Where did my weekend go?

It's been a long while since I've blogged on here. Shame on me. I just can't seem to get my butt in gear lately. This weekend went by way too fast. I didn't do anything productive either. I was a hermit all weekend. Just watched some Netflix movies, watched some tv, a little internet surfing, a few odd jobs around the house and that's it. I had planned to visit my parents but ended up not even doing that. I hope my Mom isn't mad at me about that.



Tonight I was watching a Hallmark movie called Sweet Nothing in my Ear with Jeff Daniels and Marlee Matlin. About twenty five minutes before the ending of the movie, my daughter called me. We talked for about an hour. At the moment when she called me, a Hallmark commercial was on and I was all teary-eyed and sniffly from watching that! Those Hallmark commercials always affect me that way! Anyway, I was happy to talk to my daughter but I am so curious as to how the movie ended. I guess I could look up on the internet and find out what exactly happened.



This past Friday I had just laid down to go to bed at 4:30 in the morning. I was laying there with my dog beside when all of a sudden I felt my bed shaking. It felt like a big person was under my bed and pushing the bed up and down. I sat up and Dexter started barking like crazy. I was so stunned. My headboard was wobbling and I could hear a horrible noise rumbling. I got out of bed after it finally stopped shaking. It wasn't until then that I realized maybe...possibly it was an earthquake? I called my parents and asked them, "did you feel that?" Yes, they had too and we were all pretty excited. Dad wondered if the oil refinery in the next town had blown up. Mom wondered if it was a plane crash. I went outside with my cordless phone while still talking to Mom. I saw my neighbor across the street turning on his bedroom light and then he came outside on his porch and looked over at me. I hollered, "hey did you feel that too?" He said he felt it too. I was just relieved it wasn't all in my mind. It was all rather surreal.



I told Mom I would call her right back. I called the hospital and asked one of the e.r. nurses if they had felt a bad tremor and she said yes they felt it and she said her daughter had called from 4o miles away and said that the picture on her bedroom wall had fallen off and woke her up. I called Mom back and told her and by that time we both turned on the local tv news and they were already reporting it and said they were getting phone calls from all over about the earthquake. Later I felt another tremor at 10:15 am but it only lasted about three or four seconds long. My daughter said she felt the earthquake in Kentucky too.



On the work front...we won't be working with "Lydia" anymore. She quit.
So before too long we will have to start training another person.



Ordinary Life's Janet has given me a Gratitude With Attitude Award, bless her heart! I feel so unworthy because I haven't been blogging on a daily or even weekly basis. Thank you so much, Janet. I am going to pass this award on to Mrs. Who, Out of My Mind's cmk, and Deep in the Forrest's Aunt Jackie. I may not get over to read their blogs as often as I would like to but every time that I do, I am reminded of how grateful I am that I ever found them in the first place!

Scattergories

I saw this over at Janet's so I will give it a whirl too.
Copy and paste, substitute your name and first letter for the answers. See what you come up with!

What is your name……................Cindi
4 Letter word…………………………..Crap
Vehicle……………………………………Corvette
City…………………………………………Chicago
Boy Name……………………………….Caleb
Girl Name……………………………… Caitlin
Alcoholic Drink……………………… .Cognac
Occupation………………………………Cartographer
Something you wear…………………Coat
Celebrity…………………………………Christopher Walken
Food……………………………………….Chili
Something found in a bathroom…Cough syrup
Reason for being late……………….. carelessness
Cartoon Character…………………….Casper
Something you shout…………………Cut it out!
Animal…………………………………….Cougar
Body part…………………………………Coccyx
Word to describe you…………………Caring

********

I've got to get myself off this computer and go visit my parents now. I am ashamed of myself because I haven't been over there in three or four weeks. I even have to pass by their house on my way to work each day. Shame on me! I talk to Mom on the phone just about every day but that isn't the same as seeing Mom and Dad in person. So I better be a good daughter and get my butt over there. Dexter will be happy to go with me too because he loves to play with their three dogs.

A long night at work

Tonight was such a long night at work and the last few hours were emotionally exhausting for me. When I arrived at work, right before I got out of my car I said a little prayer that we would have a good evening. I need to change my attitude about Lydia. If I have to work alongside her, I would rather the experience be as smooth and easygoing as possible. Lydia only worked until 8pm and then after that I was alone until I clocked out. For the most part things went smoothly. We had a lot of patients and I also had a couple extra "projects" I had to finish up so the first several hours were busy, busy, busy.

A few hours after Lydia left, an ambulance brought in someone who was in cardiac arrest. I didn't know who it was until the patient's girlfriend came in and told me her boyfriend was being brought in. It turned out that it was the ex-husband of a very good friend of mine. I have known this man since the 70's. He was married to my girlfriend for over 25 years and they were divorced almost two years ago. They have two grown children and another one in grade school. My daughter used to play with their two older kids. We all went to church together too.

His son arrived a few minutes later and he looked like he was in shock. My heart went out to him. He had some friends with him. His mother (my girlfriend) lives about fifty miles away and his sister lives even farther away so I felt so bad that he didn't have any close relatives there with him. Up to this point, they were all holding on to hope that his father would pull through. The doctor came out and told them that he had passed away. The son and his father's girlfriend went back to e.r. a few minutes later to see his father. At this point, I didn't know he had passed away. When the doctor came up to me and asked me if I knew Pastor "so and so", I told him yes and he asked me to call him and ask him to come to the hospital to be with the son. That is when I knew.

I called the pastor and he said he was on his way. It is so hard to be at work when something like this happens but it is especially hard when I personally know the people! I had to fight back tears for the rest of the night. Memories kept flooding back to me of years ago when our kids were young. Memories also of when I myself was a teenager and my girlfriend was dating this guy. I remembered going to their wedding and remembering them being at my own wedding.

I know that my girlfriend must be having a very rough night tonight. Even though she is divorced from him now, I know she still loved him. When I went to my ex-husband's funeral a couple years ago, it was very upsetting and sad. We had been divorced since my daughter was only four years old but I still cared very much about him. I'm glad that my ex and I had resolved any conflicts we had many years ago. I only hope that my friend and her ex were able to do that too.

My friend has been battling cancer for about five years and she is in remission right now. I know her health problems were the straw that broke the camel's back in her marriage. I think sometimes a serious illness like that can either bring a couple closer or it can break it. That is what happened to them.

I know I am just rambling here but I just had to get things off my chest because my heart feels so heavy tonight.

Thanks, Janet!

Thank you Janet! Your tip on your last comment for explaining how to put spaces in between my paragraphs here did the trick! When I switched it to the html view it already had several "< div >"'s where I wanted my spaces so I just added the " < p > " like you said and voila! I wonder what the div stood for? Divide?

I went back to work last night after having four days off. Worked with Lydia. The night went by okay. Yeah, the body odor problem was still there but not as strong as other nights. Sometimes it is so bad that the smell stays attached to the upholstered chair she sits in and lingers in the work area for a long time. Even spraying the chair several times didn't get rid of the smell that last time when it was god-awful. Janet, I think you may be on to the reason in your last comment. It may be caused by what she is eating. I wondered if whacked out hormones were the culprit too.

Last night I had a sense that she may be aware of the problem because when I unexpectedly walked up to her as she sat in her cubicle, she looked surprised to see me walk up to her and she quickly pulled out on the front of her blouse as if to fan herself and made a puffing sound. I wish she would put a purse-size body spray in her purse so she could give herself a spritz every so often. There is no way to tell her that! Just a thought, maybe I could mention something about having some of that for myself when I feel like I don't feel so fresh? That might give her the idea to do the same.

A Wild Ride

I saw this on somebody's blog and don't remember who's blog it was. It was a blog I had never read before but I think I found them via Mrs. Who's blog. Watching this wild bike ride got my heart pumping! Enjoy!

I'm so ready for Spring!

Yes, I'm still alive and kicking. Last night my Mom and I were talking about the winter doldrums we've both been fighting. I told her that I had been looking at google images of pretty Spring flowers to try to get me in a better mood. I am just tired of the icy road conditions and the frigid temperatures! I want to see some flowers and lush green

grass again!

My daughter had her 28th birthday on Valentine's Day. I wish I could have been with her on her birthday. I haven't been with her on her birthday since she moved down south in the summer of '98. I sent her a custom made picture on stretched canvas. She loves the pop-art style so I had a favorite picture of her done by using photofiddle.com. I was extremely pleased with the quality of the picture too. I also sent her a hoodie jacket and a little crop sweater. I told her that when she got the two packages in the mail, I wanted her to call me and open them up while on the phone with me. So she did that and she loved the picture!

I am off work today and tomorrow. I took those personal days off next to the weekend so I could have a mini-vacation. I have really been feeling burned out at work and just needed a little break.

There is a new woman working in our department. Her training phase is over but she still has a lot of problems remembering things. She started working there about two weeks before Christmas. She is extremely annoying to me. Well, actually she annoys everyone else too. First of all, she has some major body odor problem. She wears nice clothes and she looks clean and all but some days her body odor is so offensive that it is hard to even stand right next to her. She doesn't have this odor every single day but we have all noticed it several times. It smells like onions and old chicken soup! Ugh! One day last week when I had just arrived, she had just left about two minutes before I walked in. I went to the cubicle where she had just departed (not knowing this) to clock in on the computer there. I sat down to do this and immediately my nose was assaulted by the most disgusting odor. The other co-worker sitting in the cubicle in front of me heard me say, "oh my God...what is that smell?!" She came over to me and whispered that "Lydia" had been sitting there and yes she had been "ripe" all day. It was very embarrassing. I am not exaggerating when I say that the smell was so strong and offensive that I couldn't even stay in there and clock in. I had to get up and go up front to where I usually sit (that chair was now free because another woman had left too) and clock in there. The smell was so strong that I got some air freshener and sprayed in the smelly cubicle too. I didn't want the patients to smell it!

I have never worked with a woman who had such a bad problem with body odor. I wonder...does she not notice it herself??? The first time I noticed it was the second day she worked there. At the time, the other women were mentioning it and I said maybe it was because she was very nervous after a long day of learning new things. I didn't expect it would happen again but it has. Our supervisor has noticed it too and I think she is in a quandary over what to do about it.

The other reason that "Lydia" gets on my nerves is because she has a "know-it-all" personality. No matter what you talk about she always has to "one up" you about what you say in a bragging way. She always knows something bigger and better than what you are talking about. She is also extremely nosy. Nosy about your personal life and for some odd reason when supper time comes, she gets so curious about what we are eating. I thought she did this with just me but apparently she does it to the other gals too. When I open up my bag to get out my supper, she will walk up and bend over close to it and ask me, "Oooooh what are you eating??!" I would never do this to her when she is trying to eat her supper.

I don't like how I feel when I am around her either. It makes me feel like I have become a bitch. One of the other ladies there who I have become very good friends with, feels the same way as I do in that regard. She told me the other night that she has never met someone who really puts her off so much that she feels repulsed by her. I hate feeling this way about someone. I like to get along with everyone. It is pretty bad when you get your schedule for the next month and you take special notice of the nights when you have to work with Lydia! That is what me and my friend both said the other night.

On a positive note, we have another fairly new woman working there and she is a hoot to work with. She is very funny and fun to work with. She tends to be a bit too loud in her tone of voice but she is learning to tone it down after we have good-naturedly reminded her to "take it down a notch". She knows she is loud and doesn't get offended when we have told her this so that is a relief. She is very good with the patients and very kind, helpful and cheerful with them.

I watched the Academy Awards last night. I always watch it every year. I don't know why but every year that I watch it, I get teary-eyed when there is a really emotional or endearing acceptance speech! When they show the montage of people who have passed away in the last year...oh that always causes me to tear up! I did notice that they never showed the actor Roy Scheider's picture during that "in memoriam" montage. I never realized that until just a few minutes after it was over they had mentioned something or played a snippet of the movie Jaws' theme and then it made me think of the recently departed Roy Scheider and then I thought, wow they didn't remember to include him. If they did, I missed it. Heath Ledger was the last person they showed during that montage. There were a few actors that had passed away that I didn't know about their death until they showed their picture like the character actor Dabbs Greer. I never really knew Dabbs Greer's name but when I saw his picture I remembered him in several movies or tv shows. He was a good actor.

I have been watching Big Brother 9 and watching it on Showtime After Dark when I get home from work. That show has jumped the shark. I have watched it since the first season in '99. Big Brother has always been one of my guilty pleasures. I tuned in last night and thought I was watching a porn movie! Two of the girls were doing a strip tease and lap dances and then they all moved outside to the swimming pool and half of them were naked and everyone was making out with each other. That was on Showtime's Big Brother After Dark. There is no way that crap will be shown on the CBS broadcast. They will edit it and put a different spin on it, I am sure. There isn't anyone on this season that I am rooting to win.

Edit: I have tried five times now to try to get spaces in between each paragraph and if this last attempt doesn't work...then piss on it! I have tried all different ways of spacing down three to four spaces, backspacing, deleting a line etc. and still each time I hit publish it is all bunched together. I hate how that looks but oh well!

Band Meme (HT to Hammer)

Hammer was tagged with this and invited others to do it too. So here is mine. It was fun! Here were his instructions.

Here's how it goes. You are about to have your own band's CD cover. Follow these directions Go to......
1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:RandomThe first article title on the page is the name of your band.
2. http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3The last four words of the very last quote is the title of your album.
3. http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days/The third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.
4. Use your graphics program of choice to throw them together.

Like Hammer, I will tag whoever would like to do it. Let me know in the comments if you did it so I can check yours out!

Electoral Compass

A friend sent me the link to this Electoral Compass website. It asks you a series of questions and you answer how you stand on that issue. At the end of the quiz it gives you the candidates that you most closely align with. I found it very interesting. You can also click on each of the candidates and find out where they stand on the issues at hand. Try it out!