Huge Sigh of Relief

I finally received my grades for the semester.  

I was all sorts of nervous because my proctor didn't follow my teacher's simple instructions of faxing the test and then mailing the hard copy to her.  They just mailed it.  My teacher and I have been waiting on the mail for the past eight days.  And you know the mail...

Well, she received my test yesterday.  I got my final grade.  And I passed! 

No more math for me!  No more math!  No more math! And yes!  I'm singing and doing a happy dance. 

So I'm just two classes short of getting my associates.  Come December, I'll have a fancy-shmancy paper to hang up.  And you know what?  I'm going to hang it proudly.  It's taken me nearly six years to get this far.

Yeah.  Six years to get an associates.  Kinda sad but if some people knew what exactly I've been doing for the past six years they'd understand.  It's been a long, hard road to get this far.  I worked full time, got married, supported Mav through undergrad, helped Mav apply and get accepted to med school, got pregnant, still worked, moved across the country, Mav started medical school, we had a baby and the baby is now 2 1/2.  I've been going to school the whole time.  Can I tell how big of a pain it is to do online classes and the whole proctoring thing from your home school in a different state?  The biggest pain ever!

For the past six years, especially since my baby was born, I've felt like a person in the circus.  The person who has about ten plates spinning atop sticks.  It takes a lot of time management to keep all of them spinning at once; you can't neglect any of them.  If one of them gets neglected, it slows and then falls, smashing to pieces.  While the person it busy cleaning up the mess, the next thing they know they all start to smash to the ground.  It's a juggling act but it is a very possible juggling act.

It's been a hard juggling act for the past six years, but I've done it.  And I'm letting out a huge sigh of relief here...

The Healthcare Issue

This is brave, I know.  This Healthcare Reform thing is a very, very touchy subject.  I hate the feeling of walking eggshells though.  I've been working on this idea, of bringing up the subject for a while now.  I lay in bed and think about it.  Constantly.  Is this going to effect Mav?  Is it going to effect our friends who are going into medicine as well?  Will it effect the way Mav treats his future patients? How will this effect our future that Mav has worked so hard for? 

So for the past few days I've been surfing the web.  I've read lots of articles.  Nearly all of them are how this healthcare reform will effect the public.  I've found very few about the effects on doctors.  The few I've read seem to be written by people who believe doctors are selfish, greedy people and are paid way too much.  Let me be honest, those ones just make me mad. 

I want to have a solid opinion on this subject matter.  I am asked constantly about it when people discover my husband is in medical school.  My reply is mostly, "I don't know enough but I think..."  I want to fill in the blank with a good, educated answer.  Right now, I'm riding the fence. 

So ladies and gents, what's your opinion?  Do you stay up late, like I do, wondering how this will work out?  Do you worry about your significant other's patients?  Do you agree or disagree with this healthcare reform as a whole or maybe just bits and pieces?  Have you read any good articles about it lately?  Especially ones that seem unbiased, fair and/or honest?

I would really love to hear from you.


AND...
I did a lot of research of whether this should be 'effect' or 'affect.'  I decided 'effect' was proper.  Cause and effect, right? 

This Better Be Worth It

We just paid for Mav's Step II test.

We had been warned by our friends to set aside this money because it's not counted into our student loans.  We just put the idea on the back burner.  We wish we hadn't now.  I'm now passing this lovely bit of information on to all you second years: set this money aside when you get your money!  DO IT!!  And yes!  I am shouting!!   

Ask me how much it was.  Go ahead.  Do it.  It was 1700 dollars.  1700 bones.  Yes.  That is a 17 with two zeros following the 17 part.  One thousand seven hundred dollars.  

I feel like I've been violated in some way.  

All I can say is this doctor thing better be worth it.  My heck. $1700? 

Poor Sport

I'm sometimes a poor sport.  So what.  Tell me who isn't?  At some point, someone will show unsportsmanlike conduct.  Even the most mellow people will do it.  Really.  It's only a matter time.

Let me explain.  For Easter, I played the Easter Bunny.  (By the way, Happy Easter!)  Squeaks got an adorable, super poofy dress, sunglasses, and a baseball glove with velcro to help her learn to catch.  Mine and Mav's basket was filled with a movie and a card game.  It was simple.  I'm not sure why some people go to crazy Christmas-birthday-elaborate attempts for Easter.  Maybe I'm the only one who feels this way.  Anyway, our movie was Bruce Almighty.  I explained to Mav that at Christmas we get Christmas movies and Bruce Almighty was the closest thing to an Easter movie that I could find.  It has God in it, right?  Our card game, Monopoly Deal.  We played it with friends a while back.  It was a lot of fun.  And we are always looking for good games to play. 

I'm warning you now, do not get this game to play with just you and your husband.  It causes fights.  Big fights.  Mav actually went straight to bed after I threw my cards at him.  For a second time.  This is where my unsportsmanlike conduct comes in.

Really.  I'm actually mad that the kid is a genius.  I hate him for it.  It makes me mad.  And it really makes me mad when he beats me in stupid, simple games like checkers.  In school, he was the punk kid who sat in the back of the class, hardly paying attention.  I was in the front row trying to listen to everything.  Come test day, he's the kid who scores 120% on the test, which throws off the curve, making kids like me fail regardless of how hard we try.  It's not fair!  And once again I got beat by the smart kid! 

This game really is fun to play with a group.  We like it because unlike Monopoly, it doesn't take 20 hours to play instead it's about 20 minutes.  But when it's just two players, there is only one person to steal properties and money from.  That is not a good thing.  Personally, I don't like being screwed with on purpose and that's what this game encourages.  Stealing and screwing other players.

Now, we do have some awesome marriage friendly games that don't result in couples sleeping in separate rooms.

For a group we recommend:

• Pirates of the Caribbean Dice Game
• Farkle
• Catch Phrase
• Dicecapades

For just the two of you but still super fun with groups, we highly recommend:

• Ticket to Ride- US version with 1910 expansion pack and the Dexter & Alvin expansion
• Carcassonne with the Princess & Dragon, Inns and Cathedrals, The River, and Traders and Builders expansions.  
• Sequence

We have spent a lot of playing Carcassonne and Ticket to Ride.  We actually got Carcassonne for Christmas two years ago.  We seriously played it almost every night for two or three hours or until we were too tired to see anymore.  Then we got Ticket to Ride and it was the same thing.  Now, all our neighbors and friends are addicted.  They are such good games.  We haven't bored of them yet.  

Maybe to avoid the fights, we'll have to stick to Carcassonne and Ticket to Ride with just the two of us playing. 

Do you know of any other games that are couple friendly?  Or maybe ones that aren't?  What are your favorites?

Pretty Spoiled

Mav is on outpatient pediatrics.  It's sweet.

The weather here has been glorious.  It was 90 today.  Squeaks and I, along with our neighbors, blew up the pool in the backyard and played all day long.

Spoiled, huh?

Around five this evening, I felt horrible.  I thought I had tunnel vision.  I was woozy.  It felt like my brain was swollen and could possibly blow out of my head.  I was hot but cold.  Maybe dehydration or heat exhaustion.  Who knows.

Well, I laid on the couch and told Mav I was going to die.  Dramatic, I know.   He asked me what was for dinner.  I didn't even raise my head to stare at him but I told him I was going to make tater-tot casserole.  Now, I was doing nothing but dying!  I told him that he and Squeaks were on their own.

Mav told me to go take a nap and he'd make dinner.  I refused.  I needed to do my homework.  I only have two weeks left and I have to pass this blasted math class.  I tried to listen to a lecture.  I tried for about two minutes but couldn't manage.  I got up slowly and walked past Mav who was starting dinner.  I told him to wake me up in 45 minutes or so.

And I crashed.  I woke up 45 minutes later to dinner on the table.

Spoiled, huh?


Want the recipe for my tater-tot casserole?  Click below to see it.  My two year old and picky husband love it.  Best of all, it was easy enough to explain to Mav how to make it, all by himself.