Nolan and Daddy Christmas Morning.

Nolan opening his Nerf gun:
Notice the Tickle Me Elmo that we managed to get...completely ignored, then later, the source of much terror and baby hysterics.

Headaches? What headaches?

So I've always had headaches. From the time I was in 4th grade to after I graduated high school, I had a headache. That's not that I only had one headache in all that time, it was that that one headache lasted 10+ years. I sort of got used to it, so that "having a headache" came to mean that it got bad enough that I actually wanted to take something for it. The rest of the time, I just learned to deal.

After high school, I had some chiropractic help and the headaches actually went away for the majority of the time. I still got them frequently, but it was no longer constant. Also, about 2 years ago, I began to see "migraine fuzz" (those of you who have migraines know that starting to see this stuff is *bad news* and means a whopper is coming on) in my periferal vision. However, I never got the headache. That would seem great, but the downside was that the fuzz never went away. I didn't see it as much in certain circumstances, such as rooms with colored walls, or where there was darker space to my sides. But for the most part, I could see it. I had an MRI, and nothing was found that could be causing the fuzz. So again, I got used to it. It was always there; I just tuned it out.

Lately, I've only had one a week or so. (Interestingly, while I was pregnant, both my headaches and motion sickness were nonexistant) However, a few months ago, I had a whopper of a migraine, with the fuzzy spots in the front of my vision and all.

Then, this past Monday, during Step class at Gold's Gym, a headache hit me all of a sudden like a freight train. And it stayed, Monday afternoon, Tuesday, Wednesday...and finally when I woke up on Thursday and it was so bad I felt like beating my head on the wall, just so the pain would change, I made a doctor's appointment.

There's this genetic aversion to doctors in my family; at least, the women in my family. We bully our loved ones into going to the doctor all the time, but when it comes to *us*, well, we hem, we haw, we procrastinate, and we wait until it's so bad we can't stand it to go. So I went. And the doctor stared at me and said "you have headaches HOW often, and you haven't been treated before?!!" So she gave me Maxalt. It's the medication you're supposed to take at the first sign of a migraine to prevent it from forming. Since I'd had the headache for 4 days, there was not a great chance it was going to work, but 30 minutes later...HALELUJAH, it started to work! Woohoo! 2 hours later, I still had a slight headache, so I took the other dose, and wonder of wonders, it worked.

I feel good. I feel *really* good, despite the fact that I woke up at 1 and 3 am this morning with a raging sore throat. I am sort of shocked at how good I feel. Score one more for modern medicine. Who knew getting on the right treatment could help so much? Amazing, I know.

The doctor also prescribed Imipramine, which used to be used as an antidepressant, but is now used as a medication to promote healthy sleep and to prevent migraines. However, I will be starting that tonight since today I need to be alert for my Biology exam today. I'll do my "trial run" on it over the weekend to see how it affects me.

So speaking of Biology, if I want to keep my 98% in this class, I need to go study. I'm not doing as well in 202 as I did in 201. (got a 99.7% in that class) I'm off to study Kingdom Animalia, memorize a fluke and a roundworm life cycle, and to try to absorb the last 2 class lectures on nerves and muscles. Wish me luck!

Another Black Eye picture

 

 

 

In the Dog Crate

Max (our Main Coon/Ragdoll cat) has been living in the dog crate, since I don't want to have to clean up after him. He's in kidney failure, and probably doesn't have much time left. Anyway, I was cleaning out his "house" and Nolan decided it was a great fort. So I let him in it after it was all Simple Solutioned and clean. He loved it.

Max was also happy - to have a reprieve from prison. 

Nolan has his first black eye. I'm afraid the poor little guy tripped and landed on his face on the corner of the dog crate.

The flash of the camera has washed out the bright colors of the eye. It's much more impressive in person.

His new "pet names" are Tyson, Scrapper, My Little Prizefighter and "Tuff Stuff." 

Oh, lucky us.

West Nile Virus.

Two years ago, we had none. Now, Idaho's the state with the most human infections. Several people have died, and a lot of people I know have it. In fact, I'm willing to bet the number reported on the CDC statistics page isn't even close to the number of people who actually have it.

Mosquitoes never bothered me before. I rarely get bitten, and if I do, I don't usually itch. Now, however, I can't seem to get away from them. They are everywhere! I don't remember ever getting swarmed by mosquitoes like I do now when we take our evening walk. Does West Nile Virus make mosquitoes more aggressive? The little vampires are absolutely unavoidable!

It seems like everyone who gets sick now goes to the doctor to see if they have West Nile. My aunt is just getting over it, and my husband has some symptoms, though I'm sure I'll never talk him into going to the doctor to confirm it. Have a neckache? Maybe I have West Nile. Indigestion? Must be West Nile. It's on everyone's mind, and I am terrified that Nolan will get it. I'm probably poisoning him with all the bug spray I make him wear.

Maybe it's all in my head. Maybe the threat of West Nile has me paying more attention to mosquitoes than I used to. Maybe I notice their bites more now. I don't know. What I DO know is that I do cheers when I see Nighthawks swooping around eating bugs, and Dragonflies have become my favorite insect. Even bats give me warm fuzzies. Go MosquitoEaters!

The bribery after the haircut. Rita bought Nolan a chocolate milk from the in-house J.R. Java. 

OK, maybe that wasn't so bad, after all. 

All Done! He's so handsome! 

LET ME DOWN! 

He's really ready for the haircut to be over. (Rita was so patient with squirmy little Nolan) 

Haircut pics

Now he's SURE it's not a good idea. 

First Haircut

Nolan's not so sure that a haircut is a good idea. 

Another 15 month picture

 

Nolan's 15 month pictures

 

Come one, come all

Come one, come all

The above link is to my Twin Cousin's (I'm 15 minutes older, for real) blog. She's pregnant now! YAY!

Something's missing

Really. There are several posts that are not here anymore! Especially the link to my cousin's blog (Will put it back asap) and updates on Nolan.

He is now 17 months old, and he really doesn't say anything. Nope. No talking. He grunts a lot.

Around here, let's see...this past month, we've had the beheading in Boise (search for Alofa Time on www.ktvb.com to see THAT hair-raiser), a murder-suicide here in Wendell, several brush fires within a few miles of my home, and this last week, a 15-year-old drowned in the Snake River...they still haven't recovered her body because of the hydraulics of the river.

I've kayaked that section, and I don't have a CLUE why people insist on swimming in that river. You're floating along, and all of a sudden, SUCK, down one end of your boat goes. This is on FLAT water, in a *very* buoyant boat. How very sad. She jumped in to save her dog, and they both didn't surface.

OK, so I'm feeling a bit morbid today.

State Track

I've mentioned before that I volunteer coach for my local high school. This year I couldn't go to the state meet because of the boy-child, so I was moping around until I found the link above. There is a live webcast of the whole thing! They even take requests for things to zoom in on.

YAY!

My triple jumper did great, placed 5th, I believe, and had a personal best jump. I'm waitin for the long jumps now.

We should have a girl that does very well; she's seeded well in the Long Jump, 100m, and 300m hurdles. The seedings can be foun on that website as well.

Computers and Networks and VPN's, OH MY!

Every time I try something new with computers it's an adventure.

The clinic I work for has been limping along with dial-up. Not dial-up internet, though we *were* paying $26 a month for AOL . No, we have two clinics. 10 miles apart. We have to share a client database.

Over a Dial-up Networking/Remote Desktop connection. *AND*, AND! We don't even get full 56k dial up speeds when we dial from the remote clinic into the server. 33.6 if we're lucky. A lot of the time it's 24.4. Can we say sllllloooooowwww?

SO, when I came back to work to do the books, I noticed that whopping charge for AOL on the statements, and figured I'd look into DSL. It turns out that we can drop the dial-up line at Wendell, drop the AOL, and add DSL at each clinic, and have it be *cheaper* than having the third line and AOL.

So I presented my argument to the Doctor, and he said GO FOR IT! For those of you that don't know Dr. H, it can sometimes be a challenge to convince him that a new technology is worth it. He's a very good veterinarian, but not all that technologically, um, adventuresome, shall we say?

Then there's me. If there's a new gizmo or program or service, I want it. (my phone is also a palm pilot)

So I researched VPNs (Virtual Private Networks) and connecting and all that jazz, and did it. It took a couple of days to figure out just exactly all the checkboxes, IP addresses, and I had to learn about ports, and router forwarding, and opening up ports and firewalls, PPTP, L2PT, IPSec, and all sorts of new things. My brain might explode from all the new information that it has absorbed in the last week.

BUT, once I got all the boxes checked, services enabled, and ports forwareded. IT WORKS!

Me, little 'ole me, with only a modicum of formal computer education, set up a server that can actually accept connections with the outside world. HA! Who says Windows is too hard?

And talk about slick. With our dial-in connection, it took around 5 minutes just to dial in, log in, and start Remote Desktop, not to mention even more time for the client management software to open, run, login, pull up a client, and enter information. Now, it is so smooth, you'd think you were sitting at the computer where the database resides. Sweet. One click and you're connected, another to start the software, and you're done. 2 minutes tops for the entire process. No more waiting!

I love computers. Everything about them is interesting and fun.

One of these days I should learn programming.

Come one, come all

Come one, come all

This is the blog of my "twin cousin" Stacy. No kidding. I'm 15 minutes older. For real. Is that cool, or what? She and her sister used to spend summers with us, and all the kids at summer camp and at school were so jealous that I had a twin cousin.

Now she's pregnant, so you can read about her adventure just like you did mine.

Yet another Neurosis

Baby breathing, accidental death or dismemberment, etc. Now we can add grades to my list of neuroses.

In high school and for the college time I put in years ago, grades were not all that big of a deal to me. Oh, I liked A's, but B's were acceptable, and C's were tolerable. For the most part, I didn't have to work too hard for my A's and B's, andI didn't worry about it much.

However.

Yes. However. Thinking about it now, it actually seems odd to me that it wasn't a bigger focus of mine. I'm very competitive (ask anyone) and now, as I go "back to school" for a biology degree, I find that if I don't have that A, my day gets really bad in a real hurry.

Take, for instance, the Chemistry class I'm taking this sememster, Chem 111. Being the forward thinking, smart, impatient person that I am, and not wanting to take any more classes than I absolutely have to, since I can only take 1 or 2 a semester, I decided to skip the Chem 101 class that was suggested as a prerequisite to Chem 111. Actually, the prerequisites were *either* Chem 101 or High School Chemistry.

Ok, so I had HS Chemistry. Sort of. I got a good grade in HS Chemistry. What the *real* story is, is that our teacher got fired halfway through the year and sent to jail for having an affair with a student. So I really didn't have much HS Chemsitry. But hey, it's on my transcript, and I can figure this stuff out, right?

Fast forward to the second test, which I did not finish in the time allowed, and got a 63% on. (OK, I really got a 53, but everyone in the class missed one of the questions, so the instructor "curved" by adding the 10 points for that question to everyone's score)

Total panic time. I needed to find out just *exactly* where I stood with my grade. So I made up an excel worksheet that shows exactly what grade I got on each assignment, how many points possible, and all the "bonus points" I have. It tells me what my grade is today, what my grade is with bonus points added, and how many points I've lost (I can lose 100 and still get an A). It even tells me what my grade would be if I stopped accumulating points today and just accepted what I currently have.

For the course, there are 1000 "real" points possible. There are also 50 "bonus" points possible. As of today, with all items turned in and only the last bonus and the final exam to go, I have exactly 738.8 "real" points. This means that if I decide to skip the final, I will end up with a C for the class. Right. Like I'd do that. SO, to get an A with my "real" points, I need to get a 161.2 on my 200 point final. (that's a B on the final to make an A in the class)

I'm not entirely sure if the bonus points are added on directly, or if they will be added on in such a way that it might not affect a letter grade. The syllabus says "To earn an “A”, you must have 90% of more of the possible non-bonus points, 900 or more total points" I'm not certain exactly what that means.

Right now, I have 24 bonus points, with the possibility of getting 25 more today when I hand in my last bonus assignment, assuming I get all the answers correct on the bonus. If I can add those points directly on, that means I will only need to get a 112.2 on my final. That's a D on the final, to make an A in the class.

Hey, now that I write it out, that doesn't seem too hard. My problems are going to be balancing equations, and working fast enough to finish. I can usually get the right answer, if I have time enough to think it through, but my brain doesn't work at the pace the instructor thinks it should, so I really have a difficult time finishing the exams in the time allotted. The final will have 2 hours available to work.

The stuff I won't have to worry about much are the molecular structures and electronic configurations of atoms. That sort of thing was pretty easy for me, since I tend to think in 3D anyway. Unfortuately, that will be only about 25% of the test. :-(

Final's Tuesday at noon. Wish me luck!

Birthday Cupcake

His birthday was Feb 4 

Adventures in Chemistry Class

Chemistry this semester.

I have to admit, though I like the sciences, Chemistry is just not one that is super fun. Biology, mmmm, fun. Chemistry....blah not fun.

Then again, it can be interesting. As in far, far, far from mundane. Dangerous, you might even say. Yes, ladies and gentleman, I've been living out there on the edge.

First, my luck with lab partners has been atrocious. My first partner was actually the cousin of someone in my high school class. So we actually had stuff to talk about, and she'd already taken Chem 101 (unlike certain other people who decide to jump right in to Chem 111 as their first college chem course...ahem) so she knew how to do experiment setup and all that jazz.

However, bummer of bummers, she dropped the class. So, since there was one group of 3 in the class, I stole the odd man out and had a great lab. Great lab partner. Unfortunately, the next week, he went to help judge a gradeschool science fair, and I was once again alone for lab.

So another student whose lab partner dropped asked if we could be lab partners until my stolen lab partner came back. I said yes, and we proceeded to make soap. Which was pretty cool, it did all sorts of neat bubbling and foaming. You know when you boil macaroni in just a smidge too little water at just a smidge too high heat, and it foams over? That's what hot boiling lye and lard do. Very cool, right up until the time your lab partner decides to blow on it to make the foam go down. The problem with blowing on hot boiling lye and lard foam is that if your lab partner (me) is stirring the concoction at the time, the foam tends to fly into the air. Since the hand that is stirring is also in the air above the container, hot boiling lye and lard gets stuck on said hand. Owch.

Not to worry, though. The cold water was right there, and no blisters, sores, or other nasty chemical reactions took place. "Whew!"

You would think that would have used up the bad luck for the day, but NO. My poor lab partner took off her goggles to wash the equipment we were using and splashed soapy lye-lard residue in her eyes. She had to stand in the eyewash for 5 minutes. The eyewash does not just get your eyes. They should call it an eye shower. The poor girl was soaked.

The next week, *I* made sure to go to the gradeschool science fair.

Family Tree

I downloaded a neat program, called Legacy 5.0 and I started an online family tree! This software, when used with the Worldconnect database on http://www.rootsweb.com, it's a neat way to show and gather information!

I've had this interest for a while now, but finally decided to really do something with it. So I've been looking information up on the above website, plus the LDS database at http://www.ancestorhunt.com/mormon_church_records.htm

If you know any dates, such as birth, death, or marriage, or can fill in any blanks such as middle names or surnames, I'd love an email with the info!

What Nolan Can Do

Since my big boy is almost a year, I thought I'd get busy and actually type about him a little. Oh, and if you want to skip to the really important stuff, scroll down to the next entry, and you can see his 1 year old picture.

When you are almost one, you are very durable. Bouncing off of objects doesn't seem to phase you much, and at this point, I've become convinced that diapers are there specifically as a cushion for when you plop down on your rear every 3 seconds or so.

Nolan has also learned the art of the "sympathy cry" You know...the owwie doesn't hurt unless you have an audience thing? He'll fall over and whack his head on something, and unless it's a BIG whack, he usually doesn't really complain much...until he notices that I noticed his little accident. Then the little bottom lip pokes out and he starts this sad little ooooo-oooooooo cry. It's really very pathetic. And he knows it.

Nolan knows "NO". Just this morning, I asked him "Nolan, what does NO mean?" and he said, "Why Mommie, NO means to see just exactly how much you'll let me get away with. Test the waters. Push the envelope. Ride the cutting edge. Push the button."

Especially the "push the button" part. He can operate the receiver we have for the entertainment center. Pushing the button makes all sorts of neat sound effects. Saying NO means "Push the button as many times as you can before the parental unit carries you off or has a stroke, whichever comes first. More points if you can make one parent have a stroke while the other grabs you."

Nolan can walk, to a degree. He does pretty good, but then gets tired of it. Because he can crawl so much faster, you know.

1 year old