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  • Sincerely Yours

    writing-a-letter

    Dear Bubba the Truck,

    Our relationship started out rocky, me being forced to learn to drive your standard transmission at a young age. Since that time, I have been a devoted master to you for nine years. But now you are slowly driving me insane. Do me a favor and dig deep down in your vehicular soul and find the strength to restore your power steering. Because if I’m not worth that to you, it just might be time to say goodbye.

    With a heavy heart,
    She of the Seventeen-Point Turn

    ***

    Dear Wedding Photographer,

    I adore you and your photos, I truly do. But it’s been 15 months since our wedding, and still not even a word about when I can expect my album to be ready. All I want is an ETA, is that too much to ask? I’ve tried emailing you, Facebooking you, and even DM-ing you. Please give me the courtesy of a response, because if not, I will be forced to – gasp – CALL you, and we don’t want to resort to desperate measures, do we?

    Sincerely,
    A Slightly Frustrated Client

    ***

    Dear Eddie and Cleo,

    Can you please learn to sweep up and vacuum your own dog hair? Or better yet, STOP SHEDDING. And Cleo, you only thought you could get away with chewing that windowsill while I was in the next room.

    Love,
    Mama

    P.S. You make me so happy I can hardly contain myself sometimes.

    ***

    Dear Major Non-Profit Hospital For Which I Work,

    I seem to remember in one of my orientation classes hearing the phrase, “We will never run out of money.” If that’s the case, how about increasing our staffing budget? Pretty please? Six patients is a little much for one person during the day shift, especially when there are no nurse’s aides.

    Yours truly,
    A Devoted Employee

    ***

    Dear Ovaries,

    What’s your deal? Seriously.

    Fondly,
    The Rest Of The Body

    ***

    I like writing letters, real or fake, so I’m making this my new weekly feature. More randomness to come!

  • Ten On Tuesday: All About Books

    rr10tuesdayI can’t resist answering questions related to books!

    1. Favorite book(s) when you were a child and why?
    The one that stands out most to me is Matilda by Roald Dahl. I read it over and over again until my copy was in shambles. Matilda was reading advanced books at age 4, and I think I wanted to be just like her.

    2. First “grown-up” book you remember reading?
    One day when I was in middle school I decided to peruse the adult fiction books at the library, and I took home an armful of thrillers in my attempt to be grown up. One of them was Mindbend by Robin Cook. In the opening chapter, a woman starts hemorrhaging during a sexual encounter (if memory serves). I was so disturbed that I put the books in a box, in the corner of my room, and covered them with a blanket. I left them there for months because I was ashamed.

    3. Favorite movie that came from a book?
    I’m going to go with Chocolat. I’ve never read the book (although I probably should), but I adore the movie.

    4. Movie that you loved so much that you WISHED there was a book out so that you could find out more about the movie.
    I have never once had that thought. Most of the movies I loved that don’t already come from books don’t lend themselves to book form, but I could see Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon as an amazing read.

    5. Worst book you’ve ever read?
    I have finally come to a happy place in my life where I can allow myself to stop reading a book if I hate it. The ones I have abandoned include Don Quixote, Crime & Punishment, and One Hundred Years of Solitude. Out of the books I have finished, Big Trouble by Dave Barry was just terrible. I read it because I promised a friend I would, and I cringed the entire time.

    6. Book that everyone raves about that you either a) haven’t read and feel slightly dumb for not having read it or b) have tried to read and hated and so feel slightly dumb that everyone is getting something you don’t?
    Anything by James Patterson. Apparently people eat his stuff up, but I think that anyone who pumps out ten books a year can’t be writing quality. (Incidentally, he doesn’t even write most of his books, just comes up with outlines.) I refuse to read a single one.

    7. If you were forced to choose only 3 books that you could read for the rest of your life, which ones would they be?
    The Lord of the Rings, War and Peace, and The Complete Sherlock Holmes. Three nice, long books that I loved.

    8. Name one book that you would recommend everyone you know read.
    I’m going to name three, so deal with it. A Prayer For Owen Meany by John Irving, Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis, and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer.

    9. What is your “guilty pleasure” reading?
    I don’t read hardly any chick lit or romance novels, which is what I think most girls would consider their “guilty pleasure” reading. When I want something easier to read, I choose something written for young adults. I don’t feel guilty about it though.

    10. What book (excepting the Bible or other major document of your religion/faith) has changed your outlook on life the most?
    The Weight of Glory by C.S. Lewis changed the way I live my life. Practicing His Presence by Brother Lawrence and Frank Laubach changed the way I experience God.

  • ah, saturday

    Let me just tell you how much I loved today. A LOT.

    Any good day off starts with sleeping in, which I did. Then, after some lazing around, David and I decided to cash in on a Cracker Barrel gift card he got for his birthday. Although we’ve been trying to eat healthier this year, we give ourselves one meal a week where we eat what we want. This was DEFINITELY the meal. My love for breakfast food is deep and true, only surpassed by my love for dark chocolate, Blue Bell ice cream, and my Tempur Pedic mattress. And living beings, of course. Anyway, David and I basically ordered one of everything.

    IMG_0147
    Not pictured: the hash brown casserole, French toast, and sausage that we also shared.

    We somehow rolled ourselves out to our car when we finished and drove over to Lowe’s. My plan was just to price some blinds for our breakfast room and living room, but David convinced me to just buy them now. I had anxiety about spending the money, but since we’ve been living without privacy for a year now I figured it was worth it.

    On the way home we stopped to see our nephew Lucas, where I got to experience this adorableness:

    IMG_0153

    Their cat just crawled on to my back and made herself comfortable while I was playing with Lucas. That never happens to me with cats! I was so excited!

    Back at home we set to work installing our new blinds, with the help of our talented and gracious fathers. Conversations with my dad can always be interesting. He is blunt and honest in an endearing sort of way, which makes me nervous at times.

    Dad: One thing I’m looking forward to when I get older is being able to tell everyone exactly what I think.

    Me: But Dad, you kind of already do that.

    Dad: I’m not even close.

    Me: (eyes widen in terror)

    Amidst such riveting conversation we got the blinds installed and I cannot even believe what a difference they make. The rooms actually look finished now. I keep looking at them. Here is what the breakfast area looked like when we bought the house:

    breakfast room before

    And here it is now, pretty much finished:

    breakfast room

    And here are the new blinds in the living room:

    living room

    I’m in love. We had to get them specially cut, and Lowe’s did it perfectly right there while we waited. Eventually I’m thinking some different curtains would be nice for the living room, along with some sort of curtains for the breakfast room, but I am happy with this for now.

    After the satisfying completion of that task, I set about making bruschetta to bring to a baby shower tomorrow. I’ve never made it before, and used this recipe. I had to double it, and the mixture  turned out looking like this before chilling in the refrigerator overnight:

    bruschetta

    Can anyone tell me, does this look right? Because I’m not so sure.

    I am now ensconced on the couch with my two dogs, watching Ewan McGregor attempt to do a very poor Italian accent in Angels & Demons. Saturdays like these don’t happen very often for us, so I enjoy them to the fullest when they do. It’s been a great day.

  • Book Club: A Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick

    goolrickI finished reading A Reliable Wife a couple of weeks ago, but we just had our book club meeting this week. I suggested this one based on the description of it, and I had high expectations. It sounded to me like one of my favorite novels of all time, Rebecca. I love a good romantic mystery.

    The story is about a rich businessman named Ralph Truitt who has had a difficult life, and has been living alone in rural Wisconsin for years. Finally he can stand it no longer, and places an ad in the paper for “a reliable wife” motivated by practical, not romantic, reasons. A young woman named Catherine Land accepts his offer, although her plan is to slowly poison him with arsenic and inherit his wealth. But she is unaware that Truitt has his own plans for her.

    Overall I liked the book okay, and it was a quick read, but unfortunately it did not meet my expectations. For one thing, I wish it had left more to the imagination. I think Truitt’s lustiness was overdone in the beginning, and the salaciousness of Catherine and her lover was kind of disgusting. There was no buildup of sexual tension, it was just…there.

    Also, there were aspects to the writing style that bothered me. The author used a lot of short sentences, which at times felt choppy. I also noticed that he would make drastic, sudden, absolute statements about a character which would be reversed on the next page. It was strange.

    I will say that the rest of the members of my book club really liked the story, and it is kind of haunting. I think I was just expecting too much, so I give it three stars. If you’ve read it, let me know what you think.

     

  • Yesterday Was Depressing, And I’m Not Talking About the UT Game

    Yesterday was my amazing husband’s birthday, and I wanted to make it a happy one for him even though I had to work 12 hours and we aren’t “celebrating” until tonight. I woke up in a great mood, decorated a bit, left his personal gift from me out for him to find when he woke up, and headed to work. He loved the gift and had a great day at work. I was trying to keep in touch with him and be extremely positive, but around noon some things started happening that made it hard for me to do that.

    I could draw these stories out and make you cry, because I certainly did, but I don’t want to be gratuitous. So I’ll just tell you in brief. First, I spent almost three hours literally standing at the bedside of a patient with her family, giving medications to keep her comfortable as we watched her die, explaining the process to them as it happened in front of our eyes. Afterwards it was my job to spend some one-on-one time with the body removing the invasive equipment and preparing it to be picked up.

    Not thirty minutes after that was taken care of, before I really had any time to mentally process it, the code blue alarm went off. This doesn’t happen often on our unit because patients are usually made DNR by the time their disease gets extremely serious. But for the past year we have been taking care of a 24-year-old girl who was pregnant when she found out she had an inoperable tumor wrapped around her heart. Our unit kind of adopted her, and when her baby was born via C-section at 23 weeks we gave her a baby shower. She’s from New Mexico so she didn’t have any supplies here in Houston at the apartment she’d been renting. I’ve had her picture on my refrigerator for months so I’d remember to pray for her and her family.

    Yesterday when the code alarm went off it was because her heart stopped pumping and she stopped responding. Unfortunately, her mother wasn’t in the room at the time so we were forced to do all we could to bring her back. If you have never witnessed a scene such as this in real life, you are blessed. There is no thought of modesty as the clothes are ripped off in order to do CPR and defibrillation. The room is swarming with people while the patient is intubated, chest pounded, and stuck with needles. I was one of the first ones there so I ended up being the one pushing medications, applying the heart paddles, and when her IV needle pulled out I had to insert a new one as fast as possible.

    We finally got in touch with her mother after almost thirty minutes of CPR with no response at all from the patient, and her mother told us not to continue. She was gone. We quickly cleaned her, removed the tubes and wires, and closed her eyes. Then we went outside and took turns hugging her mother and crying with her. I couldn’t cry long though, because my other patients needed me, and they needed me to be happy as usual, as if nothing had happened.

    An hour later I was on my way home to watch UT lose. I wish they would have won, mostly because it meant a lot to my husband, but after the day I had it didn’t seem as important as it had that morning.

    I didn’t intend to write this much, but I guess I just needed to get it out. Nurses grieve for their patients, and this is part of me moving on. I hope I can put it away for the rest of the day and give my husband the birthday celebration that he deserves.