Blond Joke

A girl was visiting her blonde friend, who has acquired two new dogs, and asked her what their names were. The blond responded by saying that one was named Rolex and the other was named Timex. Her friend said, "Whoever heard of someone naming dogs that?" "Helloooooo," answered the blonde.
"They're watch dogs!"

What a week, what a day

Last week was one of the longest I can remember in a long time. It's been a long time since I had a week where I was out of the house by 8:30-9am at the lastest and then not back and in bed until at least midnight, sometimes later, every single night. It was completely crazy and by Friday I was quite exhausted. I am not a person that get's stressed out much I just get exhusted and begin to reach a point of meltdown and lack of function and I know it's time to slow down, take a nap and regroup. This point came for me and Friday and what a crazy day that was.

This week I have been working evening shift at a local nursing home as part of my practicum for the course I have taking and that meant we worked from 2-10:30pm. That went pretty well and we start our second week tomorrow. I have actually enjoyed it though I have had a few mishaps like the day I was changing at the office prior to going over there and realized that I only had one running shoe with me so I had to dash over to Fred Meyer's on my way to Highland and literally run in, buy the first pair of shoes that fit me, throw my sandles in the box, run up to the check-out, pay and run out to the car, and then resist the urge to speed. I am happy to report that I was only 4 min. late so I thought I did pretty good. Later in the day I was talking to one of the nurses and she had also had to do a mad dash to a different store on her way to work because she almost got to work in sandals so then I didn't feel quite so stupid!

Friday was a completely crazy day the likes of which I haven't had in a very long time.
I was up by 5:45 to be at Toast Masters by 6:30 to give a speech.
8-9am saw me sitting at Woods, drinking tea, trying to get a little rest before heading to work.
9:30-11:30 I was at work getting 100+ newsletters collated and ready for mailing.
I left work at 11:30 and realized I was much to tired to go home and deal with Nicki, drive to Mt. Baker and be any sort of company so from 11:45-12:30 I was napping at Starbucks.
When I got home I found, much to my delight, that Nicki had finally had gotten the things I had been after her all week to do done. We left for Mt. Baker around 1:15. On the way we passed a car accident but it didn't look like a fatality one for which we were thankful. We made it to the Heather Meadows Visitor's Center where we happened upon a very enjoyable flute concert, then we headed up to Artist Point, had a great hike up to the top of Table Mtn. and a safe drive home. On our hike we saw lots of wild flowers, a Ptarmigin, lots of wonderful cloud formations, I built a little rock tower and took lots of pictures.
We got home a little after six and I headed over to a friends house to work in his yard for a little while. On the way to Lyndend I was stopped by yet another car accident...I don't think I have ever seen two in one day before in this area.
I did that till about 8:30pm only to discover that I had left my lights on and wasn't going to leaving anywhere very quickly! I went to the neighbors house and asked for a little help which ended up entailing my car pushed up into their driveway and being hooked up to a battery charger for a while before it would even think of starting. The man was very nice and very chatty and I didn't get away from there till almost 9:45pm.
I thought for sure I would get home right away but not quite. As I was headed home I passed a friend on his bike and stopped to talk to him for a little while until after 10:30pm and finally got home about 10:45 or 11.
Bed finally came at 12:04am. In the end I was pretty thankful for that nap in Starbucks because I am sure I would have cried when I found my truck battery dead if I hadn't have had it! And that wouldn't have been a pretty scene!

I have no idea what this week will hold but I hope some days are not quite as action packed as last week's were.

Take care everyone and drive safely please!

Photos from this weekend

On Sabbath afternoon I took my mom and my cat on a short hike up Boundary Trail and these are a few of the photos I took along the way.


The view of one little meadow we walked through.


A view to the east from the trail.


My Tut-tut sitting pretty in the meadow!


A little woodsy flower.


This was a dusk shot of Mt. Baker from the road as we were heading home.


The last of the fading sunset also from the road on the way home.

Time Flies

I just took a look at my blog and realized that it has been over three weeks since I posted anything personal here. I am sorry to have let it slide for so long, in case any of you actually read this! Do I have a good excuse for neglecting all of you my dear friends??? No I really don't except that I haven't had much interesting to say!

It sort of started three weeks ago when I was on jury duty and served as a juror on a rape/ kidnaping trial. During that week I was pretty busy trying to fit in work, time with Nicki and time at the court and I couldn't talk about the trial so there wasn't anything interesting to report that week. Then when it came time to deliberate and come to a decision I found the experience very distressing and yet incredible and for once I just wasn't able to share it in words here. It was a very convoluted story of three homeless alcoholics who's stories did not match each other or the police stories except that there had been lots of beer and some sex. I didn't find the trial subject matter difficult because sex is about the last thing that embarsses me or makes me cringe but it was the more mental struggle of deliberation that distressed me greatly. Thankfully we were all allowed to take notes during the trial and during deliberation I had to work through my notes combined with the photos that we were given of the people and the camp where the incident took place before I was ready to come to a conclusion. It was facinating to me how differently all of us approached the deliberation and also how differently people applied the principle of "innocent until proven guilty". In the end I was in the position to either join my fellow jurors and convict or hang the jury and yet I still wasn't quite convinced that the defendant was guilty of everything that he was charged with but I couldn't do anything about that. I did a lot of praying and struggled a bit before I came to peace with my job as a juror which was to only judge on the evidence presented and on the letter of the law. From the letter of the law he was guilty and in the end it was unanimous. I came away from the experience with a very powerful and personal feel for how wonderous the mercy and grace of God is because if we were all to be judged by the letter of the law we would all be gulity and sentenced to death. Thank heaven for repentance and forgiveness.

The next week I was not chosen for any trials but I had to get caught up at work. Then last week I started the Nursing Assistant course which has been sort of boring because of the teaching method but this week it will get better because we start getting to practice and then after that we will be working in a nursing home for the next two weeks so the worst is over. I will be interested to see how I actually like the work. I think I will but time will tell. I must it admit it sort of amuses me to see some of the young girls turn all red when we talk about having to give bed baths and perineal (genital) care. I hope it doesn't upset them too much when they actually have to do it in person because I think some of them will be really good NA if they can get past that. I have sort of a weak stomach when it comes to vomit and gagging so I know that is going to be my personal challenge. Not sure how I am going to deal with that yet but I am sure I will find out sooner rather than later. Sorry if that grosses you out...just one of those facts of life!

Other than the big stuff I haven't been getting to skate much in the last few weeks but I have been getting to spend some time with friends, have been making it to my voice lessons, I have given two speeches at Toast Masters which have gone well and my gramma and grampa from Arizona were here for a couple of days. I have also been getting some reading done and I finally got my room organized enough that I can live with it for a while. Putting up some more shelves for more books helped much in that direction!

I have also been watching the videos by Bruce Wilkinson about the Prayer of Jabez and The Dream Giver. Both of those series have been a wonderful blessing to me and I hope someday to find a small group that is interested in studying them together because I would love to watch them and study them with a small group...there are so many things I would love to discuss with others that he brings out in both series. Have any of you ever seen them?? If not I really commend them.

I guess that just about does it for anything substantial that I have to say.....

So do any of you have any exciting plans for doing anything fun during the rest of the summer?????

I will be going to S. Dakota in Aug. for campmeeting and there are a few of us who are talking about renting a van and driving, stopping in Yellow Stone but we'll see how that plan actually progresses. Other than that I am just planning on hiking and hoping to make it to the fair and maybe a few other community events around here. How about you?????

Pink Lightening

Me minigolfing for the first time in Abbottsford, Britsh Columbia the other night. Notice my bright pink golf ball! I actually didn't do too bad and it was really a lot of fun. I would definetly go agin. Thank you to Elliott and Johanna for inviting me. Jesse nicknamed me Pink Lightening. No, this is really not how I was hitting the ball but the pose was his idea and I humored him in fun. I rarely get nicknamed so I thought it was pretty funny and certainly better in some respects than Barleany Baby which is another one I have been known by in the past!
The rest of the photos are on my webshots page, the newest album.