking to a friend at a New Years party who was in the process of applying to med schools after some time off after her BS, I decided to get a job in medical research while I took the necessary prerequisites for med school. All I needed to take were 2 semesters of organic chem and 2 semesters of biology (I already had the 2 semesters of physics[duh] and 2 of chem). So, I applied for a job and got it right away.

HORRIBLE JOB STORY:
I was working for in an infectious disease specialist (actually he is an infectious disease pediatrician) who had just moved here about 6 months earlier. He had a big beautiful lab with huge, bright sunny windows. I was the first person he hired. Another girl was to begin 2-3 weeks after me. She was taking a year off from college and what a jewel she turned out to be. I'm sure you can't quite pick up on the sarcasm, yet.

This girl, E., was nice and fun, but I quickly became aware that she was the BIGGEST liar I have ever met. She was also really, really rich, but very gross. J. called her the "white trash of the ultra rich". She had scabs all over her arms and I just remember one morning when she came in (late) and her feet were filthy. Yuck! About two weeks after her start date, she didn't show up for work one day. Nor did she come in until the afternoon of the following day. She never called or emailed, or anything. She claims to have gotten salmonella poisoning after eating raw cookie dough. Her roommate's daddy was a doctor and told her that's what she had, although she didn't actually go to the doctor. Huh.

Okay, the first time, maybe that was a plausible story. But two weeks later when she didn't show up for 3 days and said she got salmonella from licking the bowl containing cake batter, well, come on sweetheart. Who ya foolin'?

Apparently the doctor we worked for. I never understood how this girl could come in at 11 or later day after day after day and he never said anything to her. Once, about 4 months into me working there he asked me if I knew where she was when she hadn't shown up by noon. "No," I replied. I then quietly told him that it's been like this for a long time. He said, "I'm aware of it."

That's it. He never did anything. She got paid for nothing. Of course that makes a tense working environment for me because I felt resentful and annoyed with both of them.

During that time, I decided, and convinced J., that it was the perfect time to have a baby because I had great benefits and would get a nice maternity leave, etc. Med school went on the back burner and by the end of May I was pregnant. I told Doc in late June or early July and he wasn't thrilled, but what could he do?

He hired the bitchiest, ugliest, most hateful person I've ever met to take my place while I was on leave. She was okay at first, and in fact I think things were relatively okay until I came back from maternity leave. She started working at the end of August. She was a kind of quiet, but an absolute control freak. By the time I went on maternity leave, I was already sick of my job. It was really boring--I definitely didn't like medical research (the lab aspect) and there was never enough for all of us to do. I hate being bored. Anyone who knows me knows that I become cranky and slightly depressed when I don't have a ton of things to do--I work much better when I have a lot on my plate. By the time I went on maternity leave, I already wished I had quit, especially once the baby was born.

Now, look, I love my baby more than anyone loves her baby, but I am not cut out to be a stay-at-home mom. I knew this before I went on maternity leave and I'm so glad that I didn't stay home permanently. In retrospect, however, I should've stayed home with my babe that first year because when I went back to that medical research lab, things were a nightmare.

The bitch had completely taken over and changed everything. She had rearranged everything, had new systems for doing things, looked over my shoulder while I was doing things, you name it. I can understand having the chance to do things your way and being a little reluctant to give a little--because I'm probably like that. But this girl, she wrote lists of things for me to do on a dry erase message board we had hanging over our desks. And I'm not talking about doing an assay for this or that, rather she assigned me to take out the toxic waste trash, or to autoclave the utensils, or to clean out the water baths. WTF?

It was horrible. And, I didn't take it well. I was also transitioning my daughter into a home day care and was leaving work at ~2 pm. However, I was coming in to work at 6:30 in the morning to make up for it, but I was breastfeeding and I had to pump 2-3 times during the work day. I wasn't the most productive person at the time, but the doctor we worked for knew all of this and was okay with it. So he said.

About two-three weeks into this hell, I couldn't take it anymore and the bitch and I got into a yelling argument. Yes, it was very unprofessional, but goddammit, I couldn't take it anymore. I'm sure I could've handled it differently--better--but it had to be done. Things only went downhill from there. Bitch went and cried to our study nurses and got the doctor in on it. And who got reprimanded? Me. The thing is, Doc hated to get involved in the personal interactions between his employees. He NEVER said anything to E. about her extreme absences and tardiness. He ignored it and ignored it. There were also other things that he ignored--problems the nurses had with people they were working with. Even the nurses complained about E. But Bitch goes and cries to Doc about us fighting and I get reprimanded. It was so unfair.

I should've quit then and there. I would give my left leg now to change that. But, no, I persevered for another 9-10 months. At least I had a plan. I had the right as an employee to take courses for free, so I immediately started taking statistics courses (if nothing else, this horrible job introduced me to the need for statistics in the sciences). I applied for grad school, was accepted and happily planned to happily quit in May. But I'm telling you, after that falling out that job REALLY sucked. Liar Girl, E., went back to school (though somehow managed to keep herself on the payroll in our lab, by doing nothing, of course). Bitch and I never talked, but we had many silent wars. It was all so catty. I mean we silently fought over which radio station to listen to. We fought over taking out the trash and all the menial tasks to which she assigned me. I came in early for two reasons: 1. so that I could leave early and 2. so that I could actually do something meaningful, like an assay, rather than just label cryovials. I was so stressed that my milk supply dropped and I had to supplement my daughter with formula occasionally (this killed me).

Now here's the kicker. We had been running a clinical trial and over Christmas break, we had lab work to do. Bitch was going out of the country for two weeks and I had family coming in. So, E. and I worked it out so that she'd set up the cell cultures, check the lab stuff until Dec. 22, I'd check it once (on Christmas Eve, my birthday) and then it'd just sit there for a week, unchecked. This was okay with doc. He even came in the day I was there (Dec. 23) and I told him the cells looked kind of funny. He looked, but said they were fine.

We'd had a lot of problems with contamination, but it all started while I was on maternity leave. So, I don't think it was my fault. No, I didn't have a background in biology, but I was careful with stuff and had learned and practiced the sterile technique. During the rest of this lab work, we had intermittent problems with contamination and our cells always looked funny, but Doc showed no interest in it.

When we finally submitted out results to the pharma company for which we were doing our study, they discovered systematic errors. And, who got blamed for it? Bitch looked through our records and told Doc that I was the one responsible for all of it. It's absolutely ridiculous. Yes, I had a part in it, but so did each of the others. Bitch looked at the same plates of cells that I did and if there had been a problem, why didn't she mention it or record it somewhere? E. set up all of those cultures and did the first few readings on them. Her writing is there! I continued on with here readings and I didn't change what she had. Yes, that was a mistake. An honest mistake. I had told Doc things didn't look right, but he said they were okay, so I went with it.

April 7, 2004, Doc called me into his office and told me about this horrible mistake that had been made and asked me to resign. He unfairly placed the blame solely on me. I told him that I showed him the funny looking cells and he said they were fine. He denied that ever happened. It still gets me. I'm just sorry I didn't' write a letter of resignation a year before that. At least I got to vent *a little* about how he never got involved with working relationships in the lab and that was a mistake because the environment in that lab was sour.

EPILOGUE:

-E. got paid and never worked and lied. Oh, how that girl lied. I don't know who she thought she was fooling. She's an EMT now and as far as I know, she's still getting paid in that wretched lab. It's amazing what rich parents can do for their kids. I guess buying everything for her, even as a 23 year old, really paid off.
-Bitch was a bitch and I'm sure she still is. Oh, but she tried three times to get into med school and never got in. Too bad, so sad.
-I, on the other hand, have a wonderful husband, a beautiful, smart daughter, I got my MS in statistics and I will be starting a wonderful career in such, making a great salary and living in a fantastic house.

I guess things have a way of working themselves out.

Cheers.
--LG

the aches and pains of dealing with grown-up things

I can't believe how many phone calls moving requires. I can do a lot of stuff on the internet, but I have to call doctors' offices for records, fax release forms, call to cancel long distance service, etc. And, for all the services I have to cancel, there is always a plethora of questions accompanying it. "Why are you cancelling service?" "Did we meet your expectations?" "Did you know that we have service in the area to where you are moving?" Augh!! I don't care!!

Anyway, it's coming along.

J. and I met with New Realtor again this weekend. We were listed at $199,000 with the Fired Realtor and the new one originally told us we ought to ask $189,000 for our house. We have a 3 bedroom, 1.5 bathroom townhouse (really it's a duplex). We have new floors in the kitchen, downstairs bath, and utility room, a brand new roof, a brand new heat pump and air handler, new garbage disposal, the whole house has been painted between 2002 and now, we have nice landscaping--not over-the-top, just well maintained. We have a corner lot, so we have a pretty yard on two sides of our house, as well as a little fenced-in patio in the back. However, once New Realtor realized we have HardiPlank siding, she decided we should ask $192,900.

Now, don't get me wrong. I am not a realtor, nor do I know that much about real estate. However, I have been closely following our local MLS listing service for similar houses over the past 6 months or so and I feel I have a pretty good idea of what people are asking and how long they are on the market. We fired our last realtor because she didn't do anything for us. Anything that she did was because I asked her to do it (marketing-wise). I didn't want to leave our house in her hands once we moved out of state because I don't think she'd do anything. I selected this new one based upon her visibility, her outstanding record (top 3 realtors in our area), and because she sold a house like ours down the block a couple of years ago.

I thought New Realtor underpriced us on our house so I requested that she send us a list of all the houses that have sold in the last 6 months that have the same specs as ours and I did my own little statistical analysis on them. I mostly did it to prove that she was right, but what I found was that I was right. And, as it is, I still think we are underpriced, but it may allow us to sell our house quickly. I broke it down in various ways, such as zip code and house size, etc. Basically, in our zip code, houses that are our size or smaller (<1250 sq. ft) have a mean selling price of $202,000 and a median selling price of $205,000.

Traditionally, some of the houses that sold above this mean and median just always sell for more, due to location or who knows why, so taking that into account, I thought $195,000 would be a reasonable price. Lower than where we were, but higher than what New Realtor suggested. As it is, we feel like this is taking a loss. If we could be making $199,000 (and I think by June we could), then anything less is a loss. But, $189,000 was practically an insult. Also, there is a house across the street that has nothing new, stinks inside, and has old paint and they are asking $192,900. Yeah, theirs hasn't sold but why should we price our house the same when ours is much nicer and shows much better? The reason ours hasn't sold yet is because the marketing sucked--no one even came through it (very few--like 3 showings)! That's Fired Realtor's fault.

After we presented New Realtor with my anaylsis, she agreed (somewhat begrudingly) to list it at $195,000. I completely understand that it is important not to overprice one's house. However, I think overpricing our house would be if we put it above $200,000. Even at $192,900, there is NOTHING lower than that in our zip code. And, our house is certainly nicer than a lot of the ones that are asking under the mean/median. I understand that New Realtor wants to sell it quickly, and she thinks that we do too, but actually we are prepared to ride it out for a while. We will be paying $2700/month in rent for a nice house in MD, so another $890/month in mortgage isn't huge in comparison. Now, come June and it still hasn't sold, then there's a problem, but houses are sitting on the market for 3 months or more these days. I'd rather stagger our loss in mortgage payments over several months (or less hopefully) than to know we are definitely taking a loss by pricing too low and then it possibly still sitting on the market for the same amount of time.

Pardon me if this sounds arrogant--I don't mean for it to: If statisticians and scientists held actual hands-on positions in every industry, things would run much smoother and make much more sense than they do now.

Cheers.
--LG

I am so grateful

I was just reading a friend of a friend's blog on MySpace. Her name is Breezy and she's written a cumulative blog describing the experience of her husband becoming quite ill from what initially looked like e. coli or some such infection. It turns out he has some other disease (possibly HUS) and he's in kidney failure. It was an amazing blog to read. Not because she's a journalist or professional writer, but because it was well-written and so touching. Anyone who is married or has children can easily imagine him/herself in her shoes. She's so brave. Please send them your thoughts: Breezy.

I was so pissed off at my husband yesterday for the way he excluded me from such an important day. I was still going to take him out for a nice dinner at a German restaurant about 30 miles away but it didn't happen. I had made reservations for 6:30 and he still wasn't home at 6:15. I had been biting my lip all day as it was but then my daughter accidentally socked me in the lip with her elbow and I lost it. I bawled and J. came home to find me like that. Plus, it was too late to try to make it for our reservation. J. got a good yelling for all of it, particularly for making me feel so selfish for being hurt that he excluded me. I told him it was a really shitty feeling being so ecstatically happy for his phenomenal accomplishment and at the same time being so angry at him for this.

The worst part was that I had such a let-down feeling. You know how in college/grad school when you work like mad finishing projects and papers and finals? Then the end of the semester arrives and classes are over and you don't know what the fuck to do with yourself. You almost feel depressed--it's such a let down. No hooplah to finish it off. It's the same feeling you get Christmas night after you're done with all the celebrating and gift-opening. Now what?

Well, that's how I felt last night, except the build-up had been for 5.5 years, instead of just a couple of months. It sucked.

But, thanks to Breezy, I'm reminded of how fortunate I am, in my health and life. Despite himself, I have a wonderful, smart, healthy husband (now that the Lyme disease is gone!) and a wonderful daughter with the same characteristics.

I'm saying good-bye to my best friend today. It's sad.

Cheers.
--LG

hurt feelings

J. defended his dissertation today. He did really well. He didn't seem nervous and he just did a great job. His committee had two small details he needs to fix: the date which the laser was actually invented and correct that Albert Einstein discovered stimulated emission, not actually laser emission. That's it. That's pretty awesome, if you ask me. Well, his advisor is so damn picky that there better not have been any major corrections to make.

I was planning to take him out to lunch, duh. I'm his wife and I've supported him and have been there every step of the way, right? Before the talk, J.'s colleague told him that their advisor (B.) wanted to take him out to lunch after the defense. Am I stupid to assume that I, his wife, cold tag along, too? How is that such a terrible assumption? Oh, and I know what you are thinking--that it was his advisor who did not invite me. No. It was my lovely, thoughtless husband who said I'm not invited. I told him I'm sure B. wouldn't mind and J. said that B. is paying for lunch so I better not come.

I feel like I'm being really selfish, but goddamnit! It was really, really hurtful. I got fucking dressed up and all excited to celebrate for nothing. Basically he expected that I'd leave after his talk. I was planning to wait for him until after his actual defense so that I could be there when his committee told him "Congratulations, Dr. M.K."

But, no. So, I'm trying to let it go. I'm mad because it was my expectation to be there and apparently not the reality of the situation. Well, fine. I don't need to be a part of one of his top three most important days in his life (birth of daughter and marriage [I think] being the other two).

So.

Cheers.

--LG

The minutiae of my life

Hmmm. What to talk about today. Not much. I officially fired my realtor and have selected a new one, I think. Actually, I want her to meet my husband, too, because we're not thrilled with the price she is suggesting. But, at the same time, we're moving in 2.5 weeks and it would be great to just get the house sold!

We've hired people from emove.com to help us load and unload our moving truck. I'll let you know how that service works and whether the people do a good job (they better). We're loading up the house Friday Dec. 15 and moving the next day. J. will drive the truck up to our new home, about 3 hours away and in Maryland and I'll stay with M. while the carpets are being cleaned. Our house will go back on the market that day under the new realtor.

It's exciting, but there is so much to do. We have to repaint the kitchen and possibly the upstairs bathroom, mulch everything in our flower beds. J. is defending his PhD dissertation tomorrow and will pretty much be a free man once he finishes any necessary revisions, so at least he'll be able to do a lot of this.

I brought my running clothes to work with me, but I don't know if I'll have the chance to go. I really want to get back into it. I stopped running in August. I was training for a 4-miler and was ready for it when my inlaws came to visit. I went running once while they were here, but then we got a spell of really hot, humid weather and it is just miserable to run in it. Then I went to Seattle for a conference and just never went for a run. Then, suddenly, two months had passed and I hadn't gone for a run. I've gone four times since then, two of which were this week, so I really ought to go today.

I need to do some work today. I have a headache and am tired and would rather not do anything. Ugh. I hate feeling like this.

Cheers.
--LG

Friendly Reflections

I went to the dermatologist today to have a freckle inspected. It's on my hand, which alone seems rather odd, but it has grown some since it appeared a year or less ago. The doctor didn't seem concerned about it, though, so that's good.

Today is my boss's birthday. She's been much more than a boss--she's been a wonderful friend. I'm sad to be not be working with her. She even kept M. overnight while J. and I went to job interviews. What boss does that? I should be so luck in my next job.

What's new since I last wrote. Hmmm... Turkey day was good. We went to my friend M.'s house and pigged out. She and her family are moving on Saturday. I can't believe it. We went on our last run together last night, around downtown for old time's sake. It was nice.

I'm trying to convince myself since now that she's not going to be good at staying in contact but that doesn't mean she's not my friend anymore. I have this habit of cutting off friendships because the friend doesn't stay in contact well. Case in point: My best friend my last year high school, A. went off to school at Vanderbilt while I stayed in NM. She was terrible at staying in contact and I really resented it. However, she'd come home in the summers and we'd spend all summer together. But I was probably pretty bluntly unhappy with her initially and I'd always make her feel bad--oh, yeah, also because she was ALWAYS late for everything. it used to drive me nuts. I'd make cry because I was so mad at her for being like that.

When I moved to VA, she was living in DC and we were only 2 hours apart. The first 9 months or so we saw each other probably 4 times, which was pretty good. Then I got pregnant and she dropped off the face of the earth. I had sent out and "I'm pregnant" email to all my friends and she finally acknowledged me a couple of months later. But then I didn't hear from her until 18 months later. She called me on Christmas Eve, my birthday. My daughter was 10 months old. She wished me a happy birthday and asked if I could come up to DC to see the Shins play at the 9:30 Club in February. J. and I had just tried to go see Paul Simon in DC a couple weeks before and had to cancel at the last minute because M. was sick. I luckily sold my tickets on eBay the day of, but I finally realized that I just couldn't be driving up to DC to see shows anymore (A. & I had seen Belle & Sebastian among others in DC). I told her that I just can't do that stuff anymore, at least not at this point. I was also trying to put M. to bed and asked her if I could call her right back. So, I did and she said she was sitting down to dinner (at 9:30 at night with her family?) so she said she'd call me back. She never did.

I let a week go by and finally I sent her an email (I didn't have a current phone number) saying I was so excited to hear from her and so disappointed that she never called me back. I told her that maybe we've just grown too far apart and that we aren't meant to be friends anymore. I told her that a lot of things have changed for me and that I need reliable friends in my life.

It took several years to come to regret that I said all those things, well not so much that I said them, but that I wasn't more forgiving for people's lack of loyalty or reliability. Just because we don't talk on the phone even once a month doesn't mean she's not my friend. And, wouldn't it be better to hear from her once a year than never again?

Well, the point is, I won't let that happen with M. I tend to become very disenchanted with people when they don't exhibit the same loyalties as friends that I do. I have high expectations for my friends and the people that I surround myself with. If they don't meet them, I don't want to be around them. I'm trying to have a little give with my stringent expectations, but in some respects, it just comes down to common decency. And, by god, I expect my friend to exude common decency. But, I've also learned that people have different measures of such and that just because I don't get that phone call or email doesn't mean that person isn't thinking about me (in a positive manner, I hope!).

So I get this call last night while I'm making dinner.

Me (white female): Hello?
Caller (black female): Is this C.?
Me: Yes. (pause) Can I help you?
Caller: Are you white or black?
Me: Excuse me? Why are you asking?
Caller: I just want to know if you are white or black.
Me: I don't think that's any of your business [but if I can tell you are black, you can probably tell that I am white].
Caller: Do you know Tyrone?
Me: Sorry.
Caller: Are you sure?
Me: I'm quite sure I don't know any Tyrones.
Caller: Then why is your name and number in his phone?
Me: I have no idea.
Caller: Did you call him?
Me: I don't know who you are talking about. I don't know any Tyrones and I don't know how my name and number got in his phone. Maybe you should ask him.
Caller: No, I'm asking you.
Me: Sorry, I can't help you.
Caller: Are you white or black?
Me: I'm white.
Caller: Are you sure?
Me: Uh, I'm quite sure.
**Click**

I hung up, a little freaked out that someone thinks I'm calling her Tyrone and that she's gonna google my phone number and then come kill me!

Two minutes later the phone rings. I'm thinking I'm going to tell that that I'm going to call the cops if she keeps harassing me.

Me: Hello?
Caller: It's me. Do you know Sherelle?
Me: I don't know hwo Sherelle is, I don't know who Tyrone is. I've been having a lot of work done on my house, is it possible that this Tyrone is a delivery person?
Caller: No, he works for the [name of place withheld] Arena.
Me: I'm sorry, I don't know who Tyrone is. Please don't call me again.
Caller: Okay.

Bizarro. She never called back, but of course when I told my husband about this, he's like "Who's Tyrone?" Gimme a break.

Cheers.
--LG