When your mom is kinda cool...

... she'll come visit you for the weekend.


... she'll take you to not one, but two, coffeeshops in one day and not think anything of it.


... she'll stay up until midnight baking in a dorm kitchen with you and your best friends.


... she'll walk around with you all day doing nothing.



... she'll pause to look at details and not rush through anything.



... she'll be cool with having no plans.



...she'll take random pictures of you while you're talking just because she likes the faces you make.



... she'll take you out to eat so you can have a break from the cafeteria.



... she'll let you talk and talk and talk - even when you don't know what to say.


.... she'll listen.


... she'll want to post your pictures on her facebook profile.



... she'll play guitars in hip music shops.

... she'll wave to you when she leaves.



... she'll make you want to be just like her when you grow up!

Chemistry and Coffee

This

gets a little more bearable
when you have

one of these:

Ahh, yes...behind every successful woman is a substantial amount of coffee (Stephanie Piro.)

I also like...

...practicing my doctoring skills.

I do not know why calamity seems to befall our suite, but I am just glad I am always right in the middle of it without being directly affected by it. It started with Kinley having appendicitis and needing to go to the emergency room for an appendectomy. I got to drive her to the hospital and be the switchboard for all the many phone calls coming in and going out that day. Kinley's boyfriend, Neal (who is pre-med also) and I spent the whole day feeling giddy that we were in a hospital. So yeah, that was a cool adventure for me at least - I'm not sure how Kinley felt about it.

Well, yesterday, Cassidy finally got a real doctor (not our health center nurse) to look at an infection on her toe. Poor thing, she'd been in pain for a week. As it turned out, she needed "surgery" to clean out the infection and allow her toe to heal. I was not with her at the doctor's appointment, but her boyfriend, Evan, was with her the whole time. He went into the surgery room with her to hold her hand while they operated on her toe (Aww.)

(I think by today he may have regained feeling in his hand.)

So last night Cassidy had to take off the dressing to soak her toe and re-dress it with clean bandages. I am really hoping I didn't annoy her with my enthusiastic offer to help.

She took her boot off and for the first time, looked at the dressing on her toe. Blood had soaked through the bottom. Cassidy got light-headed. I got excited.

I talked Cassidy through peeling off the large bandages wrapping her whole foot, and she did a great job, but she let me take the final bandages and gauze off.


Yes.


It was like Christmas.


(Don't look at me like that.)



As it turns out, the wound wasn't quite as epic as she and I feared/hoped (respectively.) But we got her all cleaned up and re-bandaged. Both of us stayed calm and cool and did a pretty nice job, if I do say so myself. Cassidy even took care of it all by herself this morning!


If anyone else has any calamity, emergency, or epidemic, feel free to give me a call!

I like...

...coffee, early in the morning.

I am on a secret (OK, not secret. I lied) mission to visit every coffee shop in J-town. So far I have visited 3; going incognito to find the best brew and atmosphere. I have not been disappointed! Yesterday I had two free hours in the morning before class so I treated myself to an espresso excursion.

I drove downtown just as the city was really beginning to shine in the morning light. The sun had been up for about half an hour, but everything was still golden and gleaming. I had rolled down the windows of Wild Blue and was playing Ingrid Michaelson on the stereo. I swung into a parking space and strolled down the empty side walk. The sun was up and warm and the breeze was cool.

There were birds singing. I think. I could have made that up.

The coffee shop I decided to infiltrate on this particular morning was perfect -chic, but casual, cool, but comfortable. I ordered a cafe mocha (you can tell a lot about a coffee shop from the quality of their mocha) and was quite enamored with it. It was rich and creamy, with a thick, smooth coffee flavor, and a distinct chocolate essence without being too sweet. Ahh, I'm getting goosebumps thinking about it. And the fact that I got a student discount....well, that was nice too. {smiles}

I decided to sit outside at a little table on the sidewalk, even though it was a little chilly. It was just too beautiful of a morning to stay inside any more than necessary! I would love to say that I sat with my cup of coffee-y goodness, people-watched, and soaked up the sunshine, but I didn't.

Instead, I sat with my cup of coffee-y goodness, unloaded my backpack, and studied organic chemistry.

Organic chemistry has no regard for beautiful mornings.






But that's ok. I don't mind.

I had coffee.

Two letters...an N and an O.

Today I learned how to say no.

No.

As in nadda.

And as in nope.

It only took me one meltdown to realize I had spread myself too thin. When you love life as much as I do, you want to do everything! Passing up one cool opportunity seems like a crime. But never passing up any opportunity means that eventually you become so stressed trying to juggle all of your "cool opportunities" that you don't get to enjoy any of them. And that's a crime.

So you decide to say No.

You take a deep breath, clench your fists, set your jaw, squint your eyes, prepare for the worst, and

say no.

And you wait.

You cautiously open one eye. Then the other. The world is still spinning and the birds are still singing. People still like you.

You let out your breath. You unclench your fists. You relax your jaw.

It's ok.

Actually, it's better than ok. Now you can enjoy loving life and love enjoying life! Saying NO is such a freeing thing. It hurts right at the moment, but in the long run it saves you from so much pain. Kinda like a vaccine, I guess.

So today I said no. And now I'm looking at all of the things that are still Yes-es in my life:

1) Yes, I can do my homework!
2) Yes, I can do my job well!
3) Yes, I can go to the Family Clinic every Friday!
4) Yes, I can go to Bible study on Monday nights with the girls!
5) Yes, I can go to the Christian Fellowship on Tuesday night!
6) Yes, I can sleep!
7) Yes, I can enjoy my friends!
8) Yes, I can have a life!

Yes. Yes is good. And so is NO.

Oh, one more thing: I picked up a lovely red leaf this afternoon. It's tacked to my bulletin board to remind me of the day I said no and the world kept spinning.