My left-hand man/study buddy. He's imparting brain waves toward me to help me learn about the lymphatic system.

scatterbrained

Take 3...

I attempted to write a post yesterday but my Internet connection kept failing so I can only hope it'll go more smoothly today. If more days go by without me posting I may not know where to begin, not that I do now.

From Take 2:
It's really very frustrating to write out nearly a whole post, Blogger says it's saving it, and then you try and post pictures onto it when you develop problems doing so. You sign out and sign back in only to discover the lengthy post was not even saved!!!!

Rather than trying to go into the recesses of my brain to drag out a similar post I will now just give the highlights.

I've been pretty busy this past week. The week ended at midnight, Friday night, after I'd sat through a total of 51 innings of baseball for the five-day span between Monday and Friday. The majority of them were spent watching LB and his high school JV team. Monday he played up to Varsity, and we were fortunate to see them win their, what I believe was, last win of the regular season.

Back to Take 3:
Tuesday the JV team played one game and walked away winners. We had double-headers, both nights, Wednesday and Thursday. Wednesday they played the area rival high school and were smashed 15-0 in the first game. They didn't let it phase them, came back and opened up a can of whoop ass for the second game, with an 8-2 win. Thursday they rocked all night long. I have to laugh at what one of the other moms told me about the Wednesday night DH. That night us parents, minus Big B as he was out-of-town until Friday, had tons of fun. We were loud. No, let me rephrase that...we were downright rowdy, but not the kind of rowdy you might see on the news concerning sports parents. We just had a good time. Apparently the catcher on the opposing team told my friend's son that we were so loud we sounded like a big, Greek family. It's the stuff memories are made of. It was great to see the guys finish off their season with some wins. They should be proud. I took photos throughout the season and have forwarded copies to the other parents via email.

With the upcoming Varsity tournament scheduled LB was notified he had to go to practice Friday afternoon. No biggie, except we'd bought 4 tickets to the Phillies/Nationals game for Friday night. If you learn nothing else in the military, you learn to adapt and overcome...so Big B and I made it a date night! We were able to sell off the other two tickets after arriving at the stadium.




Saturday was a big day in our house as I walked at my university commencement. I'd made the trip to MD earlier in the day on Thursday to pick up my cap and gown, so along with that trip, Friday's game in DC and my graduation Saturday I've spent more than enough time in the DC/MD/VA area! If you don't live in the area or have never been here, please understand, after living in the country for about 8 years, between my current residence and Italy, it's very frustrating being consumed in traffic and congested areas.

Yesterday, my online Anatomy and Physiology 2 class started. As is par for my course, every semester I have to have mild feelings of anxiety up until I get the swing of the schedule and workload. My other two online classes don't start until Friday, so it'll take a bit longer to adjust than normal but by next Friday I should be golden.


Last night Big B, AW and I headed out for the last high school baseball game of the year. Tournaments started, and our team fell after round one. They lost 2-1. Next week starts the American Legion season with try-outs and practices. So today through then we have a bit of a break.

Today I finally went and had a CT scan done of my neck, to try and find out what is causing me to have the lump in my throat feeling I've been having, going on two months. I don't know what to expect. Part of me hopes they see something, because then we can go from there to fix it. Otherwise I don't know what'll happen.

As much as I hate to say this, I better get back to the books. The A&P class promises to be incredibly interesting. We do our lab by CD-Rom. It's truly facinating! As the CD-ROm says, "An interactive cadaver dissection experience". It's not the real thing, but pretty darn close and no smelling any formaldehyde!! There is a lot of reading, but after nursing classes it should be a breeze!

reading for pleasure

No! It can't be! Shouldn't I be reading about ABGs or pharmacokinetics. Nope! Hole's Anatomy and Physiology? Not quite yet.

Right now I'm reading More than Fiends. I don't exactly remember where I picked it up, but it was on my bookshelf and it's the book of the day. So it's not War and Peace or To Kill A Mockingbird. I'm far from being a book snob who can only read classics. I enjoy a good classic as much as anyone, but I also enjoy chick lit! It's easy and fun, not to mention typically more contemporary.

More than Fiends is a great read to fill my current reading for pleasure needs. It's raw, sarcastic and keeps me laughing. It's written in first person and is almost a sort of dialogue between the main character, Cassidy Burke, and the reader.

Serious reading will soon commence. I received an email from my A&P 2 professor and she's advised us to begin reading. Classes start May 18-22. I'm attending two schools online. Besides A&P 2, I'm taking Nutrition and Diet Therapy (I personally know my professor for this class as she's one of the instructors in my nursing program), and Developmental Psych-since I haven't taken it yet, even if my degree is in Psych! Go figure. The latter two courses are being taken through my home community college, and A&P 2 is from a nearby CC.

For right now I'm sticking with easy, entertaining reads!

rock and roll

Before


Phase 1, Backyard Landscaping, Complete





This past weekend, amidst the low-key celebration of my role as mother, I laid pavers. Big B had dug up the wanna-be sod from the area, and then LB, his friend, ZA, and I took turns digging up enough of the remaining soil to even out the area. I then laid the pavers, planted the shrubs, and mulched. Yesterday morning I woke up feeling as if I'd aged 100 years, while also having been run over by a large automobile. I wasn't quite 100% pleased with how it turned out after all the work on Saturday, so yesterday Big B and I laid the edging. We recycled some old edging from the previous owner's landscape attempts. It's just been sitting, stacked up, at the side of our house since I took it up a few years ago. It's actually set in upside down as it is the scalloped sort of edging. I think we did a pretty good job, especially considering our extremely limited hardscape abilities.






The next phase involves using retaining wall blocks to edge off the semi-circle spaces on either side of the patio and the back of the house. At the back of the house it will come out and go around in a curve to the end of the house, forming a garden plot.

To be continued...

sangria y mis amigos

One thing's for sure, I can no longer drink red wine, even if it's just Sangria. Red wine gives me headaches. It's like suffering from a hangover the same night you've been drinking. I had three. They weren't large glasses either. Still I ended up with a same-night hangover by about 8:45 p.m. Guess it'll just be white wine or the hard stuff if I want to enjoy an alcoholic beverage from now on.

There only ended up being 10 of us who showed up. MB brought his wife. We all had a great time rehashing some of the things that irritated us. It's pretty much a consensus, we have one classmate and one instructor that we all find troublesome. As I've taken up saying lately, they're all speed bumps to RN! In the top picture you might notice there are only 8 of us. MB's wife was gracious enough to play photographer, and one of our classmates left before we started the photo shoot. I really wish we'd have started before as I love the classmate who left to death! She was my "roommate". In other words she took care of the resident with whom my resident roomed with at the LTC facility. All in all it ended up being an enjoyable evening and I look forward to getting together over the summer.

This Mother's Day
I don't think being a mother means only the woman who has given birth. Many women are physically unable to bare children. Many choose not to have children. Is this to say they have no maternal instinct? Hardly not.

To all the women out there who know what it feels like to give your heart and soul unconditionally, may you have a blessed day today, and everyday. May those you hold close cherish you always.

fun, fun friday

Just came in from working outside. I wanted to amend the soil in my flower pots so I dumped the contents of each into my wheelbarrow, along with a humus/manure mixture, and got to mixing. I planted some crimson colored Morning Glory seeds and some purple Petunia seeds. We'll see how well they do. That's one area of gardening I haven't mastered, but it usually has to do with the whole instant gratification thing. We don't have anywhere in our house to start seeds indoors, so that leaves it to be done straight outside.



I had to replace some cacti I had planted, last year, as they died over the winter.






Here you can see the lovely Dwarf Maple that is the focal point of this part of the garden.








The demise of my Rosemary bush left a large open space, now filled with Lavendar, Salvia, and a few other plants. More pictures to come as the gardens fill up and different flowers bloom.







Some of the more established plants coming up. We've had buckets upon buckets of rain here lately and all the vegetation is thriving wildly. Centered in the foreground you may see one of my Azalea bushes, trying hard to come back from last year when I added too much fertilizer. Brown thumb moments happen to me just like blonde moments do!






The slender, conical evergreen in the bottom right of the photo needs to be pruned. It's supposed to have a spiral shape. This intimidates me. Eventually I will get my pruners out and give it the old college try!





Speaking of college, tonight I'm headed out to celebrate with some of my classmates. We're convening at a local Mexican restaurant. It seems to be a popular place around here, and it is pretty good. After living in Texas and Colorado a good bit of my life it pales in comparison to some of the Mexican food I've had in the past. That being said I'm not really going for the food, I'm going for the company and some drinks. Many of us have gone to lunch together, amidst classes, but we've never, as a large group hit the town. Now that our first year is over we have some celebrating to do! Somehow I think I'll be able to write another post after tonight's events! There will be about 12 of my classmates who are women, and the one guy in the class is coming. He's bringing his wife. I can't say as if I blame him!! Can you imagine if he was out, solo amongst us women, and friends of his saw him!?

Until later!

Cheers!

early mudder's day surprise

This came for me yesterday....remember a few posts ago when I admitted to my oopsy, after confronting Big B about a Proflowers.com entry on our bank accunt??? Voila!!! Ain't it sweet!?

sunshine, bloom and purr

from my gardens





jasper, my garden helper

couldn't have planned it better!

Today is Nurses Day, the beginning of Nurses Week. Every year Nurses Week starts on the 6th of May and ends on the 12th of May, Florence Nightingale's birthday. Today is my first official day as a Second Year nursing student. It's just coincindental that it fell on Nurses Day, but it feels very appropriate. Other than that, a follow-up with my FNP and a pedicure the day's been pretty uneventful. Exhaustion has caught up with me, and left me with little motivation to do much else today. I did weed through the basket we keep in our office where mail and other paperwork piles up. Most of the paper in it went straight into the recycle pile that will be taken to the local high school to support their recycling efforts.

The drippy, drizzly, grayness of the outside world left little to be desired other than curling up on the couch catching up on TV shows we DVRed. A nap soon followed. We were supposed to have LB's double header this afternoon, but once again Mother Nature thwarted the game schedule. Next week we'll have so many baseball games to go to, to play catch up, that we'll be at some field, somewhere nearly every afternoon/evening. For the love of the game....and the family ball player...

I did witness another very weird occurence today as I was leaving the town I live in to take the highway north. I followed a pick-up truck pulling a trailer, and in front of him was a van/truck kind of thing that was piled high with all sorts of crap. Seriously, the crap was piled on the roof of the vehicle. Along with the crap was a dog kennel. It wasn't empty. Inside a frantic German Shepherd twisted and turned, probably in fear of plummeting to serious injury, if not death.

We all ended up at a stop sign and waited for a clump of traffic to pass. Wouldn't you know a police officer rolls up behind me. We're sitting there waiting and the car that was in front of the van/truck thing pulled out and entered traffic, leaving us to sit and wait. Then the guy in the van/truck thing, still sitting where he was puts it into park, gets out and walks back to talk to the guy pulling the trailer, in front of me. Um, hello. We have things to do here!!! He gets back in and it's about that same time I think to take a picture of the horrifying spectacle of the dog, in the kennel, on the roof of the van/truck thing. Once he got going he was out of there, and my small window of opportunity sped by quicker than the flash of a camera. Bummer.

We all get to pull out by this time though. I pull out using my turn signal into the close lane, as I'm supposed to, especially when a police officer is tailing you. I signal and get into the left lane. Mr. Policeman speeds by me and turns onto the same road to follow the weirdos driving the van/truck thing, and the truck pulling the trailer. If I wasn't pressed for time I probably would have followed to see if he was in fact going after them. Alas, I had to get to town and sit for my pedi, which actually made me a wee bit late for my appointment. Thank goodness for 15 minutes of free time before being declared late! As it was I had to have the girl give me the speedy version of a pedicure.