Good morning!!

It's a lovely day outside already - the birdies are singing me songs, and the sun is shining through my window. I'm back in Birmingham today - Mark will wake up in a couple of hours and we'll go take our morning walk. We're having date day today! Out to eat for lunch, then I'll hit the grocery store for dinner tonight and make yummy food out of my food and wine cookbook. And he's taking me to see Thoroughly Modern Millie at Samford tonight - his idea! What a fun day :)

I am sad that my week with Lissa is over :( Update in pictures from the rest of the week:

One morning, my mom and I played a duet on our keyboard. Lissa took pictures. I look sort of like Quasimodo the way I'm hunched trying to see to play and reach the keys at the same time... (Plus, my hair was wet. I'm looking rough.)




Piano hands!



Yesterday, we went to tea! There's this tea room in Ooltewah called Beyond the Garden Gate, and it is absolutely lovely and completely girly. So much fun :)

Pictures outside!


Me and my pretty Mommy :)


We got inside, sat down, and then a group with a couple of little girls came in, and the ladies at the tea room got them HATS to wear!! So Lissa and I decided that we wanted hats too.


The tea room lady picked out the purple one to "match" Lissa's outfit, but we thought not so much. So she snuck out and got a white one. Much better. She looks like she could be attending the Kentucky Derby this weekend :)


We had such a good time! (Not really sure why my blogger decided to start underlining everything...)

Sadly, I probably won't be seeing Elissa for a little while at least. But the happy news: it's only a week until we cruise! I cannot WAIT.

Hope everyone has a very happy Friday and a good weekend!

Yay!!!

I'm in Nashville!!

Nashville-Bound, and the Story of April and Elisa :)

After four days of work in a row (for the second week in a row), I need a break. So I'm going to Nashville to see my best friend!!

This is Elissa:


She's my kindred spirit. Our souls are connected. We will be friends until we die.

And we live three hours apart. It's sad :(

I met her in the spring of junior year in college. She was really sick with Lyme Disease (which is worthy of a post of its own), and was on TPN. (Which is basically the IV version of food. She couldn't eat, so she had a central line - an IV placed in a major vein in her chest - to get nutrients through.) I was in nursing school, and being my nerdy self, I recognized it immediately, and thanks to my lack of filter, said something along the lines of "OMG you're on TPN!! That's so cool!!" Very rude of me.

Somehow, it was Lissa's favorite reaction to her line/TPN, and it made her laugh. Later in the spring, she came to a get-together I had while I was house-sitting for these people, and we realized that I had a place to live for the summer, but needed a roommate to share the cost, and that she needed a place to live. So, there it was: we became roommates.

I am not of the belief that every person you ever meet in your lifetime is there because of divine intervention. But I do believe that God knows when you need someone, and intentionally places some people in our lives for a specific purpose. Elissa and I needed each other, specifically. The fact that we are such good friends is a total "God thing," to use a corny Christian euphemism. She needed a friend - but one who could both look past her sickness/central line and all that came with it/inability to eat normally and see HER, but also understand all that stuff and be there if she needed help. My best friend from college (who I lived with during the school year 2 years in a row) was away in the Philippines, and I was lonely, and struggling with my decision to be a nurse or not. I'd just come out of a horrible semester with a really nasty clinical instructor who had shaken my confidence to its core.

So we moved into a really awesome townhouse together, and our mommies met each other (I still LOVE her mommy and her whole family) and we started to get to know each other. Within a week, that was it. You've heard of love at first sight - this was something sort of like it. I can't explain it - it was like her soul literally intertwined with mine. We stayed up late (too late) talking, looking at pictures, just sharing with each other. We ate breakfast together sitting on our kitchen counters. We went and looked at ribbon at the ribbon store. She made organic chemistry flowsheets, and I laughed at her. I changed her central line dressings a couple of times, and she encouraged me that I really would be a good nurse.

That summer, she became septic from a line infection, and was hospitalized. Her best friend from when she was at UGA came to visit, and we all stayed in the hospital with her for HOURS. She says those are her favorite memories from that summer - there was just something about those few days. I held her hand while the crazy doctor pulled her line, because Melissa couldn't watch. All three of us curled up in her hospital bed (becoming a little drawer of spoons) and watched House episodes on her laptop. I brought her baby food to eat when she didn't have a line, and the nurses at the hospital didn't understand that hospital food just wouldn't work for her. She came home, got a PICC, hated the PICC, got a new line, hated the new line (because of the stupid doctor who put it in), and we finished out our summer.

The next school year we didn't really lose touch, but we weren't living together anymore since my roommate came back from the Philippines. We still got to see each other, and still made our normal Panera trips. I got engaged in December, and asked her to be one of my bridesmaids. By that June, when I was getting married, she was eating well enough to have her line pulled, so she could wear her strapless bridesmaid dress without a big dressing showing in pictures. Then, that summer, came the official Lyme diagnosis and with that a bunch of antibiotics. The thing I most regret about that time, when she was getting better, is that I wasn't there to see it. It was nearly a year before I got to see her again - I was busy working, she was busy healing - and I went to see her in Florence at her house, and suddenly she was better. She could eat. She could walk longer distances than I had ever seen. She had stamina. She had energy.


This is my best friend eating Tiramisu with me at a restaurant. I nearly cried, right there at the table. I never, ever thought I would see that.

Fast forward a few months, and she ran a 10K. More tears of joy.

And here we are, now. I get to see her anytime I want. I get to eat meals with her. She is healthy. She has a full-time job. She still has fatigue, and still takes meds for that, but the last time I was with her, we cleaned out her old clothes that she wore when she was sick and too thin, and we cleared away all the medications that she took. It was hard for her. I'm glad I was with her for that.

And I get to see her today!! Oh, how I wish that she lived closer to me. I miss her. I'm so glad she's well.

To quote my mom's facebook status this morning: I'm so glad God let us have friends :)

happenings as of late...

It's been over a week since I posted last - lots has happened.

Nearly a week ago, I got up and headed to Nashville to spend the week with Lissa. It was absolutely lovely. I went to AFF, the libertarian/conservative group that Price leads (Price is lissa's brother) with the group Monday night. It was interesting - didn't agree with everything, but I was glad that I went. Then on Tuesday night, we stayed in and made White Lasagna! Yum! Also watched Pan's Labyrinth, which was beautiful and sad. Wednesday we cleaned out Lissa's bedroom and that night was Trivia Night at the Corner Pub - so fun! We (surprisingly) won (mainly because Lissa and Wesley, her other brother, are brilliant...) Then Thursday we met Mel for lunch, ate yummy crepes, and went that night to hear their friend Aaron Long sing. Which was also delightful. It was an amazing week, full of fun, which I needed badly. I love Elissa, and her friends :)

I got back on Friday, and then Saturday was work, and Saturday night was Thanksgiving get-together at the girls' house. Sunday was work again, grocery store today, and cook tomorrow - and then off to Gainesville for Thanksgiving with Mark's family! Should be fun :)

I can't believe Christmas is so soon. I'm both ready and not - I'm slowly but surely getting some ornaments painted, and decorations are going to come sometime next week. Mark is in crunch time with grad school, and has to read too much to be festive right now (not that he's particularly festive without school...) I'm trying to plan a Christmas party of some sort, maybe a cocktail party, but we'll see how that goes... There's always too much to do, with too little time. For now, though, I'm excited about Thanksgiving - my favorite food ever! I could eat turkey, dressing, and cranberry sauce till I popped. Yummmm :)

Second Leg: (Almost) Best Week Ever.

The second leg of the Best Week Ever was not quite as epic as the first - Mark's parents didn't get to come this weekend, and work was bad one day, and Mark's birthday dinner was a near-fiasco - but Elissa still got to come, and we have made plans for me to visit Nashville in the next week or two, and Mark and Andy's continued birthday celebrations were still lots of fun, so all was not lost :)

What was good, in pictures:

We came back on Sunday night from my parents' house, and Elissa came on Monday, mid-day. She needed some new work clothes, and so we went shopping. Oh, how I love to shop. It was lots of fun :)

Lissa and me and the little black dress

That night, we were going to meet Andy and Suzie and Mark for dinner at Rojo - only to find out that it was closed :( So sad! So we went to this little Mexican place in 5 Points instead.

Andy (the birthday boy) and Suzie :)

I learned that I do not like Blue Moon beer, even with orange, after the first 2 or 3 sips of it. I also learned that green rice is just rice with cilantro in it (much better than my first thought that it was rice and guacamole - eww.)

Me, Lissa, and Mark (the other birthday boy!)

It always looks like Lissa and I are up to something ... but we're not. Maybe that's just the Lucy and Ethel in us both (though I'm not sure which of us is Ethel...)

After dinner we went to the Break to play pool (per Andy's request.) We discovered that aside from Andy, who is fairly mediocre, we all are ABYSMAL at pool/billiards/whatever you want to call it. Seriously abysmal. Lissa was bringing dinner to Matthew while we were there, and she said it was perfectly fine because she'd just be a handicap - but all three of us ended up being that.. basically, Mark and I just hit the balls around the table. I think I might have hit 3 balls actually in a pocket, and most of those were corner shots. Not counting the balls I hit in that were actually Andy and Suzie's...

Andy, the only one of us who sort of knew what he was doing :)

After we left the Break, we headed back to our house. Suzie baked a cake, and brought it and the puppy over. We did the whole candle/cake thing, they left, and I went to bed so I could get up for work in the morning.

Mark and Andy with their yummy strawberry cake

Kisses for Emma

I worked Tuesday and Wednesday, which was a drag. Then Thursday, Elissa and I went shopping again, and then she had to leave :( Saddest part of my week. Suzie brought Emma by in her Godzilla halloween costume before Lissa headed out...

Is this not the cutest thing you've ever seen?

After that comes the not-so-amazing...

Mark's parents were supposed to come this weekend, but because of Mark's presentation being due on Monday and the traffic due to race weekend, they decided not to. So I had planned to do a nice, pretty, yummy dinner for Mark on Saturday night (amidst the trick-or-treaters). I went to the store and got all the food ... the menu was going to be Stuffed Cornish Hens, Roasted Garlic Mashed Potatoes, Candied Carrots, and Apple Pecan Cobbler with Vanilla Ice Cream for dessert. Yum, right? Well, I made the apple pecan cobbler and roasted the garlic with no problem, and while they were cooking, I put the hens in a sink of cold water to thaw. (All they had was frozen at Publix, and the nice Publix meat man said they'd take about an hour to thaw.) So the cobbler was done, and the birds were ready to be stuffed and put in the oven - so I thought. I opened them up and everything was thawed but the inside - I think it might have been the gibblets? I couldn't tell. But they were frozen SOLID. Now, I've never actually made cornish hens before, which might have been my first mistake, making something new for a special occasion. But I didn't think it would be that difficult. It was already like 6:30 at that point, and the hens would need to bake for an hour, and add the extra thawing time, and considering I hadn't made any other part of the meal yet - it wasn't good. Plus I was already hungry, which made it worse. My blood pressure rose, my blood sugar dropped, and I was just not happy. So I ditched my brilliant plan, ate some chips and salsa, stuck the birds back in the fridge to (hopefully) thaw overnight, and started over. We ended up having salmon Caesar salad that turned out splendidly, and I just rearranged my little menu plan for the week, and we had some good wine and watched a movie, so crisis was averted. But I'm still a bit upset about the lack of sweet little browned cornish hens on Mark's birthday. Oh well... c'est la vie, right?

So now it's Sunday, and I forgot all about Daylight Savings Time, so I have a bit before I need to get ready for church. And rather than doing anything productive, I'm posting pictures and talking about frozen birds. Lovely :)

On the job front, and other things

I applied for a job yesterday. It's in a hospital I like a lot, in a unit I've wanted to work in since I graduated - so I'm hopeful about that. However, it's a "flexi Carlson" shift, and I have no idea what that means. Nobody I know has any idea what that means, other than possibly staffing more people when the unit is the busiest. So I think it might be "flex," which is sort of a rotating shift. As long as it's a full-time, benefit-eligible position, I'd work any schedule they gave me. I would BEG for any schedule they'd give me, but I feel like that might look desperate and unprofessional.

Speaking of work, working here has been quite pleasant the last several nights I've been there. I like a variety - some super-duper-dying sick, some not-quite-so-sick, and some pretty-darn-cute-close-to-discharge. Last night was the not-quite-so-sick category - a pretty peachy assignment. Not a bad night at all. And I have two more like that (tonight and tomorrow night) and then - off to the lake for the Skinner/Shannon vacation!

Another thing to be excited about: Elissa is passing through Chattanooga tomorrow on her way to pick up her new pet hedgehog (squee!) So she's meeting me for a late lunch at Panera ... shocker, I know :) I'm really excited to see her. She was originally going to come to the lake, but ended up not being able to, so I was sad - but, she promised to help us move in to our Birmingham apartment! Thank God for another set of hands :)

Randomly: our cat has fleas. And I'm tired of it. So we're bombing the apartment tomorrow.

And one final thing: I really have to brag on Mark about his cooking abilities and house husband-ry :) A list of some of the dishes that he has made me: grilled tilapia with mango salsa, chicken cobb salad, roasted chicken with apples and leeks, ginger chicken with sesame spinach, pasta skillet, shrimp cakes, veggie stir fry, cashew chicken lettuce wraps ... and the list goes on. (I think I may have made him into a foodie! Yay!) Fairly recently, we have set out to try very hard to eat non-processed, fresh food with more fruits and veggies incorporated in our meals, and it's going well. I also have to brag: Mark is drinking water!! and very little Coke!! Granted, it's bottled water (that's the only way he'll drink it) but still ... it's water. And much, much more cost effective than soft drinks. So - way to go, hubby!