A Post Illustrating the Differences Between my Husband and Me.

What my husband wants:

The 1989 Reebok Pumps. Oh yes. He is that awesome. Please take into consideration that he already has three other pairs of sneakers that are similar to these - weird shoes that were only bought for costume parties at our friend's house in Greenville, SC.

What I want:

A Hamsa necklace to ward off the malocchio and other evil things floating through the air. HEY I work on an ONCOLOGY floor people. There is a shit-ton of crazy stuff floating around there.

Sometimes I wonder how we ended up together... =)

Dani

Owl Calendar

I am making a FREE 2011 Owl Calendar. HOW DO I DO THAT you ask? Just click below! Enjoy loveys - and Happy Thanksgiving!

Well I WAS on a Roll...

And then I got distracted. It happens.

I HAVE been doing a lot of stuff around the house - but in the last month school started back and the weather started to get nice and Labor Day happened and I started my new schedule at work and yesh. So I've been doing stuff, just not blogging about it - which is actually what most of the world does. Hmmm.

Sooooo here are some random what-I've-been-doing-for-the-last-month pictures. More soon. Promise. =)

My Homemade Jewlery Organizer, a la Centsational Girl:


FINALLY a place to put out back door and shed keys...
FINALLY a curtain in the full bath (now I just need to add a blue ribbon border...)
I spray painted the then-black shelves a crisp white! AND we got a great rug at Ikea for $20! (the gray one under the kitchen table)
We FINALLY put all the closet doors back on (after repainting and spraying the handles oil-rubbed bronze), except mine - I requested flowy curtains since I can walk into my closet. ALSO see the Dwell Studio rug in the hall? Target. Clearance. $40. What what!
I modge-podged a curtain scrap onto the light switch, after I repainted the dining room (after caulking ALL of the wood paneling)...

I FINALLY finished my book page wreath - a la Living With Lindsay- and hung it in the family room.
I STARTED painting the brick out in the sunroom - eventually this will be my reading room!
Even M got in on the craft action - he made an Arsenal decal for his car!
Whew. I TOLD you I was busy...

A Bunch of Meh

Dear Ridiculous Manager at Work,
Please don't ever have another pre-shift outside in 95-degree-95%-humidity-weather EVER AGAIN. Next time, I'll give you more than dirty looks. Seriously. WHY???
Love, your seriously disgruntled (and sweaty) employee.

Dear God,
Couldn't you have given us a heads-up about S's grandma? Finding out about the effects of her heart medication by HER DEATH is a kind of shitty way of us finding out. Just saying.
Love, a saddened Dani.

Dear MSON,
Please stop making me do these care map/care plan thingies. I hate them. It is not helpful to bullshit a nursing diagnosis for LAST WEEK'S 9 month-old post AVSD repair patient. Sigh.
Love, a very sleepy nursing student.

Dear In-Laws,
You rock. And your visit rocked. Sorry we are a bit boring - but it was nice to chill with you for a week! Miss you already. =)
Love, your favorite daughter-in-law


A bit of blue skies from Nassau, Bahamas:

A Few More of my Favorite Things

- Gronk, a webcomic by Katie Cook (SO freaking cute)
- Long visits from M's parents (from Cali!)
- New books from the library (I Was Told There'd Be Cake by Sloane Crosley)
- A whole weekend without my job
- Generous housewarming presents from friends and family
- Gift cards from MyPoints.com

Annnnnnnd, my new duvet from Crate and Barrel!!!

For a picture...a view from an aquarium in San Francisco:

Instead of studying...

...I have:

• Gone to Ikea
• Gone to Home Depot
• Caulked the half bath
• Painted the second blue coat in the half bath
• Painted the wainscoting
  
• Spray painted all my frames and the mirror for the full bath
• GEEKED OUT when I saw the newest clips from Eclipse and The Deathly Hallows

And I had some carrots and peanut butter. Will any of that be on the test? Didn't think so.

Love This...

Thanks to La Dolce Vita for the image.

Keepin' it Short and Simple

That was my theme at work tonight. On another note, I have a TON OF SHIT TO DO, so this post shall be VERY SHORT.

I just bought "Hello" on iTunes...the GLEE version. =) I know Cory Monteith is super cute and all, and I know Jonathan Groff's character is all skeezy...but I LAV HIM. sighhhhh. I also bought the GLEE version of "Like a Prayer." Bitchin.

Our friends had their baby and she is the sweetest thing I have EVER SEEN.

Our kitchen cart is DONE AND LOOKS AWESOME (pics to come).

Love y'all, but I gotta go...
(I wish I was here!!)

100 Ways to Get Kicked Out of Augusta National

(aka, Dani went to The Masters on Friday!!!)

So, M and I have a college friend who played in The Masters this past weekend. Graciously, he gave us tickets for Friday. We drove down to Augusta, Ga after work on Thursday and stayed at a friend's house. The next morning we had breakfast and headed over to Augusta National - which was like CHRISTMAS for M (seriously, that morning he woke up at about 7:30 and was rarin' to go). I, on the other hand, know very little about golf and didn't know what I was getting into - I just knew I was supposed to dress preppy.

Well, if you didn't know, Augusta National is the freaking creme a la creme of golf courses, and there are proper RULES to follow when you are a patron there. Like, don't bring in any alcohol or weapons or bags larger than 10" x 4" x 2" or hard chairs. BUT once you DO get in (and park in the free parking...which used to be a neighborhood, but they bought it to be a VERY large pretty parking lot) you can buy beer for about $3 and delicious sandwiches - egg salad, pimento cheese, the chub - for about $1.50. Yesh. These people aren't trying to gauge you...because they have more money than everyone else. They don't NEED your paltry coinage.

Anyway, during the day we kept coming up with ways to get kicked out of the course. It started really early when M wanted to not follow the path from Will Call to the security gates. The friend who drove us there told M that he should go ahead - and that we would tell him all about the day later on when we picked him up from jail. Ha!

Sooooooo here are just a FEW of the ways to get kicked out of Augusta National...

1. Have sex on the pine needles, or up against a pine tree.
2. Touch Tiger
3. Pretend to touch Tiger
4. Steal one of the turtles lounging on the fairway
5. Try to cross a fairway when the ropes are up
6. Skip in line at the golf shop or the concessions stand or the ATM or the bathroom
7. Fake your own press credentials
8. Bring in a toy gun
9. Clap when someone bogeys...or even makes par
10. Scream
11. Climb a tree
12. Try to go into the clubhouse without proper credentials
13. Run
14. Lie down on the ground
15. Steal someones "Masters" portable chair
16. Pick the flowers
17. Hide in the azalea bushes
18. Go swimming in the water hazard
19. Throw something on the green
20. Streak across the fairway

There are many, many, MANY more ways to (possibly) get kicked out, but there are twenty. There are even more ways for the security and other patrons to get really pissed at you (like climb across 10 people to sit in the stands for only one hole...), but I won't get into all that here.

Despite my basic knowledge of golf, it was a REALLY beautiful course and I'm very thankful for the opportunity. Hopefully this can become a tradition!!!

Just Another Tuesday...

Dear Pickles,
Why are you so very delicious?
Love, the girl who has eaten 6 of you in the last 10 minutes

Dear Alabama,
Why are you so ass-backwards? Why are you trying to PADDLE high school students when they don't follow the dress code??? (See here)
Love, a southern girl who's a Yankee at heart

Dear Deacon,
Please stop rolling on your back all cute and then biting me when I pet you.
Love, your mommy

Dear Kate Gosslin,
You can't dance. Go home and be a mom.
Love, a better dancer than you.

Dear wasps,
Please STOP GETTING INTO MY SUNROOM. I HAVE TO DO LAUNDRY.
Love, the entomophobic inside

Umm Slightly Scary

I'm slightly terrified by how similar M looks like Justin Timberlake in the Carry Out video - when he's in that baseball cap and white jacket, it's SCARY.



On another note, I laid out by a POOL today. IN MARCH.

On ONE MORE NOTE, Good luck with the pushin' K!!!

Just a Few Letters...

Dear Cappuccino machine,
Please try and steam the milk, not scald my hand.
Love, the cute burnt waitress

Dear new (and mildly incompetent) server,
Please try and pay attention to what I am telling you - I am not talking just to hear myself talk.
Love, your exasperated trainer

Dear bank teller,
It is not my fault that the restaurant paid me in ones for the last two shifts. You have a bill-counting machine. DEAL WITH IT.
Love, the harried-looking waitress in the wrinkled Ralph Lauren shirt

Dear glorious weather,
Please continue as usual.
Love, the girl stuck inside doing test prep

SuperSweetness

Awesomest news ever – my Adult Health test is now next WEDNESDAY instead of next MONDAY. I’m not quite sure that you can really understand the awesomeness of this schedule change until you know what this week looks like for me…

Monday – class in the morning, work at 5

Tuesday – work at 11

Wednesday – class in the morning

Thursday – OFF (so, studying all freaking day…)

Friday – work all day long

Saturday – work at 5

Sunday – work from 9 to 4ish, then Easter dinner at my aunt’s house

So yesh. I am VERY excited about this widdle schedule change. I need that extra 2 days to study, since this test consistently produces the worst class average. woot woot!

On another note, I had a loverly dream last night that involved going on a date with Robert Pattinson. I’m not quite sure what the date entailed, but it was kinda like he was the same person as one of my college boyfriends, and M was totally OK with the whole thing (since I was asking him for dating advice in the dream…). Anyways. There was no biting-of-the-neck (sadness) and a lot of lusting-general-wanting. I don’t have these types of dreams often, so I wonder what in my subconscious spurred it on. Perhaps it’s the fact that I watched New Moon the other night. Sighhhhh. I love those damn books.

PS – WE GOT OUR KITCHEN CART. The only problem is that I really don’t have time to clean and prime the thing. Maybe I’ll do it on my day off when the weather is supposed to be nice. I can sand and prime and have a loverly time. And THEN I promise to post pictures of my kitchen. Maybe I’ll post the before pictures later tomorrow…

‘Till then, talk to you latah dahlings.

Wishful Thinking

Here are a couple things that I would LOVE to blog about, if I didn't have paperwork for TWO patients staring me down from the living room.

- How I read Traveling With Pomegranates and how it made me want to take a trip with my mom (and how jealous I was that they got to travel internationally SEVERAL times in a few years).

- How I'm now reading Then We Came to the End and can pull MULTIPLE quotes that refer back to the time just before my layoff. Like, "Both were good stories and together they killed a good hour. Some of us loved killing a good hour of the company's time and others felt guilty for it afterward. But whatever your personal feelings on the matter, you still had to account for the hour, so you billed it to a client." So freaking true. So far, the book is scarily accurate.

- I really, really, REALLY want to post another before and after about the house - this time about the KITCHEN which isn't completely finished, but it's PAINTED THANK GOD.

- OOOH and then there is the fact that I got to do a make-up run-through with my friend that's getting married this weekend. I think in another life I was a makeup artist.

However, I will stop blogging and get to work. Only 4 clinical days left this semester!!! Then on to babies and mothers and kids!!! YAAAAAAAY!!!

Cold and Rainy

I am pretty grumpy at the moment. I am exhausted from last weekend (we went to a birthday party), I'm still dealing with the fact that my grandfather just died, I have to return money to work when I go to work tonight (apparently they gave me too much tip-out last Friday), paying back school loans, and it's cold and gross outside.

To help with this funk, I'm making a list of things for which I'm thankful:
- friends and family
- our cat
- space heaters
- understanding professors
- LUSH products
- our new alarm system
- bagel bites

That is a very tiny list - but they are the first things that come to mind. So there.

New Moon...

Was AWESOME. But I am still concerned that Stephanie Meyer may have put mental crack into that series ... my friend S looked at me after the movie and said to my mom, " See what this series does to a grown-ass woman? Now imagine the effect it has on my students, who are 10 years younger with no real relationship to compare it to! It sets them up for disappointment."

She has a point.

BUT I think my friend E ALSO had a point by saying - "Well, they would feel the same way about Mr. Darcy if they had read Pride and Prejudice. True dat E, true DAT. I love me some Mr. Darcy... that letter to Elizabeth is sooooo good. =)

Back to studying!!

I also <3 Gingerbread Cookies...

...but they are a pain in the ass to make. Something about having to buy molasses, I think.

ANYWAY I am SAVED this year - Pilsbury has come out with refrigerated gingerbread cookie dough. SEE? Easy Gingerbread Friends

We made gingersnaps tonight (read: cookie dough rolled into balls and rolled around in sugar - YUM) and OMG so good with milk. Sigh.

I heart the holidays...

I <3 Pop Culture

I love literature, and books in general ...but I also love pop culture. I am obsessed with PerezHilton.com, and I CANNOT WAIT UNTIL FEBRUARY for the last season of LOST. (Will Jacob be back? Will we figure out the smoke monster? How will Juliet be involved? SO. EXCITING.)

Whew.

Anyways, I am ALSO counting down to the New Moon movie. YES I know it is actually playing at midnight tonight, but I have a clinical simulation tomorrow and I can't GO. (and it's sold out...) BUT I'm going on Sunday afternoon with my bestest friend, her roommate, our other friend, my mom (who currently has a "Robert Pattinson as Edward" screen saver) and my co-worker. I can't wait to sit in the dark for hours and lose myself, regressing to my teenage years. Happiness. =)

ALSO I am currently obsessed with Lady Gaga's new song and video - Bad Romance.




She is freaking awesome. And so are those clothes. And makeup. Sheesh.

That's all. I just wanted to geek out on ya for a sec. OH my friend Shannon started a blog - http://shannonedgerton.wordpress.com/ - she is amazingly talented (I need to get her to design a layout for me) in all things creative. Check her out!

I WANT THAT FAUCET!

Just a quickie- 'cause I am supposed to be studying...

One Project Closer is doing a BITCHIN' giveaway... and I want to win!

Check out the nifty faucets they are giving away, but DON'T ENTER UNLESS YOU WANT TO WIN AND GIVE THE FAUCET TO MEEEEEE!

-Love, a crazy tired-of-studying Dani

Luuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuucy, You Got Some SPLAININ' TO DO!

So. Every once in a a while I stop blogging for a bit. This is usually because I get to cracked-out-busy, but sometimes it's because I'm WAY down in the dumps, and I don't want the family members and dear friends who read this blog to think that I'm clinically depressed. Cause I'm NOT, I'm just sad or overwhelmed or emotional or frantic or just feeling nutty.

So with THAT in mind, oh-relatives/friends-of-mine, here we go.

Last weekend M and I went to ALABAMA (in that GREENBOW, ALABAMA voice, thanks to M) for a wedding. It was M's freshman roommate who was getting married - his freshman roommate who could not be MORE unlike M, the freshman roommate who ran track with M, is a surgeon at the May clinic, has dressed up as a vagina AND Borat (in the mankini) for Halloween - and who seemed to find his perfect match. How do I KNOW that she is his missing twin?? M failed to return his tux measurements OR the rehearsal dinner reply card on time (no surprise there, I swear that boy would forget to bring his head along with him if it wasn't attached), and the lovely bride-to-be told him that the consequences would be thus: he would be eating a shit sandwich for dinner, complements of the bride, groom and the strip bar down the street's 24-hour buffet, AND would be wearing a saran-wrap tux of the bride's design.

I knew I was going to like this woman.

BUT the point still stood that we had to drive EIGHT hours on Friday to get there (starting fairly early due to the fact that we had to be there early to pick up the saran-wrap tuxedo) and then it would be another EIGHT hours to get home on Sunday. Probably a hung-over EIGHT hours too. Sigh.

Sooooooooo we weren't that excited to go. But we promised (AND we had a hotel room reserved - Embassy Suites bitches!), and so we went. And you know what? The drive there wasn't bad. We met up with M's friend for lunch on Friday in HOT-lanta, and then kept on truckin' it to ALABAMA. However, a curious thing happened close to our destination - our cell phones and car clock didn't share the same time. Naturally, we thought our phones had gone wack-o cause they suck n general, but it wasn't the case. We were SO CONFUSED that I called my dad at WORK to ask him if he could oh so kindly look up the US time zones. ... Yeah. We actually crossed a time zone. This wasn't such a big deal for M (he's driven across the country like 7 times), but for ME it was huge. HUGE. AND CONFUSING.

for-We figured THAT out and then saw a rocket. Yes, a rocket! We did not know this, but Huntsville, ALABAMA is home to friggin' Space Camp. Like SPACE CAMP - the camp I have wanted to visit since I watched Lea Thompson and Tate Donovan and Kelly Preston and Joaquin Phoenix get launched into space by that crazy robot Jinx ("Jinx and Max ... Friiiiieeeeeeennnnndsssseeeeeeevvvveeerrrrr" - if you do not know what I am talking about, PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD AND ALL THINGS HOLY rent Space Camp.).

The weekend was looking up. WAY UP.

To make a long story much much shorter - here was our weekend:
- ALABAMA (at least the north) is pretty! Who knew?!
- The rehearsal dinner was SUPER yummy and toasts were wonderful
- Our hotel room rocked
- Space Camp (OK, the US Space and Rocket Center) was bitchin'
- Wedding was FREEZING (outside reception) but really sweet
- The drive home felt like it took 10 more hours that it did to get there

Whew.

After all that activity and driving and funness, my hard drive crashed when we got home. Sigh. It's currently residing with the Geek Squad at Best Buy and I HOPE they can retrieve all my data and music and pictures and happiness because I'm an IDIOT and didn't back up my computer in the last month.

MEH.

K. Winding up. SO back to all that sadness crap. I think it was a combo of my computer dying, being faced with another week of studying (test next Wednesday) and not being able to SEE my bank account (we had to get 4 new tires on M's car so we wouldn't DIE on our way to ALABAMA) caused me to be really upset. That and M bought a pack of doughnuts. M, if you're reading this - I'M JOKING!

So yes. But I went to the library today. And I'm roasting a chicken. So I feel better. AND I might get to see my mom and a few aunts this weekend. Life is good. Sometimes it takes me writing a WHOLE bunch of shit down to get to that point, but I'm there now.