WOW week 37!!!!

I can't believe it. I made it. This thursday I will be 37 weeks pregnant. That is term and I have wondered many a time whether I would ever get here. This summer has been very intense so I have tried to spend the last few weeks relaxing and trying not to focus on every little baby detail and every little thing I am obsessing about-work, home, baby, family, personal-whatever. Instead I have tried to chill a bit and I thin I have succeeded b/c I feel like I am in a much better mental place. It's possible that this better attitude has been brought on by a few othings other than my own self-will. it certainly helps that many of the house-type prjects we planned to get done before baby came have either been done, are almost done, or have been officially put on hold. It also helps alot that we finally got the crib put together-Georgia & Leah came over and helped Bill & I last thursday. It looks really great and I just love the style. Also Kelly came by last week and helped me paint the color portion of the upstairs stair well and bedroom-she is a very efficient painter (so am I) so we got it done in only 1.5h!!!! It looks amazingly good-so much more interesting than the all-white of before. Now to finish upstairs we have lots of white painting to do and some trim/molding to add-then we are done and I will be thrilled b/c these changes to the upstairs have been planned since the day we moved into this house and it will feel great to have it done.

I felt very good the last 3 weeks so it has been easy for to work-probably more than I should be but it has ended up to be very good timing since there are actually several experiments that I really eanted to get done before going on leave, as well as the fact that my summer students are wrapping up their projects right now and I am trying to help them get that 1 last experiment done-and of course this experiment is the kind of project-ending, full-circle, slightly more sophisticated type thing that I basically have to do for them. Jeff has been out of town for most of July so I have had to bear the brunt of these students' projects-I knew this before summer began but it has still been difficult. Jeff will be back this week-so I hope he can quickly get his head on straight so he can get back into the swong of things before I go on leave.

Of course just like I predicted and begged people to help us avoid...the patent conversion is happening right now and of course there is a ton of writing to be done and working with the lawyer is always tricky. I had tried to get the ball rolling on this back in April b/c I knew how much it would suck trying to rush in august since the conversion date is aug 31st! but the lawyers at UM tech transfer move so damn slow and just refuse to modify how they "normally" do things. So here we are busting our asses to meet the deadline and writing for lawyers and prior art searches and all the nit-picky stuff that goes with this process is the LAST thing I want to be doing right now. So I have been procrastinatng more than usual-and it has not helped that Jeff has been MIA and last week Dave was preoccupied with the MURI grant site visit. So it was all left to me and I pretty much dropped the ball and refused to rush and try to do it all myself! Hopefully I will have a much better attitude ths week and get it done so I can get it out of my mind and off my plate!!

A UK venture investment firm is still interested in our technology & star-up company idea so we will be entering into the next rounds of talks soon. We will give them a business plan and they will give us a terms sheet and.... who knows. we shall see what happens over the next few months. Maybe I will have a job with "Biotectix" next fall afterall. Amazing.

Well a few things I want to mention before I forget. Melanie & Chadd had their new baby about 2 weeks ago-a daughter named Loralei. We look forward to a fall visit with them and the Skyvers-can't believe there will be 2 babies soon!!!

Jess & Brett & kids are moving to MI-they found a house and 1 out of 2 jobs and they are driving right now as we speak. It will be great to have them back in our lives-can't wait.

Leah & Mike are closing on their 1st home today!!! I am so happy for them and so pleased to see how happy they both are. For the 1st time in a while they seemed relaxed and able to enjoy things this weekend. Buying a home si so stressful but I am so proud of them. I hope to make it over to the new house for a visit this week.

This weekend we went to Kev & Steoh's It was really good to spend time together and to see little Landon-he looks great and beautiful and Steph looks really much much better than she did a month ago. Much healthier. Kevin seems great and very happy to be a dad. Kev helped us with 1 last recording session before my brother leaves town. Kurt finished biostation on friday and on saturday morning he drove down from up north and met us at Kev's to record music for 2 last songs! We now have the root music recorded for all the songs!!! vocals, drums, extra instruments, and mixing remain to be done but all that will be able to happen now that all the songs are done!!! YEAH what an accomplishment for our band. I really can't believe it.

Now Kurt on the other hand-did not look so good when he arrived at Kev's but he persevered and got thru the songs then promptly went into Zombie mode. which is totally understandable. I was walking dead when I finished at the biostation-completely drained, dazed, and totally overwhelmed and glazed from 8 wekks of total over-stimulation. So I drove him to my parents b/c I thought he was going to fall asleep at the wheel otherwise and Bill drove separately. We had a nice BBQ with the whole family and everyone was very happy to see KJ. Tonight we are having a farewell party at our place for Kurt & Kelly. I am not sure who will be joining us but even if it is just family, it will be great. I think they are planning to be getting on the road for Seattle tomorrow. Good luck, godspedd and I hope they can avoid totally spazzing out on the drive out there and find a few minutes to stop and smell the flowers (well actually- the sulfur-rich hotsprings at Yellowstone!!).

It turns out that Joy & Stephanie will be giving Bill & I a baby shower next weekend! We are thrilled and very appreciative and excited and very much looking forward to it. I am glad Bill will be there b/c I much prefer the events we can do together. As I have been getting all the baby stuff together and sortng through the wonderful gifts we've received over the last few weeks and sending thankyou notes-I sometimes get overwhelmed at everyon'es generosity. It has been really wonderful but I also realize that epopel do this when you ahve a 1st baby b/c you need so damn much stuff! It is ridiculous. So the party next weekend will be a really special day for both Bill & I-a chance to finally meet some of Joy's friends we have never met as well as see some people Bill has not seen ina ling time and also to see some of Steph's family again-of coure also it will be the last baby shower and will mark the beginning of a new world for us. I still have a big week of importnant work this week so I am hoping that baby stays put for 1 more week. then as far as I am concerned-starting next monday-baby is free to arrive!!! wow. what a thought. I can't wait.