Most of you have followed my journey long enough to know that as part of my divorce I am selling my house in the hope that I can start a new life and move forward. Unfortunately, as the housing market continues to crash I am near the point now where I can no longer sell it for what the mortgage is. To help me keep my house my parents will be moving in with me this weekend and we will begin to share expenses in the hope that I can save enough money to be able to pay the mortgage when Ted stops. Of course all of this is a bitter pill to swallow. I had so many hopes and dreams that I would be able to start over and even maybe begin to live my dream of being a professor. Unfortunately, without the sale of my house those things will not happen. That I now have to have my parents move in with me in order to hopefully keep a house I don’t want and avoid financial ruin is difficult. The hardest part of this is probably the fact that if the house had been finished soon after things began the market was so hot then we could have easily sold it and even made a profit.
Of course, Tiger Lily and I will make the best of it and I am blessed to have parents who are willing to live with me in order to keep us in the house. I think Babe is probably even happier since she loves my dad!
Friday, February 27, 2009
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Let's go Caps! 1 and 2
We're off to a hockey game tonight with some friends and we're very excited!!! I got tickets pretty close to center ice, but several rows up since I'm such a puck magnet (no comments!!!). This will be Tiger Lily's first hockey game but hopefully not the last. I promise to take pictures and will post them....
Let's go Caps and a rousing "he shoots, he scores, hey goalie you *#!K" for old times sake. Only the Ice Cats fans out there know that one but....
More later.
Part 2
Figured I'd just add to this post rather than start a new one. We had a great time and will be going again. We had great seats, the game was a good one (two fights!), the Caps look good and Tiger Lily is hoarse from shouting.
I do want to say thank you to my anonymous friend that is always encouraging me to rediscover all the fun things I used to do.
Have a good weekend everybody.
Let's go Caps and a rousing "he shoots, he scores, hey goalie you *#!K" for old times sake. Only the Ice Cats fans out there know that one but....
More later.
Part 2
Figured I'd just add to this post rather than start a new one. We had a great time and will be going again. We had great seats, the game was a good one (two fights!), the Caps look good and Tiger Lily is hoarse from shouting.
I do want to say thank you to my anonymous friend that is always encouraging me to rediscover all the fun things I used to do.
Have a good weekend everybody.
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
How to measure success
A couple postings ago I wrote about using your mind well and I touched on what makes someone successful. I recently had a conversation with a friend who is a teacher. She works with at risk kids and she was very proud of the fact that several of her students who had never earned any other grade besides an F were now earning Bs and Cs. She was also disillusioned by the fact that she received a poor performance review because her supervisor felt that she did not have “proper classroom control” with students sitting in a row being quiet. It made me think about how we measure success in our jobs and our lives. For my friend, success was helping her students earn good grades, for her supervisor it is keeping the students under control. Whose measure is correct?
We all measure success differently, for some having lots of money, toys, a job with a fancy title and a house that others envy is the only measure of success. Although this is a perfectly good measure of success I’m not sure that how others perceive me is the measuring stick I want to use to determine how successful my life is. As I travel along the journey to rediscover myself I want to be more like my friend who measures her success by how she positively impacts the lives of those around her. I consider myself to be a successful parent because my child is such a joy to have in my life and the lives of others. The next step for me is to figure out how else I can be successful…
We all measure success differently, for some having lots of money, toys, a job with a fancy title and a house that others envy is the only measure of success. Although this is a perfectly good measure of success I’m not sure that how others perceive me is the measuring stick I want to use to determine how successful my life is. As I travel along the journey to rediscover myself I want to be more like my friend who measures her success by how she positively impacts the lives of those around her. I consider myself to be a successful parent because my child is such a joy to have in my life and the lives of others. The next step for me is to figure out how else I can be successful…
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Weekend Fun
As you can see from the picture Tiger Lily and I spent Saturday getting our hair done. I, hopefully, have lost the blond streak that has taken over my life and Tiger Lily is expressing her fun side!! We had fun together and she is absolutely thrilled at how great the highlights turned out. She kept her eyes closed the whole time so that she would have a great "reveal" when it was done and I wish I had taken a picture then!!
We spent Saturday night curled up in bed watching "Grease" and being girls. Still one of our favorite movies. It's snowing today so we watched "Pride and Prejudice" this morning (the one with Kiera Knightly). It still amazes me how a woman who lived 200 years ago could write 3 books that are the basis of 90% of the romance novels and movies that are still being written/produced today. Of course, everyone wants to meet their very own Mr. Darcy.... We are going to watch Madagascar 2 and the race this afternoon and enjoy the fact that we don't have to be anywhere!
Hope everyone has a great week.
We spent Saturday night curled up in bed watching "Grease" and being girls. Still one of our favorite movies. It's snowing today so we watched "Pride and Prejudice" this morning (the one with Kiera Knightly). It still amazes me how a woman who lived 200 years ago could write 3 books that are the basis of 90% of the romance novels and movies that are still being written/produced today. Of course, everyone wants to meet their very own Mr. Darcy.... We are going to watch Madagascar 2 and the race this afternoon and enjoy the fact that we don't have to be anywhere!
Hope everyone has a great week.
Thursday, February 19, 2009
ASCO Update
I promised to give a brief summary of the ASCO meeting from December but was so busy being a single again it sort of got pushed down the list, sorry.
I’m only going to talk about the news for premenopausal women with hormone receptor-positive breast cancer, sorry a little self centered but if you want to know about postmenopausal or receptor negative let me know.
Still the only hormone treatment for premenopausal women is Tamoxifen, there is a lot of exciting research into aromatase inhibitors (AIs) but these are only for postmenopausal women. These are superior to Tamoxifen but I’m still premenopausal so no luck.
The only exciting news for women in my category is the addition of Zometa ® which is used for the treatment of cancer-related hypercalcemia (high levels of calcium in the blood) and of bone metastases in patients with advanced cancers. Zometa has been found to have anticancer effects and also prevents bone loss which is a side effect of using anti- estrogen therapies. The current clinical trial is in its fourth year and so far women that were treated with tamoxifen and Zometa had a 94% disease-free survival rate compared with 90% disease free survival for women who received hormonal therapy alone. The trial is still ongoing but an increase of 4% can mean a lot. The results are even more promising for women with later stage disease.
There wasn’t much discussion about tamoxifen resistance except that they are developing tests to detect it in women taking the drug. They do know that tamoxifen loses its effect over time which means that more research needs to be done to find other treatments for premenopausal women.
So, not a lot of exciting news for women in my category but, we have such a high survival rate I think the research and the money is going to the patients who aren’t as lucky, as it should be.
If anyone wants to hear about other news from the meeting let me know….
I’m only going to talk about the news for premenopausal women with hormone receptor-positive breast cancer, sorry a little self centered but if you want to know about postmenopausal or receptor negative let me know.
Still the only hormone treatment for premenopausal women is Tamoxifen, there is a lot of exciting research into aromatase inhibitors (AIs) but these are only for postmenopausal women. These are superior to Tamoxifen but I’m still premenopausal so no luck.
The only exciting news for women in my category is the addition of Zometa ® which is used for the treatment of cancer-related hypercalcemia (high levels of calcium in the blood) and of bone metastases in patients with advanced cancers. Zometa has been found to have anticancer effects and also prevents bone loss which is a side effect of using anti- estrogen therapies. The current clinical trial is in its fourth year and so far women that were treated with tamoxifen and Zometa had a 94% disease-free survival rate compared with 90% disease free survival for women who received hormonal therapy alone. The trial is still ongoing but an increase of 4% can mean a lot. The results are even more promising for women with later stage disease.
There wasn’t much discussion about tamoxifen resistance except that they are developing tests to detect it in women taking the drug. They do know that tamoxifen loses its effect over time which means that more research needs to be done to find other treatments for premenopausal women.
So, not a lot of exciting news for women in my category but, we have such a high survival rate I think the research and the money is going to the patients who aren’t as lucky, as it should be.
If anyone wants to hear about other news from the meeting let me know….
Monday, February 16, 2009
Weekend is officially over
Well, Tiger Lily is home after her long weekend—I missed her terribly as always. I don’t think that will ever stop.
We had a great time at the DC101 Daytona party and I hopefully will post a picture of two of us at the party. The party was hosted by Miller Lite so we got a few gifts for a racing buddy that is a Miller Lite fan. We met a lot of people and enjoyed the crowd. The race wasn’t so great and luckily none of us are Jr. fans since he was definitely not the most popular guy there. It was fun to stick my toe in the water the big question now is, do I return a phone call or not?
Back to work tomorrow—since I was there most of the weekend it always makes the work week longer but I did get a lot accomplished. My paper is probably delayed again as we now have more experiments to do to prove our point. It never ends and this is what I really love about science!
Have a great week.
We had a great time at the DC101 Daytona party and I hopefully will post a picture of two of us at the party. The party was hosted by Miller Lite so we got a few gifts for a racing buddy that is a Miller Lite fan. We met a lot of people and enjoyed the crowd. The race wasn’t so great and luckily none of us are Jr. fans since he was definitely not the most popular guy there. It was fun to stick my toe in the water the big question now is, do I return a phone call or not?
Back to work tomorrow—since I was there most of the weekend it always makes the work week longer but I did get a lot accomplished. My paper is probably delayed again as we now have more experiments to do to prove our point. It never ends and this is what I really love about science!
Have a great week.
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Use Your Mind Well
Rene Descartes once said “It is not enough to have a good mind; the main thing is to use it well.”
Someone asked me the other day what is the most important quality someone should possess if they want to get a PhD in science. I can’t really say there is any one in particular but I have seen people who aren’t brilliant get a PhD simply because they have the perseverance to keep looking until they find the answer that they know is right. Perhaps that is the best quality to have. I would never say that I am a brilliant scientist, I love what I do and I love science which is important. What got me through grad school was probably more perseverance than anything else. Anyone who has worked with me as a scientist knows that I will sometimes repeat the same experiment many times if I get an answer I don’t believe—most of the time the answer is just too good to be true which is why I’ll repeat it. Anyone who knows me outside of science knows that I will not stop until I have the full story and completely understand why, how and when and if I can’t get resolution I’ll just keep asking until I find what I need to know. So to answer my friend’s question, to get a PhD in science you must be stubborn, curious, love to solve things, and above all use your mind well.
What does this have to do with my journey, nothing but I did say I was going to sometimes just blog about off the wall stuff. If in the end it starts a discussion about what people think it takes to be successful so be it, if not well….at least I answered my friend’s question. My personality quirks are all my own, but I do not give up until I know the answer which is just me.
Someone asked me the other day what is the most important quality someone should possess if they want to get a PhD in science. I can’t really say there is any one in particular but I have seen people who aren’t brilliant get a PhD simply because they have the perseverance to keep looking until they find the answer that they know is right. Perhaps that is the best quality to have. I would never say that I am a brilliant scientist, I love what I do and I love science which is important. What got me through grad school was probably more perseverance than anything else. Anyone who has worked with me as a scientist knows that I will sometimes repeat the same experiment many times if I get an answer I don’t believe—most of the time the answer is just too good to be true which is why I’ll repeat it. Anyone who knows me outside of science knows that I will not stop until I have the full story and completely understand why, how and when and if I can’t get resolution I’ll just keep asking until I find what I need to know. So to answer my friend’s question, to get a PhD in science you must be stubborn, curious, love to solve things, and above all use your mind well.
What does this have to do with my journey, nothing but I did say I was going to sometimes just blog about off the wall stuff. If in the end it starts a discussion about what people think it takes to be successful so be it, if not well….at least I answered my friend’s question. My personality quirks are all my own, but I do not give up until I know the answer which is just me.
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