10 posts tagged “julie”
Sorry it's been so long, faithful blog fans! It's been a crazy last two weeks... everything seems to be moving at the speed of life and I'm just barely hanging on! The good news is that work should slow down towards the end of next week, so I just need to get myself through the next few days!
I went back to the gym last night for the first time since the treadmill incident. With our work passes, I have to pick one 24 Hour Fitness and can only go to that one. I switched yesterday to the gym that's a little bit closer to work. The one I had been going to was much newer and nicer, but sits right where traffic sucks around the time I would normally go. This one is all of 5 minutes from work, with traffic. But it's super ghetto. Julie and I used to go there before the new one was built and I believe I might have blocked out some of our time there. I went over to swim yesterday. The pool itself is not too terrible (although it's a little cloudy... I think because of whatever they use to keep it clean - clearly not chlorine). The locker room, on the other hand, terrifes me.
I'm sad to report that "the spitter" is still there. She's this sweet little old asian lady that hacks the most disgusting loogies I've ever heard in my whole life. She does this the whole time she's in the shower. For some reason, no matter where I put myself in the shower area, she always ends up in the shower stall next to mine. So gross. Thank God for shower shoes.
Ok, I know it's a few days late, but apparently I've been really bad at blogging lately! Here's the 2008 recap:
January
- January 1st: Shadow breaks my nose. Happy New Years!
- January 13th: I get smacked in the nose again at a CERT drill and realize that my nose really is broken.
- January 17th: I started EMT school - so exciting!
February
- February 28th: My first of many encounters with the neighborhood turkies.
March
- March 8th: Houseboat weekend with Brigitte and Amber!
- March 15th: Mather Air Show Day One: lots of patients to practice on!
- March 16th: Mather Air Show Day Two: more patients!
- March 26th: My hospital rotation - a life changing experience!
April
- April 18th: Rivercats baseball game with Dad, Brigitte and Amber
- April 19-20th: CERT Mobex - disaster drill in Clovis
May
- May 10th: Kati graduates from UGA - Mom, Dad and I flew back for a fantastic weekend in Georgia!
- May 13th: NREMT exam - I passed and am officially an EMT!
- May 24th: EMT party - absolutely hilarious - everyone came dressed as some sort of victim... it was great!
June
- June 10th: Metro's CERT team is called up to help out with the local grass fires
- June 21st: Saved my first patient at a CERT event
July
- July 14th: Visited my customer in Houston. Hot and sticky. Ate more steak than a girl should!
- July 20th: Kati moves home from Georgia!
August
- August 8th: Joanna and Chris come to visit!
- The rest of August - Kati and I go to Germany, France, Italy and Greece... it's the trip of a lifetime!
September
- September 14th: Met Mike! :)
- September 24th: Had a close encounter with a tomato hornworm. Had to call Julie in for backup.
- September 26th: Went to the Neil Diamond concert with Kati!
October
- October 9th: Went to the New Kids On The Block concert with Julie, Mindy, Amanda and Chris.
- October 16th: Selected for the Sarah Weeden jury - little did I know it would last two months!
- October 31st: Halloween party!
November
- November 1st: Went to the Madonna concert with Adam and Eva!
- November 4th: Barak Obama is elected president
- November 26th: Thanksgiving vacation at Lake Almanor
- November 15th: Second Annual Friends Thanksgiving!
December
- December 11th: Sarah Weeden trial ends
- December 30th: Kings game with Mike
- December 31st: Mike's New Years Eve Party - LOTS of pig!
All in all, I'd say it was a fantastic year! Who can complain?!
Hope everyone had a wonderful New Year! Mike's party was a blast - they roasted 120 pounds of pig! It took four of them just a few minutes to cut it all up (lots of practice apparently!). Here's a picture of the pig on the spit:
It was insanely delicious! The party was a blast!
As you probably know, today is my birthday. It's been fantastic... it's 2:30pm and I'm still in my jammies! I've watched a bunch of episodes of "ER" (thanks Mike!) and some "Friends" reruns. It's been wonderfully relaxing!
That's right... New Kids On The Block. You probably haven't heard that name in a while, have you? Well, last night Julie, Mindy and I were joined by Amanda and Chris (who has superhero boyfriend status for a while) for dinner and a pretty amazing show. Things didn't exactly start out very nicely though - we went to dinner at a place called Mandabar (which we've since re-nicknamed with things I won't print on my blog). We had probably the worst service that I've ever had... we waited almost an hour for our food, which was followed by Julie not getting her dinner at all, us missing drinks and my cheeseburger not having cheese. At this point, we asked for the manager because the waiter was telling us that they were too busy because of the concert (now, come on... it's a Thursday night and it's NKOTB... not some crazy rock band). He then blamed the kitchen. When the manager came out, he apologized for the wait, made some more excuses and still forgot things we asked for. Fortunately, he took the drinks off the tab and took $25 off the check, but sheesh... not a way to start your night! We missed about half of the opening act (it was Natasha Bedingfield!) and Julie had to sustain herself on drinks (I know... tough job, but someone has to do it!).
Once we made it to the show we were told that our seats were being changed... we were originally upstairs in the nosebleed seats, but they moved us down to the lower level because they were closing off those seats. We ended up being about 13 rows back from the circular stage that they came out to sing on about halfway through the show... we could not have asked for better seats! Mindy and I both loved Jordan when we were younger, so we were quite happy when he sang to us (and only us, of course!).
Here are some pictures from the show:
It's amazing how all of the words came back... the next thing I knew we were screaming and singing along like we were 12 years old again! :)
Finally, here is a video from the show... apparently the New Kids have gotten a lot racier with age (either that or I had no idea what they were doing at 12):
So, you know how I said that barfing was just about the worst thing that could happen to me?
I lied.
Today I came face to face with a tomato slug. For those of you who haven't had the pleasure of coming eye to eye with one, allow me to share a picture with you:
Yes, it's as big as it looks. And yes, it has eyeballs. I was reaching in to pick a cherry tomato when I came eye to eye with it. I promptly screamed like a little girl and ran away. I called my dear friend Julie and coaxed her to come to my house to help me kill it (she lives around the corner and by coax, I mean I told her I was having a medical emergency). It took a few minutes for us to come up with a plan... we needed something that would allow us to kill it without having to actually touch it. Here's the final plan:
Yeah, my skin is still crawling. I won't post the after picture, but let's just say that there was a lot of green.
In happier news, today was "Wacky Hair Day" at work. It's the end of the quarter, everyone is stressed and they try to do fun things for us to lift the mood a little. My team, being the competitive team that they are, went all out. We each picked a color and decided to dye our hair that color and then wear that color as well. It turned out great! My color was orange:
And here's the team:
You can't see it very well in the picture, but almost everyone had really cool dye and the colors were a lot brighter in person! Fortunately, the color did come out, after four shampoos. Thank God because I would have had a lot of explaining to do to my hairdresser!
What a crazy day!
That's the scientific name for my new TV. That's right, I finally caved in and upgrade from the 19 inch TV/VCR combo that got me through college. I got this fantastic 42 inch flat screen that has changed my life in the last two day. First of all, I never thought that HD would make much difference. Let's just put it this way, I may skip the live Kings games this year and watch it on TV - I think the picture might be better! :) And it's amazing to have a big screen to look at - I love it!
Last night I had Julie, Lindsay, Anthony, Brig, Amber, Kris and Luke over for Personal Pizza Thursday. It was such a blast! We made delicious pizzas with all sorts of fun toppings and watched TV (surprise surprise). Shadow did really well with Luke (he's only 3 years old) except for when Brigitte tried to pick him up. Apparently Shadow doesn't undestand that big people pick little people up sometimes. When Brig picked him up, Shadow grabbed Luke's little shorts with his two front teeth so that Brigitte would put him down. He was super gentle, but it was really cute!
This morning I had the carpets cleaned which was a small miracle. They managed to get all of the Shadow stains out and they look almost like new again! Worth every penny!
Wow, I'm really dragging today. Not really sure what it is, but I'm just plain feeling under the weather. No one specific complaint other than I'd love a nap and feel like my allergies are a little flared up. Oh well.
In exciting news, since I'm out of room in my yard, I've gone and found someone else's that I can dig in! Next week Julie and I have a "Yard Date". That's right, we actually had to book it on our calendars because we're way too busy, but we found some time! Her yard definitely has potential - I know we're planting tomatoes and trimming bushes. She's lured me with a trip to Lowe's, which could be hazardous to her checkbook if I have my say. :) Who am I kidding, I'll end up finding somewhere else to smash it into my yard!
Tonight is the second game for the Trauma Dogs... hopefully we can win this one too! I was thinking about not going, but maybe I'll sneak in a nap (the game isn't until 8:30pm) and feel better. This weekend is super busy - tomorrow is EMT class all day (our last skills class!) and then we're off to the Bay Area to celebrate Oma's birthday!
Today I purchased my very own blood pressure cuff and stethoscope. For those of you who are living under a rock and don't know me, I have wanted my very own stethoscope since just about the beginning of time. I know, it's nerdy, but I'm fascinated! I've listened to my own heart, to Shadow's heart and took a trip over to Julie's house to practice taking her and Heidi's blood pressure. It's a lot harder than it sounds - it's REALLY hard to auscultate (hear) someone's blood pressure and that's the preferred method. Which is why I bought my own set - I'm definitely going to need to practice! I plan on taking a BP on anything that will sit still over the next few days, so watch out! :)
Other than that, nothing super exciting happened today. I actually have a night at home tonight which I've spent watching American Idol and reading about horrible injuries. Tomorrow we're watching a film in class... if it's the film I've heard about, they normally show it at the beginning of class to get people to drop. I honestly don't know why I'm fascinated by this stuff, but for some reason it doesn't seem to make me sick. I guess we'll see tomorrow!
Last night Greg, Brigitte and I decided to go to the movies, 1989-style. Yes, that means the drive in movies! We were totally excited to see Superbad, which happened to be paired up with I Know Who Killed Me. None of us had been to the drive ins since sometime in the late 80's, so we thought it'd be a fun experience.
Apparently there are rules to driving in. We made sure to take provisions (chairs, blankets, popcorn and drinks), but apparently didn't understand the fine art of parking and watching four hours of movies. About three quarters of the way through the second movie, Brigitte's car starts making a beeping noise. None of us can figure out what the noise means and it stops, so we go back to watching the movie. Turns out the noise was actually Brigitte's car saying "you idiots, you left me on for four hours and my battery is going dead". The movie ends, we go to start the car and we get "that sound". You know the one. So Greg goes on a little hike to find a jumper kit (seems like this is a common occurance among new drive in movie goers, so they keep a jump start kit at the main office). A very nice man comes out to help us get the car going again. At this point, it's about 1:30am and we decide we're hungry. Denny's here we come! Hooray for the All American Slam! Needless to say, it was a long night and I think the three of us are going to be hurting today. I know I've started my day with a Diet Coke (yes, it's 8:30am).
As far as the movies go, Superbad was a little disappointing - less funny then you think it would be (I mean, you just hear "from the producers of Knocked Up" and you assume it's going to be hilarious). Don't get me wrong, it was good, just a little less entertaining than I had envisioned it. I Know Who Killed Me is the new Lindsay Lohan flick. Brigitte and I are pretty sure that making this movie is what drove her to drugs, alcohol and eventually rehab. We all had different ideas of what was going to happen and none of them were right. And that's not in a good Sixth Sense twist at the end kind of way. It's more of the they didn't tie anything together in the end, so you had no idea why the color blue or roses were important. Weird.
Today I'm pooped and I have lots to do. Poor Brig had to be up at 6:30 this morning (I was up at 7, thanks to Shadow). My fantasy football draft is this morning, followed by a baby shower and then Julie's much anticipated housewarming! I can't wait!
This week I got a letter from my homeowners association telling me that I needed to do "bark augmentation" in my front yard. Apparently, there's a rule saying you can't have any exposed dirt in your yard. I have no idea why they're hitting me up for this when the house came like that (what the heck were the previous owners doing? oh, that's right, going into serious debt, so bark was probably not the top priority on their list). The note said if I didn't do it by August 24th, they would do it for me and add it to my HOA dues. Seriously, how much would that cost!? So, I sucked it up and took a trip to Home Depot. I had estimated the space and told my friendly Home Depot associate, who promptly whipped out his cell phone and began calculating. My assumption was that he knew what he was doing. For my friends who live in my neighborhood and will be facing this same task sometime soon (that's YOU Julie!), know that when the Home Depot man says you'll need five bags of bark, you'll actually need 21. And it will take you approximately three trips to get them all to fit in your car.
As sarcastic as this sounds, it was actually kind of fun - just because it's MY house and I kind of like doing work in the yards! Although, this whole mowing the lawn thing sucks. I need a husband or at least a boyfriend who can do that for me. I'm all for women's empowerment and blah, blah, blah, but now that I know I can do it, I'm happy to pass along the task. Another one that I would gladly pass along is spider extermination. Shadow has been helpful (if I knock them off the wall, he eats them) and I've had to do some out of pure self-preservation, but I definitely don't enjoy it!
I spent the rest of the weekend relaxing. I did some shopping (gasp!) at the mall yesterday (thanks Brigitte for talking me away from the super expensive, very impractical, yet super cute shoes!). Today was early morning church (7:30am church is kinda cool - if you're already up) and now I'm doing stuff around the house. Just got tickets for Alan Jackson and Brooks & Dunn in October - the girls and I are going to have a honky tonk time!
Happy Sunday!
That's definitely me today - a major case of the Mondays. Today pretty much sucked all around. It all started with the morning. I tore my brand new tights (who even knew that you could tear tights?), burned the heck out of my tongue on my coffee (apparently when the Starbucks folks say "it's hot" they really mean "now you can't sue us because you can't taste for the next week") and finally, my car broke. Nothing major, I guess. I was driving to work, the sun glared through my windshield, so I did what any normal human being would to - I put on my sunglasses and put down the visor. This was accompanied by a weird pop sound (the visor, not my sunglasses, which happen to be brand new, so I'm thankful that they're not broken). Then, the visor just sort of hung there and hit me in the head. I think it has something to do with the glue. I called Pontiac upon my arrival at work and they politely informed me that it would be approximately $93 to replace. And, oh, by the by, they have changed the color, so Pontiac recommends that I replace both the driver and passenger side visors at the same time. At this point I pretty much asked the service guy if he was nuts. Why would I replace something that wasn't broken?! Reason number 4,598 not to buy a Pontiac. My dear friend Julie at work had a brilliant idea - get velcro. That's my "art project" for tomorrow - somehow get my visor to stick. The only other issue is that now it came completely off the little peg it's on, so it's laying on the floor of the front of my car. I guess I could just leave it off. To top off my day, kickboxing was canceled. Unacceptable. I was stoked. Julie and I did some cardio instead and then she became the situp Nazi and showed me some cool new ones that really made my tummy hurt. I guess I can't hate her too much. I'm off to bed before God tries to smite me.
