Kids??

The other night I came home from shopping for Ella. It is her birthday this weekend and she is turning one! Lucky me one of the things on Ella's "list" for her birthday was clothing (for next year when she is bigger).

So . . . I went to TJ Maxx and had at it. They had some pretty cute girl things! When I came home and was showing Chris all of my cute finds our conversation went something like this:

Me: Oh man, I love shopping for little girls.

Chris: yes, I can tell.

Me: I think I want a baby

Chris: No, I think you want a doll.

Me: That's not true, I want a baby

. . . fast-forward to the next morning . . .

I had an appointment with a nutritionist (to talk about my high cholesterol) and I had to wait in the pediatric waiting room. It was fall break, and that place was filled with small children screaming and yelling and carry-on . . .

Me (in my head): yup, I want a doll

:)

Fall Break?? More like Fall work your tail off to get everything done . . .

I figured I hadn't posted about school in a while, so I should probably do that. They have a saying about law school. Maybe I have told you already? but I can't remember, so I am going to tell you again. It goes something like this:

First Year they scare you to death

Second Year they work you to death

Third Year they bore you to death

Now, I'm not sure about that last one, but I'm pretty sure the first two have held true so far.

On that note this is what is on my to-do list for the next week:

1. Finish Long Paper (14 pages and lots of editing to go)
2. Prepare for Con Law on Monday (I am on-call)
3. Finish reading for the rest of classes
4. Prepare oral argument for moot court try-outs.
5. Finish 2 Authority Checks for law review
6. Study for the Multi-state professional responsibility exam (MPRE) that I am taking on November 6
7. Apply for summer jobs (this one never gets off the list . . .)
8. Prepare judicial externship interest letter

Actually, when I write it all out, it doesn't look so bad now that I have finished all of my mid-terms.

Maybe I should explain some of this for you non-law school folk.

1. Long paper is a graduation requirement, but Law Review students are required to finish it their Fall semester of second year. It will be nice to have it done, but it is killing me right now! Okay, not really killing me, but slowly sucking all of my time away.
2. no explanation needed
3. . . .
4. Moot court comes in many forms. They usually consist of a first round where your school picks a team or two to represent them, next those teams write a brief and practice, practice, practice. Once the competition roles around the school pays for your team and coach to go out to the competition and, well, compete. The competition involves lots of judges judging you brief and your team giving an oral argument (sometimes multiple oral arguments) as if you were in a real trial. Our school sends teams to quite a few different competitions, but the one I am trying out for is the Hispanic National Bar Association one. I made it through the first round (of submitting a writing sample and letter of why you want to be one the team) and so now next week I have to give a short oral argument on my writing sample. I would really love to get on, I know it would take up more of my time, but it would give me some great experience (and the competition is in New Orleans this year!).
5. my weekly law review assignments . . . slowly sucking away my time, but again, totally worth it!
6. This exam is required to get admitted to the bar in any state. No, it is not the bar. It is just an exam to test how well you know the rules of professional responsibility (you know don't steal from your client, don't sleep with your client, etc etc). Me and some friends are taking it because we are taking our required Professional Responsibility class this semester. Turns out our PR professor SUCKS and isn't teaching us anything, so we are left teaching it all to ourself before Nov. 6th, fun!
7. ah, the never ending task, hopefully one will come along eventually
8. Every semester the school has spots for a couple of students to be judicial externs for some federal judges in the area. You have to apply to get the spots, but if you get it, you take it like a class and get credit for it. So of course I am applying . . .

As much as I long for the days of free time in the evenings and on the weekends to spend with my husband and puppies, I wouldn't trade this time for anything. I love being challenged and I love being able to have some awesome friends to spend every day with. And well, lets face it, I love being busy, because I am a busy body :)

So Proud

This weekend we got to go up to Grand Forks, ND to visit my brother at college. He took us all around and showed us all of the cool things, and we fed him restaurant food that is usually foreign to the dining hall eating college student. It was a great weekend, and I am so proud of him! He is going to make an awesome pilot!!

Here he is in front of the UND single engine fleet (did I remember that correctly?). He gets to fly those with his instructor a couple of times a week! It's an awesome picture if you ask me.

This is the UND hanger. We got to tour around the airport because Paul has his fancy TSA badge now.

Next we headed over to the hockey stadium, where Paul gets to have season tickets this year. Lucky guy.

Next he showed us the building where he takes classes. They have some awesome simulators, it looks like a lot of fun. This is Chris and Paul waking through the cool tunnel.

They we headed to his dorm room and helped him fix his ethernet cord. Was your dorm room this electronically tricked out?? Mine definitely was not (two x-boxs??? I guess that is probably pretty common these days . . .)

We had a really great weekend hanging out with Paul. On the way home we picked up Arty from training. It is great to have the whole family home now!

Houston, we have a problem . . .

. . . A boot problem:

You see, it all started here when I got my first pair of bearpaws for super cheap and revamped them with some awesome buttons. I finally got around to wearing them, when MN's crazy weather turned cold for a bit, and found out that they were the most amazingly COMFORTABLE boots I had ever worn. Yes, my friends, they feel like slippers on my feet. Which is to be expected from a company whose motto is : Live Life Comfortably.

For those of you who know me and how much I love things being comfortable (case-in-point: I wore sweatpants and hoodies for just about EVERY class in undergrad) you know that this was an amazing find for me. After wearing my brown boots a couple of times (and never wanting to take them off) I knew I needed them in another color. I choose grey because it would go with all of my black clothes and then I could essentially be wearing bearpaws anytime I wanted. Well DSW was sold out of my size so I searched them on google, come to find out I could buy them for WAY cheaper on Amazon. Since they were so much cheaper . . . I bought them in every color(and got all four for less than the price of ONE pair of sweater boot uggs!!):

Yes my friends, I am that obsessed with these lovely boots. They are truly amazing! Some people may say I have a boot "problem." I call it a healthy obsession :)

P.S. Why do I keep my boots on top of a bookshelf you ask? Well, when two of my heels were turned into chew toys I decided that shoes had to be kept completely out of reach of little puppy mouths . . . and this was the best spot for the boots!

Growing like a weed . . .

I have been missing my Artemis while he has been away at training these past two weeks, so I thought it would be fitting to post some of his "growing" pictures . . . man he has gotten big and he is only about half way to full size!

Tiny little peanut:

Getting bigger:

my big 35 pound baby:

We'll see how big he has gotten when he gets back on Sunday!

why we eat what we eat . . .

It has been about a year since we started our journey to eating organic/"real food" so I thought it would be a good time to write about our journey.

1. What is "real food"

Real food to me is something where you can read the ingridients and know what everything is on the list. None of this chemical crap that my body doesn't need. There are different scales of chemical crap. Some are in the "you should never eat this" category. Others are in the "there are some products that are always going to have this (thickening agents) so you are going to have to eat it sometimes" category.

2. What made you start thinking about eating real food?

It all started with water and sickness. You see, a couple of years ago I got pretty sick with some really bad heartburn and GI symptoms. It took them a while to figure it out, but eventually they found out that I had H-pylori bacteria. Two weeks of hardcore antibiotics later and I was "cured." My H-pylori came back twice over the next year and a half and it was really hard on my body. Specifically my stomach. I haven't had H-pylori since, but it left me with a much more sensitive digestive system. I could no longer drink milk or orange juice, and cilantro was off the list as well. If I ate any of these I would get horrible heartburn and end up drinking milk of magnesium for 12 hours. The next thing that ended up on my no-eat list was fried foods. I could take them in small doses, but a whole fast food meal always put me over the edge. This was just the beginning. I started having to look at ingredients when I bought food and I became more aware of what I ate. I also cut most fast food out of my diet (with the exception of Arby's, I could still handle Arby's)

Then came law school. I met a girl who always had water with her (Maureen), she said she couldn't be without it, she was always so thirsty. I thought that was really healthy of her, but I didn't think more of it until I showed up in the urgent care three times in a month with a sickness that they said could possible be prevented if I drank more water. I wondered how much water I actually drank in a day and decided to keep track. To my horror my running total EVERY day was . . . two sips, when I took my pills at night. I knew that could not be good. So i decided to be more like Maureen. I bought a water bottle that I liked (it had a straw) and made sure to have it with me at all times. It was amazing the difference it made. I felt better, didn't end up in the urgent care, and I also noticed a difference in my skin.

Those two events made me more aware. Aware that what I put in my body makes a difference. I wondered what else I could be doing that wasn't good for me.

My first chemical cut was high fructose corn syrup(HFCS). Why do I need chemicalized sugar when i've got the real stuff? It was shocking to me where I found HFCS, it was in EVERYTHING: Soup, stuffing, and other things you would never imagine needing sugar in!

After that eye-opening experience I started checking labels like a maniac and wondering what the other chemicals were. It was then that I decided to cut most of them out. I don't need antibiotics in my meat, or pesticides on my apples. So they look less red and delicious, they still taste awesome and I can feel good about eating them

3. Does it cost more?

Meat definitely does. Other than that our grocery bill hasn't gone up. Why do you ask? We make more "real" meals rather than just eating frozen, processed stuff. These meals last for a while with leftovers and are usually cheaper to make. I think it also makes a difference that I was never one of those "coupon cutter deal finder" shoppers. So our grocery bills haven't changed much.

4. Have you become a crazy nazi organic food person?

No. To each their own is my opinion. Eating like this makes sense for me and my health. I can know what I am putting into my body and if something affects me, it is easier to figure out what it is. However, we still order little Caesars pizza when we are feeling lazy, and it tastes as good as ever :)

(as a side note, **said in the kindest voice** now you also know why I get annoyed when pregnant ladies complain and complain about how horrible heartburn is . . . at least yours leaves in 9 months)