The Votes are in

Time to announce the winner(s) of the Pumpkin Throwdown 2010. We had to disqualify one of the sets of votes due to conflict of interest (even with them you still wouldn't have won Kathryn), but we thank everyone who put in their two cents. By my tally on 10/30/10, the public has spoken in favor of the pirate and the spider, each receiving 5 votes to tie for the win!!

tie 3. Dave Dodds (creator of #3 and #5, 4 votes total)
tie 3. Kathryn Dodds (creator of #1 and #6, 4 votes total)
tie 1. Chris Brown (creatorrhhhrgghrhr of #2, 5 votes)
tie 1. Linzi Brown (creator of #4, 5 votes)

Thanks to everyone who voted...it's nice to see that the public agrees with what Linzi and I have seen all along....don't mess with us in a Pumpkin Throwdown! It's been a fun tradition during med school.

*Note: the voting was not influenced in any way by this blogger. Of note, even his own mother and father voted for the Dodds...ouch!

Pumpkin throw down........

It was our 4th annual Dodds vs Browns carving contest. Many different techniques were used this year, some cheated by using punch stencils while others free-handed their designs. There are also 6 pumpkins instead of 4 because a few of us got super excited and carved both sides!


This year we thought we would let you be the judge. Which pumpkin do you think deserves the title of coolest pumpkin 2010?

1.

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6.

Dinner for two...........

We enjoy eating at Ruby Tuesday. We went there last night and these are the two things we ordered.....

As you can see, one dish was a steak the other was salmon. Which one do you think they tried to give to me first? Which one do you think was really the one I ordered? This is not the first time our meals have been confused. Sometimes it makes me laugh being married to a man who orders things like cobb salad, fish, and chicken. Do you think the waiters are judging me after they realize the truth?

The life of a toddler.......

So today I watched an incredibly cute toddler and realized that she and I had many things in common.
#1. she likes to read books
#2. she trips in her crocs (a lot!)
#3. she enjoys crunching through leaves and watching them fall off the trees
#4. her lunch consists of things like easy mac, green beans, and mandarin oranges (of which she only ate the later two)
#5. she snacked on gold fish, fruit snacks, and pretzels throughout the day
#6. she needs a nap every day

After sharing a few of her gold fish and fruit snacks and eating most of her rejected mac and cheese I realized that I indeed enjoy the diet of a toddler and that whole nap thing isn't so bad either!

Irony at its best.....

So you might ask yourself, what is that large stack of papers? Well, it just so happens to be receipts from the past four years. Yes, I didn't know at the time, but I married a receipt hoarder. (I am talking he had receipts from pre-mission people!). It didn't matter the purchase, you save the receipt. I was fine with this because all it required of me was to keep the receipt and put it on the computer desk for Chris to deal with. Well, he finally came around and decided that this was a bit excessive and a few weeks ago he purged. He threw away all of them except for big purchases. It was a big day and I was proud of him.

Then I discovered this when I went to put this jacket on:

The picture doesn't really show it well, but that is a security ink tag still attached. No, I didn't steal it, but apparently I didn't realize that they had not removed it. I got it when we went to Brason months ago. When I started thinking about it, I remember setting off the store alarm, but I thought it was a fluke because they had removed the tags.

Now do you see the problem. I have a jacket with a security tag still in place and no proof of purchase because Chris decided it was time to clean house after so many years. I guess I will have to hope that the Nike store here will have pity on me and take it off.

My mom actually asked me on the phone, "Well, is it in a place where you can't see it? Maybe you can still wear it." Yeah, because that doesn't scream white trash now does it.

The vow of motherhood.....

Alright, it is time to fess up all you previously pregnant woman out there. They make you take a vow don't they. A vow that you will never tell a newly expectant woman what is truly in store for her until she experiences it for herself. It must be part of the delivery process. Perhaps while you await the birth of the placenta or something. They make you raise your right hand and swear on your newborns life that you will never divulge the true meanings of pregnancy. Am I right??? Because until now, these are the "meanings" I was aware of:

#1 Morning sickness. What a joke. Morning my eye. I used to think that you could solve this one by keeping a stack of crackers in your nightstand. Now I know it has nothing to do with morning, noon, or night. You can be sick all the time anytime. It will make you want to wish food were dead and sometimes even you were dead. It will give you anxiety to set food in a grocery store or even your own kitchen. Sure, I can stuff crackers in until the cows come home but in the end, it always wins. (the other day I was even feeling like Eogo in Aladdin and thinking, "If I eat one more cracker I might hurt someone"). It should be called constant nauseousness with intermittent vomiting... and if you are lucky enough an occasional visit to the EU for some fluids because you are like a two year old and can't even do the simple act of sipping water every hour.

#2 Fatigue. So yeah, I've felt fatigue. I've run long runs and had long days and been tired. But this, oh this is like sleeping 18 hours a day and still being ready for bed. This is waking up at 10:00 am and crawling back into bed for a nap at noon. This is going from working out for 1 1/2 hours everyday to missing the gym for 2 months. This is going from loving being busy to hoping your day consists of one thing: sleep. How about we call it hermit hibernation mode or something like that.

#3 Heartburn. I am lucky. I didn't even know what heartburn felt like. My esophageal sphincter is a peach....until now. Really, do I need to taste bile all day long? Do I need the tiny amount of food I finally got shoved down to sit in my throat all day just waiting to come up? Is it necessary to burp like a beer bellied sailor? Do I really need to sleep with three pillows behind my head and wake up with a kinked neck. I think it should be called burping bile burn with a twist of epigastric pain.

I just want to know the truth. Will I have to take this vow? If so, I am getting this down on paper now so I don't forget next time.

Wardrobe Shift

So I've been thinking about Linzi's wardrobe recently, and have decided that she really needs to get some new clothes. She has been gradually upgrading my wardrobe during the last five years, so I thought I'd return the favor. I've done some shopping online, and have come up with the following...I plan on buying them all, but thought I'd gauge public opinion before laying down some serious cash. What do you think...do I have good taste?

In case you didn't catch on from the above, Linzi's 12 weeks along, doing better (I'll let her share whatever details she wants to about how things have gone so far) over the last few days. We just had our first ultrasound on Monday; it is a wonderful experience to see that little alien creature for the first time, moving its arms and legs and seeming to be the most perfect little creature ever. Until yesterday I had the opinion that babies looked weird in ultrasounds and didn't understand the big deal...but my outlook has totally changed...all I can say is that it's just different when it's your own. Anyhoo, we've taken to calling the little thing Squishy, yet somehow I don't think that name will last long once it's outside the womb come April 5, 2011 (or thereabouts).