Tom Qualified!!!!

Tom passed his qualification exam for his PhD on Thursday! Basically what that means is that he's been given the go-ahead to work on/finish his thesis project. He submitted a written proposal to his committee (of 5-6 professors) about 2 weeks ago. During his qualification exam, he gave an oral presentation about his thesis and the professors could ask him any question about his thesis, previous research done that relates to his thesis, anything he learned in his classes the past 2 years, etc. And he passed! Yay! I'm so happy for him :)

Coupon-mania

So for the past year I've been obsessed with our budget. I look at it, crunch numbers, look at it some more, move around some numbers, look at it some more, and change some more numbers. No matter what I seem to do to the budget, money just never seems to magically appear on it! :)

So I've been trying to cut down on our grocery budget. I've been printing out coupons online for the past 6 months or so (for free) because I'm too cheap to buy the paper........but just recently I found out that the Dollar Store sells the Sunday paper for $1 ($0.50 off....yeah!) So I started buying the paper on Sundays for the coupons (and for the news too, of course ;)

Anyways now I'm obsessed with coupons and finding deals and I can't wait for Sunday to get the paper :) Here are my two best deals from last week:
1) 2 boxes of Betty Crocker Potatoes - Grand total = $0.19
2) Jar of Pickles - Grand total = $0.35
(Yay for double coupons and BOGO sales)

It's like a game! I LOVE going to Publix (local grocery store) and having the "Total Savings" section be more than "Total spent!"

Back to organizing coupons.............



P.S. Tom meets with his committee to qualify for his PhD on Thursday morning at 9 (central time). Please send him good thoughts!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Happy St. Patty's Day!

I love this day :) I don't know whether it's the fact that I get to wear green (favorite color) or the fact that I get to drink beer (favorite beverage). Or some years a combination of the two (green beer!) Today was actually a pretty normal day for me, work, gym, dinner. No green beer. BUT we did have a little St. Patty's Day bash on Saturday that was quite fun. And yesterday the weather was gorgeous......a sunny 74 degrees. Below are a few pics.

Our beer mug cooler :)

Irish Car Bombs for all!!!

"If you don't like the weather, wait 5 minutes"

........Or one week. That's the saying in Alabama. Last weekend was beautiful. Mid 70's both days. Yesterday we woke up to snow!!! OK, not really "snow" in the sense that we are familiar with.....more a "light dusting." But still! Here's a couple of pics of the Great Snow of '08!

View from our balcony

This is the most snow our car has ever seen!

5 1/2 hours and no more information later.........

Thursday evening we spent the entire evening and night in UAB's ER. NOT what we had planned :) Our usual "after work" routine consists of me going to the gym and calling Tom when I'm finished, then we walk to the parking garage and drive home together. Well, Thursday I really didn't feel like going to the gym, so I called Tom when I was finished with work to see if by chance he was ready to go. Turns out he had a lot of work to do, so I figured it was fate telling me to get my lazy butt to the gym so I went. After I was done at the gym I called him again, but he still had more work to do so I decided to run to the library real quick to return some books that were due. Surely by the time I was finished at the library, Tom would be ready to go.......or so I thought. That's where things took a turn.

Tom called me and said that he had gashed his fingers open when a glass pipette broke in his hand and he was cut really bad and he was going to the ER to make sure there wasn't any glass stuck in his hand. I ran out of the library and drove downtown to meet him and we got to the ER around 6:50. About 15 minutes went by and they called us back to triage. They took all his vital signs and told us it shouldn't be a long wait. Then about 10 minutes after that they called us to registration and we filled out all of the paperwork. Then we returned to the waiting room, where one lady sprinted past us with her hand over her mouth and barely made it to the bathroom before she puked, and another guy had about 8 layers of gauze wrapped around his whole head covering his eye. Then of course there was the guy who kept combing his hair and laughing at nothing.....I don't even think he checked in.

So we sat, and sat, and sat......then at 9:30 I couldn't stand it anymore and ran across the street to get some chips from Qdoba (neither of us had eaten anything since lunch!) Around 10 they finally called us back and put us in a room. The medical student came in first and asked a bunch of questions, took off Tom's bandages, and I don't think he was prepared for the gushing blood that came out of his fingers after he took the bandages off. He took a look, determined he knew nothing (sorry...that was mean!), and wrapped them back up. Then the resident came in and decided to get a finger xray to see if there was any glass. Now it was about 10:30.

They decided that they "thought" they saw some glass in his finger so they then proceeded to numb it up with lidocaine and dig around to find the glass. After about 5 minutes of poking and prodding, they found nothing. So they left. Then at 11:00 they decided to get another finger xray to see if they still saw the glass. Around 11:30 Tom got another xray. Then around midnight the attending finally came in and said "Looks like there is still some glass in there but it will work itself out. Just make sure you wash your cuts daily."

So at 12:15 we finally got to leave the ER with no more information than we came in with! They were able to cut away some skin that was barely hanging on, and I do have to admit I would have freaked out if we got home, took the original bandages off, and Tom's fingers started gushing blood everywhere.

Tom's fingers are fine. Now that all of the blood is gone and the extra skin was cut away, the actual cuts look teeny tiny. Thankfully no nerves were cut and there was no permanent damage!