Day 243: Peaceful Chaos

I had some very interesting conversations about God today. Usually interesting conversations about God consist of opposing beliefs somewhere within an intense argument, but today the interesting conversations were based on a mutual inability to describe the peace that God gives.

I was talking with a woman today and she just started to open up and tell me about her life and all that God has done for her. We discovered that we've had similar experiences and despite the fact that there is a 40 year age difference between us, we had this connection. Usually when I'm at work and I talk to people for the amount of time that I talked to this woman, I'm emotionally exhausted by the end of the day. Today I felt energized, renewed. I needed a day like today. Having to miss church Sunday was hard and just this simple conversation was enough to remind me of God's love and peace and inexpressible joy...

this woman and I sat there for a good while trying to explain that peace but we ended up just sitting in silence, a comfortable silence...which is a lot like God's peace. Just a comfortable, safe silence in the midst of a chaotic world.

I love when God gives me little moments like this :)

Day 242: Dinner in Paris

Battery for a Smurf = $75

Stuffed Shells for Dinner = about $10

Staying up late and talking about boys with a friend = priceless would be an understatement

Quote of the Day:

"Have you ever watched 'I Dream of Jeanie'?"

"I have a crush on Major Nelson" ~Ansley

Day 241: Are you a star or the sun?

There are stars out there somewhere...

....I think they're just covered up by the pollution

Conversation of the Day:

"how jealous the stars must be at knowing they will never shine as brightly as the sun...they can only hope to pale in comparison"

"now you can walk through tomorrow and know that a man compared your radiance to the sun itself, and never lied."

"I'm always open to making boyfriends jealous....I mean hey I'll take you to the movies if that helps"

"I don't think he'd get jealous"

"well that's good for him, I would get jealous...I would not want to lose the sun."

"yeah, that really was a good line, you should save these."

"I'll write them down. I only hope someone else can inspire me to use them the way you have...yes the goodness continues!"

Day 240: A whole weekend at work :(

I forgot to pack my lunch this morning :(

all I have is purell, and you're not supposed to eat that

Day 239: SLEEP

I slept in today! Yay!

The girls fought over this duck today...I had to hide it from them

Then Madison and I took Taylor and Blake to Friday Family Fun Night at the Movies with FHUMC! It was loads of fun chasing the girls around the ministry center trying to not disrupt people's movie time...

Quote of the Day:

"Its not meant to be subtle. It's meant to be like a beacon that says 'Hey, I'm better than you!'"

Day 238: I miss the sun!

Day 2 with no vitamin D

whoever came up with the idea of 12 hour shifts secretly wanted people to rickets...its all one big diabolical scheme

After work I had dinner with Casey

Yay for appetizers!

Day 237: 2150...way too late

we had a staff meeting after work...2 hour staff meeting after a 12-13 hour day of work that was so busy that we didn't really even get to eat...I did not take a picture for today. Taking a picture was the last thing on my mind...actually taking a picture wasn't the last thing on my mind, because that would mean that I would have had to actually think about it.

Day 236: This is like the Hyatt of dressing rooms

I went shopping with my soon to be roomie Kelly today, and we went into the dressing rooms at Dillards and HOLY COW they are nice. There was a seating area with chairs and sofas, then all of these individual dressing rooms that were each about the size of my bedroom. In each room there were huge floor length mirrors, a cushioned high-backed chair with a little side table, hooks on the wall for clothing and then there were these special hooks that said "mine mine mine!", "maybe", and "maybe not"

seriously the nicest dressing rooms ever!

Side story: I had a patient once that told me that we needed to remodel the hospital to be more like the Hyatt. Then a couple weeks ago a visitor told me that the suite (yes the hospital I work at has a suite which is really nice) was like the Hyatt compared to all the rest of the rooms....So I figure this must be the "Hyatt" of Dressing rooms....it's only logical.

Day 235: Jazz Flute

Two years ago our theme for River of Life was Life (the board game) and we decorated the church to be like the board game. 2 of my favorite people helped make the board game tiles and I found one of the tiles that reminded me of these 2 people....

gosh I miss them...still not sure how this was a tile in the Life board game, but then again I still don't know how the jazz flute is considered a skill that can be used on a work crew at ROL...

Oh and apparently there is a limit to how many people you can send a message to on facebook (its 20).

Day 234: Swagger

I've started to help out with the Jr. High at our church....we have some pretty hilarious kids. I love my church!

Madison thinks Emily has Swagger

Quote of the Day:

"do what she says! If you're bad she'll make you read scripture!" ~Alex

"What's up She-Bear?" ~Courtney

"no! a river monster will get you!" ~Davis

"it's sexy kings 224"

Day 233: Saturday night seams

Its Saturday night, about 10:30, Ren comes in my room and says "Hey, can you hem this?"

It's a smock dress that she wants Blake to wear tomorrow morning...sure, I'm a seamstress I can do that...

...for the record I did hem it and it looked fantastic! but it took about an hour and that's not something you want to do when you get home from work.

Day 232: Ice-cream Sandwich

Blake ate an ice-cream sandwich

it was everywhere. I gave her a bath after this and she had some on her back...I'm still not sure how she managed to do that

Day 231: 5 dollars

Jeremy and I bought a new hose to fix my car and it only cost like $2! but I had to spend a few more dollars on some new hose clamps cause we lost one while we were getting the old hose off, so in total it cost me $5 to fix my car! Cheapest fix EVER!

I also discovered that nurses get a 15% discount at some clothing stores!

When the girls got home from school Blake decided that she wanted to drive my car

and she wouldn't get out...

when I made her get out she cried.

So I had to call Timothy so that she would stop crying.

this child is spoiled rotten.

Day 230: Put it back together and it'll work

SO when we were little my dad cut his hand on a table saw. He lost his pinky and the use of some of the knuckles in his right hand and couldn't work for a while. My mom didn't work and with 5 kids money got kinda tight. Right before school started our washing machine broke and my parent's didn't have the money to get it fixed at the time for obvious reasons. My dad had taken the washing machine apart and long story short my mom told him to put it back together and it would work...so he did and our entire family gathered around the washing machine and prayed that it would work...and it did, for like another 5 or 10 years.

So last night I was talking to my brother Timothy about my car and he said "next time you look under your hood you'll see what's wrong with it." So of course I wondered if he believed that this was one of the washing machine kinda things or if he was just saying it...and he may have just been saying it but when I opened up the hood of my car this morning I saw the hose where all of the water was pouring out...and it appears that it will be a rather easy fix!

the culprit

of course this was on the side of the hose that I couldn't see

Day 229: Really? What next?!

Went to Walmart today and my car decided to be difficult...again. She hates me. Luckily I was at walmart and could just buy some water to put in it.

Took like all day to get it back to the house cause it was losing water somewhere and I was scared it'd get overheated and blow the head gasket. So I only took it short distances at a time. Strange part is the air conditioner started working on the way home...I don't know if that's a good sign or not...that's kinda like pigs flying or hell freezing over, like in a Dante's Inferno kind of way.

Day 228: 2045

Crazy day at work. Just got home. So glad I have the next 3 days off.

I was about to go to sleep when I remembered that I needed a picture and I was too tired to be creative or even get out of bed...so this is my ceiling...the air vent is crooked

Day 227: Chariot Riders

Jeremy creeping on Ava, who is creeping on Jeremy

according to Ava, Jeremy is supporting Ga Tech with her...

Day 226: Taki

Today was a very Happy Day! I got to eat Japanese (which is like my favorite) and I got to see Amy and Ansley!

I already miss them...

AND I got to babysit the 2 most adorable little boys in the world

I only got a picture of one of them though...

Day 225: Homewrecker

I got in my car today and was almost out of my neighborhood before I realized that the stick on my windshield was actually a stick bug....and he was GINORMOUS!

by this time he was holding on for dear life, so its a little easier to tell that its a bug (his head is that the bottom of the picture, you can see his antenna if you look real hard)

I kinda felt bad when he finally fell off (he held on for a REALLY long time!), I feel like I just took him away from his family and his home. He held onto my car for about 3-4 miles...it could take a bug forever to travel that kind of distance...I'm a homewrecker.

Well, at best I'm a homewrecker, there's a possibility that he didn't survive the car ride...in that case I'm a murderer.

Day 224: Popcorn and M&Ms

My soon to be future roomie had surgery this week, so I went to "baby sit" her for a few hours so her mom could go do stuff. Naturally I brought movies, popcorn, m&m's and some carbonated beverages...yum!

popcorn and m&m's is seriously the best combination of salty and sweet, you just can't get any better than that!

Day 223:Do you happen to have some scissors in your fanny pack?

I don't have a fanny pack, but I do have scissors...which were stolen and I'm now left with these...luckily I had 3 pairs of scissors.

Day 222: You have been caught being a STAR!

Apparently at my hospital the patient's are given the opportunity to give a gold star to the person who they thought was the best staff person. And apparently my patient went and knocked on my supervisor's door to personally hand deliver a gold star for me...only my 2nd day on my own and I've already got a gold star, how awesome is that! Even cooler than that is that this is the 1st patient I've discharged while on my own, so I'm 1 for 1!

Day 221: Monday, 1st day on my own...ahhhhh!

work. working alone. never been so happy for a day to be over with!

I drank gatorade today

Day 220: College/Career Age Lake Day

basically if you are 17-25 years old or own a boat and happen to be in the Macon/Milledgeville area then you could have participated in today's Lake Day festivities. We had so much fun today and I can't wait for our next Lake Day (which might be in like 5 weeks! hopefully I don't have to work).

after lake day we went to krystals, but sadly matt was not with us...so we left an open chair for him

Quote of the Day:

"octopuses don't let go! ...or is it octopi?" ~David

"You've got a big head"

"the dr. said it was a blessing"

"It's ok, he's a boyscout."

"Aww you look cute in your wifebeater with a skirt to cover it up"

"He thinks he's really smart, but I was the one peeing in his bed"

Day 219: Sad Day

Have you ever heard the saying "you'll never know how much you'll miss something until it's gone"? ...I understand that a little better after today.

On the bright side I got to see Meagan!

(Meagan is pregnant and I'm very excited about seeing her little belly...if you can't tell)

and attempt to eat the largest piece of chocolate cake that I have ever seen in my life

(I made it about 1/2 way through 1 of the 3 layers...the cake totally dominated me)

Day 218: Bowling!

Today was quite an adventure. We ate in the ghetto, Timmy got kidney advice from someone who referred to themself as "daddy love", we went bowling with Sarah:

...who is very silly, I beat Timothy in our first game (this is him getting a gutter ball)

and then we got hot krispy kreme donuts...life is pretty much complete.

Quote of the Day: "Just tell them that Daddy Love sent you."

Day 217: work and a movie

blake used my camera to take a picture...

...of her fingers...

Day 216: The Eli Special

It's a little bit of everything.

we went swimming today but for some reason I didn't take any pictures of it... lame.

blake is like my default picture of the day

Day 215: Sooo Sleepy

I had work again today and 2 days at the lake followed by 2 days at work has made me very, very sleepy....I was quite happy when it turned 7:30 and I got to go home to visit my favorite pillow

Day 214: Work : (

I really didn't want to go to work today, and to top it off I'm sun burnt from being at the lake all day for the last 2 days : (

Day 213: Sr. High Lake Day

Nate and I had on the same T-shirt, Go Dawgs!

All the girls on the boat decided they wanted ride on the tube at the same time. We had to go slow...so slow in fact that Chris had time to take a break from driving.

Then Madison and Lindsay were trying to show off