Engaged!

Rob proposed!! We are getting married! :)

It happened on Sunday night, when we took a drive to Alki Beach in West Seattle after dinner. We went out on the beach just after sunset, and he got down on one knee in the sand!

We haven't picked a date or even a location yet (our families are all over the world!) but probably within the next year. :)



(I would post more pictures, but my quota is full for Picasa!! What terrible timing on that. Check out the one on the sidebar, though, in the meantime.)

Time for me to get off my cloud and start getting ready for work...

The End of Vacation

I just finished uploading 80 or so of my 300+ pictures from the trip to CA onto Facebook! Almost all of them have been put on Picasa (link on the sidebar) but I haven't had a chance to caption or edit them... there are a bunch that are similar or didn't turn out well! Eventually I will get around to that, I suppose. :)

The trip to California (and technically Nevada, too) was so much fun! Rob and I flew down on Saturday morning, was met by his family at the airport, and then spent the day in San Francisco. On Sunday, we drove to Lake Tahoe, stopping at a petrified forest, a geyser, 2 Napa wineries, and the Jelly Belly factory along the way! Monday was spent in Lake Tahoe, exploring the area and just relaxing in the sun in the afternoon, followed by a BBQ for dinner. Tuesday we drove to Tracy, where Rob's parents live, and I got to see their house and the town a little bit before heading back to the airport. It was a whirlwind trip, but definitely worth it! I really enjoyed meeting more members of his family and getting to know them all much better... now we really need to go to Iowa so I can meet Rob's sisters!

It's back to work tonight for me (hence the 3 am post... trying to stay up as late as I can). Not really looking forward to it! Although I suppose that nobody actually likes going back to work after a vacation. :) But these night shifts have been brutal for me. Sleeping (or lack thereof) has been a problem, as well as just work being tough. Only 6 more weeks of night shift left!

Here is one of my favorite photos from the trip... I was going to put more in the blog, but I have reached my Picasa quota! Oops. :)

Not a Morning Cat

I thought cats were nocturnal... but here's a picture of Smokey that I took at like 3 am the other day. If looks could kill...

Flaming Soy Corndogs

I haven't done a random bullet post lately, so I think it is time for another one! Some thoughts:

* I am completely addicted to playing Mafia Wars on Facebook! And now it seems as though I have gotten Andy and Kelly hooked on it, too. :) Hehehe.

* I just realized that I am off work until next Thursday night. I mean, I knew intellectually that I was on vacation, but I actually just put away my work shoes/bag in the closet. And washed scrubs... and put them away in the dresser!! Lately I've been leaving them folded in the laundry basket since I am just going to wear them the next day. Lazy, I know.

* Tonight Rob and I are going to go see "Wolverine"!! I am very excited. :) I loved the first three movies!

* I've been listening to my iPod today and dancing around the house as I clean. Just put it on shuffle and the last song it chose was from the Spamalot soundtrack... "Lancelot"! Makes me laugh. :) "His name is Lancelot, he wears tight pants a lot..." Slightly inappropriate but I am still giggling!

* I learned a valuable two-fold lesson today. First, Trader Joe's frozen soy corndogs do, indeed, get freezerburned and go bad after a couple of months. Second, if one decides to try to eat them anyway and pops them into the microwave... they are flammable. I wonder if I am the first person to ever set a soy corndog on fire using a microwave? Luckily I was standing right there watching it (let's face it, I was really hungry!) and managed to stop it before it damaged the microwave. I am rather ashamed to admit it, but I actually tried to eat the non-burned part. It was really gross. And this is coming from a person that normally likes soy corndogs.

* To go back to thoughts about music, I am currently listening to Steven Curtis Chapman's album, All About Love. For some reason, I really enjoy his version of "500 Miles". Of course, I can't help remembering that Molson commercial where the guy walks to Canada for beer, then drops it by accident at the border crossing. Hahaha! Makes me laugh just thinking about it. Anyway, good album. :)

* My house is filled with cobwebs. They seem to be multiplying like crazy lately! What's up with that? I tried using the swiffer to bat them down but then they are all dangling everywhere instead of just being in the corner. Sigh. Maybe I need to buy a broom.

* I need to pack for the trip to California! But I can't decide what to bring/wear so for the moment I am procrastinating on that front. I suppose I should look up the weather forecast, first, huh! I hope it will be sunny and warm!

* The Seafair Torchlight 5K is July 25. Which means that I need to start running again! Otherwise my goal of beating last year's time is NEVER gonna happen!

* I have decided to postpone buying my new computer for a few weeks for a couple of reasons. First, I am hoping the Apple runs a promotion (like in previous years starting in June) that gives not only the existing education discount (which I am eligible for) but also some other gift. Last year it was an iPod! Also, I am trying to decide whether I should wait for Snow Leopard to be officially released. Rob has played with the beta and wasn't super impressed so maybe I don't need to wait for that reason! But I decided to try to save up a little bit more money so I can get the faster model... because I intend to keep it for a while!

Can you tell that I am feeling rather lazy and not wanting to continue cleaning my house? :) I guess that's enough randomness for now, though.

Day of 3 Posts

Ok, well... technically it is after midnight so this is not the third post of the day... but rather the first post of a new day!

I just spent all this time on the internet. Surfing and whatnot. You know, Facebook, playing Mafia Wars, random friends' blogs, Mafia Wars, news websites, more Facebook, more Mafia Wars. And now I am totally depressed. Can I blame it on my circadian rhythms being all out of whack? Probably not.

I should know better than to compare myself to other people. I really should. And yet, I seem to always fall into a pattern of doing so. Sigh. I read other people's blogs and look at their Facebook photos, and it makes me think about my own life. Inevitably I fear that I fall short of what I want for myself. I am not the kind of bold Christian that some people are. I don't have it in me to go to a foreign country or even an uncomfortable place, in the name of Christ. I look at these pictures and read about their experiences, and it makes me think about how I barely could work in Philadelphia without having a nervous breakdown! I mean, I had nightmares for months after quitting my first nursing job and moving away... and that was in the US! How is it that there are people that can have the kind of faith that takes them to the ends of the earth? And why is it so hard for me, even on a daily basis in Seattle?

A friend sent me a card today to celebrate Nurses' Week, and in it she mentions that this (nursing) is what God called me to do. It's true... I know that He has guided my life for His purposes. So why do I have such a hard time letting go of the control? I get so frustrated with myself sometimes. I hate being so anxious! I don't want to be "a stress ball"... but I am. It's what I do. And there's no way out of it on my own.

Sigh. Maybe I should spend less time online. :) And I am definitely in need of some sleep. Sorry to be so random and, well, anxious in this post!

Tomorrow is a new day. And His mercies are new every morning. :)

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Sick Day

I'm not feeling very well today, so I called in sick for tonight's shift... which I suppose means that I am technically on vacation (since this was my last shift before being off for a week). But man... the problem with that is that you have time off, but... well, you don't feel well! Seems like kind of a waste. Haha!

This weekend is the trip to California! Yay! Looking forward to some sun and seeing Rob's family and just general relaxation. :)

Hm. What else is going on? Not too much besides work. And I think I have complained about working nights enough for now! I just got my pay stub for my next paycheck in a few days and saw something interesting. I am being paid an extra $6 for floating to another unit last week. Wow, what amazing compensation for the stress of doing that! [note the sarcasm] Seriously? Well, at least I won't be subjected to that for a while since we rotate who gets floated. And our unit doesn't float much... usually folks get floated to us!

Well, I COULD write about it being Nurses' Week or some other such thing, but I am not really feeling up to it. Time to go curl up on the couch with Smokey and watch some TV.

Made It!

Well, I made it. It is nearly 8 am, and I managed to stay up all night!! Yay! Now hopefully I will be able to get some good sleep today. :) Didn't get a chance to work on those curtains, but it is supposed to stay nice and rainy today so maybe they won't be necessary!

Yawn. I am tired. Time for bed.

On a Dark and Stormy Night

Just a quick post... hopefully I will write more later. Tonight I am staying up all night so I can sleep tomorrow... so I can work tomorrow night. It's complicated but the only way I can be well-rested before work!! Of course, all last week I got about 4-5 hrs of sleep before each 12 hour shift, and it was miserable, but that's another story. :) Just trying to make it through the next 2 shifts, and then I am off for a whole week!! Hooray for mini-vacations!

So I am attempting to stay up until about 7 or 8 am... we'll see how well that works. Last time I made it until like 3 and then it was a battle of drifting off and waking up 5 minutes later and trying to do whatever I could to stay awake (for example, pacing around my house). Not very productive.

I am working on a couple of sewing projects tonight, which should do the trick. Current project is a surprise for someone who will likely read my blog so I won't go into too much detail yet until the gift is given. But I am getting close to the end on it! Yay! Then hopefully I will be able to work on a more practical item... a gift to myself... curtains to block out the light in my bedroom! The blinds just do not cut it when one is trying to sleep during the daytime. Especially when Seattle has one of those gorgeous sunny days (like it was all last week when I was trying to sleep! Argh.).

Speaking of which... it is definitely a dark and stormy night. Like, the wind is whistling through the trees in a way that makes me wonder if we will have tree branches down and power outages and stuff. Seriously blustery outside!! Originally I was going to go hit up the 24 hr drivethru Starbucks in Northgate, but then I decided to just make some coffee here since it was so yucky outside. :)

Alright, time to get back to quilting. And battening down the hatches. While drinking my coffee.