Schoool's out for summer.....

Okay, not really, but it was closed today and will be again tomorrow for those with Saturday classes. I don't have class tomorrow, but would have had my first clinical experience at the hospital. Now I don't know when it will happen. The patients were spared for another day!



When I woke up this morning, it hadn't even rained, even though it was predicted that the winter weather would arrive between 3 and 5 AM. It started raining about 8 AM. That wouldn't have been a problem except Stud Muffin came down with the flu yesterday afternoon and it was much worse this morning. We HAD to go to the doctor.

(See the light bar in the window above the porch railing? That is where my seedlings are growing!)

By the time we got out of the clinic, the snow was thick on the ground and it made for a very scary trip home. The longest 10 mile drive of my life! In spite of the window defroster, the windshield iced up and I had to peer through bands of ice. I couldn't see the edge of the roadway and was worried that the tires would fall into the shoulder and we would end up in a ditch, or creek, or hay field. I am nothing if not resourceful, so I drove down the middle of the highway all the way home!! I say, screw the drivers coming in the other direction!! I'm a rebel that way.



The dogs think this is really neat, except that they can't find any toys in the yard.

I'm lookin', I'm lookin'...

A ball was finally located and lots of romping occurred accompanied by some good-natured arguing.



By the time we got home, the snow had drifted up against the garage doors. I had to drive up and over a big hump of ice and snow to park inside. So after I got Studly settled back in bed, I got out the tractor to try and "plow' the driveway. Not an easy task, at least not for me. Since the front bucket doesn't pivot like a snowplow, I had a heck of a time turning around and finding a place to dump snow. The box blade in back was handy, but again, with no place to exit the driveway to dump the contents, it quickly build up to the point of stopping the back tires! It took me about an hour, but I finally cleared most of the drive. Whew!

More freezing rain and snow coming tonight.

In sad news, my neighbor couldn't stop his truck in the snow storm and ran over his dog, Dixie, killing her. If any of you are experiencing this nasty weather, just stay home. It's nasty out there!

As promised

Okay, so I didn't actually promise, but since I know you are all holding your breath waiting for a picture of my little seedlings, here it is.



Aren't they cute?? Getting so grown up!!

I took my first nursing test yesterday, and I got a 92! Out of 100! Or maybe a 94, but I think a 92! The official scores haven't been posted, but we very quickly went over the answers before they took the test papers back, and I think I got a 92! Did I say I got a 92?? Have I slept lately?? One of the great mysteries of life.

Oh, somebody posted this funny on the school discussion forum.

For nursing students:
1. Wake up!!
2. Survive
3. Go to bed!

Should be a t-shirt or something, don't ya think?

It's cute, but not as good as this shirt I saw at the uniform store:

"You can't scare me, I'm a nurse!"

Image from 3.bp.blogspot.com

Haha! I think I'm punch drunk, but since we are getting slammed with some scary winter weather over the next two days, school has been cancelled (including my clinicals) so I have time to rest and catch up on my reading.

Just checking in

Image by www.rat-race-escape.artists.com


First off, let me just say that I have a sleeping-pill hangover today. I mean... all day long. I am still waiting to wake up! I took a pill last night after over a week without an uninterrupted night of sleep. I kept waking up in the middle of the night (no doubt "working" on my school work) and HAD to get out of bed for an hour or more before I could go back to sleep.

So, I took the pill and have been sleepwalking all day. Unfortunately, I have my first nursing school exam tomorrow morning. It covers something more than 1/3 of the textbook and needless to say...I'm freakin' out, man!! But, I will make through.

I was going to take a picture on my little vegetable seedlings when I watered them this morning, but I forgot to take the camera with me to the shop. See the above explanation for my goofy behavior. The good news is that the seedlings are getting their first "real" leaves and looking pretty happy. Still no Rosemary yet.

I have my first "clinical" on Saturday at the hospital. I hope I don't kill my first patient! But really... can you drown having a bed bath?? We are expecting an ice storm on Friday, so Stud Muffin has volunteered to drive me uptown in order to be there by 6:30 AM. Then he gets to come back and retrieve me at 2 PM. What a good husband!

Dinner planning still needs some help. I am learning that even when my class schedule has me home by early afternoon, the reality is I will probably still be on campus with tutoring and lab practice until quite late. Then I couldn't care less what is for dinner as long as it is fast and easy. Studly cooked steaks the other night and that was wonderful! My first home-cooked meal that I didn't have to cook! Whoo hoo! Let's everybody cheer loudly so he is encouraged to cook more meals!!

I guess that is about all I have to report. The daily schedule is: drink coffee, go to school, study until it is time to pretend to sleep, get up, go back to sleep, then repeat the whole thing. Boring, but it is what it is. Have a good one!

Seeds, glorious seeds!

Just popping in to publicly thank Judy at My Freezer is Full for the wonderful giveaway she had a while back, that I actually won!! Thank you, thank you, Judy!!



I received my package yesterday with a collection of Emergency Survival Seeds from Hometownseeds.com. This is so awesome!! There are 16 packets of non-hybrid seeds... everything from corn to lettuce, chard, beets, peppers, and squash! It even came with a multi-page planting guide and instructions, which you can't read in the photo above cuz I'm a bad photographer.



I can't wait to plant these and see what these varieties look and taste like!! I'm not sure if I won because she randomly drew my name, or because she felt sorry that I was going bald studying for finals last month. I don't care how I won. I'm just excited that I did!!



My little seedlings are growing right along. The cabbage and broccoli are up, but there is no sign of the celery or rosemary yet. I didn't expect them all to sprout at the same time, so I am not surprised or disappointed.



Seedlings make me happy, especially when there is snow on the ground.



You know what else makes me happy?? Homemade French Toast for Sunday breakfast! Yummmy!



You wanna know what I don't like? When my husband offers to make me an ice cream sundae with a little chocolate sauce (my request, I'm on a diet, you know) and he hands me this:



Smart-a$$.

Image at www.liquidmatrix.org

I got a call from Not Quite Grown this evening. She said, "The news reports that in 2010, the US government will be shipping out all morons. It brought a tear to my eye thinking how much I will miss you. Be strong and pack your crayons!"

Okay, she actually read that on Facebook or MySpace or somewhere, but it made me laugh!

I have just finished the unofficial start to my nursing school hazing experience. Three full days of handouts, syllabi, handbooks, calendars, 95 pages of chapter readings and a practice exam. I think a few students quit the program after the first day! I expect more to fall in the next two weeks.

School doesn't start for another week, but we already have our assignments for the year, including 13 chapters in the textbook to be read in the next week and a half! I have never been so terrified in my life, but found that doughnuts and chocolate help! Actually, I have lost 12 pounds on my drug-enhanced diet so far, and I am kidding about the doughnuts and chocolate. Mostly. Don't tell my doctor, okay??

I really don't have much to report. The temperature here on the homestead hasn't been above freezing in so long I can't remember. I woke up the other morning to go to school and it was 7 degrees and snowing! We have to get up in the middle of the night and run water, because the whole dribble-the-water-overnight thing hasn't kept the pipes from freezing periodically. Stud Muffin hasn't had water in his office bathroom for over a week. We are not use to this down here in the South! Next week will get back into the 50's and I'm thinking about getting out the short pants and slippers again.

My cabbage seedlings have sprouted and I have uncovered them and turned on the grow lights. They are pretty spindly at the moment, but hopefully will bulk up with the help of the lights. The other plants won't sprout for a while. Nothing photo worthy yet!

I came home from school the other night aware of the fact that I hadn't planned very well for meals during my absence. Today, Stud Muffin and I did some major grocery shopping after I went through my recipes and made a list of needed ingredients. I think people are burnt out from holiday shopping, so we were super efficient getting in and out of the practically-empty stores.

Image by realsimple.com.

Studly has taken over the housekeeping and it is wonderful to have a clean kitchen and vacuumed floors to come home to! I highly recommend everyone get themselves a Stud Muffin! I know that not everyone can have a guy like mine, as Not Quite Grown pointed out when she told me:

Sometimes a Knight-in-shining-armour is just an idiot in tin foil.

Have a good night everyone!!

Happy New Year!

The start of a new decade. Can you believe it?? Ten years have past since we all sat, holding our breath, waiting to see if the Y2K bug was going to bring down all things electronic. I wonder at all the places I've been, things I've done, and how my family has progressed.

We have lived in Singapore, travelled a good bit of Asia. Both girls have graduated from high school, and one (almost two) have graduated from college. Stud Muffin worked, then retired, then worked again and retired again. We have gained dogs and lost internal organs. We moved from Las Vegas to rural Tennessee and bought a farm. I started back to school. I'm tired just thinking of it all!

So, I dusted myself off this morning and did a bit of clean-up work in my studio. Actually, I have been working on it on and off for a few days. It is by no means done (probably never will) but you should look quickly, because it is likely to get messy again as soon as I start a project!



You have no idea how long it took to get it this straightened away! I can't show a "before" picture because... well... 1) I didn't think to take one and 2) it was just too embarrassing to show. Someone probably would have called out the little men in the Haz-Mat suits. Let's just say that I had only about 2 square feet of table space to work with before the Big Clean- Up. But, we won't talk about this side, as I haven't started here yet:



It was a cold but very sunny day today, and I got a hankering (is that curable?) to do some gardening, but since that wasn't really possible, I decided to sort out my vegetable seeds. I'm going to need to order a few things, but mostly, I need to till up some ground behind the orchard for some of the sprawling plants I want to grow this year.

As you all know, I am not the most organized or detail oriented person, and this miserable fact extends to my gardening efforts. When I plant carrots, I usually throw a bunch of seeds on the soil, dust them with some more soil and hope for the best. I occasionally try to thin the plants out appropriately, but invariably, I get plants that are too close together to grow properly. So, today, I made a few 'seed tapes" for my carrot seeds.



In a nutshell (get it? Seed? Nutshell? Never mind!) you mark off the proper seed spacing on thin strips of paper, glue the seeds in place, and then plant the whole strip when the time comes. I am easily amused, and had plenty of time today, so I thought I'd give this a try.



Being the classy gardener that I am, I used strips cut from thin toilet paper and scrapbooking paper glue. I made strips for three different varieties of carrots and since thinning will no longer be a required chore, we will see if it improves my production rate this summer.

In the past, I have always transplanted broccoli and cabbage seedlings too late for them to grow before the hot weather arrives. Every year, I plant them out earlier and earlier. This year I swear it will be different and I will start them soon enough, so I planted some seeds in the little plastic greenhouse boxes and placed them on a heating tray. I planted two kinds of broccoli, some red cabbage, celery, and some rosemary to replace my old plant that I need to dig out of the raised bed. I will keep you posted on their progress, since I know you all are wildly interested in this!

And that is how I spent my New Year's Day. I hope your New Year's Eve and Day were at least as good as mine!! But how can you beat gluing itty-bitty seeds onto toilet tissue, and putting microscopic seeds into pop-up peat pots! I mean, really!