Karaoke

We went to Applebee's with some friends to sing Karaoke...there are several things wrong with this statement.

#1. We went to Applebee's. Now to explain why this is a problem, I have to go back a couple of months. In December, my brother Timothy came to visit and we met him and some of his friends at Applebee's to eat lunch. Timothy and his friends got there 1st and went ahead and ordered food. I got there a few minutes later, followed by my brother-in-law, Jeremy, and his 2 girls (ages 5 and 2). Jeremy, the girls, and I waited for 45 minutes and never saw a waitress/waiter. Timothy and his friends got their food, ate and paid their bill and no one, not even the manager that walked right past our table would stop to ask us if we even wanted something to drink. I have this habit of raising my hand when I want someone's attention and I even did that for about 10-15 minutes and the entire staff pretended to not notice. Now when I'm hungry I get a little cranky...but I also had my little nieces with me who were also hungry so I was talking very loudly about the fact that this particular establishment sucked....and no one seemed to care. So I vowed to never eat there ever again. Timothy spoke to the manager after I stormed out but he didn't seem too concerned about our lack of service (again, Applebee's in Macon, GA SUCKS!!!).

#2. How bout this time I actually had a waitress and still waited about 45 minutes just to get a water...yeah...gotta love this restaurant

#3. I only sing in the car. or in church....not really a karaoke kind of person

#4. We were the ONLY white people in the place (I'm not raciest or anything, this has more to do with the fact that the other people singing karaoke could REALLY sing, like they had soul and we didn't and we stuck out like a sore thumb. In fact one guy at the table next to us pulled out his phone and said "I'm gonna put this on youtube!" whenever my friends were singing at our table...it was quite hilarious)

Now despite all of that, we had fun. AND I got this great picture of A!!

How having a dog has changed my life (in only 24 hrs):

1) I have to wake up earlier

2) I feel guilty if I go pee and don't take him out to pee

3) I'm outside more (because of #2)

4) it takes me longer to leave the house

5) We (Kelly and I) have met some of our neighbors

6) I don't feel like a lazy homebody if I stay at home all day...instead I'm spending quality time with my dog

7) I now watch my dog chase his tail instead of watching TV

8) I'm horse from yelling "NO" so much (potty training a dog is rough)

9) ...but I get to see this when I get home

:)

It's a BOY

SO she is a HE. not sure how that got confused...but this is DEFINITELY a boy.

so we decided to name him Roscoe. He is so sweet! I can't believe they were going to put him to sleep! He doesn't bark or growl and he didn't even really know how to play. I think he might have been abused at some point cause his immediate response is just to lay flat and curl up in a ball...poor baby

Names??

So my friend Frankie cornered me at work and started showing me pictures of this:

and said "she'll die tomorrow at 9 am if we don't find her a home." Then she kept asking me if I could foster her and started putting this picture in front of my face all day...so of course I gave in...I mean she's so cute and I can't let her die... now all she needs is a name...suggestions??

The Rookery

True or False:

a) a Rookery is a breeding place or colony of crows

b) The Rookery is a bar in Macon

c) my friend Adrianne is SO pretty!

d) Kelly knows what a Rookery is

e) Kelly should not drink whiskey

f) having your phone die while in a bar is actually very helpful!

only 1 of these statements are false...to help you figure it out:

Me and Adrianne

Charles and Kelly (poor Charles)

(I love you KJ!!)

Oysters

I tried Oysters for the 1st time ever in my life tonight. They aren't that great. The texture wasn't as bad as I thought it be, but if it weren't for the cracker I may not have been able to swallow it. But hey, at least I tried it, right?

BEACH

Its January and I am laying on the beach getting sun burn and overdosing on vitamin D. but hey sunlight releases endorphins and "endorphins make you happy and happy people don't kill their husbands" I was also followed around by a bum on the beach for a while...kinda creepy. He wanted me to swim out to a cargo ship so that he could take my picture for the news. He also asked the couple next to me to do it...it was strange...

What movie is that quote from??

Oh the Excitement!

there's this park that looks like a huge fort, it's practically the coolest place ever (if you are a little kid) and my cousin Olivia was in HEAVEN:

this is how I want to feel about life

that complete and utter abandon, fear and adrenalin, and just overall excitement with the unknown that lies ahead. If I could put an expression with my theme for this year of not waiting...this is it. Thanks Olivia for the visual!

West Palm Beach

There is a road in West Palm Beach where the land on both sides of the road belongs to the same person. 1 side is the ocean view property and 1 side is the canal...so 1 side they have their mansion and yacht and on the other their cabana and private beach... How do people afford places like that?! We also went to this really nice resort...

this is me pretending to be rich...which this is a really comfortable chair. Timothy needs to make me one of these

PS: there are 2 words in this post that I had to literally look up in the dictionary. like a real paper and ink dictionary because I couldn't remember how to spell them...hooked on phonics did not work for me. I really am dyslexic. ok make that 3 words. Can you guess which words I can't spell?

Sloan's

When I was in college there was this ice-cream place called scoops that was really bright and colorful and just fun to be in. Well Sloan's in Boca Raton is like scoops on crack.

Not only does it have absolutely delicious ice-cream, a fun atmosphere and enough random crap hanging around to keep ADHD tourists busy for hours, but it also has one of the coolest bathrooms ever! Or really one of the coolest bathroom doors ever.... you see, when you walk up it looks like this:

its a glass door! you can see right in! (yes that's me) but when you lock the door:

Yeah, I know that just blew your mind right?!

and if the fogging door wasn't enough this guy walked into the place and I about peed my pants laughing...my aunt and I hurried to discretely get a picture of him:

...the man with the pink wig and purple velour leisure suit was the one we were laughing at....the man standing next to him is my uncle...pointing right at us and my camera and encouraging the strange man to come meet us...oh how I love my family...

QOTD: "let's go to the ice-cream store and take your picture on the toilet"

SHOES!

there is a store in Miami that makes me want to be a hooker!

...wait. let me rephrase that. There is a store that sells women's shoes for $5.88.

It mostly consists of stiletto heels/boots, which I could not, nor would I ever, wear. And I really mean that I could not physically wear stiletto heels, mainly because I'm pigeon toed and I have a hard time walking barefoot...put heels on me and you might as well book me a room at the nearest trauma center. But seriously, there were some cute shoes in there that I really wanted to want to wear...if that makes sense. But seeing as how I almost sprung my ankle just trying to try them on means that its probably a good thing that I'm not a stripper...or a part of any other profession where stilettos are a common occurrence.

Tonight we also went walking around Boca Raton. As we passed by a shoe store, my 18 month old cousin ran in and yelled "SHOES!!" Boy are my aunt and uncle in for it!

Fire Department

Finally made it to Fort Lauderdale!! My uncle is a firefighter and I got to get in the driver's seat of a Fire Truck today!

There are SOOO many buttons and crap in that machine that it feels more like a cockpit of a plane than the divers seat of a normal vehicle.

Chickens

There are a lot of things going on at work and its kind of overwhelming me a little...so I decided to take a little impromptu vacation. I'm going to Fort Lauderdale to see my Aunt and right now I'm at my grandparents house for a quick visit. I haven't seen them in a while, so I decided to drop by...so happy I did too, I LOVE THEM! I also love that they have chickens! mainly cause my roommate is scared of them and I get to torment her by sending her picture after picture of the chickens all over my grandparents land...it's so much fun!

Zombie Bar Crawl

Yeah, you read that right. I went to a Zombie Bar Crawl. My friends are doing a race called Run for your lives which is a zombie infested 5K obstacle course. Sadly, I have to work the day of the race, but I got to go to the bar crawl with them. Chris even dressed up for the occasion:

and I had surprisingly good time!

I also saw this at one of the bars and instantly thought of my friend Meagan

if you know her then you know why this is funny

Post Haiti Dinner

Once again we had our post Haiti trip dinner at Downtown Grill (delicious!!) and it was SO much fun!! Most interesting comment of the night was a conversation I had with a friend of mine who happens to be a doctor and ordained minister. He asked me if I had ever considered going to medical school, because after going to Haiti and working together in the clinic he said that he felt that I would make a great doctor...his wife said that I should at least become a nurse practitioner. I had never really thought about doing either of those...I don't know what God has in store for me this year, but He certainly is throwing a lot of thought provoking things at me...and it's only January 6th! This is going to be an interesting year.

Employee of the Month

As I was orienting a new employee today, the CEO of our hospital came up with my floor manager, the clinical coordinator, our CNO, our human resources staff and a photographer. The CEO called me over by name and awarded me as the employee of the Month. It was kinda funny cause he mentioned the fact that I'm opinionated during his speech about why I got this award. Part of me feels like maybe I should not run my mouth so much but you know, that is why I love my hospital. It may be small and every job has its problems, but I love my boss and I know the CEO and CNO of the hospital on a first name basis. That's kinda cool. The bad part of this award is that they pinned a corsage to my scrub top and I couldn't get it off so I had to wear it around all day. Everyone wanted to know why I had a "flower on my shirt"...it was an interesting day.

My poor orientee though...he finally asked me at the end of the day "do you know EVERYONE in the hospital?!"

PS: I almost didn't get that stupid corsage off. I thought I might have to call 911 and ask them to use the jaws of life to pry it from my body...or else help cut me out of my scrubs. I kinda started to panic a little bit and I pawed frantically at it until I luckily managed to pull it off! any longer and I might have started to hyperventilate.

Pizza Rolls

I have this new obsession with Pinterest. It is an online pinboard where you can organize and share things that you love, like, want to try, etc...its basically amazing. Today I found a recipe and I just had to try it...It was SOOOO good!!! Remember eating pizza rolls as a kid? Well I found a recipe for pizza bites that uses string cheese and other things that you could just have lying around in your fridge at any given time and it was so easy and tasty!

I brought these to my friend's house and we pretty much ate them for dinner....they were only supposed to be an appetizer... oops

2 Words for 2012: Not Waiting

Two years ago I started this blog with some friends as a way to kinda keep up with each other's lives and a way for me to photographically document moments and tell day to day stories that I would otherwise forget to remember...all in all, I did really good the 1st year and completely slacked off in 2011. Maybe I became a slacker cause I was working all the time or (insert other excuses here, blah blah blah), BUT over the last few months I've had this revelation. I finally realized that I've been spending my life waiting. Waiting to be old enough, waiting to finish college, waiting until I have my own apartment, waiting until I get married, waiting for the right time or the right job or the right whatever...I've just been waiting. Which is strange, because I am a very ambitious person. I put myself through college and graduated in 4 years with a BS in Nursing and started a career just after turning 22. I don't really have anything to wait for anymore...but here I am. waiting. When I was in Haiti last month, I told my roommate that I'm not going to wait anymore and then today on the radio I heard this quote:

"The first step towards getting somewhere...is to decide that you are not going to stay where you are."

Hearing that quote today reminded me that I've been waiting...and I don't want to stay like that. I'm gonna go somewhere...not sure where, but I'm not staying here. SO here's to a new year of NOT waiting!