The to-do list is one line shorter...

Just a friendly reminder to myself that sometimes I actually do get projects done! Don't ask how long this has been on the projects-to-do list though!

Just Another Day at Work...

Friday at work we pulled out an instrument to get some practice on using it - it takes pictures of the back of your eyes - the red lines are blood vessels, the white blob is the optic nerve and the darker blob just to the side with of the optic nerve with a reddish center is the macula (impressed by my eye anatomy knowledge yet??).  To my untrained eye I have pretty healthy looking eyes! The science geek in me loves this!

You Might Be A Redneck If...

I love this kiddo and I love that the only shoes he brought for a weekend visit were his brand new boots and I love that he wore them with his shorts and I love that he was so gosh darn excited about them!! You go kiddo and don't listen to the haters that would call you a redneck!

A Year Later... Baby Steps

Yes it's been a whole year since my last posting... it's been a hard year and half and I haven't been the happiest person and haven't had many good things to say... so I haven't said much of anything.  And then the thought of catching up on everything from that time whole is really overwhelming - I still haven't done a post on my Tanzania trip (one of my favorite trips ever!), or about the 4th of July and how the Fire Department just turned on a fire hydrant and let it go for what felt like forever after the neighborhood parade and how the kids loved it, or about my new job and the trials and learning curve there, or how I haven't been able to run for about 8 months because my feet and ankles hurt too much, or that I got to go home for Christmas, or about my newest niece and nephew (I'm a proud auntie of an even dozen now!), or that Mom and Dad are headed back to Ukraine for their 3rd mission (!!), or ... I could go on and on!  But Mom convinced me that I just needed to take some baby steps and start with the here and now and go back and fill in things as there's time and desire...  So in the spirit of baby steps, here's something from the here and now - pictures from the photo booth at the annual health science center's employee BBQ - these are my co-workers!  The back row is Matt (clinical coordinator), Meg (the boss!), and me (that's not a head band I'm wearing - it's a fuzzy pink thing with antenna stars!) and the front row is Denise (in the knight's helmet) and Katie (princess).  And yes - I was laughing the whole time with a devil's pitchfork in one hand and a chocolate creamie in the other hand!!

Here's to a new start...

Are you kidding me?

It was 70 degrees yesterday... and the day before...  seriously Mother Nature, this is getting down right rude...

One of THOSE days...

Let me start by saying that one of my goals this year is to run a half marathon - not just finish, but run the whole 13.1 miles.  It's hard for me to run during the winter, and this winter has been harder than usual - fighting constants colds and sinus problems and then it has been way, way cold.  I've been trying to get back to running at least 3 times a week and for many reasons, it just hasn't happened.  One of my road blocks has been the showers at work - last year it took 10 to 15 minutes for the water to warm up, and this year it's just been cold.  I've started turning on the shower as soon as I get back in the building with great hopes for warm water, only to be disappointed.  So yesterday, I struggled to get up and get to work and get things going and then go running.  Then I almost took an asphalt digger while running.  Then I get back to work and turn on the shower, close the door and go into the lab to do what I need to do and get my stuff.  Back to the shower room, only to find that I locked the door, with the shower running mind you.  Back to the lab to find my friend Ashley and see if by any chance she knows how to pick a lock.  We decide that it shouldn't be that hard to pick a lock, so we get what we think are tools of the trade and head to the shower.  Picking locks is not as easy as they make it look in movies and on TV shows - I would love to learn how to pick locks (solely for the purpose of picking locked shower doors, of course).  The closest I got was almost breaking off one of my paper clips in the lock.  So Ashley heads upstairs to look for Bart, one of our building maintenance people, while I continue to attempt picking.  Bart, I'm sure loving that he has something else he can give me a hard time about, breaks into 3 offices looking for the master key.  We, meaning Bart, finally get the door open and I finally get into the shower, only to find the water temperature is room temp - which at least is not cold, right?  I then discover that I forgot to pack a towel.  Drying off without a towel is not easy.  Later I discovered I'd left my lunch at home.  Arrrrgggghhhh....

Coincidence or not??

A few years ago I got to go to Peru with these lovely ladies - it was one of my favorite trips.  I know B from work and got to meet her sister C and cousins L and L on this trip and I just had so much fun with them (swedish fish anyone? cards? how many flights can get cancelled during a single trip??!).  I was talking to B today at work and a few things started to fall into place.  If I remember right, we were all single on this trip with few prospects...  at one of the cathedrals in Cusco, a resourceful guide took us to an alcove and introduced us to a patron saint for single women.  I forget who it was and a google search comes up with St. Agatha and St. Catherine and St. Andrew and St. Anne and St. Emily and... and... and... so maybe she was telling us the truth, maybe not.  Anyways, if memory serves, B and L and L all jokingly stepped up to this saint's statue or made remarks about leaving the saint an offering and C and I kind of stepped back.  One of the L's got married not so long after that and B got married a few months ago and just told me today that the other L is engaged and getting married in a few months... and C and I are... not.  

Hmmm.... coincidence or not??

Holly Jolly Season...

This Christmas was a little different for me.  It was the first one I've spent without family.  I am grateful for the good friends who adopted me and let me share in their family Christmas traditions!  I spent Christmas Eve with a dear family - and enjoyed a wonderful meal, sharing favorite Christmas traditions and memories (mine - the Monday before Christmas my family would always go Christmas caroling - more about that further down...) and worst Christmas memory (mine - Christmas when I was in 6th grade - I had the chicken pox... bad and then I got a staph infection in my pox so they didn't scab over, which resulted in outie chicken pox scars, which a doctor later tried to convince me were really cigarette burns - nice, huh?), reading the Christmas story from the Bible, and singing Christmas carols accompanied by the piano and trombone, all accompanied by much laughing and caring - it was really a lovely evening!

On Christmas morning, I made my way across the street and opened presents and had breakfast with another fun family - I got a kick out of watching the kiddos open their presents:

And Benny the cat really enjoyed the curling ribbon on one of my presents:

And sweet little girl had to come back to my house and help me finish opening my presents here!!

All in all, while different and quieter than my usual Christmas', it was still a good day!!

On another topic... the last few weeks, for various reasons, have been tough.  First I tried dealing with it by eating therapy - only encouraged by all the lovely, delicious treats that magically appear on my doorstep

It is only with a tiny bit of shame I admit that this is only a small bit of the goodies that occupied my treat drawer that is now just about empty....

Next, I tried retail therapy

which then led to baking therapy

These are loaves of Cinnamon Orange Bread - now let me tell you about Mom's cinnamon orange bread.  Simply, it is one of the best things on the planet.  Period.  I love this stuff.  So much that when my first 4 (yes, that is correct - FOUR) batches didn't turn out (bad yeast - you know the sugar test?  where the volume is suppose to double in 10-15 minutes?  Yeah... try way over an hour - which made me feel better that I wasn't completely clueless in the kitchen), I had to consult with the fount of all wisdom - Mom, because I was determined to get it right and share some of this lovely, delectable treat with my neighbors and friends.  Mom always made this for neighbors and friends during Christmas.  In fact - back to the Robinson Christmas caroling tradition - people who let us sing Christmas carols to them... and we are not good singers, we have enthusiasm and desire, but in all reality, we are just not singers (how many people have had their choir teachers ask them to please only mouth the words?  More than 1 Robinson...) would be rewarded for their patience and endurance with a loaf of cinnamon orange bread.  When I was packing up the house for the big remodel, I found a loaf in the freezer that even once thawed, was hard as a rock - we're talking serious freezer burn.  But this is so good that to waste it would have broken the 13th commandment (Moses just never had the pleasure - didn't know what he was missing!)... so I got out the electric knife and carved off pieces and toasted them and ate every last crumb.  So now I have some to share - or not ....

weekends and snow?

People often eagerly ask me on Mondays what I did over the weekend - like I have these amazing and exotic adventures on the weekends just because I'm single.  This cracks me up because I probably have the most the mundane weekends of anyone I know!  Seriously, weekends are my try-to-get-caught-up days - housework, yardwork, laundry, and if I'm feeling really wild and crazy, grocery shopping.  Just to prove my point - I recently spent a Friday night cleaning up and organizing my garage so I can actually park my car in the garage (so nice not to have to scrape the windshield in the early cold morning!!)

And so now that my car is in the garage and my new snowboots arrived (how cute are these??!!)

I figure this means it's not going to snow anymore this winter in Salt Lake!!

I'm alive... promise...

Do you ever go through those phases where you just don't want to deal... with anything?  I have been stuck in one of those ruts - just haven't even wanted to look at the computer when I'm at home, let alone blog or post anything on Facebook or email or anything at all... And so not to overdo it and exhaust myself in a return to social media - just a few pictures from the last little while...

Yeah, this poor dog has a rough life... no one ever wants to pet her, she always gets ignored... just no love at all (this was at the state cross-country meet and was not the first or last group of people who stopped us!)

Kirk, Luci and the boys were in town on my birthday - we'll skip how old, but apparently I needed help blowing out the candles!!  And I just have to add, this is the little twerp who was dying for bunk beds and now won't sleep on the top bunk!!  Good thing the twerp is so much darn fun!

And finally... it snowed... a whole bunch this weekend...  I always think of my sister Sara when it snows like this and how she'd have us out sledding or tubing or doing something in the snow!!  Now if I could just find my snow boots... 

And can I just say I live on a great street... all day I was dreading shoveling snow when I got home from work - I shoveled twice yesterday! - and I got home and a kind soul had shoveled my sidewalk and driveway, and later I came home and yet another kind soul had shoveled the huge pile of snow left by the snow plow on my driveway... so very grateful to the good people who look out for me!!

Name Change...

So things continue to change at work... in the past year and a half, we've had two major lay-offs, been spun off as a separate company, moved into a new building (before it was ready for us I might add...) and most recently as of July 1 we've changed our name from Myriad Pharmaceuticals to

pronounced mir-exis...

Now this is not my favorite name and has been the topic of much conversation at work and the relationship to other words...  I'm choosing to go with it's similarities to

Tyrannosaurus Rex

and

Lexus

Those are both impressive, right??!

Go Cougars!!

ksl.com - Cougars sighted near edge of U campus

And so this is a few months old ... and maybe not so interesting to anyone but me. Three young cougars have been spotted roaming near the building where I work in Research Park. This not unusual... I've seen all kinds of wildlife at work - moose, elk, rabbits, hawks, etc. But I recently started running again (had to stop last fall when I was pitching a co-ed softball game and took a line drive right in the knee cap, and then my running buddy had terrible stress fractures and then it was winter and cold and dark... excuses! excuses! excuses!) and so I've many concerned people asking me if I've seen the cougars and what I'm doing to protect myself. First I tell them that I'm generally running away from work, and second surely they would recognize a fellow cougar when they saw one - this last point would raise eyebrows. I had to have a friend explain to me that people thought I meant a cougar as in an older woman (when did I become an older woman?*?#!@!) chasing younger men, but all I really meant was that I cheer for the BYU Cougars and not so much the Utes!!

Mixing Cub Scouts and... Science??

My friend Krysta and her husband are Cub Scout leaders in our neighborhood and they needed a "scientist" to come to finish up the requirements to get their science belt loop... and if nothing else, I am a science geek at heart!!  I had to be in full lab glory to convince these guys I was a "real" scientist!!

And then the guys had to wear my lab coat so they could be as cool as me, if such a thing is even possible... Here we're adding vegetable oil to water with red food coloring in it... and the fun is only beginning!! (wow - not kidding about the science geek...)

And then... what happens when you salt?  If you add sugar instead of salt?  Or how about flour??  You'll have to try it to see - we had some very creative hypothesis'... but of course boys being boys, they wanted to blow stuff up and get covered in slime....

So we finished by up blowing up sandwich bags... no slime though!!  Some budding scientists in that group I think!!

And you though your life was hard!

From the pages of oddly enough... huh... who'd have thunk it?

Boozy chimp sent to rehab

• 
  

Fri Feb 26, 11:23 am ET

MOSCOW (Reuters) – A Russian chimpanzee has been sent to rehab by zookeepers to cure the smoking and beer-drinking habits he has picked up, a popular daily reported on Friday. An ex-performer, Zhora became aggressive at his circus and was transferred to a zoo in the southern Russian city of Rostov, where he fathered several baby chimps, learned to draw with markers and picked up his two vices.

"The beer and cigarettes were ruining him. He would pester passers-by for booze," the Komsomolskaya Pravda paper said.

It added he has now been transferred to the city of Kazan, about 500 miles east of Moscow, for rehabilitation treatment.

(Reporting by Tanya Ustinova, writing by Amie Ferris-Rotman)

Salsa and pants...

First... the dog is driving me crazy!! She's like a super charged Energizer bunny this winter with a bottomless pit for a stomach (although none of her recent eating feats can beat the consumption of an entire 15 lb bag of dog food when she was a puppy...). When we walk the only time I can keep up with her is when she's grazing for food and that's not good because the food she finds to eat results in a messy backyard cleanup (aka bomb retrieval).   At the moment I'm doing my best to remember that I really do love having her and that hopefully we're good for each other... Isn't a human year equal to something like 3 or 4 dog years? Which would put Salsa squarely in the teenage raging hormone years.... hmmm.....  Look at that precious "baby" picture... She is kind of cute, huh?  And she is a good buddy.  And she does seem happy to see me when I come home.  And she does help me get outside and at least walk during the winter.  And it's been shown that people with pets live longer and are happier... I probably should keep her...  Yeah...  I do kind of like her... Guess I'll keep her...

And second...  do you ever have those days where nothing quite goes right?   Today was one of those.  I knew I had a tight schedule and I'd have to start early and everything needed to go smoothly so that I could get home at a decent hour.  Well, I did get to work early, but NOTHING went smoothly - from an electrical outage to computer and network problems to missing equipment to a coworker that I know exists solely to torment and torture me - by 1 this afternoon I was where I'd planned to be at 10 (and I started at 5:30!!) and then suddenly I hear the dreaded sound of denim ripping.  That's right, I split my pants.  At work.  A big rip.  Across my big bum.  I still had about 4 hours to go.  Ahhh....  life IS funny.....

Hook 'Em Horns!!

Not even planned... great minds and all!! I was so excited when I came back from Colombia and we had a long layover in Houston and I found my t-shirt, and I had a good excuse to wear it today... wonder who we're cheering for tonight??? Go horns!!

Catching Up...

Seriously... it's been since October?? How can that be? Let's just go with it's been crazy.

Some highlights and happenings of the last two months:

My faithful 1999 Nissan Altima, despite all of the abuse piled on to it, turned over 100,000 miles - in the intersection of 21st South and 7th East to be exact - in November . Knock on wood, but other than routine maintenance and new tires, the only part I've had to replace is the alternator. Now if it can just keep that up for a couple more years...

I got to spend a morning with my cute boys and the Love Bug really wanted to take pictures to send to Grandma Betty and Grandpa Al because they are so far away (first it cracks me up that he actually calls them that and second I am really grateful not to be in Saskatoon right now - last Sunday when I talked to them it was 48 below!! I am too much of a wimp for that!) and for Aunt Debby and Aunt Sara. I sure love those two rascals!

In November I also got to make a quick weekend trip for Princess K's 8th birthday - and got to hang out with Maryland Robinson crew ....

Princess K the birthday girl

Diva K (it was a toss up who got to be Princess and who got to be Diva... )

And Bear... who was my bunk bed buddy for the weekend!

And last but definately not least... a mobile Crabby A!!!!

Friday the 13th festivities included duck pin bowling - my first time!! Check out the ball that Diva's holding... the pins are short and fat pins and it was a riot!

Look at these cheesy grins - are we related or what??!!

After bowling was eating (always a favorite activity!), and then some quality game time spent at the local Chuck E. Cheese (not as cool as I remember it being when I was little!)

Before heading back to the homestead, Deb, Diva, Bear and I made a stop at Target to to get Deb a new Christmas tree (since only half of hers made it down in Bogota... half a tree isn't such a useful thing!) and well... there was no room in her trunk because she stocks up when she's in

the States on stuff that she can't get in Colombia or that's too expensive down there. So Bear and Diva K got to ride in Buster's car with a Christmas Tree in a box on their laps... it was pretty funny to listen to the box shifting and the giggles!

Saturday morning started off with some boxing... those girls don't pull their punches!!

Watch out!! Bear's out for the count... KO for the Princess??!!

And Saturday afternoon was Princess's baptism. It's so hard to believe she's 8!! You know how you have moments where you are just really grateful?? This was one of moments... I was so very grateful to be there - grateful for the sweet girl she is, grateful for her really amazing parents and her crazy/funny/lovable siblings, grateful for a brother who is an honorable priesthood holder, grateful for the good family that I am lucky enough to be a part of...

Love, love, love the Maryland crew!!

Bear cracks me up... He checked himself out in the mirror and his comment was "I look like a Dad!!" and that was a really good thing for him!! Although he did tell a lady in Target she was creepy... apparently Aunt Rosann taught him that one when she called Chuck E. Cheese creepy... oooops!

And one more Maryland picture... Poor Crabby A was having a rough night, and when her Mom rescued her from her crib, well the sad face and snot bubble was just priceless!!

I got to go the BYU-Utah game with Kirk, Luci and Ben - and it was AWESOME... I wasn't sure that the Cougars would pull out it... prove me wrong! It was crazy...

Even though "A Christmas Story" is all over cable during Christmas I've only seen the part where the kid talks to Santa and then gets booted down the slide. A couple of years ago I

started noticing all these crazy leg lamps that started appearing in windows after Thanksgiving and I just didn't get it. They're kind of tacky, why would someone put that in their window instead of a Christmas tree? Well, last week I finally saw the play at Pioneer Theatre Company, and I now get it! I must say that I'm somewhat relieved that there's a reason for these lamps, because I was having a hard time figuring them out!!

And last but not least, I got to go to The Nutcracker ballet this week with my dear friend Krysta. I've been hooked on the ballet ever since seeing one in Ukraine when Mom and Dad were serving their 1st mission there. Kirk and Marc talked about the ballet after serving their missions in Russia. And now I just really love going to the ballet. Kirk claims the best version he's ever seen of The Nutcracker was in St. Petersburg... maybe I'll get to see it there one day, but I really enjoyed Ballet West's version this year.

With everything that's been going on, my Christmas cards have not happened this year... maybe Valentines Day cards instead? But Happy Christmas to all... Love, Peace and Joy.