Family Resemblance

Hmmm... I think I'm onto something here.


Do you see it?



*Thank you Steve, for pointing this out.

Grown Up Christmas List

Ok, so I just used a cheesy song title as a blog title... get over it. Anyway, on to my list:

Dear Santa,
I've tried to be a good girl this year. Here is my Christmas list:

A teapot (preferably of the metal variety that I can actually heat up on the stove)
The Fablehaven series (preferably in hard-back)
A ski/snowboard type coat
Grey or green sheets
Season 4 and later of Scrubs on dvd
Gift cards to Torrid, Joanns, Material Girls, etc.
Christmas dishes
Disney dvd's
iTunes gift cards
A renewed subscription to the Ensign, Better Homes and Gardens, or Family Fun
A puppy
New scrubs
Anything else you think I could use

Thanks so much,
Annicka

The Work Bestie

Ok, so I think it's time for another installment of my favorite people. This blog post will be dedicated to and all about my work best friend, the lovely Jill Whitney.

Jill and I met when she began working on the rehab unit with me as an LPN. She was a great nurse then and she's still a great nurse now as an RN. Anyway, Jill and I found that we had many things in common and that we were pretty well matched as friends. It really started with our shared love of all things Harry Potter, Fablehaven, and Twilight and pretty much grew from there. We even started spending time together outside of work, which is essentially unheard of for me. I generally like to keep my social and professional lives separate. Anyway, Jill's answers to the questions:

Where are you from?
Murray Utah (David Archuleta town, stacks for life, and if it’s good enough for Murray-it’s good enough for me) (Represent!)

What do you do for a living?

I am a nurse and a majority of the time I absolutely love it.

What is your favorite comfort food?
I love pizza-specifically Papa Murphy’s cowboy pizza, almost all icecreams, and I also love me a pork salad from café rio with the cilantro/lime vinegarette dressing. Any of these are a guarantee to make me happy. (Maybe we're friends because we like all the same food, eh?)

What color is your bedspread?
Aggie blue (navy blue) my favorite color of all time. (And might I interject that she has High School Musical sheets? Awesome.)

What book/movie has had a major impact on you?
Book is probably the whole Harry Potter series; Movie is Freedom Writers…this movie came out when I was getting my Sociology degree and just reaffirmed to me why I needed to take a break from nursing and become a sociologist first. (That book... and Kids Who Kill, right? Right?) And for fun the Play that has had a major impact on me is Rent, by Jonathan Larsen. This play seriously changed my life when I was in 8^th grade and it had first come out.

What is your favorite word?

Bueller. As in Ferris Bueller.

What is your best color?
People say magenta, coral, and teal are my best looking colors. I love these colors and own a lot of clothes this color, but I wear mostly navy blue. (Except your scrubs...)

What is your favorite restaurant?
The Pie pizzeria, and this little ghetto Mexican place in Bakersfield California. (Mmmm, ghetto Mexican food!)

What is one material possession you couldn't live without?
My Fiskar’s paper cutter. (Which reminds me. We still need to do a quilt/scrapbook skills swap.)

Which cartoon character do you resemble the most?

Comic Book Guy on the Simpsons…just kidding, but he is my favorite. I probably look the most like one of the fairies in Sleeping Beauty. (Flora, Fauna, or Merryweather? Ok, I just scared myself that I knew that.)

Why do you think I like you so much?
Because we are both extremely funny people…right? (Right)

What is the best compliment you could receive?
I like just knowing that I am needed and appreciated for it. (I appreciate you helping throw a baby shower that we weren't planning on throwing. And for assisting in the food costs.)

What is your favorite memory we have shared?
We have had a lot of good game nights with lots of laughter. (Why do they call it skip-bo?)

What 3 words would best describe you?
“loyal”, “random”, “creative”

So I'm sure you can all see why I adore this girl. She's just like me. Only nice. If you've never met her you should stop by the hospital some night and play a round of skip-bo with us. You won't regret it.

Animal Magnetism

It's official... I read vampire books for the Werewolves. I didn't realize this until last night at work. I've been reading (ok, devouring... pardon the pun) the Sookie Stackhouse books by Charlaine Harris. I began to notice a theme: most of the vampire series I've read lately have had prominent Were characters as well, and generally speaking, I prefer the Were.

For example: Jacob Black. I've preferred him over Edward from day 1 of reading the Twilight series. I didn't find anything appealing about the character of Edward, and I loved almost everything about Jacob. And then they did the casting for the movies. Enter Taylor Lautner.I think he's the perfect Jacob, even before he packed on 40 pounds of muscle for the role. Yeah, you read that right: 40 pounds. Oh, and did I mention he's only 17? Well, he is. Still...And not only do we have one beautiful shirtless brown boy in New Moon... we have multiples. That's right, and whole pack of them. Animal magnetism at it's height, my friends.

Anyway, back to Sookie Stackhouse. I don't care for the main male character, a male vampire named Bill. Almost as much as I don't care for Edward, and that's a lot. I don't see the draw of vamps in general. So, last night at work I was reading Club Dead, the third book in the series, and they introduced a new character. Alcide Herveaux, southern gentleman, surveyor, and Werewolf extraordinaire. For me, it was love at first sight. Alcide (said Al-see) is described as being "...huge. His eyes were green. His tousled hair was curly and thick and black as pitch...He looked handsome and rough, though 'attractive' might be a more accurate word than 'handsome'." Anyway, my pick to play Alcide in the HBO series True Blood (based on the novels) is Jeffrey Dean Morgan: huge, dark, brooding, and a lot less serious than a vampire.
I think it's the warmth and humor that attracts me to Werewolves over vampires. They just seem so much more real. So... there you have it. The effects of animal magnetism on l'il ole me.

Nightmare on Murray Holladay Road

I've worked night shifts for a long time. When I first started out in the land of the night I had no problem sleeping. I could lay my head down in the middle of the shift and spend my lunch break napping. I could come home in the morning and sleep the day away. I could even sleep in my own bed on my nights off.

When I got married I had a hard time getting used to sharing my bed. I was used to sleeping smack-dab in the middle of my (glorious after years of twin) queen-size bed. I struggled with rolling over and finding a body there, and looked forward to sleeping during the day when I'd, once again, have the bed to myself. Unisom and Tylenol PM became my best friends for awhile. And then one day it changed.

I spent my first night alone sometime this summer when Steve went to scout camp. It was ok, I was more bored than anything. Then he began a new job last month. Now, more often than not, I spend the majority of my nights off alone. That was when the nightmares started.

I've always had strange dreams (they run in my family, just ask my mom and sister), but these go above and beyond. Throughout my life I've had the occasional nightmare, but nothing like this. This is beyond anything I've ever experienced. I now wake up on a regular basis with heart racing, muscles tensed, tears in my eyes, gut-clenching fear.

And I have no idea why.

I've had nightmares about everything from family being killed, to my house being broken into with me still in it, to Steve leaving me for his first girlfriend Kandice (who, by the way, is happily married in the real world). And these all occur after I've finally lulled myself to sleep. I don't like being home alone. I miss having a warm body in the other side of the bed. And there's nothing I can do but get used to it, because this job is most likely going to be a long term one.

But what do I do about the nightmares?