Houseguest

So our friend Matthew has moved in with us for the time being. Matt recently decided to change careers from law enforcement to a Customer Service Rep for US Cellular. Josh and Matt met freshman year. Matt lived on Josh's floor. He is one of the guys! Since Matt has changed jobs and areas to live he needed a place to stay until he finds an apartment. It is nice and fun to have someone that you don't get to see very often come and stay with you. I know that Josh really likes having him around. SO I am glad that he is here. I love Matt to death but sometimes I just want to scream. I forgot how when you start living with someone things start to bother you. Josh is a quiet person. He doesn't talk much. Matt talks, and talks and talks. Talks about love, sex, work, his job change, his feelings, his ex, the army, talks during movies, you name it he talks about it. Now like I said I love him to death but, sometimes a girl needs a little peace and quiet.

Bored at Home

This being stuck at home thing isn't all that it has cracked up to be. I am
5, almost weeks post-op. I have worked my way through a lot of my projects. I have started doing some Christmas shopping online. I have almost all of the Christmas Cards done. The truth is the first 3 weeks at home I was still taking naps and resting. The past two weeks I have been starting to go stir crazy. I have knitted and read. I have watched 5, count them 5 seasons of The Soprano's! I am on season 5 of Sex and the City. I have 4 episodes left and then I will have to rent the 6th and final season. After the Christmas shopping is done and I have all the presents wrapped I will pull out the One Stroke Painting. I have been a little nervous about that because I don't have the best fine motor skills. I am worried that it will come out all screwed up! I will try though and practice makes perfect. Hope that I have enough to keep me busy here. After the 19th I will have a better idea of how long my mini vacation will be.

A Catholic Pastime?

I know I have been a bad blogger. My mother brought that to my attention last night. The funny thing is my mother can send me packing on a guilt trip without warning. Maybe that is why I have become such a responsible person. The fact that if I don't follow through I am riddled with guilt. Or if I say the wrong thing I feel guilty about it. I don't only feel guilt right then and there, it recurs every time I think of that conversation. In fact I had a bought of guilt last night over an e-mail I wrote to some co-workers last night.

I checked my work e-mail before I went to bed. There was an e-mail from our department head about not following through with a protocol. The e-mail was sent as a reminder of the recent change in protocol and that one of my GPCR group (there are 5, soon to be 6 of us) had deviated from the protocol. The general demeanor of our group is supportive, but we tend to pick on each other. When a mistake is made it is common to joke about the mistake. Never in a negative connotation, but jokingly. We all have a thick skin about it and know when to stop. So, naturally when this e-mail is sent about one of us making a mistake I send this e-mail to the group. I poked fun at the mistake and then continued to write them to let them know what was up with me. When I originally wrote the e-mail I meant to send it to the 3 guys in the group. At the bottom of the e-mail I said that I hadn't heard from any of them since I had left. I added my supervisor as an after thought so that she could hear how I was doing too.

The guilt kicks in because I didn't want my supervisor to think that this comment was about her. She came to see me in the hospital and has written. She has been wonderful about the whole thing. I tossed and turned over it for a while. I thought about sending her a separate e-mail. In the end I fell asleep. I got an e-mail from her today telling me about work and another inviting me to lunch with the group next Wednesday. I am SO happy to be getting out of the house to see them! My guilt washed away and I didn't even think twice about it all day.

I also had an e-mail from one of the guys. To be honest the guy that I least expected to hear from. It was pleasant and funny and made me smile. The thing that has gotten me thinking is this: He first said that I must have been raised Catholic because Catholics are good at sending people on guilt trips. He said he knew I meant that those jerk guys didn't care how I was. The funny thing is I sent him on a guilt trip without even realizing it. All that I wanted was someone to write to me. I am getting VERY lonely. It is hard to spend day after day in a 1200 sq ft apartment without feeling like the walls are closing in.

So I guess that I have learned either a famous woman or Catholic trait across the way. What do you think? Do Catholics pass along the guilt that the church makes them feel onto others? Or is it something we woman have honed across the years to get what we want? Either way, is this something that can become so subconscious that we don't even realize that we are doing it anymore?

D-day

Today is the day. The day that I have been waiting for and dreading with every cell of my being. I am sitting here in my towel starving. I know that I wouldn't usually be hungry at 4am, but just knowing that I cannot eat makes it all worse! I would be lying if I said that I wasn't nervous, but I know that this is all for the best. No pain, no gain right? Keep me in your thoughts and prayers over the next couple weeks. I will be home on Sunday. I hope that I can write a post soon after I get home!

See you on the flip side!

Notes From Across the Country

I am currently sitting in a Starbucks in Bellevue, Washington. Bellevue is a suburb of Seattle. So I think that this an appropriate thing to do here. I feel like a nerd with my coffee and my laptop. When in Rome....... So here are some notes from all over.

First, I am having a good time at the conference. I have learned a lot. I have survived my poster presentations thus far. I am taking some time off this afternoon. My brain is pretty well fried at the moment. There a couple of more sessions that I am going to at 5 and 5:30. I will stand by my poster for another 1/2 hour or so then head back to my hotel room. I have had a couple tough questions. The hardest was an asian man with a french accent who spoke REALLY softly. I think that I answered his question. His english wasn't very good, so I am not sure. I had poster copies available so he can email any other questions that he may have.

Secondly, I went to the space needle and pike's place market in Seattle. I drove there and back and didn't get lost. Thank the good Lord that Mapquest was right this time. I will post pictures when I get back. I got to the top of the space needle and realized that I forgot my camera. So I had to spend $17 on a disposable camera. I was pissed. So I made sure that I used the most of it. I took a TON of pictures. Too bad it was cloudy that day. I left during the rain in Madison and landed in the rain in Seattle. Go figure!!

What else? I received a call from the Red Cross. My blood I was mutilated for last week was unable to be used. There was a clot in it. The woman on the line asked me if it was a difficult donation. I told her it was the WORST donation experience that I have had in my life. She was shocked and apologetic. She wanted me to come in and donate more blood. However they only have self donations on Wednesday morning, otherwise I would get off the plain going straight to the Red Cross.

I don't know if there was anything else that I can tell you. I am going to go out to dinner with a co-worker tonight somewhere near by. She is arriving tonight for the final day of the conference tomorrow. She is staying at my hotel so I left her a note for her to get when she gets here. I have really enjoyed my trip. I wish that I would have had some more time to go somewhere else. My grandfather mentioned the Boeing field in Seattle. I don't really have that much interest in seeing planes. I know that Josh would have loved to see that. Microsoft is based nearby. I did all that I really wanted to see.

When I get back home I will try to call my grandparents to make sure that they are still there. I am sure that they are as Wilma has hit 100 miles south of them.

Final thought for the day. One week from today I will be under the knife. Fear is starting to set in. I cannot think about it without getting butterflies in my stomach. I truly hope that all goes well!!!