Monday, March 08, 2010

Another week gone by… in pictures!

It's Monday again!  And I realize I have not posted in a long time (almost 2 weeks!)  Many reasons exist, from school (two words: Nursing Research) to crazy schedules to extra nannying to grieving the loss of my fiance.  But nevertheless, I thought I'd spice things up a bit and show you what I've been up to this past week.  (Courtesy of the iPhone...)

Last week, we started the week by celebrating Bryce's seventh(!!!) birthday at Applebees.  He and his brother both are practically my size!  I told him I remember the day he was born.  Talk about feeling old.  He was so excited to get lots of outfits and lots of Nintendo DS games.  :)

Tuesday, we went to Ikea.  The closest Ikea is in Pittsburgh, and I usually only go there with Jonathan, but this time I went with my mom and sister.  I bought a Malm 3-drawer dresser to replace my cheapy Wal-Mart 3-drawer piece of junk that is losing the bottoms of 2 of the drawers.  I then assembled the Malm 3-drawer dresser all by myself, complete with screwdrivers, nails, cam locks, and lots of other fun tools and stuff.  I was quite impressed with my efforts, especially after my mom didn't think I could do it.  (And Mom thinks I can do anything!  In fact, yesterday I asked her if she'd be proud if I won the National Juggling Competition - long story, saw it on the news... - and she said, "Well I'm your mom, so of course I would be!  Moms are proud of everything their kids do."  Right, ha!)  I also put together a new chair for my desk since my chair now is the most uncomfortable thing you could ever sit in.  This one is pretty much the same, only more expensive (hopefully better quality!), is a lot comfier, and has a bright pink seat on it!  Fun!

After the break-up, I changed a lot of things in my life.  I started parting my hair on the opposite side of my head, I cleaned out my closet, I started doing things differently... lots of other things I can't think of at the moment.  One of such changes was re-painting my bathroom.  It was a nice almost-lime green (not quite that bright, but pretty and cheery) and I decided to paint it a medium, light-milk-chocolate brown.  The last time I painted anything, it ended up in a disaster, so my mom is paying my unemployed aunt to do it since she is a good painter.  To make a long story short, today will be the 4th day that my bathroom's contents are between my bedroom, the hallway, and my Dad's side of my parents' bathroom.  My bathroom could have easily been sanded, primed, and painted in two days max, but yeah...  Lots of long stories involved here.  Not to mention Haylie's discovery of her Nicorette gum which almost landed us in the emergency vet all night Saturday.  (Apparently, nicotine poisoning is a huge deal with dogs, and seeing that my mischievous girl is a mere 12 lbs...)  Anyways, I am babysitting this morning, but when I get home, I'm hoping I'll be able to move the contents of my bathroom back into my bathroom.  I've been working on finding new wall art for my new bathroom, too.  The last things I had on the wall no longer match, and change is good, so I have been shopping for the perfect signs, photos, plaques, whatever.  I have a few things in mind, so we'll see.

Babysitting has been keeping me very, very busy lately ... my 2 nanny girlies and then my little guy quite a few nights lately (and then this AM at 6!)...

Oh, and not only am I building things (chair, dresser...), but I also successfully moved my broken external hard drive into a new case all by myself.  The Ex was so sweet to "diagnose" the problem and told me what to buy, and using the instructions, I moved my real hard drive out of the broken casing into the new casing.  I snapped things and screwed in the pieces, and the hard drive actually works now!  I'm so proud of myself for that, too.  :)

Just in time for me to get my new Ugg boots, the snow is melting and after a month of record snowfall here in NEOhio, it is supposed to be in the 40's and 50's all week long.  Of course, I'd rather have nice weather than snow, but I'd also like to wear my $180 boots more than twice before the season is over!

Back to last week, I finally went to the LifeBanc training course so I can participate in organ-donation-awareness events.  I have been with them since summer and even was on my way to an event (but had to go home since I was sick... another long story), and I was scheduled to take the course back in November but couldn't due to it being two days before Thanksgiving... so finally, I got it done this week.  It was fun, and I learned a lot.  I'm now "officially" allowed to volunteer when before, I think they were only letting me because of my own personal organ-donation awareness and my heart-wrenching I-need-a-liver personal story.  ;-)  April is Organ Donation Awareness Month, so there will be another post coming soon, I'm sure.

My cousin took today off and is coming over later to hang out.  We're going to see Alice in Wonderland tonight.  Honestly, it looks a little freaky to me.  We'll see...

This week, I start clinicals again - Geriatrics/Rehab - after taking the first half of the semester off (as far as clinical courses go), and Wednesday is our first lecture.  Then we go to 2-day/week lectures and Tuesday clinicals at a nursing home.  Honestly, I'm not looking forward to this rotation, but I wasn't looking forward to obstetric nursing either, and I really ended up enjoying it.  We'll see!

Found this in a magazine, quoting Vera Wang...  Love it.