the word on my street

Catch up....

2008-08-20T17:56:00.000-07:00

Ok Ok. I get it. It's been awhile. Six whole months.

Alot has happened. Let's go through the highlights. In June/July I graduated from nursing school. I then started doing some pseudo studying for the NCLEX which is the nursing test to become licenses. I say pseudo because in the time I should probably have been studying, I took a week long trip to Mexico with Rachel and another week long trip to Canada with Ryan.

Mexico was great - hot, dirty, lazy, and simple are words I would use to describe our trip. We stayed in a variety of places, ranging from a little Mexican house that had worms in our water system and bags for your poopy toilet paper to fancy shmancy hotels where people wait on you hand and foot. For the record, I like the second better...

Canada was great too. Ryan and I went Kayaking off the coastal islands just outide vancouver and it was beautiful and desolate and really quite impressive. I love going places that are cut off from most of the rest of the world. Where you either have to boat in, or walk a LONG way to get there. We had a great great time. Canadians pay a LOT of money for beer though. Ridiculous.

After all my vacations, I studied for, and passed my big test. The day before was hilarious. Hilarious in that my body was in full on, anxiety/freak out mode. I was shaking, sweating, puking, pooping, crying....not all at once, but all did occur at some point during the day. Glad that's over. And now I'm officially a nurse!!!

More to come later from your newest nurse friend...

We Know How To Make Sausage!

2008-04-15T19:35:00.000-07:00

So....Ryan and I are in this fun little Supper Club with a few of our friends. The idea is that every few weeks we get together and make amazing food and eat it. The hosts pick a theme and everyone has to make a food to go with that theme. It's alot of fun and a good chance for those of us who like to screw around in the kitchen to really "bring it" and impress our friends.

Well, this last time, we hosted and picked "things on sticks" for the theme. I'm not one to brag (yeah right) but Ryan and I took the blue ribbon. Or we would have taken the blue ribbon if we were giving out blue ribbons.

Anyway, the fact of the matter is, we wanted to make corn dogs from scratch. But to up the ante, we decided to first make our own sausage, and then make our own corn dogs from that sausage. That involved talking to butchers, getting hog intestine, purchasing a cake decorater, and driving across town for Grade A Meat. This video is for your viewing pleasure.

The other food at the Things on Sticks Party was pretty amazing too. The Mason's brought a plate of delicious little heart attacks on sticks (Aaron loves to wrap things in bacon) for appetizers, and the Rupps provided an array of impressive alcoholic beverages and desserts on sticks. All in all, it was a great success.

First Girls Trip of 08

2008-04-15T19:14:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago Megan, Rachel and I went on a little girls weekend to the Washington Coast. Turns out it was REALLY cold and actually hailed the whole time we were there, but we made the best of it and had a smashing time dancing, drinking wine, and combing the beach.

We paid for all of our meals in sand dollars.

2008-04-03T16:01:00.001-07:00

The igloo outing was a success. A cold, wet success. We built them, we slept in them. We woke up in them and then tried to take them down...which was alot harder than I remembered it being last time...

We are a sexy sexy couple.

Brooksie in town

2008-04-03T15:50:00.000-07:00

This is certainly late in coming, but I've been doing some fun things lately and well, everyone else is updating their blogs...it's peer pressure and nothing else.

Brooks came to visit a few weeks ago and these pictures are of the day we went on a "bus tour" where we got dropped off at Discovery park and then had to find our way back home on the busses. It was a great day of boche ball, art, sculpture, bike riding, walking, exploring, eating and drinking beers. And yes, I know that one pictures is flipped the wrong way. I can't fix it.

Enjoy.

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Birthday Joys

2008-02-21T09:36:00.000-08:00

I don't know where she found it but my sister Lori sent me the best Birthday card. Freaky little church children with the title "Birthday Joys"...I don't think the picture does it justice but I had to try to share this with the world.

The romance continues

2008-02-19T13:38:00.001-08:00

It's a good thing it wasn't raining in Seattle when we got back into town last night. I think I would have been driven to a deep dark depression.

Ryan and I went to Cannon Beach this weekend for a little Valentines getaway with our good friends the Hagemans. They live in LA but come up to their family's beach house a couple times a year and for some reason we keep getting invited to join...I like to think it's because we're incredibly witty and easy to get along with.

One thing is for sure, it's great to have rich friends...c'mon people- am I right or am I right?

The weather was great. I got to run on the beach, eat great food, hang out with Ryan, read stupid Hollywood magazines and listen to the LA crew talk about things I would never have the opportunity to discuss with my friends in Seattle. Like Marc Jacob's bags for a "reasonable $1,330". I can't even imagine what it would be like to have a bag that expensive. I could buy a car for that price.

One thing is for sure, I'd leave the price tag on the bag. For all to see.

I got crabs for my birthday

2008-02-14T08:34:00.000-08:00

This is a little late but I had the most fabulous birthday and thought I should post some pictures on the old bloggerooo. This year the celebration started a week early when I found out that my dear friend Lynette bought a ticket (after much convincing) to come out for the weekend. When she got here we did it all: had an all girls dance party, played with, dressed up, and ate some live crabs, we had a wine tasting, and did a hard core yoga class led my friend Jodi Wellman in our living room. We also took a few naps.

It should be noted that Ryan went to Uwijamaya to get the live crabs - people looked at him funny, laughed at him behind his back, and maybe even snickered, but he did it- and I love him for that. Such a sweet husband.

So to recap: On my birthday I killed and ate my own food, drank wine, did yoga and spent time with some of my favorite people. I also finally got to hang out with the much adored and talked about Libby. She, Kirsti, and Christy - all new the Elaine and friends group- really represented and got a great many points in my book.

Deliciously funny cookies

2008-01-04T15:33:00.000-08:00

The other day Rachel and I decided to bake some cookies. We didn't have the correct tools to cut out christmas trees and wreaths got kinda boring so we decided to tap into our creative genius...and this is the final beautiful result.

Spokane for Christmas

2007-12-23T17:26:00.000-08:00

It's Sunday before Christmas and on this night I can be found in Spokane Washington- Home of Bloomsday Race and Spokane's Native son, Bing Crosby. Ryan's family has been dishing out the love, food, warmth and most importantly, has supplied us with electric blankets which may be the greatest invention to date. It's like having a stunt double jump in bed twenty minutes before you jump in, just to warm it up for you. It's a great thing.

Anyway, last night around midnight we put on our parkas and went sledding down a street with a big hill for Jimmy's b-day. Jimmy almost got hit by two cars but other than that, it was everything Christmas should be.

In other news, I'm going to try to figure out how to download pictures onto this blog. Stay tuned - and tell me how.

A little nurse goes a long way

2007-12-14T12:09:00.000-08:00

On Tuesday I finished my last exam and halleluhia I'm only two quarters away from being done with school. This last quarter was all about babies and mothers and I'm happy to say I have seen enough of vaginas and babies. I got to see C sections (which were named after Caesar by the way - he was the first one born that way supposedly),vag births, post partum hemorages...all that good stuff.

That reminds me - I had a funny thing happen to me the other day at the hospital that freaked me out. I was in the elevator going to work on the 7th floor, and this guy was in the elevator with me. He said something to me that i dont remember and then he said "i'm on the my way to the er- I feel like my heart is exploding and it's getting worse - I'm pretty sure I'm having a heart attack." (that last line might be my imagination...)
And so what do I do? Well, being the completely capable nursing student that I am - I say "good luck" and jump off the elevator as soon as the door opens. It wasn't even the floor I was trying to get to. I was just so freaked out about what I would maybe have to do and what i didn't remember about my cpr class that i just bailed on the poor man...

oh well, i never did hear a code 199 so he must have made it.

2007-03-08T09:33:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was my last day of class for spring quarter. Now just a few exams to tuck under my belt and I'm ready for a week of spring and fun. It's hard to believe that after four more quarters, they're going to let me be a nurse. A real one. One that gets paid and everything...it's going to be glorious.

In other news, I was asked to come into the UW hospital for an interview for a nurse tech position. I guess one is on the Psycho (did I mispell that on purpose or does it prove that I'm too immature to handle the people there?) floor and one on the Neuro floor. I had to look up online exactly what a neuro floor is because though I hear the words "Neuro checks" probably at least once a day- I still have a little twinge of fear that someday someone will find out that I'm not really clear on what a "neuro check" is- much less how to do one. So rather than getting through nursing school without ever really understanding what "neuro checks" are (which you could totally do) , I will try to get a job on a floor where I assume Neuro checks are all they ever do. It's noble. I know..

PS. Neuro floors are where people go when they have brain, SC related injuries and have become too stable to stay in ICU.

Imagination station

2007-03-04T11:15:00.000-08:00

I said to myself, I miss writing. So here I am. I feel like the blogger thing is a much more mature venue for my much more insightful and mature thoughts. I mean, I am only a year away from being a full fledged nurse. I MUST have important things to say.

Among those, I just put a log on the fire that must have been filled with water because it's just hissing and spitting little water dropplets everywhere. I was thinking that it would have been great if the hissing I heard was from a snake that had been sleeping in the log and woke up to find that he was now in a pit of fire without any escape. Not that I'm into animal torture but I sure do hate snakes.

I just checked the fire- there's no snake. As I was checking, I had to think of the American Life I heard yesterday, where they did testing on children to see at what age they were able to recognize that just imagining something doesn't make it happen.

They put a box in a room with kids of different ages, then told them to imagine that there was either a puppy in the box or a monster in the box. Then they asked the kids if there was actually anythingn in the box- the kids all said no. But then the adult would leave the room, and watch the kids either move away from the box (monster) or go open the box to see if there was a puppy. They just wanted to be sure that imagining didn't make the puppy or monster real. I love that. And I love that I really did wonder if there was a snake in the fire.