Autumn's here!

I've been working at my new job for a little over a month now.  The two boys and I have settled into a routine and I have fun finding new things to do with them that they'll enjoy.  A few days ago I taught them how to play 500 with a whistle football.  I'm going to bring my Charlie Brown Halloween movie in 2 weeks and carve a pumpkin with them.  They've never had the opportunity to touch the inside of a pumpkin before!  It's awesome being there for any first experience.

Yasmin tolerating my boys and the neighbors as they put grass on her

Most weekends are devoted to St John lately because it's a busy time of year for induction coordinator.  I'm also on a trainers course that teaches you how to teach including the different styles of learning and assessment.  I love the content.  There's lots of homework to do during the week for it, though.  Luckily I have a few hours in the middle of the day during the week between school drop off and when the little one gets out of pre-school to do any work.

Tim's first day of med school!

Tim's hospital

Tim's lunchbox

Tim is loving med school!  Every other Thursday I take Yaz to work with me because Tim is on clinical placement.  He goes to a hospital or clinic and gets to practice his skills on patients under the doctor's supervision.  His other days are full of lectures, discussion groups, and sometimes labs.  The school seems nice enough about Yasmin.  If Tim needs to go into a lab a member of staff doggysits.  Tim says that they hurl new information at the students in rapid succession and he's trying to take in as much as possible by going over the slides again at home and looking up any material mentioned.  It means that I get to help with the research.  It's kind of fun, actually.

Yasmin got a blood test on Monday and found that she's clean and healthy.  She has pancreatitis we found out.  It's a lifelong condition, but she only needs medicine when it flares up.  She's back to normal now.  She likes coming to work with me occasionally, but she's not crazy about the kids.  I think the kids would be better off with a hyper terrier.  They keep trying to put sticks in Yasmin's face hoping she'll take it or tug it with them.  She just wants to be left alone with her sticks, though.  The employers (parents) like Yasmin, though.  They even offered to doggysit if we ever need it.

Our new house is great, but constantly messy at the moment.  Everything still isn't moved in.  I have a week off of work the week of Halloween so I'm hoping to make the house more of a home then.  It's really cool, though.  We aren't used to having so much space to the 3 of us.

Super Long Winter

Life's just going too fast lately.  I cut down a lot on my volunteering.  I haven't done a duty since New Year's Eve, and before then I hadn't done one since Halloween.  I had to work 4 induction weekends (10 hrs a day Sat and Sun) in 5 weeks last year.  Thankfully this year it's only one a month and the February one got cancelled.  That's much easier to handle.  I decided I'm never doing 2 weekends in a row again.  I was feeling subhuman with no rest outside the work week.

Yaz being a good model in the snow

Our house in the middle with the green door and a dog in front

Tim got a couple interviews for med schools.  He had one last Wednesday that he felt went well, and he has another on the 15th.  That pushes our Valentine's Day to the weekend.  Our conversations have been about almost nothing else but med school and preparations for the interviews.  Tim's been reading books on how to do well at a med school interview, he's been looking up info on the university (Queen Mary's) including the history, any special curriculum, and any famous research that has come from there.  There's a lot there.  It turns out the museum has the skeleton of the Elephant Man, and a writer of one of Tim's major biomed textbooks teaches at the Bart's med school of Queen Mary's.  I can't wait 'til this part is over, 'cause then it's just a waiting game.

We decided for Valentine's Day to do something a little different.  The pathology museum of St Bartholomew (the med school of Queen Mary's University) is hosting an event called "Mending Broken Hearts" which is a seminar involving something to do with organs and I'm guessing at least one heart.  Should be interesting.  At least it'll be different.

The baby I look after turns 1 this weekend.  I got him a Mr. Potato Head 'cause he likes putting thing inside of things lately.  It's good for his dexterity and who doesn't like Mr. Potato Head?  The kids are a lot of fun.  The mother is a little crazy sometimes, but she'll start working from an office 3 times a week instead of at home.  That makes my life a little easier.  It's not nice to feel like everything you say can be heard by your boss.

This is the pond near the house where I work.  There are some geese walking on the iced part.

It's finally above freezing so I can drive my scooter to work again.  I was taking the bus and train when it was freezing and below and it takes twice as long to get to work so I had to wake up earlier and pay more money.  I was living in my long johns for a while 'cause it was so cold.  I'll be so glad when winter is over.  It feels like it's lasting forever.

I hope everyone got their Christmas cards/post cards!  I haven't heard back from everyone so I don't know if they got received or not.