Change.....

Ever feel like time is flying, yet standing still all at the same time? I feel like I've been stuck in the same spot for the last couple years.......too <fill in the blank here> to move on....scared, frustrated, stubborn, confused, lost....etc. It's not that I'm dissatisfied with my life necessarily, I'm just...hard on myself. Life takes time right? I want so badly to be a success...and I don't mean that in a snobbish money hoarding kind of way. I want to make my goals...and actually see them through. Succeeeeed at them! why is that so hard?! Why can't I just say: I'm going to do this....and do it!? Baby steps......'what about bob?' style.

I'm standing on the brink of a lot of change. Have you heard? Let me fill you in.....

A couple of weeks ago I was offered a new job...........in addition to my AA tech position. It involves traveling to different hospitals to teach staff how to use a specific kind of equipment (more or less). This position will be on my days that I already have off, and will not interfere with my current position at Good Sam. I'm excited for the opportunity. I'm excited for change. I'm excited.........to see new places and meet new people! First and foremost I will be an AA tech...but............secondary to that I get to explore new things, all the while continuing to learn...how could I turn it down!?

The same week I accepted this position (which is not at all samaritan affiliated, fyi), my good friend, Jenna, expressed worries about her living situation. With her current roommates moving out, and life doing that whole standing still, yet flying thing, she was left with a decision: move out, or scramble to find a new roomie. soooo...........I said 'what the heck?!' I want to live there! My workout wife and I are to be re-united....now we have no excuse.......Olivia.....we'll be at your mercy again very soon. ugh. hour of power? spinning? zumba? 545 in the morning?! we'll be there.

I move out next week. No more downtown apartment, no more wake up calls from the drunk guy sitting outside the greyhound station singing about the girl he met at the bar. No more walking out into my hallway and wondering "nice.....wonder who puked on my stairs?" No more opening my door at 2am to friends who just can't quite make it home after a night of too much fun. But best of all........no more being alone. Although I do quite well in keeping myself surrounded by my incredible friends...I am getting a little sad living alone. I like....serving people. I'm excited to be with company again. "morning jenna....can I make you a latte?" "phil.....wanna study together?" "5 more minutes Jenna! then i'll wake up!!!!" They're going to be fun roomies.......

Also in the month of January I'll be tackling an A&P night class to keep me on track for nursing school, as well as the CNA program that samaritan has to offer. I am so grateful for Candace for lighting a fire under my butt to help me get going on this CNA stuff. I REALLY don't want to ever be a CNA...I have no desire to work on the floors of the hospital...but.......it'll increase my chances to get into nursing school, so responsibly.......I have to do it. But I'm doing it with Candace! how fun! :)

So.....with the two jobs, the move, the class, and the training program...I may be something of a ticking time bomb of bitchyness for the month of January. Did I mention as well that I'm going on two trips? Phoenix and San Francisco! I'm not entirely sure how this is all going to fit into 31 days....but it kinda has to. Be patient with me please!

As Ruby prepares to depart for Africa....I will be moving in.....watch out ladies!!

Hi Roomie......

I'm exhausted just re-reading this..........time to go put off moving a little longer and walk around downtown!!! :)

Cosmos....Christmas....and Catchphrase??

Some families sing carols and open presents on Christmas Eve.......some may have a big feast......devouring ginormous turkeys or hams and stuffing themselves with all the fixins'....a lot of families go to church and pray.....thanking God for the lives that they've been blessed with. My family on the other hand drinks cosmos......

a LOT of cosmos.

My dad hosts a christmas eve get-together every year. Our relatives drive to portland from various areas in Oregon and we giggle our way through the evening drinking these bright pink drinks. The more sophisticated guests stick with wine or beer, I suppose....but most of us aren't afraid to drink in style.

I'll let the pictures speak for themselves....but all in all...Christmas this year, I'd say...was a HUGE success. Waking up in my old room, in my old bed always brings back fun memories of high school days...until I turn to see my sister has also decided to sleep in my old room.....in my old bed (which happens to be a twin), cursing to the high heavens "Why in the $*%& is that alarm going off? I am seriously going to $&^&ing kill that thing!!!" ahh...Merry Christmas to you too, my love. :) just like old times.... :)

Hope everyone had a wonderful holiday! Here are some pictures of mine!

Sisters......

Jimmy stirring up the cosmo magic......

Kelly shakin it! 

New profile pic??? Laura turns 21 in like a week!!!!!

The famiry....... :) 

Kelly, Karen, Dad, Me, Laura. 

This was an intermission picture from cosmo making....but not to worry:

Jimmy got right back on it.....

YUM

Double yum!!

Don't worry....we didn't give any to the kids!

Sisters.....

So....someone brought out the game catchphrase?? 

Sammy kept kicking all our butts.....

Whoa.....

Favorite picture of Jimmy all night, by FAR.....

You tell 'em Laura....

Christmas morning was a little different this year than most. Usually, we stay at our dad's in portland until mid morning and then head to our mom's here in Corvallis.......this year, I had the wonderful pleasure of being on call and had to head back early. I arrived at my mom's around 7am....perfect timing for a delicious breakfast. We made traditional norwegian and danish christmas cookies while waiting for Laura and Jimmy. All was well. I watched Miracle on 34th street for the first time in YEARS and then....dun dun dunnnnnn.......my pager went off.

BAM. Christmas ruined.

Kidding. :)

Went in for a few hours, but managed to make it back by mid afternoon. Presents commenced, and dinner making went underway.

Mom and I prepared beef wellington....which was literally one of the best things I've ever eaten in my whole life. EVERY SINGLE BITE I wanted to make one of those "mmmmm" sounds and say something like "no.....seriously.........this is the best thing I've ever eaten."...but I think I was getting a little repetitive. Here is a pic of me rolling out the puff pastry that our treasure is all wrapped up in. It was like it's own Christmas present!

 Pushing together all the seams.....

SMILE

Laura and Jimmy were really helpful.......

I ended the night meeting some friends out and about (seriously....who goes out on Christmas?????)....unfortunately it got too rowdy for me (on call makes me a little boring) and I decided bed was the best idea. This was me before hittin the town......funnily enough I didn't take any 'after' pictures.....

yeah yeah yeah. sassy frass me.

Love you all! :)

This week(s) in pictures...

I love checking out msn and just looking at the 'pictures of the week'.....so that's what this post is going to be. PICTURES!!!!! :) Enjoy.

 Hallie holding a finished kleiner....a traditional danish cookie our family makes every year at Christmas.

 Andy trying to show JD the technique....they're actually kinda hard to do!

 Me in an apron.......obviously a little disheveled....

 JD trying to figure out the technique.....

Finished cookies. They're deep fried....what could be better?!

 Andy & Laura....our duck supporters at the civil war...booo! ;)

Candace and I representing. GO BEAVS!

Sweet Ava....

Ava believes that there are goblins in the tv (she saw them on a show once)...obviously the remote controls the tv...so obviously we're supposed to tell the remote to make the goblins go away. I was seriously dying I was laughing so hard. SO CUTE.

 Just made this hat. It was promptly stolen by my little sister....

Hallie and I made this gingerbread house together. :)

Merry (almost) Christmas!!!!!!!!!

An ode to Crystal.....

So......lemme preface this by saying point blank: No...I am not a lesbian. All the same, however, I feel I need to express my undying love for one individual who just happens to be a girl.

So, I met Crystal S (I feel weird putting last names on here, but I do happen to know more than one crystal) 4 or 5ish years ago while attending orientation for Good Sam. At that time I was working out at the Lebanon hospital, and she had taken a job here in Corvallis with an ortho office. I was seriously contemplating what would be worse: gouging out my own eyes or sitting through five more minutes of that terrible terrible meeting when I notice the two people sitting next to me: MY SAVIORS. We laughed and giggled our way through the rest of the orientation and I managed to escape with most (emphasis on most) of my sanity. I went to lebanon and she went to corvallis...never to see one another again right??
WRONG! Destiny had a plan for us and brought me back into Crystal's life about six months later when I applied for a job at that very same ortho office she was working at. WE FELL IN LOVE.  No, I'm not kidding...it was head over heels style. After that....we were quite inseparable...to the point that after she quit our office I couldn't handle working there anymore and quit as well. My job in surgery, though, has led me to yet another Crystal encounter as she just spent the last five weeks with us doing a general surgery rotation with my absolute favorite team (she's in PA school and kicking it's ass). It was SO fun having her back in the workplace with me. SO fun having her back in town. I can't even tell you the importance of this lady in my life. To be comfortable talking to someone about absolutely anything and not be judged or laughed at or scolded, etc is just so......necessary. Crystal fills that roll in my life. I love that she understands my job, I love that she understands my life, I love that she encourages the numerous paths I've blundered down. She is inspiring and wonderful and I'd be an emotional wreck of a person without her.
And......just to brag a little more about my lovely friend....she really is just.......awesome. Everyone that met her at the hospital is STILL singing her praise. We're ready to kick out staff just to keep her. Trade out some of the old to keep that bright shiny smile. So far my petitions have been met with "well...maybe she should finish school first," but I'm still fighting. She's smarter than most of our fully educated hospital staff...we'll just take it from here as far as her education goes. right?! we can do that right???? no....? psh. stupid "rules."

Anyhow.....I just wanted to say thanks to my friend. You've really brightened my life this last month or so. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that you'll be back! I realized we didn't get one picture together while you were here....we have to fix that!!

For now...I'll steal this pic from facebook so the rest of you don't think that I just made up an imaginary friend that I've fallen so deeply in love with:

Ahhhhhh come back to Corvallis!

:) love you friend. thanks for everything.

It's beginning to look a lot like.......

you know what.

:)

I love the holidays!!!! I can't believe how quickly this year has FLOWN. I'm not ready for 2011!

Today has been a perfect day off....lazy morning, sitting at my window watching the hangings of Christmas decorations at the courthouse, drinking tea and being cozy. The sun has been out all morning, and it is just making my day! listening to music and planning......

I love having no obligations.....

This is where I'm sitting.....wanna come over? :)

Happy Thursday. NEXT WEEK IS THANKSGIVING!!!!! My favorite!!!! :) bye!!

BETTER!!

Well, I'm sorry about my last grumpy post...but my mood has greatly improved since then! I've made some decisions recently to help clear out some of the clutter, for lack of a better word, in my life...and am now breathing a sigh of relief (or something). Decision made. Done and over. Right? Ugh...

I don't do well with change...never have. It kicks me out of my groove, and I hate it when I'm out of my groove! How do you dance your way back to normalcy?! One day at a time I suppose. Even worse than that, I hate when you KNOW some things in your life have to change and only you can be the person to do it...but you're so stuck in this area of comfortability. I don't want to make any of those decisions. Why can't someone just fix my life up for me eh? Parents?? Where are you!? Don't you want to pay my bills again?? Don't you want to clean my room???? :) I suppose its time to be a grown up. I need to learn that everyone has made sacrifices to get where they are, and I am not above that. It's a very humbling experience. I don't love being humbled. Life is not the perfect sing song time that I want it to be. Things don't just fix themselves....

And not only that...but some things take FOREVER to move forward....(yes I am saying forever like sandlot style).

It's funny (not the most appropriate word) how pieces of your past continue to haunt you despite desperate attempts to move away from them.  I went through a pretty ridiculous divorce some time ago now....and when you hear things like "I divorced my wife 10 years ago and STILL get phone calls for her"...they're not lying! I don't love to go into detail about it, but sometimes the things that come up are really............crappy, and even worse, they're surprising. I'm over it. I don't want those surprises anymore. But that's the deal I suppose. Take the good with the bad or the bad with the good, or something....and make the best of it! I don't like to complain...I try to in my journal, but even then I just feel like its a waste of time. So instead, sometimes I get grumpy, sometimes I get really frustrated, sometimes I get sadly pathetically mopey about it all....but I always bounce back.

Here I am...bouncing. :)

As a side note, someone called me hoppy heather the other day after too much coffee. yikes!

Anyhow...I am so grateful though that I have so much love in my life to help me get by. I am sooooooo grateful. Friends help....and surprisingly enough, work helps (when I'm not getting puked on that is, which happened this week for my first time.......grossest thing EVER). Nice distraction, at least. Leaving the past behind can sometimes, for me, be a lot more difficult than it probably should be. I think I'm some kind of hoarder of life. Letting go is HARD! Decisions I've made, although not always timely, are there...and I'll always be working through them. Accepting them, not necessarily because I want to, but because I have to. So.........yeah. Sorry for the sometimes mopey me.....I'll work on that. :) Mkay...enough of that. Gonna go enjoy some sun before all the  vitamin D is gone! BYE!

Oh and I'm making hats again (fall makes me all creative and stuff.......)!!

Want one??

GO BEAVS!

Grumpy...

Sometimes...it all just gets to me! It being what?? I dunno! Everything! I'm so grumpy right now, and I have no good reason to be. I can't sleep, and I'm too lazy to actually get up and turn on my light so I'm blogging instead of journaling...grrrrrrr.

Today was so lovely, too! It was beautiful out! I made carrot soup (and took pictures), roasted a squash, had coffee with a friend and dinner with some wonderful ladies! I enjoyed the sunshine AND got a nap! It was wonderful! What the heck is wrong with me?! How can I STILL be grumpy??? Maybe I'm experiencing mood swings and it is just unfamiliar......

SERIOUSLY.

UGH.

I think.....sometimes I'm just dissatisfied and there is nothing I (or anyone) can really do about it. I want so many things, but lack the patience. I hate that class schedules are seemingly designed to take forever. I have 2 prereqs left for nursing school, but they're not offered until winter/spring term......aka I'm sitting on my hands until then twiddling my thumbs NOT GOING ANYWHERE IN LIFE.

Hi..........can I be anymore dramatic?

I'll get there.......right? Gosh...this road is so stinkin long.

You know that feeling when it's just.........you feel a little displaced? Like.......you're not quite where you're supposed to be? I have such a wonderful family, such a fabulous core group of friends, and my work life couldn't be any better...but despite all that, my desire to just pack up and ship out is mounting at a pretty alarming rate. To pick up, leave, and start over somewhere else is SO appealing to me. 

I'll likely not do it...not yet...I need a purpose first. Nursing school. I'll pick up and go to nursing school.

Oh yeah...I have to get in first.

Remember when I said I was grumpy??????

Tomorrow is my last day of work for awhile...........I already have several adventures planned so maybe that will snap me out of my funk. CAN'T WAIT!!

I took this picture yesterday on my walk...the leaves are SO gorgeous out!

Step one: Focus on the simple things that are so incredible. i.e. fall colors. :)

Step two: Have a good theme song. (Been listening to Brown Eyed Girl, pretending it was written about me)......... :) 

Step three: Stop bitching. :)

Hey I ended all my steps in smiles! 

I am soooooooo lame. If you've read this far I sincerely apologize.

Thanks for listening! Will post something happier soon......in the mean time, I'll work on being less of a debbie downer.....

G'night.

13 miles?? I got this.....

So........through Ruby's strategic methods of persuasion...or maybe it's just her sweet smile, I somehow was hoodwinked (what?) into signing up for a half marathon. Excuse me? How many miles is that??? 13.1?!?!?!?!?!? holy smokes! So after much moaning and groaning...and many attempts to get out of it: "hey guys...i'm opting out, I'm not running....I've got a pain..........in my body somewhere...I'm not hydrated enough...I can't run more than a mile....etc" I faced the challange...and kicked ass!! I did get sick (but I'd been sick for a few days...stupid body)........I still managed to run the whole thing with a minor hiccup at mile 9. Jenn and I kept just over a 10 min pace!! Not bad for being sick / never running 13 miles in my LIFE (oh and Jenn had a baby this past year...so she basically just rocked it). I want to do it again, but BETTER. A few things I'd have maybe liked to know beforehand....

A. October 24th doesn't mean pleasant fall run...it means running in hurricane like rains and winds, and being SOAKED to the bone within the first 3 miles.

B. "Hilly" area around Terwilliger in Portland, actually means 4 miles of straight up hill.

C. The race shirts were a dumb design. What a waste!!

All in all - we did so well! We had fabulous cheerleaders (thanks Jenna / Sharon / Baby Mo), and A-MAZING runners! I felt such a sense of accomplishment when crossing that finish line. I was so grateful to get to run it with friends, and even more grateful that Jenn and I got to cross the finish line together!! So grateful, in fact, that I cried upon finishing. Me? Cry? Psh...I never do that. Thanks Jenn/Ruby..........it was so special!!!!!!!! Here are some pics of our adventure!

We pumped ourselves up with a shopping trip....its always necessary to bring a list when shopping. :)

Me and my race fingers...I think this was peace + thumbs up. No idea....

We see the finish line!! I'm so happy!!!

WE DID IT!!!!!!!!!!! 

Looking a little nicer as we went out for a celebratory drink!.....and wore our medals of course. :) 

RUN LIKE HELL 2010!! WE WON! :)

I'll take this time, I suppose, as well to post disney pictures as I never did! Oops! Life has been BUSY!

They're so cuuuuute

On Indiana Jones....you can see up my nose!!

Sheeeeeesters....we loooove each other.

No idea....

I wanted to see what it looked like on...and it got stuck....so Jimmy took a picture....

Then I bought it......

Was trying to take a cutesy picture...but Jimmy was being weird with his arm.

So I made Laura do it too. :) She looks confused.

Alright....enough pictures I think for now.

Life has been good and full....I'm trying to actually capture some of it.

Happy Fall!! Its so stormy and fun outside! makes me want to make hot apple cider. quit reading this and come over! lets make cider and cuddle! :)

Love love love you.

Overwhelmed.........

Well....we pushed our date back to head to California to tomorrow (the 7th). We are leaving tomorrow evening. Driving. I'm feeling extremely overwhelmed right now. I feel like I keep checking things OFF my 'to do' list, only to put more things on it. There are 16 peppers in my kitchen right now waiting to be roasted.

16.
peppers.

That is SO many peppers. They, then, have to be peeled, chopped, and simmered in an already made sauce (that I haven't made yet) for 2 hours.

I am currently sitting on my couch in the dark drinking a glass of wine ignoring my stupid to do list. My house is a wreck! My clothes aren't packed, my car needs cleaned out, I haven't picked up the beer...OR the centerpiece stuff. I have to go buy more fish, because I didn't make enough yesterday....and then smoke it! grrrr.

ugh.

AND....I don't have a dress.

AND....I have homework.

AND...I need to go for a run.

WOW. Really? Did I just do that?

Maybe I need a pet. I can vent all my issues to my poor animal instead of on here... :)

ok ok ok....in reality though....I can't complain. Aside from the zillions of things that I have to do, I had a fabulous day....a really fabulous week actually. Not to get into too much detail, but today we had a patient that got into a really severe car accident (WEAR YOUR SEATBELT!).....she literally could have easily decapitated herself, but was LUCKY. SO LUCKY. It was one of those days though where everything clicked. Everyone knew what to do, what to get, and how to help one another. We acted as a team. At the end of it...I got not one, but TWO hugs from some of my co-workers in an expression of gratitude for my help. It made my day. Seriously. To know....that you actually DID help. To know...that you made a difference in helping save that person....it gave me the warm and fuzzies. :)

Have I mentioned how much I love my work family? :)

Here are some pictures from my week: ENJOY! Next week I'll post pictures of a rockin party and a day from DISNEY! woo!

 Showing off OSU spirit on Beaver game day! Woo! This is what you get when you make me work when there are home games!

Pizza we made for the oven......pictured below:

Wood fired oven we built at my parents house......yeah....we're crafty. Outside design done by Laura and Jimmy.

My pie. :) I heart pie.

Thanks for letting me complain.

I suppose I should go roast some peppers....

Or maybe go dress shopping? ;)

All my love.