Okay, while everything was still fresh, I've made a page with pictures of our house. Maybe I'll add on the kitchen and our bedroom later, but today they're too messy for public view.

It's finally cooling off a little bit here (oops, no more excuse for the slacking off on running...) Next weekend we'll be away; to a concert in Little Rock friday night, where we'll stay overnight, then on to Conway (a little further west) where I'll be doing another team triathlon. Of course I'm the swimmer again, and unfortunately it's almost impossible to swim anywhere around here, but I've been doing a lot of upper body strength training, so hopefully that will help.

Oh, by the way, I wanted to let everyone in Holland know that we bought our garden furniture from the combined gifts we got; you can see it on the backyard picture. Thanks a lot, again!

Til soon, Froi and Gabry
posted by gabrielle kuijten-celzo at 3:01 PM

Finally got around to adding some pics to our website. The longer we waited the more we procrastinated, 'cause of course we knew that we would practically have to figure everything out from the start again. Which was true, but now you can look at some new petpictures and I'm even inspired to go shoot some pics of our house and post those too, soon.
Life is good, here. Sadly our three day Labor Day weekend is almost over, but we thoroughly enjoyed the sweet farniente; fix some things around the house, do a little shopping, take the dog swimming, watch a movie or two, and, play the piano! yes, we finally got one! For those of you from whom he has always kept this a secret, Froilan plays the piano, and marvelously so, and of course I am now getting my first lessons. We had always postponed getting one for obvious reasons, but this one we found at an antique store for two hundred dollars (!!). It's an old piano from the place where Elvis bought his first one, and we had a tech look at it, who said it's in perfect shape; it just needs some tuning. Isn't that cool?
But boy, do I wish now I had learned to play as a kid. It's like your fingers grow all wrong if you don't, like it's almost impossible for me to move my pinkie independently from the rest of my fingers. And I won't even talk about playing more than one key at once; I've now progressed to where I can do that maybe once or twice in a two line exercise.
Anyways, Froilan is having a blast and I enjoy hearing him play a lot.

Work is going well, I'm still moving around a lot, but so far that's fine by me. I've now got a small following of patients in each town I go to (and of course I still see patients that are new to me all the time), and it's nice to see patients back and actually get feedback on what you're doing. My favorite is the lady whom I got on a diet and exercise program; she is losing some weight and last week when she came to see me she exclaimed: I can feel my knees again! (they had been hidden under all that fat for years)

Anyways, need a break from this computer now and there's some work in the yard; we had our lawn mowed but it had been a long time, so now there's tons of grass everywhere (and we don't pay the guy enough for him to pick it up..)

Til soon!
posted by gabrielle kuijten-celzo at 5:30 PM

Hey there everyone. Almost August now, and already the heat here is ridiculous. it's consistently over 95 degrees (over 35 celsius) and very humid. Never thought I would actually ever long for the end of the summer, although I know I still prefer it over winter here.. Had a crazy morning here; we saw 16 patients, of whom one needed a pelvic and pap, another a knee tap, and two had to go to the hospital. When I was still in residency I would have never believed I could see sixteen patients in three hours, and still feel I took good care of everybody. Phew.. fortunately it is not like that all the time.

Last saturday I ran another 5K near Hot Springs; beautiful run along a lake at sunset, and I did a 21.22 race, which made me first in my age group (there were about 30 women in my age group). Week before that we did a triathlon in a team. My neighbour runner/cyclist had asked if I would do the swim, because he and the other teammate don't swim, and I recklessly said that yeah sure I could swim, but of course there is no place to train out here, so when I got out there I was alittle nervous, but I did okay; about 600 yards in 12.5 minutes. Maybe next year I'll do the whole thing by myself.. We'll see

All right, lunch is over now, we'll write again.. Yes and those pictures will be posted, someday....
posted by gabrielle kuijten-celzo at 1:51 PM

Wow, it's been a while again.. Didn't get to tell you yet that I finally won a race! I ran in a small 5K in McCrory, set a personal record at 20.53 minutes, was the first female in, won thirty dollars and got my name in the paper! Pretty cool, huh? There were maybe about twenty female runners, so of course I couldn't do anything like that in a big city, but still, it was nice.

I try to run more regularly again now, but it's hard with work and the heat. Sometimes I take Ernie for a run but he doesn't go very far yet, and it's more like interval training anyways, 'cause we have to stop at every bump in the road and every new smell in the air. Sometimes one of the neighbourhood dogs will join us, which is good because that really gets Ernie tired out so we get a little break after that. Most of the time he is unstoppable and from the time we get home until we go to bed he just wants to play and run and chew on stuff and chase the cats around the house and we're always trying to find the good bones or toys that will serve as a temporary pacifier..

Work is going well; I'm being sent all over the place when people are out or sick, and I kinda like it; I get to know a lot of the staff and the different patient populations. Today I had my first evaluation and apparently my boss is quite content about my work, so that's good.
I'm really glad to be working again (although I didn't miss it a bit when I was off), and I like making some money again too. It's nice to be able to see patients on a regular basis and actually sometimes do something good for them, or teach them something; in residency with the limited time in the clinic that was sometimes hard. Of course we have our share of difficult patients here too, but I guess that never changes.

The cats are doing well, although Julius was sick the past two weekends with who knows what (vomiting, diarrhea, sneezing, drooling, not eating or drinking anything) and then he went missing on us until five in the morning the other day (and I still haven't gotten used to that, so then I don't sleep very well), but he seems to have recovered now. The vet also tested him for cat-hiv and leukemia (because he was a 'doctor's baby') and that was all negative fortunately..

Well, that's the latest (gosh, can you imagine when we have kids; I won't be able to talk about anything else...)
Til soon, gabry and froilan
posted by gabrielle kuijten-celzo at 8:09 PM

Hey there everyone. Been working three weeks now, and still enjoying it (ooph). I'm already starting to have a little group of regulars, who faithfully keep coming back to see me. Sadly, I had my first patient walking out on me this week, angry because I wouldn't give her narcotics (of course despite my efforts at education and all my reasonable arguments), but I guess such is life. Today is my first day I'll be working at a different clinic because someone is out sick (in McCrory, another one of those small towns), so I'll get to work with a different set of nurses and office staff, and of course see all new patients. Probably in the next few months I'll be moved around quite a bit, until they open the clinic in Brinkley, where I'm supposed to work permanently from this fall or so. I hope it will go through, because Brinkley is a lot closer to where we live.

I ran the race in Augusta two weekends ago, and did not win, but I was second female and fourth overall (there were maybe 35 runners total), so I left a lot of guys behind, which always makes for a good ego boost. We got to meet some 'Augustans', and the atmosphere was much more casual and easygoing than in the othre races I've done so far, which was neat. This Saturday I'll be running in Wynne (a nearby town) and next week here in McCrory.

The pets are doing well. Ernie is still growing really fast (like cabbage, as we say in Dutch) and is starting to be just a little bit less hyper.
Oops, gotta go see patients.

Bye
posted by gabrielle kuijten-celzo at 10:10 AM

Wow, i hadn't realized it had been over a month since I had written. Lots of things have happened. We had a great trip to Holland, Froi finally got to meet all my friends and relatives, and I of course was proud to finally introduce him to everyone. We did some sightseeing, drove around visiting people and spent a lot of time with my parents. It was great fun. Now, it already feels like ages ago... When we got back I started working (yes, it's for real now), and I'll admit I was dreading it a little, but I'm actually enjoying it a lot. A little rusty here and there, but everything comes back really fast and it's already like I haven't really been out of medicine for so long. Of course, there is also a lot of new stuff that we didn't see in residency; spider and tick bites, poison ivy, and then I do orthopedic stuff and pediatrics too (I did three knee taps yesterday, two in one pt.).

Last weekend I ran my first race since february, 5 kilometers, in 22.05. I won my first money prize, 15 dollars, yeah! (I was third in my age group). Tomorrow there will be a 5K here in Augusta (the town where the clinic is where I work now), and I might actually have a shot at winning (yes, that is winning, period) here. That would be cool, no? I'll keep you posted.

Last Sunday was our last puppy obedience class with Ernie. We did a little contest (which dog can stay the longest, which dog comes fastest when they have to go through a ton of dogtreats on the floor, which dog can do the best trick, etc), and it was great fun! Of course even more so because Ernie didn't let us down; he (and we) got rewarded for all the hard work with a second place! He's still totally hyper and full of energy, especially now that he's home alone all day, but he can control it just a little better, and he doesn't jump on the cats as much anymore. The cats bring home a mouse or mole almost every day, and of course they have no problem being home alone. We actually leave them out most days, if the weather is nice.

This weekend Vernon and Erlinda are coming to visit us. They haven't seen our new house yet, or actually even visited Forrest City at all, so that'll be nice. Not that there is much sightseeing to do, but we'll come up with some things.

I'm actually at work now; this morning was busy, I saw like ten patients but now it's dead. It's the friday afternoon before Memorial Day weekend, and all of a sudden no one is sick. Well, what can you do....

Okay, everyone, til soon. PS there may be an interruption in our website service in a while, but we'll try to avoid it. Take care
posted by gabrielle kuijten-celzo at 4:04 PM

Hey there everyone! It's been a while, but we were busy last week painting the house. or rather, more honestly, my dad and uncle, Jos, were busy, and we mostly tried to stay out of the way and provide moral and nutritional support. Well, we tried to do our share, but truth be told we're not great painters and they are. In three days they finished the whole house, and then, as if that wasn't enough hard work, they volunteered to clean out the yard and paint the garage. We ended up picking some radical colors for the bedrooms (blue, orange and red) and more modest green for the kitchen and a neutral off-white for the living room. It's awesome! Now we'll have to start thinking about furnishing this place; it's still quite empty. (that's what you get for doing medicine and living like a student until you're thirty; all the grown-up stuff in life gets delayed, like owning a car and a house, and also getting some real, decent, grown-up furniture).

Today I've decided to give up on the marathon I had planned for the end of this month. Doesn't feel good, I like to think of myself as someone who doesn't give up so easily, but with all this moving and painting business my motivation to run so much has faded a bit, and the thought of that starting line at 7 in the morning with 26 miles to go just scares the hell out of me, especially since I don't feel so sure I'd be able to finish, or finish without injuries. So, it'll have to be for another time.

De voorbereidingen voor het feest zijn bijna afgerond, en we verheugen ons er erg op. Kan ik eindelijk mijn man eens aan iedereen voorstellen! Voor wie dat nog niet gedaan had, laat ons alsjeblieft voor 25 april even weten of je komt en met hoeveel. Tot snel dan!

Gabry
posted by gabrielle kuijten-celzo at 9:32 PM