Emuzines

Just a quick post as I am itching to start a movie all cuddled in bed…

Had a fun day at work today. Sally and I had a writing session together in her office, for 4 hours. Exciting things happen in Sally’s office. I arrived to the conference call about the new DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders). It is THE diagnostic tool for mental health, and Sally is on the commitee writing the new version. That’s pretty huge. She’s deciding on the diagnostic criteria for autism and related disorders. Pretty cool. She let me listen in and said that she thought I might enjoy that. I sure did.

Then casually she said, oh, at 2:00 I have a phone interview with the New York Times. ! Just like that. I was very excited, again. She let me stay for that too. The study I work on with her just published some of its initial data and it’s all over the news since we’re the only ones doing intervention with kids so young (wait until we do the babies…). Anyway, it’s here: http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/conditions/11/30/autism.study/ and here: http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1943512,00.html and elsewhere. Apparently in the NY Times soon.

As far as Christmas goes, I came home from work and did all my decorating! I figured out that I need a few more decorations…apartment versus house is a pretty big change…but I’m going to go shopping tomorrow to try to fill in some of the gaps. Then when Nik got home he was inspired, so we went to get the tree. We had so much fun. We got a big one! We got it at the Boy Scout lot in town and they were all so eager and helpful and did all the work, and the adults there were very nice. We had a good time, brought it home. JoJo tuck-tail ran about the tree, but seems to be getting used to it. We went out to dinner and the house smelled soooo nice when we came back.

Tomorrow, we are hosting a big party at our house. It is the traditional welcome party hosted by the second year students in my program, to welcome the first year students. My friends and I had a party to plan the party, and we did some big planning! We are going to have a ton of food, activities, and…drinks. Today I am working from home, and on my breaks I am baking pumpkin pies and pumpkin cookies for the party. The house smells very pumpkiny!

Nik has also been working on the backyard and we have a new firepit, lights, etc. It looks really nice out there and the firepit is great (we tested it last week…). I think that everyone will have a great time–we’re expecting about 30 people. I can’t wait!

So–a nice day. I had class this morning. David, Abby, Kyle and I enjoy ourselves quite a bit for statistics at 8 am. Then I met one of the first year students, Caitlyn, for coffee downtown. I am her peer mentor, but she didn’t need me to mentor much! Just to chat as friends! I’ve also gotten a lot of work done on my own research project. The coding scheme should be ready for action within the next couple of weeks. Off I go to finalize this draft of it, and check on those pies…

I love living in the house!  Spring has definitely arrived in Davis, and the neighborhood literally smells like flowers.  I got out of the car after work today and it smelled delicious.  My backyard also smells especially nice.  There’s a tree that we thought was some sort of fruit tree…but is suddenly blooming thousands of white flowers.  I’m pretty sure that’s what’s perfuming the backyard (and maybe the neighborhood…), but I also stuck my nose to all our other flowers and they smelled nice, too.  I can’t wait to have a BBQ and patio set back there.  I do spend as much time as I can out there, gardening or playing ball with Jo.  She LOVES being out there, although the other day is was very windy and she thought a rose was attacking her, and she was scared.  The rose now lays on the ground, bit in half.

Everything here is great.  We have purchased everything for the guest bedroom, and actually are having our first guest here Sunday night, just for the night.  Nik’s friend Liz from college.  But I don’t know if the bedroom stuff will be ready on time…  But then Mandi and my mom (and Logan) come on Friday!!  Yay!!!  It’ll definitely be ready by then!

Nik hung our pictures yesterday and it’s looking very homey.  Not much more to do to set up, except figure out where all of my smaller decorations go and do the guest stuff. 

I had a long day of many meetings at work and am pretty tired.  But I have to prepare for a presentation on Monday, so I better go get working on that…

We are all moved in and it is lovely!  So comfortable and pretty and…perfect!  I don’t have time to post pictures or elaborate, because I need to finish packing for Denver and Abby is picking me up in 3 1/2 hours, but I will later on.  JoJo has been a champion although she is confused about why we aren’t leaving the house.  She LOVES her backyard and keeps bringing me rosebush branches that I left out there in the planter.  Ouch.  Just now, she looked up at my desk hutch, where I usually keep pictures but now have my school and work bags.  She sat down, and cried.  The final straw…”‘Why is everything different?!’”

But we’re so happy!  Can’t wait to finish setting it all up.

We’ve sort of been haphazardly packing the last few days.  We are moving the furniture (via movers) on Tuesday, and we’ve been bringing things over, and are going to bring more things over tomorrow.  It’s been kind of tough to pack what we won’t need before Tuesday, plus what I won’t need for Denver, which is Wednesday.  Denver is difficult timing–should I pack for it before I pack for moving, before we move, after??  With classes starting up on Monday, too, kind of busy and disorganized around here.  Jo has been quite amused about it all, chewing on box corners whenever possible, and ninja sneakily sneaking onto the bed when packing activities leave the bedroom door open.  She made sure that we wouldn’t forget her squirrel toy:

Hello!  I have been neglecting my blog–weird how once I get free time, I am so much less productive.  I’ve been on spring break and it’s been so nice!  I will add a general update soon (telling tales of Las Vegas), but this will be an update on the house.  We are done with painting.  We chose a green for the office, a blue for the guest bedroom, and a bold rust for the master bedroom.  I think they all came out really nicely.  The carpets are also done, and I have been working feverishly on trimming the rosebushes and other extremely overgrown plants.  We are officially moving on Tuesday, although we have been moving smaller items over already.  We’re really excited to get in there.  Here are some pictures…

This is the office before, immediately prior to painting.  The picture doesn’t do justice to the dirtiness of the walls and carpet.  The kid must have spilled soda on the walls and floors, and left it for 5 years.  I also found 2 boogers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here is the office after, with new paint and carpeting.  This is Nik’s favorite room.  Oh, it has pretty new brushed silver outlet plates, too.  That was my doing.  Can’t wait to see it with furniture and decorations!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I don’t yet have official after pictures of the master bedroom or guest bedroom, because we hadn’t finished putting the new faceplates up, and I wanted it to be as complete as possible before I took the after pictures.  But here is a “during” picture of the master bedroom.  The master bedroom is MY favorite paint choice.  I think it will look really nice with our dark bedroom furniture.  More to come…

Here, I am painting the master bedroom.  It has vaulted ceilings, so we had to get this very long extender arm to paint.  We were so exhausted.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And some general pictures, which you may have already seen:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There we go!  I hope you all will come visit me soon :)  E-mail me if you want the new address and don’t have it yet.

So…the house has closed, we have keys, and we’ve been busy working on it!  I don’t feel like going through all the steps to upload pictures, but here is a link to some: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2018743&id=1262058331&l=699a7  Maybe Nik will feel like adding them officially onto here, but it’s kind of a complicated process and soon I am going out with my friends, hence short time…

We are going to be painting all the bedrooms, and redoing the floors.  Today we got quite a bit done, more than I thought we could.  All the nail/tack/pin holes are patched, and we cleaned the walls of the office, and put up three paint testers.  There was only one small injury wherein I scrubbed the wall too ferociously, and the sponge flew across the room and my hand smacked the wall.  But it’s been a lot of fun and is going well.  I thought Nik was right behind me, coming home just now…but he’s been gone an extra hour or so–not sure what he’s up to.

The quarter is almost over (one more class) and tonight my friends and I are going out to celebrate.  Better go get ready…

I have finished my monster of a paper, and prepared for both of my presentations.  So this morning is a short breather before I go off to class and Presentation #1.  I’ve got one more, much shorter, paper to write.  And then…not technically done…but pretty much!

Jo and I just went out in the pouring rain.  We jogged and she did it all tip-toey. 

Better go get ready.  Oh, good residence news may be coming soon…

Hi!  Lately, I have been more buried than usual in work and school stuff.  I have a genetics midterm on Monday, which I decided to devote all weekend to getting ready for, so I’ve had to do a lot of work for my other class ahead of time, to clear out the weekend (for fun and excitement, like MAOA, tetO, housekeeping genes, and stuff like that).  Well, this was designed as a post to talk about exciting things, and that was quite sarcastic (although I admit I really do enjoy the genetics of autism), so here are some things I’m excited about:

Nik found this for me: http://www.scrapncube.com/  I doubt I’ll go with that company for a scrapbook area, as it’s really expensive, but I thought it was so sweet that he found it for me!  Once we get a house, my scrapbook stuff will have a home besides shoved into closets and on high shelves out of reach.

CHICAGO!  I wanted to go to IMFAR, an autism conference, but I also really wanted to spend Mother’s Day weekend with…well…my mom!  It happened to fall on that weekend, so I invited my mom along.  We’re extended it into a nice little trip and we already have lots of really, really exciting plans.  We’re going to see Mary Poppins, eat at great restaurants, go to Navy Pier, and go on a dinner cruise.  I am beyond excited.  And I keep forgetting about IMFAR, which is also something that really makes me happy.  Sally says I’ll be presenting there next year, so I better get ready!

LAS VEGAS!  This is coming up really, really soon.  I am going to meet my mom, Aunt Debbie, Memere, and Pepere there, like we have been doing every year for…3 years now?  Nik isn’t going this year, so it’ll be a girl + Pepere week.  Great food, a show, the spa, and Vegasy stuff.  As you can tell, food and good company make me very happy.

HOME!  I am going home in 2 weeks!  It’ll be a very, very short trip, but I’m happy about it.  Mark and I are going to take Noah to the park to feed ducks, I’m going to go out to dinner and a hopefully girly movie/illegal sweets with Gaby, and have breakfast with Melissa.  Should be a nice, quick trip.

VALENTINE’S DAY!  Nik and I cooked in last year, so we’re going out this year.  We wanted to try something new (although, most things are new up here for us, still).  We have reservations at Ruth’s Chris.

DENVER!  This is happening in April.  The primary reason for the trip is another conference, but I’m going with David, Abby, and April.  We’re going to have a lot of fun together!!  I am more than lucky in meeting these friends.

Finally…relaxation…I’m giving myself the night off.  So off I go to eat lasagne and watch a movie!

The dishwasher and dryer are humming, and I’m trying to decide between watching some TV or starting a new book…I’m sure I’ll go for the book.  This quarter has been such a nice change, with time in the evenings and nights to myself, time for Nik and I to hang out, and free weekends to house shop.  We had a Day of Fun scheduled for last Saturday, but I couldn’t come up with something good to do, that would be rain-acceptable.  It was supposed to rain through today.  Of course, it’s been nice and sunny, including Saturday.  But we rescheduled and I’ve come up (finally) with a potential Day of Fun activity: Sausalito! 

Feeling kind of “speechless.”  Just don’t have many topics set to blog about.  But all is well, and I miss everybody.