It's a mystery.

Scooter called yesterday super early - like 6:20 her time, and she sounded really depressed. Such a hard conversation. She did perk up a little towards the end. She said that she was going to go to bed super early (between 7 and 7:30 her time), so I told her to call me back before bed. I tell her that a lot, but she rarely does it. I called her back a couple of times between 7 and 7:30 her time, and finally got a hold of her as Bubba and I were going to the store. She sounded much better. She just had a rough evening earlier. It was good to talk to her, but as always, kind of sad. I always tell her about what we did that day or what we were doing when she called, and it usually elicits some wistful response. For example, last night, Bubba got excited when we passed by some mylar balloons. She asked me to describe them. I did, and when I got to the colors on the butterfly's wings, she exclaimed, 'well you know that's my favorite color, mom!' It breaks my heart to picture her sitting in her room, imagining being in a store with me, especially when I know she hates running errands.

We picked up some "2 bite cupcakes" for Ben's birthday. Delicious.

This morning, I got an email from the Epic exam proctor at work. My certification mug has arrived! The only weird thing is that I got my second certification in November. Maybe they wait to create each individual mug until after the certification is done. And it takes a few months to fire up the kiln. My coworkers will be relieved when I start using it. I've been using a WebMD mug, which has caused some confusion. My husband works, in some fashion, for WebMD, but he's a remote employee based out of Omaha, reporting to New York. There's a WebMD office in Portland, though, so everyone just assumes that he knows so-and-so. He doesn't. I don't want that conversation starter, anymore. I'll stick with "yeah...I'm certified, now. See. I have the mug." and be done with it.

When I got here, I thought the certification mug was a joke. I figured everyone just purchased a mug from the Epic shop when they went there for training. Because you can buy the same one for about $8.00. It would save my employer about $9,992.00 per certified employee to go that route. Maybe I should bring up my suggestion in a cost-savings meeting sometime...