Things That Make Me Tick: A Great Dress

If you are a woman, you are familiar with the feeling of seeing a dress in a store and before you even slip it off the hanger, you know that you were made for each other. Honestly, it has only happened twice for me and one of those times was yesterday. It was back in the sales racks (the only place I shop) of Gap and when I held it up, it was love at first sight. Slipping it on, I knew it would be very, very hard to leave without buying this strapless, ruffled beauty. You know how it is: there really is not an occasion in sight where you would ever need such a dress, but you think, "This dress would be perfect for that party I will be invited to, or that wedding I will be going to, or that date I will (someday) be going on, or when jcrew finally calls me and wants me to model for them, etc... " To top it off, I had a gift card!! So, even though I have absolutely no reason (right now, but you never know when jcrew might call...) to buy a strapless dress with ruffles all over it, I walked out of that store as the proud owner of a GREAT dress! This is just one of the many things that make me tick.

A Very Merry Christmas

This Christmas season that is just concluding has been a wonderful week of spending time with family and being reminded of the birth of our Savior. Christmas Eve was, as always, kicked off at our church Christmas Eve service and then moved to our place where we (mom's side of the family) ate a delicious meal cooked by my own dear mother (I hope some of those culinary skills are transferred to me...either by genetics, diffusion, osmosis, or whatever it takes to keep me and my future family from starving). The festivities ended with a family viewing of the infamous Christmas of 1991, when my uncle came dressed as Santa Claus and the camera captures me making a run for it and my dear little sister bursting into tears. Good times.

The little women and I then proceeded to open the traditional Christmas pajamas, see picture:

Christmas morning brought sister #2 banging on the door at 8:30am (I'm shocked it lasted THAT long!) and all of the excitement of staggering down the hallway towards our presents in birth order; yes, I am last. It was a relaxing morning spent with my favorite people in the world, celebrating the birth of the most important baby of all time... and celebrating the cookware set that will now allow me to cook for myself for the entire month of January!!

YAY COOKWARE!!!

"...the sweet sounds of techno."

Today I went on a beautiful hike with one of my dear friends from home, and besides the naked guy that we saw talking a casual stroll along the beach, we had fun hiking the hills of Santa Barbara County. At the top of the hill that we climbed, there was a breath-taking view of the ocean and surrounding countryside; but the second best event at the top was when we read the log book.
The purpose of a log book is to mark your accomplishment in writing so that those who follow can read the names and follow suit. This log book contained some short stories, rants about how tired some were, a few scattered profanities, and tales of triumph. Our favorite entry began like this: "So today I awoke to the sweet sounds of techno and took many shots of vodka." -sounds like the start to an awesome day- and it ended like so: "Long, arduous adventure, but it is not quite done, as we are about to smoke some plants atop this beautiful mountain. woo-ee-woo-ee." I think every hiker in the Western United States heard my laugh at the conclusion of that entry. Although my day did not begin with the "sweet sounds of techno," or end with "smoking some plants," it was still a great day with my friend. :)

SO THANKFUL!

About this time last year, I went through a phase of being thankful all the time. I think it started when I took a roadtrip to the Grand Canyon with some dear friends of mine; even as we were huffing and puffing up the 3miles we had hiked into the canyon, all I could say was, "I'm SO THANKFUL!!" It got to the point where it was almost a joke amongst my friends and I; but I was truly aware of all of the blessings that God had poured out in my life.
As the season of Thanksgiving is once again upon us, I am reminded that we are not called to be thankful only when Hallmark deems it necessary out of obligation to a holiday that is frequently marked by overeating and football. God calls us to be thankful at all times, and in any circumstance. One of my favorite verses right now is the book of 1 Thessalonians, chapter five verses 16-18:
"Be joyful always; pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus."

God's will for us is to be thankful, and not just in November, but in ALL circumstances. And with that thanksgiving comes joy, and the outpouring of your thanks in dialouge with God. It just makes me smile to know that letting my joy and thanksgivng overflow is making God smile in return.

Happy Thanksgiving.

p.s. I tried to delete one picture, but couldn't figure it out

p.p.s. that is apple cider I am drinking :)

Not quite like "Grey's Anatomy"

This past Thursday, instead of doing my regular rotation on the med-surg floor, I went to the OR to observe. Yes, OR does stand for the operating room; and yes, I was very excited. My fellow nursing students and I cautiously opened the door and entered into the completely unknown world that is the OR. It was somewhat like finding an entrance to a magical world through many fur coats in the back of an ancient wardrobe. Only there were no lions, fawns or white witches; just surgeons, nurses, and big pieces of equipment. And I could have actually used a fur coat because the average temperature in that place was 68 degrees!

I was introduced to a nurse who had the commanding presence of a surgeon, and following her into OR #1, I was briefed on the surgery and procedure that I was going to see in a few minutes. It was a total knee replacement on an older woman, and the doctor was going to put in a prosthetic knee. Did you know that putting in a prosthetic knee involves using saws to shave off a lot of bone? Yeah, me neither. But, it does and I loved it!!! I was standing right by the bedside, watching the surgeon expertly shave off bone, fit the prosthetic, and suture the patient together. I never felt like I was going to faint!!! YAY!!!

Surgery is an amazing thing. Doctors can cut you open and remove, replace, and add parts from/to your body while you are in a deep sleep trusting an anesthesiologist to bring you out of your slumber. God created us with very complex bodies, and these individuals have committed their lives to study its mysteries. I do not think I will enter surgical nursing anytime soon, just because the patient is out of it for most of the time you are with them; but I could definitely see myself having a blast there sometime in the future.

Holiday Spirit

I have this thing for Christmas, meaning: I absolutely love it. All year long I think of cute decorating ideas for my dorm and dream of ways that I can help bring the holiday spirit to my friends and I, whether it be through cookie baking, looking at Christmas lights, or going out for hot chocolate. Currently, all of my dorm decorations are tucked away in an Adidas shoe box that is perched on top of my wardrobe and my roommate has already called me a "Christmas freak," or something like that. I was too busy cutting Christmas pictures out of a Pottery Barn catalouge to pay much attention to what she was saying.

There are two reasons I love Christmas. One, the birth of my Soverign Lord, Jesus Christ, is celebrated during this season. Do you realize what the birth of Jesus means? It means that God loved us so much, that he sent his son as a sacrifice so that we could be forgiven of our sins. I, E., am forgiven of all of my sins. That is a lot. Just ask my mom- she even has a few of those sins on home video. Not only that, but God forgave you of all of your sins. And the sins of your parents, and your boss, and the woman who made your Starbucks this morning, and the Prime Minister of France. I hope you get the idea.

Secondly, Christmas has always been a joyful time in my household. My mom is the queen of Christmas decorations. Everything that we have hanging on our walls throughout the year comes down, and some sort of Christmas decoration takes its place for the next month. It is glorious. I went through this stage in my life when I thought the decor was so tacky and our house should look more like a Martha Stewart magazine. I quickly got over that (especially when Martha went to jail...that jaded my view of the domestic goddess), and in 20 years, my children will probably be saying the same thing to me. My mom also made sure that we felt special at Christmas. She bought us the advent calendars, made us hot chocolate with sprinkles on the whip cream, and had a magical set up when we stumbled down the hallway Christmas morning. It did not matter how much (or how little) our family had to spend, we would always be so thankful for what "Santa" had brought. I don't mean to leave my dad out of this; we could always rely on him to bring the tree in from the top of the car and have it sparkling with Christmas lights the next morning when we woke up. My parents love us, and they love Jesus, and so we just all love Christmas too; it works out rather nicely.

Now, I know its only the beginning of November and I do not mean to overshadow Thanksgiving and that whole "being thankful" thing, but I am also thankful at Christmas, so I think that perhaps the Christmas season should just begin in November and we can celebrate Christmas and Thanksgiving together throughout the entire month of November AND December. Sort of killing two birds with one stone, right? Just consider it.

The Secret Life of Bees

Don’t you just love it when you start a book with no expectations, and then it turns out to be a magnificent work that takes you out of the chair you are reading in and lands you in the middle of the author’s imagination? That is exactly what happened to me in my sophomore year of high school when I just happened to open The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd. This book about a young girl searching for someone to love her in the midst of racial tension plucked me from my room and dropped me in Tiburon, South Carolina. So, you can only imagine how incredibly excited I was to see that my beloved Secret Life of Bees was being brought to the big screen by a very impressive cast (Queen Latifah, Dakota Fanning, Alicia Keys, Jennifer Hudson), and was being released this weekend! I have no idea why I was unaware of its production, but I will just blame it on my deep interest in my scholastic studies…

Anyway, I took my mom to see it yesterday, and we both were crying at various parts of the film. This movie stayed right on to the plot of the book, and it was amazing to see my mental images of Lilly Owens, the Boatwright Sisters, and Tiburon come to life. I highly recommend the movie, even if you have not read the book. And take your mom, because it makes it THAT much better.

Here I go...

Blogs. Its kind of a weird word that has always kept me from actually finding out what all this "blog mania" is actually about. Add that onto the fact that I have always been atrocious (sp?) at spelling and have no desire to publish anything for all of cyber-world to see. And, my English-major sister leaves every paper I hand off to her bathed in red ink and comments that end in excalaimation marks. And she is not exactly giving me words of encouragement, if you know what I mean.

Despite all of this, I have decided to begin giving you glimpses into my life because one of the people I miss the most keeps a blog and I LOVE reading about her adventures. So I figured maybe that some of you out there would get a kick out of reading all the crazy, interesting, boring, fun, and exciting things that I do.

Just don't pull out a red pen.
Happy reading!