I was hoping to meet up with a friend in Salmon this weekend. It didn't work out but Russell and I still managed to get a night of camping in. We were in the Frank Church River of No Return corridor. Doesn't that sound totally awesome?! It's not freaky like it sounds. Otis growling all night was a little freaky though.

On our way out the door our neighbor gave us a dozen 4th of July cupcakes. I am not willing to confirm whether we still have any in the house. If the picture isn't a good enough indication, we have enjoyed them.

Do you know about Russell's excellent fire building skills? Seriously. They are excellent. Also, my boots. Excellent.
Otis waits by the tent for bedtime. Every time. Man, he is such a city slicker.
We planned on camping another night but ended up heading back early, so for lunch today we had our tin foil dinners.
We had a fun 4th of July weekend. Hope you had fun, too.

These things are totally pointless. That is, unless you are grossed out by the idea of your butt cheeks touching where someone else's butt cheeks touched, in that case they have a point. Really though they don't protect you from anything. And yet, if the public bathroom I'm accessing (only in a seriously desperate situation, trust me) has them, I use them. Hmm.

Let me explain why I started thinking about this. I just read this article about whether it's really necessary to stop using paper towels to save the planet and the author said that she found more information on the impact of toilet paper on the environment than paper towels. I won't take you down my trail of thought at this point because, really, it just gets gross.

Anyway, toilet seat covers. Completely pointless. Trust me on this - someday I'm going to be a nurse.

p.s. it's the summer. I am working all the time (what's all this full time baloney?) and I have nothing to blog about. sorry.

I have been reading apartment therapy's kitchn blog and it has made me want two things:
1. a clean kitchen ALL the time
2. to eat outside
I'm working on the kitchen thing (sort of) and now that I scored this awesome craigslist find I'm working on the eating outside thing too. I've been wanting to get a picnic table for a while and I've been shopping around a little bit. This one is all taken apart and it's a total wreck but it was free and the lady we got it from said it was from St Anthony's seminary in Santa Barbara. Cool, huh? If it were up to me, we would paint it, put it together and eat outside already. But I needed Russell's help picking it up so now he's going to make me sand it all down and stain it and everything. I think he's just looking for an excuse to buy a few new woodworking tools.

I think most of the people that read this blog are familiar with Russell's propensity to hang on to articles of clothing. Please do not be so silly as to think that socks are not included in the category "articles of clothing." They most certainly are. I give you Exhibit A:

I can't believe I haven't showed you this yet. Did I happen to mention that Russell totally broke a rib at ninja practice? I didn't really think it was broken until I noticed this. The deformity. It was weird actually, because I was just learning about how bones rebuild themselves. This would be an excellent example of a callus. I will be sending this little picture to my teacher - she loves the really exaggerated examples.

Russell has been a much more willing subject as far as the camera is concerned. I've got another good one of him for later this week - one that includes his face.

Today is National Ride Your Bike to Work Day (or something like that). I rode mine. How about you?

I want this.

Russell's birthday, maybe?

I was reading this little article and it made me think about my fridge and how mine is different from my Mom's and how it's different from Russell's Mom's. Before I knew it I was thinking about every fridge I've ever seen (instead of thinking about beta blockers and anticonvulsive meds for my final in, lets see, 5 hours) and then I was thinking I wonder what so and so's fridge looks like. Indulge me, will you? 

Something happened to me when I came into my own house that I never would have guessed that I would care about someday. I want the perfect yard. 

One time, I think I might have been in high school, my Dad rounded us up and announced that it was Saturday, aka chore day, and we would be pulling the weeds. I only have a specific memory of having to do this job once, twice at the most (once in the back, once in the front - could've been the same day) but that memory is burned on my brain. It was THE most torturous chore EVER. The sweltering Las Vegas heat, the rocks, my brothers fighting the whole time, the smell. I swear to you I can remember the smell of those weeds. 

Anyway, yesterday Russell mowed the front yard and it looked pretty good. But not great. We have rocks between the edge of our yard and the street, and the weeds, well, they grow like weeds. Stupid dandelions. I don't know what came over me. I started pulling and I was on a roll. Neighbors came and went, Russell even went to his ninja class and came back - I was still out there going crazy on these weeds. And I didn't stop with the rocks. I was all over the place. My yard looks immaculate. 

But I still haven't started on that final project that's due tomorrow. I get so much done when I'm avoiding doing something else. 

P.S. This summer, I will have the perfect yard. 

What do you think? Everyone that I know that has these Dansko clogs swears by them. One catch. They're kind of ugly, huh? But they are sort of more professional than sneakers. Another thing (I guess there is more than one catch). They're like, $120. Should I get them? I need help deciding. Just decide for me. Okay? Okay.

I have a hard time starting things, therefore, when faced with an interruption, a difficult time re-starting things. When I know I have something that needs to get done, I wait and wait preoccupying myself with the things that could possibly interrupt me. 

I have a paper to write. You know what I just did? Cleaned my wedding ring and painted my fingernails. Because if I am in the middle of a paragraph and I notice that my wedding ring is dirty or my fingernails are not very shiny, it's over. 

What do I have to do to get someone to medicate me for this? 

Tonight I saw someone's coccyx, their tailbone, through a tunneling ulcer. I saw a bone. Through a wound. And that's not even the messed up thing - I stayed late to see it. Maybe I'll be a wound care nurse...

Officially, I am hanging my "summer" banner in the hopes that doing so might make it hurry up and get here already. Are you listening to me? I am ready to skip over Spring! It's overrated. So variable. Will it rain? Won't it rain? It's hovering right around freezing it could actually be snow. Forget it. Summer? I'm ready for you.


Wish me luck with these raspberries. If I get enough of them, I am going to make black raspberry ice cream - my all time favorite flavor. (I hope I get enough)

This is what we managed to get done this weekend (the list was quite a bit longer). The plan is to start these seeds inside (check) and transplant them once we can be sure we won't have to suffer another freak snow day. Did I already complain to you about the snow on Friday? At least it didn't stick. It could be worse. Does it sound like I'm trying to convince myself? You might be right.

Hugh Jackman is hot and I will go to the movies for him. So he can make a lot of money. So he can make more movies. So I can go to the movies again. To see him. Plus, you know, it's good for the economy. 

Today was an interesting day at the hospital. I took care of someone who was on hospice care at home. When he had some significant alterations in his mental status, his family freaked out a little and called 911. And they brought him to the hospital. And we started a bunch of aggressive medical interventions. Remember when I said he was on hospice? Anyway, it was an interesting day. 

I came straight home and put on my favorite tennis skirt because I have a match tonight at 5:30. Wish me luck. 

Did I tell you that in a matter of a little over two weeks I managed to lose one cell phone and break another?
Russell couldn't resist the urge to completely disassemble the broken phone. Just to see.

I had a pretty laid back Spring Break week. Unfortunately, the weather was not very spring like which is pretty messed up, I think. Tease me with a little good weather the week before the break and then get right back to winter as soon as I'm available. I knew I should have skipped class that day.

Anyway, I have a bunch of pictures from my trip to Vegas and other random stuff, too. I'll try to make a marathon of it and post something everyday this week. Item #1: the only productive thing I did all week - painted my kitchen with chalkboard paint. (That pale yellow was terrible, wasn't it?)

I have my menu for the week on another wall and a grocery list on another.
In all fairness, this wasn't the only productive thing I did. I baked like a crazy person. A butter cake, frosted sugar cookies, oatmeal chocolate chip cookies and today? A chocolate cake with white frosting and bagels. Yes. I am making bagels right now. If that isn't totally hardcore, I don't know what is.

It is almost my favorite time of the year. Time to leave the back door open! All winter long Otis sits just outside the dog door and cries. He cries because he wants to be outside, he cries because we are inside, and he cries because he wants to be where we are. The life of a dog. So tortured. Anyway, when it starts to get nice out, I leave the back door open and let the sunshine and the fresh air in and the best part? I don't have to listen to Otis whine anymore. He runs around the yard and checks back in every once in a while to make sure the door is still open. I don't know how I ended up with a dog like this. 

P.S. If you're curious about the game I played with my nieces and nephews down in Vegas, check this out. More about that (& pictures) later... 

J.Crew has completely and totally brainwashed me.

First, they tracked me down somehow (2 1/2 years after I moved out of state) and mailed me a catalog. Then they included in said catalog a big photo shoot with Lauren Hutton. And then they had to throw in the comment that Lauren loved those matchstick jeans and took two pairs home with her.

It is NOT my fault that I bought those stupid skinny jeans yesterday. I'm telling you. Brainwashed.

WHY? 

I have a big test tomorrow and another one next Tuesday so you might not be hearing from me a whole lot - or maybe you will since my attention deficit issues make it impossible for me to focus on the most important thing or the thing I should be doing. Really, I don't know how I've made it this far in school... 

Anyway, few things: 

- Last week I saw a sign on the side of a bus about girl scout cookies. The first year we lived in Boise, we caught those crazy Girl Scouts in front of Albertsons but we don't shop at Albertsons anymore and our grocery store must be anti-girl scouts or something. What I'm getting at is that I have gone a couple years now without those beloved cookies. Not this year, my friends. Not this year. Did you know that you can put your zip code in on the girl scout's website and one of those lovely girls will e-mail you, take your order and then drop them off at your house?! If you've known this all along, I'm not sure we can still be friends... 

- Wednesday I'm taking a drive up to a hot spring for a nice long soak. I'll try to remember my camera since I've heard it's pretty sweet at night time - torch lighting and everything. 

- The summer session has been cancelled, for BSU nursing anyway. I was pretty bummed but now I have a whole summer off and I'm totally going to party. Any ideas? If I have to tell you guys you're invited one more time... 

A few weeks ago, Russell signed up for some Brazilian Jiu Jitsu classes. Since then I have come up with a few different names for it including, fight club, fighter club, ninja school, ninja class and a few others along the same variation, ninja school being my decided favorite. Our neighbor kid came over some time last week and I showed him Russell's "ninja suit" hanging up in the basement and I told him that Russell was going to be a ninja. Well, this weekend his mom called me and said that he came over and borrowed a few tennis balls. She said that when he got home he said, "Russell is a ninja and he didn't even catch me sneaking in to his garage". I thought it was pretty hilarious. 

We had a little bit of a plumbing issue this weekend. The dishwasher just finished the last rinse cycle when we noticed both sides of the kitchen sink totally full of water and not going anywhere. After a couple unsuccessful attempts at unclogging, Russell finally bought a drain snake, cut a chunk of this pipe out and totally fixed it. Plumber? Who needs a plumber? Have I mentioned how sweet it is to be married to a genius? And he made that gaging sound a couple times that makes me laugh really hard, and I think it was for real. (Actually, I know it was for real because he kept saying he doesn't know how our brother-in-law, Brian, does it.)

One of my teachers gave us a chance to volunteer for the Special Olympics winter games that were here in Boise. It was really a lot of fun. We measured weight, height and waist circumference, which sounds incredibly boring but I love talking to strangers so I had a pretty good time. The guy in the first picture is a snowboarder from Vermont. The guys hula hooping were from Jamaica and I think they played field hockey. The guy in the last picture was hilarious. He was from Jordan and I think he was just trying to take as many pictures with girls as he could.
And this guy won a gold medal but I can't remember what for or where he was from. It was kind of a long night...

I'm getting used to a much shorter ponytail. Russell thought it was hilarious that it sticks straight out like that. 

I bought a flat iron tonight. I'll consider taking a picture of it down when I figure out how to do it... 

I have another busy week ahead of me - another test - but I'm working for the Special Olympics for a class on Thursday and they told us to bring our cameras so I should have something good to share. 

I can't believe it's only Monday. 

I'm special to her but, as far as she's concerned, my name is teacher. We're going to have to work on that...

This is where I post a video in which I humiliate myself completely, and most definitely end any chance I had of being taken seriously as a politician (you never know), all in the name of proving just how much I love my Mom.

All this and I got a C?

You gotta be kidding me (say it like Nacho). Can I blame it on the new folding desk chair that slipped/folded out from underneath me whilst I was sitting in it, in turn landing my bottom smack on the floor? I didn't think so. (Nice try though, don't you think?)

School is so insanely busy that I am actually considering canceling Netflix. Netflix, people! This is serious.

The first day of the spring semester is tomorrow and just like the first week of every semester I am totally motivated and ready to go back. We've talked about how much I love school supplies before (I should link to a post from the past where I talk about how much I love school supplies but writing this is a lot faster than going back to try to find one - sorry - you'll just have to trust me, they exist) and the sucky thing about the spring semester is that its not back to school for all those little kids, the ones we bust out the totally awesome school supply store displays for. So instead of school supplies, I bought myself a celebratory pair of shoes and painted my fingernails a trendy Onyx Rush. Maybe spring semester isn't so sucky...

I read this and this today and was convinced that I should join facebook after what seems like a long time objecting. Now go and be my friend so I don't look like a loser with no friends. Thank you. 

We lucked out with a couple sunny days last week. I got down to it and I took down the Christmas tree and rearranged the furniture in my living room. I wasn't so sure about it at first but I am totally loving it now. My living room is tricky, two walls are practically all windows.

I also bought a new filing cabinet and labeled all my files. I actually said out loud I can't wait to pay bills. There is something wrong with me, isn't there? I totally meant it, too.


I wish someone had warned me that the last half of Tess was going to be a total downer! Good news though, it looks like we've got some good ones to look forward to on Masterpiece Classics from February through March.

(Otis likes that sunny spot in front of the window, too)

Last Sunday I started going to church at 9 am. It was hard enough for me to make it on time at 11 BUT 9 o'clock church makes for the best naps. So good. Usually when I take naps on Sunday I sleep a little bit too long and then I stay up late. I was in luck last week because Masterpiece Theater was on and it was so good. Tess of d'Urbervilles. Luckily (for you guys) you can watch the first half online and you can watch the second half along with me this Sunday. 

There is a suggestion on the website for starting up a Masterpiece film and book club and since my book club is making me read The Wednesday Letters (I haven't started it yet so I guess I shouldn't complain) I was thinking about ditching them... 

I've noticed something about myself. In the winter, in Boise, I am so lazy. But I maintain that is is totally and completely not my fault. It has been very dreary around here lately. Not too cold, but still cloudy and gray. Today it's a totally different story! It is sunny and I am right at my favorite place, in my bed with the window shade open basking in the glorious, glorious sun. All of a sudden, I feel the urge to start getting things done. I still have two weeks before school starts but I want to rearrange my furniture, organize the bookshelves, clean out my closet, and refold all my clothes and I want to do it now. But it's Sunday and being the day of rest and whatnot, all I can do is hope for another gloriously sunny day tomorrow. Cross your fingers for me, will you? 

We had a snowy weekend around here. I was on the schedule to work at the hospital Thursday, Friday and Saturday but the floor that I work on ended up closing over the holiday break (I guess there aren't a lot of people, doctors or patients, that schedule surgeries the week of Christmas). They needed help on the 4th floor, Oncology, on Saturday. It wasn't too bad. To tell you the truth, I already feel like I've had to many days with nothing to do...

I got a new camera today. Dang those internet rumors about the killer sales at Circut City.
Just checking out all the new settings and everything. Isn't my dog pathetic?
I hope everyone had a happy Christmas, I know we did.

SNOW!

I made a special trip to Target for this movie today. Initially I made a video of myself singing the song along with some really awesome accompanying hand gestures but trust me when I say you will enjoy this much more. Or maybe this video is just slightly less embarrassing. Also, did you know that you can watch every song from White Christmas on youtube - I totally could have saved my $15!

This is Christmas to me. We've been watching a lot of movies on the floor in front of the tv lately. I have finals this week and I am not stressed out at all. I love the end of the semester when things start winding down and deadlines come and go. Right now I'm sitting in the kitchen; it's clean. I'm looking out the window at the Christmas lights on my house. I'm about to go over some notes and then I'll climb into my bed. It's freshly made with my clean flannel Christmas sheets. I sound pretty calm for someone that hasn't done any Christmas shopping, don't I. I love the end of the semester.

I went to Cost Plus today for my wrapping paper. I like the paper there. I like the paper at Pier One better but Russell was with me and when shopping with Russell it's best to get things done in as few stops as possible. Just trust me on this one. Plus I decided today that if there was only one store that I could shop at for the rest of my life, Cost Plus would be it. Yes, I love it that much.

So anyway, I have these hanging basket hooks in my second bedroom. Inside. Weird, right? I've been trying to think of something cool to do with them (because I'm afraid that if I attempt to pull them out the ceiling will cave in) and I totally found the answer at my most favorite store today. How cool are these lanterns? Someday. They will be mine. Oh yes, they will be mine.

I have nothing to say.

I've been on a mission, for some time now, to find a way to produce the perfect sugar crusted blueberry muffin top. Today I think I took a major step in the right direction. I bought a little scoop of turbinado sugar from the excellent bulk section at my grocery store. It's still not perfect but it's getting really close. I think I'm going to start mixing sugars now. Everyone puts butter on their blueberry muffins right?

I tried to make this cake from Bon Appetit as a thank you for my neighbor who kept an eye on Otis while we were out of town and it went terribly, horribly wrong. So bad. The white chocolate cream layer refused to whip up and eventually I opted to leave it out. When I started assembling the cake, without the extra layer, it was sliding all over the place. It was a total disaster. My kitchen wasn't that big of a mess when I made Thanksgiving dinner. Yikes.

I made my Mom's family clam chowder recipe this week but that deserves its own post - mostly because I have pictures.

This is what happens to me during holiday times. Just today I was hoping that I won't have to work on Saturday so I can make those caramels I made a couple years ago. Hoping that I won't have to work/thinking of ways to get out of it - same thing, right?