Very Thankful Thursday

1. I had my long awaited ultrasound today. What a glorious sight to see our sweet little baby and what a glorious sound to hear his/her heartbeat!! PTL!!!!!! I almost started crying right there on the table (tears of joy). We also could see the yolk sack and placenta, which means I don't need to refill my Prometrium (I'll keep taking it for 2 more weeks until my current bottle is all used up). Thank you, Lord!!!!!!!! What a miracle!!!!!!!

2. I was really, really struggling to stay awake yesterday. What a blessing that the temps were warm enough to warrant a walk to the playground. The fresh air woke me up. My headache didn't go away, but at least I felt alert.

3. We didn't have choir rehearsal last night because our choir director is in Texas visiting her daughter. I always enjoy choir rehearsals, but not having rehearsal last night was most helpful because while Nadia was at Cubbies Paul played with Ian, and this enabled me to spend about one hour reviewing promotion applications.

4. I went to bed at 8:30pm (after Nadia fell asleep). I was worried that the battle over not having Paul's office light on would be a big deal, but it took less than 15 minutes for her to calm down. Whew. I feel a million times better today than I did yesterday. I don't have a headache! Getting 9.5 hours of sleep last night was very helpful.

5. Periodically I've been looking to see what job possibilities are out there for Paul. I was soooooo excited yesterday to see two listings that weren't there the last time I checked. The first is for a tenure track position in Physical Chemistry (his area) at a college in the Lancaster area!!! I would love to live in that area! It would be ideal in terms of how far we'd be from Paul's family and my family, and there are so many nice things in that area in terms of restaurants, shopping, churches, entertainment (ex. Dutch Wonderland, Hershey Park, and Sight and Sound), etc. The application deadline is in 4 weeks. The first step is that Paul needs to talk to his advisor to make sure she thinks he can graduate by August. I'd appreciate prayers about that! The second one that excited me was for a "visiting professor" position. It's just a one year position, but the reason I am excited is because they will hire someone who is ABD, and the school is about 20 minutes from our house. If he isn't going to graduate until December OR if he doesn't get a tenure track job offer for August, it would be wonderful if he could teach there for one year as we wouldn't need to move. He could finish his PhD and apply for jobs (that would start in August 2013) if he was able to teach there for one year. Please pray that Paul will talk to his advisor in the very near future. I realize there's zero guarantee he'll get this job even if she says he can graduate in August, but it's exciting to have a possibility that seems so very appealing! Paul wants to teach at a teaching centered university (some care more about research than their students), and this university is the kind he'd like to end up at. It's also the kind that it's not really difficult to earn tenure (some schools advertise a position as being tenure track but rarely actually grant tenure to anyone). Paul hasn't had a job since December 2005 as he's been a full-time student since January 2006. It's exciting to me that maybe he'll have a job in August!

6. Ian's last accident was on Saturday. Yay for five days in a row without any accidents!

7. Ian is eating some solid food again! He threw up twice yesterday, but neither was a case of projectile vomiting. Once was when he was crying (because he didn't want to leave the playground) and the other was when he was laughing. He's had pears the last three days so tomorrow he's going to have some bananas.