TIRED

Yes I am writing this pot at 2:15am. Yes I am at work while writing it. and Yes I am tired! I can justify writing a blog post now because all 5 of my patients are sleeping comfortably and all my charting is done and I am all caught up on everything. I wish time would go faster though. All I can think about right now is how nice my bed feels and how I wish I could be in it right now in my pajamas next to Brett! Oh, for the simple things in life. Instead, I am at work. I really don't mind working nights for the most part. I am lucky I can sleep at just about any time.

I'm going to write a story just because it is something I want to remember and this blog is part of my life so therefore I warn you now if you don't want to read an odd story, just skip the rest of this paragraph. Brett and I were driving in the car on the way home from somewhere the other night (I think we were at Walmart getting groceries) and SOMEHOW we got started talking about bowels and suppositories and enemas and what not. And we actually had an entire conversation surrounding these topics! Toward the end of it we were just busting a gut laughing at the stupidity of our conversation. What other married couple (for 3 and a 1/2 years) talks about this kind of stuff in detail?! Only someone who is married to a nurse I guess.

With his birthday money Brett bought a Nerf gun and has thoroughly enjoyed playing with that with Marshmellow. Marshmellow has enjoyed it too! He chases after the darts and then shoves them under the couch and then tries to go under the couch to get them back out (unsuccessfully). We have a video of it, but since I am at work I can't upload it. Maybe when I get home after I sleep. And I can put up more pictures of the cats too since that is the only thing we take pictures of lately.

This coming week we are going back home to Iowa! It will be good to get away from work for awhile and spend some time with family. It has been a few months since we have seen people. Sure would be nice to take a vacation somewhere warm though. Better get back to work - even though everyone is still sound asleep!

Snow

It is a well known fact in this household that I do not like snow or the cold. I mention it several times a day, including the fact that it is cold in our house. I am bundled up in a bunch of clothes and a blanket and Brett has on a t-shirt and shorts. Craziness. Today it is supposed to be a high of 38 degrees, and tomorrow a high of 16 degrees and the snow is supposed to come tomorrow. I'm waiting for a phone call asking if I can come into work because someone who lives further away cannot make it in. I should decide ahead of time if I am going to say yes or no.

This week has been VERY UNPRODUCTIVE for me. I worked Monday-Thursday night 11-7. When I came home, I would go to sleep and sleep till 9:00 that night, waking up occasionally to get something to drink or go to the bathroom. Talk about feeling like a pile. Work has just been so busy that I am exhausted when I get home. The entire hospital has been full for the past few weeks. Every time we discharge someone the room gets cleaned right away and then a new patient comes up. The floor I work on is the surgical/ortho floor so I think people are trying to get their surgeries in before the end of the year. I had a patient the other night who had surgery on her birthday! She wanted to eat real food (ribs) but we always start them out on a clear liquid diet after surgery - sorry!

Brett has 2 finals left for the semester. Hard to believe he has gone through 1 full semester of graduate school, and I have been working as a nurse for 5 months. It has gone by so fast. Sure wish I could have a full week off of work that we could spend back in Iowa with family. I just don't have enough PTO accrued to take that time off! We are going to be home for a few days at the end of the month though. Hopefully the weather is decent and we can make it there.

I think today will be spent wrapping Christmas presents, grocery shopping, picking up the house, playing with kitties and maybe a nap :)

On another note - someone is the BIRTHDAY BOY TOMORROW! Brett will be 26 years old!Happy Birthday tomorrow to my wonderful husband of 3 and a half years! In this picture he is digging the trench from the house to the garage to see why we don't have electricity in the garage. Turns out, when the previous owners built the fence they chopped right through the wire. So we put a new wire down and hooked it up and now have electricity in the garage! What a fix-it guy I have. And as most of you know he cooks too. :) The other night he made chili soup and cinnamon rolls. The chili was from scratch and the rolls were frozen, but it was all yummy! People around here don't eat chili soup with cinnamon rolls - they think it sounds strange. Must be a Northwest Iowa thing. Except now for us, it is a Central Illinois thing :)

Yup

Yes, I know I have not blogged in quite some time. It's this thing called work and life and sleep that get in the way. I'm always thinking about stuff to blog about - but seldom get around to it. Last week I worked more than 40 hours. Seems like everyone at working is calling in sick or kids are sick so they need someone to work. 2 days down this week, 2 more to go. But now, it is 30 degrees outside, the house is 62 degrees and it is time for me to crawl under the covers and sleep. I'll try to blog more later! And at the request of Laura, add more pictures. I swear I am trying to get my house clean so I can take more pictures of it to post - but it just will NOT stay clean!! Can't imagine why.

Adios.

Cooking Fiasco

It is a well known fact in my family that I do not cook much. Not exactly sure why that is. Laziness? Maybe. Fear of failure? Maybe. Lack of time? eh...probably not. :) Well tonight I was home and Brett had lab until about 6:20 or so, so I decided I would actually attempt to cook something for supper. We had some ground beef thawed in the fridge so I decided to make something with that. I didn't want to do anything taco related because we had just had taco salad a few days ago. I wasn't in the mood for spaghetti either. I started browsing the cupboards and cookbooks (the few I have!) for something to make where I didn't have to go to the store. I came across this recipe for pizza casserole and thought, hey, that sounds good and easy! I'll make that! Thank goodness I know how to brown ground beef and onion so that part was easy. As I got that started I went in the cupboard to get my macaroni noodles out and found that I didn't have any so I thought hey, noodles are noodles, I'll just use the egg noodles I have. Well the recipe called for 4 cups of macaroni noodles. I didn't have 4 cups of the other noodles but thought they were bigger so it was okay.

So I start cooking the noodles. I then look in the fridge for my pepperoni. Pepperoni, pepperoni where are you???? ARGH - I have none. I'm scrambling to think what else I could use and since you all know I am wonderful at this cooking thing - I came up with nothing. I know you are all on the edge of your seats just wondering what I did with this dilemma. I locked the cats in the porch so they wouldn't eat my food that was cooking. Then I turned the pans off and quick ran to the store to get some pepperoni. All the while my dryer was running. Smart? heh.

THEN - I get home and find my meat to be dried out and my noodles to be turned to some kind of mush. Apparently leaving them in water isn't a good idea. Who knew? Well, I put it all together in a pan anyway. Mushy noodles and all. It wasn't bad, but I wouldn't say it was wonderful either. Brett ate it, and even had seconds.

I guess if I ever decide to make food again, I'll know what to do different with this recipe! How did I draw the short stick in my family when it comes to cooking? My mom is a wonderful cook and so are my 2 sisters. Brett said practice makes perfect, so I guess this means I need to cook more huh? One meal at a time.

WHAT?

Are you kidding me? It is November? Just 2 blog posts ago I wrote that it was the beginning of October!! This means a few things: 1: time is going too quickly! 2: I don't blog near enough, and 3: Thanksgiving is right around the corner!

I like Thanksgiving. Mostly because I love eating ham and cheesy potatoes and green bean casserole and my mom's homemade warm buns with homemade strawberry jam. YUM! Mostly, I like eating those things because I am not the one that has to make it. I just enjoy. This year however, I am not sure I will make it home to eat "home cooked" food. I'll have to eat my own home cooked food, which for me, consists of mac and cheese. If I'm lucky, it is the extra cheesy kind. And if I am even luckier - Brett will cook :) Which he does most all the time anyway.

Last night we had a little fire in the backyard. We burned a few sticks and leaves (shhh!!) It is perfectly legal to have a fire in the backyard if you are cooking something, so we made smores. You just aren't supposed to burn yard waste. So it was a joyous occasion and I should have taken pictures, but I didn't. Speaking of pictures - I have been TRYING to get my house all nice and clean so I can walk through it with my video camera and show it to people who haven't seen our house. But alas - I am terrible at making the whole house clean at once. I'll get one room all nice and clean and then the next day try to do another room, and by the time that is done, the first room is messy again! Can ANYONE relate?

Happy 21st Birthday to my little sister a couple days ago! She's all grown up now and everything. Now, if only she'd act grown up. Just kidding Laura! I love you.

Parker, our little cat has become quite the monster!!! Brett ordered a pair of shoes off the internet and they came in the mail the other day in a box. Parker tore around in the box and chewed up one side. He'll run around, and then run straight in the box and duck down inside and then poke his little head up make some meowing sounds and then jump out again. Oh, the cuteness. :) Currently Brett is lying on the couch with his notebook in front of him studying. Parker just jumped up and sat on his notebook and looked at him like, "hey, I'm sitting on your notebook - what's up?" Then he'll bite the paper. Oy.

So on the 31st we had these 3 little kids come to the door trick or treating. I had thought they came around on the 30th, Saturday, so that night we hid in the basement with the lights off and watched a movie. Well, on Sunday we were upstairs and had the lights on and these 3 cute little kids came by - and I had no candy.....so, what did Brett find to give them? They each got 1 whole bar of Hershey's chocolate (the kind you use for smores). Those lucky kids.

I'm off to ride my bike before it gets too cold. Maybe I can get Brett to go with me. Fat chance though!

hodge-podge

I don't often write very much because when I do think of something to write it is usually just a short little comment and I don't have a huge story or anything to write about. So, my posts often end up being a hodge-podge of random different things that have been going on. I think this is going to be another hodge-podge post.
Work: still going well. I'm pretty much working Monday-Thursday nights either 11-7 or 7p-7a. Which means I sleep during the day and really don't accomplish much at all! It is kind of frustrating because I want to do all this stuff around the house but really have no energy because I just want to sleep when I am not at work. Ugh - something has to change.
School: Not much has changed for Brett at all. School is still going well. He did really well on his second biochemistry exam which he studied a lot for! I am proud of him!!

The weather around here is really beginning to look like fall. The trees are just GORGEOUS. Right down the street there is this tree with bright red leaves - wish we had one of those in our yard! Our sugar maple in the front yard is starting to turn yellow with a little bit of red. It is really pretty too. Of course, we've got a bunch of leaves on the ground too. We raked the front yard yesterday and put all the leaves to the curb. On Mondays the city comes by and vacuums them all up.

The other day we were at the grocery store and Brett and I were commenting on the people around here. Brett then said, "every time someone says "I'm sorry" or "excuse me" I want to ask them if they are from Iowa." HAH. Basically - people around here are not like people in Northwest Iowa. Not that people are mean here - they just are not as friendly and humorous as those in Iowa.

Well time to attempt to be productive today. Brett made a fort for fat cat. He likes to be in small spaces. Have a wonderful day!!

arrgghhh

Some people just drive me nuts! Ya know, I think I am going to take my dad's advice from now on: just assume everyone you meet is stupid until they prove you wrong, then you won't ever be disappointed. Right dad? Ugh - time for bed after a night shift at work. More later.