Mother's Day Weekend

Mother's Day weekend started Friday with my mom coming to Chicago.  We went up the Sears Tower and this is part of the display that you might see and get to read a lot while waiting to go up the tower on a busy day.  There were all sorts of interesting facts about the tower that I didn't know!  It was neat to see everything from 103 stories up.  When the lady asked my mom for the credit card and told her the price of three adults she said, "And what does that come with a souvenir or anything?" because it was shocking to her.  A list of the neater things we got to see:  A comparison of how many "you" it would take to get to the height of the Sears Tower,  a movie about the completion of it, a comparison of different buildings as you went up the elevator, the entire city of Chicago from 103 floors up, the "ledges." Here's a picture of our "feet" on the ledge.  There had been school groups walking out and laying down, but we decided that just our feet on the ledge would be enough.  I'm still not convinced that it is worth

For Saturday we went to a White Sox game with the group from church.  The Sox ended up winning so that was a nice change from the rest of the season.  We got to see some rowdy people kicked out by security -- they had been heckling the right fielder and security came for them.  It was funny to see them wonder what they had done.  It was funny to listen to them trying to get under the opponents skin, but they apparently went a bit far.  It was a fairly cool game -- in the mid forties with a nice wind.  We busted out the beanies for the game!  Here's a picture of us at the game:

We stayed the night in the Palmer House Hotel.  It had a GORGEOUS lobby, they really don't make lobbies like that anymore.  Overall it was just a hotel and quite loud for our tastes -- there didn't seem to be any sound dampening in the hotel.   Today for Mother's Day we tried a new Brazilian Steakhouse -- and it was good!  I haven't gotten much other than a nasty headache (and it could be much much worse) so we may go back.  We didn't think about what they fried the plantains in until after I had put one in my mouth.  We then thought about it a second and realized they probably fried them in an oil that I shouldn't eat.  We'll go back to the restaurant and see if I don't eat the fried stuff how I feel.  The manager was great even though he remarked, "And you don't really eat anything ever." upon seeing my card.  The waiter asked, "Allergic to all of these things?" when he looked at the card, so we'll add that to my collection of stumping the wait staff at a restaurant.  However, this does increase our number of Carolyn approved restaurants to three, so we're stoked -- I mean that's 50% more places I can go out to!  The other really neat thing about this place was the rolls -- they were made of yucca root flour!  This meant I could have the bread that was put on the table!  How cool is that? 

Anyway, we've taken a part the fridge and need to put it back together and get to bed.  We'll see how this week goes, but after the weekend it promises to be more mundane. 
 

May already?

Well, softball season is going full swing.  Bad pun, but hey, its late.  I'm actually blogging now as I am rather wired and tired all at the same time.  It is finals week and I took a final today.  I also thought I was going to get an allergy shot after my final -- but I ended up with 4 shots instead.  After the first one, I itched a little and so the doc suggested we do a second as he knows that I'm more than willing to speed things up on the shot department.  Well, apparently the second one was a bit much.  I got ended up getting 2 epi shots (one for each arm), an antihistamine, and some prednisone before I left the office.  I also believe that my doc didn't want me playing softball.  He didn't believe that I play a mean benchwarmer/sub.  He kept me for observation for a long time and I ended up missing a train able to make me even close to time on the game.  Overall the epi is doing wonders, though my body is really sore now.  Last week for softball I got to play second base.  I had my shining moment for the season with an out!  Apparently you have to run around base defensive players (I think the people not hitting are considered defensive players) when the ball is near them.  I stood in the way of the 200 lb man running from 1st to 2nd, got bowled over, didn't really realize what had happened but he was out!  Everyone on my team was worried that I took such a bad hit.  He hit my butt though and so I just kind of rocked on my feet.  Who knew that you couldn't knock a soccer player over by running in to them? 

This week is finals week at the university.  This means that Chris is working on getting the labs ready for the summer session that starts the second full week of June.  I'm taking finals -- I took one today and should end up with an A in the course.  I take my next one (and FINAL one) on Friday at 8 am. 

I also have an interview with Argonne tomorrow morning.  Hopefully I'll be able to get enough sleep that I can be coherent enough to make them give me a position.  It would be doing inorganic chemistry in air sensitive environments (I really like working in air sensitive environments actually -- the big gloves are GREAT!! and I'm just a nerd like that) on batteries.  We'll see how it goes. 

Really not much is new here.  It is getting warmer and looking much like Spring.  If anyone wants to come visit let us know. 

Anyway, I should probably go.  Not much is really up or exciting here. 

Fire 2, Dynamo 0

Last night we went to the Chicago Fire game.  Chris has been telling me for two years now to simply pick a game I want to go to, get tickets, and we'd go.  I've been wanting to see a MLS game since the league started and I finally got to go!  We had tickets to the Miller Light Party Deck.  It was a deck behind the southern goal.  It has some GREAT seats and great views of the goal area.  We went with John and Linda and froze our butts off.  It was about 50 degrees with a nice stiff 30 mph wind and rain.  Thankfully the deck was covered and we only got the rain being blown on us.  We have decided that going to more Fire games is definitely the way to go.  I also think that we have found a Chicago team that can win games!  (A small feat considering the Sox, the Cubs, the Bears and the Bulls all seem to be failing miserably lately.  The Hawks have been winning for the most part, but are always forgotten about.) Anyway, here are a few pictures from the game to demonstrate our seats and the game in general. 

Kick off.  Fire is in white and Dynamo is in Orange. 

It was nice to see the pros couldn't form a wall 10' feet back and had to be moved by the ref, much like the 10 year olds.  :)

This is where we stood, they thankfully lowered the net once the game started. 

The Dynamo keeper.  He did this a lot since the ball was blown to our end of the field regularly.  It was a long game for this keeper and he wasn't happy having his goal so close to the enemy party deck. 

Clinic

Well this past week was a busy one.  I finished up my presentations and quizzes so all I have left are my finals.  After that I will have a Masters of Chemistry.  I'm still looking for a job so if you know of anyone who needs a Master level chemist please let me know! 

The past several months we have done some volunteering at the church helping make quilts for "the Clinic." This clinic is exactly what it sounds like -- a free clinic for under served people in the area.  Our age group also took over the clothing closet that was a part of the clinic.  We've been sorting clothes for a few weeks and Friday night we set them all up.  It was quite impressive the amount of clothes that people donated.  I went early on Friday and then Chris came and helped after he got off of work.  Overall it has been an interesting couple of months getting to serve with people our age and getting to know them more while we serve.  Here are a couple of pictures of the clothes at the clinic:

This is Chris trying to figure out if we could throw the shirt away or not.  Our general rule was that if it was too holey/stained/abused/etc that we could simply dispose of the garment.  I walked over to Chris to see what he and the guys around him were discussing and it was whether or not to throw the shirt out.  The entire collar is yellowed from sweat so we decided that none of the guys would wear it and that we didn't need it in our piles of clothes.  Notice you can sort of see the piles of clothes on the tables at Chris's back.  Some of the tables were so piled with clothes it was difficult to see someone standing behind the table. 

More clothes sorting and stacking.  Notice the boxes on the right hand side of the picture -- about 4 o'clock in the afternoon this family came in and said, "I've got 25 boxes of Large, X-Large, and XX-Large polos that someone donated, where do I need to put them." We had several stacks like this shown, but it was amazing that so much stuff was donated for the cause! 

1 week of biking down

Well, we made it most of the week riding our bikes to the train station.  This means a bit earlier get out the door time for us, but overall it is a lot of fun.  Come Friday though when it rained we decided that we could just drive in for the day.  It is funny because each week gets a little easier.  Hopefully this week won't be so windy and we'll have less of that to deal with. 

Today was quite nice.  It was in the upper 50s and sunny so it felt quite warm.  It was however quite windy and therefore a bit cool.  I went to softball practice and got to get out in it for a while.  It looks like the weather forecast for the week is quite similar, so we'll get to ride our bikes all week.  Hopefully the rain and our allergies won't get us down and exhaust us so much that we have no energy come the end of the week. 

Next weekend is a big weekend at the church.  We are going to help set-up for a clinic they hold each year.  It is a free clinic for underserved people.  Our age group has taken over the clothing area, so it has been interesting.  We sorted clothes last week and will help put everything out and ready on Friday night so that Saturday it will be good to be sorted through by all sorts of people.  It has been interesting sorting clothes with everyone and getting to know them a bit better.

This past week I also went to see my GI doc.  She basically doesn't know what to do with me and is helping me find a GI doc closer to Naperville so that I can start going there instead of having to do everything through UIC since I'll be graduating soon.  An interesting thing that happened though -- I was joking (but not entirely) with her that if I found a job in the downtown Chicago area that sticking with her as a doctor would be good, so if she knew anyone that needed a Masters level chemist to let me know.  Apparently her husband works for Abbott (a HUGE chemical company) and is looking for people.  We'll hope and pray that something comes through.  That would be a temporary position first, but Abbott likes to hire from within so getting my foot in the door is a good thing and a step in the right direction.  It would also mean kind of a long commute for me so we'd be looking at buying another car.  Anyway, it was an interesting doc's visit.  She said I looked like I was having lots of histamine problems.  Go figure!  Both the allergist and she joked this week that I could basically take as many antihistamines a day that I wanted to, but not to take more than 240 mg of sudafed.  We'll see.  It would be nice to breathe, so we'll see how much I take. 

Anyway, I need to get to bed so I hope that everyone continues to enjoy spring and remember that pollen is a plants way of reproducing and it is really really important, so don't curse it out too much. 

Spring has Sprung

Well, we've both been hit by allergies this past week.  Waking up stuffy and unable to breathe isn't fun, but that means things are green and colorful around here.  I like seeing all the pretty colors, especially the new green color that a lot of trees are currently wearing. 

This week it will be warm enough for us to ride bikes to the train. :)  This gives us quite a bit of freedom in terms of getting to and from the trains, as well as saves us money from not having to park the car at the train station. 

Speaking of bikes, I've decided to do a triathalon.  I've found another lady my age who wants to do a tri, and so we're training together.  We rode bikes yesterday -- we went about 15 miles, were gone for just over an hour, and had several forms of resistance training we dealt with.  We were riding in 30+ mph wind on a sandy surface, sound like fun anyone?  It was quite funny though because when she showed up to load up the bikes Chris suddenly had errands to run.

Lately Chris has been working on a lot of computers.  He is trying to build himself a new one as his current one is working on giving up this life.  The computer people at UIC apparently decided to not install fans or vents on computers they bought for the Chem department, so Chris has had fun experimenting with getting those working again.  We're just trying to figure out what kind of person would think a computer without a cooling system at all would be a good idea.  We don't really try and figure it out too much though because the answer could scare us. 

Besides for that not much has happened this week.  I took a biochemistry test and it went well.  I'm pretty sure I did above average, so I should be set for the class.  If I did well enough then I could theoretically not take the final, so we'll see.  I've got presentations coming up in my biotech class as well.  It should be interesting.  I'm not super worried about it though.  I'm more excited because this means that I will be DONE!!  Come a month from now I will be Master Carolyn, with a M.S. in Chemistry.  That means I'm still looking for a job, so we'll hope and pray that something breaks soon.  I keep applying places, but with no call backs or anything.  I'll put out more applications and resumes this week though and we'll see what happens.  Something has to give soon.  Its just another life lesson to see exactly how God is going to provide.  Not sure how that's going to happen, but know it will. 

This week the allergy shots didn't react as badly as last week.  They itched like several mosquito bites, but that was it really.  There was a little swelling, but that's definitely better than the huge welts I got the first week.  The immunologist says that I've got a sensitive immune system that doesn't like to be messed with.  I'm glad it too him so much schooling to figure that out -- I want to get paid for that kind of assessment, but not sure I want to do the M.D. 

Anyway, I'm off to a week of bike riding in the new life that is everywhere.  Hope you are enjoying spring as well where ever you are. 

A New Year

Well, it is Easter.  It has been a few weeks since I managed to blog anything.  Things will hopefully slow down soon around here and I won't be as bad about blogging.

Two weeks back we had friends from Arkansas come up.  We managed to see the new Science Storms exhibit at the MSI.  It was a good exhibit.  It talked about a lot of neat phenomena that happen regarding weather.  It was opening weekend for the exhibit though so it was quite crowded, we'll go back sometime I'm sure.  A few pictures from the exhibit though.

A sand avalanche simulation.  It created all sorts of really neat looking patterns while talking about the newest methods of studying avalanches. 

Chris playing with something at the exhibit.  It was probably a tornado maker or something similar.

A HUGE tesla coil to simulate lightning.  It only goes off every half hour, but it is really cool.  It is suspended from the ceiling with a little theater below it so one can sit and watch the lightning being created.  It is really really loud when the coil goes off.

While our Arkansas friends were in town we also went to the Field Museum.  We saw the diamond exhibit and the Mammoths and Mastadons exhibit.  The Diamond Exhibit had lots of history about diamonds, how they have been mined, etc.  We even got to see several.  The didn't allow pictures though and didn't have any good pictures for us to take with us.  Some of the pieces in the "vault" though were impressive -- huge diamonds and ones that were ornately set.  The Mammoths exhibit had a lot of about mammoths and mastadons surprisingly enough.  The neatest thing was Lyuba, the intact baby mammoth that was found in 2007.  Here's a picture of her.

The following weekend we went to Minneapolis.  We got to see the Dead Sea Scrolls.  There was a lot of history about them and then even seeing them was impressive.  Something that was such a discovery and has had such an impact on modern history.  It was just neat.  We also played Rock Band and a lot of other games in general.

Then the week we got back from Minneapolis I played for the good friday service at church.  That meant I had to practice and do fun stuff during the week.

We basically just hung out for  Easter.  Having a day just the two of us was really quite nice.  We slept, played some games, talked, etc.  We hope that everyone else had a good Easter and truly realizes the impact the resurrection has had.