3 Weeks

3 weeks from now, Spencer and I will know where we are headed for residency. We're either staying put or going somewhere, and hopefully if we go it will be somewhere a little bit warmer. I've been so busy the past few weeks that I've hardly had time to think about. But, the next couple of days aren't so busy and I can't help but wonder. Will we like where we end up? Can I really handle 4 more years of Milwaukee winters if I stay here? Will I be able to find a job if we move?

*sigh* Does anyone know of a good way to speed up time?

Just Call Me A Cave Woman

So I haven't been posting very much as of late because my work has been pretty busy. It's the kind of job where when it rains, it pours. Right now it's pouring. Just to recap: we are down 1 full time person in my position, we increased our workload by 3x at the beginning of the year, we got slammed with a surprise audit that's pretty much consumed my life, and we have a site review coming up that was supposed to be at the end of April, but got moved up to the end of March. Needless to say, I am busy. On average, I am getting into work by 8am at the latest and typically heading home around 6pm. The good news is that I am enjoying what I do and being busy helps the days go by faster. The bad news is that there is not too much to post because I pretty much just sleep, eat, and work. As Spencer said to me the other day after asking me what my goals for the day were, "it sounds like you are a cave woman." Yes, dear. I am a cave woman.

Despite this, I have managed to have some fun. Highlights have included rock climbing with Jessica, visiting the Milwaukee Ale House to see Crash County Music (the singer was an American Idol hopeful and the drummer was a grad student that works in my friend's lab), and an awesome hot stone massage that I purchased off of Living Social.

In other news, we are in the throws of taxes. Yay! Match day and Fairbourn cruise, you cannot get here soon enough. I still can't decide if I want to stay in Milwaukee or go to California, but since that fate is pretty much out of my hands right now, I guess there's no point in getting worked up about it.

Wisconsin Weather

Wisconsin's weather never ceases to amaze me. A couple of weeks ago we were hit with a monstrous blizzard that closed schools,the highway, and even the Medical College of Wisconsin (though they did wait until 5am to make that decision). Amazingly, by the afternoon many places around Milwaukee were navigable and life returned to (fairly) normal the next day. Then we had a week of sub-Arctic temperatures. With wind chills well below zero, it was bundle up or be frozen. Last week we had record highs with temperatures approaching 50 degrees and nearly all the snow melted. In fact, you couldn't even really tell that we had even had a blizzard a few weeks ago because there was grass everywhere and everything seemed like Spring--right down to all the mud. Today Wisconsin decided it was winter again. After snowing all morning, it's now decided that it's time to dump sleet/freezing rain on us. So much for seeing the grass again! But seriously, the Midwest's weather is crazy and you never know what you're going to get from one minute to the next. To quote the local weatherman (I think I've quoted him before), "If you don't like the weather in Wisconsin, just wait a few minutes."

Can it be warm yet? Like, for more than a week?

Romance Novel

First off, Happy Valentine's Day. This post is only slightly related to the most loved/hated of holidays, but since it surrounds the "romance" genre I thought it would be a fun inclusion to all the other V-Day posts out there.

I guess a while back there was a deal where you could download a copy of a newer book (Giving Chase) for free to read on the various Kindle applications. Since we not only have iPhones, but also an iPad, we use the Kindle app quite frequently (Spencer especially. I prefer the "feel" of a real book). At any rate, he downloaded it because it was free and mentioned on a deal website he frequents. I innocently stumbled upon said download and decided to start reading. I made it through the first chapter, thoroughly enthralled in the story line, but wondering why it was so badly written. Being the impatient person that I am (I used to read the last chapter first because I couldn't wait), I looked it up on Amazon to learn a little bit about it. I've included the link above for your reference as well. Turns out said book is a romance novel. Not only that, it comes with an "explicit content" warning. Needless to say, I stopped reading and un-downloaded (is that a word? it should be) the book as fast as you can say "Mississippi."

So there you go. I may be the only person in recorded history who mistakenly began reading a romance novel, got drawn into the story even though it was badly written, and the voluntarily put it down once I figured out what it was. I guess I can't really recommend (or caution against) this book since I didn't really read that much of it, but I can only guess based on the warning that it's definitely not my thing. If it's your thing, the first chapter had me hooked so I guess that's good for this type of genre.

Thurday Afternoon Rant

I’m warning you now; this is going to be a rant-y post. If you don’t want to read that sort of thing, you should stop reading. Did you stop? No? OK, well don’t say I didn’t warn you.


It has come to my attention that there are a large number of women (and girls, check out this blog post) who think that they are fat. No, this really isn’t that shocking given today’s cultural obsession with women who are stick skinny, yet unnaturally top heavy, but what is surprising is the number of women I hear (or read about) complaining about being fat while either pregnant or recently after giving birth. Perhaps I just can’t sympathize since I’ve never been pregnant, but seriously? You’re supposed to gain weight when you get pregnant. Your body is supposed to get round and cushiony so as to accommodate and support the life form growing inside of you. In fact, if this is not occurring there is probably something wrong. Your body has to expand to make room for baby and that does not make you fat. It doesn’t mean you ate too much or should lay off the cheese puffs and chocolate cake (though we should all probably do that). It doesn’t mean that you’re unattractive. Oh, and your bell is not supposed to magically contract instantly after expelling the aforementioned life form from your womb. Get over it. It’s as annoying as h-e-double-hockey-sticks to sit around and listen to you complain and fret over how HUGE your ankles look or how HUGE (*gasp*) your waist is. Pregnant bodies (women’s bodies in general) are beautiful and yours is no exception. You do yourself and the women around you a great disservice by comparing yourself to a cow, beached whale, elephant, etc and by calling yourself fat. It’s not good for your self esteem, and it doesn’t set a good example for your daughters (or sons, or the other women/girls around you) either. I’m sure people have compared you to Buddha by now. I’m sure they’re all eager to rub your belly and you feel self conscious that you can’t fit into your skinny jeans any more, but you really, really need to get over it. Embrace the belly. Pregnant does not equal fat.

That is all.

*Image from here.