Go Fish!

Dear Minnesota,

Thank you for holding the 2009 fishing opener on May 8th and 9th, thus making those dates open and available at almost all of the ceremony and reception sites we are considering. Yes, I realize that May 10th is Mother's Day, but my very own mother pointed out that Minnesotans are more likely to schedule their weddings around fishing than mothers. No, we haven't set a date, but I'm happy to know that there are dates to be had.

Big Heart,
Karen

And so it begins

Because I am me and being me involves an intense love of planning things and a hefty pinch of neurosis, I am neck deep in finding a date and a venue. It will be done, and it will be done soon and in budget. So help me.

For the most part, it's been going fine. We have a number of options, and my parents have kindly agreed to check them out for us. I'm fairly confident that we'll be able to come up with something good fairly soon (luckily, I'm not all that picky in this area). However, all this planning means I've been spending some time on wedding planning forums (mostly the Ravelry forum, because I'm still a little scared of brides but I'm not scared of knitters...it's like my baby step into bride-land). One of the common topics on these forums is how crazy one's mother or future mother-in-law is, how overbearing, how ridiculous. They talk about all of their parents' friends who have to be invited who are obnoxious. They talk about disparaging comments about their weight or their dress or their invitations. Some of the stories are truly terrifying.

I just want to take this moment to say, publicly, thank you Mom and Dad and Kris (FMIL) and Wes (FFIL) for being so amazingly sane. And supportive. I realize that this wedding will be challenging to plan since B and I are in Cleveland and the wedding will probably be in Minneapolis. Also we are med students. That probably doesn't help. But you guys are awesome. Nobody is insisting on venues or colors or guests we don't want. It probably helps that B and I both, you know, actually really like our families and want to invite all of our aunts and uncles and cousins. Also, we like our parents' close friends. But, seriously, thank you. You have all been very clear that you are thrilled for us and will do whatever you can to help without being at all invasive. I couldn't ask for anything better than that.

A very happy birthday

Yesterday I turned 25. That's right, I now have a quarter-century of life experience under my belt. Honestly, I wasn't getting so hyped up about the whole thing. It was on a Wednesday this year, so I wasn't planning on doing all that much. Last Friday I want to Bar Cento with some friends and ate Belgian fries with three varieties of house made mayonnaise. But it didn't really feel like a Birthday; it felt like a bar with friends, which is fun but not Birthday.

Tuesday I asked B if we were doing anything on Wednesday (my birthday). He just smiled and said, "Yes," then went back to his Emergency Medicine textbook. Hmmm.... Something was up.
We had a class meeting yesterday where they told us all of the ins and outs of applying to residency. Some of us are neurotic and already knew the details, but I went anyway. B was a no-show. He left me a voice-mail saying something about "being stuck in traffic."

When I got home, I came home to this. The kitties like roses. Gan likes to chew on the leaves and then puke them up. Biscuit likes to stand on her back legs and smell the roses. Pretty freaking adorable.








Also, this. 25 balloons. The kitties thought this was excellent. We didn't manage to get any kitty-balloon action shots, but trust me. They like the balloons.


(I also like balloons and roses, but my enjoyment was less gustatory and more visual.)


See the little bags in the balloons? There are things in those bags. Birthday present type things. And in the third bag there was a note that said something about "anticipation" and "happening right now." And there was B down on one knee. In about half a second, my brain said, "Oh! That's a ring! The ring you will wear for the rest of your life. Wow. Wait, this is the part where you say, 'yes.'" And then my mouth said, "Yes," and then my hand looked like this.


So, yes. In the end, I'd say that birthday pretty much rocks the socks off of any other birthday.

Always the hypochondriac

I have a new mythical, totally not accurate, self-diagnosis. I've decided that I'm hypothyroid. Not a lot hypothyroid, just enough to make me be pretty tired (lots of naps), a little heavier than my standard weight set-point, and having various mild GI and gyno issues which I won't go into because some of the people who read this are, you know, normal and don't like that sort of thing (I can't imagine why not). It's probably not my thyroid. It's probably something far more simple, such as, oh, I don't know, the stress of being a med student. Still. I'm trying to convince myself to go convince the student health people to draw thyroid labs. At this point in my career, I've found I can strong-arm them into most things, as they realize that I actually do know some things.

Anyway. That's my way of saying I'm tired and paranoid. Moving on.

Last weekend I went to church for the first time in a few months. B came with me for the first time ever. I didn't want to make a big deal about it, but it really was a big deal to me. It's not like I need him to be Unitarian, but I like that he didn't hate it. He even said he'd come back this week, since this is yet another Sunday morning that neither of us are working. Also, I am a total geek. We already knew this, but apparently I am a church geek as well. So, when I graduated high school, I received a copy of our hymnal, "Singing in the Living Tradition." Well, apparently there is a new additional hymnal, "Singing the Journey," and I HAD to have it. Why? I'm not entirely sure. There's one song that I love very, very much in it, and I just like owning books. I come by it honestly. Anyway, it arrived today, and I spent maybe 30 minutes paging through it and trying to sight read the songs I didn't know. Me = geek.

Also, it's my birthday next week. Apparently. It kind of was sneaky and I forgot all about it. But, because of B's schedule, we're celebrating with friends tomorrow. It will involve a kind of trendy bar and pommes frites and cocktails involving Grey Goose and limoncello because that is how I enjoy birthdays. Although, honestly, I'm just not all that geared up for this birthday. I'm not sure why. I blame my thyroid.

My mom tagged me - I gotta do it

The Rules - Each player answers the questions about themselves. At the end of the post, the player then tags 5-6 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know they’ve been tagged and asking them to read your blog. Let the person who tagged you know when you’ve posted your answer.

1. What I was doing 10 years ago:

Um...about to turn 15, so that would mean... Yeah, pathetically, I don't really remember much from exactly one year ago except I was dating one of the lamer of my ex-boyfriends (maybe not the lamest, but definitely in the bottom few). It was summer, so I wasn't doing school things. Later that summer I would dump the lame guy and start dating the best friend of one of my good friends (who had a huge crush on me), thus creating significant drama in my little high school world. One year after that I would go to Transylvania, have a little 16 year old epiphany that I had let myself be defined by my relationship with this guy (who was really quite dreamy and romantic but totally not ambitious enough and far too Catholic for me), freak out about my lack of identity, and break up with him at a Barenaked Ladies concert. A year after that, his rebound girl would break up with him...again at a Barenaked Ladies concert.

2. What 5 things are on on my to-do list for today (not in any particular order):

-finish my Reproductive Health Externship application, now that I finally have confirmation from Pitt that I can go do my Family Planning elective with them

-cook something with the broccoli and mushrooms I bought at Costco last weekend...maybe with shrimp too?

-read a chapter in Clinical Reproductive Medicine and Surgery

-work on knitting Notorious, now that my extra ball of yarn has arrived

-go to bed at a time that will make me mostly undead when I get up at 5:30 tomorrow

3. Snacks I enjoy:

Cucumbers with hummus, cottage cheese, low fat string cheese from Trader Joe's, red wine, blueberries, Tasty Little Cookies by Kashi, St Andre cheese

4. Things I would do if I was a billionaire:

-pay off my student loans (and B's too)

-probably buy too much yarn...and more yarn storage...Alchemy and ArtYarns and Great Adirondack come to mind

-give money to things like the Ryan Residency Training Fellowship, Physicians for Reproductive Choice, Heifer Foundation, Doctors Without Borders

-hire a cleaning service...I know, it's horribly classist and bad and I hate myself, but I hate mopping more.

-travel to places like Prague, Spain, Amsterdam, and Japan

-be able to buy a house wherever we end up matching, even if it's in San Francisco or Boston

5. Places I have lived:

Cleveland, OH (x2); Blacksburg, VA; Harrisonburg, VA; Columbus, OH; Minnetonka, MN; Northfield, MN; Minneapolis, MN; briefly Chicago, IL

I tag:

No one. Unless Tamara wants to do this. But my guess is she's busy preparing for her wedding!

I like my ovaries non-leaky

If there was ever a rotation to convince me to start trying to get pregnant prior to hitting 30, this is the one. Infertility treatments. Man. They are not fun. Or cheap. I mean, I'm glad we have all sorts of technology, but the scheduling and the planning and the side effects are intense. Even the low-tech treatments seem to leave women in some amount of pain and anxiety. And your risk of twins and triplets goes up, which I am against. I mean, they are super-cute, but that's a lot of baby all at once.

Thankfully, I come from good, fertile stock, so I don't really anticipate problems. But it's easy to scare yourself when all you see every day is women (couples) who want babies they can't have without our help.

Note: I have 5 years before I hit 30 (5 years and 15 days, really). No rush.

Disturbing fact of the day

Tomorrow I start Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility elective. I have four weeks of high-tech baby-making! (Also, four weeks of menstrual disorders and endocrinology that isn't diabetes.)

Tonight I'm reading the infertility section in my little red book (not just for communists anymore) for OB/GYN. It tells me that there are many drugs one can use to stimulate ovaries. Some come from more conventional hormone sources (urine, artificial synthesis). But some come from, well, other, somewhat surprising sources.

Specifically, three in this book state they come from "Chinese hamster ovary cells."

What? What do Chinese hamsters have in their ovaries that American or Canadian or German or Indian hamsters lack? I find this very bizarre.