chickens!

Meet the newest members of Glendale Street!


Suzie (blond chicken), Brownlee and Malloy (red ones)

The End

I have tons of questions about LOST. I thought the ending was good; not what I was hoping or expecting, but still good. It was, of course, no Six Feet Under ending, which was hands-down the best series ending ever. All of your questions were answered and you felt happy and justified by knowing how everyone ended up.
I guess the same is sorta true about the LOST ending. We know they all ultimately ended up together, but I am still left scratching my head about what the time on the island really was. Purgatory? Real life? Sideways life?

My current thought is that in the very first episode, when the plane crashed, they all died. There is a clip of Rose saying to Jack (right after some seriously bad turbulence) "You can let go, you can let go now" and that was the moment they all died. Everything else that happened was an in between time where they were trying to prove themselves worthy of passing on to heaven.

Buuuut, what Christian said to Jack at the end is confusing to me - that there was no "now" and that he never really had a son (which is good b/c that kid was fugly). If there wasn't a "now" then what was that moment that they were in?

I was confused that Michael wasn't there at the end, but I read somewhere that he did so many bad things that he was left on the island to be part of the voices you hear whispering before Smokey comes. Those are the voices of the people left in that in-between place who did bad stuff and their punishment was staying on the island.

I have loved Ben Linus' character the whole show, (by the way, the guy who places Ben is from Jacksonville and use to live in our neighborhood) and I thought it was interesting that he was with all of them at the end, but didn't go into the church. Why not? Was he not ready to go on to heaven (let's just call it that for the sake of confusion) with everyone else?

I figured it would only be people who were on the Oceanic flight that went on to heaven together, but Juliette and Ben were there. So why not Laepedis too? That guy was with all of them till the end.

Ongoing questions that I'm p.o.'d didn't get answered:
What was up with the polar bears on the island?
What the heck was up with Jack's freaking tattoos? Ugh, I was always curious about this and I felt like they had a big clue about how he got to the island.
Where was Walt? I thought he and/or Aaron would have a big role at the end.

Check out this great little video, LOTS of questions that we'll never know. Most of these I hadn't even thought of:

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

shitballs

Great news, I got an 80% on my first Health Assessment test!

Bad news, that is an F.

Grading scale: 100-95 = A, 94-90 = B, 89-85 = C, anything lower than that is an F.

things...

1. Here is my Term 1 school schedule:

Monday - 3:00pm-5:30pm

Tuesday - 9:00am - Noon

Wednesday - 9:00am - 4:30pm

Thursday - right now, this is my study day. in 6 weeks it will be the day i pick up my care plan info from the hospital and work on my care plans.

Friday - 8:00am - Noon, but in 6 weeks it will be 6:45am - 1:30pm when my clinicals start.

2. Is it officially summer yet? I never remember the dates when the seasons officially change. All I know is that it is hot here, yet some things are still feeling all frisky and spring-like on our backyard umbrella. bow chica bow wow. and also, ewww. I shall call them Lisa and Will. Since the two squirrels in our backyard are already named Mark and Julie.

3. Guess who wants to wear "ponies" all the time now!

4. And the biggest buzzkill of all time....my garden.

This garden, affectionately named "Garden A," is on the side of our house, right outside Piper's bedroom. The amount of sun this area gets is slowly decreasing as the massive live oak outside our house is growing bigger. I've currently got arugula (going to seed in the bottom of the picture) lettuce (dying back in the heat already), collards, peas, swiss chard, summer squash and potatoes (in the ground, just planted so you can't see them). This side is NOT doing well. I really need a whole lot more sun, oh and a gigantic dose of Miracle Grow. I'm still holding firm on not using chemical fertilizers, but dang it is hard b/c my garden looks like buttkiss and my neighbor is pulling off like 3 tomatoes a day thanks to her Miracle Grow.

Garden B, outside our family room. I've got 3 heirloom tomatoes growing here that are doing great and currently have a dozen 'maters on each plant. Cucumbers are really taking off, as well as 3 types of potatoes (in the old tires). I've got 6 pepper plants that have grown approximately 2.3 millimeters since I planted them over a month ago, ugh. I've got sage, Vietnamese Cilantro, 3 basil plants, parsley and a few measly carrots despite the fact that THREE separate times I have painstakingly planted dozens of carrots seeds.

Cucumbers!

beach babe

I have so much I want to write here about school, my garden (or lack of), stuff I've been cooking, how life is changing as a full-time student, Piper, Patrick and stuff I want to do.


I'll get to all of that later - first...my precious new little nephew! Owen Harold! Born May 12, moments after Christa got into the delivery room! No really, like 20 minutes after she got in her hospital room.Last week I took Piper out to the beach for a fun Mommy-Daughter beach day. I had plans for us to blow bubbles, play in the sand, look for seashells. But lo, the universe had other plans for us. About 2.4 seconds after I pulled off the highway onto A1A (the road next to the beach), I heard a LOUD thud, crack sound. Piper and I both looked at each other with huge eyes and I turned towards the back of the car to see this:

Construction workers on the side of A1A were mowing the grass and a rock from one of the mowers flew out of the mower and shattered our window.

THANKFULLY it was the back window, THANKFULLY it wasn't Piper's window, THANKFULLY it wasn't a few inches closer and our window was down, etc, etc with the thankfull's.

So, our beach day was not what I had planned since we ended up sitting on the side of the road for over an hour calling insurance, the company who was in charge of mowing the road, my Dad for suggestions on what to do, then we had to head over to the police station and place a police report. Piper was so sweet through the whole thing and sat in her carseat and chatted with me, and sang songs.

When I left the police station we were teetering on naptime and still had a 30 minute drive back home, but I thought, screw it, I am going to the beach. So Pip and I went and had a very quick but beautiful 20 minutes on the beach blowing bubbles and chatting.

first day of the rest of my life

Tomorrow is my first day of nursing school. I actually won't be in "class", but rather will be at a degree audit in the morning, and then two tests in the afternoon - Dosage Calculations 1&2 at 3:00 and then Medical Terminology at 4:00.

I'm so excited...and nervous and curious about how hard/stressful/interesting/overwhelming it will be. Mostly I'm just ready to have the information in my brain and see where this new adventure will take me.

constellations

As you guys know I obsess over one song and play it over and over and over. Patrick has jumped on this bandwagon with me and we are both totally crazy over this Jack Johnson, Constellations, song. It is currently playing on repeat on our computer and we have danced to it about 5 times. It makes me feel both romantic for sweet Patrick and nostalgic for childhood...which seems like a weird combination.
Click below for the song:
http://bit.ly/bgWanp

Awesome song, here are the lyrics:
The light was leaving in the west it was blue
The children's laughter sang
skipping just like the stones they threw
Their voices echoed across the waves its getting late
It was just another night
with a sunset and a moonrise
not so far behind
to give us just enough light
to lay down underneath the stars
we listened to papa's translations
of the stories across the sky
we drew our own constellations
The west winds often last too long
but when they calm down nothing ever feels the same
Sheltered under the Kamani tree
waiting for the passing rainclouds
keep moving to uncover the sea
of stars above us chasing the day away
to find the stories that we sometimes need
Listen close enough and all else fades fades away
It was just another night with a sunset
and a moon rise not so far behind
to give us just enough light to lay down underneath
the stars listen to all the translations of the stories across the sky
we drew our own constellations

I want to raise Piper with such an exotic childhood that she looks back and says "Ah yes, the Kamani tree, such a great tree to grow up next to." But then again I grew up with great Live Oaks and have wonderful memories of them so I think it is all relative.

We went out for Patrick's 32nd tonight. Great night. We had our adorable Emily, the babysitter, come by and took over with Pip for a few hours. We hit a new restaurant in the Avondale 'hood and had great drinks, fantastic appetizers of Thai Spicy Mussels, Sweet Potato Chips with Sherry and Bacon Dressing and House Made Tator Tots with Black Truffle Oil. Fantastic, awesome, gorgeous food.

As I walked Emily home tonight, to her home on the other side of the park (could it be more convenient?), I took my time and tried to be present in the moment. It was cool and dark and the lights from the basketball courts was setting a really ethereal glow over our backyard park. It was completely quiet and I just listened to the sound of my feet in the grass, and gazed at the tree tops in the moon light and it was such a gorgeous, peaceful moment in our little beloved park. A little slice of real nature right in the back of our urban home. I feel so grateful to live in our home. We really could never imagine finding a house that tops this one - a 20+ acre park as our backyard???

I've been trying to make an effort to notice, and be thankful for, the little things in my life and it is really lifting my spirit.

picnic

It was a gorgeous day last week and Pip and I decided to eat our lunch outside. This was one of those forced Hallmark moments that Julie and I have talked about. A moment that I thought would be so adorable and cute and she and I would lie on the blanket and giggle and laugh and sing songs.

Really it turned into me repeatedly asking her to please come back to the blanket and eat lunch with Mommy, and no you can not go inside and watch Elmo because we are having a special moment and I just made all of this food for you and you don't want any of it? The more I try and force the moment, the less organic it is. It did make for some cute pictures, no?
When I got Piper up from her nap today she was jumping and laughing in her crib. She had a huge smile on her face and said "Mommy, you get in bed with me?" I thought, why not? and I heaved myself over the crib railing and played in her crib with her for 10 minutes. She pretended to put me to sleep and then would count 1, 2, 3 and yell "Wake up MOMMY!!!" and I lifted her up on the feet and she did the helicopter thing. It was a super sweet and cute moment, that was entirely unplanned.

Do you want to go inside and watch Elmo with me Mommy?Please Mommy, Elmo?