Looks like Vegas may not be where I wake up tomorrow
Not for $2000 per person. Just for the airplane. How can that even be the right price?!?
Anyway…In my vodka haze I must have misread the channel guide. 2½ Men was done at 7 pm. But hey! Role Models! And I’m recording Turistas. I think I remember hearing that it was scary, so that should be good in a few hours after more of the vodka soaks in.
For now, here’s a picture of my Pocket Poker game. I have been playing it non-stop throughout my school year but never with the big wins like I had last summer. Well guess what?
That’s right. I hit the Royal Flush. Again. It’s not quite as satisfying since I was at, like, ZERO points, but I still got 5000 for it! Now I’m trying to hit it again to beat my all time high score. What? Did you say you needed a picture to remind you of what that was? Great! I have one!
That’s 7130. Seems like it wouldn’t be that hard right? But it is. And so addicting to someone like me with OCD tendencies. It’s prob good we aren’t going to Vegas after all. Having credit cards with no balance and a high limit is just too easy. But, oh man, the sun, the pool, the casino’s…I love playing poker all night and laying by the pool all day. With drinks. In that hot, desert sun and those cool air conditioned hotels. Torture. I need to stop. The drinks are totally kicking in and I would pay any amount and hop on a plane right now, with those awesome airline mini-alcohol bottles, flight in the night, with the lights of Las Vegas shining in the distance as we approach McCarran International ….man I could be in Vegas in 5 hours! License first. Vacation later.
Have a great night wherever you are!
Now why does this seem so familiar?
Another long weekend is upon us. Memorial Day! (Take a vodka soaked minute to honor and think about all our soldiers please, past and present, and currently serving to protect our right to drink too much and act stupid all weekend. Thank you.)
Anyway…long weekend, kids are gone (camping with their dad), no school, nothing to study, it’s getting dark, kind of cool outside, the BF is trying to find us a cheap flight to Vegas, we’re watching 2½ Men on TV, drinking martini’s and playing my favorite game–we drink when Charlie drinks–, and I’m posting about it!
It’s like the best kind of déjà vu! Here’s the difference:
Swords! For the olives. They add a fun touch and they were the only kind of sticks available at the store. Rainbow colored!
Also, we are watching 2½ Men on TV, but….
We do own the last season on DVD. We watched it already though. Three discs. Three straight nights in a row. I probably shouldn’t let the kids watch it, but most of the jokes go right over the heads and my son looks just like Jake…really, and they think it’s pretty funny for what they do get. So I have a soft spot for the show. But I don’t want to get off the subject or start over thinking about my kids because then I’ll miss them and that really kills the buzz. But anyway, luckily, FX Network is playing the show tonight until 8 pm, so I can be pretty blotto-ed by then! (They’re also running a marathon on Monday, but sitting around all day watching that would be lame right…?)
Alright, well it seems that my glass is empty and this episode is almost over so I gotta go make another one and get ready for the next hour. Later.
So I guess it’s winter again
This weather is very confusing. It was tornadic, (It’s a word. I’m sure I saw it somewhere else in a descriptive forecast on a reputable organizations site) yesterday. Literally. We did have one touch here in Illinois. And then another in Indiana nearby. The stories from southwest of here just keep getting worse. Luckily, the area I live in gets kind of side swiped by bad weather. We are rarely the target of a direct hit, but we do get the residual stuff like high winds and debris. If you have been reading this blog for any time, you know that I am constantly having trees fall on my house. It’s really annoying. And since it’s almost the end of May, it’s overdue. NOT that I am jinxing my spring luck so far. Please please please every tree stay where you are. I won’t complain about anything because I do get do sit here in my house and post stupid things for everyone to read. And believe me I have some really stupid stuff I am about to launch into. But, for the moment, our weather. Re-capped exclusively for you! The 24 hour + loop!
8 am. Tornadic. (Like that? Used it twice!) Dark, straight rain, kind of heavy. 12 pm. Sunny and warming up. 1 pm. Rainy again but still warming up. 3pm. Sunny and really warm. Humid. Like summer. 5pm. Aww, getting colder, windier. 8 pm Lightning, thunder. Temp dropped. Rain starting to fall, but light and steady. All night long. 8 am. Rain. And brisk temp. 11am Still raining, but windy, blustery they say, like winter, about 46 degrees or so. 2 pm. Same rain/wind mix that can’t decide what it wants to do. Stop, or knock one of my limbs down. (I should prob go look outside really quick, it always happens when I don’t check every other minute). 2:30 pm. I would not be surprised if I saw ice pieces or snow flakes.
And that’s my hour by hour, updated, description. Real groundbreaking, gripping journalism there huh? Maybe I should delete that whole last paragraph? This may be why these posts get really long. What I meant to say was, “We do run the rail here concerning our weather. Goes up and down. And it’s annoying” (I’m just going to continue writing now).
Of course it doesn’t compare to having my house flattened by a tornado proper and having my children swept away. That really sucks. One day I hope to be part of a team that travels to natural disasters to help as needed. That’s a future goal. At the moment I have nothing useful to offer, except this ridiculous website. I still need my license, for one thing. And a bit more experience than “NONE”. Anyway, get involved if you can, however you can. The name of the state has a link to info that you can use: Alabama, Missouri, Oklahoma.
Kids are on the way home so I am going to take a break and let that post sit for a bit. Then, I promise, all the stupid you can handle!
Oh wait, I almost forgot the reason I started talking about the weather to begin with: Tom Skilling! He’s our Chicago weather guy for WGN, TV 9, like, all day. He’s kind of popular and funny, but weird and strange at the same time. They give him like 20 minutes of the news to talk about all kinds of weather and related things. He really loves his job. You can tell. Anyway, I was reading his weather forecast for today and I thought it was worded in such a way that it would be a pity not to share it with more people. (Well that’s kind of dumb I guess, seeing as how it was on the actual WGN site and prob got read by thousands, but hey, an extra 3 or 4 people can’t hurt). I copied and pasted it, directly from WGN TV’s, Chicago Weather Center:
Tom Skilling’s 7-day forecast:
“March-level chill with potentially record- breaking cool daytime temperatures close to 30 degrees below normal! Wind-driven light rain from a thick overcast. Blustery, chilly and raw. Rain becomes more sporadic in time, diminishing to passing sprinkles or drizzle this afternoon and evening. Powerful NE winds 16 to 28 mph, 35-40 mph gusts. Daytime highs likely to hold below the record low max temp for May 26 of 48-degrees set in 1961. Cloudy and sprinkly through evening.”
That’s word-for-word with all his punctuation and terms. The part I think is funny is how many different ways he comes up with to say the same thing. I LOVE it! Chill, cool, wind-driven, thick, overcast, blustery, raw, sprinkles, drizzles, cloudy, powerful. My favorite though is right at the end and the sole reason for all of my, long, drawn-out, round-about words and paragraphs above:
“Sprinkly”. “Cloudy and sprinkly”.
Come on now. Say it out loud:
“Sprinkly”.
THAT is entertainment! (And that is really taking the long way to one lame-ass, let-down of a destination) You are welcome.
I guess we’re next
Tornado’s just rolling across America. Here in the midwest we are waiting. I live in Chicago and I can tell you that it’s raining now. We are under watch until 1 pm central time. It’s dark, it’s raining pretty steady and I have no TV. The satellite has been lost. Obviously I have internet, but that usually blinks out too.
The rain is not coming down really hard so I may be ok for awhile. The kids are at school. It’s pretty safe there. I had to remind them that tornado sirens mean you stay IN the building and cover your head. Fire drills are the one you run outside for! Makes a big difference! That’s kind of a running joke we have because when they were little, the daycare used to do drills with the kids. It was to help them learn the different emergencies and sirens and what to do. On one particular test day, the FIRE drill went off and almost all the kids ran into the safety room and kneeled against the wall covering their heads. Except my son, who was trying to get people/kids to run OUT of the building, knowing it was a fire drill, not a tornado. Needless to say many children perished in this fake fire, except my son and daughter and a few others.
ALERT: just in case this is not absolutely clear…this was a fire drill. No actual fire occurred. No children were hurt or ever in danger of being hurt. It was only a practice drill!!
The teacher praised him for being so smart and not falling for the doubt, that most likely crossed his mind, thinking he might have been wrong. Especially since most of the kids refused to leave with him. Anyway, I was proud that day. He knew what the situation was, he tried to help the others, and he didn’t back down from what he knew to be true. My little hero! That was a long time ago and it’s funny to remember, because I haven’t thought about it in a long time.
Anyway, I will try and get some pics. Everybody loves to run outside in tornado weather and take pictures! Apparently I am no different! But I am ready, just in case. All showered, dressed, house contained and prepped if I have to hide in the closet or get the hell out of here. Luckily my son just bought a bunch of flashlights and lanterns for camping this weekend, but they will come in handy if we lose power later. I have enough coffee for the morning and a way to heat it if needed. Priorities.
I’ll be taking a break from the school stuff for a few days, at least one or two, because I am a bit burnt out. Those two days of extra classes didn’t make me feel better. I thought I had a pretty good grasp on what I know, but when I left yesterday, I felt less than confident, especially when I started getting some of the answers wrong. Without a bunch of boring, endless details, let’s just say there is a method that this class teaches and I am not really good at method learning. But I am withholding judgement, because this just may not have been the best week to jump right back in. And I did pay for it. Voluntarily. And they say it does help. I think I just need some time between classes over and new classes starting. More than three days. So we shall see.
Ok it’s quiet again here and the TV is back. Still under tornado warning. Still 1 pm. I hear birds! Crazy birds out there chirping all around, hopping in that wet grass and drinking up those puddles of water. Now is a good time to go survey the yard and take out some garbage. Be back later.
One more picture because I knew it was here somewhere
And I just LOVE to waste time when I should be studying. Seriously. Two stinking tests left! Focus!! But since the picture is here and I am already typing….
After all that talking in the long post I wrote the other day, I actually DID go out and ride this here motorcycle. I was a little worried because it is bigger (and heavier) than the one I “trained” on, but, no fear! It was fine. Felt good. Felt even better because this bike is newer and all the parts and signals and gears work exactly the way they are supposed to! Anyway…that’s all about that for now. I prob won’t talk about it anymore unless I fall off…so let’s hope it NEVER comes up again!
As for my tests…Lab Test was alright. Didn’t get enough points to raise my grade, but didn’t miss any to lower it either. Renal Test was 100%. Grade stays the same. Final is Monday. This is where I can win it or lose it. Again. Unbelievable. I want that A pretty bad, and I am not the only one this time. I think there may be several of us going for it. Pressure!! Big finish!! Then we have an exit exam that has to be passed. Final is important but that only gets you half a chance to graduate. Anyway…enough. Sorry A, I am bringing one of my books this weekend…just some review over birthday cake and vodka!! It’s almost over and the dream gets closer….
Going for my daily dose of B/P control and then to the books! Maybe more later…I have SO many pics and so many things to catch up on! I know everyone can hardly wait! Haha. See ya later!
Ummm, I should probably be studying
But it’s soooo nice outside! And I really want to go ride the motorcycle! But, I am afraid to go out by myself. It’s probably the best time to get on and get used to it, but I feel kind of stupid practicing on the street. And if I fall off or something happens then I am really in trouble. I guess I’ll just have to wait until the weekend.
Let’s see…I have also wasted most of the morning doing things like paying bills and cleaning laundry. Yay.
And…I did some self-care maintenance that my sister may not like too much….I colored my own hair! With a box product! And then I cut it! I am so sorry A, but I had too!! I was feeling so old and gray, and even though I am an almost pretty, cool chick, my hair gave me away at the hospital yesterday. Usually people are really kind and humor me when they claim they can’t guess how old I am. They never think I am my real age, but not yesterday. This woman—who was very, very, nice and not unkind at all—just asked me what I have been doing all this time between nursing and whatever the hell else I must have been doing…”since you aren’t as young as some of these other ones around here” Man. Totally busted as the old lady on the floor! So I told her the basic truth about all of us old folks—second career. Total flip on the job we started doing as the ‘yutes” we were (that was for you A, remember at the arboretum—yutes—hahahaha–we still think that’s pretty funny), to the job I’m going to end up doing for the rest of my life. Wish I had started out here, but timing and circumstance just wouldn’t have it that way…but it’s all good now. Anyway. She was a great lady and I had a great day. Which leads me to my next bit of happy….
Last clinical as a student! And I had the best day! (Second only to my ER clinical….you never forget your first love)…anyway…I could go on and on and I know that no one except me likes to hear about it so I will just say that I had 2 of the best nurses for my last 2 days, who taught me more than I could have hoped for this late in the game. I got to do all my skills and even some new ones. Excellent hospital, excellent clients, excellent nurses and staff that were kinder than they needed to be. Even though they will never see this or know it’s about them, I am forever grateful to have my last days of “hand holding” be held by them. Thank you.
So before we get all mushy here…let’s get back to my hair. I colored it and I was skeptical. And afraid. I could hear my sisters voice inside my head telling me how sorry I was going to be. But it turned out really good. Like, really good. A nice color. Not brassy. Not fake looking. I had picked the color closest to my actual hair, because all I wanted was to cover those pesky grays. And it worked! It’s really natural looking. Did a pretty good job on those gray ones too! And of course, I cut it most of the time myself any way. I limit it to my bangs because they grow in my eyes and I start looking a little nerd-sweaty when they part in the middle…not a good look. But I have to say my hair looks like I just left a salon. I know you won’t believe me sister, so I took pictures. Quite nice. And good enough for now until I can get out to see you after school is over!
And my hair must just look so good, because I went to go get myself lunch (Jimmy John’s—I am kind of having a serious problem with that place lately—it’s like every other day now–but so good) But not the point. The point is, TWO, yes, TWO guys, on their own, and separately, were giving me the eyeballs and trying to hit on me! Ha. This hair is so powerful! Is “hit on me” even a phrase still used these days?? I don’t think it’s happened to me in a while…but it did today! We don’t need the details…just the fact that it’s still a possibility is soothing enough. Glad I shaved today too! That kind of inner confidence really makes the men take notice! I feel like I should go buy new underwear or something! HA!
And don’t worry sister or anyone else, I already told the BF. No need to get crazy. I just got talked up, no biggie, but in the end I just took my stuff and left. I know better then to mess up a good thing! And to the BF: You’re the only one for me! XO
Ok that’s it. Kids will start trickling home so I better get back to the books—so it looks like I was actually doing something constructive.
And as a side note—the weather is turning a bit overcast here now, so I guess I don’t have to worry about riding that motorcycle after all. Excuses excuses!
Lab Final is up next. Then the Renal Test. I will post if I can. Later.
Thank you 2 dimes on the ground!
As stupid as that seems. And as stupid as it is that an entire MONTH has gone by, again, and I can’t find time to come here and bore all you faithful fans with my one track life!
So here is some more about school, in case you were wondering and worried!
We had our first cardiac test yesterday at school. The semester is winding down. Everyone is hoping to graduate in May and they crank up the curriculum to put us all at ease. NO. Last four weeks, deep into the heart and kidneys of mankind! NOT easy content. Not for the faint of heart (pun intended) or weak willed. Cardiac moves like a rollercoaster. Lots of stuff inside that fist sized muscle that runs your body non-stop (hopefully), 24/7, for every waking and sleeping moment of your entire time on Earth. It even runs your body BEFORE you set down into the actual atmosphere. It starts pumping your teeny tiny, unformed, tadpole body 4 weeks into fetus hood. But we all don’t need an anatomy lesson.
The point is, when I pulled up to the school at 7:30 am to start classes, I got out of my car, looked down, and there were two, shiny dimes right at my feet! Of course I picked them up (street money people! Even tho I have been horrendously bad at logging in all the money I have found for about the, oh, last YEAR or so….I WILL catch it up! I promise. I HAVE alot that I have found…really.) Anyhoo…2 dimes…20 cents…20 questions. I was hoping that was a good sign to indicate that I will be getting all 20 questions correct.
Well I guess it worked…superstitious! 100% on the test! Very happy. I am attempting to get that A again. I am fighting an uphill battle because I did so bad on that first damn test. So now it’s all trying to get the points back. It is still possible numerically and what a pain! Too much pressure and really, all I need to do is pass the dang things! Whatever…we all need something to keep us moving forward right?
So that’s all. I have so much to do today, per the BF, and here I am writing about found money. So I know you will see this and YES, I am wasting some time here, BUT, my care plan is done. (Was done by 8:30) and I did two loads of laundry already. Cardiac is sitting here next to me waiting for me to wind this up. My people need to know these things!
I also have to update on my 10K….Successful! Finished! And on my own power! BEFORE the time allotted! Mostly because of my sister, who not only beat my time, but because she just trained and pushed us and kicked butt and made me finish! So props to you and congrats to us!! FYI—it was soooooo cold that day too. YUK! We were running just to stay warm. Chicago ya know. It was 40 degrees and threatening to rain when we ran at 7am, and 70 degrees and sunny by the afternoon when I was driving home. What a crock! I wasn’t gonna actually comment right now about it, I was saving it for later, but oh well, now it’s done, so we’ll do it again next year and I’ll talk more then!
Alright, alright, I am getting off now. Need to do more homework and laundry, before the kids get here. We need to go bowl out and shop for a few more things and pack them up to go for the weekend with their dad. They get to go to Kentucky and fish and swim for 4 days while I freeze and read about heart attacks! I think there’s a holiday in there somewhere too….but it’s not one that I do anything for so I will try and keep this posted and updated. Love you honey….all will be well. End.
I guess this picture has everything….
It has green for spring AND St. Patrick’s Day. It symbolizes drinking…(which I plan on doing during this week). It reminds me of football!! It was created by my daughter who made me these green and yellow ice cubes to cheer on the Green Bay Packers in the Super Bowl! Which I have completely neglected b/c of school. I did watch. They won! (Yay!) and I never said a word! But it was an exciting game. Please go anywhere on the internet and type in the team and I am sure lots of good stories will pop up! Here’s a picture of those green and yellow cubes after you add the drink part. The liquid really doesn’t add anything to the party and it looks the way it would the next day on the way out! Ewwww…but it tasted fine. It’s all sensory perception…
just shy of pretty 