A nice, non-bitchy post

Yes, I've been a bit snarky lately, so here's a post about nice happy things, even though it's raining outside and we're expecting a real winter blast tonight (stop that!)

OK, today has been a really nice, I'm totally on day schedule, I have nothing I absolutely HAVE to do, sort of day. Which means I'm cleaning (roll eyes). So after a little while, with my dining room and kitchen looking fab, I decided to head out to my local crack house, I mean Sam's.

I'm really not a shopaholic, but I can do some fairly serious damage in there. Thankfully, I haven't gotten my big-ass chest freezer yet, but when I do, look out ;)

It's fun to people watch at Sam's, as there are ALL sorts. You see the small business owners buying supplies for their livelyhood, the moms with small children (I'm so happy to be past that stage!), the couples who shop together (???), and various others. This time of year you also see the "I'm stocking up for the holidays because I have 57 people coming over and I need tons of food and snacks and paper plates and wine wine wine. Either that or they're expecting 10 really hungry drunks. The woman next to me in line bought about 5 cases of the same wine (I hope it's good?) If it were me, I'd want a variety, but of course, I don't know what she was shopping for. But it's fun to speculate ;)

You can really get a bit psychological with what's in people's carts. Here's a sampling of mine:

-Les Bourgeois Chardonel (someone likes to experiment with wine, but doesn't like paying a lot for it, also likes to support local businesses with really cool restaurants)
-Peanut Brittle (didn't go there to buy peanut brittle, but saw the display and set a fairly innocuous limit, saying she wouldn't buy it unless it was the type made in Duncanville, Texas. Oops. Who knew? Dammit, that's good stuff! And it's from home!)
-Big ass jar of southwest chipotle spices (someone is unimpressed with the variety of Mexican food places in this little Midwest town)
-Peanut butter (someone has kids who go through this at amazing speed)
-Sliced Prosciutto (pretentious? or experimnetal. Either way, it's the ham of the gods)
-Newman's Own Spring Mix (likes to try organic stuff on a small basis, likes buying things that go towards a good charity)
-Spanakopita (yummy - has good taste LOL)
-Those little tuna and cracker combinations (someone bought that at the same time as prosciutto and spanakopita? Oh yeah, she must work night shift and wants to avoid packing a lunch and ordering out all the time).

So that's just a smattering of my list. I was a good girl and didn't buy any movies or books (that was SO hard) or cheese (had to slap my hand). But it still put me back a pretty penny. OTOH, I have several meals worth of food and the storm's a-comin', which means I'm perfectly positioned for a multiple hour power outage (dammit! I tried to eliminate the snark)

Thanksgiving turkeys

Well here's a general update and a mention of our, um, interesting Thanksgiving. Enjoy!

I worked Wednesday and Thursday nights, and we had planned to leave Friday morning for Texas, returning Sunday. Can you say whirlwind trip?

Wednesday night was a killer. Very heavy assignments and my coworkers weren't really able to help much as they had de-toxing patients ('tis the season!) who were constantly pulling out tubes and squirreling their way out of bed no matter how much they were restrained (sorry if that's TMI!). We saw security a whole bunch that week LOL.

Wednesday before I went to work my mom emailed me and said that she and dad were coming up from Alabama to visit Papa (who lives 1 hour west). They were doing a 2-day trip and thought that I'd be at work by the time that they arrived on Thursday, but they'd drop in to the unit anyway. Thankfully, they arrived very early so they didn't get to hear some of the words being shouted by our favorite guy going through the DTs LOL.

They arrived so early that they even offered to take us out to dinner. They had noticed that Ryan's (a buffet place) was open, so off we went. It was pretty crowded, but they had plenty of food and we found a big table right away. Cool! The food was pretty good, but let's just say that there was some interesting people watching LOL. I don't know what the usual clientele for Ryan's is, but it was definitely interesting that night LOL. Hey, at least I had turkey and dressing on T'day. I was just planning on having some Lean Cuisine or something at work LOL.

Tom dropped me off at work and my parents headed on to Papa's house. In the morning, Tom picked me up, we loaded up the van, and we headed out to see Papa on the way to Texas. It had been quite a while since I'd seen him and he still looks great (living at an assisted living place). On the way we saw the new people who bought Papa's house and they were decorating it really nicely for Christmas :)

Had a fairly uneventful trip to Texas, but for some reason I couldn't sleep until we were past Norman, OK, and I woke up in North Dallas. So I had about 2-3 hours sleep tops. We get to Tom's folks' house and I just crashed.

Unfortunately, Chris didn't crash. Apparently, the boy stayed up all night, playing with toys and eating tons of candy (they keep stashes everywhere) including MIL's beloved dark chocolate. Oh crap. Usually I can't sleep when we first get there and I stay up and watch TV and make sure everyone is asleep. Great.

The next day Chris was just bouncing all over the place (hmm... wonder why?!?). About 3pm the boy just crashed. He was crying, just totally wiped out. But he wouldn't go to sleep. At one point I was just holding him while he cried and he said he was so tired and just wanted a nap. So I took him back to one of the bedrooms and laid down with him, but he just couldn't get to sleep. Tom came in and relieved me and got him to go to sleep. But then I got tired and went to sleep and woke up about 10. Gotta love night shift schedules! I had missed dinner, so I wound up going out to Whataburger and getting a breakfast taquito. yummy!

Back to Saturday's meal. I had assumed, when we told the inlaws that we were coming 600 miles for Thanksgiving, that we would be having the main dinner on Saturday. I brought some little treats but didn't have time to really bake anything, since the food would have gotten a little stale between the time I had to bake and the time that we would have left. Well I didn't have anything to worry about. We had leftovers. Stale bread and leftover turkey and ham. And they talked about how good the green beans and sweet potatoes were. But there weren't any left. They barely had any pie, also. Now I'm not one to typically expect the red carpet treatment, but hell, we busted our asses to get there on very little sleep. And all they could do was give us the leftovers and complain about our children. I'm not really feeling like hurrying back. Oh and BTW, we had a good crowd for Saturday lunch. It's not like they had to do it on Thursday because people were working. They just didn't want to include us.

OTOH, we did get so see my nephew Casey, who is just a great kid, and my niece Tatum, who is 9 months old, cuter than cute, and trying to stand. What a doll!

Sunday I was awakened twice, with the mention that the inlaws had to go to church and a funeral so we had to "git". So I rounded up the kids really quickly and Tom later told me that there really wasn't that much of a rush. The whole weekend his folks just sniped at the kids, so I really didn't think they wanted us there at all. So why should we hang around, KWIM? This is the LAST time that I bust my butt or feel guilty about not being able to come for the holidays. I'm going to Christmas in Alabama and getting to see my brother and SIL (whom I adore) so I'm just going to focus on that LOL. Next year, they can come see us. Unfortunately, the Ellis celebration was in Austin this year. I think next year, with 2 incomes, we need to see about flying down there to see some great people who love us :)

States I've visited

create your own visited states map
or check out these Google Hacks.


Pretty cool - I guess I'm not as poorly traveled as I had thought. OK, I really am - that's why I'm not showing the worldwide map ;)

Gee, it looks like I went out of my way to avoid Vermont and Delaware. I never came close to Vermont in my northeast travels, but when I was in Ocean City, MD I was blocks away. Just spent a little too much time at the beach to consider adding another state to my repertoire ;)

I'm moving to Mars

According to this handy dandy calculator, I'm only a little over 18 in Mars years ;)

Vote Aqui

Yes, it's voting day...

I worked last night, then had a cardiac class from 8-12. I thought I was going to die towards the end of the class!!!! It was good until the last speaker who just went on and on. Then I made it home and decided to never do another class like that. I was just too wasted tired.

I wound up sleeping until about 6, then hurriedly dressed and ran out to vote. I was a little worried about missing the opportunity to vote, since I usually like to go as early as possible. About half the people in my class had the "I voted" stickers so a lot of people got an early jump on the polls.

It always surprises me how there's never a line to vote here. I hope it's because they've streamlined the process or because they have more precincts or something. I remember growing up in Texas, seeing the lines all day at school and seeing the news coverage showing people lined up around the block when they were closing the polling places. There were huge waits before and after the traditional work times. The funny thing was, we had early voting! So I ALWAYS voted early. That was a hard habit to break moving up here. It was so easy to vote the first couple of days of early voting and then to just totally ignore the campaign ads and crap.

I got to vote on one of those new-fangled computer voting machines. Pretty cool. If someone can't figure this thing out, then they have a real problem LOL.

The races here in Missouri were really getting nasty. For a couple of races, my vote came down to who would I least hate to see in office. Pretty sad that politics has to come down to being totally about negative attacks. I'd like for someone to tell me why they are right for the job, rather than why so and so is wrong :(

Working out with the X-Files

OK, I know I'm weird. I sleep during the day and work/do housework during the night. I got several loads of laundry done (yummy) and surfed the web. I started to realize that it was nearing 5am, and I wasn't remotely tired. So I got on the website for my rec center, and confirmed that they opened at 5:30am.

I've been planning on trying this for a while, but finally did it today. Went early to grab one of the DVD workout stations and brought a season 4 DVD with me ;)
I walked for 47 minutes and completed 2.44 miles. Yes, I'm a slug. But I've been sedentary for SO long, mostly sidelined by fascitis.

Here's a website that shows how you can use athletic tape to secure your foot. It sounds a little dorky, and it feels weird, but it's made a world of difference to me. I'm not hobbling nearly as much!!! YEAH!!!

Hopefully the weight loss will start soon. Tom's talking more and more about doing Weight Watchers, so we'll see if we can get something going soon. I also bought a bunch of soups to take to work, because for some reason I can get by with eating a lot less when I'm working nights?

I'll try to update with my fitness progress. Hopefully this is a habit I can keep. If it works out as well as it did today, then I'll be a happy camper.

BTW, birthday is a week from tomorrow. I'll be 35 (EEEEEEEKK). So if I live to be 70, then I'm already middle aged. What a depressing thought!

Back to computerland

My computer is having a nervous breakdown. I can access some things on the internet, but most secure sites won't load. I know that it has something to do with my Norton Anti-Virus, which freaked out on me a couple of weeks ago, but I haven't had the time to deal with it. Thankfully, there's a couple of computers at work that I can access for most things, but I have to choose alternate ways of paying bills, buying online (DAMMIT the holiday season is coming!!!!!), and checking email. Amazingly enough, I can actually access this site. So I guess there's no reason for me to NOT blog, except for ignorance at the fact that I could actually sign up. I can also access myspace, but not facebook??? Oh well...

Along with the email difficulties, a gripe. Most people who know me realize that I am rather anal about my computer usage. I am on constantly. I always check email, even if I don't have time to respond right away. This includes email from work.

So the other day, my manager sends a "come to Jesus" memo that basically says that everyone needs to have the trauma course done by the end of the year. She sent the email shortly before the second to the last course was offered, and well before the last course. Of course at work I log on and see the email, and that the second to the last course was offered that morning. Oops. It had 40 extra seats. Not that I could have done much with that, considering I won't take an 8-5 class and then work, but oh well. So then I look at the next class. Full. So full that there are already 5 people on the waiting list. Great. I become #6. I also responded in an email to the educator who had advised me to wait until I could take the 2 day course which isn't offered until next year. So I'm definitely covered. I just hate being in this position.

I work tonight and then stay after for 4 hours for a cardiac class. I think I'll buy a big old donut and eat it in class LOL...