Sutures Look Like They Hurt

Sutures, or what laypeople call stitches, look like they are not fun. As a nurse, I removed lots of them, but have never any myself. Nick has been practicing his suturing technique. Right now he's on his first surgical rotation (Gynecologic surgery), and the opportunity may arise to help close at the end of a surgery. Nick went to a suturing technique class last year, but spent some time this weekend refreshing and refining the basics. Why the sponge? In the suturing class they suggested sponges as a good medium to mimic the resistance of actual humans. And unlike humans, the sponges hold still and don't complain.

Today's Activity

Today I sewed another Hooter-Hider knockoff for a friend who recently had her baby prematurely, but now everyone is home from the hospital and doing well. I chose a funkier fabric, because this girl is cool. So cool, in fact, her last name is Funk. No joke.
I know all of you are fascinated by this entry. My only other option for entertaining you was to relive the very confusing Organic Chemistry lecture I had today on IR Spectroscopy. You've know heard both highlights of my day.
My office chair makes a great model, doesn't it?

To The Garden . . . Again

This morning I went with Janette and little Miss A to the Missouri Botanical Garden. We enjoyed a nice walk around the gardens. The Nikki exhibit will be leaving soon so it's nice to see her sculptures a few more times before they are gone.
Very few of the leaves have changed to Autumn colors. The nights here just don't get cool enough for the change to happen too quickly.

If you look at the picture of Miss A for just a moment, it appears she has three feet. The third foot peeking out from behind the stroller is Janette's, also in a green sandal. By the time we left at 11:00 it had become surprisingly warm. We went to the labyrinth known as the School of Medicine afterwards to pick up a book for Brigham. Science bookstores always have so much fun and interesting stuff. Where else can you get a key chain that's also an anatomically correct model of the human heart?

Weekend Update and Run

Nick and I have had a great weekend which included spending a lot of together, watching conference sessions and the BYU football game. Very early Saturday morning I went to the Strides4Kids 5K as the "assistant photographer." Once again, I'm not a photographer, but I can take a lens cap off and depress a shutter button. I borrowed my mom's Digital SLR for this project, because shooting it with my little Lumix would have been near ridiculous.

Taking pictures of things that don't hold still can be a little difficult. And once a runner has passed you, there aren't any do-overs. The event was a success and had good turnout. It was organized by med students and their wives, which I thought was a pretty ambitious project to take on.

I had gone to the half-way point of the race to take pictures, and when I drove to the finish line, an ambulance was pulling away. I was concerned of course, that something had happened to one of the runners. Not so. Someone had a found an unconscious guy in the park. You people in Bountiful don't know what you're missing.

More About Chicago

Although we were only in Chicago for one day, it will probably take a few blog entries to give you the highlights. We got off the bus about 7:30 AM, found the bathrooms in Union Station (which was harder than it sounds,) and were on the prowl for something for breakfast. We bought a map at CVS and headed toward Michigan Ave. We were looking for some authentic Chicago breakfast, but we were in the business district on a Saturday and nothing was open. After reaching our third McDonald's we settled in for a quick bite. The only uniquely Chicago aspect of it was Nick getting panhandled while actively using the urinal.

We got to Michigan Ave and Millennial Park, visited the Bean, officially called Cloud Gate and headed towards the Magnificent Mile. On Wednesday and Saturday, Chicago has scheduled bridge risings where the bridges open up like french doors turned on their side. We think something was wrong with the Michigan Ave bridge because it took about a half-hour to close again.

We took a guided river tour, sitting on the top deck of course. The ninety minute tour takes you up and down the river and onto Lake Michigan. We learned quite a lot about the architecture and history of the city. It's amazing how much construction is underway and how much more is planned. You can own a studio apartment in the new Trump Tower for a mere $900,000.

Crazy Trip to Chicago

Nick and I had wanted to get out of town for the weekend, but we're not good at planning trips. Usually all my vacationing is done by showing up where and when Kate tells me. So, we had thought we would leave after Nick took his test on Friday, but we still didn't have anything planned. Friday afternoon we went online and bought bus tickets to Chicago. On the next whim, we called Chad and Angelina, med school/ward friends, and amazingly they were also game for our crazy plans. Riding the bus to Chicago is not necessarily crazy. But leaving St. Louis, spending the day in Chicago, and returning to your home 29 hours after you left is a little bit nuts.

We caught the bus Saturday morning at 1:15 AM, so essentially late Friday night. We rode on the upper deck of the bus and each had a row of two seats to ourselves. We tried to sleep with some success. The bus makes a scheduled 20 minute stop halfway. This trip the bus also made an unscheduled stop when it got pulled over. We never figured out why we were pulled over, but it seemed to take a really long time. I was getting worried that we were being put out of service. But eventually we were on our way again and arrived in Chicago at 7:30 AM.

We hit the ground running, found something to eat, and made our way to Michigan Ave. Just over 16 hours later, we were boarding the bus again for home at midnight. We got back to St. Louis at 5:30 AM and were in bed asleep 20 minutes later. We were exhausted by the time we got back on the bus but we'd had a lot of fun. I'm sure we'll always bring this trip up as something we did when we were young and spontaneous, back in the day.

Recipe Club: Cream Cheese

I just returned from our ward recipe club, headed up by Aunt Patti. The theme ingredient this month was cream cheese. I looked through a ton of recipes, but nothing seemed to spark my interest until I read a curried pumpkin soup recipe that gets its creaminess from cream cheese. I made the soup with my friend Christie from the ward. We both thought it sounded great. We both later thought we were wrong.

For me the soup lost its initial appeal when it became brown. Between curry powder and brown sugar, the orange color of pumpkin didn't have a chance of surviving. I didn't care for the aroma either. It was just not tasty to me (or to Christie).

Recipe club is about sharing failures as well as success, so off we went with our soup. The ladies of recipe club seemed to be equally mixed as to whether they loved or hated it. I'm sure for those who love pumpkin and love curry, it's a match made in heaven.
Recipe club did have some other delicious offerings including a creamy Italian chicken and Smores cheesecake.

P.S. Clay Aiken came out of the closet! You can't believe how shocked I wasn't. Also, I can't believe how many posts in a row I've made with no pictures. I'll get on that right away.