How clean do I need to keep my porch? I mean, I want to eat out there so I should probably do something but come on, it's outside. Help me out here. What exactly is the expectation?

Have you guys met Aireal? I don't talk about her enough. Aireal and I worked together at Nurse Apprentices (Nurse Accomplices, as Bride would say), we graduated together and we got jobs as brand new nurses on the same floor. Our job is so stressful! Have I told you guys this? Having someone to vent to who really can relate, someone to bounce problems off of, it makes all the difference in the world. Have I said I don't know what I would do without her? I seriously do not know.
We made scrub tops last week. And it was pretty much torturous. I don't have a pattern, just a scrub top that I ripped the seams out of and I couldn't remember what to do first or what to attach where or anything. The whole time I just kept saying I was freestylin' (watch at 2:40. yeah, pretty much just like that). All I can say is a scrub top is very forgiving because they are totally still wearable!

The thumbs down is for how long these took us to finish (I'll never tell). And for how much junk food I ate while we were in the process. Thanks for suffering through to the end, Aireal. And for everything else, too.

This poster made Russell and I wish we were headed to Cm's this summer...

Poster found here.

Bride and Phil came to Boise! There was no snow and there were no cars sliding off of highways and it was delightful! It did rain one day though.

It didn't seem like they were here long enough. We had a picnic at Sandy Point Beach and we made pizza and s'mores in the backyard fire pit. We went to the movies and we watched movies, well, mostly fell asleep to movies.

When Bride and I were little, we had a Barbie RV and we made this plan (have I told you about this before?) that we would get married and have kids and we would live in RVs so that we could be next door neighbors forever. Jobs? Who needs 'em? Is there a reason we couldn't be neighbors in regular houses? Don't know. All I know is that we would be neighbors and it would be awesome. I hope someday we really will be neighbors because this weekend didn't last long enough.

Russell's birthday was this week and we finally managed to get out camping. We tried a couple weeks ago but it's been cold and rainy so late this year. A few weeks ago we were sure there would still be snow in the mountains. Actually, Russell admitted (after we were practically there) that he wasn't entirely sure we wouldn't be camping in snow this week.

This spring we bought real packs for hiking. Like, legit, hardcore, real hiker packs. We'll see how much use we get out of them. I'm not so sure. This was the first trial run and I packed that thing pretty heavy - I even had a couple books (P.S. hikers don't pack books)- and it didn't feel too bad at all. I've said it before but really, all I have to be able to do is keep up with Otis and lets just say he isn't winning any races. Better yet, endurance is not his strong suit.

Okay, best thing about camping: s'mores with a Reeses peanut butter cup instead of Hersheys chocolate.

Worst thing about camping: unpacking when you get home (I still haven't done it).

I watched Downton Abbey this week. ALL of it. What can I say? I got sucked in. Real quick: when we first moved to Boise, Russell and I used to watch Masterpiece Theater every Sunday night. I especially loved Masterpiece Mystery! Oh, Miss Marple - crazy old lady! Now, we both work Sunday nights and so the tradition has fallen by the wayside. Sad.

Anyway, back to Downton Abbey. It makes me wonder if I was born at the wrong time. Why don't we write letters on fancy thick paper anymore? Because we send a dumb email instead. If there were any possible way, I would abandon email and send letters exclusively. All kinds - not just thank you notes and birthday cards. I've been thinking about this and I've assembled a list. Perfectly awesome reasons to send a note:

new job

expecting a baby

the electricity went out

the season changed

the dog celebrated his birthday

you got a new electronic device

you re-arranged the furniture and it's awesome

Really? You can write a note for no reason at all, can't you? Now if I could just get my hands on some of that really thick paper...

I've never loved getting up early but alas I am a shift worker and I am relegated to nights. Let me be clear - I am NOT complaining. I work 3 days a week and I realize that this affords for what feels like (after both working and going to school full time for forever) a very leisurely lifestyle. If you've never worked nights, you might not know that it messes with your sleepy-time schedule a little bit. I work 3 12-hour shifts in a row and when I get home after that last day, I want to go right to bed but guess what, it's 8 in the morning. I've tried going to bed fully intending to get up mid-afternoon or so. Never happens. Impossible I say. So usually, I sleep too late and then I'm up all night long and let me have you guess what again, I don't live in "open 24 hours" Vegas anymore. So, I try to get straight the next day and then what happens is I'm really sleepy at about 9 at night but I don't think I can sleep through the night if I go to bed that early, so I stay up. 1 am rolls around and I'm wide awake. Make sense? Not even a little. I know, I know, I'm taking a long time to get to the point here. I recently adopted a new way to handle all of this. When I'm tired, I'm going to go to sleep. Who cares what time it is?! Just lying there in bed, staring at the ceiling (or worse, the clock), can't fall asleep? Forget it! I'm getting up. Took a "nap" yesterday from 11-6. Got in bed at 1:30 last night, wide awake at 5 am. SO, I got up. In the morning. Early in the morning. I did chores. And I'm sitting here and my house is clean, and the laundry is going and I feel like nothing "to do" is hanging over my head and it feels so good. Maybe getting up early really isn't that bad after all. Really though, early, late - those words are pretty much meaningless to me at this point.

My best impression of Tom Haverford. (Russell says I'm not even close)

Russell is cramming in a little last minute homework and all I was doing was sitting there and he said I was distracting him. He waited until the last minute and now he's freaking out a little and I'm so jerky that I just can't stop laughing about it. Anyway, here's some random stuff:

- I've never taken pictures in one of those photo booth thingys in the mall. Sad, huh? Will someone please do that with me?

- My last post? In retrospect I should have probably told you that it was a handwritten note and that woman couldn't have hurt anyone if she tried. Sorry about that.

- I had a patient who had a tattoo of a man's name on the inside of her thigh. She was 76 years old. Gross.

- It made it to 66˚ yesterday and I sat outside in the sun. No lie, I was tempted to put on my bathing suit.

- In a matter of hours I'll be in Vegas with ALL of my brothers and sisters. I wonder what the temperature is there...

From a patient:

Nurse, give me the key. No matter what Larry says. I will hurt you bad. Feel lucky try me. I'm not crazy yet. Thank you.

This is real life.

Every time I go to the movies I can't help but wonder: what if the person that sat in this chair before me had lice? And then I get itchy.

I have been dealing with some pretty intense pressure to blog. I won't make any promises but maybe I'll try to do this a little bit more. One condition - let's pretend like it's not still winter. That winter header picture is just depressing...

I took a little road trip last week and visited Bride in Salt Lake. It was kind of last minute and it felt so spontaneous and fun. The word of the trip? Leisurely. Well, after the speeding ticket it was leisurely. I think we stayed up until 3 every night and we slept in embarrassingly late. We shopped the entire time. I couldn't stop saying it, "look how leisurely our lives are." It was awesome.

If you know Bride at all, you know how she's a quoter. Name that movie? She's the master. The master. You may not know, however, that she also has a habit of quoting real life. Watch it when you're around her - you never know if she could be quoting you later. In fact, she even provided me a "quote of the trip" - well, we couldn't actually settle on one so I'll give you a couple:

"I love that song about the guy who accidentally shoots someone." - Bride

"Oh, yeah. It's like a craft store. I hate this place." - Phil

"Believe in yourselves!" - a random student in Bride's class at BYU, less motivational, more like she was yelling at everyone

"I wanna drug test that girl." - me, about another student in Bride's class (at BYU), likely on crack

I'm not sure how accurate a representation of this trip these quotes are but trust me when I said we had fun. Sisters are the best thing. I didn't even take one picture. I'll work on that...

P.S. The first one to guess the song Bride was talking about wins

Nothing is new here.

It's too cold to do anything except go to work.

I hate it.

Call me a whiner.

I won't even care.

I've been petitioning for a new washer & dryer for a while. Sometimes, I would have to spin a load 3 times before I threw it in the dryer. While I was at work last night Russell texted me a picture of these and said, "it's a Christmas miracle!"
Russell may or may not have also purchased a new television. Why does re-arranging the furniture so the chair is in the middle of the living room (and squarely in front of the tv) mean Christmas to me?
And Otis says Merry Christmas.

Christmas picture this year? Could have been worse.

Top contenders:

Yay, Thanksgiving!!

Never too old for the Barbie power wheel. If you're not singing the pow-pow-power wheel commercial right now...

Just some random things:

- Moonstruck is pretty much one of the best movies ever. I was taking care of a guy who had a serious brain injury and he couldn't talk. He was flipping through the tv channels and I heard one of the songs from the movie and I asked if he remembered it. He flipped back to it for me. It was kind of funny but made me a little sad, too.

- I took care of a guy this weekend who had 4 different women's names tattooed on his body. He was hilarious. Half the words he said to me, I couldn't repeat. I was doing that thing that I do where I laugh at everything because I'm not quite sure what to say. Hilarious.

- I've been feeling pretty grateful these days. I love my job. I love my house. I have good friends and the best family. It feels so good to be happy, to be content. It feels just like a mug of hot chocolate on a fall day, where it's sunny but still a little cool out and you have time to just drink hot chocolate so it doesn't get cold. That is the feeling, exactly.

- Russell is buying a canoe and he's going to float down the river and hunt for deer. I only wish I was going to be there for the photo op.

- I can't wait for Thanksgiving.

The weather has been cool since school started. It's been really nice for a quick change but I'm not saying I'm ready for the fall or anything. Fall is lovely in Boise, it really is but it doesn't last very long and then fall turns in to winter. And winter lasts forever.

Anyway, I have been busting out a few classic fall recipes. Wait, real quick, does anyone else think cookies are kind of a fall thing? They remind me of back to school - you know? Cookies for school lunches? Maybe it's just me. I did make pumpkin bread last week (unquestionably fall) and we had chicken pot pie for lunch today. I usually skip the bottom crust, really just to cut out a few calories but I went for it today and it was totally worth it. When I asked Russell if it's the best chicken pot pie I've ever made he said yes.


Doesn't Otis look very contemplative here? Fat, too. Fat and contemplative.

We packed up for a camping trip on Tuesday. Otis gets very anxious when we start getting ready. It's like he never knows if we're bringing him along or not. We've never left him! Anyway, note the panting - cardinal sign of dog anxiety.

We didn't leave until Tuesday afternoon so all we really did on night one is find our camp spot and eat dinner. But really, dinner is the best part of camping anyway. We had pizza for dinner one night last week so all I needed for calzones was the dough. I put them all together and par-baked them at home so really they just need to be heated up - don't they look so good. They were.

I was just fooling around a little with the camera while Russell was prospecting. Yes, prospecting- panning for gold. He didn't know it and that's the only way I got this picture of him. He said I was only allowed to post it on the internets if I didn't disclose our super secret camping/prospecting location. Deal.