i love this kid...

Mal borrowed my new running headband

shamelessly stolen from allison

proof that there was snow on the ground yesterday:
aren't they cute?

oops...

yes, i know i've been terrible at bloggin lately. but, i have been working A LOT. so, here is a quick summary of my life (yes, it will be in list format because i like organization... makes me feel a little more in control):

1. i started going to BSF on Monday nights... i like being back in a structured Bible study
2. my mom came to visit!!! unfortunately, i have no pictures. not too happy about that. BUT,
a. she brought me salsa verde chips, mexican rice, and coffee... i'm pretty sure she had more food in her suitcase than clothes.
b. she bought me by christmas present... much needed new running shoes
c. we had the perfect weather while she was here
d. we went to newport and saw the mansions... did the cliffwalk and toured a couple inside
e. we hiked the blue hills with allison, malarie, and allison's mom
f. we went grocery shopping at least twice and made some lasagna for me to freeze. i have more food in my apartment than i have ever had.
g. we did the tufts 10k for women with 7,000 other ladies
h. my mom successfully rode the subway by herself to the airport
3. i've found my weeks are much more tolerable when i don't work the weekends so i've taken the last couple of days and done some things for myself
a. yesterday i babysat mal and whitney, made chili and vegetable soup to freeze, and made an apple pie completely from scratch
b. today allison and i went to the ymca after church and played some pickup basketball with the boys. we dominated and it was awesome.
5. i bought my first snow shovel today. seriously snowing hard core outside right now. i may have to turn on the heater in the near future.
6. my small group for church was canceled for the third week in a row...this leaves a void in my week

this is my life

Health lesson of the day: I wrote a 20 page paper on the HPA axis (hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal) the major part of the neuroendocrine system that deals with stress... but i'll spare you the details and give a short overview i stole off the internet

The physiological effects of stress:
Seventy-five to ninety percent of all doctors visits are due to stress-related ailments and stress-related disorders. Chronic acute stress leads to an out of balance biochemistry with elevated cortisol and suppressed serotonin. These biochemical markers of stress in turn lead to ill health and psychosocial disorders. Consequently, stress plays a major causative role in both physical and mental health.
--increased catecholamines
-- increased corticotropin
--increased cortisol
Chronic stress creates excessive levels of cortisol in the brain, impairing the function of the hippocampus, leading to neuronal atrophy and destruction of neurons, decreased short term and contextual memory, and poor regulation of the endocrine response to stress.
--neuoronal atrophy and destruction of neurons
--decreased short term memory
--decreased contextual memory
Chronic stress affects the immune system by increasing sympathetic activity and decreasing cellular immunity. Immune cells migrate to different parts of the body and can worsen autoimmune and allergic conditions. Over time, this creates a suppression of the natural positive acute mobilization of immune cells to the point of challenge.
--increased sympathetic activity decreases cellular immunity
The effects of chronic stress can create significant damage to the cardiovascular system by increasing the risk of coronary artery disease, elevating blood pressure, increasing atherosclerosis, increasing risk of myocardial infarction, increasing the risk of diabetes, and increasing the likelihood of obesity.

Basically, not only am i becoming incredibly unhealthy, i'm getting dumber as well. great.

speaking of dumb, i was doing a couple hill runs (jogs) in the parking lot tonight since it was pitch black when i got home from work (again). i had put hand weights at the top to do some bicep curls in between sets. about the fifth run up i realized i only had one hand weight at the top instead of the two i started with. i must have not put the weight back in the divet i was using to hold it in place and i guess it rolled away. only me.

side note, in case you don't get a newspaper or watch tv:
DELL ACQUIRES PEROT SYSTEMS FOR $3.9 BILLION

don't worry, we found out today they'll be paying cash. not really sure exactly what it means at this point. dell has said they aren't wanting to downsize us but every merger comes with some sort of reorganization. all i know is that by january dell will be paying my salary and my benefits. who knows, maybe i'll get a new laptop.

oh, whitney

this is a girl after my heart:

she was trying to block out the sounds of her mommy yelling at her to stop climbing on things:

obviously, this is not whitney, but i absolutely love this picture of nate and his boys:

day trippin'

on saturday, my friend, jennifer, and i went to new hampshire and hiked mt. monadnock. then, we went to the beach. we had perfect weather and beautiful scenery. all-in-all a great day.


nobody warned me you were supposed to be experienced

a clearing about 1/3 of the way up

apparently everybody in the north east decided to hike on saturday. the point of the picture is to see how straight up the "trail" is

from the top:

rocks:

seriously, straight up and slippery

token feet picture

dear God, thanks for making mountains

ugh. i thought i had these in order, but apprently not.

house on the beach. looks a little fairytaleish to me. i expect a carosel

feet

kind of looks like a picture in a magazine

rule for the beach: no nudity

seagull

sailboats

beach houses

rock that looks like a flower

august happenings

this is simply going to be a post of stolen pictures.

i'm heartbroken that i couldn't be at radhika's wedding; apparently it was amazing.

some of the henna on radhika for her wedding. check out the level of detail. normally it takes 8-10 hours, but radhika is small so it only took 5-6:

arms. her feet are just as detailed:

wedding day. technically, i think it was wedding day two, but this was at the ceremony. beautiful:

the happy couple:

Mr. and Mrs. Patel:

with trina at the reception:

whitney has started walking and is getting into everything. seriously, you can't leave her alone for two seconds or she has climbed onto something dangerous or destroyed everything in her path. but, she sure looks cute doing it.

she loves climbing onto the dining room chairs. this time eating mal's breakfast:

mal turned 5! she had a puppy/pool party and couldn't have been more excited. this kid is obsessed with puppies. allison did an amazing job making the party perfect.

puppy pinata (side note: allison and dave installed a new sliding door you can see in the background):

bone cake. there was also bone shaped watermelon and bone shaped jello jigglers:

puppy ears for the hair. a puppy collar. a puppy shirt:

since it is rainy/nasty i decided to make french onion soup last night. it was delicious!