Shunting

When something traumatic happens to your body, for instance, hypothermia, your body tries to compensate. In the case of hypothermia it shunts blood away from your extremities to try to keep your more vital body parts going. Hence frostbite mostly in fingers and toes. And I suppose sometimes your nose too.

Well, when you have a period of life where you have a million things going on, sometimes you have to shunt your attention away from things that really are important, just not as important as some other things. Despite the total control school and work has over my life, things have been really good. I try to take advantage of the time I have with Lila, and Todd and I do occasionally get some time together. But knowing it should only be like this one semester, I have been able to be more excited about the accomplishments we are working toward, and the near-future when I can be with Lila almost full-time.

Does anyone remember that pile of papers I had planned to go through around Christmastime? Well guess what was in it? The pretty little sticker that goes on the back of your car to show you've paid the government that ridiculous amount just to keep driving it. So yesterday while Todd was driving, I'm sure you can guess where this is going. The thing is, that sticker was in a pile that also includes the proof that we registered, and our proof of current car insurance. So this stop took a lot longer than it was supposed to.

Luckily the cop was able to look up our registration, but for some reason he couldn't find our insurance. But he let Todd go, and how we have to take our proof of insurance to the city building in no less than 5 but no more than 14 days. Ha ha I would do it today if I could to get it out of the way!

When Todd told me I just laughed. I guess I'm just lucky more stuff like this hasn't been happening!

Are you surprised we got that sticker on only about an hour after the incident?

Hopefully this is our only little frostbite....

Elmo

Lila's newest excitement. The first show she's ever really wanted to watch. She has become a Sesame Street Junkie. Sometimes she will specifically ask to watch TV out of the blue. I've tried putting on other shows, but she only likes Sesame Street. And she mostly likes Elmo. I used to wonder why Elmo seemed to be the most popular when it came to toys and such- I guess this is why! The kids just love him. Mr "Eh-mo" is just too much fun I guess. It has gotten me to be able to brush her teeth without fighting her, just because she is so excited to brush her teeth with Elmo. So as Todd and I were talking the other day about what to get Lila for Christmas, we had decided on a play kitchen for her. We found one at Costco that should be good that's about $120. Todd made a comment about that being the only thing he got, and I said that we also had to get her a tickle-me-Elmo.

I went to work the next night, and when I came home in the morning noticed a big box on the counter. I turned on the light and found a box of an Elmo toy. When I asked Todd about it the next day he said that he was just so excited at the thought of getting her an Elmo toy that he couldn't wait until Christmas. Plus he didn't know how she would be feeling about Elmo in 3 months. Ha ha what a good dad.

Well, She loves him. She has liked toys before, cuddled, hugged, kissed, and clung to them. But she takes care of Elmo. She shares her sippy cup with him, she uses sign language for him to tell me he's hungry, blows his nose, reads to him, even told me he was poopy. She's such a good mom already.

Getting the Toothpaste (Don't worry, she hasn't figured out yet how to actually squeeze it out)

Brush those teeth!

The Elmo Toothbrush

Story time

Time to change a poopy diaper

Affected by the Camera

Lila is so dang cute. I have been trying lately to capture all the cute things she does, but she always stops and says "cheese!" then tries to get her face as close to the camera as she can. Although it tends to thwart my plans, I just love it! So adorable. So the other day Todd was working out but I was too tired to work out and deal with Lila hanging off me so we were just watching. And she started doing pushups with him! I tried to record her doing them but when she would see the camera she started doing other weird things. So here is a little video, she does one pushup at the beginning and a few more in the middle. The rest is just her goofing off. I guess she will be a buff toddler.

Stats

What have you heard about stats? All I have ever heard is that it is hard and confusing. Even other people who love algebra (like me!) say that they hate stats. That it isn't really math or at least the math isn't fun.

Well I love it. So there. It could be the fact that I am both doing really really well in my class and feeling like I am learning information. I have learned a lot of things I didn't know, combined them with a bunch of stuff I do already know (we are doing a lot of graphs and calculations in excel, and I am really good working with spreadsheets so it allows me to focus on the actual statistics stuff)- and has been fun along the way. I will admit it wasn't quite as fun up until last week when we finally started pulling out equations. I never thought the whole first months worth of class wouldn't have any math in it! But when we started doing the numbers I got a happy, warm feeling inside.

It has been over 7 years since my last math class. Math, I missed you!

My First Win.

Hey mom- have I ever won anything? I can't think of a time. The closest thing is at our Senior all nighter I won one of the over 300 prizes they gave out. But it was a lame gift card to a spa that wasn't really enough to get anything done and I've never been a spa goer anyway. And pretty much everyone got something so I think of it more of a party favor.

I did get an honorable mention in one of my grade school reflections contests, and given my lack of winningness I was pretty excited about that. And I got 2nd place in the ASL competition I went to one year, I was pretty proud of that but also very disappointed I didn't win. I didn't win any scholarships out of high school or get voted for any of the yearbooks "best"s or " most likely to"s. Although I always thought it would be fun and exciting to actually win something, I have accepted the fact that I am just average.

Intermountain is set up in regions, and the region I work in consists of 3 hospitals. Our region puts out a weekly newsletter that I browse though most weeks. This summer they had a picture contest of places people were visiting over the summer. Even though I wasn't working, I would look at the newsletter just to see the winning pictures. Then when Todd and I got to Alaska, I went to work. I told Todd I wanted to win this contest, and Alaska was just the place to do it. So we got snap happy. Pretty much all the winning pictures were just of landscapes, so I might have slacked a little on pictures of people and the boat, but we did get some pretty amazing shots.

Only a 2 weeks before the end of the contest I finally got around to sending in my pictures. I didn't know how many I was allowed, so I sent in 4, hoping I wouldn't get disqualified for multiple entries. I figured when I didn't win I would send in a few more. That next week as I browsed the newsletter I purposefully went slow and didn't rush to find the pictures, which are usually in between the middle and the end. I suppressed getting excited because I know so well the let-down feeling. For some reason this week the picture contest was on the very last page. As I scrolled down, it was the strangest feeling ever. Almost unreal. I thought I had been transported to some new world or something.

Sorry if the picture is cut off. Click on it to make it bigger and see the whole thing

Not only did I win, I actually won FIRST PRIZE!! Everyone I told was disappointed when I told them the prize was a mere pair of movie tickets, I think my excitement made them think I must have gotten something more awesomer. I actually haven't even gotten around to picking up the tickets yet, I just think it's cool that I won!

Funny story, Todd actually took this picture and put it in our list of ones we liked well enough to submit. When I saw it on his list I asked him if he was sure, because I didn't really like it that much. As I looked at it more it did grow on me, and we actually blew it up to frame and put up in our guest room. I picked it because it went the best with my favorite picture and they complemented each other well. So I must give most of the credit to Todd, who both took the shot and inspired me to submit it.

However, given my history, I must still count it as a win for me. (Todd was good at sports, he's won lots of times). Love you babe!