Bloggin it up

So i thought I'd be better at this blogging thing, at least more regular about it, but it hasn't worked out that way. Here's how it usually goes: on the drive home i think about my day and some days I think...I'm going to blog about this. I think about how I'm going to set up my blogs and what I'm going to say and then i get home....and it never happens. I need my thoughts to be transcribed to a digital media so i can just upload to my blog....

So I'm bloggin it up tonight! Katlynn is sleeping, I've got a Bacardi mojito at my side, and a movie on the tele and I'm ready to blog!

I thought i would fill in the blanks since my last blog around June with the significant events since then (excluding my parenting experiences as in my previous blog: "You can call my Mama Ullevig").

July...

was consumed with grant writing. My mentor wanted me to apply for a NIH (National Institutes of Health) predoctoral grant-which is great opportunity for me to get my research funded and would put me a good position to find a nice job when i got done. All fine in dandy but I learned some things about grant writing:

1. It sucks.

2. It sucks up all my free time.

3. It sucks all the energy I might have to do anything else.

4. It sucks. More than anything I've done before.

So that was my July. I'll let you know if I get it! All that sucking may pay off....no pun, no pun at all....

August...

i got a vacation! I visited Lisa and Jocelynn with my Mom the second week of August and it was a much needed break from July. I got to spend lots time with the baby :) and relaxing and reading. It was great. See some pictures of that trip below:

September...

school starts...ugh. It's not going too bad, i have class Mon and Fri morning and then i have to tutor medical students taking biochemistry every other 6 weeks. No to bad. the rest of the time I'm in lab working my butt of to ensure I'm going to be done in 4 years!!!

Lisa also visited with the baby this month and it was great. She had changed so much just since the time I'm saw her in August. More pics below:

The future:

October is going to be exciting. I start off going to Chicago with Toby for the weekend. He is going for the week for work training and then I'm meeting up with him. I've never been to Chicago, but I can't wait even if it's only for a weekend! We're planning going to Fright Fest with Katlynn and Sam, hopefully also getting her for Halloween to take her trick or treating! Also going to attend the jewelry party in Austin at Ellen's new place and I'm going to try to swing in a trip into Ikea :) Toby is expected to get a large raise and I've already got plans for the money!

The rest of the Fall is going to be consumed with dissertation committees, and Free radical meeting in Indianapolis (why couldn't it be someplace cool?) and end of semester school crap. So I'm going to relax in October and brace for the end of the semester and keep my nose to the grind stone until December. We found out this at Lisa's last visit that she is coming in December moving in with my parents while Scott is deployed to Afghanistan until August. We're excited to have her and Jocelyn and sad to see Scott go. So Spring will be filled with Jocelyn!