Hello from Minnesota (Part 2 - the first few weeks)

So, here I am. Been here for about 3 weeks now. School is good. Just shy of my impending 29th birthday, I am pretty much the oldest in my class. No big deal, if I didn't feel old or if this didn't happen: We went out to the $10 all-you-can-drink on Wednesday, and my 23-year old classmate and I were talking and he said "Thanks Mom." Explaining it as "I call all my older friends that are girls Mom." I tried to tell him that calling me "older" didn't help... at least go with "Big sis."

GEESH, so THAT was fun.

I saw the Twins play... which was um.. interesting...


They played Detroit, including ex-Red Sean Casey. The dome is ridiculously WRONG when it comes to baseball. And they lost... but unlike in Cincinnati, even on a Tuesday night, the game was an actual EVENT, with a pregame party and everything. I respect that and the fans were really good. It kinda makes me sad for our boys at home.

I uploaded some of the pics of the inside of the basilica too. Check it out.

So, for now, life here is good. I get to come visit home in just 9 days. I am pumped bc I miss home. Miss my friends. Miss my Tim. Miss my nieces and nephew. Miss all my family. Miss normal.

Today's things to be happy about:

• Playing around in a new city
• Getting to come home
• Being in love
• Doing well on my first two presentations and in school
• Making new friends

Hello from Minnesota... (Part 1 - the journey here.)

It's been a whirlwind for me... so I apologize to my friends back home who are wondering what has been going down... I decided to do this in parts. :) Here is the exciting story of my first weekend.

Saturday, bright and early. Load car. Start the long drive. Stop at Starbucks for caffeine fix. Indy. Illinois. Get gas. Get lunch. Wisconsin. Minnesota. Get gas again. Drive by St. Paul, pull into Minneapolis. Find the place. Check it out. Move everything in. Find a Target and a grocery. Collapse on the couch.

Sunday, wake up WAY too early for my liking. Eat some cereal. Put stuff where it belonged in the apartment. Go to Target, again. Spend more money. Go to mass at the the Basilica. It is super close to my place, and it is gorgeous. It's the oldest Basilica in the United States. AMAZING outside, but even better inside. (See below.) Get some food and relax a little in preparation for my first day on Monday...

Here is the Basilica:

That is about all the touristy things I have been able to do thus far. Been too busy settling in. I did go to the Twins game on Tuesday. Baseball in a dome is very odd. They lost, but I was impressed with the pre-game partying, especially since it was just a Tuesday night.

ANYWAY, sorry this was lame. I will be sure to go out with my camera and show some cool stuff, as well as let you know a little bit about school.

Congrats to SAM on her engagement.

Congrats to MM on her new job.

Hope everyone is doing well.

Miss you all... :)

One Week Countdown...

Hello everyone.

I am sorry that I am a slacker. Between this stupid back/rib injury from the accident and getting everything at work and at home ready for my trip to Minnesota, the last few weeks have FLOWN by. I leave "technically" in less than a week, as we will be going very early next Saturday morning. My mother is driving up with me to keep me company, so I am positive their will be fairly enlightening stories from the trip.

The stories will include something about her asking at every border we cross if "radar detectors are legal in this state." To which i will AGAIN answer, "they are only illegal in Virginia and the District of Columbia." Also fun, is that I only have my little mazda 3, and I have all the stuff I will need for my three months in MN - making the car pretty full.

She, however, is infamously a "heavy packer." (I apparently come by that naturally - for all readers / friends who have traveled with me in the past.) I have gotten MUCH MUCH better since I got my nice new luggage and started traveling so much for work. She still thinks she has to bring a foam egg crate mattress for any bed that isn't her own. So that battle will be fun. Oh and the cooler. We have to have a cooler that fits 48 drinks and foods. Even though we have to stop every few hours for gas and cant pick up a drink or two there. Ahhh, I can't wait.

Don't get me wrong. I love my mom. She is one of the greatest women alive. She just still likes to be my mom. And I like to be an adult. :)

Anyway. 11-1/2 hours according to mapquest. Triptik in hand. It should be an interesting adventure, and I hope MN brings me much more time to say hello to people around here... We'll see.

I better go pack. Hope everyone else is doing well!

Today's things to be happy about...

• My nephew's "do it again" smile and dimples
• His stopping everything he is doing (even tears) to dance
  
• Cranky 5-year-olds "accidentally" falling asleep and taking a highly-needed nap
• Naps, in general
• Sunny Saturday afternoons
• X-RAYS coming back negative for breaks
  
• Having a good drunk night out to forget the pain
• Small worlds (when your bf, his friends, and your friends all end up knowing someone who knows someone who liked someone in grade school...)
• The smell of freshly dried laundry
• 4th of July cookouts with good friends
• The strength is takes to protect our freedom
• Honoring our troops
  
• Hugs

Have a good 4th everyone! Thanks to the troops for protecting our freedom.

How I spent my OBX vacation...

Our vacation begins just like anyone else's vacation. We leave around 5:30 AM and head to the KY AA Highway. We have a fairly uneventful drive through KY, WV and VA - noticing only that VA has a LOT of personalized plates. (We assume they are much cheaper in VA than in OH... and my personal favorite was "me n gzus." It seemed a little conceited to put the "me" first. lol)

We stop at the "gas-and-anything-you-may-need-before-you-leave-VA" station and pass over the NC line with some excitement. It's a little after 3 pm now, so after passing 2 farmer's markets, we decide to his the third one we see. We wanted a watermelon, some tomatoes, some peaches, and a jar of jam to supply the kitchen at the house we are staying in. So that we got.

Then there is a lot of water and a bridge. YEA!... We are finally in Kitty Hawk / Nags Head. Just three more minutes and we are poolside! Errr not.

We hit a little congestion, because apparently everyone is driving into town with Saturday-to-Saturday rentals. So we pull up and sit in the line of traffic right where we are about to turn down our street. Then BAMMM... a minivan hits the back of us at 45 mph (according to the police report). The good news is, we are all "fine"! It was eerily similar to those Jetta commercials. None of us knew it was coming. I was mid-sentence, then all of a sudden... I couldn't breath. After realizing we were in a wreck, I felt the LOADED trunk had creeped into the back seat and the front seat was laying on top of me. I pulled off my seat belt and Matthew moved the front seat some so I could breath. Matthew and Ralph were smacked in the face with airbags but were out of the car. I looked to my left and Adrianne was bleeding from the nose, and had watermelon all over her lap. My torso hurt and my knee hurt and there were tomatoes smashed too.

Well, the fire department and EMS arrived and took Adrianne to the ambulance. They decided that I needed to be neck-braced and back-boarded - and because of where the car got hit, my door didn't open. They took out the jaws of life and cut me out of the car. Nothing like glass shattering and a saw thing in your ear with a sheet as the only thing protecting you. Into the ambulance, I went. I didn't see anyone/anything at the scene - which sucks. Adrianne was sitting in the ambulance when I got in there.

It was a 15 minute ride, filled with a collapsed vein in my hand and a second try for an IV in my arm. They cut my shirt and my borrowed sweats. My BP was really low and then they couldn't find it for like 5 tries, so they freaked me out a bit.

Adrianne wanted out of the truck - and her watermelon-stained pants. She had to have had a headache. I just wanted off the backboard and out of the neckbrace that was poking into my throat.

So into the ER we went. All of us got checked out, and given drugs. A few hours, a bunch of x-rays and a cat scan later, we are free to go. I however, had no clothes, so left in a nice comfy pair of scrubs. Remarkably with nothing seemingly broken, ruptured or bleeding too badly. Lots of bruises and lots of soreness, but man were we lucky...

The Maxima - not as lucky. It's crumple zones performed their duties well. My laptop, also not as lucky - as you will see below.

I was drugged or slept through most of vacation, either from the soreness or from the rash from the dye in the CT scans. (A lovely time and way to find out you are allergic to it!) I just couldn't get over the hump to fully enjoy vacation. I had one drink the whole week, and if you knew my friends, you'd know that was ridiculous.

It was so nice to pull into my driveway last night and to sleep in my own bed. Now comes the fun part, right? Hospital bills and settlements and receipts... rah rah rah.

I didn't sleep very well, but that's a whole different story. :(

The pictures:

Ralph's car from the rear.
The silver bumper is attached from the car that hit us.

This was my seat... with the door they cut off sitting in it.
(Pay special attention to the tomato on the ground. FUNNY)

The door.

The floorboard full of the glass from it shattering as they cut the door off.

Adrianne's and my seat.
Close up. With the trunk pushed into the seat.

What formerly appeared to be the trunk.
Buckled roof and shattered back window.
And. my personal favorite photo...

Oh yea, and... my laptop.

Again, glad we all made it out as well as we did. But don't look forward to another vacation like that anytime soon! I do, however, love the GTP.

Got lots to be happy about:

• Being "okay"
• My boyfriend (who was not even with me, but still helped me get through the week)
• My bed
• My family
• My nephew's sweet smile
• Forgiveness, giving it - but more importantly receiving it.
  

OBX - the short version...

Please check back next Sunday / Monday to hear the details of the following short story.

There will be pictures.

SHORT VERSION: Ambulances, glass, the hospital, drugs, a free pair of scrubs and a nice rash two days later. Do I have your attention yet?

I will tell the whole fun vacation story when I return and can upload photos. :)

OBX Vacation

I am gone.

My mind is on vacation.

And SO is my body.

Have a great week! :)

Ask, and... you shall receive.

Two weeks ago, I got back from my trips and didn't have very much to do. That is actually an understatement. It was so bad I actually looked at my boss and said, "I need something to do." Because I (in all my anal-ness) had already re-formatted the company phone list, and made copies for everyone who wanted them, and I felt the need to be productive.

He said "I'm swamped." But he didn't give me anything to do. So I said something to the COO, and she said.. "Oh, we'll find you something to do."

In turn I went from NOTHING to do. To stuff to do. To a lot of stuff to do. To busy as hell within two weeks. Monday, my was my new boss's last day. NOW, I went from busy as hell to holy mother of ridiculous busyness.

It's good times. All I know is I go on vacation in 9 days... so for a week, there will be NO busyness.

Today's happy list:

• Kudos from upper management
• When a not-so-good situation works itself out
• Vacation countdowns in single digits
• a new "mix" that you love
• Being lost in the moment (Thank you Big N Rich.)

Swollen nastiness

Just thought I would share... p-haha

Yes, that is my stomach in all it's glory. It is a very ambiguous angle, but sure makes my tummy look gross. It is a close-up, as the bruise is about 8-9 inches in length.

Details on the injury below if you missed my last post. ha.

It's official, I need to retire from sports...

Friday was my first pain-free day with my back. So I was excited to play in my doubleheader on Friday night (that was supposed to be followed by a soccer game on Saturday afternoon.) I play softball with a bunch of family friends, every spring and summer on Friday nights. The team has been together in some form for about 19 years or so.

The first game of the DH was against the team we can't ever freaking beat. We come in SECOND in the league to them EVERY FLIPPING YEAR. It's a bunch of 45-60 year olds men and women who place the ball perfectly and sit on pitches until they get a walk. We usually don't lose games, but that team has our number. Annoying. VERY annoying.

So, on my first at-bat, I got a hit an went to run out of the batter's box, and the back, hamstring and rear end pain came back. It was LOADS of fun. The game went on. We lost to them... again. And, unfortunately, we don't play them again this year to get revenge.

So the second game was against a local baptist church team who got thrown out last year because they are a bunch of pricks. It's always been ironic to me that the church team is full of the biggest jerkoffs in the league. They argue with the ump, the other teams and even themselves. The pitcher teases the batter with his ridiculous wind-up. They slide into girls on plays that aren't close enough to even slide. (And you really don't need to slide in softball.) They complain to the ump for stupid things like the player who is coaching first base having their glove with them. The runners screamed in the 2nd basegirl's face to try to throw them off when catching a throw to second. They are just asses.

All of the above happened last night. No, they didn't get kicked out again - unfortunately! Combined with an ump who doesn't understand the infield fly rule... it was a wonderful night. Just lovely.

I am the pitcher. It's not the safest spot on the field in co-ed ball. In fact, when my dad was alive, he wouldn't let a girl pitch. Last night was an example of why... I pitched to this guy and he drilled a line drive waist high right up the center - into my stomach.

I finished the play and got the chick out at third, then I realized it hurt. After a few quick tears and a little drama from my team, I insisted on finishing the inning and game.

So the next at bat, what does the prick church team guy that hit me in the stomach do? Drill a ball up the center, this time off my foot.

I am fine - bruised and pretty freaking sore, but fine. And I am not a baby, nor do I think people need special treatment, but there are rules to co-ed softball. And this team needs to be kicked out of the league. It wasn't fun. We didn't even want to shake hands. Half of the team didn't. It's ridiculous.

And now we have a losing record. I am not happy with that.

AND, no soccer for me today. I get to sideline it and cheer. RAH RAH.

ANYWAY...

I still have things to be happy about, so...

• Ice & Advil
  
• Being hit in just the right spot so there was no major damage
  
• My softball team. I love them all
  
• My sister being there to try and protect me and keep me out of harm's way
  
• The beautiful weekend that is in front of us (And since I am on the DL, I get to relax and enjoy it.)
  

Poor boys of summer...

Well, I went to the game tonight... but I am sure glad i didn't pay for tickets. I had my work tickets which are just to the left of these:


Good Seats, but torture when you have our bullpen (and Eric Milton at times). When will the pain end? So bad, that in 2005, Joel Luckhaupt who blogs about the Reds, created this team portrait, as South Park characters. Can you name anyone you see?

:)


Today's things to be happy about:

• Tomorrow is another day
• Great company at the ball park
• Good, FREE seats
• Funny people
• Google Images