Mother's Day Ponderings

I'm up way too late because I'm working on the final for what I hope to be my last every actual grad school class. After this I just have to finish the dissertation and go find a real job. So I'm procrastinating on this instead. Today was Mother's Day and it was a really wonderful day. Mike and I talked to both our grandmothers and are grateful that even though they've had some rough months that they're both healthy today. Mike talked to his mom for a long time. I know he cherishes each mother's day since her breast cancer recovery. And my family came over for lunch and a fun afternoon with peach bellini's (fresh from the tree) and the Wii. All of that was special but what struck me the most today actually happened at church this morning.
Two couples we know from church who struggled with infertility adopted in the past few months. One of them was given two beautiful girls and the other a very lively boy. I remember this time last year how painful it was especially for our friend who adopted the boy. She wanted so desperately to be a mother. Even though she knew that God was in control and that God had a plan and a reason, that didn't stop the pain and mother's day was especially hurtful. It has been so joyous to watch their excitement to learn that their baby was finally coming, to bring that baby home, and for all of us to love on them. I was thrilled that they got to celebrate this mother's day with crying babies, dirty diapers, and toys under foot. Our pastor asked the mothers to stand so that we could pray over them and I was so happy to pray for all my friends who were mothers, but especially these. (I would like to add that we have an incredible pastor who never forgets there are women out there who long to be mothers but can't and he is always very sensitive on mother's day. He's the first pastor I've known to remember the women with children and the women who are still waiting for theirs).
It made me think about how quickly life can change. When we're in a place that hurts and seems dark, sometimes it feels like God isn't there, isn't working, or isn't going to answer. But the truth is that he's always there, always working, and always answers. It just sometimes doesn't look like it to us or is maybe easier to see in hindsight. And that's something that I've clung to during difficult times in my life and that I know I'll rely on in future difficult times. I realized this morning that I should be clinging to that truth in good and difficult times - that God is all I need and that He always provides. I wish I did a good job of that but when I'm willing to be honest I can look back to dark moments and see how I completely relied on Him. Then I can look right now during happy times when my heart's desires have been answered and I've been blessed and I notice that I'm not clinging as hard. That bothers me. That same feeling of utmost need for Him should be there when I'm in need and when I'm full of blessings. So I took our time of rejoicing today as a reminder to keep my focus on what life is all about.

Drunk people and baby shower pics

Drunk people should not be allowed to carry their own drinks. I came to that conclusion after Mike and I went to the Spurs-Mavs playoff game during round 1. That was part of our whirlwind weekend. Thursday night we went to the game. After the game we drove to Houston. Everyone worked on Friday. Damitra and I did baby shower things Friday night. Saturday morning Mike and I went to the wedding of one of his IBM friends. Mike dropped me off back at D & G's house on his way to the reception. Claire, Damitra, and I threw Elizabeth a wonderful baby shower. Then that evening we celebrated Damitra's birthday with some of her residency friends. Sunday Mike and I drove back home to Dallas to clean up for company we had visiting on Monday night.
Back to drunk people though. The couple with seats next to us arrived after the start of the second half and were already drunk. They sat down with a beer in each hand. Not too much later, the girl got up and left. I even mentioned to Mike as she climbed past us that she's already drunk so I hope she's not going for another drink. About 10 minutes later she toddled back up the stairs carrying two more beers. As she tried climbing past us, Mike tried to help her hold the beers since she was really unsteady. For all his efforts though she still ended up pouring beer down the back of my shirt. I tried cleaning up as best I could, but I ended up smelling like beer all the way to Houston. Thus I've decided that drunk people should not be allowed to carry their own drinks. They should have to blow in a little device to determine if they're sober enough to carry their own drink, and if they're not then they can't buy more. My friend Wes noted that drunk people would just send their sober friends to buy their beers and I'm fine with that. At least the sober person will get the beer to his drunk friends without spilling it down the back of my shirt. Now I just have to find someone to get my legislation passed. I'm sure it'll be a high priority in the midst of the economic crisis and the piggie flu. Right?
And just in case you're wondering, yes it did suck that the Spurs were blown out of the water the entire game and the drunk girl spilled her beer, but I got to spend time with my husband and he's happy that his team won, so overall it was a perfect date. Dates with Mike always are.

Here are some pics from the baby shower. More on that later. If you want to see them all then they're here.
The yummy cake.
The food.

The diaper cake I made.
The beautiful Mom-to-be...

Easter Fun

Mike and I decided that we wanted to dye Easter eggs this year. We had a lot of fun. And then we turned them in to deviled eggs, which are always yummy. Mike's eggs turned out very well. I tried to do a technique where I cracked the eggs and dyed them so that the eggs themselves would come out marbled. Unfortunately they didn't really marble. Here's pictures of our creation.

Big step for me

I was in Denver for the SRCD conference last week. I like academic conferences. It's a great chance to go hear what others are currently dong in the field. You can get a lot of information in a short time. Of course, you're also completely brain-dead by the time it's over. What I don't like though is all the people. I get extremely nervous around people I don't know and have quite a bit of anxiety when I'm in large groups of people. So even though conferences are a great opportunity to network, I find I really prefer to go to the talks and then hide in my hotel room. This year though I made a very concerted effort to talk to some of the big names in my field. And not only am I proud of myself for talking with people I don't know, it seems that the measures we've developed for my research were interesting to others. A lot of people felt that my ideas were relevant and headed the direction that the field needs to go. It's always nice when important people who actually matter think what you're doing and your approach to the field is intersting. Even more exciting was a conversation I had with a researcher at the University of New Orleans who is running a longitudinal study and wants to include our new measures in his upcoming data collection. So not only did he think it was interesting, but actually wants to use what we've spent the last two years developing. Kind of makes it feel worthwhile (both the years and the anxiety of talking to people).
Of course, even though all that was great, I was still glad to get home to Mike and Apollo and friends at home who don't scare me. =)

Why do techonological advances make my life more difficult

I have the latest version of Office on my laptop. That's what the University is currently running and so I get it for free. They've made a lot of changes and even though I do love that it keeps my references in a database for me, that's about the only thing I like at the moment. Last summer I submitted an abstract for a conference using the old version of Word. Now I'm trying to create the presentation for that conference. All I want to change is the labels on my graphs from my abstract submission. Just in case you didn't know, tables and graphs get a lot of attention at these conferences. Sometimes I think they're the only thing that gets paid any attention. By the end of the conference I walk through the poster sessions and if there's a bunch of words, but no table/graph then I have tendency to walk on. I'm just too brain-dead at that point to process what they wrote. Sad isn't it? However, this new version of Office won't let me change what I want. Nor will it let me make a new chart in Power Point. It links me to some internal excel file and then has crazy built in formulas that I can't seem to get rid of. Arggh!!!!! Not to mention that they're new way of selecting your graph format won't let me get rid of the internal axis lines. I can't have internal axis lines. Have they not read the APA manual? Grrr. I want my old version of Office back where you could click on the label and just type in the new name. Sigh.

Problem with getting appliances all at the same time

I think appliances are deliberately designed to have a certain life span. The problem with this is that if all appliances are from the same company and purchased at the same time then they can all die at the same time as well. As a result, on Valentine's Day, our oven died. The dishwasher had already been dying for a little while. The microwave followed shortly after the oven (when Mike tried to show his sister-in-law how it was starting to break and succeeded in completely breaking it). Just for good measure the garage door opener broke the next morning. All of this was preceded by our upstairs vacuum cleaner dying the week before.
Fortunately we hadn't already made plans for how to spend our tax return money. Now, after lots of shopping and Mike's haggling, we have a new range, a new microwave, and a new dishwasher. It's nice because they're all the modern stainless steel kind and it really updated the look of our kitchen. My favorite is our dishwasher splurge. We went up a level on the dishwasher and got the kind that is super quiet and can tell how much dirt is still in the water so that it only washes it as long as necessary and saves water and energy. Being kind to the planet always makes me happier. Plus I'm so happy when I unload the dishwasher and the dishes are actually clean. It's been the first time in my life that I've been excited to do the dishes and run the dishwasher. And as an extra bonus Mike's father came to visit and found a kit to fix our garage door opener and was able to fix our vacuum as well. For the time being all is well in the world of our appliances. We're going to enjoy it while it lasts.

A sad reminder

Mike, of course, is a sports fanatic. He actually watched part of the Pro Bowl on Sunday to get his last bit of football in until next season. As much as he likes watching though, he'd much rather be out playing sports, be active and be healthy. He's belonged to several different rec leagues over the years and will play anything. He's played for years on a Softball team from his old church and is good friends with several of the guys. Sunday morning we found out that one of the guys, who is about Mike's age, had a heart attack and died. He left behind a wife and two young children. It was tough because I think we have this idea that people who eat healthy and exercise a lot shouldn't have heart attacks and certainly shouldn't die from them at our age. The timing was interesting because Sunday we also had our picture taken at church. Our church has over 5000 people so we don't take church-directory-type pictures. A man from church though volunteered to take pictures of married couple. He is a professional photographer and his wife died unexpectedly. He found that he had lots of pictures, but not very many of the two of them together. So he wanted to honor his wife's memory by taking these photos for free and remind couples to treasure their time together. With Jimmy's death and these photos coming on the same day Mike and I feel very reminded that we need to treasure our moments together. It's sad way to be reminded of it though.