Plucked chicken

Medical school starts tomorrow. I got my legs waxed. I guess it is all official.

The waxing was the first thing I've done to my leg hair in 14-ish years. It wasn't nearly so bad as I thought it would be and not having hair isn't as weird as I thought it would be. So it goes. And the bumps are nearly gone after 24 hours.

Tomorrow is sit-in-a-room-and-be-talked-at day. The schedule is in 15 minute increments. Yeah, right. I packed my bag with paper, pens, and some embroidery. For all my lunch planning (lentils, pita, cucumbers, feta, and tomatoes), they are providing lunch tomorrow. I bet I'm going to be irritated when it isn't very good.

Bento bags

I really wanted to get a bento box to motivate me to pack my lunch (usually) for the next couple of years. Bento boxes are so cute with their little compartments and stackable layers. But they are also all made of plastic and after mostly throwing out all my plastic stuff I wasn't about to buy more to pack my lunch in and then heat it in the microwave. Then I realized that while the bento boxes were cute, I really just wanted the matching bags which fit them perfectly and keep everything upright. So, I bought some stacking pyrex containers (heavy, but that's OK) and made some bags. They make me very happy:

It is all in code

I've started reading some of my medical books for a half hour in the evening, just to prime my brain a little bit. I have liked to say that while I've forgotten all the details from the first two years, a lot of the structure of the information is still in my head. While that is technically true, it turns out I've also forgotten a lot of the abreviations. And everything is written in code.

Huxley has been going through some stranger and separation anxiety recently. It is kind of sweet as he had been a very independent and self-contained baby up until now. But is also sucks as I realize it will suck to be away so much. I guess I should be happy that it happening now and not right after I start back at school, so the natural progression of babies wasn't misread as a reaction to me being gone. Blah. This week, I'm not very interested in the amount of time medical school is going to require, despite my new stethoscope (after much angst about tubing color, I went with black as I hear only nurses and pediatricians get to have colored tubing. I should have known.). I'm harboring the illusion that it won't be That bad because 1. medical students like to complain and brag about how much work they do, 2. medical students have been socialized to generate so much stress that they're inefficient, 3. I've got a good reason to be focused and get out (though The System is not set up for me to do so).

I know this isn't true to the extent that it will keep my work hour sane, but I need to think it this week. I even realize that the "easy" rotations are not really going to allow me much more time with the kids - being gone 7 to 6 every day means seeing the kids 2 hours a day. woo. I may even get to see them that much during the "bad" rotations, as they tend to start much earlier in the day rather than going later. Grumble.

Totally awesome!

In that, nature can kick your ass and fast kind of way. Not awesome in the good way.

Last night, we had our very first basement flood. At this point, it looks like nothing of actual value was damaged except, perhaps, the luggage. And we didn't get electrocuted.

E is bad for me

E is my hippy friend. She is not a dirty hippy, but she still influences me in hippy ways. Hanging around her makes me want to freeze my own food and shop at thrift stores. And garden. I had talked myself into not gardening very much this year because I'm going to be really busy. Mostly, I was going to try to keep the weeds down and actually try to keep the lawn looking respectible so the neighbor's house would have a higher chance of being sold this year. Now that I've been hanging around E, I've somehow planted some herbs and have almost talked myself into just sticking in some onions. Hrm. The thrift shopping has been real smart, though, for crib sheets and cardigans and jeans. Not so good for professional shirts and pants.

Here is a picture of my crocuses from six weeks ago:


When we put in the raised bed, I thought I had managed to move all of them to the other flower bed. Not so much. Not that I care, but just proof that Nature cannot be defeated so easily. I don't need onions this year, I really need to fight the strangleweed in my back yard. But I bet I'll get the onions anyway. I am such a sucker.

But this year might be the year it looks like the raised bed is actually filled in. I had planted a lot of prairie plants from seed two years ago and filled in some of the gaps last year. But it was still sparse at best. This year, they're already bumping up against each other, so it should look packed by the end of the season. But last summer I just planted about 5 sunflowers per area and now they've spread to be about 50. It looks great, but in another year or two there may only be sunflowers. Oops.

Hey look, I made a bag

It didn't need internal pockets. But I like my jellyfish.

One year, one knitting project

This scarf is about 5 million miles long. It took me forever because it had the awesome characteristics of being both boring to knit and incredibly slow (ribbed). It is two full balls of yarn alternated because I've finally learned that if I end a project and just have partial balls of yarn around, they just sit in my box and never get used. I use too many types of yarn in too many weights to combine them all in a project. So it is best just to use it all. The scarf is nice and soft and matches these. Go me.