Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!!!

Christmas is over and the new year is just a few days away. I dunno, for some reason the year 2010 is just a little weird to me. I'm likely just crazy.

Anyways, we had a great Christmas. We worked lol. Well, I had Christmas day off but worked Christmas Eve. Got floated to St. Paul 7W ICU which is kinda like an ICU step down but not. Either way, I was stuck on the highway forever. I left my house around 5:45pm and didn't clock in until 8:15pm. I SHOULD have clocked in by 6:47pm. I was super late. I30 westbound was like covered in ice and I had to use my stupid phone to figure a way to get off the highway and get to work. Especially since my typical backup was closed down because it involved taking a bridge exit that was even more icy than the road I was on, so they'd already shut the exit down lol, worsening the already miserable traffic.

That night I learned that my second gear start button in my car is super awesome in the ice, you can slide even if you were going only like 5mph when you hit the brakes, what my anti-lock brakes feel like when they're working with my sliding car, and that my car will still flash the low traction light at me even when its painfully obvious. Also, that, with my luck, I managed to hit every yellow light between 30W and 1st Avenue and Harry Hines and Inwood. That was not so good on my nerves when I was constantly trying to decide to stop and slide or just run the damn thing.

Brandon's last day of work went well. This is what they did to his truck.







If you can't tell, they even turned his license plates upside down. They also included the Evidence tape on his mudflaps. Oh, and apparently they had put some toilet paper on his truck and got it wet, but it froze so he said it was easy to get off. And they put butter on his door handles. As well as a cake and a nice card from the people he worked with.

He starts Jan 11th!

For Christmas we got a BluRay player! Which is awesome since we don't really have much of a DVD player anymore since mine died, Brandon's works 60%ish of the time, the XBox360 is dead, and I like to keep the Wii in the big TV room for when I play RockBand2. We got the movie the Hangover, the new Harry Potter, I got the new Mario Brothers game for the Wii, some new socks, more of our fine silverware to go with our fancy plates we can't use cause there is no where to put it, money, and some cute clothes and pajamas. Brandon got a new hat (since we ran over his old one), lots of his gear for the police academy (which he played with instantly), more cologne, and some other stuff I can't remember lol.

We took my brother to this great place called Smoke in Oakcliff (its kinda nice there sorta). It had the most freakin amazing breakfast. Its barbeque meat what they specialize in (hence the name Smoke, for like smoked meat) but my all time favorite breakfast they weren't serving that morning (pulled hog eggs benedict) so I was sad. But you should totally try it. We're probalby going to try to drag him to BuzzBrews today before he goes back to El Paso. He's having fun in school.

So, since its long and I've opened up myself for more criticism for the length of my posts, I'll say Happy New Years! I'll be awake all night that night cause I'm working lol. Actually I work Dec 31, Jan 1, and Jan 2. Starting next month, you should know I'll have most Saturdays off! Course you can always check my Google Calendar. If its not shared with you already, uhm, I may not want to. ;) You'll have to ask.

I've sold out...

Or so it feels like.

I'm told I've finally joined the year 2008.

Screw you, Wes.

I got CONNED (or forced against my will through peer pressure via google chat, which we all know how forceful someone can be there. It's not like I can just close my window...well, I probably couldn't cause Wes knows where I live, my phone number, my dad's name and job, what may brother does, etc., you get the point).

Anyways, I got a freaking Twitter account. Needless to say within 24 hours of having Twitter, Wes, Robert, and I are all bantering via Twitter at each other like the old days. I'm just waiting for the comment to come out that Wes and I bicker like old married people again. I'm sure its not far away. Thank God people don't hear our phone calls to each other sometimes.

So, whatever. If you have Twitter I'm @Kimberlyrh04 . If you have Facebook, I don't say any more on Twitter than I do on Facebook. I just quibble with my lovely responders more on Twitter (probably because responder #1 is Westley, dear, but whatever).

Other than that, I'm not looking forward to this week. I have a spot in my neck that hurts like crap. It's like lower neck/upper back and if I move my head a certain way (haven't figured out which way it is so I can avoid it) then it feels like something is not meant to be pinched is being pinched. Then tingles and warm pain start in the areas surrounding it. Don't think this is a first for me...but its not going away as fast as it usually does.

Plus I'm on call. I hate on call nights. I hate working 4 days a week, but then sitting at home by my cell phone waiting to see if I get called in sucks, too. Oh well. Next one won't be til the end of January I think.

And I'll really be missing World of Warcraft. The new patch is hands down the greatest so far. Course I get to meet a-holes from other servers withing my Battlegroup and get bitched at for them sucking and me not being able to heal through stupid, but whatever. For the most part its awesome. I am more than halfway to getting my perky pug!



Oh, and I gave in and got an authenticator for WoW so I could get my Corehound Pup companion, too. Lol. I'm too easy sometimes I think.

This video is stupid but it shows some of how cute the Corehound Pup really is. Course it left out them howling, but oh well.



K, I'm off to bed.

Ears and Rats

So, to avoid writing my OWN essays (seriously, what else do you all expect with as much as I talk?) I am writing AGAIN.

I decided yesterday that JJ's left ear is super stinky dish-raggy. That, compared with his constant shaking of his head and his whimpering when he scratches his ear, confirms in my head that he has an ear infection. I told him, but I bet he forgot, that we're going to the vet Monday. I supposed I'll go ahead and get my stupid Christmas stamps while I'm out. He'll be fine but he really hates taking pills and REALLY hates his ears being cleaned, which I bet we'll have to do twice a day again if this vet prescribes something similar as the one in Kurten did for his last infection.

Bella tonight was let out front to go potty before everyone bunkered in for the night. Course she starts stalking through the bushes and doing her Bella business and won't come when my mom calls her. So I go outside and start after her cause I'll just pick her up and make her come inside my way lol. But before I get near her I see her prancing towards me with the air of a business being taken care of. She marches right up to the front door and waits a total of 20 seconds for the door to be opened (which we're holding closed) and then she spits (seriously) out her huge mostly dead rat she had just caught.

Then we let her in and she takes her treat for a job well done from my mom as if she'd been waiting for her thanks for a little too long.

Now she's snoring on the floor. Never seen her sleep so hard before. Course the rat is still on the front porch cause all the tools to make a hole and bury it (given trash day is WEDNESDAY) are way out in the shed in the back of the wet, mushy yard. This was a Daddy approved decision.

So, I sure as crap wasn't going to include a picture of that, although I wish I could've taken one of her marching with it. It would've been amusing.

So I leave you with everyone's favorite Robert Earl Keen, Jr, holiday song.

Little of this, a little of that...

So, ya, I think I keep telling people on the phone I'm gonna update my blog. Well, here it finally freaking is.

Course now I can't remember what is news worth and what is not. Hmm.

Starters: (by the way if you're not following So you think you can dance and plan to, skip this)

I'm so freakin sad that Billy Bell isn't on this season. He (and this creeps me out to say so) was beautiful!

I <3 Legacy! I <3 him and Russel and Kathryn and Noelle. The married couple are cool, but I am never enthusiastic about their solos. Mollee is ok. She's too over bubbly though. Jakob is really good. I guess I'm liking him more. I never like Nathan. Ever. And I dunno why but I just cannot like Ellenore. She's perfect. But I don't like her.

Oh, crap. I haven't watched the elimination from last night and just saw Noelle is gone. Crap.

I really don't miss the other dancers. They were fun, but blah. Especially the tappers. Don't think I liked any of them. There, those are my opinions. Tons of dances I've liked but I don't remember them all.

Moving on. I think everyone knows Brandon is going to the academy in January and we're putting him through so he can apply to smaller police departments. He got his gun for the academy and was so damned excited about the deal he got on it that he WOKE ME UP just to tell me. Like I care!

Our Bella-dog was a very good girl. We were very proud of her recently. I'd made Brandon take me to see New Moon (book is still better but they got a little better with the movie) and we got home at midnight-thirty. Now, when we're not here when mom and dad go to bed, Bella gets in bed with them. They usually leave their door open when she does that so she can go get a drink of water if she wants to. Because of that, I usually sneak in and get her out of their bed so she won't bother them. Well this time she didn't hear me come in.

I'm right at their door starting to whisper, "Bella, Bella, Bella, come here," when I get the meanest, fiercest, loudest barking I've ever heard from my dog. I knew she didn't know it was me and was about to kill me if I didn't prove to her she knew me so I had to turn on my parents' light.

Mom starts mumbling incoherently, Daddy is half out of bed to come attack me, too, and Bella is standing on the little bench seat/chest at the end of their bed with her head flattened out ready to attack. I turn the light off really fast cause I know it blinded mom and dad, but it was enough. Bella realized who she was protecting mom and dad from and came wiggling out to me, wagging her tail as hard as she could like it was the first time she'd seen me in months.

/facepalm

The next day I apologized to mom and dad and said I'd never get her out of their bed again lol. Daddy said he was just thinking of what he could possibly do...just hit the intruder really hard? He said the light being turned on let him know it was me lol. Mom said she was SO PROUD of Bella and she'll always love Bella sleeping with her from now on, since she's such a little protector.

Now Bella is sporting a stylish dark pink sparkly collar. And has a bloody nose from burying her stupid congratulatory bone all the time. (by burying, I mean putting it under sheets and wears the skin off her nose when she pushes the sheets over and over with her nose to ensure her bone is "buried.")

I had put on like 8 lbs. I've said bye to about 5 of them. Sweet. I just don't eat lol. (that sounds bad but it isn't) Like on the nights I stay at home, I eat when I get up and I eat sometime before I go to bed. I don't work hard enough to need more food. When I'm at work, I have eat light on the way, have a light snack, a light meal, breakfast, then bed. Seems to work. Still have all my Kim energy.

Oh, last week I had an unplanned vacation. We had so few patients that I got cancelled 2 nights in a row. It was really weird. I think I'm going to pay for it this week. Not looking forward to it.

Got to see my brother for Thanksgiving (was grateful for being cancelled cause it let me see him more). Saw some family. Ate some food. (still managed lose those 5 lbs!) And that's about it.

And I shared my calendar with all of you (well the ones who I think read this) so you can hold me to what days I'm off and we can do get-togethers. It'll be awesome once Brandon starts school cause then we can all hang out like normal people finally!!!

If I get stamps soon, you'll get your Christmas cards! They're already addressed and in their envelopes!

A Very Bad Week for My Bed...

Yes, strangely enough, my poor bed is suffering right now! Monday night I had to go to work cause they flexed me to a weird day we needed more nurses than the days I like to work. Whatever. So Brandon was left at the house to fend for himself. Apparently JJ managed to get a hold of a rawhide that wasn't his and threaten all the other dogs within inches of their lives to stay away from his and his rawhide, and, thus, wouldn't eat his dinner, but stalked by the door. When the other dogs finished eating, Brandon tried to go back in the house to put up the dog bowl and JJ rushed him and got inside. /sigh. Bad dog.



Once inside, JJ had his rawhide taken away from him because he and Bella kept growling at each other. Of course that hurt his feelings and he started moping around. Since he's such a great cuddler for a large dog, Brandon went ahead and let him up on the bed while he watched TV, without the protective doggie sheet!!! (a bright yellow sheet I have in the room to cover the bed with should we want a dog up on the bed, not easy to miss!)


After a little while, Brandon fell asleep and woke up to the worst sound ever: JJ barfing, right by his head, on the bed! Ugh.


Bed offense #1: JJ barf


Brandon pulled the sheet and one of the mattress pads off (there are two to protect the mattress from doggie smells lol) and the fitted sheet and put them in the washer. They were the only pieces to get dirty. Not surprisingly, when I got home from work Tuesday morning, JJ was still in the bed, the sheet and mattress pad were still in the washer, and there were still no new sheets placed on the bed. (the barfing incident happened around 1am and I got home by 8am, plenty of time to do those tasks should he have wanted to do them)


Well, who knows what made JJ sick but, he's better. See. Him and Hunter playing around this morning. Very few people believe JJ can play nicely with the other dogs. I got proof now! I would have uploaded the video using Blogger, but it doesn't accept .mov files, so I had to go the YouTube route. You all understand, right?







So fast forward to Tuesday night. Yes, just ONE NIGHT LATER! Bella is inside, as always. Since I cleaned up and purged all our trash, Dr Pepper cans, plates, etc, that build up in the room and the computer room over the week, I pulled the sheets, comforter, and doggie sheet over the bed so Bella could go in our room and lie down on the bed while we play World of Warcraft. (we're just gearing up our druids right now, me as a tank and him as a healer) Well, not long after we started playing I went to our room to check on Bella. I swear sometimes this dog doesn't know she's a dog. She managed to get up on the bed (which sometimes she acts like she can't do herself, even though she's plenty big to do it easily), pull the doggie sheet back, pull the comforter back, pull both the little blanket AND the flat sheet back, and cuddle against the pillows with all the other covers like they're over her legs. I don't get it. Its not like she couldn't have cuddled with the pillows without pulling the sheets back...but she did. Either way, we left her as she was. She did it for herself without our help, she would do it again.


After few hours, she showed up asleep on my pile of dirty laundry to be cleaned that was outside the computer room door. Talk about cute curled up asleep on the laundry! We couldn't figure out why she would've left the bed, but we didn't care that much either. She does weird things all the time. This wasn't very different. After we were done playing WoW, Brandon got in the bed and she got back up there with him while I did some other things (fold the laundry, balance the checkbooks, etc). Then we kicked her out cause it was time to start settling down for him to go to sleep and me to do so soon after. I try to get in bed on my side and there is a wet spot. Not a shock because both Bella and JJ have an affinity for licking their paws a lot and cause huge wet spots to end up on the bed. Its obnoxious, but livable. Dog spit isn't that gross.


So I pull the wet comforter back to reveal a huge, perfectly round, wet spot on my sheets! This is not a dog licking his or her paws, which is never perfectly round. I smell it. OH MY FUCKING GOD! She peed on my BED! No freaking wonder she left the bed to lie down on the laundry. The bed reeked of piss. She got it on my huge comforter (which truly doesn't fit in the super capacity wash machine, even though I force it), my little blanket (which has a very yellow spot on its off-white color), my flat sheet, my fitted sheet, and the last mattress cover on my bed (since the 2nd one hadn't yet been replaced. Thank God I use two cause otherwise my mattress would stink of dog piss, too).


Bed offense #2: Bella pee

Nonetheless, we stripped the bed, flipped the mattress, and currently have no mattress pad and are on our 3rd set of sheets in 3 days! Course I had to find an old quilt to put on the bed to so we won't freeze in our sleep! We still have no idea what possessed her to pee on the bed, but she no longer has bed privileges!


But speaking of her being a weirdo, look at her poor little nose!




Remember those rawhides? She had been given a rawhide on Sunday night and she showed up on Monday with a faint spot on her nose. I didn't worry about it at all. If I worried about every scratch on my dogs I literally would be worrying 24/7 cause they have new ones all the time and we have no idea where they come from. (ok, fine, maybe each other the way they play) The next day, she was given another rawhide when JJ was in the house with his. When I got home from work, the spot on her nose was much larger, about the size of the one in the picture. Now I was a little worried, but what could I do? Follow her all the time? No.


While doing my morning, I'm home from work and putting sheets on our bed stuff, I found her rawhide under one of the sheets that covers one of the couches to protect the couches from the dogs. I laughed, because she'd obviously "buried" in on the couch out of sight, and gave it back to her. While pulling the sheet back over the couch I noticed all these reddish splotches on the sheet. First I thought it was blood, because of the color. Then I saw how it was placed all over the sheet and then it looked like paint. It really looked like someone had taken a paint brush with reddish paint and brushed, in many short strokes, all over the sheet. There was a thick beginning to the stroke and a faded out end of the stroke, like the paint had thinned from being applied. Well, being thorough, I sniffed it and, whoa, talk about metallic smell. That was blood.

Oh my gosh. I now know what happened. Bella was "burying" her rawhide on the couch and was so upset about burying it, she wore the skin on her little nose away and cause it to bleed. That's why it looked like paint brush strokes, because she was stroking her nose across the sheet trying to place it just right so the rawhide didn't show. And she's very OCD about burying her bones and I'm sure was burying it in one corning, didn't like that corner, and buried it in another corner, especially since the entire sheet was covered in her strokes of blood. Well, thinking it was kinda funny I told Brandon, we laughed at how silly she can be, and went to bed.


When we woke up for the day, mom was her and she asked what happened to the sheet. I told her what I thought had happened and she started laughing. Remember how I'd given her that rawhide back before I noticed what was all over the sheet? Ya, she went to another couch and, once again, traumatized her little nose to the point that she covered that sheet in blood "burying" her rawhide on the other sheet.


Offended couches by Bella blood this week: 2


So, no bed privileges, no more rawhides (well, if we want her nose to ever heal).


Other than that, my Blackberry bit the dust (erased its operating system) so now I have an iPhone. Video and picture today are courtesy of the phone. Don't judge it on the lighting on the video, however. Its super cloudy out and if I would've turned the light on the dogs would've realized I was there and quit playing and I just couldn't have that.


Oh, and I've paid my dad the money he helped us with when Bella needed her surgery and other things caused us to not have all the money for our honeymoon on the date we needed it. That made me feel really good. What was more funny, though, was Chase calling me asking if that was an authorized check I wrote or if someone had our account lol. Awesome! Chase seems to be doing their job! Course I wish they'd quit calling about it when I was sleeping.


Ok, bed time. I'm on call tonight. Blah. This week sucks and its just started.

Random...

So I've been thinking...I have nothing to blog about. At all. Nothing. I'm that boring.

My updates:

• My druid on World of Warcraft is level 80 and working on getting her geared up to be a tank.
• I'm working only 2 nights this week cause I took a day off. Whats sad is it feels like a big vacation.
• Brandon has taken one test with a police department. More to come.
• Brandon's knee hurts.
• I made us dentist appointments.
• He has an appointment with the headache doctor soon.
• Bella, still, for some unknown reason, likes to pee indoors. Even if she's peed outside.
• I'm asking for Rock Band for the Wii for my birthday. Brandon already has plans to get the Beatles addon.
• The Aggies won their first game. Whoop!
• I am now DVRing True Blood and have ordered all the paperback books available. Tired of people talking about it and not knowing anything about it. Oh, the first season is on its way, too.
• I keep forgetting to get my stupid engagement ring inspected.
• We're taking Brandon's truck to the shop Friday morning cause something about the drive train is making noise. If I spelled that wrong, whatever. I don't know anything about cars. I'm just repeating what my dad said.
• I was sadder than I thought I would be about Tooka. Love you, Lexie. Hope you're hanging in there.
• I need to give blood. I think I've been "putting it off" for six months. Thats like inexcusable.

And, for all of you who are dying to know. Here is what is set up on my DVR, whether they're coming on soon or not:

• True Blood (my show, maybe some Brandon's, we'll see)
• Heroes (my show)
• Lost (my show)
• So You Think You Can Dance (my show, cause otherwise I was told I wouldn't have to be left out of conversations with my friends anymore)
• Grey's Anatomy (my show)
• Locked Up Abroad (Brandon's show)
• The Simpsons (Brandon's show)
• Family Guy (Our Show)
• Southpark (Our show)
• House (my show)
• Top Chef - Las Vegas (mostly Brandon's show)
• The Soup (really Brandon's show, but I enjoy it, too)
• Hung (mostly Brandon's show)

I think thats it lol. Those are all series recordings, by the way. I feel a full DVR coming soon.

Also, I DVR'ed Hancock and thought it was super cute. I liked that movie. Left on the DVR to be watched or ignored and deleted is No Country for Old Men and There Will be Blood.

I hate blogging with not pictures or fun stuff. :( So, well, I can't find anything good right now. Tough.

Udates, with a baby bunny!

So, not much has gone on lately. We've celebrated a HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Jennifer! Yay! And that's about it lol.

Work had given me weird hours, but, because of those weird hours I was finally able to see my friends! You all should still be mad at me cause the little, simple gifts I brought back from Jamaica in FEBRUARY for you I still keep forgetting to bring to you! Its not like they're packed or anything. They're practically sitting in the open just waiting to be taken to you all, but I just suck!

This weekend, Brandon is testing for Denton Police Department. He feels "really good" about this test, he says. So, despite the fact its in DENTON, ugh, wish him luck, pray for him, send vibes, whatever your avenue is. We'd appreciate it. Its his dream and he thinks a college town like Denton would be just absolutely awesome to work in, since its large, and has so many elements to it.

My one year anniversary of working for UT Southwestern University Hospital Zale Lipshy (how retarded long of a name is that?) is coming in September!!! Weird, isn't it! I've been a nurse for a year-ish now! Feels like it was only like a few months ago I took that stupid NCLEX and passed it. Course, as soon as Brandon gets hired, I'm going to be looking to take the GRE. I hope to apply for the next fall semester, Fall 2010, to begin graduate course-work towards obtaining my Family Nurse Practitioner. After that is my plan to quit formal education. I really don't have any sort of desire for a PhD or anything of that sort.

So, random story time. Recently we were talking about books. I forget why, but I made some off comment about writing a book (joking) and Brandon said I should write one about Ribby, our beagle. (/sigh) All I dreamed about last night was about what kind of beagle book I'd write, a kids book, that I thought the name of the dog should rhyme with beagle, or we'd just call him Ribby the Hound dog, and that somehow the radio station 1310 the Ticket would be promoting this. Because of the Ticket's involvement, that means the stupid kid's book would have to be about sports, and how do people write kids' books anyways? Does it make sense to write the book, "Ribby the Hound goes to a football game"?! Lol, I seriously had CRAPPY sleep for HOURS thinking of this IN MY SLEEP! How random, right?

On a side note, I THINK I like fantasy books. Mix a little action with a touch of a love story (no romance novels please, I don't want that kind of stuff) and you might have me hooked. But I don't know a good book to read. I like the MAGICAL stuff. Call me a kid or say I have an overactive imagination, but I don't give a crap. I need a new book to read.

So, here is picture time. My mom actually found, courtesy of my dearest puppy dog JJ, a baby bunny hopping around in the garage today! (don't worry! JJ just alerted to it and made my Mom look, he was no where near to killing the sweetie) So when Brandon and I got home from eating out tonight, mom had a baby bunny! Now, after some internet research (and you know everything you read on the internet is TRUE! *sarcasm*), it seems that if we get the right food, and feed it once a day, and handle it minimally, then we can help it grow and release it into the wild again. The reason we took it in, despite it looking so healthy, is two reasons: 1) older bunnies might eat it, and 2) the douche bag bunny might hop into the back yard and get eaten by my dogs. Now, before you think that either option might be a long shot you have to see a) how many freaking bunnies there are in this neighborhood, and, b) the idiot baby bunny kept hopping/walking towards the fence of the backyard that contained my death givers.

So we put it in our old hamster cage, with some water and soft stuff to lay on, followed the directions we read and put it in a secluded area of the house, and left it alone. However, we took pictures while he was outside! (and don't worry! we're fully aware of the fact that he may not survive and that we may have to keep him as a pet. I have had to wrangle my dog Bella in all night, since she's mandatory house arrest because of her knees, and put up the baby gate so she can't get near the room the baby bunny is in right now). All pictures are courtesy of my dad! My camera took a nice one...but before I could take many fun ones my battery died. :( Always at the good moments. :(

...So how the hell did this happen?

Ok, I'm late posting this cause a) I am lazy, b) I'm a procrastinator, and C) all of the above. I've had the pictures, but didn't want to bother putting the reader in the laptop. Besides, I hate typing on the laptop on the cooling station.

Anyways, a few weeks ago, dearest Hunter (lovingly far too often referred to as Huntard) showed up with two scratches on his head. On above his eye and one on the inner canthus of his eye. Whatever, my dogs have such crazy battle wounds from battles I probably never wanna know about, so I didn't think anything of it really. Hunter has lost 2 teeth already from some serious tug-o-warring, whats 2 scratches?

Well, fast forward I guess a weekish and during morning doggie breakfast Brandon says, "Hey, Hunter has pus all over his cut." Of course I doubt him first cause, well, I'm lame. He assures me it isn't doggie spit that has managed to be slung up on top of Hunter's head, and it isn't one of Hunter's massive eye boogies that dislodged and moved to his cut (Hunter has huge eyes, so the greater the surface area the more likely it is to collect dirt which leads to eye boogies the size of which you would never have imagined).

Anyhow, I look at his scratch after its safe (translation: all the dogs have both finished eating and marking, and re-marking, my mom's poor flower pot), and, yes, there is purulent discharge all over the scratch on his forehead. Huh, first infected wound on my sweetest man Hunter. That sucks.

Being the gross person I am, I squeeze to get more of the ewy-gooey out til no more comes. Get some 1/2 hydrogen peroxide and 1/2 water mix and clean it out a little. He'll likely be fine. Its a small wound. I go to sleep (remember, I work night shifts. Its normal for me to go to sleep at like 10am.)

So, 6pm-ish, I get up and go feed the doggies their dinner and check out Hunter's icky scratch. I squeeze it again and he whines, and not much comes out...but I still see white stuff in there, but nothing comes, Hunter just whines. (anyone who enjoys popping pimples - not that I enjoy that, *cough* - knows that seeing more white usually means stuff could come out) I kinda get a closer look and notice its solid...the white thingy in there. Oh crap, someone's freaking toe nail is stuck in my dog's head. Figures. It goes along with how I imagined he got hurt. He and JJ like to ram chests like goats or something and I could imagine JJ's freakishly long toe nails he refuses to let me, and anyone else, trim, scratch Hunter's head.

I bring Hunter in and get Brandon to hold Hunter's head still, as well intrigue him with doggie bacon treats, while I utilize the fancy tool of tweezers to try to pry that thingy out of my dog's head.

Well, it sure as crap doesn't look like a toe nail. That looks like a tooth!!!

Oh my gawd someone broke their tooth off in my dog's scalp!!!????

Mouth checks begin. And my dogs don't like their mouths checked. They don't believe in brushing their teeth, they cover their teeth when they're playing, and I generally only see their teeth cause they're panting. Mouth checks of course are a pain.

So, as far as I can tell from the total of 10 seconds combined looking in 4 dogs' mouths (cause, unless he's more talented than I thought, I don't think Hunter embedded one of his own teeth in his scalp) the tooth did not come from any of my doofuses.

Course now that the tooth is gone, and Hunter trusts me, finally, to not poke at his head, his head is healed. Like completely. Bring on the hair growth please. And he still smells like a skunk.

I just don't think its a skunk tooth. Maybe it is. Maybe its a possum. Doubt its a raccoon...I've never seen any around here. And yes, my dogs are covered on their rabies shots. From personal experience I know I do not need to go and reboost the shot...learned that when we found the dead skunk.

Besides that, works has been way too freaking busy, but my patients family brought us all cheesecake. Omg. If you are ever unfortunate enough to be stuck in a hospital (the poor thing, the nature of what happened to her means that no matter how good she feels, she was stuck in the ICU for a minimum of 2 weeks) and you like your nurses, they ALWAYS enjoy food, especially CAKE, ICECREAM, and CHIPS and SALSA! Fruit trays and veggie trays are welcome, too.

I was also right about one of my patients and the doctors didn't think that was the problem at first. Hah. A holes.

So, for now, I guess thats it. Not too much exciting going on. Patch 3.2 dropped in World of Warcraft. Blizzcon is soon so maybe we'll hear about the next expansion. I got Mario Kart for the Wii (which we're conviscating from my mom since she never plays her gift and she's had it more than a year) and I'm better at it than Brandon...least right now. He's not too pleased so he just sticks to his Nintendo DS Mario Kart for now. OH! And YES! Jennifer, it looks like you can meet up with your friends online on Mario Kart Wii. We'll have to plan that out!!!

K, I'm going to go eat whatever you wanna call my 2nd meal since being awake even though its 3am.

I'll leave you with possibly my new favorite song for right now:

Just an Update

So, I haven't written cause truly nothing exciting has happened.

Brandon decided, for now, against applying to be a Trooper because he'd have to leave his mom with only me taking care of her for 6 months or so just for us to not know where we'd be heading after those 6 months. So, he's going to try some departments around here first and if those don't come through, then he may revisit the Trooper thing. Also, he's going to keep on taking his core curriculum classes to get more credits.

Oh, for some reason San Antonio is advertising on the Dallas Morning News website that they're hiring police officers. That sucks cause now Brandon wants to apply to work in San Antonio. I dunno. I think it would suck to live there. So we'll see what the hell happens.

For me, not much to say. Got to see the Harry Potter movie. I want to see it again though cause I saw it with a grumpy person so it wasn't as 100% fun as it should have been.

Nothing new with the doggies. They're crazy as ever. Hunter still stinks like skunk since I never bring him in to bathe him...I'm a bad doggie mom.

Work is busy, as it has been lately. Don't really understand why we're at capacity and over all the time lately, but whatever. People get sick, we do our best to help them recover.

Oh, we left our guild in World of Warcraft. Long story as short as I can make it. We got mad someone was promoted to an officer position who totally didn't deserve it, stepped back from playing so often, and then realized we totally don't feel like playing as long as we're playing with that guild. There are some nice people there, but overall the others are childish and obnoxious, and even worse when raiding, which is what we really want to do. So, we left. I feel bad about it, but oh well. Can't make everyone but myself happy.

Oh, and one last thing. We went out "on the town" the other night with friends from Brandon's job. Wow. I've never been in a bar before, just hanging out, and have a police officer in full uniform, on duty, come up and just chat cause he wanted to. Later that night, that same police officer went to Walmart, bought a change of clothes, and hung out with us more. Then, we all went to Whataburger where another on duty police officer came and ate with us. It was very weird. Normally alcohol + police officers = bad night for everyone. Nope, this was just weird. Lol.

On a side note, we ran into a dispatcher for Brandon's city and she invited me to a "passion party." She assured me that there will be things for "partners" there. I dunno. If anyone wants to go lemme know. Otherwise I'm claiming laundry night to get out of that. I think I'd want to know someone really well before I did something like that.

Anyways, trying to keep this thing going since I'm always told I don't blog enough! :P

An Ode to the Maxima

Many of you know that my mom's car since 1997 has been her '97 Nissan Maxima. However, most of you do not know that recent events have meant the car is going to Heaven. Poor thing is circling the drain.

Before I get into my best attempts at poetry about a car, here is the Maxima's eulogy.

Kathy's Nissan Maxima suffered fatal injuries June 22, 2009. As one of its last acts for the family, it served as the transportation for Jimmy and Kathy, driven by Kimberly, to the airport so that Jimmy and Kathy could go visit Jarod in St. Louis, and move him to El Paso. Later that day, it was generous enough to allow Brandon to conduct it to Farmer's Branch so that Candy could visit her doctor in greater comfort. On the way home, it started feeling a little sick. The brake light came on along with the voltmeter light, along with an odd smell, that of components and plastic burning. Later that night, after it had rested, it was started to find that the alternator had caught fire and was emitting that burning smoke. After Brandon so courageously poured a cup of water on the alternator to put out the car fire, it was sent to the car hospital that had in the recent past taken such good care of cars like the Chevy Camaro, when she got her new engine. The word came a few days later that the Maxima should be placed on end of life care, and thus has finished her days as the family car. Oil oozing from various orifices would be the cause of death.

And please give me a break. This is my best attempt at telling a long story and rhyming at the same time. No one is awake to proofread for me!

Now,

An Ode to the Maxima

The Maxima car, one very comfortable and quite fast,
Was the car my mom bought when I was a freshman at last.

Only too well do I remember mom driving us home, new car smell fresh,
And how, in the Taco Bell drive-thru, mom said, "What is this?"

Of course, she popped the trunk from the front seat special release,
Having me jump out, looking a fool, to close it at least.

Then, a few years later, the car stretched its extent
to fit ELEVEN people within it for a my birthday guests.

It did not matter that one person fell out when we opened its latches,
what matters was the car performed more than we could have expected.

It was championed as the family car that had a good bit of SPEED,
and trust me, 120 miles per hour was witnessed by my brother and me.

Granted, that speed only tied the Firebird it raced on that night,
but that Firebird was a V6, so spare us much of a fight.

How about the day I got lost in Garland, Rachael and Julie shot-gun,
Jarod and Chris B. giving Jennifer G. bruises in back just for fun.

Why was I lost in Garland you seem to be inquiring?
'Cause Jennifer's parents said no highway driving.

That day, it started raining and I tapped the brakes to slow down,
as cars in front of me fish-tailed on the road, making me frown.

However, something strange happened, and, "Oh shit," I did chant
because the car didn't slow or stop until the very last safe moment.

Then what about the experience that car and I shared,
trying to drive to go dancing, exiting Galloway for a yummy fare.

Stupid drivers, can't learn where or when to slow for the exit,
The car in front of me stopped on the off-ramp because of another half-wit.

The ignoramus chose not to slow down, as cars were departing,
thus my two lanes were taken, sending me off-roading.

After a super loud BANG!, slamming of the brakes, and honking at them,
the car survived, the three of us safe, with other drivers to condemn.

Then there was that one night, with Rachael and her date, Paul,
in whom she was not interested, not very much, not at all.

He sat in the back seat, unfortunately, ignored,
and somehow got sticky stuff all over the door.

That window roll down button never worked quite the same,
but he never pursued Rachael again, thus he never got blamed.

Then came college, and graduations, and even more school,
the car kept on with little to improve.

It survived the massive force of nature, that is blond and quite furry,
we all like to think of him as mom's dog named Chewy.

Chewy was not its first dog, as that would likely be Jake,
but Jake was sweet, Chewy commonly left terror in his wake.

I'm sure my brother Jarod would have some interesting things to say,
but this is my ode to that car, so he can comment away.

In the past, I had washed, waxed, vacuumed, and cleaned,
that car was as close to mine as I could possibly glean.

My first flat tire experience was while driving that car,
that whooshing of air I'll always remember by far.

Though I moved on, and my mom is doing so now,
We'll always cherish you, Maxima,
for the love,
for the time,
for the sweat, tears, oil, gas, and room,
as our one, our only,
Maxima of which we've been so proud.

Member of our family from 1997-2009
260,000+ miles
very little maintenance required

Tried a new recipe tonight!

So, I'm bored with the limited amount of dinner recipes I have in my brain arsenal. I can pull off a handful of things, but, most of them run in the same "dinner families," as I'll call them, so I can't use many of them in a week.

For example, tacos and enchiladas. Both easy. Both yummy. Both Mexican/TexMex in flavor, so you really don't want both in one week.

Parmesan chicken, pesto chicken, spaghetti. All kinda Italian-y. Don't want them all in one week.

Brandon doesn't like pork chops, which sucks. I really liked the pork chops I used to make, thanks to a really cool person at church submitting the recipe to the church cook book. Its SO easy and you only really get one big pan dirty. Maybe a bowl or two, but thats it! Veggies, meat, sauce, all one pan. Love it. But Brandon does not. Grr.

So, on the way to the store today I got on his iPhone and looked up some stuff on mobile.foodnetwork.com. I found this (from the non-mobile site) Spicy City Chicken. Now, do not trust its prep time and such. Its like not right lol. But, I'll give you the low down.

First, I loved it. If you like chicken enchiladas with tomatillo sauce, this stuff is up your alley. A little bit of spice (or more, depending on how heavy your hand is with some of the ingredients) mixed with a nice sweet flavor.

Side note: we used regular yellow onions instead of shallots because, well, thats what we could find, we're not going to a specialty store for this. And we didn't get the scallions because the Produce guy in Kroger was doing something that took more than 5 minutes in the exact spot where the scallions were, so we decided to just ignore them. Oh, and we used only chicken breasts without skin, cause thats how we roll.

Other alterations Brandon made. He chopped up the cilantro and tossed it in the pan. And I really don't think he strained the sauce after he pureed it, but I liked it that way. It was probably thicker and had more fullness to it. But I bet it worked better because he chopped the cilantro.

What I REALLY want to do is make that sauce, put some chicken and mild cheese in some corn tortillas and smother them with the sauce. It would be a different kind of enchilada but a good one!

So, the thing says prep time 20 min and cook time 1 hour. Flip that. Prep time 1 hour cook time 20 min. The sauce really is the thing that takes the longest. So if making the sauce is part of prep, then its 1 hour of prep time. If making the sauce is cooking it, then its 1 hour cooking it. Broiling or grilling the chicken is dumb fast. Like 12 minutes maybe. We broiled it. We dragged it out a bit cause I had the chicken ready and Brandon was still working on the sauce. It was a partnership to make diner tonight. :)

Oh, and what was funny was the smells. It smelled a lot like the goat curry from Jamaica, especially since it was green in color, just like the goat curry. But its flavor was more like the sweet and spicy tomatillo flavors, which I LOVE along with cilantro. Yum.

We liked it. Thought I'd share. It makes plenty, too. I'm looking forward to left overs.

Crossfit

So, we did it. We went and participated in our first Crossfit work out. Of course they went easy on us the first day, and John, they guy who runs the one in Richardson we are going to, is really nice. He said we'll probably go a little easy for a couple weeks til we get the hang of it, know how our bodies respond to Crossfit, and learn all the techniques.

Today we did this:

Warm Up:
400 meter jog
PVC pipe stretches

Work-Out:
400 meters row
50 squats
40 sit ups
30 push ups
20 box jumps (you don't actually have to jump, but its like a 2 foot box you get up on 20 times)
10 pull ups (with the lovely help of the most awesomest rubber band thingy)

Cool Down:
Stretches, walking it off

I think I completed mine in 18min and some odd seconds and Brandon did his in like 19 minutes and some odd seconds. I have better strength in my lower body than he does, so I think, and thats why I think I beat him by a minute.

I couldn't tell you what everyone else's work out was cause I don't know all the exercises, but I know they were supposed to run 400meters, then do the same distance running backwards, then come in and basically do a combined situp, toss a huge ball, received the huge ball from your buddy, do the situp, toss, repeat, as well as other things.

http://www.crossfit.com

Thats the master website.

But why not try to do as much as we can? Why just go slowly to "see how your body responds?"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhabdomyolysis

That link there takes you to the condition that some olympic athletes have caused by pushing themselves too hard doing Crossfit lol. Awesome, huh?

Anyways, going back tomorrow. Just promised I'd say something about it after my first day.

We're moved!!!

And, oh my God, I'm never doing that again. In College Station I lived in a dorm you basically moved most of your crap out of every Christmas and moved completely out every summer for THREE years, then I lived in an apartment, moved to another apartment, then moved to another apartment, and all of that was WAY easier than this experience has been.

Granted, I did have help and this was just Brandon and I, and this apartment had been lived in for 12 years with left overs from them moving from a house to an apartment, but oh my God. His mom had basically packed up her room and we had the movers move her. She took care of most of the unpacking of her apartment. But what was left was in sane. Its why we took a week off of work to do it all.

But, our accomplishments are:

Here is the attic, finally completely empty (this attic was stuffed to the brim before our efforts):

After cleaning this bitch out I came out with a total of 6, I think, itchy bug bites that looked creepily like chigger bites, but they were mostly on my torso, which so isn't the common place to find chigger bites.

This is what the living room looked like with all the attic mess in it:

We managed to sort everything, get it all labed with store at his mom's, store at my parent's, garage sale, or throw away. Throughout the entire thing I think we took at least 9 pick-up truck beds FULL of trash to the poor little dumpster at the apartement complex. Oh, and we learned that if in a fight between Brandon's head and a light bulb on the attic ceiling, that Brandon will win. (no worried, only the light bulb was hurt in the incident and wonderful Mr. Vacuum took care of the mess).

We filled up my grandma's garage for the garage sale. Literally. There was no where to walk through all the boxes and crap we took to the garage sale. Not everything sold, but we did unload a good amount of stuff. We put one furniture piece on the side of the road with a lovely sign that says, "Please take me." Come to think of it, I should check in with my grandma to see if its gone yet.

We also finally managed to get rid of the fish tank. We got it up on Craigslist kinda late and basically said you can have everything for x price (super duper cheap, especially for everything) if you just come and get it and we don't have to move it at all. Well, our emails got neglected in trying to finish cleaning out the apartment, cause we were working up til 5pm on Sunday and the key needed to be in the drop box by 9am Monday morning. So, we ended up having to break it down and start taking it downstairs. We were just gonna leave it by the dumpster and let the Craigslist peoples know where we left it, when I said screw it, I'm calling the guy that emailed us the most and asked us the most questions. Catch is, we already knew he couldn't come pick it up cause he was at work til 6 and, well, we wanted to raid on World of Warcraft at 7pm.

So I talk to him, and he asks questions, and gets to the point, "What are you really saying is the bottom line?" I tell him, "Look, we're just trying to find someone to take this thing other than Mr. Dumpster in the back of the apartment. We have somewhere we want to be at 7, so we're going to leave it sitting outside. Its free, cause no one will be here to take any money, ya know?" He laughed and said, "Well, then there is nothing to think about is there?"

His poor wife. Since they lived nearby, she apparently called a friend to bring her friend's car to come and try to get the pieces (cause the original plan was he was gonna have his wife walk over and sit with the fish tank equipment until he got off work, which totally would've sucked for her). She and her friend had no idea what they were getting in to, but I'm glad it went to them. They desperately needed the tank right then cause a guy from his "fish forums" (which totally meant to me he was a super hobbyist, which makes me feel better) gave them an 8 inch turtle for his 3 year old and he needed a bigger tank to hold the turtle in, which is why our tank was perfect for him immediately.

So, that unloaded, we left the cleaned apartment happy to be done. We raided, and Brandon died. To prove he died, I have the picture.

Yep. Thats him sleeping with Bella! She was on the bed first so he scooted in with her. He's totally sleeping on my side in this picture!!!! So when I went to bed, I had to move him and the dog, who ended up sleeping with us all night.

So, we're done. And we're happy about it. We've decided we never want to own a 2 story house. We never want to move his effing TV again, and if we ever buy a new one, we're not getting one that weighs 150 effing pounds, and especially not keeping it upstairs if it does. I think we'll think twice about hobbys that involve heavy, bulky equipment. And be more inclined to throw crap away (even though I can't bring myself to toss my Nursing school books yet.)

I'm sure my next blog entry will be about this new fitness thing we're going to start, but I'm not going to say anything til we've paid our money and went to our first class deal.

Things that I want you to know/be aware of if you ever are admitted to the hospital

So, I'm not going into the details of my night that has led me to this...but lets just be aware of the fact that might night has gone in such a way that has led me to want to do this.

And please take to heart, this is coming from an ICU nurse. And by no means does it apply to everyone, but its still food for thought. Thank you.

First, the fact you are in the hospital does not let you off the hook of at least mildly to moderately taking care of yourself. If you are fully able to do so, I do expect you to brush your own teeth, change positions in your bed (please for the love of your own skin change positions in your bed), and bathe yourself to the best of your ability. I don't mind you asking for assistance in difficult parts, especially since sometime we say you're not allowed to get out of bed to make them easier, but just be aware this is not day care. You are an adult. (If you're not an adult, why are you reading my blog?)

Next, whatever tube, line, or drain that is in you must stay there. Especially you girls out there, you will more than likely have a tube in your hoohah so you don't have to get up to pee. Please DO NOT pull on this tube. If you are unfortunate enough to have one go down your nose, don't pull it out. Not only will we have to put it in AGAIN, there is a chance it could go into your lungs, and that is NOT a good thing.

Ok, if you DO infact pull one of those previously mentioned tubes or make us so nervous by your actions that you will, you will most likely have "reminders" places on your wrists and/or ankles so you will not hurt yourself by doing so. That includes trying to get out of the bed we asked you to stay in. We usually need you to stay there for a reason. If you don't understand it, it is perfectly reasonable to expect an explanation from your caregivers. But until then, just assume its for your safety.

And please know, that unless expressly told otherwise, you're most likely totally cool turn over in bed. Now, granted, you may not be able to sleep on your tummy, but definitely on your side. We usually do not set up our tubes/lines/drains/etc in such a way that just simply by turning you will ruin the set up.

Ok, anyways, I feel better. Thank you. There may be more, but lets just leave it at that.

Moving..and things I learned.

So, the big move part 1 is complete. Sunday, Brandon and I got up and started packing things. Of course, every time we said, what do you want us to do next, his mom took 5 minutes thinking of something to do, would quit what she was doing, and start what was supposed to be our next task herself. My favorite:

Me: So, what's next?

Her: Well....................I guess we need to go ahead.....and.....pack the phone. {she walks into the living room, takes apart the phone, grabs a nearby tiny box, puts it in it, and proceeds to arrange the phone in the box}

Me: Ok, well what do you want me to do since you're packing the phone.

{silence}

Me: Ok, I'm going to pack the lamps. You really need to pick one thing to do and stick to it. And come up with something for Brandon to do...and let him do it.

At this point, I tell Brandon to start taking out the trash as his mom moves from room to room packing little things here and there. So basically she had her hands in everything, micromanaged it all, and was stressing because she was trying to get it all done at once, instead of each room done in its own turn.

So, the before the end of the night, Brandon and I had fun un-hooking the washer and dryer. The dryer was EASY. Unplug, disconnect vent, move. The washer...not so easy. I checked in with my dad first to make sure I wasn't skipping any steps, and then got ready to unhook everything. So, the faucets the water hoses were connected to was the major problem. One of the faucets had no handle anymore. It was only a little metal stick that we were going to have to somehow tighten so we could remove the washer without water going everywhere. Fine. I'll do that one second. I'll turn off the one faucet that has a handle. Great. Its stuck. I ask Brandon to try, since he has man hands, but no luck with him either. Thank God I'm a trained nurse and paramedic and know that improvisation is always important. And from plenty of adventures in nursing, paramedicine, and cooking, we all know that grabbing a towel or something of the sort helps add grip to objects without raping the skin on your hands. Perfect! The towel method worked yet again! One faucet down, one to go.

So we try wire pliers, and multiple wrenches. Finally this one particular wrench, of the most perfect size, worked! Ok, faucets off. Now to get the hoses off since my dad recommended we get new hoses since we didn't know how old those were. Great, those hoses are stuck too. Towel method failed. That magic, perfect sized wrench failed, since it was actually too small for this job, and we had to use a magnificent sized wrench and bang around to finally get those hoses off. Alright, washer and dryer ready to roll...finally. Thank God we didn't save that til the morning.

Needless to say, we survived. The next morning Brandon and I were up at 6:30 am. Got breakfast, packed up the computer and the things that needed to be done first thing in the morning and waited for the movers, which we THOUGHT were hired from 8am-10am. So, 8am comes and goes and they're not there. Oh, now we're informed that the movers could be there anywhere between 8am and 10 am to START. Whatever. They showed up at 9:30 and man did they get to work! The two of them moved everything by themselves and fast! We went on to Farmers Branch and almost exactly 2.5 hrs after they started, they were done. They were perfect (especially since we had 2.5 hrs free lol). Nothing was broken either!

Now, to hook up the washer and dryer. Well, we could not find the dryer vent (that metal round thingy that takes the air from the dryer to the outside world through the wall.) We just assumed the movers lost it. Wrong, we found it later, after buying a new on, inside the dryer, safe and sound. Great movers, honestly. However, since we didn't find the vent at Walmart when we went for groceries and the washer hoses, we put off setting up the dryer until tomorrow. So I hooked up the washer and didn't look again at the dryer. Big mistake there. You'll see later.

So now was the time to set up her computer and get it ready for the cable, internet, and phone install the next day. I set everything up, plug it all in, press the power button, and NOTHING. No lights, no sounds, just nothing at all. So I spend the next 30 minutes dismantling her computer looking for loose wires or something to help me figure out why its decided to not turn on whatsoever when it was working fine before.

After plenty of time of frustration, I had to give up. All I could guess was MAYBE the power supply went bad, but given I've never sen or dealt with one going bad, I was unsure so I had to take it to people who could tell me for sure. We took it to the nearby Fry's and left it for them to do their diagnostics. We didn't feel like staying forever and was missing our World of Warcraft raid time anyways, so we said we'd get it tomorrow.

They call a few hours later and let me know that the computer passed all the diagnostics, that the only thing wrong is the power supply is bad. Sweet. I can fix that. I'll just get a new one when I pick it up.

So the next morning we pick up the computer, get a new power supply, which turns out to be a micro one (I'm blind and didn't see those huge words on the box), return it, get the right sized one, and install it. Everything works fine. Sweet. Now to install the dryer vent that we managed to find at Fry's while we were there.

I get it attached to the dryer and to the wall, things are going along nicely, I go to plug the dryer in...and I cannot. I get a flash light on the outlet to see it better and see why I can't manage to line up the plug with the outlet and I quickly find out why. The dryer has a 3 pronged plug attached to it. The wall requires a 4 pronged plug. Now, on regular outlets, if you have a 2 pronged, it totally fits into a 3 pronged outlet...but not with dryers. They both have the L shaped on, but my plug has prongs at a diagonal and the outlet has the prongs straight and parallel to each other. WTF?!?!?

So Brandon Googles it on his phone (remember, internet, phone, and cable aren't set up yet) and I call my Dad. He calls me back and tells me its no big deal, but he cannot tell me how to do it myself because he really needs to see what we're dealing with before he knows which direction to go with it, and he's afraid we could potentially blow up the dryer.

Apparently, for safety reasons, building codes and dryers are now being developed to have TWO grounding wires instead of just one, so they're moving to 4 pronged plugs and outlets. Dryers don't often come with cords already attached because the people selling dryers don't know what kind of outlet the people buying dryers have, since newer buildings have the 4 pronged outlet and older buildings still have the 3 pronged ones. So it seems it really is no BIG deal, but you have to know where to connect the electrical connections and all the ground wires, and if you do it wrong could totally blow up the dryer. So, for the record, lets say I'm educated on this now, but still uncomfortable should it fall to me doing it myself. I would likely look it up on How To again, as my dad needed me to so he knew exactly where to put the 2nd ground wire on a dryer that was designed for only 3 prongs.

So that had to be done, obviously, after my dad got off work. At which time Google manages to have a certificate (whatever the crap those things are) that for some reason Brandon's Mom's Internet Explorer said had errors or was old or who knows, and of course makes her think that he virus software she got through her last internet providers isn't working anymore. I don't really understand how she comes to some of her conclusions, especially given the McAfee software icon is in the task bar, when you click on it is says "Computer Protected," and she can go to ALL of the other websites she could possibly ever want to go to. So I have to show her how, yes, her virus scanning software is working, and that the error message has nothing to do with her computer, she can still get to all her emails, and can still use her computer. Maybe in the future we'll have to change her virus software, but currently, its 100% active and she isn't on her old internet anymore. (I suppose she thought her virus software was consistently streaming through her old provider? Can you imagine how SLOW and painful of an internet connection and computer performance that would be?!)

So, that being fixed, the washer and dryer working, and the only thing left to do is hang pictures, get hooks to install on her doors for her robes and whatnot, and maybe a box or two to finish emptying, we're done with the move.

The old place, omg, is dirty! lol

And Mr. Bojangles, our resident mouse, is still around. He hasn't been sited again, however, he has left us enough evidence to know he's alive and well. Brandon left a bag of trail mix on the floor which somehow sprouted a little hole in the bottom and was spilling trail mix on the floor. Very mousy in my opinion. And the cork to a bottle of wine we had recently was found near my computer (no where near where we were drinking the wine), half chewed. Pretty sure that was Mr. Bojangles as well.

Now, for Part 2, all we have left it: empty out the attic (holy S that will be an endeavor), sort through the attic junk, I mean boxes, throw away what we can, set aside what we can for the garage sale, and save very little of it (*crosses fingers*). Move all our crap to my parents house and set up my room and my brother's old room with our stuff (where, oh where, to put our tv). Then clean the old place, get the garage sale set up, do the garage sale, and be done with it all.

So also, right before all this started, I had noticed when Bella (my doggie who ruined her knees) pooped recently that there was a little white worm moving along her poopy. Well, my college roommate, Lexie, had a dog that got worms and felt so terrible and runny pooped everywhere cause she was sick. Bella wasn't doing any of that so I thought maybe this one wormy was just a random occurrence. I was wrong. I found another and decided the day after the move I'll take Bella to the vet to get it checked out. She totally didn't last that long. She woke my parents up crying one night and they just assumed she wanted to be out of her crate, so they let her out. I'm told it was the grossest and strangest colored poopy all over the dining room. Poor girl. My Mom took her to the local vet, they found NOTHING out of their stool sample, but took my description to determine it was a piece of tape worm that ripped off as she pooped, gave her a broad spectrum de-wormer, some antibiotics, and a probiotic powder to put in her food to restore the normal stuff in her tummy. No more runny poopy, and Bella is fine. If only she's quit costing us money!

Meanwhile, Brandon is taking an internet class (seriously, I think if you pass the test of dealing with the idiots that work at community colleges, and yes, Eastfield, I AM talking about everyone one of your employees, not necessarily teachers, that if you pass that test, its a weed out factor that at least your serious about school. Cause omfg, the amount of crap Brandon had to do to sign up for ONE EFFING CLASS was retarded). He plans to submit his State Trooper application before the July 10, I think, deadline. He also plans to set up test dates with Mesquite, Dallas, Frisco, and Dart, I think, lol. So, we'll see whats going on in the next few months.

Recap on things I learned:

• You cannot teach a micromanager to quit doing it.
• When a power supply goes bad, the computer does nothing. Nothing at all. They're cheap, just replace it yourself.
• Washer hoses are pretty easy to change, assuming things aren't stuck and you have good tools if they are.
• Dryer vents are totally easy to do
• There are different kinds of dryer outlets nowadays. :( Definitely can be done yourself, but make sure to Google good directions first.
• Fry's carries a crap ton of different things. Now only if it carried groceries it would be my one stop shop. However, the one in Irving only carries Coke products, so don't go in hoping to just pick up a quick DrPepper.
• Mice like trail mix and wine corks.
• Tape worms in poo look like moving rice. If you see one in your doggy's poo, just take him/her to the vet. Its easier than waiting for the diarrhea to come.
• A Texas State Trooper applications is like 40 pages long almost. They're not effing around.

What I've been not up to lately...

So, I haven't posted in a while and this one maybe be messed up as my work computer won't load it right. Grr.

Monday is the big day that we all are going to move Brandon's mom to her new place. Its a really nice place. I hope she likes it a lot. She's been working her butt off trying to get everything together. When its time for us to move in with my parents, we'll see if we're nearly as productive lol.

Besides World of Warcraft, raiding, I became an officer, taking care of doggies (all are well by the way, well, Hunter lost another tooth to an unknown reason, but generally all are well), we haven't done too much.

We went to the Dallas Observer's Wine and Dine again this year. Again we had fun. I think I enjoyed last year's more than this year's, but oh well, not gonna stop me yet from wanting to go next year. I would love to do Taste of Dallas sometime, but I doubt that is any time soon since Brandon and I work weekends at night. Blah.

However, he is going forward with putting in his application for the Texas State Troopers. He needs to get his butt into shape more. My patient and I were talking tonight (he used to be a police officer) and he was telling me how its just like a boot camp going down there. Hope Brandon is ready for it! But, to help out with grades and course hours, he'll be taking an online class for Maymester! So scary.

So, I'm sure the next monumental post will be after the move. But hey! We're having a garage sale June 6! Anyone have stuff to dump lemme know! We'll put your name on the tag and you can collect your money later.

OH! By the way. We just totally forgot to tell everyone a very long time ago: we got you all little gifts from Jamaica. (ok, in case more people than my immediate friends read this, I only bought stuff for my immediate friends...not everyone in the world). So, ya, they're still sitting at home. Don't feel too bad. I see my parents EVERY DAY and still haven't given them their gifts. I'm terrible.

K, gonna go back to work or something now. :)

MRI and Mr. Bojangles

Yes, Brandon went into one of those thingies where you must remove all things metal, slide into a tiny little hole, and listen to banging, clanging, and jackhammering while some mystical magnet somehow makes a picture of whatever body part its told to.

His took two and a half hours. He was soooo pissed.

But, we now know he has a torn disc, a bulging disc, and some disc degeneration. Now for steroid shots, another MRI, and and EMG.

What the hell did he do to himself? Your guess is as good as ours.

On a funnier note...I had to go to work before Brandon today so he was sitting in the room byhimself watching tv and saw something out of the corner of his eye. Yes, everyone, apparently we have a mouse living in the vicinity of our bedroom. Awesome.

He's named him Mr. Bojangles.

/facepalm

Random this's and that's...

So, life has been going on alright. Got called in on call last night to work. That sucked, but oh well, it happens.

Last week my patient told me that he hoped to see me one day in a grocery store so he could buy me ice cream. My patients last night were the sweetest ever. I've been really lucky to have such wonderful people to take care of lately.

World of Warcraft has been going awesome. Brandon and I were accepted to the Raider rank in our guild as some of the first to compare the others to and we were thrilled about that. We now have all 25 man content on farm and are preparing for the next big thing.

I did some achievements, cooking ones actually, the other day then my dad sent me a whole bunch of pictures and I totally have to post them for comparision:

World of Warcraft Critter Gitter achievement on Broshunteri:


And one of the pictures my dad sent me:

Just amused me.

Brandon ran into a Texas Ranger at work the other day. He has always entertained the idea of giving himself the chance to promote to the position of Texas Ranger and seeing him just got him excited again. To do that, you much be a State Trooper. Then a few days later he ran into a State Trooper who told him they hadn't been getting many applications that they can accept so they extended the application deadline to June, which is just long enough for Brandon to make 2 years at Plano and apply with the amount of college hours he has to be a State Trooper. So, stay tuned...he may be moving to Austin for 6 months and I'll be living with the parents by myself...except on weekends of course.

In the mean time, that has me thinking about applying to get my masters degree in nursing in the near future. Brandon and I are still talking timelines for that. If I wanted to start in Spring 2010, my application needs to be in by September, so I have some wiggle room.

Well, for the life of me I cannot think of the YouTube I threatened Brandon I'd post. There was a story there. Maybe I'm tired. Oh well, I'm going to bed. I'm up too late anyways. Bella decided she wanted to take 45 minute to pee once and poop three freaking times this morning. I'm gonna kill her. I would have already but she's just too damned cute.

My name is Kelly?

So, I get to work tonight and go to the front desk where they list the patient assignments and look for my name to see who my patients are tonight. I glance over it once...then I glance at it again...and look even closer. Ok, my name isn't there.

No big deal. When I first got out of the internship some of my shifts didn't get altered appropriately and they didn't see that I was supposed to work that night. It worked out well because they needed a nurse and I got my hours.

So, I'm about to ask the charge nurse if she missed me when the girl who took my patients in the morning came by to see if I was getting the same patients back...which I usually do.

She looks and goes, "Kimberly, where is your name?! You took my patients right...?" I tell her ya, I can't find my name.

So she asks the charge nurse, "Hey, is this "Kelly" supposed to be "Kimberly?" The charge nurse looks, thinks, and starts laughing. Apparently my name is Kelly.

A little while later she hollars, "Kelly! Kelly come here." She explains that my name was written down on the list as K.Roland (obviously they don't have my name changed everywhere). So all she thought in her mind was the chich from Destiny's Child (Kelly Rowland) and thats what she wrote down. So my name is now Kelly.

Side note: There is absolutely no nurse that works here in this ICU named Kelly. None.

Doggie Update

Bella had her surgery and did very well. First thing she did after I picked her up after her surgery is try to sniff in the trash can, and thats when I knew everything should be ok with Miss Priss.

She has been taking her medicines with peanut butter like a good girl, has scratched her nose getting used to her crate, and has been trying to convince us to let her up onto the couch which is a huge no no right now with her knees.

She had only one knee surgery done. If she does well, in 4 months she'll have the other one. The doctor said it would be a range of 4-6 months til she's ready to support herself with her recently repaired knee enough to allow the other knee to be done.

Here is a picture of my Bellarina the day before we had the bandaged removed. She didn't know where to hide her bone inside and was utterly distraught.

And on to JJ. Yes, JJ, my oldest doggie. He looked like he all of a sudden had random scratches all over his body...then my dad says, "Kim, I don't think they're scratches." So I started watching them to see if they changed or went away and planned to talk to the vet about it when I took Bella to have her bandage removed. Well, then a knot shows up on his side and I have to take him to the vet to have it looked at.

My damned dog looks like he has scratches because it is a fungus on his stupid skin! The vet said most likely he was rooting around in the back yard and something just got up in his nasal passages and it manifests on his skin. Ugh. So now he has to take some pills twice a day and get a couple baths a week for a couple weeks and we go back to the vet in about a week to check out his skin progress.

Here is JJ on the way to the vet...loving the car ride:

So, other than that and my MIL dealing with crazy insurance people (trust me...sometimes these people really are nutso, I'm not going to get into it), life has been fair. I have the major urge to go get my Masters in Nursing. I know I'm so lame...but ugh, I do. Just not the right time right now.

Bella-dog update

Its official. The day after her meeting with the surgeon about having her left knee repaired...she tears her right knee. Its actually so bad she is choosing to walk on her left knee now because her right knee is so painful.

Sigh. Bella has just been upgraded to a house only dog. Thank God Petsmart is having sales for their birthday right now because I will be spending some money in there!

Bella's indoor adventures tally:

• one pillow, destuffed and shredded
• two window sills with about 3 inches length of wood removed, one window sill with edge gnawed off
• 4 DVD cases no longer recognizeable
• one DVD needing replaced, one Wii DVD needing replaced
• one magazine, shredded
• one poopy, spread in many rooms, reason unknown
• one toy, destuffed, de-squeakered, and limbs removed

My Dog Bella

My dog Bella is a Black Mouth Cur mix. I adopted her in 2005 for the purpose to have a buddy for my dog JJ. She is a 50 poundish dog who when she is around humans is nothing but pure sugar...around dogs, she can be spicy. The kind of spicy that burns on the way out and wasn't that great in the beginning.

Well, she's half crazy. Her idea of having fun in the back yard is jumping on the dogloos, barking from there at the other dogs, sprinting to the back yard, sprinting to the back porch, she takes dives and rolls just to change positions when the other dogs are chasing her, and plows through the porch furniture and dogloos when she's evading the other dogs. All we could think is, "Damn, we're lucky she hasn't been seriously hurt." We're dumb.

She went to a vet clinic Tuesday as a referral for knee surgery. Of course he thinks she tore both her ACL and meniscus in her knee. That was her left knee. Today, she won't walk on either of her back legs. She'll actually choose to walk on her LEFT knee instead of her right tonight. She effed up her freaking right knee today, I know it. And, of course, I find this out around 7pm, when all the vet clinics except the seriously expensive emergency vet clinic...and a painful knee really isn't an emergency.

So, God help me, tomorrow morning I'm gonna try to get her to a vet first thing in the morning, hopefull we'll find something out about her other knee, and then maybe I can go to sleep so I can show up to work 12 glorious hours at my ICU starting at 6:45pm. Yay.

Here is that precious little baby who seems to fit in the 30% of dogs with one bad knee that blows out their other.

Random panty story

So I get to work today and the lady who trained me out of no where asks, "Do we see your panties when you bend over?" I think, "Oh crap. I bent over, my undershirt came up, and they saw my panties."

Well, apparently, she was just picking on another girl who was hired with me because she bent over and has since earned the name "Pinky," and, from what I'm told, not only because her thong was pink.

Which got me started on my story. Ever since I worked in EMS I have NEVER worn a thong to work. I used to work with like boys only, cause seriously, there aren't that many girls who think its tons of fun to become and EMT and run on an ambulance. I had a fear of falling out of my ambulance, getting hurt on a scene, or getting randomly sick, and my boy partners having to disrobe me to assess me properly and seeing my butt cheeks in a thong. Gawd, I just couldn't stand that thought. So, even today, I refuse to wear a thong to work. Whatever panties I have that cover me as much as possible is what I wear to work, all other panties saved for later.

However, now because my scrub top is short, I'm going to have to find a different style of tank top that I like to wear under my scrub top because it pulls up too often and shows off my tattoo lol.

Talk about a long freaking week.

So, I got off work Saturday morning and went to sleep by like 8am. My three days working were HELL. Saturday night I went and stayed with my grandmother in the hospital since she just had her knee replaced. She's doing great, btw, just needed a little help getting in and out of bed to go potty.

Sunday I go home, sleep, get up, and go feed my dogs. I hadn't been feeding them much because Brandon's alternator went bad and we had to share a car one two nights and then another night I I had my mom feed them again so I could visit my grandmother in the hospital. I get to my parent's house, where they stay, and my dog Bella won't use her back left leg at all. She had been limping on it, but now it looks useless. She also has scrapes on her nose. Oh, look, JJ, my oldest dog, has a gash taken out of his side. Crap. We had a dog fight.

I let Bella in the house and she is crying about her leg it hurts her so much. I give her one of her pain pills and we have to feed her turkey meat because she won't eat her dog food. Monday I take her to the vet while the DH is out apartment hunting with MIL. Bella needs knee surgery, but I have to take her to another vet for a referral. Sigh. Thats gonna cost me.

The apartment hunting went fine, DH went to put a deposit on one on Tuesday, but for some reason we had to go more apartment hunting on Wednesday. That took like all day...then we needed to go to the grocery store, too. Sigh.

Tuesday I went to the dentist...just to hear from him that filling they're watching is fine and the dental hygenist waits for him to leave and tells me I should have it replaced no matter what he says. WTF. I just had fillings replaced in DECEMBER! Spare me.

Wednesday night I'm at my grandma's house. She's been released home but still has to sleep with a machine on her leg. I sent my aunt to get some sleep at her house and I take over for the night. Course she has no internet, so I watched Harry Potter all night long lol.

Now, I'm at work. I'm tired. The freaking phones won't quit ringing and its 3am! WTH.

My next upcoming days: Friday hopefully get my name changed at the bank and work, Frid

I renamed the blog...

So I was thinking about my little blog and thought, well, I really don't have too much special to say but like the idea of having a playground on the internet for when I want it.

The crap that is different in my life right now is that I'm married...and there is nothing else different lol.

We kinda lived together beforehand, but not really. Now, we do. Except we have 4 dogs who need a back yard, we can't afford a house right now, and paying rent for our own place, all his mom's bills, too (since we support her), plus saving for a house is dumb. Just really dumb. So our answer is to keep living with the 'rents til we can get our own place to live in with our dogs. And someday make babies.

I'm sure you can imagine how much fun it is living in someone else's house, wanting to do your own thing, but knowing all the while that someone else will still trump you because its her house. Yes, we're starting off living with his mom who has no problems letting me know that she needs her room vacuumed to, or the trash needs to go out this second, not later tonight when we're going by the trash dumpster anyways, or other little things. She's really not a monster, but she just has been shut in for so long she doesn't think of things the same way. Nor do I think she understands we're not really living with her. Given we pay almost all the bills and cover just about everything for her except the rent, drive her everywhere since she can't, and go to Jack in the Box every single fucking day just because she refuses to order stuff from the grocery store to eat in house every day, we feel she lives with us, not us with her. She totally doesn't see it that way.

So, there it is. I'm married, now what.

I'm sure she'll be brought up again soon, but in the mean time, the little hope on the horizon is that she turns 55 in May and the lease is up in June. We SHOULD be signing a lease on a 55 and over community in Farmer's Branch on Monday for her and moving her out there. Granted, its not that close to Forney, where we will be living with my parents at that point, but at least she may get to go to the grocery store on her own with them rather than with us...and hopefully there will be no Jack in the Box trips as I'm not driving out there. Gawd...I'm sure somehow she'll increase her doctors' appointments just to get back at us.

Anyways, thats it. The long road to saving money and searching for a home with a good backyard, not a crappy one, has begun. Death to all credit cards.