A Dentist?

One of my adorable nephews, age 4, is recently fascinated with teeth. His grandfather is a dentist, so maybe there's some sort of genetic interest in the subject? Here he is, on Thanksgiving, checking me out:

When asked whether he thought my teeth looked okay, his response was merely a nod and a smile. He might have stayed like this all day if I hadn't eventually insisted that I don't like having little fingers poking my teeth and little eyes peering in for minutes at a time. Funny, huh?

Busy Busy

Wow--working full time is very time-consuming! I started working this past week at Compassion Care Clinic, a family practice that sees a largely Hispanic population with a majority of kids. It's a great place to work--everybody is really friendly, patient, and kind. There is definitely a steep learning curve, but I couldn't ask for better people to learn with and from.

Sadly the house has not progressed much lately. I'm hoping to put more work into it on my days off. That's all for now!

Cozy Kitchen

The first photos of the new house--with our stuff in it. We are getting settled, slowly, room by room. Naturally the kitchen was first. We found a great table on Craigslist! The couple who sold it to us is comprised of an Aggie-husband and a UTD-wife, Just like us! But reversed. Anyways, the table is great. The lazy susan is also a new purchase from Craigslist.
More photos to come, as we continue to make this place look like home :).

Whew! Glad that's over!

360 questions and 6 hours later... I'm done!
So many questions! It's not the sort of test you really feel good about when you finish, but I do think I passed. I guess I will find out in a couple weeks. Thanks for all who prayed for and/or thought of me!

The Heaviest Organ

Well, I take the PA National Certifying Exam (PANCE) tomorrow, so of course I've been studying as much as possible. I think I will do alright on the exam, but I am still nervous about it. For one reason, the stakes are high--if I don't pass, that would be very bad--and it's a 6-hour exam, covering all branches of medicine.

While studying today, I ran across a statement that is provided as an introduction for almost every dermatology text I've read:

"The skin is the largest and heaviest organ of the body"

Yuck! Does anybody else imagine a pile of human skin on the floor?
Why does every author discussing dermatology feel the need to repeat this useless, disgusting piece of information? I can't think of a way this factoid is medically helpful. Every time I read it, I shudder and try not to think of Silence of the Lambs. For those interested in the specifics: the skin weighs about 9 lbs and has a surface area of 20 square feet. Gross.

Wish me luck on the PANCE tomorrow!

All Moved In

I have no pictures for this post, but good news! All our stuff is in the house, and the pod is empty! Thank you, thank you to our family and friends who helped us yesterday to bring all our things from the pod into the house. I will update with pictures as soon as there is anything decently photograph-able. Right now there's just a lot of stuff all over the place. This week's projects: curtains for the den and curtains for our bedroom! Oh and also, studying for my boards that I take next week :).

The house with all the leaves

Well, today I felt like a home owner for the very first time. Our front yard was COVERED with leaves from our awesome trees.
My leaf-raking memories from childhood had me thinking this task would probably take all day (I'm sure it never took that long), but it really went pretty quickly! We piled up the leaves all over the yard.
Then we took a small photo-op break to play in the leaves.
I am happy to say that Daniel and I worked as a real team and used a "salad tongs" approach with our rakes to get the leaves into the trash can.
Two hours and 8 trash bags later, we were completely done! Not bad!
Yay for home ownership!