Years ago...

I recently found a friend from high school's blog, and I stole this from her. Thanks Layla!

Twenty years ago I . . .

1) was enjoying the life of an almost 4 year old.

2) enjoyed tormenting my sister.

3) rode an elephant at the zoo.

Ten years ago I . . .

1) moved away from my hometown to a new city.

2) was terrified of starting high school.

3) lived in my first house with a pool.

Five years ago I . . .

1) had the most amazing summer job.

2) was spending one of my only summers during college where I wasn't in school.

3) was tired of being a teenager.

Three years ago I . . .

1) was working part-time at a daycare and loving on all my babies.

2) went to New Orleans for Mardi Gras, just to say I went to the first one after Katrina (**edit**this was actually 2 years ago...I can't do math, as you can tell)

3) turned old enough to legally drink and had 1 drink on my birthday.

One year ago I . . .

1) was a bridesmaid in my oldest friend's wedding

2) wondered why all my friends are getting married and I'm not.

3) turned 23.

So far this year I have . . .

1) had surgery.

2) flown on airplanes.

3) tried to find myself, unsuccessfully.

Yesterday, I . . .

1) worked.

2) talked to an old friend.

3) went to the doctor.

Today I . . .

1) went to work.

2) fought with the student loan people.

3) caught up on my friends' blogs.

Tomorrow I will . . .

1) go to the bank.

2) go to work.

3) pay my student loan bill online.

In the next year, I may . . .

1) fall in love.

2) take a trip.

3) find a new job that I'm happy with

What makes me sad...

Finally having time to go by Starbucks for my Light Cafe Vanilla Frap, only to drop it as soon as I walk into work, leaving literally only a sip left.

The world is conspiring against me, I tell ya.

My little bowhead

I got to spend some sweet time with my Goddaughter this weekend. She's just starting to get enough hair to put bows in, but her mom never does...so I took the liberty of doing so! She kept looking up at the ceiling trying to figure out what I was doing. She's so sweet. She'll be 10 months old August 12th.


Keep her family in your prayers. Her mom's grandmother is probably not going to make it much longer. She's been fighting cancer for the past few months. Laura went down here last week for a day or so, and she's just waiting for a phone call now. She's very close to her, and I hate to see her hurting.

It's 4:30am

and I'm awake. I had to write this tonight because I knew if I waited until morning I would lose that heat-of-the-moment feeling.

I'm a pretty heavy sleeper. But I suppose like moms have that 6th sense of hearing their children utter "momma" when they can be 600 miles away, I have something like that I like to call a "bug detector".

So I got in bed tonight, read for a little bit, turned out the light and went to nightnight land. All was well in nightnight land. But because of a gene I inherited from my father, I sleep with one arm over my eyes and my elbow pointed to the ceiling. Imagine my shock and horror when I wake up to SOMETHING CRAWLING ON MY ARM. Without any clue what it was, I flung my arm over toward the other side of the bed, hopefully launching whatever it was off. Then I sit up, heart pounding. Granted it's pitch black, but my eyes are adjusting, but I don't have my glasses on so I can't see JACK...and frankly I don't want to see what I just flung across the room. If you know me, you know my deathly fear of spiders (all bugs really). So I finally am able to see my floor enough from the moonlight coming in the window to walk across and turn on the big light. What do I see? The mother of all mother of ROACHES crawling across my end table next to the bed. So I grab a flip flop, not sure why they don't pack much of a punch, and proceed to swat at it, only causing it to jump ONTO MY BED. I'm sufficiently freaked out now, fully awake, and ready for battle.

To make an even longer story not quite so long, I still don't know that little blankety blank thing is. Last I saw of it, it had crawled into a bookbag laying on my floor next to my old computer desk. I had decided last night that I'd go back to work tomorrow (err, today?) since I was feeling better, but I'm starting to think I need to stay home and clean. I have plans all day Saturday and don't want to put it off until Sunday afternoon.

Anyway, I'm not done. Are you still with me?

I decide to spend the remainder of the night on the couch in the living room. Normally I'd go get in the bed in the guest room, aka Laura's old room, but no one's slept in there in quite a while I'd I'd be almost certain to have some guests in that bed. Anyway. I walk into the living room, turn the light on to make sure the couch is cleaned off, and SOMETHING CRAWLS ACROSS THE FLOOR IN FRONT OF ME. It's not black, not crunchy from what I can tell, but resembles NOTHING of his brother, cousin, whatever they got to play in the commercial. That's right folks. A gecko. I couldn't make this stuff up.

So I know they're not harmful and everything, and I'd just love to catch that bad boy to put him outside to stop my pounding heart, but he's very startled and runs behind the TV cabinet and I've yet to see him again. But then again, he's a gecko, and for all I know he's disguising himself as a living room couch at this very moment. If you see no new posts from me in a while, you'll know he got me. Or the roach did. Or I had a heart attack.

And the even funnier thing is, one of the blogs I read recently had this post, and I laughed at her because I had never even heard of one of those things before. See if I laugh at a bug situation again.

Oh, did I mention I had been sleeping with my mouth open?

98 days

That's how long it's been since I was last sick. Three weeks and 1 day after my sinus surgery I caught a cold and had to get some drugs to kick it. Since then, it's been pretty smooth sailing--which beats getting sick every single 3 weeks.

The week before vacation I started getting a sore throat. I loaded up on some Vitamin C and OTC Zyrtec and it seemed to do the trick for the duration of vacation (hey--that rhymes!). But yesterday I started getting another sore throat at work. I called my ENT but the soonest they could see me was Monday morning. I figured I'd tough it out at work, but I'm pretty pitiful when I'm sick, and about 8:30 last night I left work 2 hours shy of when I was supposed to get off. Came home, had fever close to 101. Went straight to bed with God's greatest invention--the heating pad.

Got up this morning and went to the clinic. After some drama regarding my insurance (how come no one tells newly graduated people that your deductible starts OVER July 1st?? I never knew that when I was on mom and dad's..), and a wait for over 2 hours, they finally diagnosed me with an upper respiratory infection and probable sinus infection. He said he wasn't completely sure it was a sinus infection, but given my history he'd be willing to bet it was--especially with the fever. Oh, and wouldn't you know...my temperature was 98.4 when they took it. Figures.

Soo, I got a shot in my bahonkus, 2 Rx's, and was sent on my merry way. The good thing is that the Strep test came back negative (woohoo!), and my throat isn't really that sore anymore. I'm still pretty stuffy and my head feels about THIS big (imagine my hands stretched out as far as they can go). BUT, I think a day of resting was what I needed. Dad picked up my meds a few minutes ago, so I've started on them. I'll go back to work tomorrow, although it is Friday and I do have a doctors' excuse...hmm..

What does everyone have planned for this weekend?

aww

This made me sad! Poor Sophia...we'll miss you!

to be loved

We might not know if it has a name
We might call it circumstance
We might try to look the other way
We might think it’s accident

It’s a wound--it’s a sting
It’s a finger with a string
It’s a song with no words that we know
It’s a mist--it’s a dream
It’s a faded memory
And we want it bad
We want it bad

Chorus:
To be here
To be now
To be open to the truth
To be held
To be seen
To be heard
To be faith
To be hope
And greatest gift of all--
To be loved--all we really want is
To be loved

We might call it the price of growing up
We might think it’s fairytale
We might try to medicate the ache
We might think we’re all alone

It’s a name we can’t speak
It’s a stranger on the street
It’s a hope in the things not seen
It’s a peace that we crave
It’s the thing for which we’re made
And we want it bad
We want it bad

We find no rest until we rest in You
We cling to our stubbornness
We let go of what we never had
To find our way to You

'Cause we hurt and we bleed
In our brokenness and need
And we're scared to come in too close
But Your love has a way
Of invading every space
And we want it bad
We want it bad

Slide shows

Here's some slide shows with all the pics from vacation. You can click each one to take you to the page with them all on there if you don't want to wait through each slideshow...

the long post...

(I apologize for the length of this post. there were several hundred pictures I wanted to share with everyone, so I had to sift through them!)

So, I'm home. I don't want to be. I walked out of the airplane in Little Rock to 97 degree weather and probably the same percentage of humidity. Drove back to West Monroe and it was 100 degrees. I think the absolute hottest it got in Washington/Oregon was around 79. It was absolutely PERFECT weather. Cold, even.

Sooo, the run down of our trip...

Laura and I flew into Seattle on Monday. We got there about noon their time, 2 our time. Wasn't too much of jetlag as far as the time change was concerned, but we hadn't slept but maybe 2 hours in the past 24 hours at that point. (She didn't get off work until 11 the night before, and our flight left at 6am...and she hadn't packed.) So mom and dad picked us up at the airport, and we went straight to the Space Needle.





Pretty cool, huh.

After that, we drove out to the little town where we were going whale watching the next morning. We got a hotel and then went down to the marina and walked around and looked at all the fancy yachts. I really want one! There was a pretty part of the pier that you could see the mountain in the distance. It truly is quite pretty out there. It was so hard to capture the mountains in the distance. It's very hazy up there, so they don't turn out very well. And honestly, pictures don't do them any justice.







The next day, of course, was the whale watching trip! They took us out pretty far in Puget Sound and we think they even crossed into Canadian waters. I don't have a passport, so we joked that I illegally crossed the border. Anyway, we got some awesome shots of the whales. They really performed for us! I have a 35mm camera that I used in addition to my digital one, and I still have to drop that off to get developed. I'm curious how those turned out. I'll probably dedicate a whole post to those pictures, so stayed tuned :)


(can you tell we were freezing?)


(click this one to zoom and see that big fella)

After the whale watching tour, we caught a ferry across the Puget Sound and started driving towards the coast. Laura and I really wanted to see the Pacific Ocean, and I REALLY wanted to see the waves crashing against the rocks. We went to the first beach area, and it was COLD!! Like maybe 50 degrees? Pretty chilly. There wasn't a rocky coast, but we found tons of sand dollars. You can't hardly find any that aren't broken at the southern beaches, and the tide was really low and the whole beach was covered in them!





Then we went to some of the area lighthouses. I love lighthouses. I think they are so neat looking. I had to get some pictures of the ones we saw...especially after hiking 2 miles one way to see them!








Isn't that like amazingly gorgeous?! I literally could've stayed out there all day. I mean, I don't see how people can see that and still think there isn't a God. What?

After that, we went to my 2nd favorite place of the trip (first being the whales). Mount St. Helen! I didn't really know the entire history of the place, so mom read her little book she had bought on the drive up there. Lemme tell ya...that's not an easy drive either! Not for the faint at heart. There were several places along the side of the mountain road that had no guard rail and a shear drop off on the side. Every time dad rounded a curve we would holler...and that just made him drive faster!! Anyway, it was VERY impressive. Especially because the explosion happened in like 1980, and the destruction path is still completely bare. There are patches of grass and stuff, but for the most part it's just dried up lava. Pumice perhaps? Anyway, the pictures didn't come out that great, it didn't show up all that well, but here ya go..








See the path of destruction? This is what it used to look like before the blast.

Anyway, that's just a taste of the pictures. We took a TON of them. I'll have to go through and edit some of them to repost. Hope this didn't bore anyone! We really had a great time! Our flight left this morning (Thursday) at 7:55, so we left the hotel around 5:30 to get there, and we actually should've gotten there earlier. Seattle at 5:30 is busy! Anyway, we got to Atlanta around 3:45, and our connecting flight didn't leave until 6:40 so we had a pretty good layover. We ate lunch and shopped a little. Got back to Little Rock around 7:15 and Laura's boyfriend picked us up and took us back to her place. I left not long after that cause I had a 3 hour drive and wanted to get back before it got too late. Now it's 1:40am and I'm headed to bed. Been up almost 24 hours again! Gotta be back to work tomorrow at 2.

The honeymoon's over...:)

hehehe

(insert giddy laughter here)

countdown...

So in approximately 54 hours (not that I'm counting), we fly out of the Little Rock airport headed for Atlanta. Then after an hour layover we fly from Atlanta to Seattle. I'm so very excited! Have I packed a single item yet? Of course not! I've just now started washing clothes.

I worked a tad bit late tonight to get some overtime in. Since I'll be gone 4 days next week, I needed a little extra time. I did work the 4th, so that will come in handy on the next paycheck. Work's been so backed up lately, they were offering OT to even some of the part-timers tonight.

Let's see...what else. I've been blog hopping the last few weeks. I've found some pretty good ones! I've been checking out some friends' of some friends too...you know how that goes. I'm hoping to meet more people and become more "bloggerific". Yes, totally made that word up.

I talked to mom earlier and they are in Oregon today. Yesterday as they went through California, they saw some of the fires not far from them. They even got some pictures of a helicopter scooping up some water to dump on the fires. I'm sure they got some interesting pictures.

Tomorrow I plan on making a shopping list for Target, and then at 3:30 I'm going to keep Cade and Melain. I don't even call it babysitting when they're concerned. I'd prefer referring to it as spending time with my Goddaughter and her older brother. Their mom has a wedding (she's a wedding planner), so I'll have them for a good part of the evening/night. We always have a good gab session when she gets home too, so that will be good. I'll probably end up taking the kids with me to Target, cause if you know anything about me, you know I won't be getting up in time to do that before I go out there. Did I mention my work schedule changed and I no longer work on Saturdays? It's so nice to know I don't have to go up there tomorrow. So very nice.

I've been spending a lot of time and prayer reading a particular blog. If you haven't had a chance to check out this post, go read it if you want, or just hop on over to Angie's blog. When you get there, click on the "click here" on the left side bar under "Welcome". It'll take you to the beginning of their story. The strength that woman has....I don't know if I could do it. Word to the wise if you decide to venture over there--grab the tissue.

I guess I'll leave you now with a picture mom sent me from her phone of the California coast. As I used to say when I was younger, after mom would dry my hair...

"How pretty, momma...how pretty"

Yay for haircuts

Before:

After:

a little unnerved..

I'm a shy, quiet girl. I like to think of myself as an observer, a people-watcher. Until you get to know me, I really don't talk all that much. I don't like attention. I was recently told by a co-worker (who I consider a friend) that some people think, because I'm quiet, that I'm better than everyone else.

What?!

Apparently when someone is quiet by nature and doesn't say a lot, it means that they are stuck-up and "above" everyone else. Hello! I've spent the last 23, almost 24, years listening to people when they talk to me. I do as I'm told at work, although since some of the higher-ups actually listen to me now, I do make my voice heard from time to time. I don't cause drama, one of the main reasons I don't date anyone that I work with. Which begs for another conversation.

What part of "I don't date people I work with" do the people I work with not understand?

Not to sound like I'm bragging, but I've had several people come up to me at work and say that so and so is interested, but "because of your policy, he knows he doesn't have a chance". (And even if I didn't have this policy, these guys are soooo off my radar anyway..) I don't usually buckle under pressure too much, and this is one area where I won't. I know the kind of drama it can cause. But fast foward 2 or 3 weeks or months later, and if the subject of dating comes up, someone will say "Oh, no. Amie doesn't date guys she works with. She's too good for them. She's anti-men." or some comment like that. It really ticks me off. I mean, don't' get me wrong, I do want a boyfriend...I'm tired of being single. But I do pride myself in some of my standards, and let's just face it....the "men" at work don't meet hardly any of them.

So tonight, that exact situation presented itself. As I was leaving work, someone said that I was going to meet my boyfriend. I said, yeah sure, what boyfriend?, and just smiled and left it at that. A co-worker piped up and said "yeah she doesn't have a boyfriend. she's better than everyone else, remember? if she was a little taller and had a beard, she'd think she was Jesus".

I was livid.

I got in his face and told him never to compare me to Him, and if he was going to talk about Jesus, he better do it in a respectable manner. I think it shocked him because, remember...this is quiet, little shy Amie that is getting all up in his face.

In retrospect, he was probably doing it all in good fun, but it rubbed me the wrong way. All the times before culminating into one explosion I suppose.

It was just a hard night at work. Good thing I had an empty house to come home to. One hot bubble bath later and I was just as mellow as could be. :)

Happy 4th!

I'm sitting here, completely caught up at work, not doing anything. BORED out of my mind.

But I'm getting paid darn near $30/hour today.

:D

Catching up..

Allison's doing okay. The ER doc told them there wasn't much he could do, so they have an appointment with the neurosurgeon Monday to make sure it's nothing serious. Keep her in your prayers that it's not.

Only 10 more days til the big trip!! Mom and dad are leaving this Sunday to start driving. They're going to end up seeing Mount Rushmore, Devil's Tower (mom and dad have both wanted to see that since Close Encounters), and then I believe they will make their way through Yellowstone. I'm a little jealous. I'd like to see Yellowstone myself.

After that, they'll continue westward until they basically can't go any further! Mine and Laura's flight leaves Monday the 14th at 6am. That's going to be a VERY early morning for us. I won't get to Little Rock until about 11 on Sunday night, right around the time Laura will be getting off of work. The rest of the night will be spent getting things ready for her puppy to stay at her boyfriend's house, making sure we have everything packed, and doing a little dozing on the couch before we have to call a cab. We figured that was easier than either getting someone to drive us or having to pay for long term parking at the airport. We only have a small layover in Atlanta on the way there, but a pretty long one on the way back. Three whole hours! We each have a friend that lives in Atlanta, so some emails have been sent out about meeting up if possible. It'd be a good distraction.

I'm going to try to send all my "kids" postcards. I'm not promising anything at all, but I'll do my best. I do hope we get some good pictures on the whale watching tour though. I'm so very excited about that. Dad had mentioned getting a cabin on the coast, but I don't think we'll have time. Our flight leaves Thursday morning out of Seattle, and we'll be back to Little Rock that night. I haven't decided if I'll drive home then, or if I'll wait until Friday morning. I guess it depends on how tired I am.

My work schedule finally changed. I still work the same hours (2-10:30), but now I work Monday-Friday instead of Tuesday-Saturday. Hallelujah! I can finally have some kind of life on the weekends. Although that life will most likely consist of babysitting or seeing my friends and their kids. That's fine with me.

Everyone's been saying I need a man in my life. For all of YOU out there, you know who you are. Give me some time...I'm working on it!

Allison

Most of you should remember my good friend's little girl Allison who's fighting cancer. She's 4, and had a large tumor removed from her chest back in late December. She started having bathroom accidents, and the doctors discovered she had excess spinal fluid on her spine, and it was causing pressure on some nerves going to her bladder. She had surgery on that 2 weeks ago today. She did great throughout the surgery and great afterwards. She's a rowdy little girl, full of energy, and I kept her for a day the Monday following her surgery, and she was goofy and silly and full of life.

Over this past weekend, Allison started complaining of headaches and then would throw up. She did this about 3 times and then Alicia took her to the ER. They said it looked and sounded like she was leaking spinal fluid internally, which was causing the headaches and making her sick. They told her to keep her flat on her back for the next 72 hours. You try telling that to a 4 year old. They've done the best they can.

I just talked to Alicia, and she's back at the ER with her tonight. I didn't get to talk to her long, but she said there's a knot above her incision on her back and it made her nervous. That's about all I know. I don't know if she's still getting sick or having headaches or not.

Please please keep this little girl in your prayers. She also still has a small spot of cancer in her chest, but for some reason the doctors aren't doing anything about it. They are just watching it right now. It kind of makes me mad that they are basically waiting for something bad to happen before they will treat it, but I guess that's why I don't have my M.D. degree...

I'll leave you with a picture of Allison that I took last Monday...


And here's a video too that I took of her just being silly...it's kind of dark, sorry...