overdue update

Many apologies for not making any updates to my blog lately. My husband has been much more dependable than me. I thought I would just begin with a funny pictures of our cat, Wayne, nuzzling his body into a bag. He seems to always find a way to fit his body into small spaces.


The last month has been very full and it's amazing to me that the holiday season has rushed in so fast. I can officially say that I defended by thesis this last month, which is a huge relief, and now I have a few more weeks to wrap things up before submitting my thesis to a journal for publication. The whole process has been quite trying at times and I can definitively say that I've grown in patience and perseverance.
Our thanksgiving holiday turned out to be a wonderful day full of special memories with family and friends from church. Tim's family tradition over the years has involved participating in a walk/race around a major park in the city called the "Turkey Trott." Almost 10,000 people showed up to trott around the park and burn some calories before the feast began later in the day. It is also tradition for walkers to bring dogs along and Sierra was almost over-stimulated with all the people and dogs all around her, but she pulled-trotted the whole 4 miles! The Thanksgiving meal was spent at Tim's parent's house and it was a special treat to have my mom and stepdad in town to join in the holiday. With some of the extra time over the holiday weekend, Tim and I took a hike on a trail that took us meandering through farm fields with views of the Flatirons that make Boulder, CO so beautiful!

I have been really influenced and inspired lately by reading about a public health doctor named Paul Farmer who heads up an organization called Partner's in Health. I just finished reading a book about his life called "Mountains beyong Mountains" (Tim also mentioned it in his blog) and now I'm reading a book he wrote called "AIDS and Accusation." His life has been spent advocating for the health care needs of people in the poorest countries around the world and it's been inspiring to see the ways he has impacted literally millions of people by bringing in health care resources to fight epidemics like Tuberculosis and AIDS, advocating for primary health care as a human right in circles such as WHO and International AIDS conferences, and traveling to far reaching rural villages to take health assessments and visit patients across communities in Peru, Rwanda, and Haiti.
Reading about his work has reignited a passion in me to pursue training as a nurse and hopefully I can effectively combine this medical training with my public health background for medical missions in the future.