Is it Friday yet?

I hadn't realized it had been a few days since I last updated.  My apologies to the 4 people that read on a regular basis. 

Those that know me well, know that I love my morning newspaper.  No kidding.  I've been reading it since I was about 8.  I prefer my local paper (I even had the B-town Herald delivered to me when I lived in another town over 70 miles away) because I like to know what it going on in my town, my state, my country, my world.  After having read today's world section I just want to say I am so glad I am an American.  We really don't notice the liberties that we enjoy EVERY SINGLE DAY that many people around the world do not even know of.  While I am a Christian, I am glad that our country strives to keep church and state very separate of each other.  In Sudan, a British teacher named Gillian Gibbons has been arrested and is facing 40 lashes, 6 months in prison, and a fine.  Her crime, you ask?  She allowed her students to name the classroom stuffed bear Muhammad.  Even though the name Muhammad is quite popular across the region it is sacrilegious to give the name to an animal, even a fake one.  WOW. 

Also in the paper today...Venus has frequent bursts of lightning.  Who freakin' cares?  Do we plan on living there someday?  No.  Do they have oil?  No.  Case closed. 

Why am I perusing the newspaper for bloggy bits?  Well, there really isn't much to say about the China adoption process.  I am in the midst of doing a home study update.  While I am not required to do everything that I did last year, I was amazed that there were some additions.  My dossier required that I assign a guardian for my someday baby and my sister gladly signed.  This year the SW agency is requiring it as well.  Whatever.  Sarah was gracious enough to sign it again. 

While I still have moments of nervousness at work due to the management through the various departments (and my previous experience with them), overall, I am quite happy.  I had the realization on Tuesday evening as I was doing CI rounds throughout the hospital, I like what I am doing.  A nurse actually thanked me for trying to make charting easier.  Wow.  It's been a long time since anybody in any job has thanked me.  It feels good.  I am involved in a bazillion committees and at one such committee today I had a suggestion that really impressed them.  My suggestion (and the wording of it) is going to be plastered in every room of the hospital.  I'm not sure I will think it is so great if I'm ever the one lying in that bed, but it feels pretty cool from where I sit right now. 

I'm trying to so hard not to binge on chocolate right now.  I swear, every month it is either chocolate or salt.  This month it is chocolate and I don't have ANY in the house.  Instead, I'm bingeing on it at work.  I had bought a couple of pieces of fancy chocolate and hid them in my desk for an emergency such as this one.  After scarfing them down, I went to a colleague's office on the floor above me and helped myself to some Hershey P.B. cups (if there is anything in the world better than chocolate and peanut butter, I don't know what it is).  Then, I went up the hall to check in on another colleague and she had some Boy Scout popcorn.  It wasn't just popcorn, it was popcorn that had been dipped in caramel and then smothered in chocolate.  Mama Mia!  She was trying to give it away so I relieved her of some of her burden. 

Oh, one more good thing from work.  I alluded to some changes in my life a few weeks ago.  I couldn't go into the specifics, but some of it was concerning some changes at work.  Our hospital is considering a merger with the largest hospital system in the state.  There was concern that our IS department would be out of jobs since they use totally different applications at their hospital.  According to our CEO that spoke at our department meeting this week, we should be fine.  Whoo hoo!  Good to know.  Now back to your regular programming. 

And speaking of regular programming...the boys are on tonight!

News of the Weird

I've read two interesting/scary articles in the last 10 minutes.  The first came to me courtesy of Kristen.  A source is claiming that Britney Spears in negotiations to adopt 7 year-old twin girls from China.  At first glance it's a joke, right?  She doesn't meet the minimum age requirement, she's not married, she has a history or drug and alcohol problems (a big fat no-no with China...well, a no-no with any country), and her bio kids have actually been removed from her custody and placed with the drug addicted father.  How bad of a parent are you when your kids are placed with a drug addict?  Part of me wants to believe that she had bad legal representation, but the girl's rich--she probably had the best attorney available to her.  Any RQ's rumor board is arguing that it could be a "private" adoption.  This better be a joke or I'm really going to be upset.

The second story is actually more disturbing than the first (yeah, I know, what could be more disturbing than another generation of Britney's??).  There are several conservative states that are trying to create legislature stating that "personhood" begins at conception and as such they are entitled to all the rights and freedoms of any US citizen.  What this means is that once Miss Egg and Mr Sperm meet, they are now Mr/Miss Person.  While pro-life supporters think this is great to support there are a couple of glaring complications.  1.  Birth control pills would be made illegal because they work by preventing the embryo from adhering to the lining of the uterus.  2. This would affect parents using IVF.  Many times multiple eggs are harvested and many embryos are created.  Generally they don't plant more a couple at a time.  The rest never make it to the nest.  Either IVF would be no longer be allowed or they would only have able to create a few embryos at a time for implantation.  Think of the number of women who are on birth control as a means of keeping a regular cycle, decrease the amount of bleeding, treatment for endometriosis and/or polycystic ovary disorder.  What other treatment means are available to them? 

Chances are neither one of those things will actually happen, but it is a bit scary isn't it?

Have I mentioned that I like cute boys that sing?

Black Friday

Is it a bad thing to hide from your family when you are hosting a holiday event at your home?  Shhhh!  Don't tell anyone--I'm in the computer room. 

I'm going bonkers.  I love my family I truly do.  If it were immediate friends and family only and no pets allowed, I'd be a happy girl.  Instead I have spent the last 24 hours wheezing because my dad's beloved dog likes to sit on or near me at all times.  Today I was trying to enjoy a movie with my family, but the damn dog was sitting on my dad's lap and my dad was sitting next to me.  I started coughing so hard that I was having trouble catching my breath.  I finally left the room and hid in my computer room (the room I am staying in since g'ma took my room) for the next several hours.  It's not much better in there because my poor kitty is so freaked out by having all the strange people in the house and a dog that she likes to sit as close as she can to my face.  Yeah, that's good for my pet allergies.  I am going to have to do some serious pet hair/dander fumigation tomorrow.  I love animals, I really do, but they make me so darn sick.  I can not handle more than one animal in a residence at a time or my allergies starting going into overdrive.  I'm having trouble even wearing my contacts.

G'ma is making me nuts.  The poor lady means well, but we didn't grow up with her so when she talks about her friends and relatives I have no idea who the heck she is talking about.  And she talks incessantly.  I understand.  I truly do.  I feel bad for my co-workers if I have been shut in all weekend with no one to talk to.  I know I make them crazy with the talking and I know that it is a very real possibility that I might end up like this as well.  I guess I wouldn't mind it so much if we were actually having a conversation.  We aren't talking....she's yacking my ear off.  I'm sorry if this post sounds negative, but I am used to solitude.  At home.  At work.  There just isn't this much noise and talking going on in my life.

Let's see...let's talk about something lighter, shall we?  So far I have opened two Christmas presents and it's not even December.  This is two more than I have ever opened before so that's exciting.  Michael came over the other night with my present--a Christmas tree!  I have complained about the crappy tree I had for several years now.  The stupid tree had glued on branches that kept falling off.  It was one sneeze away from being the bald little tree on the Peanuts Christmas Special every December.  It had gotten so bad that I have actually not put up a tree just so I can avoid it.  I think I mentioned last week that a package had arrived on my doorstep from my mom.  She insisted that I open it yesterday while the whole family was present.  It's a new set of luggage!  yeah!  I have needed some new stuff for some time.  I really wanted to have a set because I didn't have a bag for MayLing when I go to China.  It has 3 suitcases (they all fit inside each other), a carry-on bag, a laptop bag, and a toiletry bag.  I'm so psyched!  This will make my Dallas travels much more tolerable.  So, what's left for Christmas?

I love that my parents still take care of me even though I am an adult.  They paid for the groceries to put on Thanksgiving Dinner and today we went to Lowe's.  I didn't expect my dad to buy anything, but I needed to get some over-the-sink lights for my kitchen and a broom to sweep my patio and walk way off with.  Well, I also got a new dish sponge and a step stool (so I don't have to continue dragging my chair all over my kitchen and my house to reach things).  So again I ask, what's left for Christmas?  Just having them around is like having Christmas.  I don't need anything.  I just like having them in my home as we begin some new holiday traditions.

Thanksgiving Mayhem at Mama's House

I volunteered to have Thanksgiving at my house this year.  Truth be told, I begged for it to be at my house because, as a nurse, I have never gotten more than one day off from work.  As such, I don't like spending the entire day traveling just so I can eat a dried out dead bird.  Although turkey is the traditional meat served, I'd much rather have a ham.  I love ham.  Actually I enjoy most parts of a dead pig and would prefer to eat that over dead bird any day.

Ok, that got off topic.  I must admit that I almost attempted to escape the screaming toddler (cute, but nerve wracking when your house occupancy goes from 1 to 7 in the matter of a few minutes), laughing, heat, bubbling potatoes, splattering noodles, and smell of whiskey.  I'm sure my other single sisters would agree, you get used to solitude and having company definitely rocks your world.  I'm not knocking it, just saying it took me some time to adjust.

It was an awesome day.  The food was awesome and everyone agreed it was the best Thanksgiving Day/Food.  There is talk of repeating it here again next year which would also be wonderful.  I think I will try to beat everyone else to the liquor next year though.  

Is the Batchelor Gay?

Ok, I realize that question might be slightly inflammatory, and I admit to never having watched an episode prior to the last 20 minutes of tonight's show, but I have to wonder, did he really feel nothing for either woman or was he simply too afraid to commit?  There is no shame in it, the shame is when you don't recognize that about yourself and start dragging innocent people into the muck with you.  I have a good friend (hope he's not reading this post) who is afraid of commitment and recognizes it in himself.  As long as the women he dates realize that this is as far as it goes, no one should get hurt, but when you go on national TV exposing your desire for marriage with everyone and their dog, that's not fair.  I'm not planning on watching tomorrow's episode.  There are only so many broken hearts I'm willing to expose myself to and I doubt he will say anything that will explain his actions. 

Neighborly Love--Part II

Sure enough, my gutters were clean when I got home tonight.  I decided to walk over to the neighbor's house and thank him for his work.  He asked how much the estimate was for to replace the rear gutters and when I told him, he said, "I bet I could probably replace at least the wood for you, if not the guttering."  WHAT!  He said he is going to check with his dad (who taught him guttering years ago) and see what kind of estimate he could come up with.  That would be awesome!  If his estimate is accurate, it will cost me less than 1/2 of what this guy is charging.  This guy is charging me an arm and a leg because I compared it to another quote I got and it was substantially less.  Unfortunately I never could get the first guy on the phone again.  I left message after message and no one ever called.  Evidently that is a common complaint in this town--the roofing and guttering people just never call you back. 

I'm going to say it one more time--I love my neighbors and my neighborhood!