The _______ Life of Brent and Erika

I wish I had more time to be reflective about my life, but right now it's busy. So busy was I that last Monday (as in the 21st, not as in 2 days ago), I realized that Brent's birthday was the next day and that I hadn't made any plans. This made me feel like a bad wife, and I really didn't want his birthday to go the way of our anniversary (which was basically this: "hey! We've been married four years! Let's take a nap!"), so I thought up the plan of making a birthday madlib for him. I will put the madlib here, but right now I have two puppies sleeping on my lap, which makes it difficult to move. Among other things, his madlib required that I bring him garbanzo beans (I got hummus), a "dynamic" treat (we ate Pop Rocks), and a velociraptor (found it for $1 at Wal-Mart). Also, when I asked him for a "treat" he said cheese crackers, so instead of having a birthday cake (which I would end up eating 90% of anyway), I gave him a cheese bal...

*sigh*

We are home sick. Brent got sick on Saturday, and he's mostly over it now, but I just started feeling symptoms last night. Yuck, I feel like my head is going to explode. In other news, last night I was really proud that I actually cooked dinner after my class--chicken and roasted potatoes. Even though it was late, I was really excited for dinner. Just when I got the potatoes in the oven (the chicken had been there for about 10 minutes), the power went off. And it stayed off. For an hour. Luckily, someone gave us an awesome use-it-as-a-lantern-and-fill-a-whole-room-with-light flashlight as a wedding present, and my grandparents gave us one of those flashlights that you shake so they never run out of batteries, so we lit some candles in the kitchen, and listened to an audio book on my computer while waiting (in case you've been thinking about them, Percy Jackson and the Olympians is a fun series, and I think you should read them). Jojo and Chloe did not like the dark, nor did the...

After some deliberation, insanity, and searching, we've added a new member to our family! Say hello to Jojo Freckles Hill! We decided to get another puppy because ever since we went back to work, Chloe has gone into a period that can only be described as mourning. She'd basically stopped eating, and would get all shaky as soon as she saw us putting on our shoes. On the days when I'd stay home and only Brent would leave, Chloe would lay on my lap and shake for over an hour. Chloe has also been regressing in her potty training, and all of these things pointed to the fact that we think we've got a stressed out doggie on our hands. We are now in the process of puppy proofing the house again, and having learned a lot from Chloe, we're going more hard core. We have constructed an elaborate gating system that we can configure to allow full, limited, or severely restricted access to all the rooms of the house (particularly the ones with carpet!). We're also treating Chl...

...and it's a good thing I know how to tread water. Here are my impressions of graduate work so far: - More interesting and focused classes - More reading. Much more reading. I'm only taking two classes, I've been in school for three days, and I've read more than 100 pages so far. Normally I only read Harry Potter at such a volume. - Smaller class sizes (the same 5 people always) means no hiding from discussions. - More work to be done quicker. I'm glad that I work part time. I've made it a goal to do 100% of the reading in my classes, even if's not always on time. One of my biggest regrets from my undergraduate work is that I really only did about 50% of the reading, and for certain classes it was skimming at best. I know that undergraduate work is always a matter of choosing what you can afford to fall behind in, but I want my graduate work to be different. On a different note, all the infertility blood work they've done has come back normal. This is s...