I thought of my Dad today when, on my way out the door, I grabbed a Coke Zero from the fridge and put it in my coat pocket.

We've taken care of the leaves in the front. The back? We've yet to tackle. 

I asked Russell why he raked all the leaves in to one big pile (in case it's been a while since you had to pick up leaves, bigger piles are harder). He shrugged and laughed at me. He just thought it would be funny. This picture doesn't do the pile justice. It's a big pile. You better believe I'll be looking for every excuse to avoid that chore. Car wash? I have to have one today. 

I wore my cap and mask home...

Today was crazy. Insane. Awesome. 

I went out to Caldwell, about 30 miles outside Boise, to check out their OR and day surgery unit. At first I was doing boring vital signs checks but then I got to do real things that nurses do. I started a couple IVs and I went with two patients in to the OR and I watched their surgeries. A bilateral mastectomy and a radical prostatectomy. Holy crap. I just keep saying in my head over and over again. How the heck am I going to figure out what kind of nurse I want to be if everything I get to try is totally awesome? I think I am supposed to have hated at least one thing by now. I can't even count how many nurses asked if I'd eaten breakfast. I guess they have a lot of students pass out - bad news. There was a CRNA in my prostatectomy that was totally quizzing me on all the drugs, what would you give if this happened. He was really smart. So that was fun. 

Let me just say (as if I need another reason to go vegetarian), underneath all that breast tissue? Just like a flank steak. Exactly. 

I hate those bell stamps. They are really no fun at all. My post office has this automated scale and stamp machine. You can go 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and you can use your debit card. This thing is the epitome of convenience. But you can only get those dumb bell stamps. 

I hate those stamps so much that I would rather go to my post office from the hours of 9-4 Monday through Friday and wait. In the line. Why is there always a line? Because dumb people like me hate those bell stamps? I don't know. 

Do I hate the bell stamps? Or do I just love the other stamps? I think it might be because some of the bell stamps on the sheet don't have the wavy edges on all 4 sides. I'm a crazy person, aren't I? Whatever. You just read an entire post about stamps... 

I made pickles this week. They are good. Real good. I told a friend at school about them and promised to share. That was before I tasted them. That jar was hard to part with. I'll think about bringing some home with me.

I had to turn on the heat today. I draw the line when the temp inside the house gets down to the 50's. We had our first frost last night and they are already talking about "snow in the upper elevations." The good? I turned on the heat and my house smells like Christmas now. That makes me a Las Vegan still, doesn't it?

So, mostly I like the fall when the weather starts changing but there is one thing I don't like about it. I hate it when the toilet seat is freezing cold in the mornings. It is a rude awakening, that's for sure.

Moving on.

I am writing a paper on issues related to contemporary childbirth and I was wondering if anyone wanted to volunteer to answer a few questions for me. What I mean to say is, does anyone want to volunteer now to avoid that uncomfortable phone call where I ask and you feel like you can't say no? (I just like to keep it real.) I'll let you read the paper when I'm done...

I am the laziest blogger ever. I just brought my laptop in to the kitchen and took a picture of this zucchini cobbler with photo booth. Getting out the camera, taking the picture, uploading it from the camera to the computer? WAY too much work. 

Okay so, we've got more zucchini than we know what to do with and we are officially sick of zucchini bread. Solution? Zucchini cobbler. I followed some of the advice in the comments (do you ever pay attention to those?) and removed all the seeds and I swear, it tasted just like apple cobbler. Just like it. With ice cream on top? Insane. 

Another thing. Did anyone else see this? A man jumps in to the ocean to punch a shark after it practically swallows his dog (and he's not even a very cute dog, maybe that's like saying someone's kid isn't cute, everyone thinks their own kid is cute). He actually saves his dog. 

I was thinking another thing. My frequent (probably inappropriate) use of parenthesis really says a lot about me, doesn't it? It is seriously hard for me to stick to a train of thought...  

It is slightly colder in my house right now than it is outside. But I will NOT turn the heat on yet.

I took care of a guy named Barry today. He kept saying, "thanks for being good to Barry" and "you be good to Barry and Barry will be good to you." Now I can't stop singing When You're Good To Mama from Chicago...

This is the best Panda Express fortune I've ever gotten.
If you haven't seen Nacho Libre, go watch it. Now.

I ran a 5K this morning. It was sponsored by the hospital that I work at and it was cheap so I did it. I've never run in a race before. Can I just say, it is seriously motivating when you run past someone (who cares if they happen to be walking). It hasn't rained in Boise in I don't know how long. It's been a while okay. Guess what happened this morning. Not just sprinkles, it was raining. And cold. I still didn't hate it. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm getting back into bed.

We're at home. 
Watching the BSU game.
Eating sweeties.

I love the fall.

I have a lot to tell you about school this semester but I have even more actual school stuff to work on so it might be a few more days before I can tell you all about it.

Otis manged to push through the screen door on our porch a while ago. So last week I went about reinforcing the screen but I forgot to latch it when I was finished. Russell heard a weird scratching sound and checked the front porch. It was Otis. We don't know how long he was gone or which neighbors he terrorized or how many times he was almost hit by a car. No idea.

It has been a pretty constant 68˚ in my house the last week or so. No AC. The windows are open. I think summer might be over for Boise. I'm in the market for a couple new sweaters.

Russell deemed these potato skins (Sunday dinner) restaurant quality...

Hello, first day of school. (Do I look nervous?)

Check out my scrubs. I look totally legit, don't I? They are going to let me touch people this semester. Real people. They're even going to let me give meds. One day I have to go to a flu clinic and give shots all day. At the end of the semester I follow a patient through an operation. Admission, pre-op, procedure, post-op, recovery. Everything. I hope it's a cool operation and not something dumb like eye surgery (boring).

Picture #2: Third semester books. Insane, huh? When I went to the bookstore, they put my books in a box. Bag? Not going to cut it. You should have seen me trying to get from the bookstore to my car without losing anything. Silly.

Yay, back to school!

How come I can't wink?
(There was an actual point to this exercise, besides giving me something to blog about.)

I think we figured it out. We have two fruit trees on either side of the big tree in the front (the same one that fell on top of the house). One tree is a prune tree (I just threw up a little in my mouth) and the other, the one I took pictures of, green plums. Green plums! Oh, the possibilities! Seriously, help me think of the possibilities.

Just picked up my last book from the bookstore. The LAST used copy. It took some pretty serious restraint to keep from doing a little dance in that isle. The rest of my books, ordered online, will be here tomorrow. I inserted my divider tabs into my notebook. I am so ready for school to start. I have decided not to buy a parking permit for this semester. Ask me how that's going when it starts getting rainy right around Octoberish.

So, this tree in my yard. Something is growing on it. Some kind of fruit, I think. It kind of looks like a tiny green plum. What the heck is it? I don't know but I won't be chopping the tree down until I find out...

I'm putting together a good mix for Great Harvest. We start early in the morning so it has to be pretty upbeat. Help me out, will you? The theme is HOT. (Get it? You know, because the oven is hot...) 

You may have seen or perhaps just noticed in previously posted pictures that our garage is a bit scary (that may be an understatement). We used to have these crazy thorny jumbles of bushes lining one side of it. It was just like the part on Sleeping Beauty when Maleficent makes those thorny bushes grow really fast so that Prince Phillip can't get to Princess Aurora (did I remember all those names or did I have to look them up? I'll never tell). Anyway, winter rolled around and they all dried up and then it started to get nice outside and I found the perfect opportunity to get rid of all those nasty, thorny bushes. And I did just that.

Well, well, well, the end of the summer rolls around and do you know what that means? Apparently it means that it's time for those nasty, crazy, thorny bushes to start producing blackberries. Yes, I completely dug up who knows how many years of blackberry bushes. Wiped them right off our property. At least there are plenty of those messy, ugly, mean looking bushes on our neighbor's side of the alley. We went over last week and again tonight and we just whipped up 6 delicious looking cans of blackberry jam. I wonder how many jars I could have had. Do you think I should share a can with the neighbor we stole the berries from or is that just weird?


Our zucchini plants are massive this year. Ridiculous. So big that Russell is having trouble harvesting (did I just say harvesting?) the veggies at the appropriate time. This ginormous zucchini (and me pretending it's a telephone) is the result.