Danielle Blog

New baby niece!

She is here!

Texas Seestor and Trainwreck went to the hospital yesterday morning when TS’s water broke. And come to find out, this was the real deal!

My new niece was born last night and ended up only being 1 day premature (full term was today). So, all of that boring bed rest paid off.

She was 7 lb 6 oz and 19 inches long when born.

I hear that everyone is doing well. But I haven’t actually gotten to hear much in the way of details now that she has been around and kicking for part of a day.

I guess she was just a little bigger than Texas Baby Bunny/Munchie when she was born.

Can you see the differences between their photos?

I think that my new baby niece (haven’t come up with a good blog name yet) has slightly different lips. Her nose might be different too. But since baby noses get sort of smushed when they are born, it is hard to say for certain until it has a chance to sort of bounce back.

Here is one funny little thing. So, I was at this Christmas concert when TS gave birth, and the music was all about the birth of Christ, Mary giving birth to the son of God, celebrate the birth, etc. etc.
And here TS was, giving birth.

Maybe all of those good vibes were doing the trick.

I can’t wait to see everyone!

I’m an Auntie twice over!

92 years

I hadn’t realized it had been quite so long since I posted until today.

There are 2 main things that have happened this month.

1) I put in my application for a tenure-track position at school.
This actually took a lot of time. But, I think that my final application was really good.

2) My Grandma died a week and a half ago on Veteran’s day. She had just turned 92.
It was expected, in that she had a form of dementia and a movement disorder and has been progressively getting worse. But at the same time, it is sad to know that her life on this earth is over and she cannot be with us, physically, anymore.

I flew back to Indiana last weekend to be with everyone. It was for me, as well as for them. I needed that time to experience the formalities of the visitation, funeral, and burial ceremonies. And I needed the joy of seeing family members whom I haven’t seen since some of them showed up in TX for Texas seestor’s wedding (4? years ago) and more like 5 for others who didn’t fly down for the wedding.

I also used the time to catch up on some geneology. No one has any family tree info. But I was able to get some based on headstones, old copies of obituaries, and the recollections of some of my older and more distant relatives. I took a bunch of photos of gorgeous black and white photos of family members (great grandparents). We even have some wedding photos from Germany (late 1800’s), but some are unmarked, so we don’t know the identities of the people.

I hope to communicate with a couple of other people in the family who have evidently spent some time collecting information.

One other thing that was fun was that my mom and two of her sisters shared stories about life on the farm. Some of the stories were even surprises to them!

Well, I guess that is all for now. We have a couple of weeks and then we have finals. So, this is sort of a crazy time of the academic year!

One final note: Texas Seestor will be giving birth within the next ____ weeks. (4?) She is on bed rest right now, so keep her in your thoughts and prayers! And keep trainwreck in your prayers too!

Update on bout with H1N1

I thought I’d give a short (I hope) update on my health status, in case any of you were curious.

This week was a bit hit and miss. One night – it must have been Tuesday, I was working until 1:00 am and had to get up at 5:00 am. That Wednesday when lecturing, I felt short of breath and constricted/achy. I took my inhaler and it helped some, but it also made my heart race (side effect), which is, of course, a disturbing feeling too.

Anyway, I had a couple of moments in lecture where I really had trouble catching my breath. Then I had to go to lab until 5:30. Needless to say, it was a sucky day. I went home and pretty much fell asleep right after supper. So, Thursday I felt great. But again, I hadn’t prepared on Thursday for stuff due on Friday, so I was up until midnight again and was super exhausted yesterday – Friday.

I also had this terrible moment one minute before my lecture started on Friday when I realized that I wasn’t prepared – I was missing part of my lecture prep – which I had not done. I was mis-remembering on Thursday/Friday morning and thought that I’d done it, and never double-checked. So, I had to plead sickness for my lapse in memory and prep, and sort of wing it in lecture. This is the first (and I hope last) time this has/will happen.

In other news, I’m pretty much done taking all drugs except some Mucinex DM. But I think I’ll be stopping that too pretty soon.

Now, I just have to get caught up so that I end these nights of working until midnight!

I hope you are healthy.

Oh, and I found out from a math prof who is doing a class in bioinformatics that one person in Canada has been found to have a mutated version of H1N1 that is resistant to Tamiflu! The sequence has been entered into a genomics database. I hope this mutated form of H1N1 it stays in Canada and/or doesn’t spread! Scary news, I think.

What H1N1 means to me…

Do you remember how in elementary school you’d be asked to write essays like “What freedom means to me….” or “What liberty means to me….” or independence, or something else?

Well, now that I’m on the upswing (I hope!), of the H1N1, bronchitis, conjuctivitis (pink eye) bout, I can look at it with a bit of humor.

I was cleaning up the countertops yesterday with bleach wipes (again), and was shuffling around my various boxes and bottles of over-the-counter and prescription medications and stuff. I realized how it looked…
…. what is the word I’m looking for?…

…striking?…
… unbelievable?…
… goofy?…
…crazy?…

I don’t know exactly what I’m searching for. But regardless, I decided that I needed to take a photo of it.

Short update:
I thought I was better as of Monday. On Tuesday I had a large weight on my chest and felt like my breathing was constricted. After MUCH time at Urgent Care (again), they concluded that I was NOT having a heart attack (I didn’t think so, but better to be safe than sorry), and that my bronchials had constricted.
Got an inhaler. Had a slight allergic reaction to the inhaler. Took steroids. Tried inhaler again. After a day, had some odd throat tightness/feeling. Went to primary care doctor. Got a different inhaler. Maybe the throat feeling is acid reflux? Bought a bunch of Zantac.

Which, by the way, is a histamine receptor blocker AND will help with my skin allergies, because approx 10-15% of your histamine receptors are on your skin! Cool beans.

The good news is that my lungs are super clear; I just have to deal with my odd bronchial situation.

Took 3 days off of work. Had to find people to cover my lab (easy) and lecture (harder).
Slept a lot.

This isn’t so short, is it?

Well, you know me. I’m a bit of a rambler (I write, as I cough).

I am calling myself a walking example of why you should get an H1N1 vaccine. No, I wasn’t on death’s door, but it sure really wiped me out.

I hope you are healthy!

unbelievable

I’m still trying to work out just how this is possible….

!

Yes, I took these photos TODAY. Today being OCTOBER 10th!

?

snow?

SNOW?

yes….

snoooooooooooow.

One last thing: It is Mom’s birthday today! It is one of those milestone birthdays. The one that means retirement is just around the corner!

Happy Birthday, Mom!

more ill

I now officially have secondary bacterial infections as a complication of having had a primary H1N1 infection. Well, the H1N1 part is presumed. But the bacterial is definite.

I don’t want to go into the whole big story – since I already sent it to some of you who I know still read my blog – at least occasionally.

Suffice to say, I’m on antibiotics. I’m home from work. We happen to have Thursday and Friday off. Which is really great!

The sucky thing is that I was supposed to go to the So You Think You Can Dance show last night. I had a 2nd row ticket on Flr2 – which I assume means the 2nd section back. So, not as good as years past where I was on the Floor in the first section in row 5 or so, and then row 11-14…. but still a good seat. There wasn’t time to try to give it away. I find most people don’t like to go by themselves anyway. Such a shame.

I felt this terrible pang watching the Vegas Week show on TV last night when they would play the “song” after a commercial break.
Crappy, crappy timing. Stupid infections.

In general: I cough, it hurts. I swallow, it hurts. I sleep, which makes me cough and makes my sinuses plug up – it hurts. I eat, it hurts.
Do you see a pattern.
I shouldn’t whine. I could be in the hospital if I were like some poor people. But it just sucks being sick – as you know.

Okay, back to my toast. I’m trying to do at least a couple of the items in the BRATT diet – which to my knowledge is bananas, rice, apples, tea, and toast. I had an apple last night. It is nice that it is apple season here.

You also know I’ve got the tea thing all covered – there is no way I’m skipping that one!

ill (again)

I have had about 5 sick students per week for about 3 weeks who have had to miss class because of H1N1-like symptoms. Which I suppose isn’t many, considering that I teach over 100 students. But the bad thing, of course, is that when these sick students are “better,” we meet one-on-one to go over what they’ve missed.

I had 2 students who thought they were better and then relapsed really badly. So, I suppose it was inevitable that I’d get sick too. Not to mention that HB appeared to get it. The first time, I thought I’d gotten off easy with a mild case of just headache, sneezing, cough, sore throat and no fever. But this second time, I’ve had the fever part too. Yuck, I say.

I definitely feel more run down this round too. I pretty much slept for most of the day Saturday and Sunday.

I know no one really wants to hear the complaints of someone who is ill, so let me see what else I can tell you….

1) I’ve rediscovered my cache of herbal teas. They aren’t something that I drink much until it gets to be winter. So, it has been nice to delve into them again.

2) I just barely started Dan Brown’s book on HB’s Kindle last night. He had it with him for the weekend, and he had to do some work stuff over the weekend.
The Kindle is interesting. I really like that it is lightweight and I don’t have to use 2 hands to “hold it open.” This is a big advantage when reading while I eat. Usually I have to find something heavy (I use a stapler) to hold open my paperbacks when I eat. I used to have this multi-tool, which HB jokingly referred to as the “book tool”. When I would misplace it, I would utter something along the lines of “Have you seen my book tool?”

It is nice on my lap too. I haven’t quite figured out what happens if the computer chip goes wonky. I think that the books for an account are stored on Amazon…
…. but that always makes me a hint nervous.

I really like that HB isn’t collecting more and more paperback and hardback books that need physical space in our home. We are out of bookshelves. We already have whole containers of his books in our basement storage area. I think we need a library.

Anyway, I’m not very far into the book, so no news on that front. I’ll give you my general opinion without giving anything away once I’ve read it.

3) I have Thursday and Friday off! These are our “free days” which I suppose is like the equivalent of fall break. I will be spending it making sure my job application for the permanent position at school is up to par. oooooooooooo.

Now I just have to get healthy.

And stay healthy!

Fall Festival 2009

In my attempt to write short little updates, here goes a bit about yesterday.

Performing was a lot of fun. The crowd was small, but appreciative. The event was organized by a different church that invited us to perform and raised money for the local food shelf.

My solos went pretty well. There was one note that wasn’t ideal, but HB didn’t notice, so maybe no one else did either!

I played the tambourine some while I sang, which was also fun.

Some of us hung around to watch the other groups. The second group was another praise band from a church in the twin cities. It was interesting to hear their versions of some of the same songs that we sometimes sing (ones that we didn’t do that day).

I also loved the petting zoo. My camera battery ran out of power before I got any photos of the bunnies, unfortunately. One bunny let me pet him/her for quite a while.

crazy

Things have been pretty crazy-busy for me. For once, I’m getting behind in my work email by 3 days (the ones with less pressing subject lines).

I’ve been meeting with students one-on-one who are finally realizing that they need to study and understand the material if they are going to do well in the course.

I’ve been meeting with students who are missing class due to the flu (presumably H1N1).

I’ve been trying to do some research.

I’ve been designing and grading quizzes.

I’ve been doing my best to change my lectures so that I teach the material better than I did last year.

I’m starting to prepare my application for a tenure-track position at the school!

I sing in a music festival in a few hours. I have two small solos. Could’ve had a 3rd, but my gut feeling was that it was a hint too high for my voice.

I’ve created a Flickr account for our church photos, and still need to type up the instructions for how to use it.

I still need to work on learning the first and last names of my 100+ students. (very hard for me)

I give a test on Friday, so need to prepare that…

I could go on. But isn’t that enough?

So, I haven’t looked at anyone’s blogs lately. If something drastic is happening with you, please email me at my gmail account! my danielleblog account is filled with spam (I get one “real” message out of about 300 to 500 emails – so I don’t even check it anymore unless I order something online and need to save the receipt/record of the order).

maybe I’ll post more later….

One exciting event: HB got promoted! It all happened this week. Very fast. Interviewed on Wed, got the offer on Thursday, started the job Thursday afternoon/night.

Pete’s Dragon: High-Flying edition

I have the best of intentions about posting about vacation and the start of the school year soon, really I do!

In the meantime, how many of you remember Pete’s Dragon?  I know it was one of Texas Seestor’s favorites.  I have very fond memories of it too.

Disney is releasing a new edition of it that includes an hour of additional material.  I will be particularly interested in seeing the behind-the-scenes info on animation and the new song.   This is kind of what happened with Mary Poppins a (few?) years ago; there was a 45th anniversary special addition and I found that I loved all of the bonus material (it had an extra song too).

You can read a good blog post about all of the features at Reviews. For the Love of God.  There is also a contest to win a free copy.

Thanks to Jenski for pointing this out on her blog!