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. 

Happy Pi Day!

Yay for pi!  I may attempt to make a pie today.  Actually I'm going to try and do the cinnamon rolls again.  We'll hopefully make cinnamon rolls and not muffins this time.  Though I'm not entirely sure how upset I'd be with the muffins.

Well, we've got a week of school left before spring break.  Not much is new really.

We've gone on a spring cleaning extravaganza this weekend as it is finally warm enough to be called spring here.  We've been above freezing for over a week now!

Not really a lot is up with us.  I went to the doc on Friday and she said that I didn't have the plague, it was probably just allergies.  I asked her, "to what?" and she replied, "everything."  Apparently that was the report the allergist sent her -- that I was an allergic barge.  We will hopefully be starting allergy shots soon to see if that will help.  Maybe with the shots my immune system will stand a fighting chance and stop attacking anything and everything.

The fine art of spreading goo out on dough. 

 

The rolled up cinnamon rolls.  I need to make them tighter next time.  The goo was yummy though. :)

In like a lion

Well, March has started off with a bang.  We've had warmer weather here and it might be spring sometime soon.  This doesn't mean we won't be getting any more snow -- just not snow that will stick or pile up much.  We are forcasted to be in the 40s all of next week.  There may even be a night or two thrown in there that we don't freeze.  If we don't freeze, it will be the first night since November that we've stayed above freezing.  Winter seems to never have come this year -- the east and northeast got all of our snow.  It didn't even get super super cold -- most of the winter we were between 0 and 20.  I guess we'll count our blessings. 

This week at school has been interesting.  I had an exam on Tuesday and a quiz yesterday.  The exam went well -- I managed to get above average so that is good.  I'm also starting to apply for positions whenever I can find something.  I'm really willing to do just about whatever as long as I can use my masters of chem. 

Chris has been great this week as I returned from Tulsa with some nasty cold.  I've felt under the weather all week and haven't gotten to run.  I tried on Tuesday but it wiped me out thoroughly.  Now it is all sunny and warm out (we actually have hit 40 today) and I want to go for a run, but will stay in because I don't want to back track on this road to recovery.  There is always tomorrow. 

Not a lot has happened this week except that we are finally able to see the sun again.  Our days get significantly longer this time of year.  At 630 this morning the sun was up already!  It will be depressing again here in a week or so when daylight savings time starts, but that means summer is on the way. 

Maegan's BDay Blitz

For the last weekend of February I went to Tulsa for a quick visit.  I mainly cooked/baked and hung out with family.  These are some of the better photos I was able to take throughout the weekend.  Most of them are of my neice, Nola Jane.  She's the baby and new.  It was also good to see everyone and be able to talk with everyone.  We even managed to get a family picture (minus Chris) because one of Maegan's friends volunteered to take it.  I think she did well, even if Maegan wanted to make a funny face at the camera.  It was the best of a few different shots taken.  Katie was also in town for a baby shower so it was fun to see the family I typically see at Christmas, especially because of our wicked weather last Christmas meant I didn't get to see them.  I also managed to get a shot of my brother's cooking.  I figured it was one for the books since they don't do that often, and definitely don't cook together in the same kitchen often.