And the day after

My muscles are very very sore.

So in honor of my sore muscles, I present a lesson in faith. And introduction to "He that created all that we see and all that we feel." And you can be a pirate.

Oh.....It's all a part of being a pirate (A PIRATE A PIRATE)!

Shrubs

The other night, my darling husband and I were in bed....reading.

Seriously, this is what we do in bed, when we're not sleeping or attempting to create grandchildren for the benefit of our mothers.

"Kev, I'm going to Watson's tomorrow to buy shrubs for the empty patch of ugly dirt in front of our house."

"Can we afford it?"

"Of course, my sweet man. And even if we couldn't, it's ugly as sin on a stick and needs beautifying. If it's empty, I'll just have to weed it all winter."

"Well, weeding is your job."

"Would you like to die peacefully in your sleep? I can make that happen for you."

But I bought a lot of shrubs, including one that's really a tree. Tomorrow I will list them out for you and describe in detail my shopping experience, using a rototiller, then making a quick detour for the husband to fix the sewer line we ran over with said rototiller. And I dug all the holes by myself, including the big one for the tree. I'm so pleased, it looks amazing. And Kevin got home from the theater, gave me a big hug and thanked me for all my hard work. I suppose it's one of the compromises of marriage. I do the work, but then it's all done MY WAY. Since I have a strong preference for MY WAY, and Kevin isn't as interested in landscape planning, I do it MY WAY and Kevin stays out of MY WAY. Unless there is a big hole to be dug.

A MEME

I'm not sure what it stands for, but it's passed around on blogs. I found it, so I'm going to use it. I'm not currently pregnant, so I've had a drink. I hope it doesn't show.

Where I was....
10 years ago (1995)
Starting my senior year of high school. Figuring out what I was going to do with my life, where to go to college, how to afford college without having my parents kill each other over the money. Such are the joys of a divorced family. My dad still lived in Vancouver with the second wife, aka wicked stepmother. My buddy Glen took me to homecoming, and I was still dating Erick Curtis who was off at school in Indiana. Sarah was my closest girlfriend, and I have no idea where she is now. I was a hotshot in concert choir and still hanging onto my baby fat. I was also still a virgin, to my complete dismay.

5 years ago (2000)
I've passed my NCLEX, working as a nurse but not yet full time at my current hospital. Living with lovely Lori, who chose our apartment because it was close to the boy who would become her main squeeze. Because he leaves our place at 3am, it's not technically spending the night. Kevin and I are more serious. He's living down the road in his very own big boy apartment with dirty dishes and a gross bathroom.

1 year ago (2004)
My dad has been dead almost one year, and I continue to really miss having a dad. I'm at odds with his side of the family, and that has not improved. His will continues to be in limbo, and the boys and I figure that we'll never see anything special that belonged to our dad. Kevin and I are planning a trip to Hawaii, our honeymoon two years late. The dogs are wonderful. Life is pretty good.

Yesterday
I worked. Long and boring day. Nice family, nice baby.

5 songs I know the words to
Come Monday by Jimmy Buffett
The Heather on the Hill from Brigadoon
And We Danced by Brad Paisley
Please Come To Boston by Dave Loggins
All of Me, the Frank version

5 snacks I love
Figs with Quark and honey
goldfish crackers
spumoni ice cream
carrot cake with cream cheese from Costco
wine...that's a snack, a liquid one

What I would do with 100 million dollars
Pay off student loans, mine, Kevin's, David's, and John Michael's
Put loads of money into a ROTH and 401K
Money to the Tacoma Humane Society, TLT, Tacoma Opera
Buy waterfront property on the penninsula, and a BIG boat
Buy a NEW Subaru Outback, not a used one
Take my Mom on vacation, where ever she liked

5 Places I Like To Go
My bedroom
Owen Beach
My Mom's house
Vin Grotto
Borders'

5 things I'll NEVER wear
capris
strapless anything
skinny strapped summer dresses without a bra
shoes that lace up the leg
sweatshirts with puff paint, "world's best...", kittens, bedazzling

5 favorite books
The Eight by Katherine Neville
Beauty by Robin McKinley
Jitterbug Perfume by Tom Robbins
The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown
Coming Home by Rosemund Plicher

5 greatest joys
My husband
Our dogs
My friends
My mom, stepmom, and grandmother
Good wine, romance novels, and bubble bath

5 favorite toys
Internet
DVD
portable keyboard
walkman for walking the dogs
digital camera

Current read
The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova
And multiple gardening books

Fall in my yard

I always feel so productive after working in the yard. Like I've overcome some grand obstacle to inner peace. We now have two beautiful mums on the front porch, having thrown out the ugly New Guinea Impatients. Don't think I'll plant them again next year. The leave are lovely, dark glossy brown. But the dead flower petals stick to the leaves, a version of plant smallpox. Then I planted the lavender plants I'd picked up Friday, all in a neat row next to the driveway. They already smell like heaven. Kevin was sweet and dug out the remains of the ugly rhody, now I have a plot next to the porch in dire need of landscaping. And I don't have a clue what to do.

Anybody, Anybody? Beuhler?

Hopefully tomorrow evening we'll head to The Good Life with Bruce and Mari Claire. Yum. And a few other tasks to take care of. Wish me luck.

Free Day

I was on call yesterday! Wooo Hooo!

So what did I do with time, lucious time? I cleaned my house. I walked my dogs (twice). I went to Watson's Greenhouse and bought some perennials because they were on sale. I'm planting Provance Lavender on the side of the house. It's supposed to like poor soil and neglect. I can work with that. I'll head back next Monday to possibly get some shrubs for the front patch. That ugly rhody is gone, I hacked it with the chain saw. Power tools are fun. Then Kevin and I had a hot date, off to Vin Grotto (our favorite waitress, Leslie, is gone!) for cheese and wine. Then we watched the first half of Return of the King. Viggo is lovely. I love chain mail and leather.

But it's off to work this morning.....

Doing Puyallup

Kevin and I went to the Fair Friday afternoon. The weather was perfection, sunny but not too hot. We focused on our true love, finding good things to eat. I'd rate the food at 75%, good enough but not spectacular. But the cotton candy...truly amazing. And pink, it's always gotta be pink. We ambled around for three hours, looking at animals mostly. The 4-H kids were there with their well behaved dogs. These dogs all sat on cushions while dozens of people stared and cooed at them. And these dogs DIDN'T MOVE. Some didn't even wake up. Kevin and I kept giggling at the thought of what our dog's would do in similar circumstances. We love them, our good enough dogs.

On the way home, I gave Kevin hell about not wanting to cook me dinner. Then when he asked me what I wanted, I told him I wasn't hungry. Just another small moment of spousal joy in the Myers' household. We finished Two Towers, then I read The Historian before going to bed. It's a vampire book, but a creative, well-written, interesting, unique one. When it first came out there was lots of press in the blog-world. Thank goodness for the library!

The Month of Auto Repair

So we've fixed Kevin's window. Then my window got fixed, thanks to Wonderful Bob and Dan at Cooper's Collision. I love these men, these auto repair men, with a love that cannot be contained. Terry, our neighbor, offered to take the panel off the door and see what he could do. Sounded suspiciously like Nancy Saturday night. But what the hell, I had to take it in anyway....

Unfortunately, Terry couldn't fix it, but he steered me away from Novus and towards a repair shop. A stroke of bloody genius. After calling two Subaru repair places...

Tangent: Glen's dad Rod offered once to fix my car, until I told him it was NOT a Ford, Chevy, GMC, or another illustrious American made (in Japan) car. His response, "Rod don't do Subaru," like a Seussian prophet.

...I gave Cooper's a call. They offered to give me a free estimate, and they were close to home, so off I went. They quoted me a repair price almost half the other places. So I walked around doing errands while they....did whatever repair men do.

And I returned to a glorious surprise! Bob, upon further reflection, decided to take the door apart NOW to JUST MAKE SURE it was that part. And he found the true problem was loose bolts, fallen-out screws, and missing washers. So he fixed it. For $50. Bob got a big hug.

Now Kevin wants to take the truck into McCabe's, my other favorite repair shop. Seems the RPM's keep racing. And I'm sure there's about another $1000 in work that could be done, as the truck is a 1997 and has 170+ thousand miles logged. Then there's the Subinator, with an oil leak, noisy defrost, broken AC, and squeaky brakes. Not too mention the 120+ thousand miles. We'd like these cars to last another 5 years, so some money must be invested. Ouch. Hope nobody was looking forward to Christmas.

Conversations with my mother

Me: The driver side window in my car fell off the tracks. We'll have to take it in to be repaired.

Nancy: Oh, that's pretty easy to fix. I saw your father do it lots of times.

Me: Kevin and I don't know much about car repair. I think we'll take it in.

Nancy: You could do it. You just take the panel off the door. I saw your dad do it.

Me: Dad build telescopes and garages for fun. I don't think it's that easy. Plus, we don't know what we're doing.

Nancy: I saw him do it. You just take the panel off. You could figure it out.

Me: You saw him do it? You just take the panel off? The man's been dead for almost three years, and you were divorced from him for almost twenty years anyways! You saw Dad do it in 1982. That doesn't count.

Nancy: This is good wine. Can I have another cookie?

Not the ending I wanted

Work was rough. Rough as we (my resident nurse and I) spent over 2 hours on the telephone with a somali interpreter. Rough as in we spent the last 1.75 hours of our 12 HOUR SHIFT (my third in a row for fuck's sake) charting, and that's not counting all the charting we did in the previous 11 hours. Rough as in the fetal heart rate looked like crap all day long (but we had a good baby in the end with a healthy mom, so not so bad) which is really stressful and made my brain hurt because I couldn't fix it. Rough because I was teaching my lovely resident at the same time how to be a good nurse. Lucky for me she's already a good nurse. I've really lucked out with students/residents, both great girls and smart cookies.

And I'm stressing AGAIN about not getting pregnant. Cried again today. Over something that hasn't happened yet, but might happen because I know too much and work with pregnant ladies all day long and it's exhausting. I wouldn't be this stressed if I was an accountant. My head hurts, my eyes hurt, and I can't smell the cheap zinfendel I'm drinking. Blah Blah Blah...it could be worse at least you don't live in New Orleans....well, my fears might not be life threatening but they're MINE damnit. I make no apologies for them. Except like would like them to go away. I miss feeling happy.

Another celebrity cliche

Renee Zellwiger and Kenny Chesney (he's a country music artist) will have their 4-month old marraige annulled. Why does it make me so sad that perfect strangers couldn't make their marraige work? It's bad enough when my friends try so hard, only to have the best solution be to part ways. Then we're all sad.

Nintendogs

It's a virtual dog. You adopt one from the on line kennel, take it for online walks. Do you even pick up virtual poop? Brilliant. www.nintendogs.com I bet you don't have to wash walls with these suckers.

editing

I'm very glad I read the previous post now, and caught the multitude of errors before my mother read it. Both my loving mother and wicked stepmother (hi Cindy) have said:

You must have spellcheck because you didn't spell anything wrong on your blog. You can't spell.

Ah, to bask in such glorious maternal love. Excuse me while I write a sonnet about it.

Busy weekend

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MATTIAS! YOU'RE THREE YEARS OLD!

1. Charlie's Aunt on Friday was wonderful. Funny, engaging, lighthearted. For the most part, the cast was great. Only a few weak characters. Not bad, just not as fleshed-out as they could have been. We headed out to E-9 afterwards, not one of my favorite places, but open for food. Stayed out too late, very painful the next day. The bounce back is not as bouncy as it was in college.

2. Nice relaxed weekend. Some chores, some playtime. I don't remember anything else we did.

3. Visited with Steve "Shoe" on Monday. It was his birthday, but he was on baby duty as his wife had choir practice. He was NOT babysitting. One does not babysit one's own genetic reproduction. Watched a little football, ate some cake, played with the baby. Very cute baby. Liked being bounced.

4. Hung out with Kevin while he teched during Dead Gentlemen Improv. These are friends of ours from college, although the group has grown to include some lovely new members who did not attend PLU at the same time. Not a huge audience, as school had just begun that week. But lots of laughs. It had been several years since I attended, over three years ago I think. Afterwards we went to the Alehouse and solved the social problems of the Pacific Northwest. Such a clever group.

5. Scrubbed the kitchen floor. Hopefully it will look better for longer than one week with the dogs.

6. Same with the walls. Danica no longer gets disgusting tennis balls in the house. But now she doesn't bring them to me every second of the goddamned day. Not bad problem solving....

7. First choir practice next Monday. The 16th notes in the Messiah are hard.

8. Kevin's car window is fixed. Now mine is broken. Sonofabitch.

practice with pictures

I managed to catch some great pictures of the puppies when we took them to Owen Beach several weeks ago. Freya is ready to jump about three feet in the air, and Danica is ready to go swimming, just as soon as you throw the ball please.












Here is Sunny, Bo, and Danica heading towards the shore. Sunny and Bo are Jay and Chenoah's golden retrievers. Freya is waiting by the shore to attack Danica. She's starting to swim more with the other dogs, but her normal routine is to run in the water, stalk Danica from the shore as she fetches the ball, and then jump on her when Danica is close enough to reach.






And here's the gang in the back of the jeep, waiting to go....hey, where are we going? Doesn't matter, we get to go in the car!

Opening Night

Charlie's Aunt opens tonight. Kevin and the rest of the TLT crew have been working that set like MacGuire the Basset Hound works a greenie chew treat. With gung-ho enthusiasm, lots of drooling, and just a small amount of sweat. Oh, and cursing. Lots of cursing. After a passioned plea of assistance yesterday from the husband, I helped paint the set for a couple of hours. I just knew when Kevin took this job that I'd get suckered into helping (and I'm rather a grouchy helper). But what else did I have to do except procrastinate the last four song of the Messiah? And it was surprisingly fun. I keep saying it, it's a great crew that works that theater. A true family. But I can't be totally laid back about it, it's not in my nature. So after 18 minutes of 96.5 "Jack Radio" (eclectic mix of 70s-current), I commandered the radio. Country music ruled for the next 3.5 hours. "I'm the volunteer, so I get to choose the music," I declared. And I do so love getting my own way....

So as Kevin continues to fix the stage today, opening night, I've been working hard at home. I've waxed my eyebrows, gotten a pedicure, and I currently have a pumpkin enzyme facial mask working magic.

Woo Hoo

Didn't have to work today! Slept in until nine, my favorite husband took the dogs out AND cleaned the kitchen before I got my tired ass out of bed. Met up with dog park friends at, where else, the park. The dogs are worn out from playing. Lena and I met up at NPCC, by PLU. Classes start today. That life just seems a million years ago, and five minutes ago. Everybody looks so young. We felt just a little bit old. Did a bit of wine tasting at Bacchante with other TLT people, good fun with a bit of successful business shmoozing on the side. Charlie's Aunt opens this weekend, so Kevin is busy with tech week. He's not home much, but I make sure he gets the most important of household duties done. I've always got a plan....

And while the news is so sad, I feel very blessed. There but for the grace of God go I.

Saturday night and I ain't got nobody...

My husband is gaming, again. It's Saturday night, I'm all alone. Just me and the dogs. How fucking depressing. So I'm having a glass of wine and got Pad Thai for dinner, finished another romance novel. I slacked on keeping up, but there have been a couple really good finds. Lots of re-reads thrown in, and I just wasn't excited enough to write about them. But I found two new great authors that just might get added to my "look for them at the used bookstore" list. Loretta Chase was the first, I read her new release "Mr. Wonderful." The cover is very appealing, and I like the new trend of faceless men and no man-titty. And he doesn't have a mullet either. Karen Hawkins was the second, I read her last book in the Talisman Ring series (and I'm a sucker for a series). And another pretty cover.

Yesterday was big shopping day, quite exciting to actually HAVE money for some goodies! So we have lovely new candels and real food in the house. I might have picked up some books at Half-Price Books, but that would mean I snuck a fun purchase in from my husband. So maybe I didn't.

Working the next two days. Boo Hoo. But Mom and Craig start school soon! Hee Hee