Some Blooms from the Yard

Lost Time

As I was preparing to go to Dahlia Man's this afternoon for our usual Wednesday dinner, jc reminded me that it is Thursday. Sure enough, I missed a whole day. I also missed my appointment with Dahlia Man.

On a brighter note, movers came and brought my piano to the new house today. All the important stuff is done. With it comes peace of mind.

rc

a Schvitz

The Scholar is on Spring Break, so we all headed off to spend a day taking in a hot soak. Along the way, we stopped and hiked up and down crude mountain steps 0.4 mile to Toketee Falls. Doesn't it make you want to jump right in?

We crossed the fallen log with our supplies for the day and made another short hike to the hot springs.

The springs sit midway up the mountain overlooking the beautiful, rushing stream we just crossed. We relaxed and talked and ate. There was only one moment of tension when jc brought up the factor of stress in infertility and I got a little edgy and sulked for a bit. He said all the right things afterwards to comfort me.

We drove down the mountain a little before stopping for our picnic dinner of spicy Korean Ramen, kimchi, black beans, sardines, spam, and homemade jerky. A few sojourning Korean young men studying alternative medicine in L.A. joined us with a bottle of soju, something similar to gin. One of the boys wanted to give me a lesson in eating with chopsticks. I wasn't very good at it, but jc can do it just right.

On the drive home, we stopped to look at the stars twinkling in the night sky.

Rose

The Prestige- movie review

link

I had to watch this twice before I "got it". If you guessed that someone in my household likes magic, you'd be close. If you knew that it was jc, you were correct. This was a perfect movie for the Scholar to watch, because it kept even him guessing.

The plot is so multi-layered and unexpected that it surprises at every turn. You can believe nothing that you see. The story follows what seems on one hand to be a senseless, destructive passion; yet the humanity of the characters shines warmly through, leaving you with the hope that just maybe there is some good to be salvaged.

A must see if you don't mind working for it.

rc

Spinach Pancake

Ki'il and the Scholar came by tonight to view The Prestige, which was much better upon the second viewing. I had a stomach bug yesterday, so Ki'il made me a comfort meal of spinach pancake, featured below, and rice porridge with a little zippy soy sauce. It was delicious, as her meals always are, and here are the pics to prove it.



Rose

Sleeping Quarters

Shadow likes to cuddle when she sleeps. Here she is gives jc's foot a hug. Kitties have an excellent sense of smell & they seem to love their people's stinkiest parts.

rc

Pictures of me

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Copied from Tim and Jules

Kierkegaard- Quotes

Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced.

The thing is to find a truth which is true for me, to find the idea for
which I can live and die.

People demand freedom of speech to make up for the freedom of thought which
they avoid.

Life has its own hidden forces which you can only discover by living.

Soren Aabye Kierkegaard (1813-1855)

Moving Underway

I'm writing from the new place, using the wireless signal from the old place. The cordless telephone picks up the signal here, too. Ki'il helped me move everything from the kitchen this afternoon after we signed the lease. Then jc and I each grabbed a kitty and walked across the street. Shadow cried the whole way. She's still under the impression that she's being tortured or something. Ailleanach is relaxing in the sun in the bay window, enjoying the wraparound view. Now I'm going to cook our first meal in the new home.

Rose

laundry day images

a new basket

kitty bed

Big Move

We saw a "For Rent" sign on the house across the street earlier this week and stopped to inquire. We got approved today and plan to start moving in this week, if possible. What a psychic load has been lifted from my shoulders! Landlady complained that the house was "a mess" when she showed it last week. We're ready to steal back the good luck that she took from us when we moved in here.

rc

taking the NCLEX

In response to many hits that I receive from RN students worrying about the licensure exam, I will share my specific experience with it. As do most of you, I graduated in the beginning of May. Throughout two years of nursing school, our instructors required us to review something like 500 questions a week from an NCLEX review book. The CD-ROM accompanying the book makes an excellent study tool. It will ask you questions about the specific area of nursing you are studying in class at the time. Our instructors tried (and succeeded, in my opinion) to make exams for the course more difficult than NCLEX. I also found the review questions harder than NCLEX. This doesn't do anything for your confidence, but boosts your test-taking ability a great deal.

After graduation, I took a one week NCLEX review course. These courses are full of information on test-taking skills and some overview of basics. My favorite part of the review course was a quiz they gave us which used English sentence structure and nonsense words. Using the test-taking skills we had learned, we could answer the nonsense questions correctly.

I took the NCLEX in a different state from where I went to school, as that was where I would be practicing. This probably slowed paperwork down some, but I scheduled the test as soon as I could. That turned out to be about 6-8 weeks after graduation. I spent the intervening time studying the review books. A week or two before the test, my grades on the review tests started slipping into the 60-70% range. That made me want to panic. Instead, I realized that I had over-studied. I put my books away and enjoyed my time.

The morning jc dropped me off at the testing center, I was suddenly overwhelmed by confidence. I felt sure that I was prepared with what I needed to know, and I couldn't wait to finish the test. I went inside, registered my thumbprint and took the test. There were questions that I had no idea about, but I used my best test-taking technique. The questions seemed to get harder, and the test shut off after the minimum number of questions (range is 75-265). I knew I had passed.

I called jc to come pick me up. He was schocked that I had finished so quickly. It was something like two hours. We had to wait a few days before checking the internet to find out that I had indeed passed. I did the biggest happy dance of my life. I already had a job lined up, but they wouldn't let me start working until the paper license arrived in the mail.

I'm still thankful for the tough program the professors at Penn State Altoona put me through, because it prepared me to pass the test.

Rose

Drinking and Dining

1. Monday- A coworker invited us over for dinner. Her husband is a chef, and she purportedly learned everything he knows, so we were looking forward to it. I should have smelled trouble when I saw that the table was set with two sets of wine glasses as well as beer glasses. We started out with red wine, had white with the salad, more red with soup, beer with the entree, and more than one glass of port with roasted walnuts and imported cheese after dinner. It's hard for me to remember, but I think the food was good. Mr. Chef drank way more than me and talked a lot with considerable braggadocio. Mrs. Chef was wonderful, as she always is, and sat on the porch with me while I puked in the yard. jc was very patient and managed to get me home and in bed in one piece. Ailleanach came to see me the moment I got home to make sure I was okay.

(Confidential to XBFRN- Mrs. Chef shares your surname. Do you believe in coincidence?)

2. Tuesday- A client that jc helps out gratis once in a while took us out. I swore to sobriety and moderation. I had a lovely green salad followed by calamari almandine with delicious vegetables and fried ravioli on the side. For dessert there was airy angel food cake topped by strawberries in sauce. The waitress had never heard of the mineral water I requested, but she managed to drag out a bottle of my second favorite. No espresso machine, though.

As an interesting postlude to the dining adventures, the local dented can store had my ultimate favorite mineral water today. Sipping it, I'm reminded of my first taste, when I met jc in Naples, Fla.

Rose

Driftlog

Partially intact roots of

huge driftwood log.

rc

Canoe Crabbing on a Spring Day

The day was beautiful,

so I met Self Powered Man to go crabbing...

by canoe.

SPM wanted to pick trash off the jetty.

We got 3 soda bottles, 1 juice bottle,
a Mary Kay bottle, a volleyball
and one red rock crab.

SPM portages the canoe at journey's end.

Rose

Random Images

Having finally gotten around to uploading

my pictures from the past several days,

I present them in no particular order.

Sails on the River

Roosevelt Elk

Shoddily digiscoped Black Phoebe


Under the Crab Dock-
extreme low tide



Driftwood

a Jetsomed Tire

Rose

Google photo meme

where you grew up

where you live now

your first name


your grandmother's first name

your favorite food

your favorite drink

your favorite song

your favorite smell

Search Google Images for: Place you grew up. Place you live now. Your name. Your grandmother's name. Your favorite food. Your favorite drink. Your favorite song. Your favorite smell.

Copied from Badgerings.

Rose