Original, I Am - A Seamstress, I Am Not

This will be my baby's first Halloween, and I wanted his costume to be unique.  There are a handful of traditional baby Halloween costumes - a peapod, various animals, a pumpkin...they've all been done before.  My baby was not going to end up like the others, no matter how much my mother lobbied for an adorable costume.  When an idea finally came to me, I was giddy with excitement.  It was perfect.  My baby was going to be...

Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus, a.k.a. MRSA.

Right now, you're either thinking I'm crazy, or wondering what the heck MRSA is.  MRSA is a type of staph infection, only it's resistant to the traditional antibiotics used for treatment.  It can be hospital-acquired or community-acquired (each results in a different kind of infection) and it is potentially deadly, as I nearly found out in August of 2006.  Since then, I've had it two more times.  I am fascinated by this "superbug" and have studied it extensively.  It only made sense that I should turn my child into something that has had such a profound impact on my life.  I would make his costume myself, modeling it after the stuffed animal representation of the bacterium.  Yes, they make stuffed animal bacteria.  They're awesome.

All I'd need to do is get a pattern for a baby bunting outfit and hat, make a few modifications, and design a cape.  Should be easy, right?  Technically, I had never made an outfit before.  I'm not the craftiest chick, but I've created a few things in the past: quilts, no-sew fleece blankets, quillows, and scarves.  I can use my sewing machine.  How hard could it be to make a baby outfit?  Turns out, very.

I came home with my yard of tan fleece, some black for the cape, and a couple of large googley eyes.  I opened up the envelope containing the pattern.  I cut out the paper shapes, traced them onto the back side of the fleece, and cut the fabric out.  The pieces looked pretty good and I gave myself a mental pat on the back for succeeding thus far.  Next, I opened the instructions.  They were completely foreign; I'd never used a pattern before.  I pinned one side of the hat to the center band and grinned excitedly - everything matched up and sewing it would be easy.  My happiness was short-lived.  I realized that I had pinned it with the wrong side of the fleece facing outward.  I pulled the pins out and started over, calling it a night when I had finished.

Tonight, I picked it up and immediately got to work stitching the two pieces together.  It looked amazing.  I added the other side and the whole thing looked like a little hat.  I couldn't have been more excited.  I was doing it!  And then came the hat band around the bottom...I couldn't figure out the instructions, and I had no idea what "stitch in the ditch" meant.  Stuck, I moved on to the bunting outfit.  I didn't get far though - I realized I forgot to reverse the pattern when I cut the right sides of everything.  I had two left-side front panels and two left sleeve panels, front and back.  Awesome.  I thought I might have enough leftover fleece to cut them correctly later, so I figured I'd work at the one side I could actually do.  I hemmed the mitten and the sleeve and sewed the two together.  It looked alright.  Then I looked at the instructions and realized I needed a zipper, snap tape, some kind of hemming tape, and much more sewing skill than I had ever acquired.  I surveyed my progress, counted the days until Halloween, and then wadded it all up and stuffed it back into the Jo-Ann's bag.  Original, I am.  A seamstress, I am not.  But at least I can honestly say I tried.

FAIL.

Christmas Is Coming!!

I know it isn't even Halloween yet, but if the stores can start selling Christmas stuff already, I should be able to make a blog post about it, right?  Christmas is my favorite time of year.  I love the Christmas feeling - it settles in the very first night that snow falls silently around me, lighting up the dark with that "Christmas Blue", and it doesn't leave again until the New Year.  Christmas music puts me in a fantastic mood.  I listen to it in the car, while I'm cleaning the house, and especially while I'm decorating cookies.  Last year, my little brother, an amazing self-taught musician, decided to get his musical buddies together and make their own Christmas CD.  I was excited about the idea, but I was even more excited when he asked if I wanted to cover a song.  In fact, he let me cover one and do a parody of another.  When it was almost time for the CD's release, several of his friends backed out and the track list was shorter than he had hoped for.  My friend, Jeremiah, and I came to the rescue (okay, he could've done this without us, but the CD would've been shorter).  We each wrote our own Christmas song to add to the playlist and the CD was a total hit.  I'm not sure how many copies were distributed, but I think it was around 50.  Anyway, we all worked really hard on it and I thought it would be cool to share an original Christmas song from that CD with everyone.  (I hope it works).  Without further ado, I give you "Santa Got A Wii" by Lindsey Smith and Jeremiah Croskrey...

The Hard Part Is Never Over...

If I can just pass Biochemistry, I'll be alright.

Okay, if I can just get through the MCAT, the rest will be simple.

Really, if I can write a killer personal statement, getting accepted will be easy.

Now, all I have to do is get these secondary applications sent in...

The hard part is never over.  There's always another one waiting for me.  I know becoming a doctor is not something that happens overnight.  I understand that it's an awful lot of work.  I just need to whine a little bit because I'm tired.

I got the grades, I took the MCAT, I wrote a great personal statement.  I submitted my application with confidence to 10 schools and so far, six of them have had the good sense to invite me to fill out secondary applications.  Two of them rejected me.  Two of them have remained silent.  I'm still feeling good and confident, just a tad overwhelmed.  Keeping up with school is fine.  Doing it with a newborn baby is challenging.  Doing all that and actively applying to med school?  That's nearly impossible.  But somehow I press on...

I have procrastinated on the secondary applications for two reasons.  First, they're a lot of work - each one has multiple essays that must be submitted with it and, in some cases, proof of residency applications, photos, etc.  I'm not intimidated by hard work, but many other things have been eating up my time and I haven't had the chance to really sit down and get these things out.  Second, they cost a lot of money.  Each one has a separate fee that must be payed before they will accept your application.  As if I didn't already shell out $408 to submit the primaries.  University of Washington is the cheapest at $35.  The others?  $75 - $100 each.  So either submit applications or pay rent.  Hmm.

On that note, I have submitted one application fully.  I have written the essays for one other school but still need my residency paperwork completed.  Most of these apps aren't due until January (of course if you wait until January, you'll never get in...), but one of them is due this Friday.  I have two essays to write for it and instead, I'm blogging.  It's just easier.  I work better under pressure anyway.  Hey, that's why I'm gonna make a great E.R. doctor, right?  :)  Just practicing...

When I first set out to apply to med school, I wanted to go to University of Washington.  I didn't even have a desire to apply anywhere else.  Clearly that isn't wise though, so I asked for some advice and came up with all these other schools to apply to.  When you're filling out secondaries though, most of the essays are school-specific, so then I found myself actually having to research these places to try and respond appropriately.  This is actually a good thing.  I have learned so much!  In fact, I decided that Creighton University School of Medicine is the place that fits me best so far.  I think I'll be pretty upset if I don't at least get an interview (that's the next step, by the way - if they like my secondary, I get an interview.  If they like my interview, I get accepted).

Sometimes I find myself thinking,

"If I can just get through the secondary apps, the hard part will be over..."

But no, it won't.  Because the hard part is NEVER over.

A Whole New World....

No, I'm not talking about Aladdin and Jasmine's magic carpet ride.  If they thought that opened their eyes to a whole new world, just wait until they have a baby...

Kaden LeDoux Smith joined us on September 4, 2009 at 9:04 p.m.  He weighed 6 pounds, 10 ounces and was 20 inches long.  I rarely think newborn babies are cute, but he totally was.  He's amazing!  From his adorable ears to his teeny tiny toes, I couldn't have asked for a more perfect baby.  The morning sickness (which was actually every-hour-every-day-for-2-months sickness), the aching back, the fat feet...it was all worth it.  I can't even believe how much I love this little boy.  Good thing, too, because his arrival really introduced me to "a whole new world".

The world of Motherhood is incredibly exhausting.  I'm sure all existing mothers knew this, but for those of you who have not yet had the pleasure, get ready.  Forget about trying to keep up with baby, family, friends, school, and housework.  There is only so much time in the day to allot to each one, and "baby" certainly gets the largest slice of the time pie.  I no longer have lengthy phone conversations with my mother or go out for ice cream with my friends on Tuesday evening.  My usually immaculate home is in ruins (okay, that's an exaggeration, but I'm pretty obsessive about cleaning and organizing, and for me, this place is a disaster...).  And when, exactly, am I supposed to sleep?  I mean, the books say, "Sleep when the baby sleeps."  Ha!  What a joke.  When the baby sleeps, I have to do homework, pay bills, do laundry, eat a quick bite, clean the floors, and take a shower.  I am so tired!!

Of course none of that matters, because this little baby means more to me than anything else.  He's next to me right now, making precious baby noises in his sleep.  I love him so much - I just can't get enough of him!  Yes, he turned my world upside down, but it's so hard to care when he's this adorable...

The Inevitable Return of The Great Jeff Deck

He's back!  My hero is back!!  The "Long Silence" is over: Jeff Deck and the Typo Eradication Advancement League have returned.  If you aren't a huge fan of TEAL, you might be a little lost right now.  See, Jeff Deck, disgusted with the declining English skills in our nation, set out across the country fixing typos, grammatical errors, and apostrophes on everything from billboards to business cards.  Then one day, he fixed a typo on a sign at a National Park.  It turned out that the sign was created at the park's birth by a local artist and is irreplaceable.  Jeff was charged with "vandalism" for making America look less retarded and was forced to disappear for a while.  He had to wipe out his website and put up a statement, mandated by the judge, that basically said it was wrong to vandalize signs on public lands without explicit permission.  I was devastated.  Seriously, SO many people are really bad at English and if there are a select few left in the world who can still get it right, they shouldn't be punished, they should be revered.  I wish I could have joined Jeff in his endeavor.  I'm not perfect, but I think I would have been a great asset to his team.  No word on whether or not he plans to continue his cross-country crusade, but he most certainly will continue to find and fix typos everywhere he goes.  So check your store fronts and sale signs carefully...if he's nearby, he will find you.

Jeff isn't the only one on this spell-check mission though.  While in California, I noticed an error on a bottle of Mountain Berry Windex - the tilde was over the wrong "n" in the Spanish translation of "mountain".  I wrote to the nice people at Johnson & Johnson.  They apologized for "any inconvenience this may have caused" me and gave me a coupon for free Windex.  I bet that error didn't get fixed.  Then I was on the Keebler website and noticed they spelled "Cheesecake" wrong.  They had written it as "Chesscake" so I e-mailed them.  They thanked me, fixed the error, and gave me a printable coupon for $1.00 off any Keebler product.  A few months ago, I was following a van down Main Street.  They had a decal in the back window that said, "Next time you think your perfect, try walking on water".  The "you're/your" and the "there, they're, their" misspellings are the most irksome, I think.  Anyway, Jeff is an inspiration to me and if you want to keep up with him, check out the TEAL website at www.jeffdeck.com/teal/ or browse his photos at http://picasaweb.google.com/jeff.deck.