quick

okay this will be quick. The other night I was walking through my room and went to step over my guitar amp that my son had taken from the other room. Long story short, I didn't step high enough and I think my toe is broken. I'll let you be the judge.



The bruising is receding so I think it's okay now.

Two Bowls One Butt

This blog is innappropriate.

I’m sure you’ve all heard of (or perhaps seen) the latest feel-good internet phenomenon “two girls one cup” (quite possibly one of the sickest videos out there). It may be even sicker than this blog.

I was making sausage balls today when I felt a sharp pain in my tummy. “not a good day to eat sausage balls” I thought to myself. Time goes by and it goes away and comes back, and goes away and comes back (you all know the drill). Well the time comes to go to the bathroom and as I go to the throne, I see that one of the kids has already went #1 in it. The other toilet is out of commission until we figure out why the water won’t cut off. I go to flush the toilet and it goes down…slowly. After I’m done, I realized the toilet was stopped up.

This is not good considering I’m “sick” I’m watching the kids, I have to work tonight, and I have one broken toilet and a stopped up one. I turned the water on and flushed it to make sure it would go down okay, it didn’t. Well I had to use it anyway because what else am I gonna do? I went to flush it and surprise, it flushed!

Things are good now. Very good.

I swear I'm not on drugs...

For some reason I was thinking about that movie "The Outsiders" tonight and I thought of the poem that is read in it. So I figured I'd put it up on here and give my take on it. (it's one of my favorites.)

Nothing Gold Can Stay by: Robert Frost

Natures first green is gold
Her hardest hue to hold
Her early leaf's a flower
But only so an hour

Then leaf subsides to leaf
So eden sank to grief
So dawn goes down to day
Nothing gold can stay

My take on it:
Our childhood years are some of the greatest years we'll ever have (our first experiences were gold)
It is hard for us to hang on to our childhood
I believe the flower represents the innocence of childhood
and as we look back on child hood, it seams like it went by so fast.

our innocence is shed to take on maturity (leaf subsides to leaf)
What was once laughter and happiness is now sadness and bitterness (eden sinking to grief)
As we get older
We can not keep living in our past (our golden time).

new pics of the kids

we took the kids (mainly hannah) to get pictures taken. Here they are:

Saying goodbye to an old friend and hello to a new one.

As some have probably read in my mom's blog, I bought a new car last week. I traded in my '99 ranger. I have to admit, when I closed the door on the ranger for the last time I got a little misty eyed. I've only had it for 4 years but it's gotten me where I need to be. I wanted to see it the next day (mainly to get my liscense plate out of it) and it had already been sold. I bought the Ranger because I felt it gave me somewhat of a connection to my grandfather (it used to be his truck before he died). If it's this emotional for me to get rid of that thing I can only imagine what it will be like to sell my '96 ranger, which I've had since I was almost 17. I'm just a sentimental person. I feel a strong connection with things from the past. When I sit in my '96 ranger (which I do from time to time), I remember so many things. In the end I believe that's about all we have left are memories.

Now for the new car. It is a 2008 Nissan Sentra. It has all the bells and whistles (with the exception of a moon roof, which I wish it had but I can live with out it). Huge trunk space, enormous glove compartment, XM radio, bluetooth, and many other things that I have not read about or encountered yet. My mom posted some pictures on her blog but in case you missed them, I'll post some here...

Abrams Falls trip 8-7-07

Well on Tuesday I had planned on going to Abrams Falls and hiking up the trail and back. I had to go to class for a few minutes while people were giving their presentations. I then went to my mom's house to get her camera because I wanted to take pictures of my venture.
For those that don't know, Abrams Falls Trail is 2.5 miles that runs along Abrams Creek in the smokey mountains. The end of the trail is a few hundred feet lower (elevation-wise) than the beginning. I hiked this trail last when I was 9-10 years old and it was so easy that I thought I would hike it fairly easy and get home fairly quickly.
Here are some pics of my hike. (I was doing this trail because I'm out of shape and figured that I'd start on an "easy" hike)
First I had to drive to cades cove and get on the 11 mile loop. Apparently the trail is on about mile 9 of that trail.

I thought this would be fairly quick because after all it was a tuesday afternoon.



My first warning:








There are four bridges like this on the trail. It's a good way to figure out how close you are to the end.


This was what the majority of the trail was like. (maybe a little worse)


I thought this was an old beehive or something. there were a lot of bees flying around and I forgot to bring my Epi-pen.




had to snap a quick shot of myself to show you how tired I was already. I wasn't even to the falls yet.

does it ever end?

FINALLY!!!!

I stopped taking pictures after I got to the falls so I waited until I got back to the beginning of the trail. I could've passed out. Thank God I had 4 bottles of water. I really need to get into shape.

The three U's

well if you're not in the mood to read about someone complain, you're wasting your time. This blog will list why the three U's in the subject describe me.



Underachiever:



As some of you know, I have been taking intermediate spanish I & II this summer. I got a B+ in the first one. The second one is going to be close to a C. You see, for some unknown reason, at Pellessippi State, they take attendance daily. If you miss so many classes, you are penalized for it gradewise. I believe this is dumb because since we're paying for it we should be able to go whenever we want. the University of Tennessee does not have that policy. I had a class last semester where I only showed up to 5 classes and I still passed.



Well, in the second spanish class I'm taking, I can only miss 3 days and it is a letter grade off for any extra days missed. There are 3 tests involving about a week of material for each. The first test, I showed up every day and made an 84. The second test, I missed one day and made a 91. The third and final test I missed two days and made a 94. Somehow she is telling me that I've missed 4 days. I learned a long time ago that the professor is always right no matter how much proof there is in your favor so there is no sense arguing about it. The highest I can make is a B and I'm pretty sure that I have a high B right now. but that will soon be reduced to a C due to my neglect of showing up to this class. I am apparently an underachiever.



Underpaid:



I have been working my current job for approximately 1.5 years. It is one of those jobs where you can run your butt off one night, and not have anything to do the next. It can be extremely stressful and physically draining. I didn't get hired making a lot of money, but it was more than Taco Bell could pay me. I have had reviews and at every one of them I have been told that I'm the "best transporter we've had in at least ten years." If that is so, why am I still working for the same amount I did when I started?



Everyone got a "cost of living" 3% raise last year but I did not. I'm actually thinking about telling them I have another job offer and need to get a good raise or I'm gone. I will be going up to HR this week to find out about it. I'm almost certain I'll get the run-around there. That is my story about being underpaid.



Underappreciated:



Tonight when I came in, I was told that the women's pavillion (WP) would probably call me for a CT scan on a patient. I got a page from them at 11:30 pm and went to call them. Here is a reenactment of the conversation.



Nurse: second floor.

me: Hi, did someone page the transporter?

Nurse: yeah are one of y'all coming down to take this patient to surgery?

me: I didn't know you had a patient to go to surgery, but I'll come and pick her up.

Nurse: Well I don't care WHO comes to pick her up as long as they do it right now.

me: ok well I'M on my way.



Perhaps she didn't know that there is only one transporter for the whole hospital after 11:00 pm. So I decided to give her the benefit of the doubt. I went to ER to grab a stretcher and the only one they had open was dirty so I had to clean it really quick and head down to WP. Once I got there I heard the same voice from the phone say "he's here." and then under her breath she said "doesn't seem to be in a hurry either." Had it not been for the poor woman in pain that needed to go to surgery, I would've pulled her to the side and told her that she needed to get her attitude in check and that she had only paged the transporter once so she needs not cop and attitude with me because I responded to her page as soon as I got it. So I bit my tounge and got the lady to surgery. I'm hoping I get to take her back to her room and that lady says something snide to me. Many relatives of mine are nurses and many friends of mine are nurses and I have nothing but respect for the profession. But when anyone gets lippy like she did, they deserve to be told what's what. Very unproffesional.