Night shift blahs...and I ramble on...

As I've said before, every day/night before a shift at work I say a prayer mostly for a peaceful and thorough mind (the days/nights can be crazy insane) and to do God's work. But I also, sometimes, sneak in a little request for a quiet day or night if I'm feeling a little low on energy. Sometimes those prayers go unanswered but fortunately not tonight. Tonight I am almost too bored. I actually have a break for like two hours with no meds, no nothing!(plenty of time to blog and watch a show online) and I'm hiding out at a computer at the end of the hall to avoid being roped in to doing something else. I know that is a bad teamwork attitude, but sometimes you just gotta do it. Tonight I have about as much energy as one might after running a marathon and I'm feeling crappy. Alex has been sick and puked twice when I was trying to put her down for a nap, so needless to say, I am without a nappy today as well. Did I mention cleaning up puke is not a fun job (as you may know from your own experiences). Ok, enough about throw up. Gross.
I don't really have much to blog about, just the usual rambling. So hang in there it might get boring or incoherent since I'm very sleepy :) The pic above was a pic I found when I googled "night shift" images. Hmmmm....I don't get it, but it's still cute.

I get to start the weekend plan at work in two weeks! I'm stoked! This plan allows me to go to part-time and still make more than full-time money. Some people might think it's insane to work only weekends, but it works great for the fam and I. We get to spend all week nights together, I get to explore my cooking creativity, I have more time with the girl (she will be out of daycare), I get to be non-stressed more days of the week, Tim and I can still have dates--they just have to be during the week instead of weekend, Al and I can visit fam and have fam visit us during the week (as I will have 5 days off a week!), weekends are usually a bit more calm than week days on my unit and a whole bunch of other reasons. I can not wait! Three cheers!
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On a completely different note I am trying out a vegetarian diet. So far I'm loving it. Of course it's only been about a week but I do not miss meat at all, and I thought I would be craving it like crazy. In fact, after reading and hearing some disgusting stories it is losing it's appeal for me all together. I have not sworn off fish or eggs---yet. Haven't heard enough gross stuff about them---yet. Well, eggs go with chicken, but I still feel ok about eating them every now and then and if they are in things (like bready things, well, lets just say I'll never be vegan). I do love an egg mcmuffin and I'm hoping they will be just as delicious without the ham. Tim, at first, thought I was just buying into the trend, and I guess in a way I did. But with all the info out there about meat and the processes that happen to get that meat on our plates, you can't help but think the trend might not be such a bad idea, much like trying to be more green. I'm not saying I won't eat a filet mingnon (that my pops grills up--thought honestly it doesn't even sound appealing anymore) but I am saying, I am giving it up 99.9% of the time and hopefully 100% eventually--and if I do eat it I will want to know where it came from and what it's injected with. Anyone interested, I have found (thanks to ideas from pals Em and JIll) that MOrning Star has some amazing products that are soy/veggie based that I could swear are still meat and are actually WAy better. Alex doesn't even know the difference in her chick'n nuggets, and infact eats more of the non-chicken nuggets (and believe it or not, they are not that expensive!). I am, of course, not making her a vegetarian but I am being more aware of the meats she does eat, how it's raised, and where it comes from. I didn't realize how easy it actually is to stop eating meat. While the natural meats I buy the girl are more expensive I am able to cut costs elsewhere in my grocery shopping to make up for it. I also discovered I like beans. I thought I hated them, assumed, rather...but I don't. I enjoy them. Still a little weary with first bite, but then they are not so bad...
Another plus is that cutting out meat has made giving up fast food so much easier. Its just not even a want anymore! Amazing! Now, if only I could find something inhame and disgusting about the way sugar was raised...

The strange pic is a recurring type of photo I found when I googled "vegetarian" images. Yuck! I get that we are all culturally unique, but this, my friends, is a little---a LOT---over the top and just plain unnecessary and I'm not sure how it's "vegetarian".

Well, I think I've bored you all enough. Maybe I'll think of something really exciting to post in a few minutes from now. I wouldn't hold your breathe, though. However, I suppose by the time you read this I'll be in bed...unless of course you wild party animals come home and run to my blog after a wild night out at the bars...looking for some good night wisdom...well then, I guess I won't be sleeping in that case...but you are sure to be disappointed to find it's mere ramble ramble blahs.
Good night---here's to hoping for more inspirational or at least more funny blogs in the future.

Finally....at least some of the pictures

Last night, the tantrum that was my daughter had me wondering if we should ever have another child. I've never seen the Bean with quite the tantrum in her two year old life. It was intense. But after a quiet "resty" on mom's lap all was well and she had come back to us. The tantrum was quickly gotten over and now, I am read for another babe...one day.

Here are some pics of the girl when we were practicing our "emotion faces". There is a sad face and of course, the happy face. Her scared face is the best but on this morning I could not get her to do it.

Some vegas pics. I won't bore you with too many. Most are of Tim and I. I was on a mission to get at least one decent picture of the two of us since in ALL our pictures Tim is making a non-serious face, such as the one next to this sentance. Mike got to spend a couple nights with us while we were in vegas and I'm sure he had fun takin pictures of Tim and I all the time! HA! I did get an eye infection (that spread to both eyes) and a sinus infection while we were there (possibly causing the eye issues) but other than that is was a good time!

Again, see the love here? Never a serious moment, I swear!

Here we are trying to be, well, I'm not sure what we were going for here? I just know I really liked Zoltar in the movie Big and thought it was cool they were all over the place so it was only natural to take a picture with Tim infront of it, looking at each other and not the camera...

On a different note entirely, I bought a food processor the other day and am fully in love with it. Not sure why we never had one before. I have made hummus (delicious) and today I made a peanut butter/banana/honey spread that is definately yummy calor-ific treat. I plan on getting most creative soon with fruits for alex as she is my fruit junkie. I am currently trying to get a video to upload on this thing. The whole process has made me feel very computer illiterate and I'm close to giving up.

Okay, that's it. I am quitting. I will have the husband put it on here for me. It is the cutest video ever, at least I think so....

chicago fun times

So, i have a lot of posts that i'd like to post that include many cute pics of the bean (as mentioned in previous post) but i am still having issues getting them on here...problem with the file or something.

Tim and I enjoyed a weekend in chicago for a wedding of our good friends. It was a beautiful wedding and unlike one I've ever been to. Very intimate, very touching, and very unique.

We got to stay with our friends Teague and Jill and had a blast. I was sold quickly about moving to the burbs of chicago. They live in the cutest neighborhood, but I have to remind myself that God wants us here, in G-ford, right now and we are doing good things here. I guess I'm just lonely here and missing my girlfriends. I MUSt make a more serious effort to make friends. I have work friends but they all live too far away to hang out with other than at work, and well, not much hanging out gets to be done at work. Owell. Such is life right now.

Teague and Jill were great host and hostess! they went out and bought us breakfast in the morning and drove us around the whole weekend to wherever we needed to be.
Thanks, guys! It was so so good to get to see them and where they live and to know what their lives are like there. I am vowing to visit more often.

I'm just waiting patiently for Tim and Al to get home from work/school. I made pita pizzas and am waiting to put them in the oven. I hope they are yummy. I know the ingredients were as I tasted each one before i put it on the pizzas.

that's all for now. Sleepy day today. Had class at work and then drove home in tremendous storms, took a quick nappy and now here I sit.
Hope you all had a lovely day! I promise to get those pics up soon!

just a few stories...

ok, these aren't the stories that i was going to post that i mentioned in the post i posted a few minutes ago. I was reminded of these while catching up on Brooke's blog so I thought i'd share a few funny memories of my dear friend Jac :)
Hope you don't mind me sharing these, Jac! but they made me giggle out loud remembering them so i thought they might, at least, make you laugh, too!

Jac and I were inseperable from high school through college so we have a good lot of funny memories. She's notorious for saying the wrong word for something or just not quite getting something as quickly as someone else might [which, hey, who doesn't do that sometimes, right? she's no dummy, just sometimes speaks more quickly than she thinks]

When we were in high school she was talking on the phone to a boy she was starting to date/like etc. He asked her if she liked Brown Sugar [a cd title by d'angelo] which was pretty popular at the time. Any way, I think they were talking about music or something and then he asked her this, "So, you like Brown Sugar?". And Jacque, probably thinking, hmm, that's a strange questions, answered it anyway, "well, it's ok, but i like white sugar more" or something like that. Even as I type this I can't stop laughing! Maybe you have to know Jac for this to be funny but I think even if you don't know her you can apprectiate it and it will remind you of someone else or even of yourself.

Next story happened when we were in college, sitting in our dorm room. I don't remember the context or what exactly we were talking about but it had to do with animals and saving one or adopting one or something else and she said, "Do you think we should take it to the Human shelter?" meaning to say humane society OR animal shelter but instead infused the two together and dropped the 'e' on humane! ha! too funny!

She's also been known to ask me once [in college] if you spell Phoenix with an 'x' or a 'z'. :)
Ok, that's all I got. Hope I didn't embarrass you too much, Jac.

I'm back!

Sorry for nearly vanishing on my blogs (i was getting good there, for awhile!) and on my commenting on other blogs (all two of them :) but Tim and I were out of town for about a week then we were sick and then I was lazy, and now I'm back!

I'm having some technical difficulty getting access to the many pics I wanted to post today and the cutest video ever of the bean and her new toy she earned for poop'n on the pot! So, I will leave you waiting, anxiously, nervously wondering, "will she return? How long will we have to wait this time? what are the pics she's talking about? where did they go for a week? oh the torture!!!"

Hang in there! I will back soon! [after the husband figures out my technical difficulty for me]

Tag, I'm it

Another glorious 'snow day' today on this wonderful May Day! Maybe I will go around and pick my neighbors' flowers and then make them into pretty boquets, wrapped in paper [paper i decorate myself, of course] then leave the wrapped flowers on doorsteps of the very people I stole them from, ring their doorbell and hide in their bushes to see the delight on their face when they see what I've done with their landscaped flowers! Oh, if only I were 7 again!

I watched Juno yesterday and let me say I thoroughly enjoyed every second of it. It was very cute, very touching, and most enjoyable. I didn't think I'd like it because I saw Ellen Page interviewed and she really got on my nerves, but she was awesome in it and I loved everything about the movie! I highly recommend it! It was good to finally see a movie where I didn't want it to end and I sat through the whole thing without multi-tasking through it and thought about it some more! Loved it! My new favorite! I might just watch it again today, in fact!

Here's a tag I got from my sis, short and sweet: enjoy!

5 Things found in my bag--> This one is sorta tricky. I don't really have A bag, instead 3 or four that I will randomly grab on my way out the door [making sure to transfer my debit card to whatever one I choose]. So, I'll go with five things found in every bag
1.) debit card [i know, boring]
2.) lip gloss [it doesn't matter which one or which kind really], I have about 15 different flavors and whatever one is lying around is my lucky companion for the day
3.) reciepts of various kinds [I carry them around forever-- JUST IN CASE!]
4.) dum dum sucker...these are nice to have for a diversion for the Bean, just in case I get stuck somewhere and she is getting antsy
5.) gum [to prevent wretched breathe whilst speaking to others]

5 things I've always wanted to do-->
1.) Swim with the dolphins, hug them, kiss them, befriend them, love them!
2.) Go to Hawaii [not quite as daring and exotic as my sister's answer of visiting Africa, but owell.] It looks absolutely amazing!
3.) Live on the water, it soothes the soul [not right on it, but on the shoreline, or whatever you call it]
4.)Find a hobby that I really really love and can not get enough of and stick with it long enough to be really good at it...i bore easily and usually move on to something new if I have not mastered that new hobby in a matter of days...[nice follow through, right?]
5.) Send my mama and pops on a long vacation to somewhere amazing...they never seem to get to go anywhere and are always sacrificing that type of stuff to help out their kids instead. I think about it a lot, but I'm not sure of where I'd send them...perhaps Ireland or Hawaii [and that way I could come, too]

Five things I'm into now-->
1.) Simplifying what I own and consuming/buying/using less crap!
2.) Giving up fast food AND ice cream for 6 months [just to see if I can do it! the Ice cream one is HARD! I usually eat it once a day or every other day]
3.) TV: Gray's Anatomy, Hell's Kitchen [sick sick show that humiliates large egos...not sure why I like it...I think it's the food component and not so much the shock factor], Brothers and Sisters, The Office, Chimp Eden, John and Kate plus 8, America's next top model reruns on MTV on lazy days, The Situation Room, Colbert Report, The Family Guy, The Hills [though it's getting boring and too scripted and I'm sorta over it], and, of course, Netflix-ing
4.) Cooking
5.)Watermelon, tapioca pudding

People to tag--> Greenbrooke, Kellmiller

a little funny alex girl...

Tim kept Alex up for me until I got home from work. Usually I then just get to do all the bedtime rituals [read time, rock time, tickle-tock time, quiet time, rubby back time---yes, there are that many but we control the time because we use a timer for each part!] Anyway, after the final part I tucked her in and went downstairs to eat my dinner. Usually at night, once she's tucked in we hear a few "Mom!"s or similar things that she forgot to tell us before we left the room, ie--"alex nose huts [hurts]" "rubby belly, mom!" "slippies on, mama!" etc. She says it in such a manner that you might yell down to someone if you forgot something downstairs and wanted them to bring it up to you---very matter of fact. Tonight I heard "Mom!" then a quieter "say it louder" followed by a louder "...MOM!", then another "say it louder" followed by another louder "MOM!" It was really too funny. LIke she had a secret friend in there that she was whispering to to say it louder, or she was encouraging herself to really speak up! She really makes me laugh. If you don't already have children, I recommend one immediately!