Simple Pleasures

Today I had a really fantastic day in the clinic.  Not only were all of the ladies I saw pleasant and interesting, but the issues they had going on were fascinating as well.  I love days when there is a lot of variety and/or things I don't get to see very often.  My top three from today:

3.  A strawberry cervix

2.  Anal yeast infection with quite an impressive anal fissure

1.  A large Bartholin's abscess that I got to drain a huge amount of gooey pus out of.  Delicious!

If any of these words don't look familiar to you, I suggest you don't Google them, but instead go straight to YouTube.  Trust me on this.  It will be worth your while.  Let's just say it's pretty marvelous being a nurse midwife.

Today was really just icing on the cake after what I saw on Friday while Jared and I were on our way to pick up the littles from school:

That's right friends.  A gnome village right on someone's front lawn.  They also had some gnomes climbing their trees, but I was so excited about their main display, I couldn't be bothered to document anything else.  Plus, I have stopped in front of their house three times already to admire their artistry, so I didn't want to spend time taking a bunch of pics like a gawping idiot.  After all, I don't really want the owners to know how weird I really am, mainly so they won't call the cops when they see me coming. Well played gnome lovers.  I admire your balls for having something so ridiculous on your lawn...

I was really satisfied with my day so far and would have been happy to crawl into bed and thank the heavens for my lucky life.  But better still was what I found downstairs when I got home:

Yep.  My sweet lover has finally framed in my fruit room.  I still have to tile the floor, sheetrock, paint, hang a door...  Ok, I have a lot left to do.  But still, seeing that room framed absolutely made my day.  I Snapchatted about it, then made a video of me bugging Hannah about it:

It was then that I realized one of my most treasured simple pleasures is yelling at Hannah.  I have lots of examples of me doing this over the years.  Here are just two of my favorite examples from the last few months:

Glorious.  I live a blessed life.  How in the world am I ever going to continue being happy once Hannah moves out?  Guess I'm just going to have to fill the void with more of these:

First Day of Spring - Reprise

One year ago today, I was at the Ice Cream Barn with my friends, Renee and Kelsey.  We waited in line for over an hour on the opening day of the season for some of the best ice cream New England has to offer.  The yearly opening of the ice cream stands, frozen lemonade stands, and the clam shacks in New England, has become one of the things I look forward to the most.  Rhode Island absolutely shines in the summer and if the ice cream stands begin to open - well that just means warm weather, walks on the beach in my bare feet, and the sound of the waves in my ears with a lobster roll shoved in my gob aren't far off.  The best part about this year's opening was that my family was with me.  We had a nice dinner with Renee and Kelsey, followed by a fight with Hannah where she stomped off screaming and yelling about how she was staying at home, and ended with a delicious waffle cone in our hands.  Best of all, I saved 6 bucks because Hannah stayed home.  That's 6 bucks I get to use on another waffle cone for myself...  or maybe 6 Diet Dr. Pepper refills in my giant insulated mug.  Win for me.  Here's a shot from the festivities:

We only waited 15 minutes to get in this year.  There was a line out the door by the time we left, but it was colder this year than last and there was snow on the ground, so I think it kept everyone but the truly committed ice cream freaks out of my way.  Praise.  I also wanted Jared to drive by our local Del's today for some much needed frozen lemonade, but I decided to spread my joy out a little.  Therefore, I might save my 6 bucks for the Del's trucks I know I will start to see driving around everywhere soon enough.

What else happened today?  Well, my wet dry vac finally died after about 10 years of abuse including at least 1,000 gallons of water sucked up from various accidents and floods over the years.  I didn't want to let the poor gal go because she's been so good to us...  Ok, it's really because I'm cheap and didn't want to spring for a new one.  However, I know what life is like without a good shop vac, so off to Home Depot we went.  I dropped 120 bucks on a bigger and stronger model than I had before.  Jared was so happy he named him R7 D4 because he thought he looked like a Star Wars droid.  He was also VERY pleased with how much bigger the R7's hose was:

Normally I would say that size isn't everything, but in the case of a shop vac it totally is.  You can't believe the stuff I've tried to suck up with my shop vac because I'm too lazy to use a broom on my construction sites.  How wonderful to know I have twice the diameter to get crap stuck in the hose with.  Money well spent.  As I mentioned before, R7 is quite a bit bigger than my old machine.  How much bigger?

If it wasn't for the filter, Bub would have been able to fit inside with the lid on.  That translates into more room for all the water and/or trash that I plan to suck up with R7.  14 Gallons to be exact.  Best part of my purchase?  Bub and Lily started fighting over the box that R7 came in and kept trying to tape each other back into the box.  Their behavior caused Jared to yell at them to stop wasting his tape.  Yeah, because the tape is the most important part of the nonsense going on here:

      Welcome Spring.  I'm glad to see you.  Let's do it again next year...