Nativity Pictures

I finally took pictures of my most recent finished craft project.  It is an applique nativity wall hanging.  It took about 3 months to finish then three more for me to be motivated enough to sew the border and binding on.  Overall I think it turned out pretty cute for my first try at applique even though it is far from perfect (that's what makes it special though right?).  I may take the border off and put on a darker color after Christmas, but for now I am just enjoying having more Christmas decorations up.  Let me know what you think.  

Happy Holidays!

So I guess I should first apologize for being terribly remiss in posting to our blog.  Lets face it though, Aaron and I are pretty boring on the whole, mostly we work, eat, and sleep.  There just isn't that much to write about.  We had a great Thanksgiving with Aaron's family over at his sister's house.  It was yummy!  We are now just trying to get the last of the semester/rotation finished up so we can take a little break for Christmas.  (We are excited to spend our Christmas with my family... all of it including my uncle!)  

Our Poor Car

So we got a call last night from the police saying that our car had been found in some seedy area of Salt Lake (when we went to get it, the police officer said it was an area he didn't even like to be in without another officer for backup).  On the phone, the police officer asked us what kind of shape the car was in before it was stolen, we told him it was in really good shape with no body damage or anything, his response was, "they beat the hell out of it".  It was true too.  They managed to smash the front passenger's side bumper, which now has no light, smash both side mirrors, one is almost falling off, the other is somewhere in Salt Lake.  Apparently they got a flat and changed the tire... all we can figure is that the car was somewhere they couldn't risk it being found so they had to change the tire to ditch it.  Aaron's car stereo was stolen, not that surprising.  I guess they didn't like our Jack Johnson and Fiona Apple CDs though that were in the car... I guess that just wasn't their style.  There is now a puddle of oil (a big one) under Aaron's car which means they probably did significant damage to the underside of his car.  We also think one of the axles are bent.  Here are a couple pictures, although you just kind of have to see it to get the full effect.  We are now waiting for the insurance adjuster to figure out if it is totaled, considering all the doors would probably have to be replaced in addition to the front of the car and any damage they did to the engine and whatever else, I have little hope that they will be able to fix it, especially since the car is a 94 and probably not worth that much.  I guess it is just lucky we didn't cancel our comprehensive insurance this last summer like we were planning on otherwise we wouldn't get anything for it.  

Stolen Car

So Aaron went out this morning to go to the hospital to find that his car had been stolen.  We are both pretty upset about the whole thing.  Luckily we don't keep anything too valuable in our cars, but it still sucks none the less.  Hopefully they will find whoever stole it and string them up by their thieving toes!

Election Day

So if you don't already know, it is election day today!  That means that sooner or later all the annoying political campaigning will stop for about a year before they start it up for the next presidential election.  Anyways, if you haven't voted already, remember to go and vote today!

Not so fun size

So I am sitting here eating M&Ms out of a "fun size" package.  It is like 1/4 of the size of a regular package.  If it was so fun, don't you think there should be more M&Ms and not less?  I think if it was really that fun it would be bigger, not smaller than the regular size.  There is nothing more fun about less candy, if anything it is the "not fun size" because you eat them and then want more but that is all you had so you can't have any more.  

Tag

So my friend Catherine tagged me about 3 weeks ago.  It was to tell 7 random things about myself, so here it goes:  

1 - One of my favorite things in the entire world is walking through crunchy leaves-- I love how they sound.  I love how leaves smell in the fall.  I will even go out of my way to step on them if I have to.  I know this is a little strange, but it makes me feel like a kid to go stomping through leaves.  

2 - I hate people chewing.  Everyone in my family can attest to this because I have probably gotten mad at them at one time or another for chewing too loud.  I don't know why, but it is one of the most annoying sounds in the entire world to me.  

3 - I play the violin.  I took lessons for quite a while and got pretty good.  I have not played much since I started college though so I am not as good as I used to be.  Hopefully I can take some lessons again once we are through school and we don't live in apartments.  I don't like playing and making my neighbors listen to the same bar over and over until I am satisfied.  

4 - If I had to do it over again... I would probably go into Neuroscience for my Ph.D. rather than Bioengineering.  I love the brain, I just think it is fascinating.  Now I do research on the heart, which is still interesting, but not as much as the brain.  

5 - I like Ozzy Osborne.  I know this is probably surprising to most of you.  I didn't know I liked him until Aaron made me listen to it and now I really like Ozzy... Go figure. 

6 - When I was a baby, I liked sweet potato and squash baby food so much that I turned orange. 

7 - I do not like mopping.  For some reason, this is the one cleaning chore I really detest, most of the rest I don't mind or even kind of like.  Pushing around dirty water on the ground with some hair ball forming on the edge of the mop that when you pick up the mop stays on the floor irritates me.  Plus, in our lovely village apartments, they wax dirt into the floor so you can scrub at some things forever and they will never come up making you feel like no matter how much you mop, it is never clean.  

Yea! No more tests EVER!

So I am finally finished with my qualifier and I think I passed which is good!  That was my last real written test that I will ever have to take in school and I am way excited it is done and over with.  Now I can get back to research and having some fun.  

3 More Days Until the Big Day

So in an effort to avoid doing another derivation of something as exciting as how to reconstruct a CT image with a radon transform and the central slice theorem (which says that the 1-D Fourier transform of a projection is a slice of the 2-D Fourier transform of the object) I decided to post a picture of me... representative of how studying is going.  Yes I am that desperate for a break... Only a short one though because I have the fear of failure so I can't take too long of a break.  If you ever need to know how to derive anything imaging related, just ask me, I have probably done it or at least attempted it in the last few days.  (well, you better ask in the next week because as soon as my qualifier is over I plan on purging my brain of all the unpleasantness) Ugh.  

Puppies

So since I have no life of my own right now, I really do just study all day, I decided to post pictures of puppies my mom sent me.  My parents are going to get a new puppy (as soon as they are big enough to take home from the breeder) and I am so excited to go play with it over Christmas.  I thought they were cute, hopefully you do too! 

NO MORE STUDYING!!!!!

Ok, so I am still studying for my stupid qualifier.  Only 8 more days until the big day.  I will be so glad when it is over with.  Thanks to all of you who have been supportive and listened to me gripe about it, which I do a lot.  

Sorry about having nothing new up

So I want to apologize for my pathetic excuse for a blog.  I guess this just goes to prove Aaron and I really are boring.  Things have been busy for us with Aaron's rotations and me trying to figure out what I am doing.  I have my Ph.D. qualifying exam on October 8th that I have to study for and am just trying to get everything else done in the mean time.  I will try and post something as soon as we do anything worth posting.  

Lindsey

Happy Anniversary!

Happy anniversary to us!  On the 7th we will have been married for four whole years!  It doesn't seem like it has been that long.  

First Scarf

Jen, this one is for you.  This is the scarf I recently made with all the knitting stuff my sister Jen (see link on the side of the page to get to her website) gave me for my birthday.  This is my first effort in knitting and I think it turned out pretty good for teaching myself.  It is ribbed and everything.  I have to give credit to Jen for picking out the yarn.  Maybe before too long I will be able to move on to something other than a thin straight strip... Maybe not.  

Gardening

We decided to try our hand at gardening this summer.  The apartments where we live have little garden plots that you can get for the summer.  I waited too long and didn't get a plot because I thought our garden would just die.  Luckily, my friend Catherine got a really big plot and was nice enough to let us plant in what they weren't using.  It actually works out pretty well since between Catherine and her husband Mike and Aaron and I the garden is twice as likely to actually get watered.  We planted a little late, but it seems to be growing pretty well.  I have been delaying posting this because I figured I needed pictures, but I haven't taken any and probably won't.  We actually got our first tomato and a small (as in enough for one person) batch of green beans.  So far we have managed not to kill it in two months.  

Aaron's First Publication

Aaron may not want to brag about himself, but that is what I am for right?  Right.  A few days ago, Aaron was checking up on what Dr. Long, who he used to work for at LDS hospital, was doing in the way of publishing.  Much to his surprise, his paper he had worked on while he was still working with the Artificial Heart Program had finally been published!  Since there are copyright issues with me posting a copy online, you will have to e-mail me if you want to see it.  The title of his paper is: "Improving outcomes with long-term "destination" therapy using left ventricular assist devises."   The basic idea of the paper is how improve surgical outcomes in LVAD patients from the first trials that were reported in the first study.  It also talks about how much better the outcomes (aka survival) are with LVAD therapy compared to medical management of heart failure (using drugs).  (If you read it right after I posted, this is now different, I got it confused with some other research he had done... Oops, oh well.) Yea Aaron!

Trip to the Tetons

After what seemed like eternity Aaron finally finished studying and took his STEP 1 exam for medical school. For those of you who don't know what it is, the STEP 1 is only probably the most important test Aaron will ever take. How well he does determines how competitive he will be applying for residency in a year.  (No, we don't know how he did yet, it takes about 6 weeks to get the score back).  Once Aaron was done, (within 45 minutes- we weren't wasting any time) we drove up to Jackson Hole, Wyoming and spent some time in Grand Teton National Park and a day in Yellowstone.  A lot of wild flowers were blooming and it was really pretty despite not seeing as many animals as normal.  Here are a few pictures from the trip.  

These are some of the pictures of flowers in Grand Teton National Park.  I don't even think we were at the peak!

This is a brown bear that was off the side of the road.  No, we weren't dumb enough to get that close to a bear, we were driving by, I was taking the picture out the window.

Here we go...

After being asked repeatedly and told that we should start a blog, I have finally broken down.  This will be my attempt at blogging, but realistically, it probably won't be all that entertaining and it likely won't be updated often (if ever) after the first couple of weeks, I am just being realistic about this.  

Lindsey