Smiley-Face Saturday

A picture taken at the foot of my electric drums. I erased the carpet though, in case you were thinking my carpet was this pristine white. Because it's not. Which is why I erased it. Remember to smile today!

Fail

Can anyone explain to me why my font becomes ginormous when I don't want it to and my pictures stay minuscule when I don't want them to?
Computers... the bane of my existence. I know what they SHOULD do, it's just getting them to do it is where the problem lies. I try and be all fancy and only manage to make things worse. I am feeling inept. And now going to bed.

My brother...the engineer

Clay

Sometimes I like to forget that my story is just a small part of God's big story.
I like to think that my story is the ONLY story, and God is just a part in it.
I like to tell the potter He should really shape me in a different way, because the current molding process is no fun and I don't like it.
And it's all about what I like.
And then, when I finally come to my senses, I'm so thankful He does things His way and when my story once again aligns with His big story I can truly become CONTENT.

NPR and Chocolate Chips

I was listening to NPR this evening. Not really because I'm interested in the current happenings of the world, I rely on Yahoo news for that. Seriously, NPR was discussing the recent Hudson river airplane crash (I bet seat belts made a big difference, by the way) and lo and behold it was on the front page of Yahoo news, with pictures and everything. Who says Yahoo isn't a reliable source of news?

So, maybe I wasn't itching for the news, but I was listening mainly for nostalgia's sake. My entire growing up life I remember waking to the "morning edition" music. Da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da! For those of you not familiar with the morning edition music tune, then all of those da's were completely random and useless. If you are familiar then please sing along. I know I did. I also remember listening to morning edition while eating a bowl of oatmeal. Not the pansy kind of cinnamon, spice, sugary oatmeal, but the real deal. The bland, tasteless real deal. Which is why my dad would let us stir in chocolate chips. FIFTEEN to be exact. Really, really exact. My dad was a wise man. He quickly learned children can spot a miscount in chocolate chips very quickly. Vitamins, no. Peas? Hardly! But if one sibling gets even ONE extra chocolate chip the offending parent will very quickly hear about it. So we each got FIFTEEN, our eagle eyes made sure of it.

While waiting for the oatmeal to come to its fruition we would line our chocolate chips like little teardrop soldiers around the edges of our bowls. Of course my brothers would make wailing cries of the fallen as they snipped each chocolate man into the boiling sludge. I wanted to be like my brothers very badly, but somehow my chocolate chips always seemed to make pretty melting chocolate patterns on the top of my oatmeal. Funny how listening to NPR can trigger childhood memories. And now I'm sorta craving some oatmeal. The REAL kind, with exactly FIFTEEN chocolate chips.

Stress

I found this post in my draft file. I think I was waiting to post this a little farther from the actual incident when my sister might be more inclined to think it funny rather than insulting. Hopefully now is the time, because here it is:

I work in a hospital. People die. This is stressful. Two weeks ago, two patients of mine died in two consecutive days. This was stressful.

My sister works in retail. People are rude. This is stressful. Last week, my sister says "I had such a hard day, it was so stressful." I reply, "Did someone die?" For some reason, my sister missed the humor in this.

Time-Space Continuum

I was out shopping yesterday. Stay with me, this is exciting. Or more like, a rare insight into my mind. Which can be exciting. So, I was out shopping. I was looking for a particular game, namely, the Game of Scattergories. (Terrific game, if you've never played it and you're looking for a terrific game to play.)

I stand looking at this massive wall of games. Floor to ceiling, every game ever made, from chutes & ladders to cranium, it's all there in it's glorious game delight. My eye's scroll up, they scroll down, left right. Where is the terrific Game of Scattergories? My mom is always telling me I don't look for things hard enough and can't expect them to just jump out at me. That's mainly when I'm looking for a pair of shoes I've left at their house. And then they're usually found underneath something and I was really only wandering around the house expecting them to jump out at me. I mean, they belong to my feet, so you'd think the shoes would want to be reunited. The whole jumping out thing makes perfect sense to me.

But remembering my mother's advice I crouch low and read each game title. I peer high, looking behind boxes of different games. Finally, finally, I must admit defeat. No games jumping out at me. My eyes aren't detecting anything. I ask for help from the red-shirted worker-helper man. He gets out his cool scanner ray gun.

"According to this, it should be right here." He says, pointing to a space not filled with the terrific Game of Scattergories, while gazing into the digitizing main frame. I'm totally having a Sci-fi moment. And I almost, ALMOST, say in return, "Maybe it's been lost in the time/space rift that is located at precisely this point. So it IS right here, but in a different dimension. Cue Twilight Zone: Doodoodoodoodoodoodoodoo..." but I refrain. No point in scaring the poor salesman. But maybe someday, when I least expect it, it WILL jump out at me from that alternate dimension...along with my missing sock.

Smiley-face Saturday

My baby sister is always helping my mom find hearts for her blog. So I ask her to help me find smiley faces for my blog. It's only fair, right? She grabs my hand and a pen, and before I know it, I have a smiley face for my blog.
Happy Smiley Face Saturday! :)

Fear of Bugs

Often when working in the medical profession one can get a case of hypochondria. I have a headache equals I have a brain tumor. My toe aches equals bone cancer. A sore throat automatically equals strep, and don't even get me started on chest pain. We love to diagnose our friends and family, and they are more than happy to share their aches and pains. It's a win win situation really. But sometimes, if you let it, it can start to fester and grow in your mind. A little bit like an infection. Which is the source of my post, an infection. And the source of the infection was my poor patient's urine. It was diagnosed with VRE. Vancomycin-resistant-enterococci. Say that ten times fast. That's why we in the medical world like to shorten everything into acronyms. Much more convenient. Anyway, VRE is an especially potent little bugger that likes to share it's defences with other bacteria. Kind of it, don't you think? I went to some websites to see the likelihood of someone exposed to VRE becoming a carrier or contracting the disease, like myself. Basically, the only documented cases of VRE have happened in a hospital. If you don't want to get VRE, don't go to a hospital. Well, that's lovely. Another website says to avoid contact with people who have VRE. That's rather a no-brainer, but thanks. Today, being my day off work, I keep thinking I'm feeling ill. I'm warm... do I have a fever? I feel a bit achy. My stomach feels queasy. Am I infected? Or is it all in my head? All this to say I'm a bit paranoid I'm a carrier and if I ever take antibiotics for anything it'll attack me. And one more thing, if you ever shake my hand, you might want to strongly consider washing yours quickly after.

Ice, treachery...doughnuts!

I was driving to church early this morning. There was a beautiful glazed doughnut look to the world as I made my way on the sandy sprinkled road. But it very quickly changed from a pastry world into a dark and treacherous vegetable world. The asphalt roads began to take on an eggplant sheen with no fun sprinkles in sight. Unlike my usual self, I was exercising caution and restraint by going UNDER the speed limit. Cue surprise gasps.

It played out like a horror movie. The oblivious driver, singing to happy-go-lucky tunes on the radio, as ominous music begins play. This is to let you know something ominous is about to happen. And then it did! My car swiveled out of control and hit the snow! Then my car made it's very own snow-car-angel and I was facing the wrong way in a ditch of frozen snow.

Here is where I began thanking God for many things. First, I wasn't dead or injured. Second, I hadn't hit the tree three feet away from me. Third, I wasn't wearing heels or flats or a skirt like I usually wear to church. Fourth, a kindly farmer in his big sturdy truck stopped about two minutes after the horror moment and was able to push me out of the ditch with the help of three teenagers also in a big sturdy truck. In fact, I think I was the only one not in a big sturdy truck who was braving the back roads. This should inform everyone of the intelligence of my decision. But I was soon on my way again and left the eggplant behind me and everything became spun sugar and sweetness again. The End.

Moral of the story: Don't eat eggplants.

Smiley-face Saturday

My mom takes pictures of hearts occurring in life every Thursday. I see smiley faces occurring in life everywhere. I now declare Saturday as smiley face picture day. :) Okay, so maybe it's a one eyed smiley face, but maybe that's because it's eye was poked out in a tragic accident as it saved a little girl from certain death! So don't stare, it's impolite. Poor, brave smiley.

Question

Why do Airplanes have seat belts but Buses don't? Think about it. Please fasten your seat belt as we prepare to plummet to the earth. The seat belt will save you from the impact. Riiiight. But buses, because they own the road, will NEVER get in an accident.

Any other ideas why this discrepancy exists?

Resolution

New Year's resolutions. You know, the ones you make sporadically as you start the ten minute count down: 10-9-I-vow-to-loose-ten-pounds-2-1... happy new year! Or the premeditated list of top ten things you WILL do this year that you had been planning to do last year but only managed to read a third of war and peace and then just gave the whole list up as lost. Speaking of which, LOST, I mean, not new years resolutions, but the show, I vow to not miss an episode this year. So I will actually understand whats going on. Like when they zoom up on a face and a look of significance is exchanged, and if you'd seen the previous episode you would've known why there was a look of significance and then you can scream at the television : "I knew it all along! Whuahhahahahah!"
Back to resolutions. I'm easily distracted. Maybe I vow to become more focused. Or go to bed on time before work. But I'm not doing that right now because of my actual resolution. Which, I almost forgot to do and the new day of the new year isn't even over yet. Sad. So here's to my chances of keeping this one: I vow to blog every single day. Excited, aren't you?