Hi Ho Hi Ho It's Off To Work I Go

Miranda noted that doing things is more fun when you know you are going to blog about it and I said I think I will blog about working and see if that makes it more fun.  LOL  Well how about how I get ready for work?

I work nights, 7P-7A, and I have a whole ritual for work preparation.  Today is my first day back to work after being off and I will tell you about that kinda morning.  (On mornings when I have worked the night before, I drive home, take a shower and go to bed and nothing more!)  So on my first day back to work, I try to stay up as late the night before as possible.  Usually I get to bed by 3 or 4AM.  Then I get up around 9 or 10AM and start my ritual.  Today I was up around 930AM and after checking out pinterest and Facebook, I exercised on my Pilates machine.

 The dreaded machine!!

Then I checked out pinterest and Facebook again LOL and then I started my "get clean" routine.

 Shower...

I love all of my soap choices!

Then my crazy hair care routine LOL

 Tracy had breakfast ready for me and YES I am very spoiled! :)

By now it is around noon and time for a long nap...but I would rather be out there!!

 Close the curtains...

Turn on the fan at the end of the bed for white noise and coolness...

 And never forget your sleep mask!!  Night night!

I will try to sleep to 4PM or so and then it is time to get up and get ready.

Scrubs and my Danskos!  Not too pretty but they keep my hips and knees from hurting so much :)

All of this must fit in my two scrub coat pockets!  It CAN be done!

Now it is time to fix the all-important lunch box!

 I always try to pack some treats to help me look forward to something at work!

My latest craze is "back to Nature" cookies!  They are delicious and 100% natural! Try them out!

Here is all I pack in my lunch box--a sandwich and chips for my break and lots of crackers and cookies to stuff in my pockets in case there is no break :(  AND my one guilty pleasure is a Mt. Dew for delicious carbonation and caffeine!!

Tracy can verify that if any step of my ritual is interrupted or left out I get pretty cranky!  I guess I have to feel I have some kind of control and this is it!  So now I am all ready and the next step will be driving to work.  Pray it is only a semi-crazy night and not too many piddly m-fers!! :)

Sad But True

Well today is the last day of my 7 days off but I have enjoyed them immensely and truthfully they did not fly by like days off usually do.  I have gotten a lot done and enjoyed lots of free time to do whatever I thought of doing.  Back to the real world of work tomorrow.  Oh well...

I have been soooo crafty the past two days.  I think I was sensing my time off was nearing its end and was having some bizarre form of nesting LOL.  Today I decided to quill and found an excellent quilling blog.  I started on a small trinket box and had to quill a 2-inch base for it.  It required over 20 paper strips and I had about 18 of them done when it came off the tool and completely unraveled.

 Surely quillers must swear!  I wanted to!  So I gave up immediately on that project and decided to work on a project of filling a canvas board with multi-colored tight circle quills.  I like the little flowers and vines and various designs that can be quilled but I am more of a freestyle kind of crafter so if it doesn't look like the picture I can say, "I meant to do that!"  LOL

 I gathered my supplies...

 

Bought an 8x10 canvas at Walmart...

and then began mixing and matching my paper strips (yes they need organizing but I organized beads yesterday and this is my last day off and so on and so on...)

 Then I began quilling my multi-colored tight circles of various sizes and thought I would just cover the canvas randomly with the completed circles.  Then I turned on some Praise and Worship music and started to pray while I quilled and began to think of  the throne room of God and then I had a creative idea...

I remembered the verse from Revelation (chapter 7, verse 9) where John describes the multitude gathered around the throne of God..."and lo, a great multitude, which no man can number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes and palms in their hands; and cried with a loud voice, saying, Salvation to our God which sitteth on the throne, and unto the Lamb."  My multi-colored, various sized quills reminded of our uniqueness before God and how He created us each so differently and so specifically.  

So I decided my quilling project would be an abstract offering of the throne scene from Revelation.  Now what about God and the Lamb at the center of this grand gathering?  Jesus is called the Light of the World and is the Son of God and certainly God in all His brilliance and majesty is bright and shining.  So I decided a depiction of the sun as we see it would be at the center of my project.  

 I finished several dozen quilled discs and now it was time to glue them to my canvas...

Tracy arranged them for me on the canvas and I glued each one on and here is the finished project!

 

Only YOU can worship God in the particular way and manner He created you for!

I Am Feeling Crafty Today!

I got busy today trying to organize my craft stuff.  I have knitting, beading, quilling, and miscellaneous crafting supplies and they are kinda spread all over the house.  So I worked on the beads first and came across a bag of beads Mom sent me which were leftover from her beading projects in the 70's.  I think she called them "pony beads" and there were lots of sizes of wooden and ceramic beads but most were unsuitable for the bracelets I had been making.  So I stuck them in a box and today I came across them.  My problem with organizing crafting stuff is that it often makes me want to do a project rather than organize the materials. Soooo..

I have one houseplant that I bought when we first moved here.  Back then it was tiny and manageable.  Today it is crazy and growing out in vines to the sides but not much movement up.  A few days ago I had to move it because the air conditioning vent was right below it and it seemed stressed by the cold.  So I moved it farther away from the vent into the corner which had the colorful set of chimes Miranda gave me hanging way above the plant and lots of white painted wall as its background.  Every time I would sit in my living room chair and look at it I would think, "That plant needs height and color to reach up toward the chimes."  Well the plant isn't cooperating!  Although it is growing, it is moving horizontally and is very flat on the top and in the center. 

As I looked through the old pony beads I started thinking about how to use them for other things since they didn't work for jewelery.  And then the proverbial light bulb went off!  Here is my craft project for today:

 Here is my sad plant sitting in the corner with a white wall background and the colorful chimes hanging above. Poor thing!

 

Here are the supplies for my crafty plan:  the bag on 70's pony beads and BBQ skewers.

I took the beads and arranged them on the skewers to make stakes to place in my houseplant.

The results!  Colorful beaded stakes!

Now doesn't that look better! :)

This on the other hand....back to organizing :) 

 
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Humor Me

Lots of rain early today so when we walked this afternoon the Honey Run Creek was flowing!  Couldn't resist a few more pictures.  Walking there is like walking in a spa!  

The White House Greenway and Vietnamese Flavor

Well I am a day late with this blog because I just ran out of time yesterday.  But I took lots of pictures to commemorate the day, so I can put them on here now and never lose the memories of June 25, 2011.

We got up around 6AM and went for a walk on the White House Greenway.  I started walking for exercise way back in 1980.  I lived in College Courts in Murray, KY and there was a walking path with exercise stations right outside my apartment.  I walked a lot there but never did the exercise stations much.  I am NOT much for public exercise but I sure have loved walking interspersed with running since then.  I lost a lot of weight once I started walking back then and have utilized walking for its weight loss contribution since then but walking and especially running have a therapeutic effect and that is what I like best!

I am trying to remember all my walking places since that first walk in Murray.  I think the next place I walked would be in Lone Oak, KY where I had to go down the busy road about a mile and then turned in a nice subdivision and ran most all of it.  I was listening to music as I ran by this time and remember listening to The Power Station ("Some Like It Hot" and  "Bang A Gong" were good running/walking songs), but Bon Jovi??!! LOL! I cant believe I walked to "You Give Love a Bad Name" and "Wanted Dead or Alive!"  One day in the future I came to an epiphany and decided it is not useful to walk to classic rock.  There is very little driving beat even in the best rock song, although I would no longer consider any Bon Jovi music to be good rock. Times and tastes do change, thank goodness!

The next place I remember running was in Symsonia, KY.  Again I had to go down a fairly busy highway to get to a nice running road and here I discovered my love for hills.  This country road was long and winding and had two very nice hills.  Hill running really blows the cylinders out and gives you more bang for your buck.  I was listening to rock music, by now I think it was Def Leppard, Simple Minds, and Whitesnake.  I walked and ran along that road many times and can still remember which song was playing as I turned a certain corner in the road.  That road was country scenic and full of horses, cows, barns, and farms.  I loved that road and missed it when I moved away and was no longer able to run there.  But there were other roads and paths in my future.

When I lived on College Street in Martin, TN I began town walking off and on (I was an "all or nothing" girl who walked religiously for weeks and then did not walk at all for months).  Town walking had its advantages.  Sidewalks, fewer menacing dogs, and street lights were nice.  Town walking is good because you can walk most any time of day or night.  I had a long walk through the neighborhood and that led me to the city cemetery where I could walk with no concern for traffic and it had one nice hill.  I walked in that cemetery lots of late nights and don't remember ever being scared.  Strange, huh?  My music for these walks was from my radio via headphones and I listened to WLS in Chicago when I could pick it up and local stations when I couldn't.  Man, it was awful running to radio commercials!  But there was a musical epiphany coming soon that would make walking (and life) kick up a beat or two!

When I moved to Stella Ruth Road in Martin I started walking in the city park.  This was a concrete walkway around a large pond and there were no hills, just flat walking but I was pretty heavy by this time and it worked well for my level of fitness.  Oh, remember when I first started walking again (by this time running was just too much!) how bad my ankles and shins hurt!  But I continued on and after a few false starts I became a steady walker again in February 2009.  It is a lovely feeling when you get to the point you don't dread walking and plan hard to work walking in to your daily schedule. I was still walking to classic rock but around this time I began to listen to BPM on XM radio, which was a station on my DishNetwork.  BPM stands, of course, for Beats Per Minute and is a genre of music called beat, dance, trance, or electronica.  Trust me you can do anything faster when you do it with Beat music playing!  Walking, running, driving, writing,  housecleaning, everything in life is faster to this style of music.  I often say listening to this type of music changed the pace of my life and it is soooo true!

Miranda introduced me to the greenway in Martin and soon it was my new walking place.  There was a nice, super long hill there and lots of winding paths with a gorgeous bridge and these greenways combined the safety features of city walking with the scenic beauty of country walking.  Awesome!  I loved that greenway!  Apparently greenways around towns and cities are the newest city planning craze but I was to find out later that a greenway is not always pretty or challenging.

When Tracy and I got back together I stayed in Houston about a month and it is the flattest town on earth!  I challenge you to find a hill in that big city.  He was driving the truck and I was living in a efficiency apartment with a fairly safe surrounding neighborhood.  But anytime I ventured out for my walks I felt afraid and super paranoid!  That made me walk faster plus it was January and February which is very cold even in the hot city of Houston.  I mostly walked around the outside of a mall and found a set of steps leading to a loading dock that I walked up and down dozens of times a day for the hill effect.

Soon we moved to Owenboro, KY and there I discovered that greenways are not always pleasant and pretty.  The greenway trail started very near our apartment and that was convenient because I have discovered the less time it takes me to start walking the more likely I am to start walking!  I can make a thousand excuses if I have to prepare very much or journey to my walking path especially when it is very cold or very hot.  Despite the close proximity to the greenway in Owensboro, it had to be the most boring walk on earth!  It was flat and dull and crossed under the bypass and ran by the flat runways of the airpoirt and through the factory side of town.  Oh my gosh, it was not much fun but served its purpose, I suppose.

Then we moved to Bowling Green, KY, and although they had a greenway, it was around 10 miles away and believe me I could have made 1000 excuses before I got to the greenway so I began to walk around our apartment complex.  Again very boring but it did have one challenging hill and sometimes I would walk it ten or twelve times as well as looping the block we lived on.  By this time I had an iPhone app that tracked my walking and a mean-spirited voice reminding me how far I was behind my target pace!  LOL! Walking has advanced in the 21st century and now there is a faceless woman to tell you how you are proceeding (or NOT proceeding). Again I walked pretty regularly because my walking path was just outside my door and that left very little time for procrastination.

Now we are in White House, TN and after we had lived here a few months we accidentally discovered the trailhead to the greenway here is just a few miles from our house.  We have to drive there because we live on 31W and there are speeding cars all along the way and I don't want to risk my life to get to the walking path.  But what we discovered there is the most beautiful greenway I have ever seen!  The path runs along side Honey Run Creek and it is a walking path of nature sounds, sights and beauty!  If we ever leave this area I will miss this place for walking the MOST!  I won't even try to describe it. Instead I will post some pictures I took there and you decide for yourself!

The morning sun at White House Greenway!

It is hard to show the steepness of the inclines but there are four hills here that are super challenging...

...which is indicated by the runaway wheelchair signs!

Honey Run Creek    

Walking trail beauty!

 The spillway...

Along the way...

Early blackberries!

Oh my gosh!!!

One of the challenging hills!  I love to run up this one and then collapse! :)

The end of the trail today!

So there you have it!  Come visit us sometime and we will take you there.  There is not a lot to do in White House but their greenway makes up for it!

So that was the first part of our day and we spent the second part cooking.  When I went to Houston to see Tracy for the first time he asked me where I would like to eat.  Being polite I said, "You decide..."  He took me to a Vietnamese restautant.  Now I am admittedly a "chain restaurant" kind of girl.  Applebee's, Ryan's, Red Lobster, Cracker Barrel...so I am thinking, "Hmmmm, Vietnamese?"  and in true stereotypical fashion I am wondering where do they keep the cats as we are walking in.  But the smells were wonderful and I looked through the menu trying to read the Vietnamese  and looking at the pictures.  I finally picked out Grilled Chicken Vermicelli and Tracy added spring rolls to my order.  I was apprehensive but feeling adventuresome in the big city and I am soooo glad I gave it a try!  The variety of flavors mixed together and the vibrant colors  make Vietnamese cuisine so wonderful!

When Miranda was in the hospital in Nashville we went there almost every weekend and soon discovered Miss Saigon, a nearby Vietnamese restaurant.  We ate there almost every visit and Tracy began to wonder if he could cook Vietnamese at home.  We looked at lots of videos on YouTube and read through dozens of recipes, while we continued to eat at Miss Saigon and tried to determine their secrets.  There was a World Market next door to the restaurant where we found many of the ingredients, sauces, herbs and spices.  So one day we went shopping and came home and cooked up our own Vietnamese.  Delicious!  Yesterday we had Grilled Chicken Vermicelli and spring rolls and I told Tracy I didn't think I would ever have to eat at Miss Saigon's again because our was so good!  So here we go!

The ingredients for our Vietnamese dinner!

For the grilled chicken I mix up a marinade of teriyaki sauce, brown sugar, orange juice, cumin, sage and red pepper flakes.  Marinade the chicken for at least 30 minutes.

Grill the chicken...

Here is the grilled chicken along with some banana peppers, green peppers and onions that I grilled with the chicken.  Chop up the chicken in to bit sized pieces and mix in the veggies.

Cook the rice vermicelli in a pan of hot water.

Chop up lettuce, red and green peppers, cucumbers, and carrots.

Chop up green onions, cilantro and thai basil.

Because Thai basil is impossible to find in White House and because we love it so much, we grow our own!

Now you are ready to layer your salad!  Lettuce...

Rice vermicelli

The grilled chicken and grilled veggies...

Then pile on the raw veggies!  Voila, Grilled Chicken Vermicelli!

Now for the spring rolls.  This is a rice paper disc...

They cook by being dipped in a bowl of hot water for 30 seconds or so...

Lay your rice paper on a dish towel and layer shrimp, rice vermicelli, lettuce, mint and thai basil...

Roll up in the rice paper and...

Spring rolls!

Sauces are important in Vietnamese cooking and our favorites are peanut sauce and Housin sauce with crushed peanuts on top!

Dinner at Lisa and Tracy's featuring Vietnamese cuisine!  Why don't you stop by sometime?

Well there you have it!  Now you can see why I didn't get a chance to post yesterday.  I was very busy doing some things I love to do with my blue eyed boy!  Love yall!