so thankful for it all

i ventured back out into the world of the living today after three days of sinus-infection-related hibernation. i know it's strange to say, but it felt so good to be working. i think that must be one of the blessings of having a job you love. . . or one of the pitfalls of being antsy. but, i'm an optimist, so i'm going to go with the former. plus, it's nice to not feel sick enough to need to stay in bed all day long. and i'm sure the family that i ran in the EEG lab tonight also appreciated my not being sick.

p.s. has anyone noticed that my "t" key isn't fully functional? i'm sure if you scroll through my last few posts, there is a whole host of "t"-less words abounding.

dy just sent me some pictures from when i was home at thanksgiving and i love them as much as i thought i would :) i had told so many people how adorable gabe looked in his orange tie. this pic makes it look a little bit different, because his shirt was untucked for the rest of the day, but i couldn't believe how old he's getting. it seems like i should've learned tha t lesson with kassi, but i have a feeling that it's more probable that i'll go through this separately with each kid. but who thought they'd be so grown up already? crazy. and beautiful, each of them. aside from a brief sadness associated with not being able to get a football game going, i thought it was a wonderful day with them all. and despite the phenomenal sickness that i picked up, i have to say it was wonderful to be home (although those of you who can appreciate it will notice that my mom still doesn't have matching curtins in her living room. i now think she's doing it just to get a rise out of me).

we have a potential post-doc visiting this weekend. she arrives tomorrow and will have a day and a half full of meetings and meals with people from our lab et al. next week our second candidate arrives and i anticipate that soon after that kristin will be making her decision and starting to interview graduate students for the upcoming year. it's so strange how big our lab is getting. i don't think the people who never knew the missouri lab can really appreciate what it was like when it was just kristin, liz, and i. but i've already planned to steal jeremy away when i leave to whatever job i'll presumably get eventually. when he was asking what was in it for him i said, "you can have whatever position you want" and he decided that he wants to be king. so it has been decided that someday i will be the director of the brooker lab and jeremy will be its king. that means that i should probably be prepared to get some major grant money. okay, enough talk about jobs, because it's freaking me out.


18 days to the next trip home, 21 days to Christmas, and 27 days until we're ringing in the new year! oh man, i love me a good countdown!!