Terrifying Experience
I spent my Wednesday night in the ER due to complications in my pregnancy. This was the first time in my memory I’ve even been to the ER as a patient and I was there for worst possible reason – fear of my baby’s life. I want to share my story with you and I will be giving some details, so if girl things gross you out (guys!) you may not want to read (it’s not too bad). This will also be very long and I understand if you don’t want to read it. I will say now, Baby is doing fine – Thank God!
Change
Well, it has once again been months since my last blog post. However, I’m hoping my lack of activity will change. Yeah yeah, I say that every time.
I’m warning you now, this post will be hella long. But I blog for my enjoyment so I don’t care if you don’t wanna read it 
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No Longer Allergic to Fish
Today, Dave and I went out to eat. Dave ordered two fish tacos, ate them, and didn’t die!
Most of you probably don’t understand why this is worthy of such excitement. Well, you see, Dave is deathly allergic to fish.
Dave grew up eating a lot of fish as a child. His dad would fish in the Monterey Bay regularly and smoked salmon was a common meal at the Lofte house. This was, in fact, Dave’s favorite food. One day, when he was about 10 years old, Dave’s throat swelled up when eating fish and was rushed to the hospital. The doctor concluded that he was allergic to fish… a very sad day for Dave.
Cabin in Pinecrest and Disconnected
This past weekend Dave and I hung out with our good friends Adam and Shawna. Shawna’s family has a cabin in Pinecrest, CA and we stayed there for a night. This cabin was the cutest little house ever! The whole thing was made of knotted pine and it was recently remodeled with beautiful tile floors, granite counter tops, and modern bathroom. It had one bedroom and a loft. I could easily live there if it wasn’t so far away from normal civilization. We had a great time and so did our dogs. Adam and Shawna also have a dog, Lucy, and she is quite the little princess. It irritated her to see our dogs play with each other.
A Day at the Park
Yesterday, I was home alone all day without a car. So instead of sitting at my computer for the entire day, I decided to walk Ally and Epsilon to the park in a nearby housing development. It was such a beautiful day for it too! Ally got to chase a lot of squirrels and Epsilon rolled on random stuff… good times. Anyway, I brought my D90 along and wanted to share some of the pics I got.
You may notice that Epsilon got a haircut and I left his mustache. I’m not too sure how I feel about it. I think it’s funny, not necessarily cute 
Welcome to llofte.com!!
Yay! I am still playing around with different themes and the look and feel of the blog. So don’t be suprised if it looks different each time you visit for the next couple weeks 
Thank you @zyber17 for your help
Vacation!
So this is just a quick post to share the video I made of our vacation and share a Flickr link to photos from the lake trip. Our vacation was at Lake Oroville in California.
We had a lot of fun! My sister and her boyfriend were able to show up a few days into the trip. My brother wasn’t able to come 
We have another big vacation in August though and he should be able to make it to that!
Enjoy!
Flickr
School, Blogs, Pies, and Travel
So it has once again been too long since my last blog post. This past month has been pretty busy. So the 2 of you who read my blog, I’m sorry :/
I am now pretty much finished with the school year. I have a few more labs to grade and a “final” to attend at a nearby bar. Yes, you read that correctly, instead of a final, our class will be hanging out at a bar. My professor’s email informing us of this was so awesome, that I just have to share it with you:
Folks,
We will have our last presentation Wednesday. I will also return some homework and the midterm, and make some comments on the latter. Then we will do evaluations.
My habit of long standing is to retire to a nearby bar for a little socializing in lieu of a final exam. This is a celebration of the completion of two quarters of hard work learning about automata. I see no reason to break this tradition, but if you have objections, now is the time to air them. In the absence of such objections, I propose we meet at Jordan’s at 6:30 on Monday, the day of our scheduled final exam. (The final is scheduled at 2, but that’s too early to drink beer, and [name removed] said she had a final at 4.) Kindly let me (and everyone else) know if you’d like to make other arrangements.
Is that not the most awesome thing ever? Even better was that in the next class I got my take-home exam back with a grade of 85/85!! I about had a heart attack trying to contain my excitement.
Much of the free time I’ve actually had to spend away from school has been at The iPhone Blog. I have recently started writing reviews for them as well as moderating their forums. I have a lot of fun doing this and love the group of guys that run the site. TiPb also had a video contest recently and I won! I spent quite a bit of time making this video and was so excited to win! I really wasn’t expecting to.
Chocolate Puddie Pie
A recent “hobby” I have started is baking. I have long wanted to bake for my husband but never really have. So I bought a Williams-Sonoma Pie & Tart cookbook and have baked 4 pies: banana cream, chocolate silk, cinnamon apple crumb, and chocolate pudding pie with cookie crumb crust. All of them came out wonderfully except for the chocolate silk. I think it actually came out ok, the recipe was just way too rich for Dave’s or my liking. I’m quite proud of myself for sucessfully making all 4 of these pies because food preparation has never been one of my strong suits. I’m the girl that took 3 boxes of Mac & Cheese to get it right. I may not be able to cook, but I’m discovering that I can bake! This makes me happy. I feel like a better wife after each pie I make!
Dave and I will be driving back to CA soon. In fact, we’re beginning our journey on June 3rd, my birthday. Kind of a lame birthday, huh? I figure it’ll be fine, I’ll make it fun. I’m planning to make a mini travel vlog out of it. Also, Sims 3 will be out for both Mac and iPhone, so I will have plenty to keep me busy during the drive We’re planning to make a slight detour through 4 corners just for the heck of it. I know it’s not something that exciting, but what the heck, why not check it out?
Well, it’s 2am, so I’m going to bed! More blogging to come!
Don’t you love how elegantly I always end my blog posts?
I've Been Thinking…
…that I don’t what to get my PhD.
When I first decided that I wanted to major in mathematics, the goal was to get a master’s degree and teach at the junior college level. I did very well as an undergrad and received a lot of encouragement from professors to shoot for the PhD. I was never really enthusiastic about the idea since another one of my life goals is to be done having kids before I’m 30. But as my husband showed interest in grad school (in math) as well, I started to play with the idea. When it came time for grad school applications, I only applied to 4 schools and only 1 of them was for a PhD program. I decided if we both got into the PhD program, then I would give it a shot. Well, we did!
I am now nearing the end of my first year in grad school. It has been a great year and I’m enjoying it. However, I just don’t think I want to go all the way. My school specializes in analysis and algebra and I’m not particularly “excited” about either one of them. I feel as though that is a definite sign to not spend 4 years of my life researching in those areas. I honestly don’t think I’ll enjoy it.
I’ve never been too thrilled with the idea of research in the first place. It’s not what I enjoy. I just want to teach. What makes me want to get a PhD is so that I can teach the “fun” upper division courses. At the junior college level, the highest level mathematics course I’ll ever get to teach is multivariable calculus.
After some serious thinking over the past couple weeks, I think it will be worth it (for me) to end my education at the master’s degree. The only con I see is not teaching upper division classes. But there are many pros:
- I won’t be spending 4 years of my life researching something I’m not passionate about.
- We won’t being raising a family and going to grad school at the same time (only Dave will be). Also, we wouldn’t have to try to time pregnancies so that I deliver in the summer.
- I won’t be 29 years old when I finish; I’ll be 25.
- I’ll be doing what I love in a little over a year.
- I won’t have to study for months and months to hopefully pass the qualifying exams.
- I’ll be able to afford a Mini Cooper sooner! =D (threw that one in for fun)
I haven’t made any definite decisions, but I’m pretty sure I’m gonna stop at the master’s. I won’t be disappointed in myself.
I’ve also been toying with the idea of working for the goverment. Having a job at the NSA just seems so cool. They are the number 1 employer of mathemticians. I think I would really enjoy that type of work. However, I do not want to live in D.C. NSA has a division here in Denver, so if there’s an opening when I graduate, I might just have to apply!
My First Blizzard
On Thursday, Denver (and most of Colorado) was hit with a Blizzard. All the schools shut down, so I also had my first snow day
My husband was supposed to teach a class at 8a and didn’t realize school was canceled. He found it odd that the building was locked, but just let himself him. He went to class and wrote all his intro stuff on the board. While waiting for students to arrive, he checked his email: “The University of Denver will be closed today due to high expected snowfall”. He got home around 8:30a and I flew out of bed with excitement of the news! But then I couldn’t help but laugh at him when I checked my phone.
The University had sent a text message and left a voice mail in addition to the email. You see, my husband and I are always arguing (playfully, kinda) about how he never has his phone with him, or it’s off, or it’s lost, etc. If I didn’t make him, he wouldn’t even have a phone. Well, since he ignores his phone, he wasted his time going to school that morning and I got a good laugh
I know that this blizzard was mild as far as blizzards are concerned, but I was amazed by it. Remember, I’ve lived on the cenral coast of California all my life, I’m still getting used to snow in general, let alone blizzards!
Well, Ally absolutely loves the snow and she couldn’t get enough of it. She’d be out there shivering but still not want to come inside; She just continued to wag her little nub and look at me with that happy little face. Epsilon, on the other hand, found Thursday to be a rather terrible day. He was cold and miserable. Since he’s so little, it was very difficult to find places for him to go to the bathroom without him drowning in snow.
Anyway, here’s a video I put together of our blizzard experiences. Enjoy! (yes, I know I’m a dork).