More pictures again!!!

More ultrasound pictures at the HomePage Braswell. Here's the link again:
http://homepage.mac.com/leahbraswell/


Let me know what you think. We're still not looking down below - It's an ongoing challenge now to make it all the way to birthday. It's either XX or XY. Driving my dad crazy, which is about 90% of the fun at this point.

We picked up the crib today and will set it up one night this week. E's office is slowly becoming a nursery. I'll take pictures as we go.

Bottom of the 9th

So tonight is my very last lower level call. Our call tier is sort of complicated, but there are always two people on call overnight: a 1st-year resident and an upper level. My 1st year of call is winding down. The first-year wears the pager. Horror of all horrors and curse of all curses. That thing is on fire. Anyway, this is my last night with that bloody thing!!! Tomorrow, I'll be free of the pager and ER cell phone.

But.... now I'll be the upper level. Any decision in the middle of the night belongs to me. I have to answer to the mistakes made in the morning. There's no attending around at night when major decisions are made. Ahhh, responsibility. Perhaps I'll be wishing I could carry the pager soon. I'll be stressing over whether or not this kid has appendicitis and needs to go to the OR. I'll agonize and perseverate, but then it'll be morning and I can go home and sleep and all will really turn out OK. It always does.

Rites of passage.

Saturday

Another fairly lazy Saturday morning. I have been getting things done and hanging out with the dogs. E will be home soon. My desk is nearly clear of papers - it has been weeks. The laundry is all underway, dishes clean, list of tasks made. I've even been to Target. Even took Erica dinner at work last night.

Can you tell there's something looming? I am a creature of habits and patterns. High school, college, med school - any time something big is due, or a project needs working on, or I have PHYSICS BOARDS CREEPING UP ON ME --- these are the cleanest, most organized times of my life. Instead of studying, I clean. I work in the yard. I clean out my car. I e-mail long lost buddies. I work out. It is ridiculous.

I think I'll hire my mom. She is an organizing consultant and task-master extraordinaire. She would probably tell me to come home in the evening and spend 30 minutes on physics. THEN tackle the myriad other things. There will always be more mail.

It's always the bigger the project, the more I procrastinate. Do you know how much engineering is involved in putting a huge magnet into a shielded room, putting a patient in there, and turning that into a perfectly clear image of the beating heart and injured myocardium? I do. Oh well, like Nietschze said,......

So if you need a planner, rearranger, organizer, thrower-outer, prioritizer, hire my mom. And tell your friends. She can walk into a house and make it work better for you. Any and every room. Let me know if you have any prospective clients and I'll hook you up. Thanks for reading the shameless plug.

Disappointment

So, we finally made an offer on a house. We've been looking for a couple/few weeks now. There was a big one on McAdoo that was tops on the list. We saw it again yesterday but then decided against it. So on to a house nearby - this one on Gable. I had loved this house from the outside since before they put it on the market. Sometimes you can just tell. Anyway, we walked in and it was soooo obvious that this was the house for us. We made an offer. They called us this morning - no can do on the contingency part. [We are residents and can't agree to buy a house without a clause contingent on the close of our old house.]

So life goes on. This is a big lesson in not getting your hopes too high. And a lesson in humility. And all those other tough things. But immediately after I got off the phone (for the millionth time this morning) I looked at Erica and the world is all right again. Our little family is 100% intact. I feel better now that at least we have an answer.

Our first open house is today. I hope we get twenty offers and have to decide between them all. Ha. That'll show 'em.

Then we'll have all kinds of buying power.

News flash - E is thinking in terms of no fellowship at this point. Hooray! No three more years of night call. No three more years (plus a career) of stressful critical care and ethical dillemmas about dying babies. No more killing ourselves to stay afloat in the real world (i.e. any world outside of the hospital.) So hopefully we'll have a family member with a real salary next summer. I hope it works out. As you know, career decisions in this Braswell family have a way of.... well, let's just say they're fluid. It's just like anything else. No matter what happens, we'll be fine.

There's growing interest in Little Rock for getting a rowing club started. Don't worry, my name's already on the list. I hope and pray that it comes to fruition. I would LOVE to have a regular crew to row with!! They're talking about a boathouse on the NLR side of the river.

What else has been going on.... well, neck spasms for me. I have made a trip to the massage place. Hopefully more trips to follow. Job hazard of being a radiologist, I guess. I'm sure there are more interesting things to talk about, but I can't think of any right now. Oh well. E has one more week of nights, then back to days. Little Sport is doing well. There are more ultrasound pictures at www.homepage.mac.com/leahbraswell

My link function isn't working, so you'll have to copy and paste.