A Good Evening

I wish I had a photo to go along with this post.

It's against the HIPAA act to take pictures of patients.

I had a great evening at work tonight. It made up for the crappy morning I had at home.

When I came on at 3pm, my only patient was "Jim", who was in our unit after having brain surgery to remove a tumor. Jim is an elderly man, and ever since surgery a week ago, he has been unresponsive. Little movement, no speech, no eye contact, nothing. CT scans showed immense swelling in his brain where the large tumor had been.

Tonight, Jim opened his eyes, looked right at me, and talked. We didn't have a brilliant discussion about the presidential election, or even about the beautiful fall weather outside his window. He said "yes", "no", and "sure". He followed my commands to squeeze my hand and wiggle his toes. He said "no" when I asked if he was in pain. He coughed when I told him to cough.

These seem like small things, but for some reason these small things made me want to shout for joy. Some patients touch your heart in a special way. I have never taken care of Jim before tonight, but I have been in charge and helped with his baths and passed by his room for the past week. This man is a husband, a father, a brother, a friend. And although he has a long road ahead of him, today was a good day. For him, and for me.

This is why I am still a working mother. Because I truly love my job (bodily functions and all). Because tomorrow, when I am at home all day with Gabe, I will be a better mom for the experience I had today as a nurse. Because sometimes, out of nowhere, hope smacks you in the face and makes you take notice. Because God, in His infinite wisdom, saw fit to convince an 18 year old girl to apply to nursing school, then take a job in an ICU at the unbelievably young age of 20. This past August marked my 14th year of nursing, and I love it more today than I did back then.

I appreciated it so much when you supported me this summer, with my horrible patient experience. I just thought you might like to hear a happy story, too.

Our New President

The polls are closed, the ballots have been cast, and the votes are all in.

The people of the United States have spoken.

Introducing our new president of the United States of America:



Joe the Plumber!

Back off, ladies, this one's mine. I wasn't really prepared to be First Lady, but I'm sure I'll get used to the idea. I'll probably have to be careful about what I blog about from now on, with the media and press hounding after me and all. But I promise to keep in touch with all my bloggy peeps from my ultimate scrapbooking room in the White House...

I'm Ready

Dear Daddy,

I know you don't like me to get into your gym bag when you're at work. But you've got so much cool stuff in there that I love to play with. Raquets, balls, neat headbands, glasses. Really, I just couldn't resist. I tried to avoid mom's camera so there wouldn't be any proof, but she kept chasing me down until she got a few photos for her blog. Jeez.




So anyway, I'm ready. When you get home from work today, let's go to the Y and do this thing!

I love you, Daddy! "You're my special friend."

Love,

Gabe

(Please note I am avoiding all political talk in this post. I'm liking Michelle's idea...Edward Cullen for president all the way!)

Oops, I forgot!

Oops, I forgot about it being "Not Me, Monday". This time change has done a number on me, folks. That, and all that bloggy love awardin' going on. So here's a quick one:

I am NOT eating birthday cake for breakfast.

I am NOT blogging instead of packing my kids' school lunches.

I am NOT counting down the days until this Friday.

Okay, there you go. And if you need a real pick-me-up on this November Monday, go click the "Not Me, Monday" button to the right and go read about the incredible miracle that God has performed on a certain little baby boy. It is absolutely amazing!

Can you believe it? I am the proud recipient of a sweet award from a new reader, Jacie, over from SITS. She gave it to me last week, but between birthday and Halloween posts, it took until today to post it. Here's what she wrote about me:

"And now I want to pass this award on to Heather over at "This is the day..." Ps 118:24. Heather, I love your blog, girl! I love the way you tell your stories and the fact that I can relate to them so well. I'm so glad I found you on SITs. Thanks for the many laughs!".

Thanks, Jacie! Y'all know I LOVE to tell stories, and for some reason, my life always sounds funnier the second time around. I'm glad you're entertained.

Now, for the hard part: choosing someone on my blogroll to pass this award on to. It is way too difficult to narrow it down; every single person on there is worthy. So I'm passing the buck to Isabel, who is going to pick one for me. And the winner is:

(drum roll, please...)

Katy, from What Katy Did Design. Come on down, you're the winner (hey, do they even have The Price is Right in Australia?) Katy and I did a blog swap awhile back, and Isabel still adores her Nintendo DS pouch, and Gabe's sausage dog has been busy fighting monsters every night while Gabe sleeps. Go check Katy out and give her some comment love from the good ole US of A! And while you're there, go check out her Etsy shop. This is one talented girl!

(If you haven't read about our girls' trip to Columbus yet, go check it out below. Good times...)

Two Blondes, One City, Lots of Trouble

Two blondes, one map, only 75 miles to our destination, the capitol of our state.

You are looking at a recipe for disaster.

Did we miss our exit? Yep.

Did we try to get off of the next exit and backtrack, only to find that the bypass we needed was not accessible from that exit? Yep.

Did we go 30 miles out of our way? Yep.

But did we find it anyway? Oh, yes, we did. And really, those 30 miles just gave us more time to talk and laugh and generally have fun. Why is it when you're lost with your husband, it almost always leads to a fight, but when you get lost with a girlfriend, it's just funny?

The mall we went to is called Easton Mall in Columbus. It is like its own city. Our first stop was lunch (it was after 2pm by this time, and we were starving!). This Mitchell's Ocean Club looked yummy, so we posed for pictures before we went it and smudged our lipstick. Don't we look fine?

We were going to ask some random stranger to take one of us together, but no one was around.

Hmm, that seemed strange.

Maybe because the restaurant was CLOSED.

Yep, we smiled and posed and clicked away, thinking of telling the story of our wonderful lunch on our blogs.

Can you say "dumb blondes"?

So, we mosied down to the California Pizza Kitchen and had a lovely lunch of tortilla soup, southwestern egg rolls, and ...shrimp scampi pizza. Okay, we ordered the pizza first, before we decided on our appetizers. Helpful hint: don't mix "southwest" with "scampi pizza". Ever. Come to think of it, shrimp on a pizza is never a good idea, in my IBS opinion.

Our waitress was sweet enough to bring me a hot fudge sundae for my birthday, complete with a candle. No singing, thank God, but she did tell us good things about the Shadowbox Cabaret, a SNL-like comedy show we were planning on seeing that night.

The mall was a mix of inside and open-air shops. Trolleys, phonebooths, and bricked streets were everywhere.

Becky and I decided to pretend we were in the market for cocktail dresses at Nordstrom's. I'm sure the salesladies were onto us when we pulled out our cameras and started posing in the dressing room...

This girl is smokin' hot! Must be all those muscle max classes we've been (skipping).

So, one of the things I most wanted to do was try on a pair of Lucky brand jeans. They're all the rage, you know, and I just knew that when I put them on, I would instantly look like a supermodel, or at least the size 8 that I used to be. I mean, for $129 a pair, they should perform liposuction, right?

Let me just say that I couldn't even get the size 8 pair over my damn hips. And they did not look flattering, nope, not even the pair that the size 0 salesgirl handpicked for my "figure". Old Navy, you have no competition here.

Can you believe we went into no less than twenty or thirty different stores and didn't buy a thing?! And we still had a great time?! Window shopping with your BFF is simply divine, that's all I'm sayin'.

After walking off our lunch, we decided to plop down at Barnes and Noble and sip a pumpkin spice latte (water for Becky, she's so good), while looking at some books. I love this picture of Becky:

And this one even more...

How many more days 'til the movie comes out, Lula?

About an hour before the show was to start, we decided to try out Happy Hour at Max & Erma's. We had Pomegranate Twists (well, I sucked down two while Becky sipped one). Yum.

We kicked off our tennis shoes, put on our heels, powdered our noses, and headed over to the Cabaret (which was also in the mall...how convenient!)

We couldn't take any flash photos while the show was going on, but Becky did get this one of me with our waiter/actor. Geez, I've already forgotten his name. (I was a bit buzzed by this point).

Picture a kickin' rock band interspersed with funny skits very similar to SNL, minus the famous people. There was Rosemary's Baby Shower, awesome music, and a final act of a showdown between the Trekkies and the Jedi's. Hysterical.

I have not laughed so hard in a long time. Starting at 12noon, when I picked Becky up, all the way through the day, and up until the time I dropped Becky off at home at 11pm. Seriously, my cheeks hurt from smiling so much and I'm pretty sure I peed my pants at least twice. Catherine, we must have said "it's all good" about a hundred times, thinking of you each time.

Becky, thank you for a great birthday celebration! I can't wait until March, when we can do it again for yours.

Blondes can rock, see?

Show me the candy!

We could not have asked for a more perfect Halloween. Sunny, sixty degrees, three healthy children, great costumes (according to the kids)...it made for a memorable night.

Elijah was a "dead Bengal's player", since this season was a killer:

Isabel made a beautiful "Ninja princess". Mamaw Kay bought this costume for her, and she got so many compliments, I think she may decide to wear it again next year. (Money saver for mom!)

Although Mamaw bought a Batman costume for Gabe, he decided at the last minute that what he really wanted to be was a red Power Ranger. This costume was Elijah's, like, five years ago. I love me some hand-me-downs!

Okay, see if you can guess what these boys are supposed to be...

It took me a minute to figure it out, but when I did, I begged them to pose for my blog. I'm not sure they even know what a blog is, but they agreed to it anyway.

Do you know yet?

They are "chick magnets"! Check out the boy on the left. See anything interesting, say, in the nether regions? I was cracking up at the ingenuity of these teens. Vulgar, maybe...creative, definitely!

After 30 minutes of trick-or-treating, Gabe was ready to park his butt at Mamaw's house and help pass out candy. I couldn't believe he was so worn out so quickly. He's usually my ball of energy.

Elijah by far got the most candy, which is pretty ironic, since he only likes gummy candy and Sweet Tarts. Isabel and Daddy reaped the benefits, taking all the stuff that Elijah didn't want.

Isabel, my chocoholic, was in seventh heaven with her Hershey's stash:

And what did Gabe want to eat after all that hard work? Why, turkey and cheese, of course. I don't think he even ate one piece of candy the whole night. I know, I know, my children are weird. They come by it honestly; I am not a big sweets eater, either. This candy will sit on our counter, then get moved to our candy drawer, where I will end up pitching it when Easter comes around. Unless the neighbor kids eat it all; they all know exactly where our snack drawer is!

So, I'm curious...how many people actually get their kids' candy x-rayed? A local dentist was offering this service for free, but I didn't do it. I did inspect all the candy, and we only trick-or-treated in our neighborhood, which is fairly "safe". No razor blades, hypodermic needles or dots of LSD noted. Maybe I'm just too naive and trusting...

In any case, it was a Happy Halloween here in Ohio, and I hope it was for y'all, as well.

Stay tuned for Columbus birthday photos...