Hmmm

Thanks to everyone who has sent emails asking about how my dad is. He's been in pretty good spirits, but it is hard to keep it up when you are in a hospital bed. Right now we are in a holding pattern. He has a strep infection, and something called cellulitis. We are really hoping that the anti-biotics will take hold and get rid of all those strep monsters.

I've been pretty stressed with work and school. We have some big deadlines coming up on my Alaska project - so its been hard to stay focused on that with all that's going on. The Old Snapper has been really fussy lately too, I think she can feel the stress that we are all going through.

The good news.. tomorrow is a new day!

sick sick sick

I am now on day 5 of being sick. I am not a very good sickie to begin with, and this run of illness has really gotten my goat. Since I am still the Snapper's main food supply, there isn't much I can take. I've been dosing myselft with Emer-Gen-C and tylenol, but I've really just about had it. I spent all of yesterday in bed, should have stayed in this morning, but drug myself to church. Now it looks like I'm headed back to bed. grrrrr...

Last night I decided I had to do *something*, and that something was find out who sings the song on the new oreo candy commercial. Although I didn't get an answer to my query, I did discover perhaps my new favorite time waster, WikiAnswers.

I have to admit, I am fascinated to find out what people are wondering at any given moment in time. You can ask a question (like my oreo song..) or you can answer one. If you ask one, they want you to try to answer someone else's request for info. While a lot of the questions have to do with scientific stuff or car-care, there was one question I just knew I could answer - "What president was in a wheelchair?" In my excitment I pounded out the Answer - Franklin Delano Roosevelt!, hit enter, then realized I answered the WRONG question.

I hate being sick...

Welcome Back

I can't believe it is already the 4th of January...where have the holdiays gone? And more importantly, why hasn't the holiday fairy whisked away all my decorations? We really didn't get the house done until about a week before Christmas. Christmas eve was spent in a marathon of baking and wrapping. This year I attempted microwave peanut brittle, Sonnie's Red Velvet Cake balls, my dad's pralines, and stuffed dates. I'm still planning on making some sand tarts this weekend with a new recipe I found in Cook's Illustrated. Yum!

Several days after Christmas, the Rees-Runnels' family (me, the snapper, red menance, Scott and mom and dad) loaded up the van and headed out to Cloudcroft, New Mexico to retrieve my dad's electric scooter which had been abandoned there during our summer vacation. Highlights of the trip included a meal at Perini's Steak Ranch (voted number 3 steak place in Texas by Texas Monthly), a trip to the world's only Solar Observatory at Sunspot, New Mexico, Seeing a herd of elk run accross the road in front of us, and watching Scott and Nick sled in the snow. It was a great family vacation, albeit a short one.

Today I awoke with the feeling that I absolutely HAD to get going on my dissertation proposal. Since blogging seems to come easy for me, I've decided to blog about this proccess. If you are interested, you can follow my progress at http://runnelsdissertation.blogspot.com/. Any encouragement is greatly appreciated.

Now for some pics from the trip!