Monday, January 31, 2005


New face edited in for Raegan, glare removed from my head, skin airbrushed

Original

Eyes brightened (first photo I tried)

Original

Eyes brightened

Edited pic of Ethan. Brightened eyes, airbrushed skin

Unedited pic of Ethan

Monday

I have the day off today, which is nice. I must say, I am constantly getting irritated at work these days. I am supposed to be on the 6th floor new planned admission unit, but I really can't remember the last time I was there. I have spent most of my time on the 5th floor, as well as a day on the 3rd floor and one day of education where I wasn't on any floor at all (actually, I was on the 9th floor, but I had no patients, so it doesn't really count). THere have been very few patients on the 6th floor, because it is such a bad idea to do, so the nurses have become float pool nurses who flit about the hospital spreading our cheer from floor to floor. Actually, we are all getting irritable and moody and starting to not like each other. It sucks.

I am working 3 days in a row starting tomorrow (not by my choice), a 12, then an 8 then a 12. Since it is in the middle of the week, I am hoping that I will end up on the 6th floor, since that is when they tend to have more patients. And, since it is days in a row, they should keep me on whatever floor I start out on tomorrow, so I guess I will see. Not holding my breath, though.

Ethan is doing fine. No headaches at all, clear vision, just a weeping area on his forehead that is much improved. He is filling out an incident report today.

We are talking about possibly going to Mexico this fall (November), and having Justin and Kim come along with us. That would be so much fun! The all inclusive places down there are really cheap (like $500 or less for 5-7 days for both of us, depending on how many stars we want for our accommodations.), and we have enough air miles built up for us both to fly free, or we can use our buy one get one for $50 voucher from alaska airlines. I think this would be a ton of fun. We could do stuff together as a group, but also go off on our own as couples. And the all inclusive thing is great- no worries about paying for things, where to go for food, etc. We had a great time in Jamaica at Sandals for our honeymoon, and it would be nice to try it again. Ethan will have vacation time built up by then, so it would be a great time.

We are trying to have one big vacation every year, and some little-er ones to Vegas or California mixed in. We always have a great time in Vegas. We don't gamble at all-just don't see the fun of it, so we do a TON of walking around (less now that their monorail is working--that thing is great!), sightseeing, going to shows, eating good food, and just generally being on vacation. We have discovered the Star Trek Experience, which is a ton of fun. I get tons of info on www.cheapovegas.com . This website is hilarious, and has great links to each hotel. I use it to check out prices and get the best deals. I think I was a travel agent in a former life. I have booked Ethan's trips to Vegas with the Vegas 5 twice, and had a great time doing it. They stayed at the Excalibur the first time, and the Luxor the second time. And it was not my fault that their airline went out of business the night before their flight down, leaving them stranded here until we got alternate arrangements made.

Enough vacation talk. Actually, can there BE enough vacation talk?? Maybe not. Vacations are one of the reasons we work. You work to finance your life. We have had a lot of talks recently about this (Ethan and I). We are growing up. We are real adults with real responsibilities and we have to act that way. We have our retirement funds set up (I love checking mine online at www.fidelity.com and www.tiaa-cref.com and seeing how they are faring), and now that Ethan is finally a permanent employee, we both have pensions, also. We just refinanced our condo to a 15 year loan (closed on the 28th), and have plans to pay it down to about 20k in the next 2 years (hopefully). We want to do lots of things together--vacations, etc. It's funny. People at work and everywhere, it seems, constantly ask me when Ethan and I are having kids. My standard answers are either that my sisters are already repopulating the earth and I can wait awhile, or that I am not mature enough. Yesterday at work, I had a talk with one of the other nurses, Joe, and gave the maturity response. The funny thing is, BECAUSE Ethan and I ARE mature, we aren't having kids yet. We know that if we just wait a while, having kids will be so much better. If we wait, we can have a house with much more space than this little condo, more money in savings so I can take some time off after having a baby. Also, I have some requirements before I have kids. I must be able to maintain a clean or at least semi-clean house (tough to do here since ther is NO space to put anything!), and I must cook or in some way make food for us every day, rather than just buying lunch at work or getting crap from somewhere else. At least most days. So there. Once that happens, we can have kids. So, to everyone out there---QUIT ASKING US WHEN WE ARE HAVING KIDS!!! We will do it when we are good and ready, and not a day before.

Blah, blah, blah. I think that is all I can write for today. I want to edit some more of the Morgan's birthday pictures so I can get them up on www.snapfish.com .

Saturday, January 29, 2005

Too much excitement

Well, we had some really good news yesterday. Ethan finally got hired on as a permanent employee at Harborview. Guess that leap of faith leaving a job of 10 years really did pay off. His interview was supposed to be at 130pm, and he would find out if he got the job next week, but they ended up doing his interview at 1030am, and told him he had the job at 1pm. He was so excited! Good news for us.

A little bad news last night, though. Ethan stayed to work some overtime with the mechanical engineering crew, moving out some old generators and heavy equipment--manual labor stuff, mostly. He has been doing this the past few Fridays. Makes him look like a good team player, gets a few extra bucks--all around a good thing.
But this weekend, they were moving these generators, and they were in an area with a lot of stuff around, and somehow someone knocked over a huge gate (about 100 pounds), and they knocked onto Ethan, who was leaning over a generator figuring out how they should secure it or something like that. He ended up with this 100 pound weight hitting him in the back of the head, slamming his forehead down onto the generator. It knocked him out and had him stuck with his head trapped there for a second, before a burst of adrenaline and the return of consciousness made him throw the gate off of him. Not good. He came home at around 730pm, and I hadn't been expecting him until around midnight, if not later. I was happy to see him, since we could watch the Sonics game together, and then he turned around and I saw his head. !!!!! He has a huge egg-size and shape lump in the middle of his forehead, just off to the right side and just above the top of his nose. It was bleeding a little bit, and oozing some clear fluid. He had put some neosporin on it, but it looked horrible. I am sure he has a concussion, and he had pretty blurry vision in his right eye, which has resolved today. THere is a smaller lump on the back of his head where the gate actually hit him. He looks like he got into a fight with a baseball bat.
I am slightly freaked out. He could have been killed! He may or may not have a skull fracture, but since you can't really do anything about that, we are just keeping an eye on things and icing his head to decrease the swelling.

The moral of this story is, no overtime with heavy objects!!!

Friday, January 28, 2005

I must say, I am a little disappointed to have gone a whole day with no feedback from this website on my new hair. Everyone at work seems to like it, and Ethan pronounced it 'good', but no sister or brother or mom feedback. So sad. I still like it. I survived all night without making massive fuzz and or curl, so it is still straight today. But tomorrow, I will check out the curl, or lack thereof.

Thursday, January 27, 2005

New hair!

I did it! Got my hair cut. I had 6 inches cut off the length, and added red/copper highlights into it, then had it flat-ironed straight for the day ( or more. The stylist said I can have it straight for up to 5 days if I don't wash it or get it wet , because I have very little natural oil in my hair, so I could go up to 5 days, but I am sure I would feel pretty grimy, so I will wash it on Saturday). I also had my eyebrows and eyelashes dyed--brown for the eyebrows, and blue-black for the eyelashes. Apparantly, I have abnormally thick eyelashes, the dye lady just couldn't get enough of them..... Anyway, I will put some pictures up.....

Military stuff on Ethan's side of the bed

Lord of the Rings stuff on our new headboard/wall unit (my side of the bed)

Star trek stuff on our new wall unit/headboard thing-y

More new hair

My new hair! Bra-strap length, copper highlights, brown eyebrows, blue-black eyelashes, and I had it straightened for the day (or maybe 2)

Thursday

No locks of love for me, because they require a minimum of 10 inches of hair, and that just isn't going to happen. But, I looked at the website of the salon I am going to www.ethereasalon.com and the person cutting my hair is a long hair specialist--and I didn't even tell them I had long hair! Interesting. We will see what happens. I just hope I don't end up washing dishes to pay for this!
I am off to the shower so I can leave. I need to be there by 11am for my appointment, and I am pretty sure that parking is going to suck.
I am also getting my eyelashes and eyebrows dyed, so that will be cool, too.

Wednesday, January 26, 2005

Much excitement

I gave my presentation today! Don't know if I mentioned it, but I was a presenter at the 2005 Ortho Core here at Harborview. I gave a 30 minute presentation on venous thromboembolisms (blood clots in the veins and blood clots in the lungs). I was really nervous, but got through it okay. At least I didn't faint or vomit or pee on myself. That I recall. So, that was good.

This afternoon, Ethan and I are driving down to Portland to put a new deadbolt on Mom's door. She has had two breakins in the last 2 weeks, and that is unacceptable, so we are putting a high security lock on. It will be a long drive, but worth it.
I am thinking of also making an appointment today to get my hair cut tomorrow. Maybe 4-5 inches off, some color or highlights, something like that. It has been looking pretty crappy lately, and that might spruce things up a bit.

Monday, January 24, 2005

Back at work

Slightly irritated. Much better than the steamroll of irritation I had this morning when I walked into work and realized that there were only 4 patients on our entire floor, so all but one of the nurses was floated to another unit. I ended up on 3East, medicine/telemetry/dialysis. Could have been worse, but that is not the point. We are all float pool nurses now! I don't want to work on a unit where 90% of the time I am floated to another unit. I asked my manager to switch me to the 5th floor, but I know that will make no difference. This whole new unit idea sucks, but management is the decision maker, so we just get screwed.

This weekend was great. Morgan and Raegan and Sabrina and Davinie and Steve were great to see, and I got to see Daryl and Ardena for poker night on Friday ( and Andy). Although I lost in poker (and discovered that I much prefer 3-5-7 to Texas Hold'em), I had a good time.

Saturday was a day of pink balloons and baby girls. There was one 4 month old boy, but all the rest were girls. The party was fun. I will put up pictures when I get a chance.

Sunday was a morning of picture taking extravaganza with Morgan and Raegan, both of whom did not want to cooperate in the least. But that still makes for cute pictures. I will put thos up also......

Oh, and Raegan was PERFECT on the plane. A little fussy on the way down, but slept the entire trip back--not even a peep out of her.

Still waiting for my king size mattress, although I am starting to like having the queen sized one. It leaves a 6 inch area of wood for me to use as a step to get into bed. I am not entirely sure I would be able to get into bed with out it. We will have to see, because I am sure we will have that King mattress out here sooner or later.

Okay, I need to make another check on my restrained patient to be sure she is still restrained, in bed, and breathing. And not bleeding. She kept kicking the side rail and made her foot bleed, so I put a padded bootie on her foot. I hope it is still in place.

Also, still waiting for more comments. This is only fun to do when people make comments. Otherwise, it's just like I am emailing myself, and I already know all of this stuff.....

Friday, January 21, 2005

Life in Redmond

I flew down to Redmond this morning, and am spending the weekend here celebrating Morgan's first birthday. We went this morning to have her pictures taken at Sears, and she is currently feasting on a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, building up stamina for an afternoon non-professional photo shoot, which will surely turn out better than the professional ones.
Ethan is home alone. Actually, he is at work, then he will go home for a nap, then off to a Sonics game, then back to work for some overtime all night long. His goal is to wake up in time for the NFL games tomorrow.
Raegan did pretty well on our flight down, but Sabrina was a wreck. Thankfully, they both survived to repeat the experience Sunday.
Off to photo land.....

Thursday, January 20, 2005

Inauguration woes

Can I just say that the whole thing is fairly irritating to me?? I am not a 'W' fan. Not at all. For more information, go to www.fahrenheit911.com (not sure that is a real website, but if it is--you should go). I realize that film is a lot of stuff taken out of context, and bits and pieces all put together, but there is still a strong point there. Anyway. I am not a Democrat, definitely not a Republican. I prefer to think for myself and make decisions on how I feel about an issue, rather than blindly choosing a political party and assuming they have some clue about every issue that comes up.
One of the nurses I work with is a very strong Republican, but I do believe she tries to think for herself and is not totally blind to what is going on in the real world, so I have respect for her. Another nurse is very strongly anti-Bush/Republican. Not a democrat, more of an independent thinker, and definitely a liberal. I love working with her. She really researchs issues and bases her opinions on facts, not just some little saying she heard here or a news snippet there. That is pretty cool.

Off the political stuff.........I had lunch with Ethan today, because his boss went up to the UW to help with some lock stuff there. I will refrain from discussing him on this board, because I don't want anything to get back around somehow and get Ethan in trouble. Suffice it to say, his boss was gone, and we had lunch. Not that we are not allowed to have lunch together, but I wouldn't really want to go down to the lockshop if he were there, and Ethan wouldn't really want me there.
Only 4 more hours to go, then it is off home to make a huge pot of spaghetti for Ethan to eat this weekend, and pack my bags, and pack Morgan's birthday stuff (I called her today to say happy birthday. Her response was to push the #3 button on the phone. I take that as a 'thank you aunt alyca').

Thursday

Back at work again, for 12 hours today. I am finally back on the 6th floor. Our unit has been sort of split up into planned admissions on 6 and trauma admissions on 5 (the RN's are very upset, and I don't think it will work out in the long run). I am supposed to be on the 6th floor for the next 2 months as we orient half our staff at a time to the new format for these patients. THe problem is, there are few or no planned admits on weekends, so our census is really low weekends and Mondays, and the nurses get floated to other units, which sucks. I was semi-lucky to be floated to the 5th floor the last few days. So I am happy to be back. It was nice seeing the trauma patients this past week, but I like this floor as well.

Today is Morgan's birthday. One year old! I will have to call. Small snafu yesterday where Sabrina emailed me to not forget to call her for her birthday (she thought yesterday was the 20th, and I had 2 days off from work and therefore had no clue what the date was), so I called yesterday on accident. Oh, well. She will never know.....

I must say, I LOVE my new bedroom. We have most of the extra stuff moved out, and it is nice just to spend time in there. The bedroom set takes up the entire room, but it looks nice. We just need to get our king size mattress in there, and we will be set.

Oh, Ethan has discovered that Shadow can, in fact, jump quite high. He loves to throw himself at the door when we are in the sports room with the door closed, and Ethan managed to watch him do it one day (Shadow sometimes likes to try to outguess us when we walk down the hall, rushing up and jumping at the exact moment when we open the door, so he can sneak in. He guessed wrong, and ended up jumping while Ethan opened the other door). Anyway, he jumped so high, his back legs were above the doorknob. Pretty high for a Shadowman! No word yet o nhow high the Boo-kitty can jump. Then again, he is more of an elongator, rather than a jumper. He is, after all, the elongated kitty.

Wednesday, January 19, 2005

Wednesday...

Okay..yesterday's Sonics game did not go as planned, but unfortunately, you just can't win them all. Also, I did not go to the liquor store (or the sewing store). We ended up meeting Justin at a new bar called Sport that is right next to the space needle. Extremely overpriced, so I think we will probably not go there again. Justin got to go to the game and sit in a suite, so he was there with a bunch of coworkers.

Today, my goal is to go get ear mite drops for Boo. Shadow had ear mites a few weeks ago, and got drops from the vet, and I just want to make sure that Boo didn't get them. We are not sure how they got them in the first place, since they are inside only cats.
My other goal is to get a gift for Morgan's birthday, and to call and wish her a happy birthday. One year old today! I am flying down Friday morning with Sabrina and Raegan for her birthday party. Should be interesting flying....we'll see how Raegan does. I think it will be allright, but Sabrina is worried that she will scream the whole way. We shall see.

I looked into the whole quilt thing, and it appears that I will need to do some research into what kind of pattern I want to do, and how big to make it, etc. The instruction websites all say that you need to sew two squares together, then iron them to keep them flat. Yuck. I hate ironing. Will it really make that much of a difference?? I guess I will find out. I cannot see myself ironing a bunch of material, so I may end up with a lumpy quilt. Whatever.

Tuesday, January 18, 2005


And she is probably right. Sabrina and I have a pact to make her a larger stocking and stuff her into it next year. Hey-it could become a new family tradition!

Raegan clearly thinks her family is nuts

Raegan and I in Netarts

Steve and Morgan

The Fiero family at Netarts

Ethan and Cooper

Ethan playing fetch with Cooper on the beach at Netarts

Grammabon with Raegan

Sabrina and Raegan with an unknown acrobat in the background

Sabrina and Raegan on the beach at Netarts

Uncle Jobie with his very unhappy neices

Uncle Jobie with his neices

Morgan Paige again

Morgan Paige in the bath in August, 2004







Pictures from Sabrina and Matt's first pregnancy photo shoot

My most favorite picture of Ethan...taken while we were on our cruise

Sawyer glacier in the Tracy Arm Fjord in Alaska. Beautiful day, nice weather--I got a horrible sunburn!

Tuesday......

Well, my room is looking divine. The bed is now at armpit height, since Ethan put the futon mattress on the top of the regular mattress (there is nowhere else to store it), so we need stairs to get into bed. I swear--one of us is going to fall out of bed some morning and break our neck. At least I know the fundementals of cervical spine stabilization.

My goal for today is to shower. Soon. I have discovered that I HATE showering. I love it once I am actually in the shower, but it is like pulling teeth to get me to go in there. After much internal debate, I now realize that this is because I don't like having to stop doing something and start something else. This is the same reason why I tend to not go to the bathroom until it is URGENT. I don't want to stop what I am already doing. Interesting tidbit.

After my shower, I am thinking about going to the Hanson's fabric depot to buy fabric to make a quilt. Mom gave my a sewing machine, which I did not want, but I am now thinking that as long as I have it, I should make a king-sized quilt for my new bed. Having no sewing experience and no particular quilting knowledge, this may be interesting. Maybe I will end up with a quilt for the cats to sleep on. We'll see. We also have a Sonics game tonight, vs the......actually I am not sure who we are playing. Maybe the Nuggets??
In the manner of all cheap sports fans, I am thinking of going to the liquor store to buy a little bottle of rum to go in my overpriced, watered down Key Arena coke. They charge $6 for a soda there. Ridiculous. A glass of wine is $6.50, but I have had bad luck with those. They taste great, don't get me wrong (actually, I specifically got the same wine that I get at Sonics games to have at my wedding. Bet you didn't know that), the problem is that a few games ago, the bumbling woman who sat next to me managed to rip my entire full wine glass out of it's special little cup holder in my armrest and dump it all over the floor and drench my coat. I had to get a plastic bag to carry my coat in, and walk to the car in a T-shirt. I was slightly annoyed. She never even noticed that she did it, although her husband did buy me another glass of wine. I was just thinking the whole night about that long cold walk to the car. Good thing the Sonics won. It is a scientific fact that the temperature outside is a few degrees warmer after a win. Anyway, I knew it was an accident, but that doesn't help to dry off a soaked coat.

Anyway, back to the illicitly spiked coke. The soda cups have lids. I had a rambunctious kid knock over my soda cup, but the lid saved the day, and therefore I prefer that. Plus, who doesn't love rum and coke??


So, I think I am done putting it off. I am heading to the shower.. Oh, but also, I get to stock my drawers today! There are only 8, not 9 like I thought previously, but they are all mine. So far, I have one for socks, one for underwear/bras, one for pj bottoms/shorts, one for crappy Tshirts that I sleep in, and 4 more to fill. So exciting! I have already designated the top shelf in my very own cupboard as the place for camera equipment, and the telephone and alarm clock are on my side of the bed on the counter. We put all of Ethan's Star Trek stuff on the very top of the headboard, and I am going to move the philadendron from the living room into the space that is left. The cats keep trying to eat it, and it is on their list of poisonous things that they are not supposed to get, so it would be safer in our room.

The lower shelf on the headboard is where all of my Lord of the Rings stuff is. I have Minas Tirith, the Golden Hall, an Orc helmet and the weapons of Gimli. Looks a little bare, so I bought Pippin's Gondorian helmet today off of ebay to fill it in a bit. (don't tell Ethan...) That shelf also has Ethan's military jets and helicopter die casts. He got an awesome F15 or F14, I don't remember which, for Christmas from Matt. Very cool. Our room finally looks like a grown-up room. Real furniture and all. Now we need something to go on the wall at the foot of the bed. A picture or a painting or something. Ooh..maybe our wedding picture thing that we had people sign. But I need to get the negatives from my photographer so I can print out a big picture to put in there.

Back to that shower.........

Monday, January 17, 2005

Late in the shift....

Almost done! It is so nice having patients who appreciate you. Or patient who appreciates you. At the moment, I have two patients in surgery (actually, one in surgery, one in the waiting room), and one on the floor, who appreciates me.
It is really foggy outside, but not currently raining, so hopefully I won't get soaked on the way to the bus stop. My bus stop is 11 1/2 blocks away, mostly downhill from the hospital. (all well lit streets/no mugging zones), so I end up speed walking my way down. On weekdays, the bus leaves at 7:37, and I usually can finish up giving report to the oncoming nurses by around 7:25 or so, and I generally make it in time. I have a whole specific route that I take which is the most efficient way to go, according to stoplights. I go over 1 1/2 blocks, left for 2 blocks, over 1 more, left 1, over 1, left 1, over 1 and left 3 blocks. Just so you know. But don't try to come up and mug me now that you know my route--I have pepper spray. Actually, it is sitting on top of my refrigerator in an unopened package, but I will eventually put it in a pocket--you never know.

Anyway, no rain. At least not right here. Then again, I am sitting in a nursing station in the center of the sixth floor of a hospital with not a window in sight. I last peered outside a few minutes ago whilst I removed a full bedpan from a grateful pt (remember her?? See above..)

I am hoping to watch that episode of Enterprise that we taped on Friday. I haven't had a chance to do that yet.....oh, my busy life. It will be nice to have some time at home, since I am leaving Friday to go to Davinie's house for Morgan's birthday party. I enjoy being home alone. I really need to have a lot of alone time to remain sane, so I like the way my schedule works out. Ethan gets some time alone on the weekends when I work (or on holidays, like today), so that is good for him, too. I think it is good for our relationship in general to have time to ourselves, apart from anyone else.

Okay, I gotta go give report soon, and I need to make sure my patient is still happy.

Lunch break..........

Today has been pretty good. Three patients this morning, two have been discharged and one is still here, which means I will get screwed at some point with a bunch of new admissions, but right now, having just one patient is smooth sailing.

Unfortunately, my lunch time is coinciding with Clarisse, our USC, and we are watching divorce court. I hate divorce court. Well, okay.....I would rather watch some other crap, like Days of our lives or Passions, both of which have sucked me in. They are pretty hysterical. A total break from reality, which is nice to have when you are on a lunch break at work. Check out
www. soapoperafan.com/days for more info on these kooky soaps. I watch them maybe once a week, but keep updated with the soap opera website. So sad, but awfully entertaining!!

I am looking forward to having tomorrow off--I get to put things in my new drawers! I have 9 drawers on my new bed that are mine alone to fill. I have no dresser, so my underwear and such are in my closet in a hanging wardrobe thing that sucks. I figure, one drawer for socks, one for underwear, and I am not sure about the rest. Suggestions would be welcomed......

Portland

Well, it ended up being only 3 stops on the way down, and NONE on the way back! Raegan was quite content in her little carseat. Figure skating was fun, as was our nice lunch at the Olive Garden, although I forgot to grab my doggie bag, and left it on our table when we left. Oh, well

Ethan was busy while I was gone--he put the entire bed set together, moved the excess furniture out, and the room is so small looking right now! We still need to pick up our mattress set, because the queen we have now is too small, but we are almost there. I am looking forward to filling all the drawers on my side. Finally, we can wash all our clothing and have somewhere to put it!

Sonics won last night, beating Lebron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers in what was a great game. I was driving back from Portland and did not hear or see the game, but I heard all of the postgame interviews, and sounds like it was a good one (confirmed by Ethan).

Back at work today-Martin Luther King day, which means holiday pay!! Time-and-a-half for me. Ethan has the day off, which is nice for him. He worked over the weekend, so he deserves some time off.

Anyway......going back to work now....

Sunday, January 16, 2005

Off to Portland

Okay, it is 757 am,I have been up since 545, and I am heading down to Portland to watch some figure skating. I drove my dad's truck(remember, my car is in Gig Harbor) down, and I am waiting for Sabrina to finish feeding Raegan so we can leave. The over-under on the number of stops we will make on our way down is 7 (set by Ethan). I personally have my money on 4, because I will be in the backseat of the truck with the aforementioned Raegan, and I am confident in my abilities to entertain her and avoid at least one episode of screaming. We will have to see................

Saturday, January 15, 2005


.

The adorable Raegan Skye, my littlest niece (I have 2). She is almost 4 months old, and absolutely adorable. I am learning how to take portraits and improve in photography, and she is helping with the baby photos section. Next weekend, she, along with her older cousin, Morgan, will be participating in an all day photo fest with their 3 aunts/moms. Should be a lot of fun The second picture is the aforementioned Morgan Paige, along with her Grammabon--my mother. This was taken while we were on the Oregon coast the first week of December.

Shadow and Boo--there is a mirror behind them, only two cats here. Shadow is the one on the left, with a 6 inch long tail. Boo is the aristocratic looking cat smugly tucking his 16 inch tail around himself

Ethan and I on our first anniversary cruise to Alaska
Okay. I am home. Finally. Took a bit longer than I thought, but I made it. Sabrina and Matt ended up driving my car to their house, and Ethan and I unloaded all the furniture at our house, driving their truck. I smashed my thumb in the process, but I think the nail will not fall off. However, I have never had an injury that caused the nail to fall off, so this is pure speculation. All I know is, it REALLY hurt!! It was throbbing pretty good, and really stiff to move. But, better now.

My entire house is covered in dripping wet furniture. Living room, kitchen, and bedroom. But it is all here. Don't think we have it in us to put it together tonight. Maybe next week sometime, seeing as how I am leaving first thing in the morning to go to Portland to watch figure skating with my sisters and mom, and not coming back until evening, and working 7-7 on monday. We'll see. I would feel bad if I came home and Ethan had done it all himself. There are four billion parts to attach, and no manual to say how to do it. Not that he would consult a manual if there were one.....

January 15

Okay, I know I just posted my very first post, but I have more to say now. I can't wait until I get home and can add pictures. I have lots of good pictures.....


I am currently at work, but it is not too busy of a day. (For more info, go to www.google.com and type in US nursing shortage). I had three patients this morning, discharged one, and got an admit. Not too shabby. A lot of times, we get 4 patients on the day shift, and things can get pretty busy. So, here I am on the internet in the breakroom, taking a break. I think I have some 1pm meds to give in a bit, so I will have to go soon.

When I get off work at 3:30, Ethan is picking me up and we are driving down to Puyallup (Pyoo-al-up) to pick up a bedroom set we bought off ebay last week. I hope it all fits into one truck. My sister and brother in law, Sabrina and Matt, are driving one of my dad's truck and are going to help us load it all. Better not have any freezing rain! Mom called earlier and said they are having tons of it in Portland, and I heard that some was headed this way. Crossing my fingers...

So, that should be fun. And, also last night, we taped Enterprise and the first episode of Battlestar Gallactica, and get to watch them tonight. I know almost nothing about BG, but Ethan loved the series as a kid, and is quite excited, so I am looking forward to that. I really enjoy star trek enterprise. First new episode in 4 weeks, so it should be a good one.

A little more about Ethan and I......we are huge sports fans and have season tickets to the Supersonics (NBA), Storm (WNBA) and Seahawks (NFL). No Mariners tickets, because baseball is boring. So we are often out at games, which was the case last night when we ended up taping the two shows we want to see. We did it the old fashioned way. I am quite adept with electronics and such, and could easily program a VCR to tape something, but we choose to just push 'record' and leave, and I ended up taping also that 70's show, which comes on before Enterprise. That was nice. I watched one episode last night before going to bed. A new one, at that. Such is the benefit of just pushing record and recording a few hours of tv before the desired show comes on. Oh, and we have two VCR's on 2 TV's, so that was how we taped from 2 different channels. Actually, we have 3 VCR's and3 TV's, as well as 1 5-disc DVD player, and 1 400 disc DVD/CD changer (because of course, you can watch more than one movie at a time. There is even a 'random' button, where you can continuously watch movies and the changer will pick out another movie once yours is done. Does anyone need or use that??)

Enough for now. I must email this to everyone I know so people can learn about my fabulous life. Please make comments---tell me what you want to know!!

My life.......

Okay, so I am starting a blog. Seems like everyone is doing it, so here is my turn. I am treating this as a sort of public diary that doesn't have any deep dark secrets in it-just my boring life and the things I do. Feel free to leave me a message with suggestions for more entertainment.


So, in case people somehow find this without me giving them the address (ie: people I don't know), here is some information about me.

My name is Alyca, and I am 27 years old, living in Seattle, Washington. I live in West Seattle, to be exact; with my husband of 19 months and 1 day, Ethan, and our two cats Shadow and Boo. Because of the boring nature of my life, I am sure you will be reading much more about the antics of those two.

For financial reasons, I am a registered nurse working at Harborview medical center here in seattle on the trauma/orthopedics unit. Ethan is a locksmith, who is now also working here at Harborview.

We live in a condo which is being refinanced into a 15 year mortgage later this month, and are hoping to upgrade to a real house with a yard and everything, hopefully sometime next year.

What else.......I guess that is a good start. I am sure I will think of more entertaining tidbits about my life to add in here.....