Nurse on the Run

Greetings from 35,000 feet!  Since I only got a laptop a few months ago, this is the first I’ve blogged on an airplane!  I’m rocking out to Miley Cyrus’s Party in the USA, hoping that my seat neighbor doesn’t wake up from his nap…or, I should say, I hope I don’t wake him up with my (dangerous) moves.

The rest of my trip to Chicago was quite fantastic.  I had great plans to go running when I was home, but, um, let’s just say that fell by the wayside.  It was COLD when I got home, as I was greeted with a dusting of snow on Thursday afternoon and Friday morning.  It got slightly warmer on the weekend, warming up to the high 30’s!  Facebook told me that snow was falling out east, so I have some fun to return to when I land in about an hour.  I’m sooooo not ready for the cold!  Time to break out the fifty pounds of blankets I use during the winter…

Anyway, enough about the cold since we’ll be discussing it for at least the next four months!  Saturday was a wonderful day, as it was the day of a wedding shower for one of my high school friends!  I spent the morning and running errands with my mom (I’m weird…I like doing things like this with my mom!), and then the afternoon was spent doing final preparations for the shower.  One of my other friends from high school and I were throwing the shower, so I was in charge of getting games ready, preparing the salad, and buying dessert.  I’ve never actually thrown a bridal shower before, but I must say it was fantastic!  If you need a bridal shower or bachelorette party thrown, I’m totally your girl!  On with the fun!

The bride and I go wayyy back to the fifth grade (I’ll spare you the pictures…not pretty, I promise!  Those days involved hair down to my knees [no joke] and glasses…yikes!).  When we entered high school, I convinced her to switch from playing the flute to joining the ranks of the trombone chicks with me.  Honestly, I was scared to be the only freshman trombone player at my high school, and let’s just say it worked out well for the both of us.  We had an amazing time in band together in high school, and she met her future husband in the marching band at Notre Dame…they both played trombone!  I take 75% of the credit for this marriage, thank you very much.

My friend Katie, Becca-the-bride-to-be, and me!

We started with appetizers and the fame “Purse Game”…let me tell you, I never thought women and their purses would be so funny!  I didn’t know many of the people at the shower since they were mainly the bride’s mother’s friends, but it was a lot of fun!  I need to remember to stock my purse for the shower I go to!  We followed the ice breaker purse game with a lovely dinner and a game of “how well do you know the bride?”  I’m embarrassed to say that I’m glad I wasn’t playing!  I didn’t quite know the answers to the questions.    The bride made the answer key, so that made my job easy…

We all know that the entire point of bridal showers is to celebrate the upcoming wedding get presents, so we played Bridal Shower Bingo while the bride-to-be opened her presents.  It’s like Christmas two weeks early!  (And her birthday was on Tuesday…she’s going to be gifted-out this December!)

Check out all that Bed, Bath, and Beyond wrapping paper!!  You know you love it.

I was in charge of the ribbon bouquet…it’s soooo much harder than it looks!!

The best gift?  Flip flop cheese spreaders!  It doesn’t get better than this.

Go wedding shower.  After all was said and cleaned up, my friend Katie and I landed ourselves on her couch and chatted until I uttered the painful words “I guess I should go home…” at 2:15 in the morning.  I miss having friends you can just sit and talk to for hours, especially since we were laughing the entire time!  She said I could move in with her since she has plenty of extra room…it’s so tempting…

Speaking of which, both of my good friends from home are now homeowners…I’m so behind in life!  Then again, I don’t even know what equity is (well, I didn’t know until my dad explained it yesterday…go dad), so maybe I have no business buying a house quite yet.

sunday funday

After my late night chat on Saturday, I popped out of bed to head to the restaurant where I waitressed throughout nursing school and until I got my nursing job.  The food is AMAZING and I loved the people who I worked with, so of course we headed there for breakfast.  Blueberry pancakes hit the spot, and it was so fun to see everyone.  Every time I go back, the head cook says, “Ohhh you come back to work??”  I wish!

The rest of Sunday included shopping with my mom, who happens to be my favorite shopping buddy…I don’t really like shopping with anyone!  I got some ice cream with my friends and watched the beginning of the TERPS basketball game before heading to the airport.  After wiping my tears, I started my trip back to Pennsylvania…bye Chicago! 

this state HATES me.  seriously.

Okay, so, life was all fine and dandy on my trip home.  I had a good flight, got some blogging in, didn’t wake up my seat buddy with my killer dance moves, and arrived on time!  Upon arrival in Philadelphia, I gathered my stuff and headed out to where I parked my car, all set to make the drive home.  Not.  So.  Fast.  I knew where I had parked my car, but the keychain unlocker thing (is there a real word for that?) wasn’t working, so I used the key to open my car door, which I don’t think I’ve done in the entire six months of owning the car.  I thought it was weird, but whatever.  So I go to turn on the car.  NOTHING.  My car is dead.  My six month old car.  I know I triple checked to make sure I didn’t leave any lights on or anything (because that is totally something I would do…ugh!). 

Luckily I’ve learned to have no shame when it comes to car problems, so I immediately ran over to the guy a few cars over and uttered the words, “Do you know anything about cars??  Such as why they won’t start?”  Shattering my delusions that all people on the east coast are mean, unhappy people, he came over and tried to help me.  After confirming that indeed my car wasn’t going to start, he went over to the parking guys and asked if they had jumper cables or anything.  I really just kind of stood there like a damsel in distress, but really, I don’t know a single thing about cars.  While waiting for the guy to come jump my car, my new car friend found old cables in his trunk and we have them a go, although they didn’t work.  I was debating about what I was going to do, as the Rocket Scientist lives about an hour from the airport and I don’t really know anyone who I can call at 12:30 at night to help me as I’m stranded at the airport.  Luckily, the airport guy showed up and my car jumped back into life.  The only difficulty is that my car radio is now asking for some code…gotta call the dealer about that one.

I don’t think Pennsylvania and I are on the track to friendship…nor does it appear Pennsylvania is putting forth any effort.  Maybe the tides will turn in 2010…

all about aron

Congrats to ARON, one of my faaaavorite bloggers, who got her BQ at the California International Marathon this weekend!  I knew you could do it, Aron, and I can’t wait to meet you in 2011!!