**Caution: Introspection ahead. Skip to bottom for a cute picture of our child**

Man, it feels like forever since I actually wrote anything of substance. I've been thinking about giving up on this bloggin' thing; I feel like I am crushingly shallow when I write anything (which is not even all that often). In the mean time, here's a post:
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"How are you?"

It's a phrase I, like all of you, hear a lot in my daily life. I hear it at least 1/2 dozen times a day from my vet school kindred, I hear it 2 or three times from Matthew, and I hear it about 20 times in a space of an hour and a half every Sunday morning. The baristas at the coffee shops I visit; the cashier at Tesco; the bank teller; the person sitting next to me on the bus; heck, even the guy selling "The Big Issue" on the sidewalk or the girl trying to get me to donate to Marie Curie. It seems strange sometimes that even the shallowest of interactions is often centered around such an in-depth question.

Oh, I know it's not that in-depth to the questioner. They usually want to hear "Fine" or "Pretty good" or the like. If it's a friend, they may want to hear "Well, the baby kept us up last night, but at least I made all my notecards for Endocrinology!" (I didn't yet, by the way.) Matt probably expects an answer that describes how my day up to that point has affected me, or something. But to me, at least, I sometimes stop and wonder: How am I doing?

And it's not an easy question to answer, because I really don't have the time for self-reflection. Except when I'm procrastinating from finishing these dang notecards, that is. I am, generally speaking, one hundred percent consumed with the daily business of living. Get up at 5 and feed Hosea. Wake up at 7ish to get dressed, eat breakfast, check email, make lunch, walk out the door by 8:10. Walk or run to the bus. Chat with my seatmate du jour on the way to the Bush. Go to lectures and practicals, staying more or less awake and trying to ration my food so I don't get too hungry. Go back into town by a variety of methods (shuttle bus, city bus, hitching a ride, teleportation, etc). Feed Hosea, then study for awhile, then feed him again. Play with him, eat dinner, put him to bed, hang out with Matt, fall exhaustedly asleep. Lather, rinse, repeat. It may not sound too intense, but it is for me-- I feel like my nose is about 2cm above water. Introspection is far down on my list of priorities, just below showering and just above cleaning our bathroom (Kayla, come back!).

But how am I? I think I'm alright. We're doing some fun stuff in school right now; I never thought I'd be this interested in small animal diseases, but it's fun (and novel!) to learn how to recognise, diagnose, and treat diseases. In animals. Whee! I feel more like I'm on the path to vet-dom every day, a thought which is alternately terrifying and exhilarating. I found one vet to work with this summer (an equine hospital about 30 minutes from Mom's house), and I'm working on two more. I'm looking forward to Easter break; I'm lambing for 2 weeks and working at a small animal hospital for 1, and relaxing/spending time with my boys/studying like a vet student in the last week.

Apart from school, I'm a little less sure. I've felt hypocrisy sneaking into my interactions with Matt lately-- I tell him that he needs to get out more and do things and interact with people while feeling jealous of my time with him. I'm not sure how to work around that. Any ideas?

I'm finally starting to feel like a mom in some ways. Tonight, Matt took off for 5 or 6 hours to hang out with high-school-aged kids via Scripture Union. I played with Hosea, let him hang out in his high chair while I made myself a (failed attempt at) dinner, gave him nakay tummy time while I ate said dinner, put him in jammies, read to him, and nursed him and put him to bed. Not once in any of that time did I wonder what I was doing, wish Matt was around to help, fear for Hosea's well-being, etc. We just... hung out. And it was grand. Except the dinner--when trying a new recipe, do not convince yourself that one of the three ingredients is probably not necessary. It is.

Spiritually, I'm in kind of a valley right now. It occurred to me the other day that I couldn't even remember the last time I had cracked open my Bible. I think Matt and I are going to try to read Scripture together more frequently. On Sundays, I'm in the creche with Hosea, so I don't hear the word read in Church, and I haven't gone to small groups in a long time because I need to nurse Hosea before he goes to bed or I can't make it 'til morning. I have Christian friends in school, but we don't, like, pray together before class, so it's not really fellowship. I know I should be taking more responsibility for my spiritual discipline, but it's, you know, hard and stuff. I can't even really pray right now, I'm so scattered.

And speaking of scattered, so is this post. I didn't really have anything in mind when I sat down to write it, just figured I'd give you guys more that the obligatory once-weekly picture update/bullets of randomness.

So how are you?
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I call this picture "Childproofing". Note the dirty carpet, the tangle of wires by his right foot, the dangly chokey thing to his left, th important documents withing easy reach, and the sharp pokey-out thing on the drawers. Um, yeah. CPS would probably have words to say to us.