My Ring...

Lately my hands have been hurting. Actually most of my joints have been hurting. My elbows, shoulders... anyways, I just ignored it and figured it would go away. Last night was terrible. Finally my fingers felt like they were swelling up. So I yanked my wedding ring (literally... ice cubes and soap to get it off) from my finger because I figured I'd rather get it off now than have it cut off!

My assumption is that the drastic change in weather is causing the pain. Often when it rains I find that my joints hurt. And I think my hands were swollen because I went to the movies last night and ate popcorn and jellybeans and whoppers. Just enough salt and sugar to retain a bit of water. But, of course, being the hypochondriac I am, I am sure it is something much worse. Fortunately I can't get too far into my delusion because I just had some blood work done at the hospital and everything is normal. Cholesterol... perfect, HDL and LDL... just fine, blood sugar ... where it should be! My heart is perfectly normal and strong... (I did an EKG while I was bored the other night and then asked my favorite Cardiologist to look at it). Of course, if they tested how fat my finger is in compared to the circumference of my wedding ring, I might have a problem. I hope I can get it back on in the near future!

Editor's note: I just took a hypochondriac test online (clearly it's VERY scientific) and it said on a score of 1-100 I was a 75! (There were 10 questions) ALso it said: You appear to have some signs of hypochondria, but not to any extreme point. You worry about unusual symptoms a bit more than the average person, and occasionally blow normal aches and pains out of proportion. You may want to keep your hypochondriac tendencies in check so they don't get the best of you.

I'm so excited!

Only 41 more days...

'Till the LA County Fair!!!

I know that it's totally ghetto there, you can't stay much past sunset because there is a good chance you'll get shot by a gang member, and people have been know to die on those rides (I am working on the lie I will tell my children one day so they won't want to go on those rides) but darnit I love the fair! Here is a picture from last year...

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Our long lost friends, Robert and Ryan. You'd never guess that Ryan speaks Chinese (on the left) and Robert (right) can barely spell "burrito" ! Kidding! Love you, Robert.

Ran into a random friend...

Robert also met some new friends

Randy and I shared Dr Bob's ice cream!

I know I am such a dork... but I am counting the days until the FAIR! Randy took me for the first time back in 2002, and we have gone every year since! SO MUCH FUN! He spends most of his time at the Beer Gardens, while I manage to find everything and anything that they will put on a stick, dip in batter, and F-R-Y! I'll always be trailer-trash at heart!

Update

Everything worked out, and I start the whole real-job thing on Tuesday. My list is slowly becoming nothing. Maybe I'll take a few weeks of from my list. Nah, in two weeks I will be worrying about exams, and papers, and hospital stuff... and then in nine months I get to worry about my State Boards AGAIN! I suppose it never stops, really.

I just hate it when I can't sleep...

It's nearly 2 am and I am still wide awake. I hate this. I had a glass of wine around 9:30 and I was ready to fall over and sleep on the living room floor... but now I am wide awake. Our stupid cats won't stop moving around on the bed and now my mind is back "on" and working overtime again. I hate it when that happens. Guess I'll just write about my day...
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Earlier this afternoon Randy and I went into Redlands to get some groceries... on our way into town we stopped by set of new homes being sold. Just for laughs, we pulled over and checked them out. As it turns out, the homes STARTED at $1 Million. Seriously. These are freaking tract homes. The highest home was $1.4 Million. In Redlands! That is all I could think. Hello!?! This is Redlands, folks. 20 minutes away from Beaumont. If a person is going to drop $1.4 million on a freaking house, please do it somewhere else. While Randy really liked the homes, I was disgusted. (It's the pragmatic Cramer part of me, I suppose) All I could think about while walking through the 4850 sq.ft. property was how embarrassing it would be to have people over. This home wasn't about having lots of room for a big family, it was about being gloriously ostentatious. Who needs a wet bar in the master bedroom? Apparently somebody with a big mortgage, that's who!

First things first..

I carry around a list of things to worry about. Really I do. I'd rather have the list because it's much worse for me to forget what I'm supposed to worry about and then I get all stressed out because I can't remember what I am supposed to be worried about. I know, I should probably be on prozac or something... but whatever... my list works for me. At the top of my current list was tuition. Aaaaannnnd my financial aid worked out and that is now taken care of. Randy and I are both covered for the entire year! WoooHoooo!
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Since we both had the day off, we decided to celebrate. The first order of the day was a nap. The four of us (Me, Randy, Tinkerbell, and Tank) all turned the A/C to a conservative 78 and crashed for a three hour nap! I think the cats could have gone longer, but I was ready to eat. So Randy and I hopped into the car and drove to Las Vegas for dinner. Not really. We went to the Indian (feather-Indian not dot-Indian) Casino in Highland for an $11.99 dinner. It tasted like a 12 dollar dinner should. Oh well. After thanking Randy for taking me all the way to "Las Vegas" I asked him what we were going to do next... he said that since we were already in Vegas, we should check out Caesars Palace, especially the shops! He then took me to the Redlands Mall. I can't say it was all that comparable. However I did find a nice Indian (dot-Indian, not feather-Indian) shop to get my eyebrows threaded. All in all it turned out to be a good day.

This would totally happen to me!

Sadness...

I've been spammed! I am very upset right now. Seriously. Some piece-of-crap left links all over my blog. I have been working my butt off to get it all cleared up. Because of that I have had to change my "comments" sections. For now, only registered users can leave messages for me. People suck!

Quite the conundrum!

My fanny pack arrived today. Fat people shouldn't even be allowed to purchase them. The appearance is similar to tying a rope around a beach ball. It's clearly an abomination of everything aesthetic. Maybe I'll just sew really big pockets into my scrubs and carry my stuff around that way. Hmmm... that might not prove to be the best look either. Maybe I should just go to the gym and fix the problem that way. Or maybe I could go to an Army surplus store and pick up some of those military pants... the pockets look perfect!

The Toe is back...

Camel Toe got hired at the same hospital I'm at. Now we get to spend our days AND nights together. Why me???

By the way...

I passed! As it turns out, it wasn't a tremendously exhilarating experience. It was more like a giant sigh of relief... and then a return to my march of perseverance.
The test is three hours long, and mixed among the 160 questions are 20 "trial" questions. They are placed in the test as research for future questions. The twenty don't actually count, they are there to see how well students respond to them and then they might later be put in the actual exam. I however found those questions to be very frustrating. They were something of a psychological roadblock for me. They just created doubt and frustration during the exam. In the end, however, I managed to pass... and I actually did quite well, thank you!

Metrosexual is OUT...

And retrosexual is IN. What is that you ask? The "manly man" is back in vogue, folks. Let me be the first to say. "Hallelujah!" Don't get me wrong. I owe everything to my sister-in-law. Without her my husband would be just another man who didn't understand the importance of owning a Balenciaga bags (eventually, of course). But because of her, he understands the beauty of a Diane von Furstenberg, and the deep need for a girl to have at least one pair of Jimmy Choo slingbacks. OK... so maybe he doesn't really understand the beauty nor grasp the need entirely, he does however pretend to care (from time to time), and that counts for quite a bit. Without Larci's guidance, he would just be a big lug who changes the oil in my car, and moves heavy boxes. I guess I managed to get the best of both worlds... I have a manly man who can be 'fashionably compassionate'. Three cheers for the manly man!!!

Pre-exam jitters.

I take my exam in San Diego tomorrow. Still a bit nervous. I'll be given three hours to complete it. Fortunately the stress about actually passing the exam is surpassed by other worries, like tuition (still waiting to see if financial aid is going to come through), and training at work (I have been promoted, as long as I pass my exam, but now I just have to wait to see if they can schedule my training prior to the start of school... if not, I may have to drop out this year. Not a good thing). All I can do is rest in the assurance that I've made it this far...

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By the way... I found a fanny pack... I thought it was simple and straight to the point.

My future is so bright that I gotta wear...

A FREAKING FANNY PACK! Yeah, I'm serious. I know what you are thinking... it's the same thing I'm thinking... the image that comes to mind when I think of a fanny pack is the kind of woman you'd find at a Sturgis Harley Rally. Or a man in cut-off jeans and fanny pack strolling down the street in Palm Springs during gay pride week! Hello?!
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Unfortunately I HAVE to get one. I need it for the hospital. I need one to carry around drugs and medical crap from room to room. Respiratory therapy is nothing like nursing. We don't get three to five patients that we take care of. Nope, we can have up to 15 patients... all in different areas of the hospital. We're a nomadic bunch, really. Thus the need for a personal fanny pack. In my hospital, that's how you spot an RT.
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Having no idea where to possibly find a fanny pack, I have turned to the internet. I had no idea what a selection I would discover! This first little number is called the "Roman Holiday Bag". I laughed out loud too. Somehow the name just went with my Palm Springs visual. I like it. Despite it's name, my pragmatic side tells me that I should buy it. It's simple, and will serve it's purpose well.
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However, my need to be bright and happy draws me to the bag with happy flowers. I bet a pack of cookies would fit nicely into that water bottle area. Fortunately I am wise enough to acknowledge that this bright bag riding on the back of my hefty caboose might not look so good. Like a single tail-light on the back of a moving bus. No, the flowers are out.
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I wish the whole fanny-pack thing was mentioned to us at the beginning of the program. I might have reconsidered my profession. Fortunately I can still wear shirts like this. In fact I wore that shirt to work today and I was cornered in the psych ward by three crazies. They all wanted to tell me how pretty my polka dots were. Do I have taste or what?

The stockings were hung by the chimney with care...

Over the past few weeks it has become apparent that I've somehow traded my personal faith in Christ for a personal faith in Santa Claus. I've spent less time being humble and more time determining what exactly I need to do right to justify more grace. I've even made a list of the things I need to happen by the time summer is over. (Nothing crazy, just stuff like make sure my job will pay the bills while my husband is in school and have the money to pay for tuition... stuff like that) In itself the list isn't what I find frustrating... it's my attitude. Now I'm even treating Santa Claus like my own personal assistant thinking, "Get to it, Santa!"
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Sometimes when I feel like I am losing perspective on things, I spend a little time thumbing through my tattered copy of the New Testament. Usually I manage to stumble upon something that strikes a chord but occasionally I come up dry. With the up-side amounting to increased faith, and the down-site being 30 minutes of dry reading, I figured I'd take my chances. So last night I ended my day with a little time rummaging among my favorite verses. Not sure why. Just hadn't been there in a while and thought I'd take a quick peek to see if anything new happened to fall out. I bounced through the usual stuff... running the race... press on towards the goal... He who began a good work in you will be faithful... and then I found it... that little piece of writing where you slow down and back up to read it again, that little bit of writing that causes you think for just a millisecond, "maybe that's what I was supposed to get out of this".

II Cor 4:8 "We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair..."

After reading it for the third time I thought to myself, "That sucks. Not too terribly encouraging."

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Now, having thought about that passage for nearly a day I find it comforting, really. Not that I'm going to type it up and post it on my fridge or anything... but it's comforting in just the same way when my dad will respond to my gripes and complaints with, "Yup Jo, sometimes life just sucks... but you'll make it through." So I guess for now I will be content in being a little pressed and perplexed, with the assurance that I won't be crushed. Just like my father said, "you'll make it through".

Wiggle your legs for me!

Ever wonder what it would be like to tell a person while they are in a hospital bed, "I can't find your legs in these blankets. Can you move them for me?" Only to find out THAT PERSON DOESN'T HAVE ANY LEGS? How 'bout telling a patient, "don't move around and please remain as still as possible" only to find out that patient is PARALYZED FROM THE NECK DOWN. Well I know what it feels like. Managed to find that all out in one day. At least I get paid well to be a total jackass.

Exam? Damn.

Only ten more days 'till I take my exam! As usual, I am super stressed out about it. If you recall, earlier this year I passed the practice exam while the remainder 34 students in the program did not. Because I passed, I was not forced to take that summer school class which consisted of repeatedly taking practice tests of the state boards. I thought I was pretty clever not having to attend. Now I wish I had. Seriously, all of the other students that I belittled now have six extra weeks of instruction regarding this exam. Damn. I just don't want to be the example! "Look at Jo, she passed the practice exam, but failed the state boards. She should have been in summer school!" Double damn.

2nd of July celebration

Last Saturday was the HUGE family ice cream competition. Twenty-one entries were placed. I was pretty confident I would win, yet I did not. I must say that I am a little disappointed to have lost the golden scooper award. My entry was called Coca-Nutty 'Nanner. I know, I know. It was a shock to me as well.
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Everyone in this family takes the food rivalry very seriously. Entries are only placed into competition after hours of preparation and often many attempts at perfection. Sometimes costly attempts.
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One of those entries was placed by our cousin David (naked guy to the left). His entry was called Double Chunk #32. David went to the store and spent $32 on ingredients for ONE PINT of ice cream. His wife was shocked at the cost, but I, however, felt her pain because one year we had a cookie making extravaganza and MY husband spent over $60 on ingredients for our cookies! Now after bringing home David's $32 worth of ice cream ingredients, he began his trial run ice cream. Once the ice cream had been churned, he placed it onto a large bowl of tupperware to freeze. When his ice cream was finally ready to taste, David carried it into the living room and happened to drop the giant, frozen-solid, bowl of ice cream onto his coffee table, taking out two giant chunks of wood. Hence, the name Double Chunk #32.

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In addition to the ice cream, we did eat a ton of fantastic food, but that is the norm with our group!