I had to post this because it is so funny. Today I got roses from a patient. He has been a patient with me since the first year I opened my office. I always look forward to his appointments because he is so funny and laid back. So, these roses came today for my birthday which was last week. Here is the card:

Sorry it has been so long since I have written. I have so many things rolling around in my head that would really help to put in writing, but I have been avoiding sitting because that involves facing reality. Right now I am avoiding writing up a consult on a patient that fell 20 feet off a scaffolding and hit face first. It is going to be a massive undertaking and I feel like I did in college when some prof told me I had to write a 5 page theme over “The Iliad”.

Since I last logged my children have met their biological grandmother and uncle, I have been to Belize on an awesome mission trip, half my employees gave their resignation on my return (not related to the trip), and my children are trying to finish school, take finals and all the other mess that involves. Too much information and I want to sit and give each of the above it’s own time and space. Maybe over the next few days I can discipline myself.

Thanks to all of you that keep visiting. More soon, I promise.

So I leave Tuesday night to go back to Belize. This time I am going way out to a jungle village that is easier to get to by boat than road. The scary thing about this trip is that voo doo is the main religion here. The missionary family I know have been trying to establish a church there for over 8 years. The voo doo leaders won’t allow it. At night they say you can hear the drums for miles.

Anyway, I am a little nervous to go. I think that all will be fine, but those of you who pray, please pray for me while I am gone.

For those of you who don’t know my family, my children are homeschooled, and my husband is the one who does it. After spending all day making sure the girls do their math, science, etc… you would think he would pick a hobby that would be child free. Nope. He twists balloons. He is actually very good at it, and is excellent with children. If you are interested in seeing some of his stuff click here. He has a portfolio of some of his sculptures.

Soooo, all of this to say that we (our family) went to Dallas this weekend to a balloon twisting/face painting convention. My children were the only kids in a hotel full of clowns, magicians and face painters. They thought they had died and gone to heaven! All of the pictures below are of face painting because those are the classes I went to. (Sorry Tim)

One of the blogs I read is by an endodontist in Canada.  He has a good sense of humor and gets all my stupid dental insinuations.  So he lets me know he has tagged me for a meme.  Here are the rules:

1. Each player starts with 8 random facts/habits about themselves.
2. People who are tagged, write a blog post about their own 8 random things, and post these rules.
3. At the end of your post you need to tag 8 people and include their names.
4. Don’t forget to leave them a comment and tell them they’ve been tagged, and to read your blog.

I’m sorry to those in advance who I will tag.  OK, I’ve done this one before, but luckily I’m weird enough I can think of more random things to post.

1.  My worst fear/yuck is old food.  If there is something in the fridge that I can’t figure out what it used to be it gets chunked.  I don’t care how expensive the container is, it is gone!

2.  My two rules in my house ( and my kids can recite these verbatim) are:  a.  the couch is not a jungle gym and b.  there are to be no crumblies in my bed.  There are many many more rules, but these two are a basic start.

3.  I organize things in my dreams.  Seriously, I woke up slowly this morning thinking that I had to put up the laundry before I could open my eyes.

4.  I will never paint the wall around my light switch in my bedroom.  It has many measurements of my children’s heights over the years.

5.  High pitched noises like the vaccuum cleaner and my children’s screaming really grate on my nerves.  However, the sound of the dental drill does not bother me.

6.  I grew up in Mexico but I speak no Spanish.  (OK, it was Mexico, Missouri.)

7.  I don’t have a bachelors degree.  I never finished college. 

8.  The last pair of shoes I bought, I only got because they made me as tall as my 11 year old daughter.

I have tagged Mali, Zak, Cole, Tim, Eric, Linda, Sandi, and Mike. 

The patient says, “I brought the piece that fell off. Can you just glue it back on?”

My answer-”Nope.”

OK, there is nothing exciting enough in my life to blog about, so I’m just going to ramble between seeing patients for a while. Here is what is going on right now:

• waiting for my next patient to fill out his medical history before I can see him
• listening to the hygienist explain how to brush your teeth-I need to go do an exam in there soon
• importing the last Harry Potter book into my daughter’s itunes by CD-there are 17 CDs!!
• trying to figure out why my Palm and Outlook won’t sync anymore since I installed Google sync
• downloading my camera card into Picasa-there are Christmas pictures on it!
• eating sushi
• trying to drink my water today-on my third bottle and it is just 9:45am
• checking out the x-ray my assistant just took on a walk in toothache
• calling in a prescription to Wal-mart-I love their voice mailbox
• checking my email
• twittering, and reading other people’s twitters

All that in the last five minutes…

OK, I told you I found a lot of stuff when I cleaned my office yesterday. This picture brought a smile. Tim took me to Sea World on a date and we went to see Shamu. We were sitting there minding our own business and a guy comes up and asks me if I would volunteer. Sure, I say, I’m always up to try anything once. Next thing I know I’m petting Shamu! The trainer asked me what I did. I told him I was a dentist so he also let me touch Shamu’s teeth and tongue. I feel sorry for the dentist that has to work on those teeth!

OK, so today my schedule was a little sporadic. Soooo, instead of doing some much needed paperwork, I decided to clean my office. Over the next couple of days you will be seeing some of the stuff I found.

For those of you who go to Connection Church, you might recognize this guy. Cole was also our pastor in Luling, and the person who led Madeline the night she decided to give her heart to Jesus. Tim and I were concerned that she was too young to really realize what she was doing. So, Cole came over and talked to her and decided she was very aware and that we shouldn’t stand in her way. She was barely five! Anyway, here are a couple of pictures to memorialize the occasion of her baptism. I thought I had lost them forever!

P.S.  After Madeline saw this post her comment was. “Wow!  Look, Br. Cole has hair!  Dude, that was a looong time ago!”

As I sat at my desk this morning, I took a few minutes to look through my scrapbook of work pictures. These before and after pictures always make me smile. What we did changed this woman’s life and how she feels about herself. Helping someone like this and working in Belize help me know why God picked me to be a dentist.