April 2010: Built Bob a cool new gaming computer. It can take 16 gigs of DDR3 RAM. The graphics card has 1 gig of onboard RAM.

May 2010: Locked in to Medical College of Wisconsin, put in my resignation. Climbed Mount Storm King, scared myself shitless.

June 2010: Hiked the Kloshe Nanitch trail, and the road back to the car. About 11 miles carrying my dog. (25 lbs - no fun). Very busy trying to got ready to move. I keep my everyday news on Facebook so hook up with me there, send an email with your FB details. Late June: Took a trip up the Enchanted Valley on horseback with Jolene. In July I went hiking up Mt Olympus with Krista, and took a trip to Leavenworth with Bob. Krista and I went whitewater rafting. Byron went back to Iraq. August 1st I left for Milwaukee to start medical school. I have all my travels well documented on Flickr.com/penern/sets so go see the photo stories there.

Feb. 2011: Well so much has happened. I will update the site come summer when I have time. Byron is back from Iraq safe and sound. My first semester at Medical school went extremely well. Got three honors abd two high passes from five subjects. Went home for the holidays and the family had a wonderful get together. We played Kinect Olympics with the new XBOX Kinect. It was so much fun, Jason put his head through the ceiling twice in his enthusiasm to win. Dean was the grand winner of the night. Must be youth on his side. Byron took a road trip to California with a couple of good friends for the 10 days before his 20th birthday. They had a blast. I can't believe it has been 20 years since I gave birth to that kid. He is six foot now, hard to believe I pushed that out. This semester is tough. Lots of very hard stuff to study. I like Medical Neuroscience and Histology, I find physiology a lot of work, and Evidenced Bases Medicine is a horrid, boring class. I spend about 12 hours a day either in class or studying and trust me one needs to invest that time including on Saturdays and Sundays. I just got done with my first round of exams. All went well. I am rather excited right now. We appear to have found my long lost nephew, Damian, and long lost brother, Jeffrey, in the same weekend. I will keep you updated. Poor kid is probably freaking out, especially if he was never told that Jason was his father, or that Jay was denied the right to see him. I will be trying to talk to Jeff today. With Damian we will just have to wait and see if he ever wants to have anything to do with us. But we are patient, we waited 20 years to find him, we can wait 20 more for him to get curious enough to want to see us. Anyway back to my studies May 2011 bought a house and visited my best friend from high school in South Africa. See the great photos on my Flickr account..

2012: Took USMLE Step 1, did really well. Got my pony Gungi back. Foxy got shot and killed by our evil neighbor Wade Parker. Collected mom and the animals and moved them to the house. Byron started university.

2013: First year of clerkships to an end and took USMLE Step 2 and again did very well. Indy died at age 17. I had him genetically tested and he was 50% Jindo, quarter GSD, and the rest husky and lab. Little Tiny Tot went unexpectedly a couple of months later, so sad. Bob and I went our separate ways.

2014 Graduated medical school, completed naval officer training and moved to Pensacola for my first gig as a navy doc. Byron is doing very well at university, now a junior. Biochem major. Somehow I see that I never did mention that I got an age waiver and enlisted in the Navy in 2010. Gungi will be 15 in July. He was born a year and a half after I started this website. Well, as you can tell, I went from constant updating to a sentence per year as I became too busy. I hope to have time to chronicle my navy adventures. See you around.

Slinky was killed by a neighborhood dog, a week after we got to Pensacola in 2014, it soured my outlook for a while.

2015 I was headed to dive school to become a Dive Medical Officer but blew out my right knee and needed reconstructive surgery. While I was not allowed to walk, I wrote a novel called Ringers, Nowhere to Run, available on Amazon, to distract me from the pain. The residency program closed and I was stuck in limbo and almost got out of the Navy. While I was waiting to get out, I filled in as the Risk Manager at NHP and got us through a Joint Commission recertification with flying colors, wrote 21 hospital instructions, built an entire electronic CAF, and received a Navy Marine Corps Commendation Medal for my efforts. By late 2016 it was obvious my knee was fine and I got to stay in and return to residency. I chose Psychiatry. Lucy had a stroke and had to be put to sleep, Byron graduated college and started grad school, and I rescued Whiskey, a mean tuxedo cat, Peanut, a calico cat when her dad died of a sudden cardiac death, Sammy, a little black feral kitten who was dying of encephalitis, Tinkerbell, a tiny black dog whose mom died in the ICU, and Buster, a huge Lab/Chesapeake Bay Retriever cross who had run through sailor after deploying sailor until he arrived with us at only 18 months of age. Roderick (an old friend from high school) and I hiked through Yosemite NP and climbed the Half Dome and then hit the Olympic NP for an awesome few hikes and up Mt. Olympus (See it all at Flickr/penern/sets). My nephew Dean, and his girlfriend Kayla, had the cutest little baby girl, Sophia.

2017 I attended President Trump's inauguration. No, I did not vote for the man but I sure as hell was not about to say no to an invite like that. My "date" was an ex Congressional staffer, and friend of a friend, (he did vote for Trump) and we actually dated for about 5 months before calling it quits. In April I took Mom, Scruffles, Buster, Whiskey, and Tinkerbell back to Washington where she moved into a trailer on Jason's property. Her dementia was progressing and it was clear she would not cope in a new city and I was going to be too busy to keep her safe. Gunga Din, Rocky, Peanut, Sammy, and I moved to Portsmouth Virginia.

2018 Poor little Rocky died of cancer and only a week after a rescued a little Rat Terrier, Titch, to be his friend. After my first year there, I got selected to go straight through so I bought a house and completely renovated it myself. It had a pool and that was a nightmare. Roderick and I did a long section of the John Muir Trail and climbed Mount Whitney, the highest peak in the lower 48. That was BRUTAL, I'll have to find my account of that hike and post it. (Lots of awesome photos and videos on Flickr.) I adopted an old ex-working dog, Toby. Byron graduated, came to stay for a few weeks and then headed off to his new job in Colorado with Corden Pharma.

2019 I was just plugging away at my residency, hating every minute but that’s life. While hiking the John Muir Trail I met a guy who climbed Mount Whitney as an above knee amputee because he had an osteo-integrated prosthetic. I was so excited, I called my ex, Bob, who is also an amputee, to tell him all about the program at Walter Reed. I had a brain fart and married him so that he could get back on military healthcare and get into that program. I was supposed to go climb Kilimanjaro with Roderick but couldn't get authorization from the military in time.

2020 started off bad, Scruffles had to be put to sleep she was 17 and had tongue and throat cancer. Mom hated Jason and I for doing it, her dementia did not allow for logic and poor Scruffles was starving. Then poor Mom had a stroke and had to get placed in horrid long-term care that she HATED, then my tenant destroyed my Milwaukee house. I brought little Tinkerbell back with me, Buster and Whiskey stayed with Jason and Hope. Then CoVid came along and we couldn't visit poor Mom at all. Hope and I tried hard to keep her spirits up with biltong and dark chocolate and she was reading a lot until she caught CoVid and it was all downhill after that even though she didn't get sick. I did adopt a white lab rat, Ratatouille, to be the friend to the wild roof rat I saved and raised from a pup but who unfortunately never tamed up so had to be freed. I also saved an raised a tiny Brown Thrasher whom I named Tweety. She eventually went to a bird sanctuary where she still resides. Roderick and I had the most epic trip planned around Glacier National Park and we had to cancel it. 2020 sucked.

2021 I graduated residency, sold the house, and moved to California to be stationed with the Marines. Still hampered by CoVid there was no epic hike. Toby, Titch, Peanut, Sammy and I live in a 23-foot camper with a 10ft by 20 ft covered enclosure attached so they can go outside and not get eaten by coyotes. This time Gunga Din gets to live here on the property. I never did get to see mom as she declined and by late July it was becoming very difficult to talk to her. In November I got the call and Jason and I got there in time to sit with her as she took her final breath. Luckily, we got there just in time for her to recognize us before her brain shut down. Dear Mom did not want to get wasted, she begged to get fed to the wildlife or the sharks when she died but since that was not legal, she had voiced a wish to have her body donated to science. We fulfilled that wish as I write this, she is likely being the much-appreciated teacher to a few enthusiastic young medical students.

2022 I can’t believe I have had this website for 24 years. I just wish I had had more time over the last 12 to keep up the journaling in a more comprehensive way. I have downloaded all my old Facebook posts; I figure I might use those. Roderick and I have a new epic adventure planned, this time to Corsica to hike the GR 20. It is allegedly the toughest trail in Europe. Gungi went to live at a bit horse farm so he has 4 immediate paddock buddies and many more around him. I am currently looking for a place to stay since my current location is no longer an option. See you back here soon.