If you have more than one gourd...

You can scrub them clean...

Get some cheap paint...

And paint them to look like fruit (I did that one)....and birdhouses (made by talented Ben)...

And perhaps a monkey or a flower vase (thank you Destiny)...

And then you can sell them at the bake sale this week at the dental school to raise money for Haiti...at least that's what I'm doing with the ones I was gifted last weekend. I hope they can raise enough to make a difference. Just thinking about the tragedy makes me so grateful for the life I have here. I have been blessed with so much.

Speaking of blessings in my life. My loupes came in on thursday. I was sooooo stoked! They are these special glasses that have magnification in the lenses. I practiced my class I prep on Thursday using them for the first time and they were amazing! It was a million times easier to see and although it will take some getting used to, it'll help so much not to have to strain my eyes to see the tiniest details imaginable. I'm telling you. You don't know picky until you've been in dental school. I had a professor tell me once that he wanted to break my 4 hours of work into a million pieces because a marginal ridge was less than half a millimeter too high. I know that it will only make me a better dentist for my patients, but it can be stressful to have all of your hard work looked at with eagle eyes. I'm so thankful for my loupes.

I am also very thankful for my mom and sister, who drove to visit me today.

We went to Takosushi for lunch. Appropriately named, since you can get both tacos and sushi.

And then we went wedding dress shopping for Ashley because she is getting married in June. We had so much fun!

 

Although some of the dresses were uncomfortable.

And some were beautiful, but just not.....the right one.

And then of course, there was...the right one, but I won't post a picture of it just in case Ashley's fiance reads this. It is of course, amazingly beautiful and I cannot wait to see her in it on her special day.

Seriously...I'm stoked.

And now I need to go get stoked about some biochemistry which they have very sneakily renamed this semester as Molecular Biology of Craniofacial Development.