BEARS WIN!

It was a horrible game that they should probably not have won, but thanks to a blocked field goal attempt, overtime, the sheer luck of the coin toss, and finally a Bears field goal (thank you Robbie Gould!), the Bears scraped past the Packers at Soldier Field. Joshua and his dad were among the frozen fans that braved windchills of -2 degrees to see the Bears stay alive for another week. (When they first got tickets, I was very jealous, but once the weather forecast for this week came out, I laughed myself indoors).

I watched the game from a pub with Joshua's mom (yes, I did drag her teetotaling self into a BAR...i love it), although we left at the end of the 4th quarter to drive downtown to get the guys, so we were on Michigan Avenue admiring the Christmas lights and listening to the game on the radio when it ended.

My first hometown team is of course, the New England Patriots (stop booing, I can hear you), and if you follow football you know that Patriots fans are despised the country over because they are a) obnoxious (I will admit this) and b) everyone else is jealous. I know this year has been rocky, and last year ended in utter devastation, but overall Pats fans have had lots to be happy about in the past five years or so.

My adopted Bears are more of a heartbreaker team, and I'm getting used to that. My learning experience with the emotional upheaval that is a losing football team began in the 4th quarter of last year's Super Bowl, when I held myself together until all our friends left (they were cheering for the Giants, I should have kicked them out) and then I cried on Joshua's shoulder for twenty minutes. Maybe that gives a little insight into how serious I am about football (you don't have a choice, growing up in New England...please see above: obnoxious fans). Joshua was a little stunned, but he has seen my family watch football (where there is yelling and screaming and stomping and occasionally the throwing of inanimate objects), so he handled it well. My hatred for anything Manning runs deep.

But beyond football...today we woke up in a snowglobe. Chicago looks absolutely gorgeous blanketed in snow, and yet I am already over it. We have had to use chains twice to get out of our ridiculous city parking spaces, which are really ice ruts and it is not even January yet. Sigh. I am spending the day inside wrapping presents and cleaning the apartment until I have to leave for work tonight.

Two days til Christmas and 98% of my shopping is done, 75% is wrapped and 0% of the Christmas Day meal/baking is completed. Overall, with the exception of some baking I should definitely have started yesterday, I would say I am making excellent progress.

I have not accomplished much Christmas shopping since my last post (Joshua has, although last time he went out he came home with a brand new HD TV. For...us.)

I work three 12 hour night shifts a week, including every 3rd weekend. This is my weekend. I suppose it's ridiculous to complain about a 3 day workweek, but with the way we are scheduled I sometimes end up having long stretches of time off and long stretches of time ON. I'm the middle of one of those long work weeks right now. From last Wednesday to this Wednesday I'm working 72 hours. Then, I admit, I will have 5 days off, but I'll be honest this 'week' is dragging for me. I had to go downstairs to the cafeteria at 4am last night to buy M&Ms and hot chocolate (from a machine! a new low!) just to keep me going through the last 3 hours. My babies were sleeping soundly and didn't need me to wake them up for anything so I organized their bedspaces, finished my charting, and then I gave up and ate M&M's and read an old issue of People. NICU nursing can run the gamut of terrifying to mind-numbingly dull, I guess.

And when I work 6 out of 7 nights in a week, I definitely miss my husband, my friends, my cats, and my bed. I do not have time for Christmas shopping. And I eat too much sugar.

So...the holidays are flying by at an astonishing speed (goodbye, Thanksgiving, hello, panicked Christmas shopping) and I have barely kept up with it all. I think anyone who has known me longer than 5 minutes knows I am definitely not your overprepared, wrap-the-presents-by-October type of person. I grew up in a family that considered tearing through department stores on Christmas Eve, an hour before we were supposed to be at Grandma's, practically tradition. Actually, we would typically run in to my extended family there as well. This is in no way an exaggeration.

Which is why we have arrived at December 11th with not much crossed off the list. And what is crossed off happened between last night at 10pm, due to Joshua taking advantage of Amazon.com while I was at work, and today at 7pm, after I finished a few hours of wacked out, sleep deprived shopping with Amy as my driver.

I have made exactly one handmade gift (Joshua's mom's scarf) and I'm very happy with the gifts we've found for friends and family so far. I have not bought one thing full-price, which is obviously very tacky to say, but I am not always the best bargain hunter (see: lazy, easily distracted, swayed by slick packaging, also lazy). So I am proud to say, if you are getting a gift from me, don't expect to return it for full price.

In other news, Joshua and I are the proud owners of the world's ugliest Christmas tree after my delightful husband convinced me to buy a tree in a net laying outside at at Home Depot. I will be honest, there were warning signs that things could go badly (the tree was in a net, hello) but he was swayed by the low price (warning sign!), ease of transport, and...I'm not sure what else. I'm not really sure what overcame either of us, but we were in a state of extreme exhaustion following our whirlwind Thanksgiving trip to New England (32 hours in the car, people, unacceptable).

As you can imagine, the tree comes with all sorts of lovely quirks. It's not exactly the triangle shape we all imagine a Christmas balsam fir should be. It's exactly the kind of tree that I would laugh at were I to find its sad little self hanging out in the woods. However, it's very green, the needles aren't sharp or brittle, and it might have the strongest branches of any Christmas tree I've ever had. Which is why all the ornaments are hanging off the very tips of the tree, 'disguising' the various holes. It gives off the effect that the tree is slightly disgusted by all the bedazzling we've imposed upon it, and is holding all the glitter and bells at arm's length.

I have not even begun to discuss how I much I am looking forward to filling the kitties' stockings. And Joshua's. So I will have to post again before Christmas!

Yesterday morning I reached into the freezer to pull out Joshua's lunch (a Trader Joe's frozen meal, sorry I am failing at my wifely duties here) and it was Not.Frozen. So I put my hand back in the freezer and very gingerly poked a pork chop. Soft.. The whole refrigerator had died overnight. And judging by how thawed the frozen food was, it had died early in the night.

Luckily it was thirty degrees out and with the help of my friends (I highly recommend living on the same exact street, within a block, of 2 of your best friends and your sister in law) we got the food out on the back porch and took all the pictures and magnets off the old fridge.

Then I left for a day of caramel corn making and watching The Business of Being Born (highly recommend that as well) and when I returned after a few more errands, voila! new, nicer fridge and bonus! they had put all the food from the porch back in the fridge.

I can't wait to own a place, but sometimes I am totally thrilled to be a renter.

I am pleased to announce that two very monumental events have occurred today, and it's not even 3:00pm yet.

First, I hauled out all the Christmas decorations and started the massive process of bestowing holiday spirit on every room in this apartment. I am about halfway done, but I had to take a break since I am also in the midst of processing 6 (SIX!) loads of laundry. (We have been busy). So far I've put up our nativity, our stockings (including two new tiny ones for Pam and Hala, comments are closed on this issue except theyaresoflippingcute!!), changed over all the dishcloths and potholders to their Christmas versions, and pulled out all the Christmas candles. I've also made two holiday stations on Pandora, one contemporary and one classic. I just told Pandora to never play NSync's version of Merry Christmas again, so I haven't completely lost my senses in the holiday hoopla.

I do know that it's pretty early to decorate. I wasn't planning on diving into this lovely disaster until this weekend, but I have today and tomorrow off and then I work 6 out of the next 7 days after that. I leave straight from work Wednesday morning at 7:30am to drive 14 hours across the country to see my wonderful family. That clearly left me with no choice but to decorate today, since I absolutely cannot return home from Thanksgiving to an undecorated home! That would be tragic.

Secondly, in terms of the monumental events, I have secured a written contract from my younger brother telling me he will move to Chicago next summer. Ok, it was a text message, and maybe he was slightly more vague than that, but I am taking him seriously. My youngest brother was just here visiting my alma mater, and he also tells me he wants to move here. I have a VERY good track record of convincing (coercing?) people to move to Chicago, which is why you could be out at a bar sometime and overhear an entire table of people talking about their childhood in Massachusetts. Those are my people. Anyways, convincing both my brothers to move here within a year would really be the ultimate triumph for me. Because with all three children in the Midwest, my parents would also be forced to seriously consider relocating.

They call this a coup, I believe.

Oh! And one more thing. After having spent an inordinate amount of time wandering the aisles this morning (and after watching that 30 Rock a few weeks back where Oprah guest-starred), I would also like to promote a few of My Favorite (Holiday) Things (Which can be Purchased at Target).

1) Method Frosted Fir Hand Soap

2) Snowmen Acrylic Dinnerware
Ok, I only bought the glasses. But tell me the whole set is not adorable?!

3) Snowmen Christmas Stocking
Joshua and I both have stockings at our parents' homes, but have never purchased our own. These look like they will wear well over the years. I can picture our (rambunctious) children ripping apart the Christmas boxes and yelling, "I found mom and dad's stockings!" (then they will grumble, "here are Pam and Hala's stupid little stockings") Somehow I find this mental picture hilarious.

I finished Joshua's mom's scarf today, making it officially the first wearable piece of knitting I have completed! I've crocheted several scarfs and hats and made valiant attempts to finish the random knitting I've started, but this is really the first thing that I finished well. (Naturally, I kind of want to keep it! Because I am a horrible, selfish knitter. Don't worry, it's definitely hers). I would post a picture, but my camera won't connect to the computer lately. It's feeling lazy, apparently.

The cats love the yarn. They lick it and bat at it and are generally transfixed by it. This is a serious stereotype, right? Cats and yarn? I am the kind of person who owns CATS. Who KNITS. I really enjoy this new hobby, and I adore my cats, but the reality of being a cat-owning knitter is rough on the ego. I am too young for this.

I Bleed Blue...

"This is our moment. This is our time - to put our people back to work and open doors of opportunity for our kids; to restore prosperity and promote the cause of peace; to reclaim the American Dream and reaffirm that fundamental truth - that out of many, we are one; that while we breathe, we hope, and where we are met with cynicism and doubt, and those who tell us that we can't, we will respond with that timeless creed that sums up the spirit of a people:

YES WE CAN."

- Barack Obama, 44th President of the United States of America

All I Really Want To Say Is...

We had a very calm, relaxed Sunday. We went to church for the first time in months (the night shift and the weekend trips to everywhere and nowhere have kept us either in bed or out of town for a shockingly long time).

We got coffee at a local coffee shop where I accidentally ordered a tall and was glared at by the barista. Yes, I have sold my soul to Starbucks. For the convenience. (See also, the night shift).

We stopped in local yarn store next to the local coffee shop and I bought two skeins of thick, wintry yarn that will hopefully become scarves for Joshua (gray and white ribbed, very manly) and his mom (a heather blue chessboard pattern). I already started on his mom's scarf and as it's on size 15 needles I'm hoping to finish it before it hits 75 degrees on Wednesday. Seventy-five. Seriously, November? Are you for real?

We watched football. Kyle Orton got injured and Rex Grossman managed to take to Bears to a win over the Lions, even though he looks just as frightened and confused as always. After growing up in Patriots country, Tom Brady country, poor Rex makes me physically cringe.

So, it was a very ordinary day and yet it wasn't. I took a leap of faith which I can't really discuss here, but was terrifying and also absolutely the right thing to do (no I did NOT throw away my birth control pills). I had one of those experiences at church this morning where I was smacked in the face with something that I really needed to deal with. It wasn't even subtle, I mean I opened up the study guide for the week that goes along with the sermon series, and I could have just inserted my name in the questions for the first day. In what ways does your life reflect x...y...z? (um, it doesn't? I'll get back to you at 10pm when I've made some steps in the right direction?) Sometimes God is a whispered breath, and other times, a bulldozer.

I don't think it's a big surprise to anyone that I love the city. I have always been a city girl, since the very first time I went to New York City to visit my relatives. I don't think I can overstate how hard I fell for city life. I loved the crush of people, noise, lights, the smell of Chinese takeout and bakeries. I almost got killed by a cab, and to my parents' horror, I was thrilled. I went back as often as possible. When I was junior in high school, I spent three weeks living with my cousin in Greenwich Village. My hippie performing arts school had a whole month of what we called Paideia. We could spend a month doing anything from intensive hiphop to mock trial. I chose to do an independent study and attend a writer's series at the New School.

I never went. I don't remember why, I think I was intimidated by the thought of college students (college students!) critiquing my writing. Instead, I went to ballet class at Broadway Dance Center (It kicked my ass, I should have been more intimidated by it). I wandered around New York City, taking the train to places that sounded interesting all by myself while my cousin went to school. I saw Rent and a few other plays. I got carded in a bar and saw Kirsten Dunst in Dean and Deluca. I basically did nothing except explore and pretend I lived in New York. Oh, and I started artfully slinging scarves around my neck (scarves make you urban, did you know?) I made plans to move there immediately after I graduated. With a lot of scarves and not a lot of money.

Obviously my life didn't play out how I envisioned it when I was seventeen, but I still ended up in a city that I love. And I love Chicago more than New York, for reasons I didn't care about when I was in high school. It's cheaper. Friendlier. You don't have to be glamorous or edgy (or both) here. New York is exceedingly cool, Chicago is just...itself.

I think one of the best things about living in a city, besides the easy access to sushi and museums and art we never take enough advantage of, is actually getting out of the city. It makes me appreciate trees. Even the flat, empty cornfields that I hated when I first moved to the midwest look somewhat stark and lovely to me now. We're at Joshua's parents this weekend, just hanging out and drinking coffee and doing free laundry and watching hdtv (him) and leisurely blogging (me). It's quiet and not at all how I want my life to be every day,but I do appreciate it. Have I totally grown up?

Sometimes I really wish we could take pictures of our precious kiddos in the NICU. Yes, it would totally violate their privacy and HIPAA and all those boring legal technicalities, but I think the world at large would benefit from seeing them all dressed up in their Halloween costumes! Because nothing jazzes up IV lines and oxygen tubing and cardiac leads like a velour pumpkin outfit! Who will notice your trach when you are wearing a fluffy white lamb costume with actual hooves?? (Hopefully your nurse will notice, but it might be difficult for a minute. We are falling over from All.The.Cuteness!)

I've actually never been a huge fan of Halloween - probably because in the adult world it is a quite a bit more skank than sweet - but I think I changed my mind last night at work. These families have never had the joy of bringing their babies at home. If they've been outside, it was only for the briefest moment between an ambulance and an emergency room door. They live in a hospital . Watching their parents wrestle them into pumpkin suits and I Love My Mummy onesies made me realize just how important it is to us as humans that life goes on normally, despite overwhelming obstacles. We keep our traditions, no matter how strange. We cope with costumes.

And I will say, I think it works. I had a new patient last night whose parents were understandably overwhelmed and scared that their brand new baby boy, who had been just a perfectly healthy 3 day old, suddenly ended up in the NICU with a heart issue. They didn't know they would be able to hold their baby, now that he was attached to his leads and lines. They didn't think they could bring him clothes from home to wear. They didn't know they could change his diaper, take his temperature...basically parent him, while he was in the hospital. But I watched them stare at the family across the room as those NICU veterans figured out how to get their almost 6-month old, who comes decked out with hiflow oxygen tubing, a G-tube, and a central line, into a jack-o-lantern costume. Mr. Jack-O-Lantern posed for pictures with his parents for the next oh, hour, or so while half the unit came to coo over him, and I could see the new family visibly relax. The mom actually whispered to her husband, "Everyone is so nice here!" And then they tried to figure out what she could bring back the next day for their son to wear on Halloween. Does anyone want to be in a NICU with their baby, ever? Of course not. It's terrifying. But there is so much joy in making it a better place for our families than they expected.

I am beginning to really love what I do.

I cannot consistently update this blog! I don't know why, I think I just run out of things to say for awhile...get busy...get lazy. I love to read other blogs (maybe to the point of gently stalking?) but I struggle with my own words.

Right now it's 6:40am and I am really excited for the day shift to come in at 7am so I can go home. Not to sleep, which would be the healthy/smart/normal choice, no I am keeping my ass awake all day to celebrate Joshua's mom's birthday. (We will start the celebration with a LOT of coffee to keep me sane). It was a slow night, with a stable preemie who didn't require much hands-on care other than my assessments and one blood draw which I HATE doing because these kiddos are so tiny and every little drop counts! (Seriously. Did you know preemies have only about 90ml per kilo of circulating blood volume? This kid is only 600 grams...so he has maybe 50ml of circulating blood. And I had to take one away from him. My job is so weird).

I have only 4 more weeks with a preceptor and then 4 weeks after that with a resource person who won't be with me every minute, but will always be there during the shift if I have issues. Then I sail my own ship the week before Christmas. I'm actually starting to get excited (just like everyone told me I would) to be on my own. Although, still, it's terrifying. And I think it should be.

The day shift should be here in ten minutes. I'm thrilled.

I would like to make this blog space a little prettier. Not so plain. Not so much Hi, This is a HUGE Picture of My Shadow How Artsy is That. But I have very little expertise in anything html and my husband works full-time and goes to school full-time and gives me death glares when I suggest little homekeeping ideas. Like taking out the trash. So I am thinking, Huge Picture of My Shadow it is! Someday I will spend some time figuring out how to do this. For now, I'm pretty content to spend time moaning about it.

Last night I had one of those realizations, the kind that make you stay awake late and then wake up early, unsure of why you are up but completely aware of your own unease. Right? I hate those. Anyways, I realized that I do not have a clue how to do many of the things that Joshua usually takes care of in our lives. The Man Chores. Last night, the air conditioner in our bedroom was making a snap crackle POP kind of noise, a noise that in my mind precedes smoke and combustion. So he shut it off and pulled this filter out of the side which was absolutely disgusting. Covered in dust, cat hair, probably my hair, who knows. The point is I HAD NO IDEA AIR CONDITIONERS HAD FILTERS. They sit in a windowsill! Butt to the outside! I thought they just circulated cold air in and all that other stuff got sucked out.

Inexplicably, this really bothers me. I've never lived alone in my life, which I do not regret at all (I sleep over at my friends' houses when Joshua is gone. With no shame. I may be scared of the dark). But in the transition between living at home, other people's homes, college, and then with my husband, I have never had to do things like clean out air conditioner filters. Joshua tells me when the car needs an oil change even though I am sure I could interpret the little sticker on our windshield fairly easily. I wouldn't know, because I never even remember to look. I can't make coffee. I CAN'T MAKE COFFEE, me of the caffeine addiction fame. (I would like to point out this in some way rationalizes my exorbitant spending on coffee) Yet, it is also quite a life failure.

So I should learn how to do all these things I suppose. Ask Joshua what else in our apartment comes with a filter (A. coffee pots B. air conditioners. I am on to something!) Check the oil change sticker. Take out the trash once in a while. Maybe then he will have a minute to fix my blog for me.

Today is a super important day for me.

I have been waiting for this particular day for a verrry loooooong time.

I am literally filled with anticipation and possibly even glee. Although I don't experience glee very often, so I am just assuming this is what it (maybe) feels like.

Tonight is the...

season premiere of The Office!!!

I can't wait.

And neither can Pam Beasley or Hala Jan Levinson, our cats who have only seen a few episodes of the show from whence their names came. They are just sitting in the living room right now, staring at the TV. I think they know.

I think they can feel the excitement.

I am so over this week. Not this technical week - since it is only Tuesday after all - but this work week, which started for me on Saturday and ends tomorrow at 7:30pm. 4 days of 12 hour shifts and 1 day of 12 hour babysitting is apparently too much for my fragile little self to handle. Yes, agreeing to babysit on my one day off was stupid, but I have been watching these kids for 4 years now and so I can't say no. I never say no. I got up in the dark and came home after dark every day this week. I know this is a normal American thing to do...and I am fortunate to have a stable job in this insane economy...and I should just shut up, check my bank account and be thankful....but the ADJUSTING. IS. HARD.

Anyways. Enough whining. I can't even handle myself lately.

I started reading the Twilight books - yes, the young adult vampire books. Because I am a sucker for a mystical fiction series? Because I miss the excitement of brand new, unexplored Harry Potter books? I don't know. I finished the first book today, and it was...pretty decent. It took a long time to get started, and I am a little creeped out by the description of the main character Edward (stone cold, pale as death, yet inexplicably mesmerizing and radiant? One sentence describes him as having 'pale lavender eyelids'. Uh...not my kind of guy). But of course I will get the rest of the books soon, because by the end I was caught up in the drama and basically, I just want to know if he's going to bite her (the mesmerized female main character), kill her, or let her stay a human. And I might as well read 4 books in the process. This is why I graduated from college, right, to pleasure read? Right. If you know what happens to Bella and Edward, don't tell me. I am sure if I get impatient I will Google it.

In other news, we are going on a cruise! In March! Which will hopefully be right at my winter breakdown point, when I absolutely cannot take one more day of Chicago mush and slush, and so what could be better than going to the Gulf of Mexico with some of my best friends and drinking my weight in margaritas (luckily, I think alcohol poisoning is out of my price range, so that's a bonus). I cannot wait. AND, our cruise leaves from New Orleans which is a city near and dear to my heart, so we'll get to spend a night there before we go! It's all very exciting and yay and wish it was next week-ish, especially since my last week has sucked so much (one of my patients DIED, yes, coded during a procedure and couldn't be revived so this wasn't a stellar week in my orientation experience. Ugh...adding to the frustrations.

The Tiredness is hitting me hard right now, so I think I need to give in to that. In 22 hours, I will be done with this ridiculous five day stretch and then maybe I will feel like more of a person instead,

My cats are so flipping cute. I think this is hardly worth writing about but I'm currently home during the day - something I used to do too much of and now I can't GET enough of - and I am really enjoying watching Pam and Hala go about their little routines of chasing each other and flopping around on the laundry (they both love to sleep on something we have worn or used. Last night Pam crawled all over Joshua's shoes, turned herself around a few times and then snuggled her face INSIDE THE SHOE. Which, ok, gross, but also - adorable.)

Our neighbor is out on the back porch shining his shoes, and both cats are up in the windowsill like, "who is that? why he is sitting on an antique chair? what is that horrible smell? is he going to hurt himself with all that vigorous shining? because he is approximately 100 years old!" These may actually be my questions, but I am assuming the cats share my line of thinking. His shoes are actually so shiny that it's a little disturbing. They make him look like a very quiet and unassuming man with an unfortunate taste for Hot Topic footwear.

Fancy Feet just went inside and left his antique chair and shoeshining kit (which includes multiple tins of black goop and rags and a LARGE bristle brush) outside and the cats are totally confused. They keep looking at the chair, his back door, and me as if there is some answer for what we have all just experienced. No. I found it as interesting as you both did. I'd like to ask him about the whole Old World setup (and some other questions too, like why he lives alone and does he have any family and does he need a pie or something) but I'm kind of nervous because he seems sort of intimidating. Our back porch is small, and where I am sitting in the dining cannot be more than 8 feet from his chair. I think if I opened my mouth I might startle him excessively. If he was still outside, of course.

I am sitting on the dining room floor right now typing this because my computer battery is dead, so my laptop needs to be plugged in at all times, and I do not want to bother unplugging it and moving somewhere more comfortable. Can we say LAZY!? I am making eggplant parm tonight but i am not ready to start cooking (motivationally speaking) so I guess the dining room floor is good for now.

This week I feel like I got a handle on some things at work that were stressing me out - basically just skills I am feeling more comfortable with - and I haven't left at the end of the day so burnt out. It finally occurred to me (lightbulb, seriously) that I have actually been working for less than 2 months and I have a TWENTY-TWO week orientation. I won't be done until the week before Christmas! So I still have two thirds of my orientation left to work out all the craziness in my brain.

Someone is smoking on the back porch of our building, and it actually smells amazing. Which, if you know me, should shock you because I am the anti-smoking champion of my social circle. Clearly I have reached a critical level of stress despite not even having to work on the floor today. If anyone is available, please bring me a cigarette. This may be the only time you'll ever see me smoke, because I have a serious reputation to uphold.

What other discombobulated ideas can I express here...on the dining room floor...this weekend we caught the Red Bull Flugtagon Saturday afternoon and Germanfest that night. Both were hilarious and I think I went approximately 13 hours without thinking about work once, a new record. Maybe 21 hours, if you count the fact that I passed out diagonally across the bed and woke up Sunday morning fully clothed, makeup on, looking EXTREMELY unattractive. And I only had one stein!

I am sitting pretty close to the cat food right now, which is unfortunate and kind of nauseating. I also have a killer headache. None of this makes me want to start cooking, but I am getting hungry and I should probably get on with that. No one has brought me a cigarette yet. I know Joshua will be THRILLED to hear about this craving, but I'm hoping it passes before he takes it as license to smoke half a pack before bedtime. Eggplant here I come.

I took the summer off from blogging. Not because I am "too cool" - thanks Kristin - but because I was (am?) too busy and too overwhelmed by my new life as a nurse. Every time I started to write something here it turned into some rambling business and I just couldn't finish it.

Suddenly it's fall. It snuck up on me - it was 95 degrees on Tuesday and by Wednesday it was cloudy and chilly. I had a pumpkin spice latte in my hand on Thursday morning. At this rate it will probably snow next week.

Just kidding. I have no illusions, Chicago will probably be a sauna again by next weekend. But this is the first fall in a long time that I haven't gone back to school, and in my mind September is still for settling back in to a routine, creating new schedules, getting organized. Back to blogging and actually doing responsible things like balancing the checkbook and grocery shopping regularly.

It's hard to write about work here. I think I scare people when they ask me about it, because I always say it's overwhelming and seriously, how am I expecting them to respond to that? They just kind of nod and say ohhh. (Which is what I do at work a lot actually). But work IS overwhelming, I can't come up with a better word for it. Neonatal ICU is an incredibly odd world, where the patients are smaller than the IV pumps and ventilators that are keeping them alive. We took a 700 gram baby to MRI the other day, which required 5 people to push the isolette, the vent, the IV poles, and the nitric oxide. I had my hands in the isolette bagging the baby during the whole trip, which was entirely surreal and made me feel more like I was acting in an episode of ER than participating in my very own career.

I think I've learned more in the past 6 weeks I've been working than in all of nursing school. But the difference is, I figured out how to be good at school, and the real world is not a multiple choice test. This sounds stupid obvious when I write it down, but in my actual life it's been jarring to transition out of school mentality and into the oh shit one of my patients is screaming his head off because he needs to eat and the other one is dropping his heart rate and oxygen saturations and clearly i cannot handle both things at one time I am only one nurse and a BRAND NEW ONE ANYWAYS.

But I really love it. I do. I have a great preceptor, and my only complaint is that she is SO thorough in teaching me things that we are always behind and I feel like I can't catch up because we spent half the morning discussing our patient's disease process and meds. But I know as much as I possibly can at this point about all the patients we've had, and every time I remember more and more. I have my other new grads who started with me - all TEN of us - to commiserate with, along with my nursing school friends who are experiencing the exact same stresses and overwhelmingness as I am. Actually I went out to dinner last night with 3 of my nursing school girls and despite having so much to catch up on, we were all basically asleep at the table. It made me happy to know I'm not the only one who is being ruined by 12 hour shifts.

I could continue to ramble on and on....and on...about work and how much I hate getting up at 5:30am and how caffeine-dependent I am, but it's a Friday night and I am supposed to be somewhere at ten. So I have to take a nap now in order to handle than kind of late night activity.

This is my new life.

I am such a bad blogger...

because I never blog!

This has been quite the jekyll and hyde summer for me - at times lazy, slow, and full of books and putting my feet up, and at other times absolutely crazy with packing, moving, and unpacking. It has also been a break from this little thing that is generally well-regarded in the adult world - um, employment?

That will end on Monday, with my first day of work at a grown-up job as a (license-pending) professional. I am really excited, mostly because I absolutely love orientations. Learn things? About the company? Free catered lunch? While getting paid? I AM THERE. Orienting sounds like the best parts of nursing school, with the added bonus of direct deposit.

But between now and Monday I have several things planned that will hopefully make the Summer of my Unemployment complete...

Jason Mraz in concert
good friends wedding this weekend
sister-in-law's birthday is tomorrow
in-laws are in town for birthday celebrations and house settling (they are moving here in two weeks, many more posts to follow on that development)
scrub shopping

Can't wait.

KikiChicago, RN, BSN

status: pass

PASS!!!

I am now officially a neonatal intensive care Registered Nurse.

I actually burst out crying when I saw status:pass underneath my name. That's not really my style, but apparently the momentous occasion called for an unusual emotional outburst. It was this kind of interesting, very short-lived, heaving sobs type of thing. Nursing school catharsis.

Advice For Myself

Don't go to Home Depot on a Saturday morning before 9am if you are 1) a woman 2) alone and 3) wearing anything other than a turtleneck, baggy pants, and maybe a head scarf. I do not think any girl deserves the kind of lechering, grinning and mental pawing that I encountered while trying to pick up packing tape this morning. Girls, please remember - Sunday afternoons at Home Depot are packed with families and therefore safe. Saturday mornings are for contractors who forgot to stop and refocus after getting trashed ogling girls at the Admiral on Lawrence. Avoid these people at all costs.

Never say to your husband, "Don't worry honey, I will have the apartment all packed up when you return". Because, HA! You will drink too much the night before (and fall down the stairs, WTF) and you will not want to pack all day. And your cats will frolic in the open boxes like it is the kitty Wisconsin Dells (slide, pam, slide!) and shed all over your pots and pans which were previously the only items in the house which had not seen the underbelly of a feline.

Do not check the NCLEX website every 5 minutes to see if your results are posted. THEY ARE NOT. Every message board and piece of official literature tells you they will not be available for 48 hours. So relax. Your fate as a RN is in someone else's hands and just because you are a highstrung nursing student (and possibly, a nurse, but how would you know?)those 48 hours aren't going by any faster.

Do not think of combining drinking and packing. Especially before noon.

Wait until at least 12:30pm.

Fin

My exam is over.

75 questions.

One hour.

Not as horrible as I expected.

Not as good as I hoped.

15 select all that apply.

2 med calcs.

2 correct the order.

Many many priority.

Infection control.

2 questions on fosamax of all drugs?!

Never heard of tumor lysis syndrome.

Never heard of most the meds.

I really hate select all that apply.

75 questions.

15 of which are trial and don't count.

So in 60 questions I either demonstrated my competence or not.

And I will find out in 2 business days.

One week from today, I will be on the el headed downtown to take my nursing boards. I have been studying constantly and I am beginning to think in multiple choice questions. In so many ways, it feels I have been holding my breath for two years, and until i see the words PASS on a computer screen, I will not be able to let it out. Nursing school was a compressed, intense, overwhelming experience that doesn't end at graduation, no matter how excited you are to see your diploma (mine came in the mail this week) or how soon your student loans bills are coming (november, along with my impending heart attack). Nursing school ends somewhere between the minute your test shuts off, the next 48 hours of anxiety (and heavy drinking) and the moment you see P-A-S-S with your name next to it.

This morning at 5:30am, through random circumstances involving Joshua's increasingly crazy job, I saw one of my favorite professors and his wife, who are both nurses. Standing with them was a woman who just passed her NCLEX on Wednesday. I don't believe in luck, but I believe God comforts us in mysterious ways...and so I was really relieved to have met that woman and have seen my professor again (a small-ish man who was wearing biking spandex and those strange clomping bike shoes; let's be serious, this situation was actually hilarious. In addition, Joshua will be traveling in a van that follows my professor and other bikers for 230 miles, driven by the woman who recently became a registered nurse. If I have anything to do with it, he WILL shake her down for all the info).

This apartment is getting packed up...and messy...and dirty...and my nursing books and CDs and paints chips for colors we are thinking of in the new place are everywhere and although I did just talk about feeling comforted, the physical space around me sucks right now. I need to get off the computer and organize something.

That is a phrase I do NOT use often.

Random Thoughts

I am a sucker for catchy songs, I can't get them out of my head for days and I can become sort of obsessed with playing them over and over. Pop-y, summer-y songs usually stick with me the longest, and I would like to complain about the lyrics of my current keep-on-repeat:

I kissed a girl and I liked it is not exactly doing wonders for my marriage. Joshua is less than thrilled with me humming under my breath, "it felt so wrong, it felt so right"...and etc. But the song is like crack, I cannot stop hearing it in my head.

Speaking of crack, I have not been drinking coffee lately. At all. I had iced coffee before church 2 weeks ago, and only really drank about half of it, and that was the very last time a drop has passed my lips. I've had iced tea since then, but the coffee has been dead to me. I don't miss it, I don't crave it. I think at some point over the fall, probably when I start working the night shift, coffee and I will reconcile. But for now, it's kind of nice to go through the day feeling like I am not being propelled from behind by a venti cup.

More thoughts...Amy and I ran a 5k on Sunday. Without any training (except for some fatigued half-mile runs in 100% humidity). I was happy with how well we did, crossing the finish line around 36 minutes. We ran all but about 1/4 mile of the course, including a cobblestone bridge which was basically a pool of standing water from the fierce thunderstorm we had that morning, and a hill. (A hill! I run at the lake and in the neighborhoods in one of the flattest cities in this country, so no, I did not run up that big fat hill during the race. I wouldn't know how). It was so fun, and really encouraging to me because I was not half as tired as I thought I would be at the finish line. Two new goals: 1) finish another 5k this summer and 2)do it in under 30 minutes, no walking at all.

I have now been sick for over a week with a nasty summer cold. I can't get rid of it and it's driving me crazy. Every morning I wake up and the symptoms are just slightly different - one day more in my nose, the next in my throat, and so on. It's all just so interesting and unpredictable. My cats make these horrified faces when I blow my nose, which makes it fun.

During my "illness", I discovered Gyminee, a nicely done website that helps you track your weight loss, food choices, and workouts. I am not by nature a calorie-counter or a very disciplined exerciser, so it's kind of fun to see exactly what I am putting in my body and how that translates to the amount of fat, carbs, and proteins I should be eating. Left to my own bread-craving devices I think I eat about 60% carbs, 30% fat and 10% protein. So this has been helping me realize what I'm actually putting in my mouth all day long, and I've already started to change my eating habits (waaaaay more protein! waaaaaay less carbs!). Plus, the food-finder feature is super helpful. For instance, for lunch I tossed pesto with cannellini (as opposed to my typical capellini!) and the food-finder has nutrition facts on the exact brands of both the beans and the pesto I used. Of course I will not be able to do this every day, but it's a good eye-opened none the less.

Lastly, I am packing up our apartment and studying for NCLEX every day and hopefully (fingers crossed, practice questions in hand) next Friday I will officially become a Registered Nurse. Then a week later we move to our new place and our happy, financially solvent life as DINKS - Dual Income No Kids - can begin.

OH! And I have a secret. A happy secret. (I am NOT pregnant, there is NO baby, CALM DOWN. Like I could keep that quiet). A very exciting future development secret.

(I love the summertime!!!)

$40

Today I took $40 out of my bank account at approximately 9:30am. I was on my way to the farmer's market with my friend Kristin and her friend Bri, and I needed cash. I really had no intention of spending all of the $40, but it's definitely gone (should I really be surprised?) and as I was thinking back over the events of the day, it kind of just...randomly dissipated..

At 6:45pm, with my $40, I have acquired:

-Two bunches of spring onions, one white and one red
-One bunch of radishes
-Half a pound of crimini mushrooms
-One pound of fingerling potatoes
-One bunch of flowering chives (which are quite beautiful and also have purple, edible, onion-y blooms attached)
-One organic cheddar and dill scone that was excellent but also the weight of a brick
-One pair of $5.99 sunglasses to replace a pair I scratched in Florida
-Tangerine shampoo that smells like summer
-Two gallons of Benjamin Moore paint, one chocolate brown and one tan (actually kind of a nasty color) which I found on Craigslist for $5
-One sneaky item for a friend which is actually from her husband, which I purchased in Target while she wasn't paying attention, and then forgot to give him and get the money he owed me (oops)

And I actually do have a few dollars hanging around in my purse.

I have been everywhere from downtown to the northwest suburbs today and I had big plans for dinner with roasted potatoes with purple chive blossoms and pasta with asparagus and mushrooms...who knows if that will happen.

Still Alive

I can't believe it's been more than a month since I updated - more than 2 weeks since I checked every single thing off that list in the post below.

I was offered a job in Labor and Delivery, and I turned it down the Monday morning before graduation. That afternoon, I was offered a job in the neonatal intensive care unit (please see below - DREAM JOB!!) and I took it. So I start in July and I am alternately overwhelmed with excitement and scared sh*tless. Because my patients will be babies. In intensive care. At a hospital where babies go when they are too sick to be treated at other hospitals. And I do not feel at all qualified for that kind of crazy responsibility - but apparently, my degree makes it so.

Speaking of my degree, here it is:



along with my friend Kristin, who will be working at the same hospital as me on a transplant floor (yikes!). Although I don't think we look alike in the real world, we kind of do in this picture. Must be the tassel. Anyways, the night before graduation I got this:



A plaque with my name on it, because I received one of the senior awards at our pinning ceremony. They handed it to me during the ceremony which was awkward because I had no idea what to do with it...and then my mom stuck it in her bag so we could take some photos after and one of my professors came along and snatched it out and said, "sorry, you can't keep this!"

Oh really? I was planning on hanging it on the front door.

It was kind of a funny end to nursing school. Did they really think I was trying to steal the plaque that I have seen hanging in the office for the past two years??
I am really not that kind of girl!

After graduation of course I did this:



and partied with Joshua and my friends. Who are crazy. As you can see by this:



And also this:



Crazy fools.

So now all the hoopla and bells and whistles of graduation are over and I have gone back to just being a semi-employed housewife with too much time on my hands. We've moving July 1st to a smaller apartment closer to downtown and the el, which will be wonderful because it has a dishwasher and a breakfast bar and a big back porch where I can put tomato plants and a patio table. Also, I can basically see into my best friend's apartment from my living room, because she lives directly across the street. Another one of my best friends lives two buildings away. It will basically be one big party.
But the bedroom is smaller and we're going to have to get rid of some furniture to make everything fit...and we've lived in our big apartment now for 3 years. So overall, it may be a hard transition.

Which I will write more about later, because right now I have to bring Joshua back to work and then head to Starbucks to do my new favorite activity...



Study for boards.

Countdown

'Courtesy' interview for much-wanted position at a very nice hospital where there is actually no position currently available...6 days.

Going to Florida for a wedding, which requires flying, one of my least favorite activities...8 days.

Getting ridiculously sun-burned and showing up to a wedding looking more like a lobster than a human...9 days.

Job interview for DREAM position at SUPER NICE hospital where one million other people will also be applying...12 days.

40 page paper, which has been seriously on the backburner, due...15 days.

24th birthday, beginning the downward spiral into my midtwenties, AKA the first time I have really not looked forward to being another year older...16 days.

Parents come into town, mother is extremely allergic to cats, so apartment must be essentially decontaminated...19 days.

Pinning ceremony, at which I will be giving the class remarks, even though I am unclear exactly what class remarks are...21 days.

Graduation ceremony,at which I have absolutely no responsibilities other than grabbing my diploma and not falling over on stage in high heels...22 days.

Third wedding anniversary, for which we have absolutely no plans, and for which Joshua will be lucky if I wake out of my post-graduation-catch-up-on-the-last-4.5-years-of-sleep catnap...26 days.

Having absolutely no special occasions, life plans, obligations, or anything at all in planner (unless I get a job in the next 4 weeks)...27 days.

Procrastinating

I do the most blogging when I am supposed to be doing the most studying.

I don't want to work on statistical analysis of income brackets in Rogers Park so instead I am writing this even though it is not helping me achieve my goal of finishing a 40 page community assessment by May 2nd. Basically, I have learned absolutely nothing about time management during the last 20 years I've been in school. I have yet to finish a paper more than 12 hours before it's due, and I have never started studying for a test more than 48 hours before I have to take it. I think I am physically incapable of doing anything school-related when I am not completely stressed out about the fact that I left it until the last minute. Grad school will truly be a catastrophe.

I spend a lot of time thinking about all the free time I will have when school is over and before grad school begins (we're talking years). I am aware that this type of daydreaming wastes more time that I don't have, but I'm also convinced that it keeps me sane.

So in no particular order, here are some of the things I plan to do as a gainfully employed non-student:

Become a better knitter. Knit a sweater. Bonus points if I can finish a Central Park hoodie. Learn how to sew. Take a class at Quiltology. Give homemade gifts. Bake bread. Blog consistently. Throw away junk mail and file bills before they have the chance to sit on the desk for 3 months. Run the half-marathon. Because the whole marathon would kill me. Start swing-dancing again. Work on the Obama campaign if he wins the primary. Have a personal political crisis if he doesn't. Travel with Joshua. Learn Spanish . Write. Roadtrip. Become an expert in my field. Call my grandparents more often. And my parents. And my brothers. Read novels, not textbooks. Make dinner. And dessert. Go to Vegas for the weekend. Volunteer. SLEEP.

Hala Jan Levinson

Since we named our first cat Pamela Beasley, we felt guilty that our second wittle kitty wouldn't also be an Office namesake. Since she is a feisty kitten who bosses Pam around, we felt Jan Levinson was the most appropriate middle name.

Doesn't she look like she has an authority problem and an inexplicable attraction to a somewhat incompetent regional manager of a mid-range paper supply company?



As far as I know, she hasn't had a boob job.

She seriously couldn't be cuter, mostly because she likes to climb up my stomach, wrap her head and front paws over my shoulder, and fall asleep. I am a little ashamed to admit how incredibly hard we have fallen for these cats - of all animals, cats. I can't imagine coming home and not finding Hala and Pam curled up asleep in the living room (of course, the white and tan cat has made herself at home on the one black chair we own, and the black cat spends her time on the tan couch. I would not expect anything more).

Joshua is quite smitten with his girls as well.



Because the cats have taken over our lives, I have little else to say about what is going on in my world except that finishing up senior year sucks and I am not doing a good job of it. I have only one job interview scheduled and that is for my dream job, which is apparently the dream job of many, many other people who are also in the application process for this particular unit at this particular hospital. Frustrating. I like to think that I handle stress with grace and charm, which is a fun illusion until suddenly I have an emotional breakdown and become physically ill for at least 48 hours. It's neat. So was calling out of work today (see: currently ill for at least 48 hours), when I've been cancelled off my past two shifts and have literally contributed $200 to our gross income in the last two months. Stressed, sick, not a financial contributor to our marriage. But I have cats.

Introducing Pam Beasley

We love dogs. Big, slobbery golden retrievers and smug wobbly pugs. Blue-eyed Huskies and energetic chocolate labs. We stop and pet them on the street. We look for dog-friendly apartments. We dogsit for Joshua's coworkers and the people I babysit, even when it means living in the suburbs for a week and pretending to be commuters. We've talked about our first dog in the same rapturous way some people talk about their first children (you should really hear us talk about our first children!)

So it is kind of hard to explain this:




Definitely not a dog.





This is Pam Beasley, a sweet one year old kitten/cat (kit? catten?)who caught our eye last weekend at PAWS, a rescue shelter here in Chicago. The fact that we even went to PAWS is entirely the fault of our friends Jessica and Jakob, who were looking for a kitten of their own. (Let's be honest, they also lured me in with visions of adorable kittens welcoming us home from school and work and I am a sucker for a nice hello). Joshua and I (the dog lovers) suddenly woke up after falling into the deep dark hole of cuteness that is the Kitten Room at PAWS, and found ourselves the proud parents of a C-A-T.

Pam is entirely a sugarplums-and-fairy-dust sweet animal. She's a rescue from a hoarding situation in Uptown, where she was found abandoned with THIRTY other cats that looked just like her (we are seriously choosing not to think about the genetic implications of that sad feline home). She spent a month at PAWS before we adopted her, which is unusual for a cat as young and as pretty as she is. Apparently, she was very shy and reclusive. But we think Pam was just biding her time before we got to her, because after only a week of salmon treats, a mouse on a string, and lots of love, she has blossomed into quite the social, attention-loving kitty. (I told this to the woman at PAWS on the phone yesterday, and in all seriousness, she GOT.CHOKED.UP.)

The reason I was talking to a woman at PAWS on the phone yesterday was because we are not just casual cat owners anymore, no, we are OB-SESSED. One of Pam's roommates at PAWS was a 12 week old all-black kitten named Hala, who wrapped Joshua right around her tiny paw. Unfortunately, right as we made the decision to adopt her, the tech decided to take her temp because she looked just a little too sleepy. Without saying a word to us, they rushed her right out of the room, into a kitty carrier and off to the vet because she was running a fever of 104.5!

It was a blessing in disguise, because with Hala mysteriously gone, we decided to adopt Pam. However Joshua couldn't stop thinking about our poor sick kitten, and he called PAWS back that day to let them know that as soon as she recovered, we would like to adopt her as a friend for Pam.

So on Thursday, right before THE OFFICE COMES BACK ON AT 8/7 CENTRAL (and Pam can watch her namesake living la vida Scranton), we will be picking up Hala. We have no idea how to have two cats, we have barely scratched the surface of what it means to have one. Hopefully, Pam and Hala get along marvelously and keep each other entertained while we are away. Less optimistically, I will be totally fine if they just ignore each other, as long as they don't turn our happy home into some sort of feline war zone.

As soon as we move into a bigger place, with a yard and room for playing and romping and animals that must do their business outdoors, we are still planning on getting a dog. We will be that family, with the two cats and the dog, and hopefully a bucket of children (small bucket, maybe like a pail) somewhere in the next ten years. And I love that.

I Know What It Means...To Miss New Orleans

March was an extremely busy month for Joshua and I. It was full of all our usual busyness, school and work (well, barely for me, I have worked a grand total of ONE! SHIFT! since before Christmas. oh yeah, i am ensuring our financial freedom). But it was also full of this:




New Orleans, baby. Ok, I'll be honest - we were on a rebuilding trip with school, so no actual bourbon was consumed on the Rue Bourbon. Which is fine, because the French Quarter is actually quite skeevy and I would be literally afraid to be inebriated with some of the characters around. Like this one:




Yikes. But the real reason we were in New Orleans, the land of jazz, beignets, jambalaya and po'boys, was of course the fact that the city is still (2 and a half years later) devastated from Hurricane Katrina. No matter what natural disaster strikes, after 2 and a half years should an American neighborhood still look like this?



How would we feel if the poorly constructed safety system for our city failed, like these levees that broke and flooded the Lower 9th Ward?



I'm going to bet that if your house was washed away, your insurance didn't cover your home, and your government housed your family in a trailer for two years (and then told you, oh hey! those trailers are full of asbestos! we had no idea!) and then never sent you the money you were promised to actually rebuild your home...I'm going to bet you would agree with the woman I met who stood crying in front of me and shook her fist and said she would like to see George Bush go to prison for crimes against humanity. One of her friends died on a rooftop waiting for help. And another of her friends died in the Superdome, which is where the 'help' was supposed to be.

We worked on several different projects in New Orleans. We helped put up a circus-sized tent over dog kennels at Animal Rescue of New Orleans, which is still working tirelessly with only 3 full-time employees to shelter and care for hundreds of animals that were abandoned in the storm. We also drove all over the city with Greenlight New Orleans, installing compact fluorescent light bulbs in homes for free. This non-profit organization is helping reduce energy use and save residents much-needed money on their energy bills, which are very expensive in New Orleans. We also weeded the gardens at City Park, which is larger than Central Park and a huge source of revenue for New Orleans.

While the needs in New Orleans are overwhelming, there is an amazing amount of hope in the city:






It was an incredible experience, one that Joshua and I want to have again. We've been home for three weeks and our time in New Orleans and the people that we met are burned in our minds and hearts. (and bodies - we wandered into a tattoo place the week after we got back and two hours later found ourselves the proud and somewhat shocked owners of fleur-de-lis body art). It was very hard to come back after an intense week of new faces, new friendships, new emotions, and 70 degree weather. It felt strange to go back to the mundane everyday-ness of life in Chicago, knowing that the needs in New Orleans are still there each time we wake up to go to work and school. We want to go back and we don't know yet when and how.

One thing I do know - five weeks from today I will be celebrating (maybe with bourbon, but probably tequila) the fact that I will have GRADUATED COLLEGE.

And six months and five weeks from today I will be weeping over my first student loan bills. So that may be a good time for a trip to New Orleans, don't you think?

I Don't Know How to Quit You, Blog

...and yet I do quit, for months on end, while I still manage to make enough time in my day to read what so many other people write on a daily basis. I have been caught up, in a strange and stalker-like way, into the world of infertility blogs, twins/triplets/quads/quints bloggs, cooking blogs, knitting blogs, blogs of people I know through people, super famous blogs, juicy celeb gossip...you name it, and I can name for you several dozen blogs in the chosen category.

Kind of sick.

It's addicting. It's how I distract myself between my homework, shifts at the hospital, the housework that I hate doing.

2008 came in with a whimper for me, seeing as how I entered the year with a broken arm and a bad attitude (thanks to the First and Last Great Snowboarding Trip of 2007). But I am actually very excited about this year and all the surprises ahead. Please see my list:

THINGS TO LOOK FORWARD TO IN 2008

1) Spring. Um, please hurry up because this winter has been horrible and I am sick of sliding down my sidewalk and using chains to get my car out of a parking spot on a FLAT street in a MAJOR US CITY.

2) Graduation. After 4.5 years of straight up gettin' edju-ca-ted, I am done and would like to move on to the next phase of my life. Straight up getting PAID.

3) Getting a J-O-B. Please see above.

4) 3 Year Anniversary. Joshua and I will celebrate three whole years of marital bliss and bitching about who does the dishes this May and I could not be happier (when he does the dishes). No, I really am thrilled.

5) Passing NCLEX. Graduating and getting a job will be slightly less exciting if I cannot get a license to actually work as a nurse. That is generally looked down up and frankly illegal.

6) Running a half marathon in California. My current best run ever has been about 2 miles of sheer, dyspneic terror. So this will be an accomplishment for the ages.

7) Everything else that I can't possibly imagine yet.

It's two months in...and I guess I'm feeling pretty good about 2008.