Proof that Paul is learning something in med school

Paul and his school buddies enjoyed giving each other a cast. It's Paul's first cast given or received...let's hope it's the last too!

Hot with no AC

My sister called the other day and asked if I had disappeared since my blogging has been greatly neglected. For those of you who still read my blog after such an absence, I am still devoid of the internet. Our housing situation is...trashy. We say, "WE NEED TO FIND A HOUSE!!!" at least three times a day. We've been in our apartment for less than two weeks, and in that time the water hasn't worked two different days, the hot water didn't work for another day, the internet hasn't worked at all, and now the air conditioning has broken. Our house is nearing 90 degrees. That's even getting a little hot for me, who is usually a little cold blooded. So after suffering through a sleepless night last night and a very long, hot Sunday afternoon, we decided to get a hotel room tonight so that we can all get a good night's rest. Thus, I have the internet for the night and am catching up on things.

Good news though...we made an offer on a house! If all goes well, we'll be moving in a few weeks and getting out of our current housing nightmare.

Paul started school and has liked it a lot. He has anatomy right now...it'll last 11 weeks and then he starts biochemistry and cell biology for about 10 weeks (his classes are in blocks like that instead of having 7 classes at a time). So he smells like formaldehyde when he comes home every day and tells me all about his dissections of his overweight cadaver. It's usually pretty foul. I'm just glad we're finally on the road to doctorhood.

Here's a clip from our week at Paul's parents. Hattie loved chasing Tang around the house. She would just look at him and laugh.

Memory Lane

I've been tagged, so here it goes.

20 Years ago: I was 6 and going to Kindergarten at Treasure Valley Christin School, since Kindergarten wasn't quite in the public school system yet. My cousin Todd was in my class with me, but I can't remember anyone else. I remember that whenever we did art projects, I asked my teacher to open my glue bottle for me. Later, when I learned how to open my glue bottle on my own, I wondered why she didn't just teach me how to open it instead of doing it for me. It makes me wonder what kind of a teacher she was...that's my only memory of her. That was also the year that I first went snow skiing. I hated it that year, always the slowest one being left behind, but I'm grateful now for ski school and Dad's patience with me.

10 Years ago: I was 16 and a sophomore in at Ontario High School. I had my license, but Lisa usually drove everywhere since she was older, but I was fine with that. I would go home with her for lunch, or have her drop my friends and I off at Subway or Skippers. I was probably getting excited for Spring Homecoming, although I can't remember now who I went with. I also ran for Junior class Vice President, but lost.

5 Years ago: I was in the MTC, in an intermediate Spanish class getting ready to go to Vina del Mar, Chile on a mission for the Church. I had been there a month already, and was really enjoying myself. I had a great district with great teachers. Things I remember most: trying my hardest to speak only in Spanish, but failing miserably every time we went to the cafeteria; fasting with my family for my mom's surgery; walking to the temple, because it meant that we were outside of the MTC; trying to memorize 1 scripture a day; discussions on charity; hearing the bells ring on BYU campus and feeling homesick; going on walks around the MTC compound; the day that Hermana McCune had surgery, and her companion, Hermana Walker, tape-recorded her while waking up from anesthesia - I don't think I've ever laughed so hard; and my companion shaking her head and saying, "Look! It's snowing!" because of all the dandruff that came flying off. Disgusting.

3 Years ago: I had been back from Chile about 6 months and had just been hired to teach at the MTC. I had a full load of classes at BYU. Paul was in my FHE group and I was interested in him, and I got up the courage to ask him out by the end of the month.

1 Year ago: I was about 3 months pregnant and feeling great, with none of the typical first trimester woes. Despite a great pregnancy, I was pretty miserable at my job. I felt like I lived two separate lives: happy in the evening with my husband, and lousy 8 hours a day at Head Start. I counted down the days to when I quit with as much anticipation as Hattie's birth. I felt like I was in Kindergarten again, being scolded for copying onto cardstock or being 3 minutes late in returning from my lunch break...and that's only the beginning. We were also super stressed out about the medical school application process, since we were hoping for acceptances, but having to face the reality of having to apply again. It was a pretty tough year.

So far this year: Hattie has rolled over, Paul had his fourth medical school interview, we went snow skiing, I have begun to swim every day, we have resumed climbing, and I teach the 9 year olds in Primary.

Yesterday: I swam a mile in the morning after feeding Hattie, which is the farthest I've swam to date. I didn't have to work, so I went to Provo in the afternoon to meet my London study abroad friend, Rachel, for lunch. We finished lunch before Paul was done with school, so Hattie and I walked around BYU campus for about 45 campus. I realized how much I miss being a student and having classes, yet I'm SO glad to be done. I'm also glad to be married and out of the dating/flirting scene that runs rampant on campus. I also realized that I don't walk enough...my legs were tired! When Paul finished, we went to the rock climbing gym for an hour or so until Hattie started to get fussy. I've been making progress lately and climbing harder stuff, so it's been fun. We put her to bed and she fell asleep all by herself again! Paul and I played games and talked for a few hours before going to bed.

Today: When I got Hattie out of bed this morning to feed her, she was so hungry that she started sucking on my chin! That is definitely a first...she certainly had good suction! I swam my regular 1/2 mile in the morning and came home to a sleeping child, who shortly thereafter woke up. Since she only napped for 30 minutes, she was soon back asleep...I dropped Paul off at the bus stop, made a grocery list, fed Hattie, went shopping, had playtime with Rebekah and Robyn upstairs, then went to Provo to pick up Paul to go climbing again. It was another good climbing day, and Hattie did great. We'll see how she does at going to sleep by herself tonight.

Tomorrow: I'm in charge of watching the storage unit office tomorrow, so I'm home-bound all day. I plan on processing the remaining credit cards that are on auto-pay, going swimming, doing laundry, cleaning Hattie's toys, and starting a new quilting project. My friend Miranda from the mission is having a Lia Sophia jewelry party, so I'm going to head over there after Hattie's asleep, mostly just to see some mission friends.

This year: Paul will graduate from BYU at last and we'll move to Texas in July. Also in July, we'll go up to Idaho to spend the 4th my family, and from there going to Wyoming for the Iverson family backpacking trip (I'll leave Hattie with my mom). Paul is going to be working at an observatory over the summer, but since it's really out of the way, he'll be gone all week and only come home on the weekends. Because of this, I hope to spend a few weeks in Ontario, Texas, or anywhere that will take Hattie and me for a few days so I don't get so lonely! We are mostly excited to finally be on the road to a career.

I tag Jenny, Noelle, and Miranda.

And the winner is...Texas Tech??

Is anything ever certain in life? It seems that people never want you to feel at ease and prepared, so we are in a perpetual state of uncertainty. We were informed via email that Paul is on the alternate list for Southwestern, our #1 choice. So, their class is currently full, but any of those kids could still withdraw and choose to go to superior schools like Harvard or something, thus creating a vacancy for Southwestern. Only 8 students "matched" into Southwestern on match day last week.

Here's one of my favorite lines from the email:

"What should you expect? You can expect an email from us in late February with updates about our alternate list. We will do our utmost to make the message as specific as possible knowing it will never be as specific as you would like."

At least they are honest. That last sentence kind of sums it up. Should I even get my hopes up? Probably not.

Grrr.

And the winner is...

Texas Tech! So it's off to Lubbock, an hour and half from the New Mexico border. I'm thrilled just knowing where we'll live, and Paul really loved the city when he visited it, saying it was a great place for families. I'm starting my search of the best places to live and fun things to do. We'll be just 5 1/2 hours from Dallas, so it'll be an easy trip home for the holidays. Living in Lubbock seems less intimidating than Dallas and the Metroplex, so my small-town roots will be happy.

Go Red Raiders!

The countdown

In 9 days our future is determined. In 9 days is "match day" in Texas. I'm pretty darn anxious and nervous. We will be matched with the school that best fits us. If we're lucky, UT Southwestern in Dallas (who we put as our #1 choice) will have ranked us high, in comparison with other med school applicants. If not, we're in at Texas Tech in Lubbock (where we already have a definite "yes"), which is certainly a good alternative. It's all up to a computer to determine our future. I'll be waking up at 12:01 pm on February 1st to find out where we'll be moving!!! If you know me very well, you know that I like to plan things well and have a good idea about the future. So knowing that we'll know in 9 days is big...You can be sure we'll be blogging on February 1st!

Deep in the heart of Texas

Here we go, becoming bloggers!

We flew out to Texas two weeks ago for Thanksgiving and a medical school interview. Hattie did great on the flight...she slept the whole time. And a nice lady on the plane took pictures of her first flight for us :) The exciting part of this trip is that we got an acceptance to Texas Tech Medical School! We are thrilled that the LONG wait is over...we've been working toward this since we were dating. So unless we get a better offer elsewhere, we'll be moving to Lubbock in July. In case you are scratching your head wondering where Lubbock is, it's in the middle of West Texas, about 5 hours from anything else. So it's definitely remote, but we are glad to have an offer.

Thanksgiving was great, complete with Texas fried turkey, an Iverson family tradition that I experienced for the first time. It was hard having Thanksgiving with no milk products! No whipped cream on pie, no ice cream on pie, no mashed potatoes...no happiness! But Hattie is no longer having blood in her stools, so it is definitely worth the sacrifice.

A note on our blog title: One of our favorite movie quotes is from "Cinderella Man." Russell Crowe approaches his son who is jumping on a mattress. Crowe asks what he's doing and his son replies, "I'm being good; I'm being-have." We've added to that our own Iverson uniqueness, since we have developed a kid-like way of talking, replacing "I'm" with "I's", which is, of course, the contraction for "I is" which is how English-speaking missionaries must sound to Spanish and Portuguese speakers when they are just getting the hang of conjugating.