Close Call

Today has been a zoo. Well, I guess I should say this morning was an absolute mad house. Ryan had a flight down to Baton Rouge which left the Omaha airport at 5:45am. This is a much smaller airport than what we are used to in the Twin Cities. Ryan had everything packed and ready to go last night. All we had to do this morning was grab his bags and his suit {which is in one of the suit bags} and head out the door. Our alarm was set for 3:50am which would give Ryan time to get up and shower. Our goal was to leave the house no later than 4:15am. The alarm went off as scheduled. Ryan looked at his phone and realized that the charger had gotten bumped {probably by one of our cats} and therefore wasn't really pulled in so his phone was almost dead. He plugged it back in, jumped in the shower and we were out the door by 4:14 - right on schedule.

We got to the airport, unloaded Ryan's things, I gave him a big hug and kiss and wished him luck before getting in the car and heading home. I've been a little under the weather with a head cold this week, so I was really excited to get home and sleep. I had my alarm set for 6:30 as I had to be to orientation this morning at 8:00. I got home shortly before 5:00, blew my nose, got under the sheets and I received a text message from Ryan which said "feels like the walk to purgatory." {Ryan has had a terrible experience with his graduate program and has not been looking forward to heading back to Baton Rouge} I was in the middle of texting him back, I got to ":( sorry hun. It will all be over soon and regardless of the outcome (although I know you are going..." my cellphone rang and it was Ryan.

Ryan: Are you at home?
Me: yeah, just got here.
Ryan: We forgot my suit!
Me: oh my gosh!
Ryan: It's hanging on the closet door
{Hanging on the closet door which is right by where we put his packed suitcases so we wouldn't forget it in the morning!}
Me: Oh my gosh! I'm on my way!!

I grabbed his suit, grabbed my cellphone, put my shoes on {only half way}, ran to the garage, jumped in the car, quickly as possible put the airport into the GPS as I had no idea how to get there and booked it back to the airport.

It takes 15-20 minutes to get to the airport from our house and as I pulled out of the driveway it was 5:03 and Ryan's flight was leaving at 5:45am....O-M-G! Ryan called me again on my way. I told him I was on the interstate and would be there in 15 minutes. Then we started planning the logistics of the suit swap. Ryan told me that the line for security was really long {he was only half way through when he realized what we forgot} and that if he got out of line to come to the drop-off curb, there would be no way he'd make it back through security and to his flight on time. {Of course the morning Ryan is flying out the airport is super busy as the College World Series just ended last night and everyone was on their way home as well.} Oh crap! Oh crap! Ryan asked if I could park and run it up to him in line. I told him, "Ryan, I can't park my car at the drop-off curb and run up the escalators to find you in the security line. Are you nuts! They're sticklers about people parking out there. There is no parking at airport drop-off curbs." Then I told him maybe I could park in the ramp quick and run to the security line. Oh crap! I forgot to grab my wallet on the way out the door! I only grabbed my cell phone. We were stressing - big time! Oh, and Ryan's cellphone was running really low on battery. Ryan then told me that he was going to go talk to security and see what he could work out so he could still make his flight. He called back in a couple of minutes, I was now {according to GPS} 10 minutes out from the airport. Ryan went and talked to the police officer who was monitoring the curbside drop-off. He told him the situation, about the suit and about the long security line and the police officer gave us permission to park the car at curbside drop-off so Ryan could get back in line and I could run the suit up to him! I just had to park in front of the United drop-off point.

I go buzzing into the airport in panic mode. I see the United sign up ahead, I get there, pull up to the curb and I see the police officer. He popped his head out of his little monitoring station and said "Are you going to run up and give him his coat?" {Ryan had informed him what car I'd be driving so he was expecting me.} "Yeah, I am." "Do you know how to get to security?" "Yeah, I'm on the phone with my husband right now. Thanks." So I leave our car at the curb, go inside, ride the escalators up a floor {because there were 7 people right in front of me so I couldn't run up them}, find the security line {oh crap! There's a lot of people here!}, "Ryan where are you, there are tons of people here," I find Ryan in the sea of bodies and pass off the suit. O-M-G. My heart, and I'm sure Ryan's for that matter, was racing. I walk back to the escalator past everyone in line behind Ryan. Mind you, I'm looking real good at this point {just don't make eye-contact with people and they won't look at you} - I'm in my pajama pants and a t-shirt and {sorry for too much information} no bra - ugh! I wonder what those people were thinking - ha! I get back to the car and thank the police officer SO much for letting me park there for a minute. We are so appreciative for this nice police officer. If he hadn't let me park, I don't think I would have gotten Ryan his suit in time for him to make the flight and I would have had to overnight it to Baton Rouge for him {cha-ching!}. Ryan made it to his flight with only three minutes to spare.

I arrived home, again, it is now 5:30am or shortly after {I think I might have drove a little faster the second time around}. I'm tired but I have too much adrenaline going through me. I decide to take a shower myself so I can set my alarm back another 15 minutes. I laid in bed, didn't fall asleep for a while. Then I get woken up by some noise in the bathroom. I look in there and think to myself "Oh, it's just Cooper." So, I close my eyes and kind of drift off. Then I hear a full out commotion coming from the bathroom. I mean things falling and hitting the floor kind of commotion. It startled me from sleep. I get up out of bed and go into the bathroom. Cooper jumps down from the sink and literally bolts out of the bathroom. There is stuff everywhere including in the garbage which sits next to the sink. {We currently have a lot of stuff on our counters in there as we are dealing with lack of storage space, but that's another story.} I look in the sink and there is my hair tie. *sigh* Cooper's favorite toy is a hair tie. Seriously, I can have one around my wrist and he will grab it and try to pull it off. Well, after I got back from the airport, I put my pony tail holder around the top of the lotion bottle before I took a shower. Cooper had spotted the hair tie and was attempting to get it off the lotion bottle but apparently he's not that coordinated and that's when everything started falling all over the bathroom and making loud noises. *sigh* Lesson learned: no matter how tired, always put pony tail holders in a drawer so they are out of Cooper's sight. After cleaning up the bathroom, I laid back in bed but didn't fall asleep *yawn* so I just got up, ate breakfast and then left for orientation.

With all of this happening prior to 7:00am, I'd say I had a pretty crazy morning!

~Ashley

It's what they do best!

Coop continues his passion for air-conditioned air.

Zoey continues to camp out on her back :-)

Our Living Room

Our main level living room finally looks presentable as of this weekend so I thought I'd post some pictures.

The view as you walk in the front door. Cooper has taken to sitting on the back of my couch cushion - just the one, that's why it is all messed up :(

 

 

 

The railing to the left is the stairs as you walk in the front door. The railing on the right is the dining room.

A view of the living room from the dining room. We are currently utilizing the car perch as our tv bunny ear holder until we get out tv hooked up. The cats LOVE the big window!

Another Day, Another Storm

Here's the storm that is blowing through tonight...

 

9:05pm Update: 

So the pictures above were taken around 8ish tonight. As Ryan and I were watching the news and the storm blow by through our living room window, we noticed that it was getting considerably lighter outside and more yellow/orange. Our backyard was almost neon compared the the view from the front yard. It is still pouring rain but here are some new pictures of the storm.

Our backyard. Way different than just an hour ago. It was honestly this orange/yellow!!

Looking down the street. The yellow-ness really didn't show in the picture.

Check out all that water! No wonder there are flash flood warnings.

This is the stream from the sidewalk meeting the stream on the road at the end of our driveway.

9:18 pm Update: The tail end of the storm is just about here.

cellphone pictures from this past week

We harvested our first tomato from the garden.

I made homemade vanilla ice cream with strawberries.

We watched our first movie in the theater room.

Cooper is becoming more and more of a lap cat.

Zoey continues to lay in the way of us walking normally around our house.

Our bed finally has a comforter on it!

We are making progress!

It seems like our progress goes in little spurts. We'll do a lot one day and wear ourselves out so we don't want to anything the next day. Well, since the house didn't see much progress yesterday as we were out running errands {getting fingerprinted at the VA Medical Center, stopping by Ryan's soon-to-be office, picking up some things are Target, etc} today I figured I better get moving so things are somewhat organized come Monday morning when I start orientation. Today I tackled our closet. Normally I'd say this doesn't take a long time, but our closet was a disaster. I've just been kind of ignoring it. We were throwing stuff in there when we didn't know what to do with it. Things were starting to pile up. Our clothes were all mixed together. Ugh, it was a mess! I should have taken a before picture but I forgot.

I started by taking everything out of the closet that was on the floor so I could actually enter the room. Then I started with Ryan's side of the closet. Sorted all of his clothes by item type {dress shirts, polo shirts, t-shirts, long-sleeve shirts, etc}. Then I organized them by color. Just doing these two things really made the closet look so much better and it is SO much easier to find things. Once I was done with Ryan's side, I moved over to my side and did the same thing. Once that was done, I tackled all of our sweatshirts, and we have a LOT of sweatshirts. I was able to go through our stuff as I was organizing and pulled things out to donate to Goodwill. We are going to have a pretty big load to donate but for right now all of our donation items are stacking up in the corner of the bedroom. Anyways, here is what our closet looks like right now. Ryan promised me that he'll keep it organized ;) Yes, he did. And now I put it here in the internet as proof. I'm holding him to it :-)

Ryan's side

Our sweatshirt collection. {I told you we had a lot! We are true Minnesotans at heart :)}

Part of my side of the closet.

Looking good huh?! I think so. We'll see how long this organization lasts. But I love the feeling when you finish a big project like this!

In other news, the cats are loving the new house. They are actually getting along really well. Back in Minnesota, one would approach the other and start to clean them and it was only a matter of time before fur was sent flying. It always resulted in a wrestling match between the two of them. That's not really happening here in Omaha yet. We'll see how long the sibling love lasts between them.

Coop takes such good care of Zoey :-)

I'm not sure if I wrote about this previously, but Cooper really took a liking to air-conditioned air on the trip down here. His spot in the cat cage was right in front of the vent and when the air was going, he would put his face right in the flow of air, put his chin up a little bit, smile and sniff the air. He literally smiles, really big, it's like he is in heaven. {Just because I was bored in the car on the way down, I'd shut the air off and see his chin lower and his smile go away. Then I'd turn it back on and his chin would go up and the smile would reappear. It was really cute.} Now that we are in our new house, we often find him sitting over the air vents, when the air-conditioner is running, smiling and sniffing away. I might venture as far as to say he is an air-conditioned air addict.

Here's Coop, in all his air-condition-loving glory!

Besides this, Ryan and I have many projects in progress at our house right now. We are working on getting the "theater" room up and running. We watched a movie down there the other night, it was nice if I do say so myself. Since we love going to movies and seeing them on the big screen, we'll be able to watch them at home now and save some money :) We are also in the process {a very long and tedious process}of refinishing two dressers, head board and night stand. Ryan got one of the dressers and the headboard I think when he went to college in Mankato and then the night stand and other dresser were given to him when he moved to Baton Rouge. Anyways, I just found out tonight that this bedroom set is older than I am! Ryan's parents purchased it sometime around 1975. This furniture has seen many many miles and it was starting to show with lots of dings and scratches. Ryan and I have looked at furniture pretty casually now and again and it is so darn expensive - especially if you want high quality solid wood furniture like this set is. Since new furniture will not be in our budget for quite some time, we are just going to refinish them. We've started and I'm not sure were we are in the process. I'll keep you updated when we finish. But that's about all for now. Happy Weekend!!

~Ashley

Oh What A Day!

Today was the first day I had something "official" to go to for residency.  I had my neonatal resuscitation course to attend. I left the house earlier, not really knowing what "big city" Omaha traffic would be like. I got to the med center in 15 minutes {not bad!}, and located the parking ramp I was supposed to park on the top floor of. {I guess that's where you park when you don't have a permit to park in the ramp.} I had to take a couple detours to get to the top of the parking ramp though. Every level of the ramp had it's own entrance. Who knew?! I just drove in the bottom level, drove all the way around looking for the ramp up to the next level and then exited when I was unsuccessful. I'm sure I'm not the only one that has ever done this as I've been in many parking structures and this one is one of a kind. Once I parked, I had some spare time before meeting up with the other interns for the course so I chatted a little with my parents.

Then it was time to meet up with Morgan and Jake {two of the three other obgyn interns} and Jake showed us the way to the classroom as he went to medical school here and is familiar with the campus. It was us three in this class and a whole slew of peds residents. We filled out some paper work and then sat there for a bit. The then instructor asked for everyone to hand in there certificates from completing the online quizzes. Online quizzes?!? Ummm....What is she talking about?! Jake, Morgan and I had no idea there were online quizzes that needed to be completed prior to this class. There was obviously a miscommunication somewhere along the line. All three of us had read the assigned text book. I thought the instructor would just make us stay after and complete the quizzes as they were over the textbook material but no, she kicked us out. She made us leave! So all three of the obgyn interns got up and left. Seriously. So we went to check in with the resident coordinator to let her know that this requirement wasn't going to get fulfilled today and as we walked into her office, she was on the phone with the course instructor. So now we have to go back sometime in July and take the course for real. I've now completed the nine online quizzes {which took only about 45 minutes} so I should be good to go.

Since we were on campus, I went and got my ID badge. It was pretty humid out so my picture is awesome - sweaty with frizzy hair. Hello. My name is Ashley Thorson MD. Please do not judge my abilities as a doctor based on my picture. Thank you. *sigh* Oh well. Who takes good ID badge pictures anyways?

After that, I got back in my car and exited the ramp the same way I came in. I might have exited through the entrance as there was a giant arrow pointing up {like, "drive up the ramp to get to the top level"} as I was driving down. Serioulsy?! What is with this parking ramp?! I did not see a down ramp so thank goodness no one was trying to enter the ramp as I left.

As I got a few blocks away from the med center, I realized I had forgotten to go to employee health to get my mantoux {tuberculosis screening test} read as I got it placed on Monday and it has to be looked at in 48-72 hours. So back I went to find a parking lot and then actually find a parking spot. Lucky for me, there was a parking lot and not a ramp outside the building I needed to go to. So I park. I go in. They call my name. They read my mantoux. It's negative {yay - no TB for me}. And then they look up my Hepatitis B and Varicella {chicken pox} titer to make sure that I am properly immune to the both of these. Hepatitis B: nonreactive!! Nonreactive! Ugh, that means that the series of three Hep B immunizations I received a few years back over the course of 6 months didn't provide me with immunity {or actually I think that I received them so long ago that my antibody levels are currently undetectable but I would likely be able to mount an immune response had I come in contact with Hep B, but that doesn't matter}. According to the CDC, a nonreactive titer mean no immunity, repeat the series. So I get to start my Hep B series over again. My varicella titer is still pending. We'll see what happens. I know I had the chicken pox with I was little so I should have a reactive titer.

I feel like a pin cushion or like a kindergartner getting all these needle sticks lately. To recap: on Monday I had a vile of blood drawn so they could measure Hep B and varicella titers {one stick}, my mantoux {two stick} and my tdap (tetanus, diphtheria and acellular pertussis (which is whooping cough)) {three stick} all in my right arm. Oh, my poor right arm. For those who haven't had the pleasure of getting a tetanus shot lately, they make your arm HURT. Seriously. Make sure to move your arm around a lot after you receive that puppy or it will hurt even worse! My shoulder is extremely tender right now. I can't even lay on my right side as it will hurt my arm too much. So I have a sore shoulder and two bruises on my lower arm from the other sticks - I always bruise after I get injections :( Then today I got shot one of three for my Hep B {four stick}. This one had to go in the left arm and there are no good areas left on my right arm at this moment. Okay, I just have to complain once more and then I'll be done. The Hep B shot hurt! It stung like something fierce. The nurse told me Hep B shots hurt more as the volume they are injection is double what some of the other ones are. So, I'm all set. Well, unless my varicella comes back nonreactive...

Since arriving back home this morning, I have managed to take three trips to Home Depot {oh brother, don't ask! I'll just post pictures eventually someday.}, unpack two big boxes of office stuff and two boxes of bathroom stuff, and completely make our bedroom look like it was hit by a tornado. Pretty successful day thus far :)

~Ashley