Good times with baby James

Lists.

Stuff I saw today:
1. A happy new Dad wiping his eyes with gauze because there wasn't any kleenex in the OR.
2. 14 patients. Which doesn't sound like a lot, but all crammed into one morning, it was.
3. Elaine's new car (which means she's moving in with me in the next few days!!!)
4. My tomato plant's first yellow flowers.
5. A guy running with a heart-shaped sweat stain on his red-shirted belly.
6. Four tiny green chiles, lined up on my desk in a neat row. Judy suggested that I use only two of them if I don't want to kill Peter when I make enchiladas verdes for him next week. :)
7. The first ten minutes of "So I Married An Axe Murderer."
8. A REALLY cute 3 year old Guatemalan girl.

Stuff to get done before I go home next week:
1. Say goodbye to those girls that I really like, those ones who I used to live with last year in the yellow house.
2. Consider writing sappy goodbye letters to aforementioned girls.
3. Clean up the place so Peter & Elaine don't find out that I have developed our beloved KBM's habit of leaving socks just...everywhere.
4. Help Elaine move in.
5. Finish library books.
6. 6 deliveries...umm that's going to feel like a lot in one week!
7. Dust. Yesterday Judy came over and she offered to purchase me a Swiffer. Hmm. Do you really get dust that fast? I've only lived here a month!! Maybe I'm just a dusty girl.

Ninety-seven degrees and too little wind to be outside, even in the shade with some really delicious lemonade.

Okay sorry I know it's been like a month. My main excuse is that I moved, but work's also been pretty crazy, and I've also been spending much of my leftover time talking on the phone to a particular seminary dude. :)

Anyways things are good. Yesterday Liz Crusey came by to visit for the afternoon and we had such a fun time, we repotted some of my struggling plants and went to the nursery to get some new ones for my new place. It was really fun. Now on my back patio I have cherry tomatoes and a mint plant to go with my lemon tree, and inside my peace lilies are much happier in their new pots, and then I have the orchid and my new button fern in the kitchen. I'm excited about them, I hope they don't all die.

Last weekend I got to see Peter Rowan and Steph and those Bechtels and Cheneys and a bunch of other good ones at Wim's wedding in Nashville.

I'm trying to put some pictures of all of us on here....the formatting on blogger's pictures has been weird lately though so forgive me if this is all dorked with awkward spaces.

Oh! And also Lydia, my roommate from Vandy, just had a baby a few weeks ago. I got to meet him when I went up to Nashville, his name is Elijah.

I've been liking my new apartment so far. It feels airier and brighter and smells better than the last place.

I'm almost used to hearing trains and sirens all the time (it's right by railroad tracks and the police station and the hospital). And so far no ants or roaches, which is awesome. Ha! I guess i sound pretty easily impressed.

What else? Work's okay. It's been crazy. Everyone has their babies in May and June. I've done 7 or 8 deliveries this month so far. On Tuesday I had 3 in one night, which was kind of rough, especially the next day. Wednesdays tend to be our busiest days in the office. I went to bed SO early that night when I got home from work. It's actually kind of generous of me to call it "night," because it was definitely still light out

when I got under the covers. :)

Peter Rowan is great, I just really like him. I'm not going to be seeing him again until the end of the month though, which is kind of a bummer. He's going to come down to SC with me and hang out in Oburg for the week! Apparently he's heard about the crazy Independence Day festivities in the Carolina low country and couldn't bear to pass it up this year. Or something. I'm glad he's coming. :)

Last night April came over and we flopped on the couch and talked and played Truth or Dare. It was really fun. I'm probably going to miss that girl and her Japanese friend when they finally move on to greener pastures later this summer. I'm kind of trying not to think about it. I haven't found that preparing to be sad is actually helpful in making me less sad when the moment arrives. But I've been thinking I need to have a going-away party for them now that I have a mint plant and can make my own awesome mojitos. I've been feeling like making beans and rice again, so there'll probably need to be a party on my back deck soon.

Alright. I think I'm going to go eat pizza, paint my toenails, make puppy chow, mop the floor, and read library books now. In that order. Unless someone's water breaks.

New apartment!

I just found one! I'm excited about it, mostly. I'll be posting boring pictures of it here sometime soon. :)

Graduation weekend

So here's some more pictures from this weekend, when Peter and lots of Bechtels were in town. Sharalyn graduated, that's why. I got sick this last week so that kind of sucked to be blowing my nose the whole time, but I still had fun. Chris and I took like 8 pictures together trying to get a normal looking one, and it never happened. Eventually we gave up. His eyes don't actually stay open...very much.

You can't tell from the pictures but I actually had sweat, baby pee, and red wine on my shirt this day.

Two pictures from this week

Wanted to post these, now that I've uploaded them...Rachel and April at P.F. Chang's the other night, and Linda holding Etienne. With her awkward hand. :) These are on my facebook too, but I know Mom can't see them there...which you should fix, Mom. You could spy on Linda much more efficiently if you had a facebook profile.

Mostly about food

So, last weekend this dude Peter drove down to see me and it was really fun...we went hiking at Cloudland Canyon on Saturday morning and brought a picnic and then went to the 4 Bridges arts festival and then Coolidge and then ate sushi and then we heard jazz at the Chattanoogan. We talked the whole time even though at Coolidge we sort of just meant to chill out and rest for a second because it was hot and we'd been walking around all day. I even got a little bit sunburned.


Umm, yeah. So I really liked it, it felt easy to hang out with him. He's a seminary dude and so he lives like 7 hours away, so that is sort of lame, but whatev, he has Verizon too. :) I'll probably go up and see him and all my other St. Louis favorites in a couple of weeks.

In other news, I am on call this weekend and I have no food in my apartment. Even the Brita pitcher is empty! I totally need to go grocery shopping, but I haven't been in the mood lately. Usually I get in the mood to grocery shop about every week and a half, so it works out well. Yeah but sometimes you just need to make yourself do stuff like grocery shop so you don't go out to eat for every single meal! Ew. That's weird.

Today my boss took us all out to lunch at Longhorn and I was psyched because I ordered steak and ate the WHOLE thing. Do you know how long steak will fill you up for? You can do other stuff and not even worry about eating again for like 7 hours. It reminds me of when I used to go to that Pancake Pantry when I lived in Nashville and eat this huge salty potato/egg/cheese thing. I'd eat it for breakfast and then not be hungry again until dinner. So I don't know why I'm thinking about food so much right now. I think the steak is probably wearing off. :)

Yesterday I got to see those Lewins again and it was great. Linda stopped by to meet Etienne and then I took some awkward pictures of her holding him. She's got finals next week--can't believe she's going to be a junior in college this fall! That feels weird to me, like I'm supposed to start taking her seriously now or something. :)
Afterwards I went to P.F. Changs with some folks to celebrate April's 25th birthday. We had fun and I tried sake for the first time. It was gross, but that place is otherwise completely delicious. Great, now I'm talking about food again. :)

So while we were at Longhorn today, the owner brought us out complimentary desserts, like this huge chocolate cake with ice cream around it. We were all pretty full so it was kind of like, "mmf, thanks dude" and there was a bunch left over. My boss suggested that we take it back in box "for Marie to eat sometime late next week" and everyone was kind of like, "What? Why her?" And then he goes, "in the year we've had with Marie, I've learned that she is not particularly discriminating about her food" and then everyone started laughing and making fun of me like, "oh yeah! remember that crusty old quesadilla she brought in that one time?" and "didn't you eat potato chips for breakfast yesterday?" Anyways it was pretty funny. And yes, I did eat potato chips for breakfast yesterday. But I had some milk too.

Okay! No more about food. I really just meant to update everyone on Peter Rowan, who is a cool dude. He likes to eat too. I'm still trying to figure out if he has good taste in beer though, because that is important and I can't tell. :)

It's time to hang up your boa.

Well I was trying to post some pictures of my coworkers and I but...blogger's dorked up, as Eric Graves would say, so not tonight guys.

I've been kind of doing stuff all night with the tv on in the background, and it looks like there are tons of scary movies coming out soon. I used to try not to watch scary commercials even but I think I'm over it and they don't really stick in my head anymore. So I watch them. (Let me tell you what the dumbest show ever is: The Search For the Next Pussycat Doll. Doesn't even deserve to be on in the background. Although it does make me wonder if I'm supposed to get bangs that almost cover my eyes. Would I be cool then?)

Okay wow. What a very insightful blog post. Here's what I'm thinking about lately:

---I'm wondering if I should join my church. I'm getting the feeling I'll be around this town for awhile. Maybe I should settle in.

---I need to find a new apartment soon, unless I want to live in this ant-y apartment for another year. Elaine's going to live with me I think. That will be good times.

---I can't sleep in anymore, even on Saturdays. I wake up early thinking about a million things, not necessarily worrying, but going over my day and week a lot. It's a little weird and old-ladyish, but it's been helping me pray, so maybe I should be glad.

---Fireplaces can be very messy. If you have one you should use it anyway though.

---I really like my friends, a lot. I forget how much I enjoy them until I see them again. I'm sort of dreading the loss of April and Rachel this summer. I like them individually but I like being around their friendship too.

---I still haven't gotten to wear my dress.

---I'm happier and busier with stuff than I was 6 months ago. It's good.

That's probably all I feel like saying for now.

Easter was so fun.

So this weekend was great. All these St. Louis types came down for a couple of days and we hung out, and I really liked it. The top picture is everyone who came down (except Chris), then a picture of James, Zach & Chris, then the Thompsons, who are clearly not from St. Louis but came to the Good Friday Cuban dinner party, then Deana, me, Nicky, and Carol with Etienne, then Chris and I, then Steph, Gustavo, & Peter, and finally me and those Cheneys.

It was fun but I was really tired by the time they all left last night.

P.S. it's Chris's birthday today so you should call him. I'm going to bed now.

The smallest Lewin

So here he is, guys. The newest Lewin, who was just born this afternoon. I showed up about the same time as Erica and James and I got to watch big brother meet little brother. So that was really cute. In that 2nd picture of the two of them James is excited because he just ripped Etienne's hat off and tried to wear it. Then he tried to dump Sprite on him. So yeah, we laughed. He's cute for being 3 hours old, huh?

Mom

Okay Mom sorry for posting that picture you don't like. Here's a better one.

Rambling about cats and news and stuff

Well....not so sure I have much to say, but I was sick of looking at my big ice cream face every time I brought this up. So here's Tico Gonzalez instead, last year on the cruise. So hot right now.

I was going to go to bed early tonight because I was up early this am delivering number 101, but I got called in to the hospital around 9:30 pm, and then I sat around and caught up with Elaine for a while, while she finished up her shift. Longest sentence award. Elaine's the one I'm moving in with once my lease runs out. Yeah. P.S. I'm not moving till the end of May now. We drove past some cool looking places tonight, we're hoping to check them out tomorrow sometime. If we moved there, I would have a Starbucks on my way to work in the mornings! That could be bad news. Not that I ever find myself with 15 extra minutes in the morning, I don't know what I'm talking about. :)

Today I was thinking about my cats and how I kind of miss them now that they've been gone for long enough for me to forget how they got into everything and smelled up the apartment if I was too lazy to clean out the litter box EVERY DAY. But they were fun. It's fun to feel like it makes a difference to somebody what time you come home at the end of the day. Does that sound depressing? I don't mean it that way. I was just remembering that I liked that part.

Alright well, hi. I'm a girl who posts pictures of kittens on her blog. :)

Whatev.

So here's my latest news:

-I joined the church choir.

-I bought a lemon tree with good-smelling flowers on it, to counteract that weird Spencer's smell my apartment gets sometimes.

-My friends are coming in 6 days. I have 5 call nights and 4 work days in between now and then. Not that I'm keeping track or anything....

-I can't wait to meet Nicky's baby next week, I am ready.

-Last time I went to the tanning bed, a bee flew in there with me and I didn't notice it until I felt something CRAWLING ON MY LEG. I thought the buzzing was a bulb about to burn out. I screamed even though I was on my cell phone, then I hung up and got dressed and told the tanning bed girl, who freaked out. Then I figured out that she was more nervousy than me (and wasn't going to do anything) so I grabbed it in one of those little towels and threw it outside. But I didn't feel brave and like, wow I should go be a missionary because I can totally handle stinging insects, I just felt like ew, why does this place have bugs? So maybe I'm sort of done with going to the tanning bed. I felt like that was a good sign to stop.

-Mom, I think I have the week around 4th of July off. I might come home then.

Yeah. I have to fall asleep now.

Last night I was off call...finally

Yesterday afternoon was gorgeous, so after work I went up to Nicky and Steve's and we went to the park to play soccer and enjoy the weather.

Wim met us, he's in town on business this week. We all had ice cream. Mine was peach. I think his was walnut. Steve took like half an hour to pick his out, after he'd tasted everything. (I think he ended up with coconut almond chunk.)

James liked the soccer.

Steve and Nicky at Coolidge.

James was into the ice cream too, although he didn't really understand how to lick it out of a cone. He's more of a spoon man.

After James had to go to bed, I stopped by my old house. We played a really funny game. Donivan was making me laugh a lot.

April and I on the couch. I guess we were both getting a little tired.

So, that's probably enough pictures for now. Maybe I'll stick the rest of them on my facebook. I don't actually know how to get rid of all those weird spaces, so whatev.

The dress..because you asked.

This is the dress. Try to ignore the piles of clothes around me. I'm doing laundry today. More accurately, I'm doing laundry this week. :)

I'm going to wear it with these shoes. And a big fat necklace that I'm still working on.

shortness

Hey I had some blogging issues, but I think they're sorted out now. So I heard back yesterday, and you should just call me if you don't know what I'm talking about. I'm tentatively excited.

On Tuesday night I got my best news though: the Cheney's are coming down for Easter too! So we'll all get to be together on Easter again. I think Nicky should make me a dress. Just kidding...because I totally already have my Easter dress, I bought a dress last weekend to wear to all the summer weddings. I told that to someone who asked me if I seriously meant to wear the the same dress to all of them, like that was tacky or something, and I kind of didn't get it. It's a great dress. Umm, okay Linda's here now, I gotta go.

Still haven't heard back yet

Today was so beautiful and I had the afternoon off. It was brilliant. I went to Chattanooga and pushed James in a stroller at the park with Nicky, then she went to get a haircut and I got to babysit a little bit. So the two of us (James and I) are working on this hot chocolate outside a coffee shop when IA pops up (he works next door) and says "hey, give me a couple of minutes to finish what I'm doing and I'll come sit out here with you and enjoy the sun" or whatever. I felt sort of embarrassed like maybe he thought I planted myself out there so he would see me, which I most certainly did not....but whatev. Ten minutes later Nicky came back and was ready to go and we just left before he ever came back outside.

I guess I would've been okay with chatting for a little bit, but not talking at all? That's less confusing and complicated. I feel a little hopeful that we'll be normal friends someday, but right now I'm not in the mood to work on that. Sure I'll pray for him and say hi, but that's probably enough.

Anyways afterwards I drove back home and went to Spanish and it was pretty fun this week. Then I went to Krista's to watch American Idol, but geez, it was so boring. The boys are no good. A girl's gonna win this year.

Somewhere in there I ended up skipping dinner and now I'M STARVING. Yeah, like an orphan. I think I'll just go to bed though. I got two patients to round on in the morning. Guys, I had the busiest weekend ever, it was rough. I was at the hospital every day for hours, and every night I got called about patients, and by Sunday night I was like "are you kidding me?" because I had been there for like 8 hours straight, and had finally left, and then 3 hours later they called me about somebody else. However, my 95th birth rocked on Saturday, it was a really good one. That's as far as I am, 95. I'm going to make it into the triple digits this month!!! I think that's probably going to warrant a huge party, when it happens. I know before I said go out to dinner, but I think maybe 100 births? I should cook and invite everyone over and have a pinata and a karaoke bar or something. Be ready.

A sort of frustrating day, and some pictures of James

Here's some pictures of James. He got a haircut.

I was at his house last night to eat soup. It was a disgusting rainy day- the kind where you wake up to darkness and thunder and lightning, and Nicky made potato soup. It was a great idea. So I ate some, and we watched Marie Antoinette.

Here's what happened today. I got to work late (because I underestimated the time I needed at the hospital) and there was a note on my phone saying, "check your voicemail." On my voicemail were 3 annoying messages, the kind where the patients say, "I went to the pharmacy but my prescription wasn't there." So I had to call the different pharmacies and say "uh, yeah, those prescriptions I called in yesterday? I was serious about them." Then call the patients back and tell them that their stuff should be there now. It's actually not that annoying of a thing if it only happens once, but 3 times in a row??? I was irritated. It was a lame way to start the day off. CVS, guys. They sucked today. But luckily the morning didn't drag, and pretty soon I was back at the hospital. Eventually we did a c-section and then I went to the last part of the missions conference meeting tonight. I couldn't really handle it. It felt like forever long. Maybe I was just tired.

I'm on call again this weekend!! I'm switching weekends, so this is my second in a row. Feels a little harsh, but this way I'm off for Easter so I can stalk all those St. Louis people who are coming down. So that thing that was happening last Thursday? I still don't know about it.

Today I went to pay my rent, and I told my greasy, jewelry-wearing landlord that I would be leaving when my lease was up at the end of April. He said, "sorry, but you have to give me 30 days notice." And I said, "ummm? what?" but he still didn't get it, so I was like, "how about 60 days notice? Will that work for you?" and then he scratched his head and stared at my lease agreement for like 5 minutes. Then he goes, "well, I can only accept that in writing and on the first of the month." Then I knew he was trying to be a moron because the lease only says 60 days, it doesn't say the first of the month, so I pointed that out and asked for some paper. And I felt impatient and rude and pissy. Then he turned all friendly and was like, "all right, that's fine, I mean, I'm not trying to be a hard-ass or anything, you know that, right?" I didn't really get it. So I left. Whatev. I'm moving out in two months. To where, I don't know yet.

It's warmed up lately

It went good on Thursday guys. We'll see. But now it's Saturday and I gotta go round. I'm thinking I won't shower first. :)

Last night I was on call with no plans, so I did my taxes, finished my book about Alaska, ate spaghetti, paid bills and opened a new ING account. All that stuff actually took up the whole evening. It was okay. I've never done taxes before, but it wasn't bad. It looked like I was getting a big fat refund, but...we'll see. If I really get that much, I'm going to blow it on travel. I didn't go anywhere last year, not even to Washington. Maybe I'll go to surfing camp.

I saw Nicky on Thursday evening, it was fun and I took some cute pictures of her and James but unfortunately they're in my camera's internal memory and it won't copy them onto the memory card, so I can't put them up here. We went out to Mojo Burrito and had a good time, left when James started yelling and throwing stuff. But he lasted a good 45 minutes before that happened.

All right, I really have to go now.

Stripes (yellow ones)

Well so, last Friday I got my hair done. I wanted to get highlights but not crazy ones.

I don't know if you can tell from this picture, but these are crazy. I look blonde. And high maintenance. When it was all over the girl told me, "Just give it a week, and if you can't get used to it, come back and I'll fix it." I haven't decided yet. It looks okay, but definitely not like anything that would grow out of anybody's head, and it's the kind of thing I'll have to keep going back to get worked on regularly, so, eh. I don't know. Just in case you were wondering what was up with my hair lately.

Not a whole lot going on right now...well, kind of. Tomorrow's a big day. We'll see how it goes.

This last weekend I was off call and I went jeans shopping with April, and later we went out to the movies and saw that new Hugh Grant movie, it was good. Funny and not gross. Then I spent the night at my old house in Chatty and went to church with April on Sunday morning, which was good, interesting. I saw IA there and it was fine. He talked to me and it made me a little pissy but not sad at all, so I was glad about that. But I didn't really want to talk to him.

Valentine's Day was good, I liked it. I got a huge box from St. Louis, with tons of presents and letters and everything and I was REALLY excited. And I got a box from my Mom with all kinds of good stuff in it, way to go Mom, I'm still working on the chocolates, I eat one every day on my way out the door to work, right after I brush my teeth. So I didn't feel pathetic and unspecial at all, actually.

Now I'm just excited that there's only a week left in February. I hate this month.

Today it was warm outside, like 70 degrees, and so I drove up to Chatt. again and walked around at Coolidge for a long time with Rachel, which was so cool. Then I came back and watched American Idol at Krista's house. She's a lady I work with, (married with 2 older daughters) and I've been going over there almost every week to watch it with her and her family. It's been fun so far. I feel like I'm starting to like my life a little more lately.

So that's the update. Pray for me about my thing tomorrow afternoon, guys. I'm not nervous but it's important to me, and I want it to be awesome.

Oh one more thing: I'm on call this weekend, and I think it's going to be slow. In other words, if you've been wanting to see me lately, you should definitely come down, because I'm stuck here. Yep.