an Un-Monday

I have today off, which is proving to be much more wonderful than I anticipated.

No “monday” for this week? AWESOME.

Instead, I’ve kept myself busy with productivity. I cleaned out my car, vacuumed my car (this is a First people….), went grocery shopping, picked up pictures, stopped by the bank, aaaand worked on my Resume.. All before noon. Whew.

I’m tired now.

On Netflix I added “Slumdog Millionaire” to my queue (is that even an American word? I thought it was British? Definitely sounds British.). Then, on the next page it shows you “Movies like ____ ” whatever you just added.

What did Netflix list as “movies like Slumdog Millionaire” ?

“The Office -Season 1″, and “Juno”.

Really?? That’s a head-scratcher to me. Although, if there’s any truth to it, that’s a clear sign that I’ll LOVE the movie.

Speaking of movies, we went and saw “I love you, man” this weekend. My thoughts? Freakin hilarious. Nothin’ like a movie full of awkwardness and weird quotes (‘totallyyyy…..totes mcgotes’ …… ‘ See ya Pistol!’ – ‘See ya Joeban!’…’ Joeban? I don’t even know why I said that.’ ) to fill up your mind and your Saturday afternoon.  And it had awesome previews!! I love funny people.

Now I’m couch-sitting and deciding how to spend the rest of my afternoon. I really should’ve spread out this productiveness. Or…..maybe I should consider unpacking from the weekend?? Gah.

playing tourist!

What to do – when a good friend comes to visit on a whim and the weather graciously cooperates???

Play tourist, of course.

Usually this means a trip down to DC – museums and monuments and all. But! The North side of this state deserves some attention too. So, we decided to go see things that were even new to Me.

I live very close to the Charm City. Guess what that means?? I live near CHARM CITY CAKES! Oh, we went. And the Food Network has a huge hold on this place. The windows are covered in black tarps (nope, can’t even peak at the cake-making), and the door opens to you “By Appointment ONLY”. Psh. We’ll just enjoy the view from outside, thank youu.

Moving on…..

To Fells Point, MD. An old (old!) neighborhood in the Baltimore Harbor, home to many many bars, restaurants, shops, theaters, hotels and….more bars. It’s all historic and brick with cobble-stone roads and places like “The Horse You Came In On Saloon”. I want to come in on a horse! And then have a drink!

Anyway. I took a lot of pictures, because it’s just one of those places. You want to capture it, and you love it.

The Bond Street landing.

My buddies. Happy by the water.

Stand by the sea.

My view at lunch. Yum.

Cool door. Cooool window.

We had a blast, and every time I do stuff like this I appreciate this area that I live in more and more. Even if I’m out of this area by the end of the year – I lived here once. And – budget or no budget – I’m experiencing that as much as I can!

from my couch

No lab coats this week! Instead, we’ve been re-located to an elementary school for the next four days. Which, thanks to DC-proximity and um, that one thing thats happening tomorrow……we have the day off. YESSSSSS.

I e-mailed my Senator about two months ago, and did not receive tickets. Surpriiiiise. Sooo…I also called his DC office this morning, and was put on a wait-list for the “extra” (unclaimed) tickets. Also did not receive those. Humph.

SO. Instead. The roomie and I will spend our morning on Our couch, watching all the crazy coverage, admiring all the crazy people that somehow made it there, and loving the fact that we’re witnessing HISTORY. That’s crazy.

We weren’t off today, like most of the rest of you. But I’ll take the trade for tomorrow gladly.

I’m exciiiiited.  Happy Inauguration day!!!

Gone so fast

So much has happened in a week! I feel like I’ve been home twice that long, and in two days we’re hittin’ the road en route to California. Oh, yesssss. Warm weather  (and football!!)  please.

It seems like the “blogosphere” gets put on hold during weeks like these (aka holidays). Rightfully so. I know I’ve taken a little break from the posting and the reading.  Catchin’ up with you people will just keep me busy during the 12+ hours that we’re driving across the West. And maybe even some good writing material. You never know what will happen during a family road trip, when all the “kids” find themselves in the back of a rented Van at the ages of 20-25. Could be interesting……

When we get home I have two days to unwind before I’m off again, back to internship-world. Why do the relaxing-at home-weeks to have to go by so fast???

I know most of you are back at work starting today, so, I should just shut my mouth.

Til tomorrow’…..when I try to figure out how to pack for 70º weather with my winter wardrobe.

Days of distraction

Were much needed.

There’s a lot going on over here. A lot of thoughts pounding in my head, a lot of travel happening in the next few weeks, a lot of work to get done before that, and a lot of changes that will slowly feel normal…. I hope.

So! Distractions are in order.

Friday night the roomie and I went to rent a movie. Instead, we stopped at a Sports bar, had a drink(s), and chatted it up. Yes, we could’ve done this in the apt and saved $10. But woooow did it feel good to get “out”. When somebody else makes your drink, and brings it to you, with a lime, it just tastes a little bit better.

Saturday, we planned on a DC-day. We try to take advantage of living here, since who knows where we’ll be a year from now. To do that, we periodically take day trips to the Capital and check things off the list. Since they have finally re-opened the American History Museum, we decided hit it up.

And then we visited the Christmas Tree. Followed by the Lincoln Memorial. Followed by the WW II memorial. Goal–picture by every state I’ve lived in…..

The roomie is a good sport. And a lovely photographer.

Whew. Long day. Ending with a snow-storm chasing us back to the Metro Station and a waaaarm cozy night IN.
Good stuff.

Today, we had a new mission…..Christmas Shopping!

…..ummm, of which little was done. It’s somethin the good people call Retail-Therapy. Yessss. New black shoes, new Little Black Dress, new Banana-Republic jeans–50% off (omg. yummm)–and a cute new sweater. Successful.

Aaaand, 3 Christmas presents purchased, check!

Off to the land of troubled car people

I’ll be leaving straight from class this afternoon, flying out of BWI and landing in Detroit, MI.

Arriving at 10 p.m. , marking the beginning of a 5 day Break. Yesssss!

This is one city in Michigan I’ve definitely never been to, not even in the airport. This surprised me, because I’ve been through a Lot of random airports. All I know about it is that Eminem lived on 8 mile and the car factories are pulling their hair out right now. Not good. Luckily, I’ll be in and out very quickly. It’s just en route to the final destination (more central MI), where I won’t be with family, but will be with some special people.

I’m thankful for a little escape from this busy life.

I’m thankful that I’m flying, not driving. Even with gas prices constantly dropping (keep going!!), I have no desire to brave the snow that is drenching that state right now.

I’m thankful that I have parents who can, and gladly do, help me out in times of tight-budgets, and still want me to have a fun holiday, home or not.

I’m thankful that despite a very recent change of status, we can still be good friends. And still want to spend this holiday together.

I’m thankful that his parents love Green Chili enough that I can cook them a New-Mexican dinner on Wednesday night, and that will be my “thank you” for giving me lots of delicious holiday eats on Thursday. Flowers just wouldn’t travel well, and food is always better…….right? Right.

I’m thankful that I somehow convinced myself to only pack 3 pairs of shoes. Well, technically 2, since one pair will have to be on my feet. And also amazed at the space this opens up in my big ol’ suitcase.

I’m thankful that when I come back, I have 3 weeks of clinical left, and then I’m flying hooooome for the most wonderful time of the year.

And I’m thankful that I finally have a laptop (not really “new”, but 5 months later it’s still a novelty to me!), and I can travel with my life and entertainment in one little 5- lb bag.

To the rest of you traveling today, be safe!! And just sing in the car if traffic makes you want to ram into the person next to you. It helps, trust me.

Time is winding down

My last two weeks of work are here. This is it. I have work through Thursday and then….drum roll Pleeease…I have the weekend off!!

We hosted a little dinner here tonight for my Dad and his office people. They have someone new coming in this Fall who’s visiting right now, so it was a little “Welcome” thing. I had to bring in my friend A. as my buffer. Otherwise I would’ve been the only person under 30, and umm, a little bored. I may be in the health care field, but I’m no expert like them. So instead, A. came over early and we made ourselves a little drink to start the night. Mostly keeping to ourselves and getting all excited about the fact that for the first time in about two months we are BOTH free this weekend.

There are maybe uhhh, three? bars, in this place. One has been shut down twice, one may or may not have a liquor license right now (we have to look into that), and one has a karaoke night and an 18+ night with a live band playing Country (yah.)….and that’s all you need to know about that. So basically when we decide to go out for “drinks” it means we are relaxed at the restaurant bars.

It doesn’t take long to figure out what I miss about the East coast, despite the wonderfulness that is desert sunshine and warm weather. You can’t have it all…

We still have plans for the weekend, despite the minimal options. We still have a good time, hittin’ up happy hours and the local brewery. Three nights in a row of NO 6 a.m. shifts, and doin’ what we want. Crazy things are happenin over here. Hurryyyy up Thursdsay!

Oooh, it wasn’t even on the “list”

So after yesterday’s post, I probably even had you people feeling stressed. Me and my big ol’ “To-do List”.

I had the day off and decided to get bussyyyy on that stupid list. I love to cross things out, it’s not until then that I feel I’ve actually done something productive. Weird? Whatever, I love it.

I take advantage of the fact that–thanks to my crazy work schedule–I still wake up all kinds of early on my days off. Call me crazy, but I like it this way. It makes it so that when I actually have to get up, for work, I’m not dragging myself out of bed with my eyes half open for hours. I just keep it regular, a nice little sleep cycle. It also works to my advantage in that, because I live in the desert…where it gets hot hoT HOT by about 10, I’m up nice and early to go running and not die of a heat stroke. Yessssss.

So I did just that. A nice morning jog to start the day of non-work Work.

I started my homework (check!), mailed a card to my rooomie because she’s awesome and taking care of the apt for the summer (check!), went to Target (funnnnn, check!), and sent my lease in so that when I arrive back East in three weeks (OmaiG!!) I will actually have somewhere to live. Check.

Basking in all of my productiveness, I came home and watched many many episodes of S&TC with the Madre. We’re into Season 4. Goooood stuff.

…..Out of nowhere I remembered that my license expires in a few weeks. Ooooh shit. See, there’s this new system here–you go, wait forever (of course), get your picture taken, and then they mail you the new ID. It takes 7-14 days for it to arrive. What is the purpose of this?!?! I can’t figure it out. It doesn’t cut down the wait time at all. I’d much rather stand there for the extra five seconds while the machine prints it out. Seriously, what was wrong with that idea??

So my dilemma? I’m flying in 3 weeks. If I had waited even one more week to go get my new license, I would not be flying in three weeks. Because I have no passport, and therefore no other form of “government ID”. Ehhhh. Not good.

Solution: step it up and go get the license today. Which is exactly what I did.

And it wasn’t even on my list. Pssh. I’m good.

This is certainly no day “off”

We’re a liiittle short handed at the hospital lately. And by “a little short handed”, I mean we’ve basically been screwed in the last month. Two people quit in two weeks (completely unrelated, but still, Gaaah), one person is off on Maternity leave until September, and two people are on vacation right now. Um, this is not good.

Our July schedule has been redone about 10 times and I’m doing two jobs in one day most of the time. It’s a little ridiculous. And working Overtime hours seems to be more common than not. I’ve been lucky to still have my three days off for the last few weeks, not sure how I managed that one.

Tomorrow and Wednesday are my days “off” this week, but after making a little to-do list tonight I realized they will hardly be that. We have homework for the internship due on Friday, which I looked at tonight and wanted to scream. Yes, I’m aware it is my fault for leaving it til the last minute (ahhh how the F is almost August 1st already?!!). It will basically consume about half of my days off and the next few nights. Not. Fun.

Oh, and I had a few summer projects in the works…which are hardly close to being done. Remember how I wanted to redecorate the study? Yah, me neither. Want to what has been done? We bought the new book case and it’s sitting in the garage…still in the box. And we’ve cleaned out the study. Wheeew. Go us. But but but! I did see that the line of furniture we’re using is ON SALE at Target this week. Yayyy! We all know I take any excuse to go to Target. I’m happy.

I also started a College-Years scrapbook (not inspired by “Saved by the Bell: the college years”. Those were bad). It’s alllll Penn State and college wonderfulness. It’s been very fun to work on–obviously making me a little sad, and all kinds of nostalgic….but it also makes me so happy that I had such an amazing experience. So far I’m about half-way through my Sophomore year. Goooood times. The problem is that I want it finished before I leave because I know that I’ll have zero time to work on it once I start the program. Which gives me uhhh, 3 weeks? We’ll see.

Aaaand it’s still summer, right?? Barely, I know. I still want to read my book, and enjoy cooking fun dinners with my mom (and a drink), and go out once or twice with my buddies. And keep running (the one thing I manage to get done every time I want to. Good thing I have my priorities straight here.), and continue watching all seasons of S&TC (the Madre saw the movie, but has never seen the show. this has been fun!), and hang out with the siblings before I head back East, and Relaaaax. While I still can.

Hmmm. Wish me luck.

Two in one

All of a sudden I get lots of mail. I don’t know when this started, and a lot of it is junk, but it comes every day. This is pretty unusual for me while I’m home. I’m sure some of it can be attributed to the fact that I finally did my “change of address” thing online with the Post Office. (Did you know you could do that online?! Gah, lucky for me because I definitely didn’t think about that before leaving PA for the summer. dumb.) It’s not all bad stuff though; I do get a magazine or two (CookingLight!, Kraft!, etc.), and a load of useless things from the Alumni Association, and a card from the boys I babysat for during school (soooo cute!).

And today, I got two in one. Two packages, in one day. Ooh happiness!

First package: Birthday randoms from the bf, Jack. Yayyyyy! He’s awesome at making packages. We never actually get to celebrate birthdays together, especially for the time being since he’s ummm about 10 states away (ehhhhh. not fun.). So instead, we come up with some kick-ass random things to give each other in a big ol’ box-of-fun. Two things are guaranteed to be included: candy and pictures. You simply can’t go wrong with either. I encourage you to try, it won’t happen. I loooove candy, and uhh…I’m not gonna lie…we take some pretty damn good pictures.

Second package: wonderfulness from Forever 21!! This didn’t come until like 8 o’clock tonight (didn’t know the UPS man was still out and about? what a night owl.), and I had kind of forgotten about it. I only ordered these things last week, I guess, but that feels so long ago. Well, I obviously had to go try everything on. Because that’s what you do when you have about 10 new items just sitting in your hands. Yessss! They all fit, they are all as cute as they appeared online, and they are all being washed so they don’t have that weird packaged smell anymore. Ew. Except the earrings, necklace, and scarf….which I’m still wearing and adoring.

I have to return one of the tank tops I bought at Target today. Apparently, after a week, I forgot what I ordered online. I must have really wanted a green ribbed tank top, because now I have two. Uh, oops.