Heaven

Wow, it has been a whole year since I posted on this blog! Sorry for any of those who have worried about my absence, I have had a lot going on in my life and it might be awhile before I fully take this poor blog out of the moth balls and start posting more regularly.

In September I had one of the worst days of my life. I got a call that one of my closest friends had flat-lined while being rushed to the hospital. I spent the day hoping and praying she would be ok and waiting to hear something. I had just talked to Diana a few days prior, she was a bit out of it and the doctors weren't sure why but she seemed like she would be fine. I jokingly told her she wasn't allowed to die because I didn't have time to visit for a funeral (her and I had a slightly twisted sense of humor with each other) and she suddenly got kinda serious and asked me if my boss would let me go to her funeral, I told her that if something happened to her I would not be asking I would be telling and that I would definitely be going. I was totally broadsided to then hear that she had taken such a dramatic turn for the worse so soon after I had spoken to her. That night I called home and after talking to my dad for awhile he figured out that I didn't know that she had passed away earlier that day. I still can't believe she is gone, even though I drove home to attend her funeral as soon as I was safe to do so and saw her body in a casket it is hard to comprehend someone who has been a part of my life since I was a baby and was like a second mother to me no longer being there. It breaks my heart even more knowing that her son, my godson, has lost his mother at such a young age.

Today is the birthday of my dear friend WeaselMomma's daughter Claire, aka Angel Weasel. For those of you who do not know Claire's family will unfortunately be celebrating her 9th birthday at her grave, she passed away two weeks after she was born. Like Diana she brought joy and happiness into this world and left it and those who love her way too soon. I like to think that Diana is helping Claire celebrate her birthday in heaven today, a mother taken from her child too soon and a child taken from her mother too soon, holding each other until they can be reunited with their families. Happy birthday dearest Claire, please give Diana a hug for me and remind her that I love and miss her very much.

Diana and her son in 2007

Happy Birthday Claire

Today is the 8th birthday of a very special little girl. Her name is Claire, she is the daughter of my dear friend WeaselMomma. Claire comes from a beautiful family full of love, my little Niecey and I have had the honor of meeting them and both times we had a blast! Unfortunately we never got to meet Claire, she passed away when she was only two weeks old. Today is a hard day for the Weasels, please remember them in your thoughts and prayers and remember to give your loved ones a little extra love because life is precious and you never know how long you have.

Dear Claire, have a happy birthday up in heaven, you are loved and missed dearly by so many people here, even those like me who never got the chance to meet you.

Note: The organization SIDS of Illinois has helped the Weasel family since Claire passed away. They offer support to families who have lost a baby, education to help prevent SIDS from claiming more babies (In IL incidents of SIDS has gone down 68% with the Back to Sleep campaign!), funds research to try and end SIDS deaths and more. Anyone who wants to support this organization and the invaluable services they provide (the research they fund helps save babies everywhere) can do so here. If you would like to donate in memory of Claire she is listed as "Claire Weasel".

Three Cheers for July 30th

While I try to live my life so that every day is special, today is a very special day for me, for three reasons. And since today is extra special I've decided to take the time to share why with all of you =)

Reason 1: It is Daddy's birthday! About a million or so years ago my father was born. He was raised on a farm in Indiana, and a member of the 4H club. Lucky for me Grandma gave me some old pictures of him growing up, isn't he adorable with his baby cow?:


Fast forward somewhere around 50 years and you have the picture Niecey took of him after snatching my camera (I may have given her permission to play with it) over Christmas:


Happy birthday Daddy, you have always been there for me and are a wonderful father to my siblings and myself as well as Niecey. You are the best daddy a girl could ask for and I love you very much!

Reason 2: It is Niecey's birthday! Six years ago today I had a very very very sore arm from being Middle Sis's leg holder. It was highly traumatic seeing my sister give birth, I NEVER want to view a baby being born again, including my potential future offspring! Even though I am scarred for life over seeing my sister shoving an 8lb 2oz baby out of her nether regions it was all worth it. I was blessed with the most adorable little niece after enduring all that and watching that tiny little baby grow into this little girl has been amazing:


And who doesn't like morning snuggles? Whenever I visit and Niecey wakes up before me she will quietly play by the room I sleep in and check periodically until she sees my eyes open. Often she will try to get me to get up and play with her but usually she'll humor me and give me some morning snuggles before "making" me get out of bed, one of the great perks of visiting the homeland!


Happy birthday Niecey! I hate that I've spent the last 4 years of your life so far away but know that I am doing it in part to be able to give you a better future and even though there are 350 miles between us I am always here for you. Thank you for making me an Auntie, I love you with all of my heart and am so very proud of you!

Reason 3: One year ago today I decided to stop being just an observer of the blogging community but to join it. I started this humble little blog for several reasons but one of the main ones was that I followed so many wonderful people and felt close to them even though they had no idea I even existed for the most part. I wanted to see if perhaps some of these great people would find me amusing and let me join the fun. In that year I have made friends with so many amazing people and am so proud to be a part of such an awesome community. We laugh together, we cry together, and when someone needs help people in the blogging community step up and do what they can to support whomever is down, whether it be with a sweet comment or by donating money/supplies or in my case a fellow blogger opened up his home and let me stay the night when I got stuck in traffic and was going to have to try and find a hotel in a city I had never been to (I have not forgotten you and your wife's kindness and what a great time we all had Kevin, thanks again and I will get around to writing a post about it one of these days!). I think the world would be a much better place if real society followed the example of the bloggers. Thank you all for reading my blog, for the great comments you leave and for befriending a nerdy grad student, I love you guys!

So two birthdays and a blogoversary all in one day, definitely reason to celebrate! What better way to celebrate than with a yummy chocolate cake:

The 6 yellow candles are for Niecey's birthday (yellow is her favorite), the green one is for Daddy and the blue one is for my blog.

Happy Birthday Angel Weasel

Since I joined the community of bloggers I have befriended a number of people, one of whom is WeaselMomma. I discovered her through reading NukeDad's blog and had the great joy and honor of meeting her and her wonderful family over the thanksgiving holiday. Her blog is one of my favorites and if you do not read it I highly recommend it, just make sure you take a potty break and don't eat nor drink while reading it as you might wet yourself and/or spray your computer laughing at her hilarious posts!

But not all of WeaselMomma's posts are funny. As I read through her archives (I am an archive stalker) I quickly noticed a discrepancy. She has five weasel children (and an adult child aka Mr. Weasel) listed in her nest but she made references to being the mother of six (not including Mr. Weasel). Being an anal-retentive person who had an English teacher hell bent on cramming "bookmarking" into my brain (basically critically analyzing books as you read them) this created a sense of foreshadowing for me, that and her references to SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome) charity and research. I didn't want it to come, hoped that WeaselMomma had forgotten how to count she does have quite a few weasels running around, a love for coors light and my mother couldn't even keep three kids straight, but she didn't and I cried when she introduced Claire to the blogosphere.

Claire Elaine

I am not sure what it is about Claire, she is sadly not the first nor only child I have read about who has passed away, but she is the one that has stayed with me and grabbed a piece of my heart. I think about her somewhat frequently and am so sad that I never got to meet her as I did her brother and sisters. I simply cannot fathom the pain her family has gone through losing her after only two weeks and how much of a struggle it has been for them to rebuild their lives as best they can. They are truly one of the most beautiful families I have ever encountered, even my niece could sense how special they are when we got to go and meet them and celebrate Monkey Weasel's birthday with them. We literally had to physically fight Niecey to get her coat on and come home with me, this was the only time I know of that the "Fine, I'll just leave without you." bluff was called and I think she actually would have let me leave without her (I totally understand, I honestly didn't want to leave myself!).

One thing that has allowed the Weasels to keep going and to get back to functioning is SIDS of Illinois, a long standing organization that offers support to families who have lost a baby, education to help prevent SIDS from claiming more babies (In IL incidents of SIDS has gone down 68% with the Back to Sleep campaign!), funds research to try and end SIDS deaths and more. And so, today on Claire's birthday please remember WeaselMomma and family in your prayers, go give her some love, and if you can spare some please help honor and celebrate Angel Weasel's life by donating to SIDS of IL or perhaps some other organization like it to help other families going through such a horrific loss and hopefully prevent other families from losing their precious babies.

Dearest Claire, I never got to meet you but you have touched me nonetheless, I love you and your family and hope you have a very happy birthday up in heaven.

Time to Celebrate Ian!

Hello everyone, remember me, the dorky quirky microbiology grad student who goes by "The Microblogologist", "Micro", "MB", and occasionally my first name, Karen. Yeah it has been over a week since I posted, working a lot trying to knock the current project out ASAP and trying to catch up on my blog reading has not left much time for this. Oh and twitter totally does NOT help, evil addictive thing that it is! So why am I posting now? It's Ian's birthday!!!!! Put on your party hats and get ready to sing! I do NOT sing and when I write songs I make Ian sing them for me (he has finished 1 of 4 that I have written, I'm cutting him some slack because he is a first year undergrad and is in plays and operas and such, 2 or 3 at a time the past month or so) and so of course I made him sing the happy birthday song for me, feel free to join in:

OK time for the cake! I thought about having it be a dual purpose cake to also serve to celebrate Randy's journey to S. Korea but it is definitely not a "Randy cake" as it does not contain full frontal nudity, in case you want to see it and keeping in mind I am 100% NOT kidding about the nudity (my keyword list is likely to get interesting after this!) I'll link to his official farewell cake. I have never tried linking a facebook pic so if it doesn't work it doesn't work, I am NOT going to put it on my blog or into photobucket or whatever, go bug him (actually you should, he'll get sad if Gregg and I are his only readers!) Here is the cake that I got for Ian:


We've had our cake, it was pretty yummy too! The smiley face is definitely appropriate because Ian is totally a big ball of sunshine =)! Now it is time for the presents, here is what I picked out and if I were totally wealthy I would so get them for him:

Manpris for when it is too hot for pants but too cold for shorts!

Uggs, because he loves them and says they are comfy,
these match the manpris so he can show them off!

A nice polo shirt to go with the manpris and boots.

And what outfit is complete without a matching man purse!?
Coach of course!

Oh and here is another rendition of the birthday song for you Ian, I found it in the related vids for the first and HAD to post it!:



I hope you had a wonderful day, I am sorry that you had to spend it 400 miles away from your family and Pasha! My advice, celebrate it again when you go home next, it is not about the date it is about spending time with those you love. Love you kiddo!