The smushed rolo pretzels

Apparently Teri doesn't like not knowing how things turn out so for her....

Cookie Decorating!

Few Notes about cookie decorating before photos...
1. I tried several different cookie recipes for this and did not find any that I really liked so I'm still looking for the perfect cookie cutter cookie recipe.
2. The plan was the make cookies and give them to our neighbors, ya know, to be neighborly. We ended up with a grand total of 33 cookies after 6 kids and 2 adults finished almost 2 hours of decorating. I think more were eaten than were decorated!
3. The rolo pretzles were excellent. THanks, Teri, for the idea!
4. The adult cookie just looked weird. The kids cookies were totally cute.
5. A good time was had by all and that's really the point!

Why I love Physical therapy

So I saw the orthopedist for this annoying pain in my hip and she sent me to Physcial Therapy to figure out exactly what was going on and how to fix it. So at PT it was determined that my pelvis is shifting in and out of alignment. The two sides of the pelvis are not fused but are connected with soft tissue. This allows the pelvis to move independently when you walk and to stretch when you have a baby. If the pelvis is out of alignment then the muscles in the back, butt and legs have to try and compensate and eventually some get weak, others get strong and others just cramp up. That's what happened to me. I also remembered during all this that I fell while running in August and landed on that hip really hard. So during PT my therapist can manually put me back in alignment and then massage the muscles that are hurting (love that part), stretch me out (passive stretching is almost as good as massage) and then supervise a program to strengthen my weak core which will help prevent my pelvis from shifting around so much. The work out part is really cool. Basically, I am getting personal training with my insurance company paying for 80% of it. The bummer part is that my pelvis is still unstable so I need to keep going. But on January 1 when my deductible resets it will get pretty expensive! But I want to get back to running and I want to be pain free sooooooo I guess we will figure it out. In the meantime, I can tell my core is getting stronger and it is really cool to have someone tell you when you are doing the exercises right!

Hurricane Ike Slide show

So this wasn't in my preview but I just saw this on the Houston Chronicle website and thought I'd share. it is a slide show of their photos from the Hurricane. Look HERE
We also got our insurance check yesterday. It was very disappointing. As a comparison, my parents had similar damage (they had some water leak into an upstairs bathroom and stained the ceiling which we did not have) and their check was 3x ours! It all depends on the adjuster and how he writes up your damages. I haven't gotten the explanation that says what it is covering but based on how much it is I don't think they totaled our roof. I think they expect us to patch it. This is really bad news. First of it it just doesn't seem fair. EVERYONE around us is getting new roofs. Secondly, we are trying to sell this place. Who is going to buy a house with a patched roof when every other roof is new????? ARG! I think the worst part is the anticipation of having to fight with the insurance company and all the phone calls and all the hassle of trying to get what we deserve. So I'm going to pull a Scarlett O'Hara (truly my hero from middle school) and think about this tomorrow!

The big reveal

I have been a blond for a bvery very long time. I was naturally a blond up until about 4 years ago when my hair started getting darker and darker and requiring more and more color to remain the blond I knew I was. Well, I got tired of having to keep up the color. I get busy and I don't like going to get my hair cut and I don't like having to pay for it. So my roots grow out and I try and justify that they don't look that bad, but who am I kidding. They are roots and even Madonna looks bad with roots. So yesterday I told Tim (my hair guy) to color everything the color of my roots and I am now truly a brunette....

Before...


After...

PReviews....

Stay tuned for a stimulating posts on
1. my laundry

2. My new hair cut and color (how dark will she go????)

3. The hip report or why I love physical therapy

Wrapping paper

I love wrapping paper. I said it in my Christmas email post, but the colors, the ribbons, the whole thing, I love it. I really think there is a frustrated designer or something in me because wrapping paper and fabrics speak to me. Either that or I'm just psycho because wrpaping paper and fabrics speak to me. Hey, it is 8 days before Christmas, aren't we all a little psycho by now???? Usually though, I am such a Scrooge that i buy it after Christmas then look at it all year, then finallyget to use it a whole year later, at which time the specialness of it has worn off a little. I often have 6 or 7 rolls of Christmas wrapping paper sitting around from my after Christmas sale forays. I also try to find non-Christmasy chrstmas paper so that I can use it for other occassions. Probably one of those things where I think I'm being oh so clever and the person who gets a Birthday present wrapped in red paper with silver polka dots (nothing OBVIOUSLY Christmas on it) thinks, "I guess she was out of regular wrapping paper and had to use Christmas paper." BUT this year, I went to my trusty wrapping paper bin and there was only one roll of Christmas paper!!!!! (Insert horror movie sound track here!!!) Off I went to Hobby lobby like the rest of the poor shopping souls to to buy my paper at merely 50% off. So here is my paper for the year....


The blue with brown deer is especially for hubby who is actually deer hunting at the moment. The deer on the paper are velvet! VERY fancy. Notice that three of the four could be used in the off season! Pretty clever!

I just want to explain why there is Fairly Odd Parents Christmas wrapping paper under my tree...Because really who would EVER buy anything lisenced Fairly Odd Parents let alone Christmas wrapping paper???? It was in the grab bag selection of a school fundraiser wrapping paper deal. You got three rolls of wrapping paper of their choice for cheap but you didn't get to pick them out. Go figure, they had some Fairly Odd Parents paper left over! My kids love it and I console myself that it ties in the blue from the deer and the red and green from the other papers...It's a stretch but work with me here, it is FAIRLY ODD PARENTS!

The Wise Women...

Here you are Teri, the Wise women up close and personal....

Christmas email

So I promise Teri that I would do the email by Thursday night and I didn't quite make it. But I'm less than 24 hours behind AND mine includes photos!

1. Wrapping paper or gift bags? Paper. I love wrapping presents and I love seeing all the colors of the paper and coordinating the ribbons and the trim! I hate gift bags except for the most awkwardly shaped gifts!

2. Real tree or artificial? Real. Our fake one broke the year after we moved to Houston and we’ve been real ever since. Every year we talk about going to a tree farm and cutting down a tree and we never quite seem to get there. Maybe next year…

3. When do you put up the tree? As soon we get over to the lot to buy the tree. Some years that’s right after Turkey day some years it isn’t until a couple weeks before the big day.

4. When do you take the tree down? Around New Years. By then I’m tired of looking at it!

5. Do you like eggnog? No, I hate it. And I hate that it looks so yummy, like melted ice cream, and then it has that nasty nutmeg flavor. So I hate it for being deceptive and for just being gross.

6. Favorite gift received as a child? Hmmmmm. I got a China doll one year that was a family heirloom that I loved and played with for years and years. Hubby thinks it is totally creepy and will kill us in our sleep.


7. Hardest person to buy for? My dad.

8. Easiest person to buy for? My kids.

9. Do you have a nativity scene? Yes. I was given a Nativity Scene by a friend of the family as a little girl and it was my favorite Christmas decoration. I still have it and I still love to put it up each year. I also have a nativity scene that was made by an Indian tribe in New Mexico that I got when my grandmother moved into assisted living. That one is really unique. My favorite part is that the wise men are wise women!



10. Regular mail or e-mail Christmas Cards? Usually they are Epiphany cards because I can’t get them done before Christmas and they are mailed. I skipped last year so I really need to get those out this year.

11. Worst Christmas gift that you ever received? I wanted cowgirl boots. My brother got cowboy boots, I got navy blue, zip up the side, dress boots. Yes, I’m still a little bitter.

12. Favorite Christmas movie? ELF!!!!! The best Will Farrell movie and the best Christmas movie EVER!


13. When do you start shopping for Christmas? When I get done with school.

14. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present? You betcha! It is my greenest activity!

15. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas? Cookies, bring em on!
16. Lights on the tree? Small colored lights. It is a compromise. Hubby like giant colored lights, I would love little white lights.

17. Favorite Christmas Song? Hmmmmm, I don’t know. I love them all. I love singing them all. I can’t pick. Maybe, if I really had to, O Holy Night.

18. Travel at Christmas or stay at home? Considering it’s a work day, we stay put.

19. Can you name all of Santa's reindeer? Probably but don’t grade me on it.

20. Angel on the treetop or a star? Star. Got our star on clearance when we were newly married and it is very sentimental related to starting our own traditions.


21. Open the presents Christmas Eve or Morning? Christmas morning.

22. Most annoying thing about this time of the year? Traffic

23. What theme or color are you using to decorate? Don’t have one.

24. Favorite for Christmas dinner? Beef Tenderloin with Bearnaise sauce.

25. What do you want for Christmas this year? I wish I had a good list. It would be helpful to those I live with!

It snowed in Houston...Global Warming must be a hoax...

So yesterday, it snowed in Houston! Really snowed. Like big beautiful flakes that swirled around in the street lamps, beautiful snow. (Didn't stick but who cares!) The kids had soooooooooo much fun! I pulled down my giant rubbermaid bin of snow clothes from when we lived in California and managed to find gloves and hats for most of the kids on our street! Now mommy has such a dirty house from all the in and outs with wet feet!

I'M DONE!!!!!!!!!

For the semester that is! Ahhhhhhhh!! What a sweet sweet feeling! I am done with three out of four semesters of nursing school. I only have one to go then I will be a real live nurse!! WOWOWOWOWOWOW. I can't believe that I am so close. But honestly, right now I just so glad to be done for an entire 5 week break that I hardly know what to do with myself.

Guess, I'll go outside and enjoy the SNOW!!!!!!!

Oh the pies, the pies, the pies!

I LOVE the food at Thanksgiving. I love the potatoes, the turkey, the gravy (oh the gravy!) the stuffing (Love love love the stuffing). But the best part is the pies. I love pie. Ya know, now that I think about it. The pies would eb even better if we didn't eat them ON Thanksgiving. Then I could eat more stuffing and gravy without even considering having room for dessert. We could wait and eat pie the next night and spread Thanksging over TWO days. Now THAT'S a plan! Check in next year to see if I convinced the rest of the world...

Pie Making at our house. The mess is worth it!:


Apple Pie hot out of the oven:



Sugar Cream and Pecan:


Cookies made out of the trimmings from the pie crust. YUMMY YUMMY YUMMY!


Natalie likes the cookies too!

We think it's muscular...(which means it's not cancer!)

That's the verdict. I have a bunch of muscles on my right side that have decided a great way to be is in knots. The other possibility is that the membrane that lines the hip socket, the labrum, has a small tear in it. Can't see that with an x-ray only with an MRI. The fix for that is an orthoscopic surgery to trim out the tear. Since an MRI is quite expensive and the doctor is leaning toward the muscular explanation, I am going to Physical Therapy twice a week for the next month to exaust the muscles so they will calm down and stop being so irritated. I'm also taking 600 mg of ibuprofen 3x per day. AND NO RUNNING. I need to cross train. I hate cross training because I like to run. But I probably injured myself from running too much so I know this is the right thing to do but no other exercise appeals to me that much. I could go to the YMCA and do the eliptical or the bike. Or I could swim. I could get the tires fixed on my bike and bike around my neighborhood (that's more appealing than going to the Y.) I could rollerblade, which I really like but honestly it scares me a bit because if you wipe out on blades the concrete is going to end up with a significant portion of your skin. I don't know about walking. Anyway, after 4 weeks of PT if I'm doing better we go with the muscular explanation. If I'm not better we do the MRI and look for that tear. I'm very very hopeful that the PT folks think that massage is a vital portion of my recovery. (Fingers crossed!) By the way, that's not my hip up there just a google image. Although my hip looked pretty similar to that one!

Going to the doctor

So today I have an appointment with my friendly orthopedist. I saw her about 2 years ago for foot pain that was dxed plantar fascitis. I did 2 months of physical therapy and was as good as new. Now I've been having this really annoying pain in my right hip. It's been going on for several months and I can't seem to get it to go away. If I take 600mg of ibuprofen twice a day I'm pretty pain free. It just doesn't seem like that is a good long term strategy. And with the holidays I need to be able to run ALOT so that I can eat ALOT! I'm very curious to see what she says...I'll update later.

Creativity rears its head

I am not the most creative person. Crafty stuff and I don't get along well. I can't draw or paint. I don't have a hobby that invilves making things. I don't scrapbook...you get the picture. Occassionally though, the small amount of creativity that I do have comes bursting forth like the pent up energy of a geyser. Friday was Character Dress Up Day at my two youngest girls school. The kids are supposed to dress up like the character from a book. And I must say, the creativity burst forth and we had some seriously cute costumes....

So first we have Natalie as Fancy Nancy. Now Natalie wanted to look EXACTLY like Fancy Nancy which required me
to add a felt poodle to the skirt she already had. That is seriously creative!












Next was Isabella as Junie B. Jones is a Party Animal. The pajamas were new because she didn't have any warm PJs but we had the elephant, the hair wrap and the slippers were already had. We also bought the feather boa because really with a house with three girls a feather boa comes in handy!

Surprising self discovery from nursing school

I have small hands and short fat fingers. Not a value judgement just a fact. And I have always tried to grow my fingernails out because I thought it would make my fingers look longer. Problem is that when my fingernails get long they bend and look very very odd. They are also pretty thin so they are never long all at the same time. When I started nursing school they told us we had to have short fingernails in the clinical areas. I sadly cut off my fingernails. Guess what?!?!?!? I love having short fingernails. They look so much better. No amount of growing my fingernails out is going to make my fingers look longer. And having short finernails that aren't all twisted and funky looking is much much better than what I had before! Here's a couple pictures, and actually, they are a little on the long side compared to what I've been doing. Off to happily clip and file!

My Violet

On the window sill behind my sink, I have a violet (and a scrubber brush and my drain cover, there was no editing for this picture!). I got the violet at a charity auction at least three years ago. The kids that the charity helps painted clay pots and they were about $10 at the auction. Seeing as how most of the other stuff started in the three digits we were happy to support the cause by buying a hand painted pot. In the pots were these violets that were barely hanging onto life. They were decrepit. I'm guessing they were donated but the nursery that donated them didn't remove their stickers from the plastic pots before they gave them away so we all knew which nursery had fobbed off their dying plants on the children's charity. Anyway, I brought home this little violet and totally expected it to die because I have a propensity to kill plants. But it didn't! In fact, as long as I watered it on a fairly regular basis it thrived! And it grew and it bloomed these beautiful purple flowers! Eventually it outgrew my hand painted pot and had to be transplanted to a bigger home. I love my violet because when I look at it I remember how sick it was and that somehow, I made it better. And that is just amazing to me!

So, Mom, how do you want to die?

This is the question I was asked by my 7 year old in the car today. It was just the two of us which is pretty rare. But that is definitely a question you don't expect. So i told her something pretty boring (If I'm young I hope it is cancer so I have time to say good-bye and if I'm old a massive stroke would be pretty good.) So after a little discussion (Apparently, my mom said she'd like to die eating ice cream out of the container with my dad. Love that!) I asked her, how do you want to die? "I want to go for a walk at night in a beautiful place with my husband." Isn't that awesome? I asked if I could come too because it sounded good to me. Sure, she said. Then a few seconds later, "But Mom, I think you'll already be dead by the time I'm old." Moment over, but I hope I remember that forever.

Only two clinicals left for the semester!!!!!

So part of the reason why I was so absent for the month of October was the mess that Ike caused with our clinicals. I was in the precepted group which means that instead of going to the hospital a certain day of the week with a group of 10 students, I was assigned a nurse and I scheduled my clinical times according to her schedule. Since I had three clinicals this semester, that meant three sites and three nurses. This has a lot of benefits in keeping my schedule flexible and because I work with the nurses schedule I work 12 hour shifts which means I work fewer days to get my hours in. However, when Ike hit, we lost two weeks of clinical time. AND the instructors for those precepted clinicals hadn't really gotten them completely organized before Ike. So after Ike they were trying to get our classes back on track and get preceptors for all of us at the same time that the hospitals were trying to get back to normal. THEN, if that weren't enough we knew before the sotrm that there was some kind of problem with our site for our ICU clinical. But our instructor assurred us it would all work out and we could work on our other clinicals while she straightened it out. After the storm we found out that the hospital we were supposed to go to had a major administrative shake up and no longer would accept precepted students. Uh oh! Now we are behind AND we have no clinical site. This is not good. Our other clinical sites were still good but the instructors were still working on getting precetor information to us. Another lost week goes by. Finally we got our info for the other two clinical placements and got started. In order to make up for lost time, I worked four clinicals a week for a couple weeks, which meant including school and clinicals I was putting in 50-60 hours a week. It was brutal. My family was holding it together but barely. At one point working 7 a- 7p two days in a row meant I didn't see my kids for 48 hours! I was cranky and exhausted. And i was mad at a system that set us up for this my having such little organization. The storm wasn't anyone's fault but not having our clinical sites set up before Sept is just inexcusable. And this has been a theme throughout the nursing school experience. Sometimes I wonder if the disorganization and last minute expectations of us showing up for required stuff is part of the training to accept that nurses have huge responsibility and low independence.
So anyway, I haev two days left and I am going to be soooooooo glad to be DONE! Over all my clinical experiences have been great. All my preceptors were wonderful. I learned a lot and I got to see some pretty cool stuff (especially in the cardiovascular recovery room!). I'm sort of getting a sense of what I want to do after graduation (that's a topic for another post). And most importantly, I made it through!

Hurricane Ike update

So last we heard I was ready for things to get back to normal....

Well, I guess we are at a new normal but there are soemthings that are just interesting consequences of the storm. (That's what people 'round these parts tend to call it, just "The Storm")
First, traffic was completely crazy for about 6 weeks after the storm. It took longer to get to school in the mornings, there was traffic in places that there hadn't been before and the afternoon traffic started up earlier. Then last week, suddenly, it was better. I guess some of the relief workers went home or something. I'm glad it is better, very very glad but it was weird!
Second, there is this gigantic pile of tree trimmings in an empty field on the highway I use to get to school. I would take a picture of it but I think there wouldn't be enough perspective to appreciate how big it is. I would bet it is about the size of a football field and about 5 stories tall! It is slowly being turned into mulch but it is a site to behold!
Third, insurance.... Wow. Until you actually have to use your homeowner's insurance for a disaster claim, you will never understand why all those Katrina people complain about insurance companies. It is a pain in the BUTT! There are all sorts of rules and regulations and you have to document in 47 different ways and then you get an offer but you might need to renegotiate the offer if you don't think it is fair. The roofing company will "work with" you insurance company to get you a good settlement which feels alittle like you are being ripped off except that the insurance company really prefers it that way because they don't want to climb up on your roof. it is all very overwhelming and scary because you are talking about thousands of dollars!
Lastly, when our fence was down, we talked to our neighbors and felt all neighborly and had this little community going. Lacked a little privacy though! Then the guys all bought materials together and built the fence together and it was great and neighborly. And now we have fences again and we never talk to each other. I liked it without the fence....

A day in the ER

So yesterday I spent the day in the ER of a tiny little community hospital where one of my instructors works as a nurse practitioner. I got clinical hours and I got to experience another aspect of nursing so that was cool. I just really like the ER. I like trying to figure out what's wrong with people. I like the fact that you get to talk to people but they are in and out, it isn't long and protracted. I like that there's alittle bit of everything, trauma (not like gun shots and car wreck trauma , this is a little community hospital, but like sliced my hand open trauma), pediatrics, geriatrics, minor illness and serious illness. I like that there's downtime where you can get to know your coworkers (and work a cross word puzzle - a drunk group of opera fans is a "juiced box") but that when it is busy the time flies by. I got to give a couple injections - just a note to big strong guys with tattoos, lots and lots of tatoos, the 7 year old boy made less of a fuss over a much bigger injection than you guys did. How can you whine over a shot when you have tattoos all over??????

O-kay alarm went off late gotta shower and go to school and take an exam!

Can someone please invent...

A device that allows me to post on my blog through oral dictation while sitting in traffic. Seriously, I could be prolific blogger if I could post while in traffic. I have all sorts of erudite, insightful thoughts in traffic. For example,
"I wonder what would happen if health care were delivered as a traditional fee for service model with -- GET OVER YOU IDIOT! THAT DUMP TRUCK WILL CRUSH YOUR PRECIOUS PRIUS!!!"
or
"I should totally blog about how antiquated nursing education is. When your model for education harkens back to the days nurses were educated in hos-- NO NO NO NO NO!!!!! IT IS 9:22 a.m!!!! THERE IS NOT SUPPOSED TO BE TRAFFIC AT 9:22 a.m! RUSH HOUR IS OVER! GO HOME!!"
or
"We have a black president. Wow, wow, wow. I don't even think my children can understand what an amazing -- WHY ARE YOU DRIVING 27 MILES AN HOUR IN A 45 ZONE?!?!?! DON'T YOU HAVE A JOB OR SOMETHING IMPORTANT TO DO???? MOVE!!!!!!"

Doesn't that inspire you to get on with your inventing?????

I have a blog and I'm not afraid to use it

I just might choose not to for like, oh, six weeks at a time. Sometimes when you have let something slide it becomes harder and harder to get back on track because of the embarassment factor because of the length of inactivity. For example, thank you notes. If I haven't written a thank you note within two weeks, I probably am not gong to do it. Not because I forgot but because I'm too embarassed to follow up so late. The worst is when I have totally put off going to the dentist or get my well-woman exam. They've sent reminder cards, called to remind me and now I'm months overdue and I just have to suck it up and make the appointment. Do they care? Probably not. Probably not...what am I saying, of course NOT!

Anyway, so here I am posting on my blog after a six week absence that was extended by the shame of going back to something after that long. (That and the fact that seriously, like two people read my blog and I absolutely perform better with an audience.) Do I promise to be better? Nope. But I'll try and post often enough to avoid shame based extended absence. And get some therapy for my neuroses related to thank you notes and doctor's appointments...

I'm ready for things to get back to normal...

And I have power so I probably shouldn't even think about complaining....

But, alas, we humans are creatures of habit and lack of normalcy makes us feel really uncomfortable.

I'm ready for the kids to be back in school. On Friday we will hit the two week mark with no school. I'm beginning to feel like our district is considering an all-homeschool model. We would be the pioneering district in the country! Thanks but no thanks. Mom is back to school but the kids aren't. That makes things a little challenging, schedule wise. And I know that the kids were just beginning to get into the school routine when all this happened. I can't even imagine being a teacher and having to start classroom management from scratch plus deal with all the reaction kids will behaving from the storm.

Speaking of school...Mom was just beginning to get into the swing of school. I had a schedule within my grasp. (Hadn't gotten it yet, but had promises of it!) and now we are back to where we started. Don't know nothing! And one of my clinical sites apparently lost their roof so who knows if/how that is going to pan out. Gives me a headache to think about it. I have two tests next week to try and get back on schedule with my classes and hubby is out of town so that makes shcedules with kids and finding study time even harder. I crave normalcy.

Next week, the insurance adjuster is coming out. I have no idea how that is going to go. I wish I could get a roofer to come and look at the roof before they come so that I can get a sense of what needs to be done. Even the little things that need to be fixed are overwhelming, how to schedule the repair people, who to call, when will they get to us, how to avoid getting ripped off. Whine, whine whine. I have it good compared to sooooooooo many people. But it is still reasonable to whine just a little!

Oh and one more thing...

The eye missed my house by about 20 miles. Still on my list of natural phenomenon that I'd like to experience I'll just move where I want to experience from my house to someone else's home in Florida.

General announcement to Wal-Mart

Thank you so much for being open after the hurricane. I'm sure it is hard to staff your store and keep things running right now. One little suggestion. If you have a store that is running on generator power and therefore does not have any fresh food (no dairy, eggs cheese, frozen, meat, deli or produce) please post that on a very large sign at the front of the store. This way if a person has a huge grocery list and starts on the side of the store with toiletries and housewares, she doesn't get to the grocery side with a half-full cart and realize that she can't get ANY OF THE OTHER THINGS ON HER LIST on this trip. In the post-hurricane world, THAT MAKES ME CRANKY!!!!!!!!!

Thank you for your support.

Hurricanes: The good, the bad, and the ugly

The Good:
1. Everyone around here is saying this...We met our neighbors! It is amazing what happens when you have no fence. You meet those people on the other side of it that have lived there for 3 years. Donnie and Tami are now our firends and we have plans to go out to dinner together when life gets back to normal.
2. I went 10 days without spending any money! (Well, that's not quite true. I spent $10 on amoxicillin for Natalie's ear infection but I treid to treat it with what we had on hand for 4 days before that!) No Wal-Mart, no grocery store, no gas, no nothing. This, my friends, is the true reason for the "economic meltdown" that apparently took place while Houston was storm shocked.
The Bad:
1. No school for a week or longer. I can't imagine what kind of torturous schedule the nursing school faculty is going to devise for us to catch up after missing a week of school. Aiyiyi....
2. While we didn't sustain the huge damage that some people in our neighborhood did, we have soemthing that we will have to fix. And our deductible (this is what they do to you when you live in a hurricane prone area) is $4500. I'm hoping there is unseen damage to the roof. I want a new roof...
3. It just breaks my heart to see people's lives piled up on the street outside their homes. When you ceiling caves in during a storm it is just devestating. Insulation is wet and everywhere, drywall has to be ripped out, then there's carpet and carpet pad, light fixtures that fell out of the ceiling, stuffed animals, mattresses, it just goes on and on. There's a family around the corner from us with a daughter who is a ventilator dependent quadriplegic (think Christopher Reeve). Their house was decimated. The debris from inside covers the entire front of their house piled up about 3 trashbags high.
The Ugly:
1. Many people lost all the food in their refridgerators. Thus, the garbage that is out at the curb is horribly stinky. Trash bags upon trash bags of rotting food. I actually ran outside and yelled "Thank You" when the trash truck showed up on Wednesday.
2. The storm debris that is piled up along the street is absolutely incredible. Hopefully we'll see the trucks out picking it up in thenext couple days.
3. Things just smell weird. I think it is a combination of rotting vegetation from flooding, rotting food, rotting fences, toxic off gassing from the damaged petrochemical industry along the coast (maybe not that...). Then every once in a while I get a whiff of the frier going at the donut shop around the block. Now that is yummy!!!!!

Just some pictures

Above is a before and after picture of an area called Crystal Beach. This is on the Bolivar Peninsula which was obviously decimated by our friend Ike.

Several fires burned on Galveston Island during and after the hurricane, mostly caused by transformers blowing out. The fires were left to burn themselves out. Our favorite restaurant and Houston landmark, Brennan's burned down during the storm. How's this for irony. Brennan's in Houston is owned by the same family that owns Commander's Palace in New Orleans. Commander's was devestated by Katrina and many of their employees were hired on at Brennan's in Houston. Since then Commander's has rebuild and has already said they will hire on some of Brennan's employees.
This is in my neighborhood. It is someone's trampoline that was picked up and dumped in the front yard. Judging from the damage in the neighborhood and some of the noises we heard in the storm we think there were lots of little tornados that touched down here and there during the storm.
This is my backyard. We didn't lose our tree but we lost several very large branches out of the tree. We also lost our fence. Our neighbors behind us had their swingset blow over. Ours is original to the house. Very Old and sort of decrepit looking...still standing!
More of our backyard. James has gotten it all cleaned up but it truly looked like a war zone after the storm.

Thank you poop!!!!

WE HAVE POWER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And it is all thanks to poop. Apparently, our section of our neighborhood is int he same grid as teh sewage treatment plant for our city which is probably a mile from our house. Sewage is considered a priority power user. And once the priority is on, the whole grid is on. Thank you thank you thank you poop. We are cool, dry, and comfy. My parents are still without power but are spending the night. We have tried to get word to other family and friends that there is cool, a/ced space available but communications are still sketchy and tonight my parents are our only guests. I honestly feel a little guilty about having power while other are suffering. A little. Just a little.

I know I said it twice last night but I'll say it again tonight. We were sooooooooo lucky. Neighbors had their houses detroyed as their roofs peeled away and the rain water poured in on thier homes. Those that escaped immediate destruction are now faced with throwing away hundreds or thousands of dollars in food that they can't keep cool. FEMA hasn't shown up. Ice is in very very short supply. Two grocery stores are open with 3 hour waits to get in the door. Gas is non-existant. I don't know why we have been blessed but i would feel a while lot better about our good fortune if our hose were full of cool, sleeping bodies tonight. God be with Houston right now....

SURVIVED

Well, we survived the hurricane. We have no power. Our fence is gone. Our backyard tree lost huge limbs. BUT we were very very pucky. Our roof held. Water came in under the front door and will probably require some repairs on the floor. BUT we are lucky. We have neighbors that have it much much worse. We have no power and it is so hot and humid it is gross. Thank you thank you God that our friends close by have power and invited us to spend the night. More later.

Its gettin kinda windy...

And Ike is still about 100 miles away. The gusts are pretty strong. Everything is battened down and now we just wait it out....
Here are some photos that I found around the local news stations from earlier int he day. The flooding is not from rain but from the storm surge that IKE is pushing onto the coast. Basically, the wind and energy from the storm is pusshing a wall of water in front of it, like a tsunami almost that the pushing the ocean up onto what was previously dry land.

Here comes IKE

So here we are preparing for IKE. Looks like we are going to take a direct hit. I have to say I'm a little excited. Remind me of that on Saturday at 2 a.m. when 120 mile an hour winds are buffetting my house and my kids are hysterical! Truly, if the eye of the storm passes over my house I will have marked a significant thing off my list of things I'd like to experience. It is op there with floating on the dead sea (done that, it was awesome) and seeing the Northern Lights (still on the list.)

These things I know are true....

1. If you are approximately 8 months pregnant and there is an able bodied man in the front seat of the car while you fill up the gas tank at Wal-mart, you are hanging out with the wrong people. (Yep, saw that...)
2. If you are trying to sell your house, comments from showings like "You were in the top three but they bought another house" don't really make you feel much better. In housing the bronze medal isn't an honor!
3. If you are the youth director at a church and you can't find the pastor's kid after a youth event, calling the said pastor (and your boss) to see if she has already been picked up is PAINFUL.
4. If you are a nursing instructor and trying to introduce the idea of non-physical discipline to a class repeatedly using words like "Violence" "Hitting" and "abuse" isn't the best way to get your point across.
5. If you are the president of a student organization and are holding your first meeting of the year, way over-buying on the lunch is a really good strategy to avoid speaking to a bunch of hungry, pissed off students.
6. If you are a twelve year old girl it is entirely possible to have a clothing crisis after spending $150 in birthday money on new clothes. (That one is probably the most bizarre statement I have in my list!!!!)
7. If you live along the U.S. Gulf Coast, late August and September are a great time to ignore the T.V. weathercasters and just look out the window occassionally. If it is really windy and humid pouring down rain you might want to get to high ground.
8. If you are a competitor to Apple, don't even try to compete with the I'm a Mac, I'm a P.C. ads. (Jerry, I love you but that was just pathetic.)

Back to School

Well, here we are..the first Friday of the new school year. It couldn't have come sooner in my opinion. I am exhausted, but exhausted in a good way I suppose. I have been in class everyday from 9 until afternoon (some days 1 p.m. some days until 5.) I have pediatrics, ICU nursing and mental wellness this semester. I got my clinical site choice which is really great!!! I will be in a precepted clinical which means that instead of going to a hospital on a certain day and time with a group of students and a member of the faculty, I will be assigned a nurse at the facility and I will work according to her schedule until I get all my hours in. I like the idea of the flexibility that offers and I know I learn really well from watching another person and asking questions.

It is funny how anxious I was all weekend about starting school. I just felt so wigged out and it showed in the way I treated my family. I was just dreading starting school again. But once I got back here and saw my friends (and I have some really great friends in nursing school) and got back in to lectures and learning about this nursing stuff I was totally energized and glad to be back. The mind is such a funny thing!!!

I think I am going to have some really good faculty this semester as well. I really like the instructors I have met so far. The instructor for the ICU class is actually from the town in New York that we visited this summer and trust me that is a very very small town!!! Pretty amazing coincidence. Compared to soem fo the instructors from previous semesters I just have a much more sincere sense that they want us to succeed and are interested in hearing us out. Everyone likes to be listened to!!!

And to end on a very happy note, I jsut found out that I passed my math test. Thsi si the pass/fail test that we take every semester. Passing is 100 and failing is anything else. It is very stressful to have that kind of pressure on a math test. This one I wasn't at all sure of after I finished it. While I was checking my work I found a huge error and that scared the pants off me about what I might have missed!!! But I passed, Hallelujah!!

I am ready for the 4 day weekend!

More pictures from vacation

Yes, we did have to eventually return from vacation. As we got on the plane from Syracuse we all said good-bye to 75 degrees with tears in our eyes. Truly this was one of the best vacations we've ever had. Loved it!!!!!!! Read a lot...if you like historical fiction check out World Without End by Ken Follett. It is the sequal to his book about building a medieval cathedral - Pillars of the Earth. It was over 1000 pages which for someone who reads at lightening speeds was wonderful. Also read a couple brainless chick books by Jennifer Crusie. Seriously brainless. Went to Niagara Falls and The Baseball Hall of Fame. Met some really nice people. Yankees really aren't all that bad. We toured William Seward's house in Albany New York. He was sec of State during the civil war and was responsible for the U.S. buying Alaska - Commonly known then as Seward's Folly. Amazing piece of history in his home. We also saw Harriet Tubman's grave and her home. That was a little sad. As much as little girl's do reports on Harriet Tubman when they are in 3-5th grade, her home is a pretty pathetically preserved place. The museum that goes with it looks like it was collected from all those 3-5th grade reports. I wonder if Oprah is aware of this????? Ate A LOT of good food including ridiculous amounts of ice cream at a little drive in right on the lake. Because of the previous, I ran a lot and on hills. Can I go back now please??????

Ah Vacation

So we are in the middle of our 10 day vacation in Western New York in an area called the Finger Lakes, about ½ an hour from Syracuse. We have a friend who has a house on a lake up here and we decided to go for it and fly up here for vacation. In Houston, it is probably 95-99 with 80% humidity, MISERABLE! I have just about had it with Houston Summers. Here in western New York it is currently 58 degrees with a predicted high of about 75. It almost makes me giddy. On the agenda for this morning…a nice run. I’ll even do hills considering that it is under 80 degrees. Beyond the weather we are having a great time. Very relaxing, absolutely beautiful countryside. Tempting to never come back.