Busy, Busy Bee

Life has been a bit of a whirlwind for the past few weeks--both at work and home--so this might be a long post.


When I got back from my conference in Iowa (which was great, by the way), I was thrown right back into a cluster of short deadlines at work. Before I left, I began working with a local video production company to produce a 15-minute video for the UC Cancer Hall of Fame event we hosted on May 9.



The doctor leading the event had asked me to work on the project at the last minute and, although I knew it would be intense, I told him I'd do it. So, aside from day-to-day media activities I couldn't ignore, I exclusively dedicated myself to this project for about two weeks and let the other stuff pile up. That meant when I got back from Iowa, I not only had to work several nights to get the video editing and production wrapped up, I had just a few days to finish about five stories due for our newsletter, among other things.


In the midst of all of this, I was also wrapping up a complicated schedule of interviews and facility tours for a reporter at the Columbus Dispatch who was interested in learning more about the joint cancer program at UC. This is a new--but complicated, somewhat sensitive--initiative at UC. Basically, UC, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center (where our pediatric faculty practice) and University Hospital (our teaching hospital) have committed $60 million to recruit the physicians and researchers we need to boost our cancer program up to a level where we could apply for NCI designation. It's a big task.


On the home front, we're smack dab in the middle of our kitchen remodeling project. The walls are pretty much wrapped up. We will be painting the walls and cabinets this weekend.















We have a lot of prep work to do first, though, including patching the old hardware holes and installing new hardware. I'm including a few photos, including one of our two new cabinets.


Please note that our fridge and dishwasher are in the dining room right now...ugh. I'll post more photos as we go.


We also had a new tree planted last week. We love it! It's a Canadian Red Cherry, which has tiny white flowers in the spring then turns red in early summer.

Our yard is coming together nicely. Brandon is keeping the grass trim and nice, and I spent at least three hours planting my little city garden and plethora of annuals Wednesday night.

Eat your heart out, Bess. We're going to win the garden contest this year!





Last weekend we hosted our moms in Cincinnati for a belated Mother's Day celebration, which was great. It was a beautiful, sunny day and we always enjoy hanging out with our moms. We had a tasty (though slow) lunch at Hyde Park Tavern, then visited the butterfly exhibit at Krohn Conservatory. The day was topped off with homemade berry cobbler and ice cream. YUM.