quick update

so i guess i'm not very good at the blogging thing. sorry. i'll try to be better.

just a quick update/recap on my life, so i can move on and my millions of readers (ok, maybe 2 or 3 readers) won't be lost:

i just spent 3 months on my first travel nursing assignment in Lafayette, Colorado. that's in the suburbs in-between Denver and Boulder. it was a good first assignment, not too challenging or overwhelming. i was doing the same type of nursing i got trained for in Austin - telemetry/cardiac. it was my first time working night shift, and that was tough. i was tired almost all of the time, since i still tried to do stuff during the day on my days off. but half the time i just slept on my days off, so i didn't get to do everything i wanted to while i was in Colorado. i did get to learn how to snowboard though, which was hard but awesome. i discovered muscles i never knew i had, fell on my face a million times, and sprained my wrist, but had a great time. oh, and my family came up for Christmas, which was wonderful.

anyway, now the Colorado job is over and i have 2 weeks off, which i'm spending in Texas visiting family and friends. then on February 6 i'm going to start another 3-month job in Reno, Nevada. doing the same type of nursing, but this time day shift - hooray! :) Reno looks like a fun place, despite all the drinking and gambling. when i was at the doctor for a check-up the other day, i mentioned i was going to Reno and he just starting laughing and said "haha! sin city number 2!" that's not why i'm going there - i promise.

well, i'll try to be more faithful about updating my blog over the next few months. oh, and Hannah and i are having a costume party this weekend. i'll be sure to post pictures. :)

i have a dragon

after crocheting for 16 years, i finally decided to try out amigurumi. i think it turned out pretty well for a first attempt. :)

my muscles won't work

Yesterday I decided to be adventurous. I drove out to Eldora, about an hour from my apartment, and took an all-day snowboarding lesson. Maybe not the wisest move, considering I haven't worked out in about 2 months. I fell about a million times, and I have bruises all over me and can hardly move today. But it was worth it. By the end of the day, I could actually get myself off of the ski lift without eating snow, and had one successful run down the hill without falling once. I came back home afterward, utterly exhausted, and planned on getting into my pajamas and going to bed early. But then a sweet lady I met at church called and invited me to go with her and her family to see Christmas lights at the botanical garden in Denver, so I did. I probably shouldn't have, because I fell asleep as soon as I got into their car. I was too tired to be embarrassed about it. But we had fun, and they didn't laugh at me, at least not to my face. :) Church this morning was wonderful. I've been going to Calvary Bible, which is in Boulder. Despite it having snowed all night and this morning, I made it to both Sunday school and the service. It's so much easier to drive in snow when you have decent tires on your car. I got them replaced a couple of weeks ago. All in all, it's been a great weekend. And now I think I need a nap.

foxes and glittens

i went to the Denver Art Museum today with one of my coworkers. of course i left my camera at home. grrr! but i really liked a lot of the exhibits. i don't think i've been to an art museum since highschool. i'm not very good at seeing beyond the exterior though, into what the pieces mean and such. i kind of wish i'd taken art appreciation in school. this walk-through exhibit was pretty cool. you could hardly see the wires suspending the foxes in the air.

later i went grocery shopping, so i wouldn't have to eat instant oatmeal again if i was hungry in the middle of the night. and then i came home and relaxed. and finished knitting my first pair of glittens! it was the hardest thing i've knit so far. i'm rather proud. oh, the cleverness of me. i guess this is my form of art. :-P

snow, tea, and insomnia

I was going to wait and update my blog when I had some more pictures to share. But I'm kind of lazy when it comes to capturing my life on film - or shall I say, memory card. I always seem to forget my camera when I go out, and then I see something I want to take a picture of and can't. Today I was good, and remembered to bring my camera with me. Alas, when I went to take a picture, I found the battery was dead.

But I'm going to update this anyway, because I can't sleep. In the past 30 hours I've slept about 3 of them. I just now lay in bed for 50 minutes, utterly exhausted and wide awake. And my feet were cold. And I was hungry. I'm always hungry these days. Maybe eating all the time is my body's compensation for sleep deprivation. Unfortunately, I'm running low on groceries. I was going to go grocery shopping in the morning, when I'd had enough sleep to think straight. So here I am with icy toes and an empty stomach. They roll up the sidewalks around here by 8 or 9, and I'm really too tired to drive, so going out to get food is out of the question. Guess I'll have to settle for instant oatmeal. Better than nothing.

I got up early this afternoon to go out to lunch with some ladies from work. We went toBoulder Dushanbe Teahouse. It was scrumptious. That's when I wanted to take pictures. Apparently the teahouse was a gift to Boulder from Tajikistan. It's absolutely beautiful, with mosaics on the ceiling and carved wooden pillars and beautiful statues and a fish pond in the middle. Oh, and in the corners, they had short tables where you could take off your shoes and sit cross-legged on cushions while drinking your tea. We sat at a regular table though. We all got different kinds of tea, and they brought it out in individual teapots, and gave us a little hourglass timer so we'd know how long to steep our tea leaves for. One of them got a blossoming tea, which I'd never heard of, but was very entertaining. Before putting it in hot water, it looks like a dried blob of mushroom or something. Then you add hot water, and it expands to look like a blossoming flower. We sat and watched it for at least 5 minutes. Here's a picture of one I found on the internet.

I guess I don't have much to write. Work is going well, and I think I'm getting the hang of computer charting. It's snowed a couple of times, but right now the roads are clear, thankfully. I desperately need snow tires. Driving home Sunday morning was scary. I'll hopefully get my tires changed tomorrow or Wednesday. I also need to get over my hatred of shopping long enough to buy some decent winter clothes. I've been layering a lot.