Yesterday was my birthday. I turned 26. About 45 minutes before I had to leave, I discovered that somehow a database with all the data I have collected for one of our studies was messed up. Messed up as in the last 4 months of data are GONE (we have hard copies, but man is that a pain in the ass to re-enter). Panic for about 40 minutes, then realize that there is nothing in there after August 7, and come to the conclusion that somehow the file got switched with an old, backed-up version yesterday, and breathe a big sigh of relief. Hopefully I will be able to find the most recent version on Monday and not have to re-enter lots and lots of data. On the upside though, nobody forgot my birthday! Last year my mom didn't call me because she'd talked to me the day before, and my dad just plain forgot. Add some crazy fun 3 weeks postpartum hormones, and it made me pretty darn upset. This year though, everybody called me! It's the little things in life, really...C made me some fantastic potroast for dinner last night though, and it went very very well with the wine he got me for Christmas.
Onto today. I took today off from work, since I had to process sputum yesterday (if you don't know what sputum is, it's exactly what the word sounds like it should be). The plan: take the car to get the brakes done, take J to get his portrait done at Kiddie Kandids (free portraits for birthdays! You get a free 8x10, or if you're smooth like me you can finagle 2 5x7s instead), then go to the zoo with my big sisters and the kiddos.
Reality: Took the car in at 8:00am, they inspect the brakes, etc and return to tell us that the rotors had been machined down way too thin by the previous brake maintenance that had been done on the car (before we had it), so they wore out much faster than they should have, and that was why we were having the metal-on-metal grinding. Well, that and we waited a while before taking it in. Pricetag? $502. Yep. Bonus? Yeah, our timing belt should have been replaced 10K miles ago. Pricetag for that plus the water pump? $833, after tax. Yippee! Nothing like getting new brakes and a new timing belt for my birthday. So we're taking the car back tomorrow to get the timing belt done. By the time the brakes were done, it was 10:30, which was when the appointment at KK was for. J was getting hungry, and needed a clean diaper, and so I figured it was late enough I may as well take care of him. The family bathroom at the mall does not have a changing table, so I laid J on the counter and he promptly flips his legs into the sink. The automatic sink. Which promptly turned on and soaked his pants. Paper towels to the rescue! Nurse the toddler for a few minutes and off we went to the studio. Since we missed our appointment, we couldn't get in until 11:15. We were supposed to meet my sisters at 12:00, which ended up being 1:00. We did get some really great pictures and I got my 2 free 5x7s (no need to even buy a package).
Onward to the zoo! There were my sisters and I, plus two almost-4-year-olds plus an 18-month-old, plus J, and my sister N is pregnant with twins so she was more than a little worn out by the end. In all though it was lots of fun. We went through the Tropical Discovery, which was really cool. J liked looking at the fish and the turtles. I don't think he actually noticed the other stuff too much, other than maybe the giraffes. Plus we saw the Malaysian Tapir dancing and playing around, and making squeaky snorty noises. The older kids kept asking what would eat them or kill them (morbid, I know), and a peacock actually stole part of J's sandwich right out of his hand. The kid didn't even react, but the rest of us got a good laugh out of it.
And that was my busy, busy birthday celebration.
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