the hint mix 1

I was going through some of my old stuff the other day, the couple of boxes that I salvaged when Mom and Dad brought ALL the stuff from my old room down to FL when Dusty and I got married – Dusty made me throw most of it away (there was a LOT of stuff…mostly stuffed animals…) and I found a cassette tape titled “The Hint Mix I” 

(sorry my camera isn’t better – I was trying to get the handwriting – is that yours Ben??)

I have no recollection of making this mix tape, which doesn’t really surprise me – I was the 4th kid to move into the much coveted (smaller) corner bedroom in my parent’s house, sometimes things just surfaced out of nowhere.  This tape made it all the way to Florida, AND survived the strict save-nothing-our-house-cannot-be-cluttered hand of Dusty!  (this is good – we balance each other)  So obviously I was curious what was on the tape.  I popped it into the tape deck player in our car (the only one we have, who has cassette players anymore?).  And it. Is AWESOME.  It’s a lot of Paul Simon, Jimmy Buffett and other random awesome artists/songs, plus every other song is an old commercial tune, like this one:

And I really don’t think I’ve ever heard this tape before now.  Who made this tape???  And if you want it back…is there still a way to copy tapes?  Because I’m really loving this one :) 

By the way, I owe this random digging up of my past to my sister-in-law Natalie’s recent gallivantings around Europe, looking at her amazing pictures has inspired me to find my pictures and souvenirs from France (I’ve had them in a shoebox all this time!) and put them (rightly) in a scrapbook. 

So whose tape is this?

i’m thankful for

my husband. Sometimes he drives me crazy (like when he reads by blog posts as I’m writing them and tell me to make sure I sound cool…), but he makes up for it by being amazing, brilliant, patient, honest, handsome, the MOST sincere person I know, and just downright perfect for me. And, he says things like, “Last night I dreamt that I had an affair, but the woman I had an affair with was a clone of you!” :)

my family. In Connecticut, Washington, Alaska, Idaho, London, Arizona – I’m so blessed!! My family is the most amazing/smart/talented/loving bunch of people I know.

my health - and my family's. After working as a nurse for a short while, I’ve realized I’ve been SO blessed with my health.

my job. I love being a nurse! Although, I’m also grateful that I got cancelled from 7-3 today, which meant I got to sleep in after eating all that turkey AND spend more time with the Bryans!

avocado pie, and the people who make it for me. ;) (see above..)

nature/the world.

the gospel.

laughing.

friends! Friends I talk to all the time and friends I haven't spoken to for months (or years...) I've been incredibly blessed by so many people in my life!

movies that make me feel good-

babies,

Christmas trees,

relaxing,

Sumo and Sunshine (our cats),

loans,

showers,

comfy couches,

and…

love!

adventures.

Crystalyn!  This post is for you :).

Crystalyn and Shaun are coming for Thankgsiving this Thursday (so excited!), and are looking for possible adventures for Friday – I have to work, boo.  I was thinking, we really haven’t done all that much, but we did make a list awhile back that has been on our fridge, of things we want to to do while we’re here in the sunshine state.

Just in case you can’t read that, I’ll transcribe here.  (keep in mind, we don’t have any babies, so I’m not sure all these will be Juniper-safe)

but – I’ll start on the one you totally should do, because it is      

-JUNIPER spring!!  We canoed the spring run, but it takes a reaaally long time, and I’m not really sure you’d want to take a 2 year old on a canoe…for 6 hours…but the spring itself is really cool, too. 

-Wild Waters – did that on a 1/2 price day, actually not that cool.  (and not open now…)

-Ride bikes on the Canaveral sea shore – this was SO fun!  But you do need a little person bike/rider…we don’t have one.  Sorry :/

-Payne’s Prairie – in Gainesville!  It’s pretty cool, but mostly just a prairie.  People say there are buffalo and wild horses there, but I’ve never seen them – only lots of alligators.

-Cedar Key – this is a cool old fishing town about an hour away from us – good sea food :)

-Weekiwachi springs/water park – probably not open, but this was pretty fun.  They have mermaids!

-Homosassa Springs

-Miami (very far, need hotel/money/time…needless to say, we haven’t done this one in awhile)  (but Miami is really cool!)

-Shired Island – we are THINKING about camping here this weekend – I have to work Friday but not Sat. or Sun!  Maybe we should collaborate??

 

 

 

 

 

-Caladesi Island/Honeymoon Island – mangroves!  Really cool.

 

 

 

 

 

 

-Rock Springs Float – no idea what this is.  Probably a spring run float…duh, but we haven’t done it yet.

-Volusia Blue Springs – in the winter this is a Manatee Reserve, no swimming allowed, but we really want to go see the manatees!

-Busch Gardens - $78 per ticket!!  we haven’t done this yet…

-Florida Caverns State Park – in the Panhandle, kind of far, again, haven’t done it yet, but it sounds cool.

-Go back to Englewood to get more shark teeth!!  I liked this adventure :)  But I wish Katherine and Pete were still there :(. 

-Three Sisters Spring – super awesome spring!!

-actually, all the springs are pretty awesome.  Rainbow and Little River are a couple of our favorites.  this is Little River-which is free:

(and by the way, this is pretty much my idea of an adventure right now: the sun, water, and a good book.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And last but not least…Crash-O-Rama…Carnival of Carnage - http://www.crasharamaseries.com/

Dusty went to this a few years ago and thought it was pretty awesome (guy.).  I think it is insane, but in a southern redneck-kind of funny but mostly shocking-are they going to kill themselves-why is this even happening sort of way….that I kind of want to go.  And I have to admit that I’m guilty of this:

(don’t ask.  I don’t know.  but in our defense, no one was inside the monitor, unlike the cars in crash-o-rama.)

Anyways, it’s this Friday, and (boo!) I’m working! 

So, I hope this gave you some ideas, we’ll talk Wednesday!  I’m excited! 

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!  I’m pretty sure that only a select few people read this blog, and I LOVE you all!!  I wish Dusty and I could be with ALL of you this Thursday :)

blogging pays off.

I checked the mail yesterday (something I never d0 –for some reason Dusty has become the mail-getter in our family) and look what was in my mailbox!

My wonderful sister-in-law lent me her copy – all the way from Arizona :) 

THANKS MEAGAN!! 

hope you have fun in London…/Belgium, France, etc. etc….I wish I were with you guys!! 

waiting.

I’ve had this book on hold at the library for about 2 months now.  I’m 28 of 57 in line.

Must be good – the first 2 of the series were!  I would break down and just buy the book, but luckily I bought a ton of books at the friends of the Library sale this year that I’m still making my way through :) 

Have I mentioned that I love not being in school??

(For now, at least -I will go back at some point…when I figure out exactly what it is I want to do in nursing, but right now it’s really nice not writing papers and stressing over exams.  Although I do have to take an ECG test tomorrow…that is after I take the class, so…I guess it never really does end, huh??  But it is definitely less stressful after graduation!) 

26.2

A few weekends ago, I flew up to CT for the long-anticipated Hartford marathon – I know, for those of you who keep up to date on my far and few between facebook status updates (Lia), I’ve said before that only crazies run marathons.  I was referring to myself, sister, and mom.  And Pheidippides.  According to the legend/historical account/wikipedia, Pheidippides (not actually sure if that was his name) ran from the Battle of Marathon to Athens (a distance of 26.2 miles) to announce that the Persians had been defeated – he ran the entire time (they didn’t even set up water stations for him), then burst into an assembly and yelled, “Nenikekamen", transalation, “We have won”, collapsed, and died. 

I can’t tell from looking at this picture if the people are afraid of him, trying to help him, praising him, or just shocked at the sight of him.  Pheidippides, though, sure looks like how I felt after running 26.2 miles, except that he’s naked.  (which…I’ve got to wonder what happened here?  Maybe he was in battle garb and at about mile 15 thought, “This is not working, something’s got to go…”  and took off all his clothes?  Kind of awkward…but then again his battle garb was probably not light) 

Anyways, so this all took place in 490 B.C., and it wasn’t until 1896, with the first modern Olympic games, that the race became an actual sporting event, males only- but see this article about women’s marathoning.  I like Stamatis Rovithi, who, despite the head officials telling her she was excluded from the marathon, she went and ran her own marathon on a different day (same course).  And also a woman named Melpomene, who was also denied entry but ran along the side of the course.  When she got to the finish stadium (4 and a half hours later) it was empty and locked, so she finished with a lap around the stadium.  Hero.  Here is a picture of some guys running the 1896 Athens marathon:

And in 1908:

So…(drumroll) on October 9th, 13th, and 16th, my mom, sister and I did it!  My mom and sister followed in the footsteps of Melpomene and ran against all the odds; Mom developed a sciatic nerve issue the week before, then Mish was sick the night before…so they ran the marathon a little late, but if you ask me I think what they did was AMAZING (because they are amazing, it shouldn’t surprise me ;).  I had live entertainment, lots of strangers cheering me on, lots of strangers suffering alongside me, and lets face it, misery loves company.  Mish and Mom had family (yes, better than strangers) but just watching people who are riding bikes (and complaining...) while you feel like you’re dying for 26 miles, kind of puts you in a sour mood…for anyone who Mish told she was going to punch in the face – that was the marathon speaking.  Promise :)

 

my mom, ever the optimist!! :)

 

I promised Dusty I’d do a cartwheel for him at mile 20 – here it is :)

And she’s just too cute to not post this picture :)

After all this, I kind of feel like Pheidippides just might be looking at all us marathoners and saying, “Don’t y’all have cell phones?  Email??”  I mean, the man died – shouldn’t we have learned a lesson there?  But we didn’t, and every year more people put their bodies through hell and back (excuse my language, but it seems pretty accurate, coming from an amateur) to honor ancient Greek civilization…or maybe just to prove that we can do pretty much anything we set our minds to, even if it defies logic, sense, sane-ness and gravity (I thought gravity was going to win around mile 23-24, but I conquered).  And, of course, get super hot bodies.  WE. ARE. MARATHONERS.  Congratulations Mish and Mom, we did it!!!

album test

I have a bunch of photos I want to put up, so this is a test :)

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listerine ZERO?

Today as I walked into Walmart, I saw this:  Listerine Zero, and not seeing the “Zero Alcohol” on the top, I thought, “listerine ZERO?  Like, Coke Zero as in zero calories?  Are people DRINKING listerine here??”  Crazy.  But rest assured, now we can all wash our mouths without having to worry about accidently swallowing 21.6% alcohol.  Not fun, folks.

good news!

Julie Williams, RN, BSN – it feels really good to write that!  After possibly the longest 48 hours of my life, I got onto the Florida Dept of Health website and thought I’d look myself up, kind of for kicks since they say the DOH is slower than Pearson, and Pearson hadn’t posted my results yet.  And to my surprise, I was there!  Julie Wargo Williams, professsion: Registered Nurse!  (Well, the exclamation point wasn’t there, I added that in)  With my home address so I knew it was really me!  I even have a license number.  I swear, that test (the NCLEX) will rip any ounce of confidence you have to shreds.  170-something questions, I don’t know because it just shuts off after you’ve passed or failed with no warning.  Actually, now that I think about it, that might be a good thing – you know at the end of a test you kind of start getting ancy for it to just be over?  I do, anyway, so maybe the no warning thing is good.  But still, I was in there for almost 3 hours, and I had a sinking feeling of doom when I walked out – very close to “failing-the-HESI” feeling, which I know all too well.  But today – all is good!  And I have a job offer at Shands, and my family is coming to visit next week, and I can RELAX, for the first time in a loong time! 

Yesterday Dusty took the day off to help me get my mind off the test, and we went here:

 

I was cold – a miracle, really.

the sweetest spud

While in Idaho, I (finally?) tried an Idaho Spud candy bar.  No potatoes involved.   Only marshmellow-y…stuff, and coconuts-  not exactly what I was expecting!

But I found this great recipe online!

Chocolate Cream Spud Pie

“Be elegant - easily! Fill your favorite cooked pastry shell or crumb crust with a rich and light, melt-in-your-mouth chocolate filling.

In a microwave melt 8 Idaho Spuds and 1 1/2 cups of milk. Whip 1/2 cup of heavy cream, saving some for decorating the top. Add to slightly cooled mixture. Pour into pie shell and refrigerate.

Serve with pride!”

We ALSO did a lot of other cooler things, like spending the 4th of July in McCall with family,

Rafting,

camping, more rafting, laying in the sun,

and biking to the top of Bogus Basin – happy birthday, Mom-in-law!!!

We ate Mexican food,

And mostly just enjoyed being with family :)

life is good!

It’s been awhile..

Blogging has been slow lately, sorry folks :).

Mr. Dusty and I have been going a bit crazy with school, Florida heat, and more school, but some things have happened in the past few months!  Here’s a quick synopsis:

I pseudo-graduated in April:

And I really graduate this Friday!  :)

(also – update – I finally passed the HESI…the third time I took it.  I better pass the NCLEX is all I have to say)

And our kitties got spade:  Sumo hiding behind our nintendo, giving me her evil eye.  I don’t blame her.

 

 

My big brother got MARRIED!!

And we got to spend time with family :)

     I love the DC Temple! 

 

And we squeezed in some sight-seeing in DC too

                                                                                          (I love the Red Cross!)

 

Of course, we happened to be there the same day as about 20,000 bikers…happy memorial day!!

 

 

Mr. Dusty’s favorite place in DC…there were NO PEOPLE.  anywhere to be seen – kind of eerie if you ask me.

This was my (almost) favorite part of the day.  I got yelled at by a security guard right before this picture was taken.  :(

It’s been a good few months!!  And we found this spring back home in hot hot florida (it’s 85 degrees at 11:15pm!  that’s not right.):

 

so beautiful!!