Well, now you do. Today I notarized my first official document. Thats right kids, I'm a NOTARY PUBLIC. I feel so...... special, grown up, professional, and important. Well, at least stabilized and remotely indispensible at work, which is a good feeling. Folks at the office asked me to become a Notary a few months ago - given the high volume of documents requiring notarization. We have two notaries in the office, but between vacation time, what nots, and sundry items that take us and our co-workers away from the office, there should always be at least one available. So, here I am! Ready to.... notarize!
I studied for a total of 4 hours for the state exam and passed. Weird rules include me not being able to charge more than $2 for my services and not being able to work "in cahoots" with an attorney or to present myself as knowledgeable about wills. :) That said, I want my $2!
Thursday, December 30, 2010
Thursday, December 16, 2010
New kitchen table
We got a new kitchen table for Christmas (seats 6) and fits perfectly in our pad! Before we were using a card table and/or a table for two. Happy day. Wanna come over for dinner? 
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Christmas Letter 2010
Dear Family and Friends,
Merry Christmas! We hope your 2010 was fabulous. We are grateful for your love and friendships and are so blessed to have you in our lives. Here’s an update of sorts on us:
Peter is in his 2nd year of oral and maxillofacial surgery internship and is very happy. He’s at St. Luke’s Hospital in Manhattan – on the upper West side by Central Park, Columbia University and the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. Last year he was at the Brooklyn Hospital Center, which was horrendous, but St. Luke’s is much better. In Peter’s words, “last year was hell and now I’m in heaven.” Truly, everything is relative. The hours are reasonable, he often gets a lunch break and finishes before 6pm.
We live directly across the street from the hospital, so he can take call from home and just walk across the street for calls at 3am to repair facial lacerations, drain abscesses, wire a fractured jaw, or put a dislocated mandible back in place. Some large lacerations can take an hour or more to suture which gives him time to preach the gospel of cooperation with police officers, avoiding violence and retaliation, etc.... He says that most sermons are received either well or quietly. Unfortunately, such emergency room repentance is often short-lived. Clinic work during the day includes extraction of teeth, placing implants, working up cases for corrective jaw surgery, treating TMJ pain, infections, tumors, and cancer of the head and neck.
Peter will have completed two OMFS internships (similar to 1st year residency experience) this June 30, and hopes to be accepted into a four-year residency program beginning July 1. He had five interviews recently – four in NYC and one in Morgantown, WV. We find out early February about acceptance, so we are keeping our fingers crossed, saying our prayers, and trying to be nice as opposed to naughty until then.
Allison works full-time in the financial industry as an Administrative Assistant. Its not her first choice (or second, third or fourth), but it beats unemployment, and its enabled us to pay off some major debt from our first six months in NYC. We are grateful to the Lord for this tremendous blessing. With a masters degree in History, she feels somewhat overqualified for said position, but sucks it up daily to pay for our exhorbitant NYC rent. She faxes, files, scans, shreds, copies, and emails mountains of documents related to the hedge funds’ investments for 9-10 hours a day. Variety on this routine includes data entry (around 900 monthly account statements), chasing down performance estimates, and calling to secure tax documents that are late for each quarter. Her office is situated on the 35th floor of One Penn Plaza in midtown Manhattan – across the street from Madison Square Garden, and diagonal from Macy’s on 34th Street and the post office on 33rd – the largest one in the world and its open 24 hours a day! She was a temporary employee for six months, but was hired on full-time September 1st. She played soccer a few times on the office co-ed team to help meet the gender ratios this past fall. Ridiclous to say the least. First time playing soccer. Ever. And it was obvious.
Peter just got called to be the Family History Coordinator in our ward and Allison serves as the Education Counselor in the Relief Society. Allison has recently joined a humanitarian organization to aid Ethopian children and families - Hope Arising: http://hopearising.org/, and finds fulfillment in being involved as the NYC Director. She aims to organize a fundraiser sometime this coming Spring.
We enjoy being so close to the Manhattan temple (its about 50 blocks south) and all of the exciting things in NYC life. We often go rollerblading or bike riding together when the weather is nice, and hope to get to all of the museums before our undetermined stint on the north-east coast comes to an end. And because we don’t yet have children, we regularly get plenty of sleep and exercise – two of our favorite past times! And yours I’m sure, so we hope that last comment didn’t sting too much.
We love the Savior, His gospel, and His church. We rejoice in His birth and this season to celebrate that glorious event.
Merry Christmas! Much love, Peter & Allison
Merry Christmas! We hope your 2010 was fabulous. We are grateful for your love and friendships and are so blessed to have you in our lives. Here’s an update of sorts on us:
Peter is in his 2nd year of oral and maxillofacial surgery internship and is very happy. He’s at St. Luke’s Hospital in Manhattan – on the upper West side by Central Park, Columbia University and the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. Last year he was at the Brooklyn Hospital Center, which was horrendous, but St. Luke’s is much better. In Peter’s words, “last year was hell and now I’m in heaven.” Truly, everything is relative. The hours are reasonable, he often gets a lunch break and finishes before 6pm.
We live directly across the street from the hospital, so he can take call from home and just walk across the street for calls at 3am to repair facial lacerations, drain abscesses, wire a fractured jaw, or put a dislocated mandible back in place. Some large lacerations can take an hour or more to suture which gives him time to preach the gospel of cooperation with police officers, avoiding violence and retaliation, etc.... He says that most sermons are received either well or quietly. Unfortunately, such emergency room repentance is often short-lived. Clinic work during the day includes extraction of teeth, placing implants, working up cases for corrective jaw surgery, treating TMJ pain, infections, tumors, and cancer of the head and neck.
Peter will have completed two OMFS internships (similar to 1st year residency experience) this June 30, and hopes to be accepted into a four-year residency program beginning July 1. He had five interviews recently – four in NYC and one in Morgantown, WV. We find out early February about acceptance, so we are keeping our fingers crossed, saying our prayers, and trying to be nice as opposed to naughty until then.
Allison works full-time in the financial industry as an Administrative Assistant. Its not her first choice (or second, third or fourth), but it beats unemployment, and its enabled us to pay off some major debt from our first six months in NYC. We are grateful to the Lord for this tremendous blessing. With a masters degree in History, she feels somewhat overqualified for said position, but sucks it up daily to pay for our exhorbitant NYC rent. She faxes, files, scans, shreds, copies, and emails mountains of documents related to the hedge funds’ investments for 9-10 hours a day. Variety on this routine includes data entry (around 900 monthly account statements), chasing down performance estimates, and calling to secure tax documents that are late for each quarter. Her office is situated on the 35th floor of One Penn Plaza in midtown Manhattan – across the street from Madison Square Garden, and diagonal from Macy’s on 34th Street and the post office on 33rd – the largest one in the world and its open 24 hours a day! She was a temporary employee for six months, but was hired on full-time September 1st. She played soccer a few times on the office co-ed team to help meet the gender ratios this past fall. Ridiclous to say the least. First time playing soccer. Ever. And it was obvious.
Peter just got called to be the Family History Coordinator in our ward and Allison serves as the Education Counselor in the Relief Society. Allison has recently joined a humanitarian organization to aid Ethopian children and families - Hope Arising: http://hopearising.org/, and finds fulfillment in being involved as the NYC Director. She aims to organize a fundraiser sometime this coming Spring.
We enjoy being so close to the Manhattan temple (its about 50 blocks south) and all of the exciting things in NYC life. We often go rollerblading or bike riding together when the weather is nice, and hope to get to all of the museums before our undetermined stint on the north-east coast comes to an end. And because we don’t yet have children, we regularly get plenty of sleep and exercise – two of our favorite past times! And yours I’m sure, so we hope that last comment didn’t sting too much.
We love the Savior, His gospel, and His church. We rejoice in His birth and this season to celebrate that glorious event.
Merry Christmas! Much love, Peter & Allison
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
A trip to IKEA
Getting around can be quite a time consuming chore in NYC, especially if you're schlepping stuff. Take a trip to IKEA, for example. Its located on the mid-western tip of Brooklyn in an area called Red Hook. There are no subway stops nearby, so without a car, you must either take the subway to Brooklyn and then hop on a bus. Or, you can take the subway to the southern tip of Manhattan and catch a ferry ride to Red Hook. IKEA's brokered a deal with a boat company where they provide "free" transportation to and from IKEA as long as you spend $5 when you're there. The ferry costs $5, but its deducted from your total purchase at check-out upon presentation of your ferry receipt. Not a bad gig, eh? Its a nice 15 minute boat ride, but the total trip seems to take forever!
I went there in July to acquire a few things for our new apartment and had to take a cab home because my stuff was too cumbersome to handle by myself up and down the stairs on the subway. $45 cab. Ouch. One hour in traffic....one way. The ferry only goes every 40 minutes, so you have to try and time your subway travel appropriately. Yeah, right. In July I arrived 10 minutes after a ferry departure so had to wait 30 minutes. If you're killing time the view's not bad, as the Brooklyn Bridge spans the East River in the backdrop.
Dreading another cumbersome trip alone, I told Peter he was coming with me to schlepp the stuff last Saturday. I had a few things to return from July. We met up at 3:00pm and took the subway to downtown on the east side of the financial district. We walked a few blocks and arrived at Slip B at 3:46pm to learn that the 3:40pm ferry had just departed. We decided to grab an early dinner at Subway since the next departure was at 4:20pm. It was very cold so we ran back and forth to warm up! We caught the 4:20 and arrived at IKEA at 4:38pm. We weren't doing any shopping this trip, just returning stuff. Peter bought 15 chocolate hazelnut bars at $1 each while I waited in line. They told me my receipt was too old for returns, so I only got store credit. Grrr...
We froze while waiting outside, but caught the 5:20 return ferry. We arrived home (upper W side of Manhattan by Central Park) around 6:30pm. Imagine if we had squeezed in any time for shopping!?
I shouldn't complain. Despite the time commitment, it was a fun trip and we got two boat rides! Peter was a good schlepper and his regular witty self, making my trip very enjoyable.
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Goodbye Omaha!
I. love. Omaha. Its the place where I met my dreamboat husband 10 years ago. Its the place where we were newlyweds and lived for four years of dental school at Creighton (2005-2009). In Omaha, I got my master's degree in Medieval and Renaissance History and taught Italian for two years - both at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. Its where my in-laws became my BFF's. We spend numerous weekends at their cozy three bedroom home so that Peter could clerk for hours on a Saturday night and I'd still be entertained. Plus, it was close to church, so we'd be able to get there quickly on a snowy Sunday morning. Ah, Omaha. Vivid memories include: living at Drake Court same time as Eric & Cass & Patalie, hanging out with Barb & Levi Murray, attending Elmwood Ward, roller blading the trails with Peter, going to Creighton gym, going to UNO gym, thesis research & writing, planning activities with the Faith in God girls, teaching Relief Society, throwing amazing Halloween parties with Mary, singing with Melanie Bartlett & Lauri Cunningham, lots of board games, Kristy White's baptism and friendship, Natalie still on her mission when she met Patrick (getting a tour at trail center from Sister Harwood), making a gingerbread creation with Mary, going to movies with Steven, etc, etc...
Recently, my father-in-law found a job in Scottsdale, AZ, requiring he and Mary to move. Their home is for sale in Omaha, and so a few of us had one last shin-dig reunion there last weekend. Eric, Andrea, Amy and I flew out for four days. No grandkids except baby Autum, and no spouses. An eclectic but fabulous group. We went to the temple, had a 2nd Thanksgiving dinner, saw a movie or three (Harry Potter, Social Network, the Namesake), played games (I let Eric beat me twice at the Train Game), and generally relaxed and reminisced. We caught up with old friends at church and went shopping (I may have shopped more than the others).
Once Mary & Steven move to AZ, its unlikely that we'll make it back to Omaha much. We all said a heartfelt goodbye to this wonderful place of dear memories and amazing people! Goodbye Omaha! How I love thee and all that you represent.
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