Home

Trying on a new background...the pink was getting to me. Around this time of year, when winter really starts to set in for the long haul and I know I am looking at another 5 months of cold, I start longing for Pacific Ocean. Funny how I grew up near it but always took it for granted...now I'd kill for just one day to lay in the hot sand and run through the waves. Maybe kill is an overstatement. Anyway, I miss the west coast.
There's nothing wrong with being homesick. It's natural to miss the places we knew and loved for most of our lives. Turning that around to the non-physical type of locations, I realized this week where my walk with Christ has come too. See, with Him, wherever I am, no matter what I am doing, I am home. That's what gives me peace about going to the mission field. I've always known that He's not sending me somewhere by myself...rather,I'm following Him to where He wants me to serve.

This week, I realized that I have not been home in quite a long time. Sure, I'm in my living room, warm and cozy with the fire crackling in the stove nearby, but I've been gone for the longest time. I don't like being this way. It's like when your shoes and socks are soaking wet, when traffic is nasty and everyone on the planet is snarling at each other. You want to be home more than anything in the world. You can stop in some place for a while, grab a cup of coffee, but you know it's not the same thing as being home where you belong.
Pardon the preceding pathetic metaphors, but really, when we as Christians get away from our Savior, we get away from home. We can try other things to distract us for a bit from the misery that comes with not walking with Him, but it doesn't work for very long. I know where I belong, no matter where my physical location might be. I know as long as I am with Him, I'm home. Nothing else compares, and nothing else is worth it.
So back to talking about the mission field...someone recently asked me why I want to go overseas. In my recent "run away from home" retardedness, I really forgot a few things. First, that I am so prone to wandering from Him, it terrifies me.I dread the thought of a life without Him, yet it is that very life that I seem to run to as fast as possible most of the time. Second, that God can use any vessel He wants to fulfill His purpose. He could use a brick if He wanted to. I don't know why He is allowing me to do this, but I am ready to follow His will. If He wants to use me, if He chose me to follow Him, then my home is with Him, wherever that may take me.

Hope this made sense, wrote it in the dead middle of the night on an empty stomach and depleted caffeine stores.
Closing note...tonight I was reading online and saw this article. http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/latinamerica/6783415.html
During this season of joy, it's so easy to forget what's going on around us.
In Christ,
Gina

I'm back!

DOH! Trying this again. I started to write a post earlier but it turned into a diary of an emo white woman, and let's face it, even I wouldn't subject anyone to reading that.

So I haven't posted anything here since October and am not sure if I still have any readers or not. I got pretty swamped with exams and projects for a while there. Thankfully, school ended on Wednesday and I am a free woman till January 11th. This weekend was my first free weekend since August. I slept for about 26 hours between Friday night and this afternoon. Seriously. It was awesome. For the first time in months, my eyes are not bloodshot and I'm not yawning constantly. I might just spend the next three weeks sleeping, getting up long enough to eat, drink, and go back to bed. I'll shower once a week.

Seriously though, this is only going to be a half break. I have to start reading my books for next term so that I actually know what the teacher is talking about when we get started. The great part about being in my second year is knowing what is coming at me. I already know that I am going to get my butt kicked, that I will cry, that I will hit a slump around late March, and that I'll unconsciously clench my jaw from stress. Well, not really on the last part there...I finally cracked a molar from doing that this semester and now have awesome 20/20 hindsight about how wise it might have been to invest three dollars in one of those squeezy rubber balls or at least a mouth guard. But I probably would have looked pretty dorky....sitting still, reading, with a mouth guard in place. Yea, cracked teeth are better. Very sexy too, I might add. It's like I'm permanently establishing the fact that I am from the Four Corners region. At least I could move to the south and fit in relatively easy. Might not have the accent, but all I'd have to do is flash my broken pearly whites and folks would be like "oh, yea, you must be kinfolk of SueJo and Earl...say, you got that Jello salad recipe SueJo's always keepin from us?" Don't diss it. It's a good back up plan.

I just signed in here after not having posted since I'm not sure when. School has a way of erasing all life and time outside of class. I've kinda hit that point where even after I finally shut my computer down and close up the books for the night, I lay in bed unable to sleep because I can't stop thinking about all of my assignments and all of the anatomy terms I need to be memorizing, and that I should not be sleeping until I have my masters degree. I'm literally losing hair, weight, sleep, and quite arguably, my sanity. Although, many would probably either say that I lost my sanity long ago or more likely, that I never had it to start with.

Anyway...I studied for like 13 or 14 hours today and finally hit a wall tonight, so naturally, I decided to get on my computer. Not like I'd want to get out and do anything or see the world or at least go to Target. Besides, the roads are pretty frozen right now so I would probably just end up seeing a ditch or a guardrail after sliding off the road.

Right now my brain is running on minimal zzz's and my three neurons have been stretched pretty thin this week.

Midnight reflections in a tequila mirror.

For starters, never drink tequila if you have been suffering from particularly bad mood swings for the past month or so. That in itself is a recipe for disaster, and if not disaster, at least a series of unfortunate events that you will probably wish you could undo the next morning. Secondly, make sure that if you do proceed with the afore mentioned activities, someone else is there to take responsibility for your cell phone for at least a couple of hours. Sort of like a "save me from myself" mentality, if you will. Even if you won't give it to someone else, at least think about turning your phone off and throwing it in a pond or the ocean. Trust me. You'll be glad later on. Drunken conversations are never, never, never worth it the next day. While you're having it, it seems like the best thing in the world, like you can finally say things you have wanted to say forever. Which is exactly my point. There is a reason you never said any of those things before, and that's because your prefrontal cortex is usually acting as a buffer to the lower parts of your brain, the parts that scream "YEA LET'S GO BUNGEE JUMP WITHOUT A ROPE!" In short, the prefrontal regulates stupidity. Unfortunately, when you drink tequila at midnight, it overwhelms that small portion of your brain and the other parts surge forth unchecked and uninhibited, so suddenly, driving to Dunkin Donuts with your little brother's friend for stale pastries at 12:14 am sounds like the greatest idea ever, bar none, and even worse, you find yourself texting with someone for a retarded amount of time, someone you know you shouldn't be talking to late at night after consuming tequila. Good grief.

I just wonder to myself what it is that flips the switch in our brain so that after a certain hour of the night, we become way less inhibited, even if we haven't been shooting tequila. I finally established a rule for myself a few years back that pretty much goes like "any email I write after midnight will be saved to my draft box until I review it the next morning and can declare it legally sane". Obviously, that rule does not nor has it ever applied to this blog. On one hand, late night conversations have a way of bringing out an openess and honesty in people's thoughts and emotions that never sees the light of day, and for good reason. 99% of those interactions are regretted the next day, normally with the party in question going "why...oh why did I ever say that? I feel so stupid!"

On the other hand...it can be way easier to talk so someone at midnight because the overall silence and darkness act like a security blanket,making it easier to finally open up. Unforftunately, I still have to side with the fact that opening up at midnight about something you can't talk about in daylight normally has nothing but regretful thought attached to it the next day.

End of another week..and hopefully, the end of my mid-semester slump. Somewhere in the middle of each term, I get a 2-3 week long streak of not caring about class and decide that my time would be better spent sleeping, day-tripping, shopping, nose picking...pretty much anything other than schoolwork (take the number of blogs I wrote last week as evidence). Thankfully, this time around I did manage to stay on top of my classes and kept my grades in the 'A' range.
I think right now I have something like 7 weeks left. Maybe eight. Maybe I could consult a calender instead of guessing, especially since I have one on my computer. Ok. 7-1/2 weeks to go.

So now that I am done hating on school and am back in the game, I'm starting to look way way ahead on the road. I have two years left here in glam town before I get my RN. After that, I was seriously considering going away to WA to finish out my bachs degree...but...suddenly I feel the pull of going to all out Med School. It would be sssooo much longer in school but it could be so worth it in the end. Part of my motivation comes from my Mom and her older sister. They are both so smart and are such strong women. I won't even begin to pretend to have the number brain cells that they do cuz I've microwaved my food for way to many years and by doing so have passed second-hand radiation to my brain, but still, I want to be like them.
Here's my conondrum: I really really want to be able to cut on people and diagnose them myself, BUT I also want to be out working on people sooner that 230 years from now, which is the usual time table for med school. That, and my counterfeiting press still has some bugs to be worked out before I can start printing my own money (hey, I learned everything I know from the government). Yikes...doctor school is like 432k to attend. That's an approximate number and does not include textbooks, uniforms, housing, tuition, or a cafeteria plan. It does however, get you a sweet hoodie with the university logo on the back and a matching pen and a license plate frame. Maybe if I buy all of those things off Ebay, I could just open a private practice and everyone would believe I really was a doctor because obviously, my car would be parked outside with a legitimate plate frame, my front desk would have a legitimate pen on it, and I would have a legitimate sweater hanging in my office.
Next concern: I want to travel before I'm 90. I want to get out into the field now and work on hurting people. No, I don't mean I want to practice hurting people...i want to practice the art of healing on hurting people. *This is why not just any random person should be allowed to write words for others to read. Others can be mislead by poorly crafted sentences and they might think that I want to run off to another country, drive on the wrong side of the road, and have head-on collisions with indigenous personnel, thereby "working on hurting people". * Back to what I was saying, if I go to med school, it is going to be a long, long time before I even have the opportunity to drive on the wrong side of the road (not that I would. I'm just saying it might be nice to at least have the opportunity to choose not to). No joke, seven more years. And a few minutes ago I thought seven more weeks sounded horrible. That doesn't even include residency or internship.
Basically, I'd be 35 when it was all said and done. Ten years is a long, long time. I know...I know...you're probably thinking that in ten years I'll be ten years older anyway so why not spend the ten years doing what I want to do instead of not doing it just because I'll be ten years older by the time it's done, right? That's a good point that you make. I don't really have an answer except that spending ten more years inflicting compressed discs on myself from packing thirty books around seems kinda horrible and bottomless right now. That's like two more anatomy classes, 5 more math, 5 or 6 more chemistry, and worst of all, a lot more humanities, with all the touchy feely crap that goes with. Don't get me wrong. Obviously, I love to write. But seriously, how many more stupid portfolios can a girl possible write? I think I've done like 50 already.

Wake up call in a bad dream?

I had a dream that my mom died. And I couldn't help her or save her. She was laying there on the sidewalk and as I ran up to her and fell on the ground next to her I tried feeling for a pulse but I already knew she was dead and there was nothing I could do. I felt so powerless and weak and useless. Is that what it will feel like when I become a nurse and one of my patients dies? I can't get the picture of her out of my head. The last time we talked, I said some things that really hurt her. In my dream, she walked out of the house and it was all windy outside and we heard a tree branch fall and I knew what had happened. I ran outside and saw her laying there motionless with a big branch on her neck and I knew she was gone. I grabbed the branch and flung it away and screamed for someone to call 911 but myself... I froze up. Couldn't do anything except touch her face, sob, and ask her "please...please don't go. Mom please come back. Please... you can't be dead. God please don't take my mom away yet". I was sitting there hunched over next to her on the ground and she didn't come back.

So why do we have dreams like this?? Are they cruel jokes played on us by our own minds? The manifestation of our worst fears?

Or do they serve as bittersweet reality checks, telling us "hey...think twice about your words when you utter them, because you never know what tomorrow may bring"?

Running on 5 cylinders..make that 3.

I made it through today and yesterday, and for that major accomplishment, someone needs to give me a klondike bar.

I overslept both mornings and consequently, did not have time to brew a pot of coffee. And that's pretty stupid because no matter what, before they leave their houses in the AM, diabetics shoot up with their insulin, cardiac patients jump start their pacemakers, hypertensionites take a chill pill to lower their blood pressure, and constipated people drink prune juice. It's just how it goes and no one would even think to skip on their treatment because they know that something unfortunate could happen, like death or a coma (well...constipated people might not die but the results would still be pretty unfortunate). But I decided that makeup was more important. Which is why I had one nicely done eye and one eye that looked like it had been stabbed with something sharp and black...like a mascara brush.

So why, oh why, if I can't operate a mascara wand, do I think for a minute that it's OK for me to operate machinery or motor vehicles while not under the influence of caffeine? Really. In spite of this deficiency yesterday morning, I made it to school with 15 minutes to spare before lecture.
Take a minute here for a simple math formula that will explain things better than I can, where, coffee= life (or L), lecture=sleep (or s), me=I (or I), and coma=vegetative state (or v).
This gives us: I-L=SV. If we divide this out, we realize that M-I-C-K-E-Y...and now you know why I need to have coffee. It's a simple matter of mathematics.

Really though, my friend Reena and I walked up to the fountain of life (for reals, wouldn't that be a sweet name for a coffee shop?!?!) er cafe and on the way, I tripped over a flat surface and ran into the wall. Twice. In an uncrowded hallway. I wasn't even wearing barbie heels. (If I was I would also have crashed through a faculty office window in the hallway and gotten tangled in the blinds). By the time we got back to our classroom, we were a few minutes late and I was still unable to walk straight and I accidentally whacked a few students with my backpack trying to make it to my seat gracefully. My backpack had a computer, a binder, and 3 textbooks in it. Since I was being graceful it probably felt like butterfly kisses on the backs of their heads.

FFWD to this morning. I made from my house to the counter at the bank and couldn't remember anything about what happened in between my front door and where I was standing (it's only a 15 mile drive, for Pete's sake). Then I handed a check for deposit to the clerk, sans endorsement or deposit slip, and stood there smiling joyfully, waiting for my receipt. I'm sure people like me make her want to carry a gun to work. If she commits a homicide at my bank tomorrow, I will voluntarily turn myself in at the police station and act out a mime performance of my behavior.
They will immediately release her, but I will probably need to enter the witness protection program.

Tomorrow I am going to brew an extra strong, extra dark, full pot of coffee. Then, I'm just going to take the lid off the pot and I'm going to sit on the kitchen floor in my pajamas, drinking it till it's gone. Then I'll brew another and drink it too. Then, and only then, will I do anything involving higher motor function, like brushing my teeth or going to the bathroom or opening the blinds.

pots and pans are scary wicked

I have a magic refrigerator. At least, that's the only explanation I've come up with for the strange phenomena that repeats itself every night in my kitchen.
I arrived home from a long school day around 6:45 this evening. Fred and Bud had both already been here for at least an hour. I was sort of expecting dinner to be on the stove, because I made enough last night for two meals, because I knew that I would be home later tonight and wouldn't want to cook. I just sort of thought that if I had everything pre-made and sitting in the fridge waiting for a simple endothermic reaction, they'd go the extra mile and dump the spaghetti into a pot and turn on a burner. You can start laughing at any point, because when I walked in, the kitchen was dark, cold, and lifeless.
Which made me wonder why this is a continual, repeat performance in our house. I can get home and throw together a decent meal in about 20 minutes. I'm not talking prepared processed box crap either. I mean fresh, healthy, tasty food. Fred, on the other hand, will get home and if there is no food prepared for him, have graham crackers, pickles, bologna, and oreo's for dinner.
And we pull our meals out of the same refrigerator. I don't get it!
It's like the concept of including a pot or pan or baking sheet just throws up a million warning flags that say "if your meal requires the addition of heat, it will take 7 hours and you will have 500 dirty dishes to deal with when it's all said and done." Talk about mental blocks.
Anyway, getting back to tonight. I started heating the spaghetti in a (gasp) pot and turned on the (no!) oven to heat the bread rolls. It really did take forever, like 15 minutes at least. I also had to pull the parmesan cheese out of the fridge as well as the butter. It took skill.
My question is this: What the heck is it about men and the kitchen? My younger brother will grill man food, but put him in on the linoleum and his culinary ability extends to taking pop tarts out of their foil bags. My dad is a civil engineer. He can design power plants and dams and mines and all kinds of crazy huge things, but when he looks into the fridge it's like his brain just doesn't interpret the stimuli in front of him. I mean it. Even prepared leftovers that just have to be reheated don't make it to his optic nerves.
I've even given him precise instructions on the phone about what he can make for dinner if he's on his own for the night. Me: "Down on the second shelf, you'll find a clear container with a blue lid. Take the lid off and heat it for one minute." Him: "Nah, I don't want to mess with all of that, I think I'll just do something easy and stop at Blake's on my way home and grab a burger. You want me to get one for you?" Me: "....."
Anyway, I was originally saying that my refrigerator is magic. That's because apparently, I'm the only one that can see things in it that can be combined to make actual meals that the rest of the world would accept. Bud can identify his leftover fast food containers from the previous night, and Fred can see pickle jars and bologna.
I might stop fighting it and just join their side instead. It'd be so much easier. I could have canned tuna on graham crackers and cold black beans out of the can and slices of processed cheese straight out of the wrappers. It's starting to sound better by the minute. Thanksgiving dinner would be pretty sweet. There's some canned turkey in the pantry, and I think we can throw that together with a bag of doritos and some cinnamon raisin bagels and call it a day.

Edward is my homie

I powered up my *new laptop* with the intention of briefly checking a few sites before starting on my nightly homework, but noticed that my dear friend Megan had tag lined me in her blog (barefootcopycat.blogspot.com), and I started to just comment back on her page, then suddenly realized I had written about 4 paragraphs and that it might be better if I didn't blog on her blog.

I sensed some doubt and cynicism from Megan concerning my pop culture awarenessometer.. She referenced Edward Cullen in her blog but didn't think I knew about him. I happen to have seen the movie and totally know who Edward is, which I vaguely if not directly referred to in my last blog, where I talked about vampires on sleds eating wayward tourists. Duh Megan. I'm like a dang authority on Edwardism.

I also saw a picture of the lost boys I mean vampire boys I mean shirtless men that were cast for roles in the upcoming movie. At first I was going to make a crack about being a cougar crushing on teenagers but further examination revealed that these fellows are more like 22 at least (which is still pretty cougarish for old bats our age, but hey, legal is legal).

Now, I have to confess that I have not yet read the Edward saga. I'm the only female between 12 and 137 that can make this claim. Everyone keeps telling me "OMG are you for real these are the best books EEVVAARR you so need to read them Edward iiisss sssssssssooooooo hhhootttt!" Um...he's in your head. Well, he was to start with. And he is sparkly. Dang it. Other men are just ruined forever. Thanks a lot Edward...now I can never even look at anyone else. Even if somehow, some way, some day, I did, I'd have to carry a can of iridescent spray paint to coat him with before I could even consider. Can't you see it? Me chasing a man around the park trying to paint his face? I'd probably accidently spray a little kid and get thrown in jail.

Back to the reading part, I'm house sitting this December on my Christmas break (yea I know...I can hardly stand the excitement either!), and plan to use part of that time slot to curl up in front of the heater vent with a stack of non-school books that do not mention anything about "gastrointestinal reflux disease" or that have the words "sella tursica" printed in them. I might even make a picture blog about it. Just for Megan.

Day Tripper

We've all heard it said that life is what we make of it. More frequently though, it seems that life becomes what we don't make of it. We can miss out on a lot of cool stuff if we aren't careful. I realized that this was happening in my life and had an epiphany about needing to ditch my school books and get some fresh air. Accordingly I got all wild and crazy yesterday and went on an unplanned day trip with my cousin Bri.

We started out saying "Hey, let's go to town and get something to eat.Then we couldn't decide where in Farmington we wanted to eat, so we started driving. This took us to Durango, where we still couldn't decide where to eat. Continued driving. Wound up in Silverton, where we walked around the two blocks of town for 3o minutes trying to decide where to eat. The town is pretty much ready to close down for winter and store owners were in the process of boarding up their shops. This gave it an overall weird creepy deserted mountain village feeling...I thought vampires were going to start sledding down the surrounding mountains to eat us all for lunch. At any rate, we were the only non-locals around and all of the locals were giving us the required snotty "you aren't from here" local gaze. They knew we didn't belong, and they'd probably sacrifice us to the bears if we dared stay after sunset. Which made me think that vampires might be a nicer alternative.

In the meantime, we still hadn't eaten. We finally found the one restaurant still open, a "Brown Bear Cafe." We walked in, uncertain of the seating etiquette, which made us stand out even more than we already did. The waitress stood there washing down the one dirty table for five minutes before she looked at us. Because, obviously, there were only 25 empty tables, which isn't nearly enough for two girls to sit at (do we really look like we might order that much food? Yikes). She finally condescended to acknowledge our existence and asked "Did you want a table?" To which I wanted to say "No, no...I want to stand out front and eat spagghetti out of my hand. That way the vampires don't have to spend so long looking for me."

We were finally seated, and 20 minutes later, another waitress asked "do you girls want something to drink?" Again....I wanted to say "No...no...I brought my own snow to melt." Gosh. It was like "torture the outsiders before we sacrifice them" day. We would have left but hunger prevailed. I was like 5 seconds from becoming anorexic. These locals were WEIRD. Two other groups came in while we were sitting there and they were obviously down-with-the-people, nature-loving locals that swim under frozen lakes in their birthday suits and catch fish with their bare hands, then eat raw while still underwater...all winter long. The whole outdoors thing isn't what makes them weird. All Coloradans are like that....they were weird because none of them talked. They sat there eating in silence, giving us weird stares all the while.

Our food finally came and I swear, the waitress stalked us like we were going to run out on our check. Why would we do that? She'd sick the vampires on our car as it wound its way back up the pass if we even tried to. If you've been to Silverton, you totally know what I mean. There would be NO escape. Anyway, we left her a generous freakin tip just to prove that we were nice people, even though we were talking trash as soon as we walked out of the joint. I don't get why waitresses do that. Why in the world would someone pick a desolate town, where they are outnumbered like 500 to one, leave their car at the other end of main street, choose a place where they are practically the only table, and then try to walk out on a check? Please.

After that, we went into a little tourist trap shop, where I bought an awesome necklace and earrings set that I've had my eye on forever. Again, although we were perfectly sociable and polite and spent money on their junk in what has to be a slow month for them business-wise, the two old clerks looked at us really strangely. Like they knew something we didn't. I'm telling you, it was downright creepy weird. Picturesque little town...whatever. More like "we trapped two of them....quick, deflate their tires!"

We hauled back to Durango. The locals might be greasy unshaved pot smoking hippies, but they are nice, and the coffee baristas don't look at you like you have '666' tattooed on your forehead. Gosh. I know what it is...Silverton doesn't have a single freaking coffee shop, at least none that I saw. Durango has like 50. Coffee makes people happy, and happy people just don't go around sicking vampires on non-locals.

Patience: The Virtue I Forgot.

I'm debating writing a book.

Aaannnndddd, that was a new record for me. I managed to keep a secret idea to myself for about 30 minutes this time. It's taken me 25 years to reach this point, so by the time I die I could conceiveably keep my mouth shut for...30 minutes. I'm allowing for my quiet quotient to double by the time I hit 50, but also figuring in that my brain will have degenerated back to current levels by age 75 (which is a normal life expectancy). This is not just me speaking. This is science, and it explains why old folks like to gossip so much.
The subject of the book? Learning how to wait patiently without honking the horn and yelling at the lady in front of me,"Grandma! The gas pedal isn't there for decorative purposes!" while in a mad rush to get to the next red light before her. Ok, so the lack of patience part isn't so much about actual road rage. Impatience on the road is simply my metaphor of choice for the way we all have a tendancy to want to get to the next life place faster, be it starting kindergarten, getting a driver's license, marriage, children, careers, education, retirement, buying our first big house, getting kids raised, etc.
In our hurry to get to the next place, we often fail to stop and appreciate what is happening where we are. When we're driving somewhere, we will get there (unless, of course, we get hit by a bus on the way) and normally, no amount of yelling and being mad will get us there any faster. In fact, the drive is normally a lot nicer when we just relax, especially for any victims I mean people in the car with us.
I'm all for planning for and being excited about the future. But when I get upset and impatient about where I am now, I think I cheat myself out of what really is a great time in my life. I mean, how much good does it really do me to have a pity party about being single, or that I still have 2 years of school left, or that...blah blah blah....you get the picture. No, life isn't what we thought it would be. I look at all of my friends and pretty much none of us are living the awesome lives we dreamed of as kids. Our rose colored glasses fell off (or in some cases, were violently knocked off) quite some time ago.
Almost everyone I know, be they 5 or 45, is waiting for the next phase. Waiting can suck if you let it get to you. On the other hand, waiting will teach us the most valuable lessons we can learn. All of these seasons that we go through have a set length for a reason, and often we can't understand what that reason is. I think it's so that our minds and hearts and emotions can reach a certain level, go through the fire if needed, and gradually be prepared for the next season.
Imagine if you got everything right in order, just like you wished and wanted? You'd probably be happy, but I can't imagine you'd be grounded very deep. All of these trials and this learning to walk by faith and trust God each day to get us to the next is what makes us able to withstand life when it doesn't go our way.
And I think I'm starting to talk in circles now that it's 3 AM. I think my awesome book idea just morphed a long way from what I originally envisioned after turning off my light to go to sleep at 1 AM. By tomorrow night, it'll be a potluck cookbook. Hey, who doesn't love a good jello salad recipe?

A day in the life.

Apologies to any offended.

I just realized that I haven't really introduced the cast of characters that play a daily role in my school life. I have my BFFs and I won't make fun of them here. I only do that to their faces. They are the two awesome girls that I study with and that I share "it's five o'clock somewhere" post-anatomy test margaritas with.
My campus is really small. At first I didn't think it was too small but I'm starting to realize that everyone knows everyone, which is overall nice but sometimes makes you claustrophobic. My point is that I see the same people over and over every single day without fail. I don't know them by name but I see them more often than I see my own family. The awesome part of not knowing their names is that I can (and do) make endless, merciless fun of them.

Lieutenant Dan: I swear this guy looks EXACTLY like Lt. Dan in Forrest Gump. He's also known as Mr. Red-shirt wearer, because he wears (ready?) a red shirt every single day. I'm not sure if it' the same one or if he has a whole closet full but I do wonder if he lies awake each night wondering what to wear the next day. Maybe he started with one red shirt and six white shirts and his mama never taught him how to do laundry, so the one red shirt just keeps multiplying indefinitely, like a starfish or earthworm. I want to go tell him "WASH IT SEPERATE! BREAK THE CYCLE! STOP THE MADNESS!" He takes his shoes off while he studies and his socks are quite white, which means my washing machine theory may have a few holes in it. Dryer theory is a whole 'nother deal. It's the explanation for how one sock disappears while the other remains. These are both very complicated string theories so I won't go any deeper tonight.

Forrest: Ok, he doesn't look like Forrest, and I don't have an obsession with that movie. The guy justs acts like it and when he talks in my nutrition class, regardless of what he is saying, all I hear is "an bolled shrimp an fried shrimp an shrimp gumbo an shrimp scampi an.." We also call him Bobble-head because his head moves around like that while he is talking. Yea. He sits right by me and I have sudden unexplainable coughing fits when he talks. And his eyes close the entire time and he keeps this stupid smile on his face all the while. Yesterday, I kid you not, he went off about how his aunt was super-obese and she decided to have the stomach-banding surgery and then she died three days later but it was a good thing she had it done because then other morbidly obese people could see that it was a viable option. I don't think I need to say anything further.

Homeschoolers: Well, I'm fairly positive that they were homeschooled. I can spot homeschoolers at 5 miles. It's a brother and sister team and they walk everywhere together in their clothes that unfortunately went out of style about 10 years ago. I think they share clothes with their parents. They pull rolling backpacks and sit together listening to rebel country music on their laptops. The music thing would be fine except that they haven't grasped the idea of EARBUDS, so when they enter the big study room and sit in the corner, we all get to hear Shania Twain feel like a woman. Even better, the girl sings along. Loudly. Yea, it is that painful.

Wedgie-man: Self-explanatory. He's an aviation student and at the start of the semester, he was really good looking, but that changed as we were walking down a desolate hallway one day. He was walking maybe 12 feet ahead of us and seriously, he had to have known there were two girls behind him, because let's face it, I'm not known for talking quietly, but he went ahead and solved his wedgie-issue anyway. And he didn't do it discreetly...more like one foot lifted off the floor. I know he knows we saw, because lets face it, it's not like I laugh at people any quieter than I talk. Oh well. It's his own fault.

Inside sun glasses wearer guy: Another student pilot. He's eleven. Ok ok fine...maybe he's 20. He hasn't hit puberty yet, just managed to get really tall without any other apparent hormonal changes. He still has the little boy "my mom cuts my hair" style going on, but this dude rocks his Top Gun sunglasses inside the building all the time. I'm going to buy a pair just like his so when he is standing there near my table, I can just nonchalantly slide mine on and be as cool as him. Maybe I could walk to the bathroom or to the vending machines while he is there...but my eyes are bad anyway so I'd probably trip over power cords and pull like 5 laptops to the floor, or I'd fall down the cafeteria stairs. Or I could stand there fumbling with the buttons on the coke machine, trying to correctly insert my money but unable to see the slot.

Mr Awesome Hair Guy: Sorry, I really promise this is the last student pilot I make fun of. They just make the easiest targets. Besides, he is so awesome that it would be unfair to him to not list him here. I'd say he's around 25-30, and he's going to marry himself. He walks around in his awesome uniform (they wear white shirts, dark blue pants, dark blue tie, and black shoes). Sort of a Mr. Rogers effect if you ask me but anyway...they also have a flight jacket. He grabs the collar of the jacket and holds it over his shoulder, and as he walks, he tosses his tanned head so as to flip his surfer hair. Each time I see him crossing the commons, I want to start yelling ''WORK IT!...WORK IT!!...."

This concludes this session of "How to be a snarky, cynical, sarcastic critic of all you survey". Tune in again next time and I'll introduce the cafeteria crowd.

Hands and Feet

Once again, this is a serious post. I almost feel like I am failing my blog when I write something serious, but for now this is what is in my head and heart.

My brain has been really sidetracked lately. I go to school each day and get another step closer to applying to the nursing program. Each test is just one more stepping stone to my goal. Each project is just another thing I have to do my best to get an A on. My friends and I have developed OCD when it comes to our grades and seriously get mad at ourselves for anything less than a 100. I mean, even if we do get a 100, we get mad if we missed an extra credit question (and the accompanying chance to get our overall average up another point or two). We want to be the best because we know there are probably two hundred other students trying just as hard to be among the 60 that get selected this coming spring. It's a scary, scary thought. Everything we have been working towards comes down to how we look in an application packet.

Last fall wasn't this scary. We weren't applying yet and still had a year to get everything together. Now it's our turn and all of our dreams come down to how we do this semester, if we do well enough for our teachers to write recommendation letters, how well we do on the entrance exam. It's enough to make you lose sleep (obviously...since I'm writing this at 1:30 AM on a school night).

Anyway, somewhere in the middle of all this school stuff this year, I started feeling sorry for myself that I'm not married yet (yea, this has been the theme of my pity parties this year). Tonight it finally clicked in my head....amid all of my school stress and longing to be with my someone, I've lost sight of where I'm headed and what God has called me to do. I mean, I've known that I belong in the mission field and that I was born to do this, but I've been sitting here wondering..."but God, why? Why can't I have what I want? How come I have to wait? All the other girls are married and are having kids now. When will it be my turn? Why are You requiring this of me when it hurts so bad?" I know I'm not the type to date just to have fun...regardless of how it's viewed, I just don't want to give parts of myself away like that or risk taking from someone else what doesn't belong to me. Does that mean I really have to wait for what seems like is going to be at least another 5 years before I'm granted my heart's desire? I don't want to be thirty and unmarried!

But, as is often the case, it seems that when I'm hellbent on wallowing in my own pity and doubt, God allows me to stay there until I finally see where I've come to. Tonight I think I saw that. I don't know when or where or if I will be married. It doesn't matter. There is work to be done. When I think about it, I would rather spend my life being single and following my Savior to wherever He calls me, than being married and living without Him. He may have someone planned for me. He may not. I don't know. I do know what He has given me right now. He has set a task before me, a mountain to climb, a race to run. I know He is by my side every step of the way. He loves me more than I know. How can I not give up my wishes and desires to a God who willingly gave up so much for me at Calvary?

It seems like being single should just get easier, or that you will get so used to that it won't bother you anymore. Well, you do get used to it, but that doesn't make it any easier. On the contrary, each year that passes just makes it more difficult as more and more of your friends get married and have babies and you still have to find a date to take to weddings and funerals (ok not funerals but it just seemed to fit...). That would make for an awkward first date though...."Yea that was my great aunt Laverne. She was dead for a week before they found her. So what do you do for fun?"

Seriously though, looking back over the last 6 years, it feels like I've been wishing that I belonged to someone, that I shared my life with someone, that my heart was claimed. Well, I do, and it is. You might think that sounds funny. There is no guy sitting next to me, no awesome date set for Friday night. But my heart is spoken for and I belong to Him. And that is beyond treasure, beyond enough. It is well with my soul.

From Here

I know I normally stick with sarcasm, so this post may come across as a bit strange to some of you. This particular post is for my future husband. Lately I've been questioning God about where my life is headed, or rather, what hasn't happened in it yet. Yes, this is personal. Yes, it might be something better kept to myself. It may sound funny or pathetic, and it may never come to pass at all. I don't know.
I mess up and get distracted from my walk with God so easily it scares me. My heart wanders, and I pray that God will keep it bound to Him. Everything has a time and a season. Right now, I am in a season that requires me to be single and focused on what I am doing. I have to finish it out and accomplish the tasks He has set before me.
We've all heard the saying that life is what happens while we're making plans. True that. There's work to be done, right here, right now. I would say that the following is a dream, a prayer, and a promise to hold on to in this present season.

I'm praying for you. I can't wait for the day when God brings us together. Right now it feels so much like that day is a very long time off. I've been waiting for so long. Sometimes it's extremely lonely. But I know that it will be worth it 1000 times over. I don't know why He is having us wait, why our time is not yet come, but I trust Him completely. Somehow, this time of learning to wait on Him while waiting for you is making our story that much sweeter. I wouldn't trade these lessons or this season for anything. Because every time I want to cry, every time I wonder where you are, I learn to give it to Christ and to lean on Him even more to fill my heart. There's a song by Big Daddy Weave called "From Here." It just makes me look forward to our wedding day, when we get to dance together for the first time. I know as I write this that it is going to be a beautiful day.

I know God is using this time to prepare us for something in the future. I can't help but be blown away by His magnificent ways. I am so humbled by His grace and mercy, by His unfathomable wisdom and love. I'm waiting for you because I love you already and I don't want to do anything to hurt you. I'm holding you in my heart. I wish I could put into words how much God has changed my heart and how grateful I am to a God who cared enough for me to save me from the path I was on, to call me to serve Him, to put a new song in my heart, to teach me to wait on His perfect timing. I am altogether unworthy, but altogether grateful and awed to be His daughter. I am so thankful that He has chosen you and I to serve Him together. That He kept me from other choices. That He is keeping us for each other, for Him.

That He called me to be a nurse and to go to school and that I am able to follow this path that I never would have seen a few years ago because I was so set on accomplishing my own desires and dreams that I would have settled for 2nd best instead of waiting on my Lord. That He kept me from that and that I am here tonight writing this letter to you, even though we may not meet for another 20 years. I am here waiting for you instead of being somewhere married to the wrong person and living a different life. PRAISE GOD.

Magic School Bus

It's been a while but I have a totally sweet excuse. School started. That reason is all inclusive and accounts for all absences from my blog.
The only class that is of massive interest to me right now though is Anatomy and Physiology. It's like an entire 'nother world. Right now we are in the histology block (that's Latin for "spending 35 hours a day sitting on my butt reading and developing blood clots in my legs). Being in the lab with my microscope is like leaving this universe for a few hours. Everything else disappears and it's just me, my box of slides, my 'scope, and feeling like I'm in the Magic School Bus. How amazing is this?

Ciliated Psuedostratified Columnar Epithelium

Ok, ok...I know it's not everyone's cup of tea and might just seem as exciting as watching golf or drinking tea (Apologies to all the tea drinking golf watchers. I'm sorry you have such boring lives). Back to the tissue pictured above, it lines our trachea, nasal cavities, and a few other areas of the body. I mean, you look at a general picture of a trachea and it's cool but...not amazing. This is what a human trachea looks like. If you're squeamish, you may not wish to view the following photo.

I debated whether or not to post it, but my view is that this is science and that the human body is an amazing structure, whether in death or in life. (If it got hit by a bus, it's a structureless blob, and amazing if you can scrape it all up). I'm pretty sure that the trachea in the previous photo is one of those holes in the back of the throat but I'm not sure.

Suicidal Frat Boy Frogs

I currently have about 15 cats, give or take a few depending on how many were killed by coons or birthed during the night. Our cat population can change for better or for worse by as many as 5 furry little faces in one day (city readers, please remember I live in the sticks. Rules out here are different). Rest assured, however, that my cats are well cared for. They spend their days chasing birds, lizards, elves, smurfs, frogs, and other small woodland creatures.

That brings me to recent discovery. Apparently we have a cult of suicidal frogs that I can only assume live in a tiny compound somewhere on our property. I say they are suicidal because I keep finding them hopping steadily toward the space under the back porch, which is inhabited on a continual nonstop basis by our white trash cats. They (the cats) sit on, around, and under the porch, smoking kitty sized cigarettes as they deep fry smurfs. Needless to say, any frog that ventures near this area definitely has a massive death wish.

I'm fairly certain that this particular cult isn't affiliated with the Heaven's Gate crowd because so far none of the frogs have been wearing tiny black Nikes. I'm not sure if they are polygamists though...however, the babies all look the same so it's safe to say something smells like Warren Jeffs (was that his name? I wanted to write Warren Beatty but I know it's not him...). The only other explanation I can think of is that there is a little frog fraternity down by the pond and the porch death march is some kind of sick initiation rite that they are forced to perform in order to prove their manly frogness.

I staged an intervention tonight and prevented a young frog from reaching eternity for at least one more day. It was probably his first time away from home. Anyway, when I picked him up, he let out a high pitched little frog shriek. I'm sure all of his beer drinking frat frog buddies were watching from the pond and they'll probably call him Nancy or Barbara for the rest of his life. Better to be a safe Nancy than a dead Bob, I always say.

On a closing note, a few weeks ago I managed to drive through a concrete slushee on the highway as I headed into town. Now this is classic...it had been raining, and a concrete bag fell off of someone's truck. Anyway, I proceeded to town, went to class, came out, and had a nice new thin protective layer on the lower part of my truck. And think, some retards out there actually pay for rhino bed liners. Why don't they just break open a bag of quick-crete in the bed and turn on the garden hose for a minute?

I was seriously thinking about just coating my truck in concrete and maybe adding a nice reflecting pool or sculpture, but then I decided that bringing concrete on to our property would have bad results. I don't want to drain the pond in October and find dozens of little frogs wearing concrete overshoes...the frogs that failed to survive the new initiation swim.

Dedicated to Dustin and Jenny

For those unaware, I have an older brother named Dustin, who has a wife named Jenny, who wears adorable green rainboots.

Dustin and Jenny live in SoCal in a little apartment by the sea. There are palm trees and flowers, and gulls wheeling overhead. They have 500,000 close neighbors who also live in little apartments by the sea. They have an awesome sushi restaurant nearby, organic grocery stores, and are a stones throw from Santa Barbara. But the coolest part of Dustin and Jenny's SoCal lives are their friends Doug and Myra

Actually, from this point on they will be known as Myra and Doug, because I think it's Myra's turn to be listed first. I haven't met them yet but Dustin has talked about them so much that I feel like they are my friends now too. Well, my imaginary friends because I think Dustin made them up one day while he was sitting in his apartment by the sea.

Dustin has a lot of time to think about guns and new ways to make money and to invent imaginary friends because he only works one day a month. He spends the rest of his time driving to the Valley to install one door knob or paint a heater vent plate but inevitabley when he gets there he either forgot a tool or his customer decided to leave without telling him. He then drives home and sits in his apartment talking to Myra and Doug.

From what we can understand, they are pretty much a super hero couple living incognito like the Incredibles, and they drive off to random locations at the spur of the moment. This is where it gets weird for me, because I find it hard to believe that Dustin's imaginary friends like to drive because as we all know, Dustin hates road trips. I can tell you why too....it stems from the time that the cat decided to have diarrhea on him while he was sleeping in the van on our trip across the AZ desert. This is also why he hates cats.

Anyway, maybe the road trip part is Jenny's imaginary contribution. I think it must be, because Jenny drinks coffee and all coffee drinkers are sane, balanced, highway loving people. We like to be on the road watching the sunrise while we sip our lattes/mochas/cuppajoe. Dustin could not have invented the road trip part of Myra and Doug. This is not just me talking...this is science. I conducted a scientific study (meaning I thought it over while writing the above sentence and decided to report my thoughts as hard facts) that proved my point.

I personally know 4 pilots/student pilots. None of them drink coffee (now we know why planes crash), they are all serious by nature, and they don't like to drive long distances (well the other three might...I'm not really sure. I'm adapting their lives to fit my purpose and since no one else knows who they are I have full creative license to do so). Add into that mix the fact that my brother is one of the four and we have scientifically and logically established that it is impossible for Myra and Doug to take road trips in his imagination.

I don't understand why it takes researchers sssoooo many years in their laboratories to prove whatever their point is...I can do it in five minutes.

Bouquets of freshly sharpened pencils

People all have addictions, vices, obsessions. Alcohol, pills, video games, internet poker, stamp collecting, star trek, car racing...obviously, the list is endless. If you know me, you know I have a coffee cup surgically attached to my right hand. However, today I realized I've never talked about my other obsession in life. I'm talking about mechanical pencils. (This is what happens when you are old and single). Yesterday afternoon I drove to Office Max and I kid you not, I spent about 40 minutes scrutinizing mechanical pencils and lead before I realized how OCD I am about having the perfect writing implement.

Today I found one buried in my truck while I was looking for my fingernail clippers. The following was me, gradually becoming more and more excited the longer I looked at it..."hhmm...hey this is a 5.0 lead! sweet! Hey, it has the clicker on the side so you can push lead out without having to change hand position while taking notes! Hey it has a white eraser that won't leave marks and...oh my...oh my it's a twist out eraser, so it'll never get worn down to the point where you can't pull it out to replace it! And....and it has grippy things on the side! THIS IS A PERFECT PENCIL!"
Then I realized I had been driving for at least 30 seconds using my magic extrasensory perception because I was so focused on this stupid pencil that I had stopped looking out my windshield at the road in front of me. God must have invisible bowling bumpers for people like me so we don't crash into the side of a hill when we don't see the curve ahead of us. Otherwise the police and fire departments would arrive at the scene of my one car piled up and they'd find me with my perfect pencil clutched in my cold stiff hand and there would be a look of awe and amazement fixed on my face, like the expression of mindless wonder that Gollum wore at the end of the Lord of the Rings when he fell into the flaming pit with the Precious in his hand.
If that does ever happen, the dang undertaker better leave my pencil in my hand and let me be buried with it. Otherwis, so help me, I'll come back and steal all of the pens from his desk and stick them in all the other dead people's hands at night. Ha, that would creep him out pretty decently when he came in to work on their bodies in the morning. My guess is that he'd dig me back up and put the pencil back in my hand.
Now back to what I was talking about before I interupted myself with morbid imaginary death stories. I decided long ago that the typical first date routine of dinner and a movie was about as exciting and interesting as cold oatmeal. Last time I found myself in that situation, I wanted to stab my eyes out with a fork or call in a bomb threat on my cell phone from the bathroom. It's the whole lack of creativity thing that induces a gag reflex on my part. But it came to me while writing this that if some guy was to give me a coffee mug filled with coffee beans and pencils, I'd pretty much marry him on the spot. Sigh...does such a man exist? Only in fairy tales, I'm sure.

The last week here has been, in one word, insane. My family is going through a lot right now as three of our members suffer from some intense medical problems and have all been in and out of the hospital. The only thing I know to say is that I know our Savior is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Meaning, my Jesus is the same right now as He was 20 minutes ago. He is the same right now as He was before my mom, grandma, and uncle all developed the medical conditions they now suffer from. He was the same while they were/are in the hospital as He was when they were totally healthy, and He will be the same tomorrow, whatever their condition is at that time. I know that He holds each of them in His hands.

This has been a hard time for our family. Today started with one of those phone calls that we all dread receiving regarding a loved one and is ending at 2 AM with my mom being in the ER because her intestines shut down. Doctors are saying that my uncle has only a matter of hours remaining. I don't know what tomorrow holds, what next week will bring. Someday I know this will all make sense and we will see why it was that they had to suffer as they have.

I talked to my cousin on the phone yesterday and through tears he shared with me the last things that he and his dad said to each other. Nothing fancy or legendary...just "I love you." Is there anything more you can say though? Not that I can think of. I know my uncle is going home to our Savior when he dies, which may be tonight or in 40 years. It's just hard if not impossible, to keep from crying for the ones he leaves behind.

I can't help but think of my own mama when I think of my uncle. How do I put into words everything that my mama is to me? I can't. She loves to draw maps for people to follow. She buys tons of books and never finishes any of them. She is beautiful. I think of her and my uncle when I hear James Taylor songs.

The other person that is sick right now is my grandma. I've always called her Rackaw for some reason that I don't even know. This is breaking our hearts. Her and my mom and my uncle...I mean, they're so close to each other. He's been in the family since 1966 when he married my aunt. They were 18 years old. How do you live your life with someone for over 40 years then have to go on without them? I can't really imagine. But even more than that, how could you make it without Jesus holding you? I know people often wonder how a loving God could let us suffer. I just wonder...how much harder would the suffering be if He wasn't there with us? I trust my Savior. I know He is in control. How much worse would our suffering be if we didn't have a Savior bearing it for us?

The ER and doctors

Well, as some of you may know, my Grandma (for whom I am named) recently had to spend a few days in the hospital. Apparently she had a pleural effusion (latin for "many fuses") in her thoracic cavity (greek for "cave that the god of thunder lives in"). By the way, my medical terminology class really paid off this summer.
Anyway, after we had been in the examination room for approximately 357 hours, the nurse came in to tell us that the cardiologist would be with us soon. By "soon", she meant "at least probably before the rapture happens." During the subsequent wait, I wondered if it would be faster to take her to the DMV for treatment. I did come to understand why there are no windows in the ER. It's not so people on the outside can't see in...it's so the people inside waiting can't see out. The staff doesn't want you to see the leaves change color, then the first snowfall, then the budding out of trees as you wait to be resucitated from your heart attack. It's like a black hole where time ceases to exist for the occupants. Seriously, a lady was sitting there reading an issue of Time magazine that was hot off the press when she arrived. Reagan and Gorbechav were on the cover as "Men of the Year".
Finally, Mr Cardiologist arrived (i.e. someone apparently died and made him queen), fully self-aware of his own greatness, holding his Clipboard Of Power and Majesty. I know...I know... before anyone tells me, I know that doctors worked for years blah blah blah expensive education blah blah long residency blah blah save lives blah blah etc. And someday, said doctors will be my bosses. If this particular doctor is one of them and I have to work with him, I'll wear a specially embroidered scrub top that says on the back "I'm with stupid." Another might say "Don't blame him...his mama smoked weed while she was pregnant." Then I'll get fired and will launch an business selling similar scrub tops online to other disgruntled nurses.
I just don't get why some MD's become so convinced of their own awesomeness and then treat everyone around them like the parasites in the vomit of the maggot on the...nevermind. Is that what they learn in Med School? Furthermore, didn't their mamas teach them any better? I'm gonna need to come to terms with this sometime in the next year before I start doing clinicals at the hospital or there are gonna be some physicians walking around unaware of the long streamers of TP taped to their shoes, and all the while they'll be thinking how important they look holding their Clipboards of Power and Majesty and wearing their Stethoscopes of Glory and Might. You can guess who my first target is. All I can say is, he started it.

I know they are out there watching me.

I have three loyal followers now and I'm beginning to understand how the glamorous and fabulous must feel...or as I like to call them (borrowing from Dave Barry), Rich Twits On Parade. Except I'm not rich. I'm a poor twit on parade in my living room with a towel on my head at one something in the morning. But the blinds are closed because I kept seeing the camera flashes from the paparazzi who were staked out by my fence earlier. Or maybe it was lightning flashes from the thunderstorm that was going on.
While we're on the subject, I want to know why the heck they are called paparrazi. Is that Italian for "Idiots with cameras who never figured out how to live their own lives and instead spend their time chasing rich twits so the rest of us can stare mindlessly at their pictures while we stand in line at wal-mart waiting for the idiot in front of us to get over the fact that they were charged $2.oo instead of $1.99 for a box of ho-ho's"? I mean, when they were kids was it their dream to grow up and photograph Kirsty Alley sans makeup in a bikini? Maybe it's mall-cop syndrome...they were tortured by five of their peers in high school so they've dedicated the rest of their lives to getting revenge on the entire world.
Moving on...well, for once, I'm sick of talking about school so I won't write about that. In three weeks you'll get an update about how interesting my life is at college but for now, it's summer time. However, I am going to do some sidework during this break and brush up on one academic area that needs improvement. I am speaking, of course, of the fine art of drawing stick figure comic strips. Stick figures are great and I already have some ideas in place (yea, I think about stick figures.Try not to be to impressed). I'm gonna scan some of them on to here to sort of liven the place up and give it some culture and refinement.

1:01 AM

Gentle Readers...this is a serious post for once.
I'm 25 years old. According to science, the human body begins to deteriorate at the age of 26, which means next year I will start to die, unless I get run over by a bus this year, in which case said dying will simply be sped up (mowed over...whatever). If that is the case, the old adage "die young, make a pretty corpse" won't even be applicable unless you think abstract art is pretty. Was it Picasso who painted the faces with the nose on the chin and the mouth where the eyes should be? I'll just leave it at I think I know where he drew his inspiration for those paintings and he strikes me as a morbid little man. I'm sure this is the sort of thing that is right up Kristy's alley. Maybe she can paint my face before they clean me off the street and then she'll be hailed as a new Picasso. We've all seen her Christmas plate before and know that she can do abstract well enough.
I realize as I write about death that my last post was about my funeral playlist. No, I'm not planning on buying the farm or kicking the bucket or augering in or pushing up daisies just yet, although I did kick the daisies on accident this afternoon when I tripped while stepping through the flowerbed. Does that count as a near death experience? I did see a bright light but it was only because as I was standing back up the sun was in my face.
Moving on (consider this life after talking about death), I have a job interview in the morning. That feels more like death after life. For a minute there I felt so alive. No, I really am excited at the prospect of working at this place. I think it could be lots of fun. Me in a coffee shop. Thats a little like letting a druggie work in a pharmacy but hey, what they don't know about me won't hurt me. Maybe I'll come out of the back room with a little ring of dust around my nose. NO, NOT HEROIN YOU NERDS. Coffee grounds. I'll be back there sniffing coffee grounds. Maybe I'll have a better chance of getting hired if I just don't talk at all.

School starts in about exactly FOUR WEEKS from today!! I've decided that after I get my ASN I'm gonna go on to my BSN. Ha ha I can already see your minds...not B-S'n...yes, I already have my master's in that area. I'm talking about my Bachelor of Science in Nursing So I Can Kill People Even Better On Accident (would that make it a BSNSICKPEBOA?) Regardless, I'm going to the next level even though I haven't even hit the first level yet. How can I not be excited about getting to stay in school for ANOTHER two years?? I've found a way to never have to grow up! After I get my BSNSICKPEBOA, I'll decide to get my masters, then I'll become a Doctor, then I'll become a medical specialist, then I'll become a medical researcher, then I'll decide to go to typists school and become a secretary and start climbing a whole different ladder. I can say that Northwestern University is looking pretty dang good and in order to prepare myself to apply there I need to sit down with a counsellor and plan out the next few semesters carefully so that I have a higher chance of meeting a rich man that can pay for me to go to Northwestern.
Gentle Readers, did you really think I was going to write a serious post?!?!

My funeral playlist

Admit it. At one time or another, you've wondered what songs we'll play at your funeral. I considered my funeral tonight and decided on the playlist I want at mine, with specific instructions in parenthesis for each song. There should also be a karaoke machine there...just in case anyone feels inspired. I think it'd be hilarious.

#1. I will Survive (best if this starts then someone in the front row frantically whispers "THATS THE WRONG CD!" before finally shutting it off after the first chorus).

#2. Gonna Fly Now (at the end of the service. If it's an open casket service I'd appreciate it if someone could come prop my arms up straight in the air for this number).

#3. I like Beer by Tom T. Hall. Wait...that belongs in Dustin's funeral play list. Nevermind.

#4. Convoy (the hearse should play this on a bullhorn while driving to the graveyard). Can my hearse be a chartreuse microbus?

#5. Lord, I Hope This Day Is Good (if I was run over by a bus).

#6. I believe I can fly (if I was in a plane crash). Would that make it "I believed I could fly"?

#7. Standing Outside the Fire (If my house burns down because I left the coffee pot on).

#8. One Way Or Another by Blondie (If I was stabbed in the back by someone I know).

#9. Isn't She Lovely (another for the open casket service...)

Changing My Major

A recent session of coloring mustaches on lawyers while reading the phonebook gave me the great idea of changing my major from nursing to bail bondsman. I've gotta check at the school and find out how long it takes to complete the bail bondsman degree program.
There are actually a lot of similarities between the two jobs. For example, in either case, people will be paying a lot of money for a service they don't HAVE to have but that they would regret not using(on one hand they might die, on the other, chances are they'll get to share their jail cell with a tattooed biker named Cupcake). I'll most likely get to know their families, will get to build a relationship with the client/patient during a stressful time in their life (stress on the one side will be because they got caught driving while plowed and the other would be the result of being caught by a plowed driver).
It was a hard decision to make but then I thought, "Hey, when was the last time I saw a nurse riding a motorcycle in the hospital hallways? Never. But Bail Bondsmen get to ride their motorcycles to the jail whenever they want to." Final similarity between the two professions: This is Farmington. Whichever I become, I'll always have a job.

Moving on...I was extremely happy to find that coloring beards and blackening teeth on people's pictures in the phonebook still cracks me up and I find it to be an extremely hilarious way to pass time (note to self: take phone book to DMV, on airplanes, and to funerals).
While perusing said phone book, I noticed that all lawyers try to wear the same determined expression, gazing determinedly past the camera to show you how determined they are to make lots of money off of you. Some achieve this bulldog-like stare, but most of them just look like constipated bulldogs.
Here's my final career idea for the night: Lawyer Photographer. The only problem would be that while developing the pictures I'd photoshop mustaches on to the women and klingon foreheads on to the men, then I'd get sued for defamation of character and fraud, and then I'd be the one trying to get away from Cupcake and in need of a bail bondsman. I could totally just hire myself.

Living With Old People

I live with old people. Three of them, to be precise. Before you start to tell me, I'll say it for you. I am very blessed to get to live here so I can go to school full time and not have to work a grown up job. I am very grateful. I know millions of people around the world would love to have the opportunities I have and be able to waste time writing blogs instead of doing their chemistry homework. BUT that doesn't erase the fact that I live with three old people whose actions give me endless ways to make fun of them.
For example....Fred keeps a padlock and logging chain on our chicken coop door because someone stole 6 hens last summer, but as I discovered tonight, Fred leaves the garage unlocked at night. The garage is well stocked by the tool departments of Home Depot and Checker Auto Supply. Apparently a half dozen feedstore hens whose main occupation in life consists of pecking each other's tail feathers off are more valuable than nail guns and circular saws.
I can just hear the theif who hits our place then heads to the pawn shop: "Man, you'll never believe the goods I got tonight. Take a look at this!" To which the pawn shop owner would reply "Oh man! Chickens with half eaten butts! Man I've been trying to get my hands on some of these for YEARS!" Then imagine said owner the next day when the local police sergeant makes his rounds.."So where'd you get these birds? What are chickens like these going for these days? You don't see chickens with butts like these very often." "Oh man, these were my Grandma's birds...I swear they were!"
My brother and I have discovered that free entertainment is never far away when interacting with the old people. For example, Mom* (In order to protect her privacy, I'll call her Debbie in this story) likes to draw maps so you don't get lost when you go somewhere far away, like Grocery Warehouse, or the bathroom. All we have to do is say "hhmm...main street...main street...no I'm not seeing it in my mind. Could you draw me a map?" This is guaranteed to be good for at least 30 minutes of drawing, talking with the hands, emphatic enunciations, and being informed of the locations of several landmarks along the way. "Ok, then you're going to take a left into the living room and you'll see THE FRONT DOOR. You want to walk through this..."

I am not making this up. Come to my house and see for yourself. We'll draw you a map - you can't miss it. It's the place with the blinking neon sign on top of the garage that reads "FREE STUFF!"

My "friend"

Today I am going to tell you about my "friend." My friend has not had any coffee today and this has turned her into a rampaging rabid mad cow of death. That sort of sounds like the name of a menopausal girl band.
My friend totally admits that she has an addiction but has no desire to overcome it. We formed a 12 step grop for recovering caffeine addicts but everyone got as far as admitting to having a problem, then realized that if we got over it, we'd be the posers that sit and drink tea in coffee shops. Now we are just a group of caffeine abuse enablers whose motto is "United we stand jumping up and down in place while saying the alphabet backwards ten times fast."

Speaking of the behaviors that can result..my friend has been barred from places like the library, museums, Easter Mass, punk rock concerts, and Hell's Angels Rallies. They all spouted some crud about her "talking to loud", whatever that's supposed to mean. At least she has a good shot at becoming the lead singer for the Rampaging Rabid Mad Cows of Death. I hear they are auditioning.
She really does feel feel bad for people that cross her path of a decaf day. In this part of New Mexico, most folks just think she's a disoriented skin walker that wandered too far from Shiprock. Speaking of geographical locales, I think I know why the suicide rate in Seattle is so much higher than the rest of the country. Everyone blames it on their stinky weather but if you think about it, Seattle is like, the birthplace of overpriced coffee addiction fixes, which means that a higher percentage of the population is addicted, which means that on any given day, some poor soul hasn't had their normal coffee for some reason or another and what is interpreted as suicide (like jumping off of a bridge) was really a moping decaf zombie who just wasn't firing on all eight cylinders that day (causing them to mopishly fall off the bridge).

At any rate, the one person that made her laugh in the middle of her brain melting down and convulsing was a little girl dressed in sparkles and swishy pink material at Sam's Club. This child was running up to complete strangers and yelling " Did you know my birthday is in two days?!?!"

In the midst of her zombie state, my friend decided to adopt this approach as a means to find the happiness denied to her this day. Oddly enough, people shrank away at the sight of a 25 year old woman rushing around the frozen aisles as she proclaimed her birthday. (For an addict, rushing while moping equals a speed somewhat akin to a muppet bouncing across the TV screen).

Some call coffee a stimulant, some call it a depressant, some call it a diuretic, and others call it a carcinogenic substance...I just know it is the medication that regulates my bipolarness that results when I don't drink any. I'm like those hippies out in San Francisco that claim they need prescriptions for marijuana to treat the recurring pain from the back injury they received in '72 when they fell off a ladder because they were stoned from doing marijuana. At least mine is legal in all 50 states. I better get going for now...auditions start soon and my friend left her glitter tiara in the freezer section.

It's only fitting.

Given that I have finally joined the three billion other people who have blogs, and that this is my first blog post, I wanted to "Pack a punch" and really write about something important and relevant to the rest of the world. After a lot of thought, I realized that I have never talked about my coffee house relationships.
I'm not quite sure when spending an ungodly amount of time in cafes became my most serious vice (next to secretly liking one or two Hanson songs for the last 13 years). It started last fall after I went back to school and found myself with a moderate amount of homework each week. Now, you have to understand that I have a hard time actually doing homework at home. It's like my room is filled with the magic poppies from The Wizard of Oz because I pass out like a drunk in the gutter as soon as I sit down.
After repeating this sleeping behavior for a while, I realized that sawing logs for 19 hours a day was detrimental to my grades. This is where my story truly begins.

I started going to this little place called Andrea Kristina's in downtown Farmington. I only went about two days a week. It wasn't serious at first, just a casual relationship, no strings attached. We got to know each other over a few months, and by the time December came around, I was attached, but they never truly had my heart.
FFWD to January 2009. I was taking 17 credit hours. It felt like I was drowning after the first two weeks. I had no choice but to live on coffee. I was still loyal to Andrea Kristina's, but cracks were beginning to show. I should have known it from the start, and deep down, I think I always did. We had different values and beliefs. I had been telling myself all along that we could make it work, but really, the only thing we had in common was that we agreed on local business, organic food, and strong ties with people. I think it was the election that did it. They talked mad crap about Sarah Palin. Started selling merchandise that praised their little savior but demonized my candidate. I realized it was the end as I sat there eating my bowl of soup. There was nothing left to say. I silently packed my books and left, never to return. Sometimes when I drive by, I am tempted to stop and have just one more cup of Pinion Roast, but I know I would regret it later.
Some people are fine by themselves. They brew away in their kitchens and are content. I'm not one of those people. I had to find a new place, and fast. You might think I jumped into the next relationship too quick, that it was a rebound, but I was desperate. It was winter time. The days were long and dark and my homework was the demon that was driving me to exhaustion.
Soon I was finding myself there almost every day. I couldn't stay away. Many snowy evenings were spent at the little table in the back corner by the window overlooking the street. I was happy. It didn't take long for the baristas to know me by sight. I'd walk in and within a minute, there waiting for me on the counter would be a steaming London Fog Tea. From that point on, I was hopelessly hooked and the relationship was serious. People started identifying us as one. They knew where to find me. I was contemplating taking the final step and having my mail forwarded. I'd gotten over the fact that it was part of a corporation. I could sacrifice some of my principles. It felt so right.
Suddenly it was April. School was hitting me like a freight train. I couldn't sleep anymore. And worst of all, Starbucks and I were in a rut. It came on slowly, but it was like the magic was slowly being extinguished from our relationship. Oh sure, I was still completely faithful, but it was starting to feel less like a sparkling slipper and more like a comfortably broken in house slipper that the dog has chewed a few too many times. Little things started to grate on nerves. They played their music too loud. I left eraser shavings all over the tables. Soon I was showing up in cold cream and curlers and they were leaving dirty socks on the floor. I needed more. It felt like we didn't even know each other anymore. It turned into a big lie, but it was easier to stay together than to face the truth.
I'm not saying I'm proud of what I did next. I didn't mean for it to happen. Like I said, I was under a lot of stress from school and work. The day came when I couldn't handle the thought of going home to mediocrity one more time. I was paying the bills. They could have at least asked how my day was going. Then it happened. I found myself sitting in my truck in the Durango Joe's Parking Lot. I felt a stab of guilt as I thought of Starbucks, but then I rememberd how Joey had mopped around me the previous day as if I wasn't even there. To them, I was just another thing in the cafe. I picked up my back pack and walked inside.
The barista greeted me with a smile and asked if I had been there before. She suggested drinks I had never heard of before. She offered fresh baked snickerdoodles. I found a window seat and felt different than I had in a long time. A week later, I was back. There's something about it that feels more at home than other places. Maybe it's that it's a locally owned, conservative leaning, American place...pretty much everything one could want.
By May, things were pretty much over with Starbucks and me, but we're still good friends. I go there maybe twice a week. After all, they know me as only an old lover can. They know how I take my coffee and how much sugar to put in my tea. We didn't have to divide our friends between us. All in all, very amicable.
I'm not saying that things with Durango Joe's have become serious yet, but I think that in time it could. They haven't filed a restraining order against me yet, so it looks promising.