http://www.flickr.com/photos/notthatyouasked/969790629/

this is where I will be running today

It's 7:12 am and all ready hot. I have a few goals today.

1. run

2. dye hair

3. garden a bit (flowerbed one plant at a time)

4. knit

5. sew

I'm "winging" Olive a little Etsy inspired dress. All her cool friends have these adorable dresses from Etsy,

so yesterday I went to buy one....$69 !!!!!!

I'm all for supporting the arts, but whoa...Unless its a pair of knocked down shoes at Nordstrom Rack, I don't even spend 69$ on myself!

( i know, Synda...I'm a cheap ass)

I'm making a dress, pattern free pretty much.

White Eyelet and some crazy cute fabric from the store remnent bin.

I'll show ya later!

Warm night

As I lay here in bed...warm, so very warm. Sipping red wine, glancing through facebook.
Smiling.
There is the sound of firecrackers in the air.
Perfect for summer.

I gave a full week. Summer roasting through my calendar.
Vacation, so close.
I can almost taste it

The Jump....

in all its glory!!!!

bday bunch #6

bday bunch, originally uploaded by v8grrl.

Crazies!!!! I'm glad that only happens once a year! Olive turned 6 had her bday party and survived. We had rain, tornado like wind, and things flying from the trees...but I made sure NO ONe made it inside the house. We did Tie Dye and mostly they just ran around screaming at the top of their 6 year old lungs. It was insane.
Synda treated each one to the exact same face paint ( no fighting or decision making.) The adults had beer, kids ate cupcakes, and the sun finally came out...the perfect outdoor birthday Trifecta


I now must get some sleep.

100 degrees here in colorado

It's too hot for Ed to even get into trouble. He has taken to the laundry room to lay on the cool floor. The Mexican Rat ie: chihuahua, Sheeba, loves it. Shes out there right now, laying on the 400 degree deck roasting like a mini pig.

I started digging up the grass. It still looks horrible. But I had to do something. Bob said, "Hey? What's going on out there by my new decking?"

Uhhhhh a mess? I promised it will look fine one I have a few days to work it out

I planted 3 Delphiniums for height and color. I bought some lemon thyme for the edge, then I will get some red wood chips and such to match the deck.

picture one digging up the grass, originally uploaded by v8grrl.

Still working on some edging. want something sassy, so I'm still thinking.

Tomorrow is Olive's 6th bday. We have 8 lil girls coming over to do some tye dye!

One problem. I forgot I work tonight...all night til tomorrow.

I've made the cream cheese frosting, put together the little gift bags, Bobby can make the cupcakes...and hopefully I will be able to pull it off by 1 pm tomorrow.

I'll let ya know

Olive will be 6!

Olive had a photo shoot for her 6 th bday. go look at some of the pictures at

Synda Rorex Photography

they are so cute, now I'm hoping some one will buy some for me

pee lawn..whatever is a girl to do?

It's the summer time and the lawn looks like shit in the back! I need to dig it up, but where shall I start? look at it!!!!

Wait, as you look at it admire the new deck walkway first...ok now go back to the pee lawn.

here is the before.

pee lawn, originally uploaded by v8grrl.

There is absolutely no "after", yet.

I started digging it up, but jeeeez, grass is hard to dig !!! 2 hours and a blister later it still looks about the same, so I decided to come in and fantasize about my yard as it should be:

hmmmm isn't that nice and relaxing?

Now quick!!!!

scroll back up and look at Peepee lawn....stress. grrrrr

How does one get something like that? Can you swing by the Home Depot, load up 27 illegals, 27 cases of Corona, and then "POOF" you have Serenity? I drove down to Home Depot to get a tomato cage and looked for the day laborers, they must have been in siesta.

Maybe I should set my sights on something like this:

from Patchwork Garden

If I did something like this, I would have a fabulous excuse to drink lots of wine or beer or stuff, not water, which comes in Blue Bottles. That is inspirational to me..and enticing.

Bobby would say it looks like Sanford and Son, but I like it.

Or maybe a nice easy view like below...

I love gnomes, but I would have to move to get this...all we have are sewer racoons as big as yetis and shaggedy foxes of the 4 legged kind.

I guess I'll don my gloves and give it a go again.

dig and dig...and dig

daisy may...i mean June

daisy may...i mean June, originally uploaded by v8grrl.

Jillian Michael's Ain'g Got Nothin...

On me, baby... You want a work out? Come lift the combination of these two pictures in and out and up in bed for 12 hours straight...

Minus the ciggy but keep the 'stache

oh yeah and add about 200 pounds of unwashed pannus folds (look it up)...

My Muscles feel like I have been doing the 30 day shred for 120 days...yuppers.

absolutely exhausting...

write ya later

Father's Day

Yesterday was gorgeous. We spent the day at the Westword Music Festival. In and out of small bars watching awesome local bands. We didn't make it to the end due to the fact ...well, we were plain ol tired. We started at 11 am at Broadways...had some of the best Bloody Mary's I've had in a while, then off to Dazzle for Mahi Mahi sliders and a set by the Informants. They were great as usual. It was also the start of Gay Pride Week so the company was beyond spectacular. It was great to be out and about in the sunshine with not a care in the world. Great friends and great music. One of my new favorite local bands I got to see yesterday was "Yerkish". They are the epitome of local awesome music that should be more well known.

Today is Father's Day. Daddy got a new drill and a Tshirt...and is now outside cursing at the hotrod. (starter is broken, he's trying to get a new one in before this guy comes to look at it)...While he is practicing his sailor speak, I finished up the cushions for the patio. They came out nice. I love it when a task is completed. I sat outside as Olive worked on her artskills and contemplated life. Life is good.

I work tonight. I am looking forward to a night of learning, as always.

Tomorrow I think I will start my next part of gardening. A path around the garden, removal of dead yukky grass and more perennials. I'll have to take a before and after. I hope everyone is having a great Father's Day

Death to your soul

I still remember the day I decided to change my thought pattern. Well, maybe not the exact day, but, I remember. There were a couple of moments when things just couldn't really get any worse, and I decided why NOT try something different? I remember my dear friend, Amy, telling me to think bigger...think bigger....if your circle is not working for you...make it bigger, widen your cirlce. I remember watching Oprah ... I actually had a light bulb moment...see this post. See, your life is what you make of it. It takes stepping out of the box and changing the format. It's not about playing the blame game or the "yeah whatever" game. It's about saying Fuck This, I live one life I don't want to sit around Pissing and moaning about things which really won't even matter eventually. It isn't always easy and it isn't always perfect, but 9 out of 10 times you can turn it around by changing the actions ;and I love that strength. I, personally,have stopped dwelling on the bad parts of the past and the mistakes I have made over and over again to say to myself, "Well, damn Girl, If you know that is/was/continues to be a mistake...STOP doing it!"

Complaining feeds on itself, anger feeds on everything, and not letting go...that is sure death to your soul.

I have changed. I can breathe. Things are NOT always my fault and the anger people carry is not because of what I did or didn't do. It's from what they did or didn't do.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that you can't really change anyone but your self. You can lead by being as true to your self as you can, and you can only hope that they will one day feel the strength to change.

It is such an easy task that I am baffled why more people don't just try it. Stop going in circles. Change it!!! It takes one little thought at a time, one new pattern to stick to and the world can open up and shine.

Put out what you want to get back. Think big and focus on the task at hand.

write ya later

m

Making my garden grow

Little sprouts in the garden have reminded me of all the fresh starts which are going on right now. It is a daunting task to start fresh, very daunting. Start small is what I say.

That is what I did, I cleaned out the shed...

I can now get in there!

(doesn't look clean...should have seen it before!)

I mowed the lawn.

I found my new dahlias under the sage (this made me happy).

I weeded.

I also got a wonderful email from a fellow nursing student who I helped get a job in an area where they never hire new grads. She was so excited and I'm excited for her!

Good Karma points for all...good karma, I believe it is what may make my garden grow.

Sugar Sugar

My son attempted to please me with sugar cookies today.

I worked last night, got home at 9 am and he went to his dad's at noon. When I got up there were sugar cookies on a plate. Granted they were an odd brown color, and tasted like baking soda, but it is the nicest thing anyone has done for me in a while.

Then I went and picked up Olive from daycare, came home and the dog puked the equivalent to the amount of water which flows over Niagra Falls onto the middle of the living room carpet.

awesome

Making a Family Palatable

Gloria and Ilin and the 1968 Custom Lincoln

I grew up in a conventional family, as far as I knew. I had no idea that every child in my surrounding didn't have a Mom who tanked back Martinis in a variety of glasses, changing from coffee cup in the morning to highball in the afternoon, and a Dad who wandered around in a terry cloth skirt smoking Camel unfiltered cigs. I was the "unwanted mistake" of 2 oddball people who found each other by default and convenience. I have been working on trying to figure out how to make these people palatable enough to write about, without making my entire wealthy low-end family seem like ....i don't know, child service worker's dreams?

Living as an only child (meaning youngest child in a mixed family of 12 siblings who could give a rat's ass about me) with elderly, swinger type, cocktaily parents in a golf resort area of Florida. They are what shaped me into what I am today. An insecure, non marryable, OCD, semi alcoholic parent of 2 gifted children living in sin with an adult male who still thinks he is going to be a rock star.

You know, it turned out just as it should have.

My mom was a "performer"...who never took her clothes off, which meant to me: never made the amount of money she could have.

Gloria...with ciggy, of course ( I ruined her figure)

My dad was a business man, who traveled...was married...hell, maybe he was a scoundrel, that is until he left his wife, with a mental illness, to live with my mom and her hooligan kids...but I'm not really sure of the entire story. You see, I wasn't born yet. I can only go by drunken family arguments and boxes of old photos and 2 very informative, yet disgustingly gross diaries of my mom's.

I'm on a quest to try to write something from my families point of view...the entire bunch who are still remaining, whether they like me or not. I'm curious about what they thought about our lives. Why did they turn out so much better than me? Why do my nieces and nephews speak 4 different languages and travel the world when i can barely find the local Target and have a hard time with English grammar?

Stay tuned...

xo

m

humanitarianism

I have a dream...boy, Myssi, how original huh? I'm ready to start setting my goals for the next portion of my life. I want to travel and help...

Any suggestions? Anyone ever done anything like this? I'm sure there have to be some missionaries that read this blog right? I'm not quite in the missionary position...HAHAHAHA, joke, I'm not wanting to be a missionary...just a nurse and a smile.

write ya later

It's official

I passed my RN boards. I am an official RN. To some this seems trivial, to me...I am so glad it's over and I can start this new facet of my life. A great load has been lifted. I can breathe...I can sew, I can knit..I can definitely burn my books...

My NCLEX had 233 questions. that is a ton. I honestly thought I failed. Everyone does. My results state otherwise, I pass!!! Now I can turn my attention to get back on track, and starting to learn more about nursing. Figure out where I will lead my dream. Hopefully to a 3rd world country :)

now I am off to sew a little project...anyone have a little tiny project for me? I am going to surf the sewing blogs so that I can try out my new machine.

360 days of my life #103

360 days of my life, originally uploaded by v8grrl.

My new baby...a Singer Stylist. I don't quite have a place for her yet. I just plugged her in and am going to test drive her in a minute. $15...yuppers...$15 smackaroos.

I think I'm in love...

Why are the weekends so speedy?

Just don't get it. Remember back when you were waiting for summer, christmas, or your birthday? My goodness time practically rolled into reverse. Now that I am old and semi gray things whip by at the speed of light. I barely have time to get out of bed and plan a day and it's over. Which leads me to believe that we must start planning the entire summer in the winter so as not to waste any time. Bobby managed to finish the deck on the side.

You see I have opted to wait to pay the mortgage in the middle of this month so that Bobby can piddle paddle around the hose making himself feel useful, which means many trips to Home Depot which in turn means money going through the check book like water through a colander. The deck looks nice. Now we have to do the big part.

Now that he is done with that I can finish my cushions and tidy up with my planting and such.

The rest of the weekend was yardwork, cleaning, sewing with Synda in the messy sewing area, making protein bars...yum yum, a little running, and some wine drinking and too much eating out.

tonight I will finish studying. Tomorrow I take my state boards, NCLEX. I am very nervous. then when I get home I will tidy house try to relax and will be posting all the pictures of the things we have been doing around here.

360 days of my life #104

olive tball, originally uploaded by v8grrl.

look at the little bruiser...the only girl on the team

Who's Roof?

My assignment was typical this weekend as the low man on the totem pole. Nursing is like any other hierarchy, except with grosser bottom dwellar tasks. I am always given the maximum amount of patients when I come on the shift. They say this is so I don't get any "Admits" as the 12 hour shift progresses. This of course is never the actual case, because I always seem to get "just one more admit" on top of my 5 patients to start.
(Let me give you the set up: I work Orthopedics and Neuro, 12 hour shifts at night. Orthopedics are people who have their knees chopped in half then put together. They can't walk without help. There are 2 types of people who have their bones fixed. Really healthy people who are Type A personalities who have bad knees or joints because they exercised the shit out of their selves to be perfect....or totally unhealthy over weight people who's joints just quit under stress. Either way ...they can't move on their own.)
My Patients for Saturday night were a bit on the odd side, meaning: no other nurse in their right mind would want them. Being the newbie I have no choice, I take what is left over. I had 4 patients who were incontinent of bowel and urine ( laymen's: crap an pee into diaper, if lucky), AMS (laymen's: altered mental status ie: crazy as a sack of nuts), and unable to ambulate (laymen's: can't roll outta bed or move on own).
The night began with report that the one young patient, 49 year old real estate agent, was verbally abusive and not willing to take any guidance, 3 other patients: whack jobs and screamers...with bed sores, and the last a nice man who hasn't pooped in 5 days (which will make any one crazy).
I'm gonna skip telling you about the non pooper because he was kind. I'm gonna head right into the oddity i call my new job : NURSING. It all started with screaming from my room closer to the nurses station. I headed in...there was a little old lady with a ski tabagon on, in the 75degree room, covered up to her neck in blankets yelling "i'm OLLLLLDDDDDDDD i can't take it any more!!!!" Can't take what? you are just laying here in bed! I nicely changed her Depends, reorganized her, crammed pillows along each side to lift her off her coccyx, gave a sip of her "fancy orange juice" , and told her I am starting to feel old too...go to sleep its 10 pm.
I could hear my other patient's bed alarm going off (which is what we use to keep people from trying to get out of bed...and to alert us if they do). Obviously I ran straight in there to see my other whacky lady, who came in with hallucinations, barking, "get me DOOOOWN!!!!" Down from where? Huh?
So I push the buttons on her bed and it goes down ever so slightly. (i'm so smart, I think). "Get me the Hell DOOOWN!!!!"
Ok Jackie...look at me...let me look at your eyes. She gazes some very vacant looking little pinpoint eyes at me. I take my flashlight and shine them in...Pow... she refocuses. Jackie? Where are you? Can you tell me? "I'm floating above my bed...I can see you and me down there...I want DOWN!!!!" No shit, I bet you do....come on down ,Jackie... Come back to bed....(I'm secretly thinking in my head...go towards the light.... you are sick and very old...) come back down here, Jackie.... ( turn towards the door and yell for the charge nurse to see what her pulse is on the monitor) "it's 58 and her oxygen is 95" So her heart rate is a bit slow, but she did have some Ativan earlier... her vital signs are stable... I go back into the room... "Get ME DOOOOOOWWWWWNNNNN!"
regroup.
At this point the big hippy aide come in with his Grizzly Adams beard (it is Boulder after all )and says, "Jackie, you are down." He lowers the head of her bed thinking he is some kind of genius...yeah yeah smart one...I all ready tried that.
"Get me off this GODDAMN Roof!"
Oooh, that is new...the roof... Grizzly Aide looks at me...???
Jackie, what roof?
"OOOH I'm so high up!!! Get me down"
All the yelling is getting to me. I still have 3 other patients to see. but I'm really curious as to what I should do about "the roof".
Jackie, who's roof? What does it look like?"
"I'm ON THE ROOF GET ME DOWN, I"M SCARED!!!!!!!"
I look at Grizzly Aide and I look back at Jackie...
Jackie, are you on God's Roof? Is it Pretty?"
Grizzly Aide looks at me and says, " oh no you just didn't say that, did you?"
Well,...I did, I want to know what it looks like...
We both look at Jackie and she fades away........to sleep...( I checked!)
and then we look back at each other and start laughing.

I guess we will never know.
I still have 3 peepee patients to see and the other nurse, Zach, just leaned in this room and tells me the patient next door wants to know why she is at the bakery at this hour...
??????
I laugh...and say "Ask her if it is God's Bakery!"

he looks confused...
and it's only 1030 pm...I have 10 more hours.
hahaha
Low man on the totem pole...My charge nurse was sitting at the desk painting her finger nails.
Perfect.
Grizzly Aide laughs..."It's time to make the donuts...I'll meet you in the next room"
yup...
i'll be in in just a minute.



ps...later that evening, the young, type A, patient spent 45 minutes, after he had " an accident " in his boxers, explaining to me that his penis is small because he is sick. Really, dude? I'm soooooo looking at your flaccid little penis right now. Oh my goodness, I just want to go to God's Bar. I'm tired.

write ya later
m