Sister Sister

My sister and I are working on a super cool project together. We've made it out of the planning phase but are still finishing up the implementation phase. Our plan is to be ready for launch by the end of the month!!! But until then only a select few know all the details. Without giving too much away, for part of the project I get to interview my sister! This is both exciting and intimidating because after I interview her I have to put everything together and actually write the article. My sister is awesome. Driven and motivated, smart and witty and a much better writer than me. I'm nervous about portraying her snappy sarcasm appropriately, being able to emphasize her coolness and doing all this while using the unique words and perfect grammar that will meet her editor expectations. 

Black Friday

I am not a Black Friday shopper. I can remember a handful of times growing up trekking out with my mom, but as an adult I have never once deemed it necessary to get up at the butt crack of dawn to stand in serious lines for a "deal." Really there just aren't that many things I need THAT badly. In recent years it's seemed like the Black Friday deals online have become the rage. Four years ago I booked honeymoon plane tickets to St. Lucia on Black Friday. Not because there was some special holiday deal but just because they were the lowest I'd seen in my three months of stalking them. And that really concluded my Black Friday experiences until this year. This year, I worked. So I decided I'd take andvantage of the online deals and get all my Christmas shopping finished in one fell swoop! The problem with this was nothing I wanted to buy was really any sort of special deal. In fact stores that usually send me awesome coupons only sent me mediocre ones. And I didn't really feel like their prices were any better than usual. Maybe I just wasn't shopping for the right things. The high tech electronic crap and such. And I don't have any kids on my shopping list, so I wasn't trying to get a bargain on the most recent pooping baby or talking whatever. I ended up buying one gift on Black Friday. Then on Sunday I got a "Stellar Sunday" email from the same store that was more along the lines of their normal offers. Curious, I logged on and the item I purchased was $10 cheaper! So I reordered it and with my better coupon saved another $20! Out of pure curiosity I logged on again on Cyber Monday and the item was the most expensive I'd seen it and we were back to the diddly coupon deal again. Moral of the story. Black Friday shopping is for the birds. I'll stick to my bargain hunting/couponing on the less crazy days of the year. And it seems as if I'm not the only one to feel this way.

December 4

Someone told me I should start blogging again. He said I needed some sort of challenge to kick my butt in gear. Maybe a blog every day for a month kind of thing. He didn't actually challenge me. But I'm going to try anyway. Day 4. I blogged. :)

50 States

I have a life time goal to visit all fifty states. I am not sure when or why I developed this goal, but for basically as long as I can remember it's exsisted. Approaching 30, hopefully no where near halfway through my life, I am halfway there. I feel pretty satisfied with my progress. I've visited 26 states. Plus the District of Columbia, because, you know, I work there. Of those 26 there are a least 2 to which I would like to return. California, because I've been to Death Valley, but want to visit almost every other city in the state. And Indiana, which is weird but is the only state checked off in which I know I went, have vague memories of visiting family, but have no real memory of any significant experience. You also wouldn't have to twist my arm too hard to return to Hawaii. Next year I have plans to check at least one (if not hopefully 3 or 4) off the list! And I'm hoping to convince the hubby to help me check my number one. He wants to do London, but for some reason ALASKA just sounds so much cooler to me!

Ultrasounds

I am not a big fan of people posting ultrasound and pregnant belly pictures on Facebook. If it's your thing, I apologize, but when I have insomnia at 4am and log on to accept your friend request I do not want to be bombarded with a profile picture that looks something like this: Click Here.

This one is not even sufficiently creepy enough in comparison, but I could not find a Googlized image that does justice to how horrified I was. I thought about stealing the one from my Facebook "friend" but I couldn't quite bring myself to do it. This is what happens though when you post inappropriately intimate pictures on a public domain. You leave yourself open to creepy fetal picture stalkers.

I am not sure why this bothers me so much, other than the breech of intimacy with many "friends" who are really virtual strangers. And the fact that I just find these 3D ultrasound pictures to be incredibly creepy. It is strange. I am a nurse, so I feel my tolerance level for blood, guts and gore is relatively high. I can handle seeing a brain in the real world. I can handle the bloodiness and smell of an operating room (most people don't think about the smell, but it is quite disturbing I'll describe it to you sometime if you'd like, but I'll refrain from broaching that subject here for those faint of heart). I can even handle babies that are about the same size as this fetus when they come into the world too quickly. I can place them in an incubator and look at the tubes and wires and reddened non-formed skin and care for them. They look like little aliens, but they are sort of cute in their own way. But for some reason this picture of it in utero freaks me out. As does listening to a funeral director discuss the emballing process. As do eyeballs. In almost any situation. I was lying in bed the other night and my overhead recessed lighting made a popping noise which for some reason lead my brain to thoughts of shattering lightbulbs, jagged glass shards raining down and what would happen if one of them landed in my eyeball. Completely irrational line of thought, but it had me sweating and cowering under the covers.

I avoid shopping on weekends at the best of times. I'm lucky enough to have a career where I have random weekdays off and can shop with relative ease while others are at work. I avoid shopping on weekends during the holidays like the plague; and I avoid shopping on the weekend after Thanksgiving AT ALL COSTS. Unfortunately, yesterday, what some retailers have apparently deemed Stellar Sunday, my fridge, pantry and dog food containers were all empty. And our love of food demanded I venture out. I probably could have held out. But I'm not sure I could have handled the vengeance of two hungry pups. Pulling into the shopping center was only mildly more annoying than usual. I don't know who designed the traffic flow of this particular shopping center, but they really shouldn't have quit their day job. The grocery store was, of course, slammed. Everyone being out of leftovers and, like me, wanting to stock up for the work week ahead. But the real kicker was the cats. They were up for adoption and set up on the main aisle in the pet store. Which of course meant everyone was congregating and gawking and generally taking up space in the only real route to the dog food. I zigged past the turtle pond, around the first cage, almost ran over a child bee-lining for the fat tabby, found the food, hefted the 33 pounds into my cart, avoided the husky straining on his leash, zagged into the checkout line only to almost take out the 100 pound girl who, arms loaded, jumped in front of me to go first, and finally arrived back to my car, panting and sweating, mission accomplished. I gotta say, the dogs better friggin appreciate and those fat cats better have found themselves some decent homes.

Sunroofs and Seat Warmers

Today. The last day in November. The fourth day after the first snow of the season. Today, it was a balmy 64 degrees. Today it was sunroof and seat warmer weather. 

I love my car. I love that it has a sunroof. And I love even more that it has seat warmers. I use my seat warmers pretty much year round (they feel so cozy after 12 hours at work). But I use my sunroof maybe a handful of times each year. I love it. It's just rare the weather is nice enough. Summer's too hot. Winter's obviously too cold. But occasionally, usually a nice spring or fall day, the temperature is perfect. Today was such a day. It was just warm enough for the breeze, but had a slight chill to justify a cozy seat. Sunroofs and seat warmers. They really should go together.