not a lot of things - and not a one of them in order.

this is going to be a short post, because 1) not much is going on and 2) last week suckity-suck-suck-sucked so much i don't really want to relive it in a blog post. my favorite part is that when it ended on saturday with zero out of two research assistants showing up to do their part in running two lab visits for my dissertation, all that i could really say was, "of course. . . "

but whether it is in the spirit of lent or just optimism and hopefulness, i am going to try to list three good things that happened last week. (i'm shooting low, clearly. it really was a bad week).

3) ryan's birthday was pretty fun. i was pretty much exhuasted from the week and had to get up early to run said dissertation visits the next day, but it was nice to have some time just to chat with rachel, deepa, tassie, et al. i really don't see those ladies all that much anymore.

2) i got an inspiring e-mail from stony brook. nothing wonderful. no big news or promises - no words to call home about per say, but sometimes in the middle of a long, long, almost painful week, it makes all the difference for someone to give you an affirmation that something is going right.

1) let's not forget that matt has a job!! it's way too early to stop being thankful for this, and truthfully it is something to remain excited about! we're all going to have to be thinking green pretty soon (no...not that green...) and learning to - every once in a while - hold up an "o" rather than an "i." just don't go crazy with that.

the other thing that i can tell you - if only for the purposes of making my mom happy - is that lacey and i have inadvertently started drinking a lot more milk. well, inadvertently for me; i suspect that this might actually be intentional for lace. she's a lot better than i am at changing behavior in such ways. . . and it appears that there are all kinds of reasons (including those you may not have thought of before) for drinking milk. so, no worries mom. we're already on it.

insert tangent here: this reminds me of how much i've been eating cheerios and bananas lately. i can't say enough how much i love, love, love this breakfast. most of my childhood memories of eating fruit are of my mom bringing a small bowl of apples, oranges, grapes, etc. to me while i am playing. however, when it comes to cheerios and bananas, the memory is of countless mornings at the dinner table with dad - him slicing bananas with a butter knife onto the top of my bowl of dried cheerios before adding the milk. but apparently at least one other family had something like this tradition, too, because i found a picture of it on the internet.

one other newsworthy note before i sign off. congrats to miss karen for the addition of another (yet unnamed) broman to the family. i hope she doesn't mind if i share this picture with all of you. (if i hear that she does, look for this photo to be replaced with an anne geddes photo. (which by the way, when did those become wierd and scary instead of cute? because i'm totally there).

okay, this stream-of-consciousness type post is getting a little bit out of control. if you've made it all the way through, i'll reward you by being done now :)