My stupid blog that I never write in

I'm 26 now. It feels really different and old! Just kidding. Kind of. I'm sure 30 will be worse. My birthday was fun, it was pretty much exactly what I wanted. PR came down and one night we went swing dancing with friends at the park, and then the next day I had a party that was attended by all my local Pribyls. I got good presents too...but I'm not going to list them because what if I forget one, that would be so lame of me. I REALLY like my new Fossil purse that Elaine and Kristen got me though.


This is me and Elaine. I know, I'm looking rough. But she looks good.

This is me and Kristen.

The three of us (Elaine & Kristen & me) went to a baby shower today, that's where these pictures are from. There are lots of pregnant girls at my church right now. It was good...and we didn't even have to play any crazy shower games. It's a good idea to go to stuff like that if you want to have friends at church.

I passed out at work on Thursday. In the operating room, in the middle of a c-section. When I opened my eyes, the nurse was putting a wet washcloth on my forehead and all I could think was how great it felt to be on the floor. It was clean and hard and cold. The more blood returned to my brain, the more embarrassed I became that I was LYING ON THE FLOOR IN THE OR, so I got up as soon as I thought I could walk. Not that everyone was staring at me, because the surgery was still going on, but I prefer to be upright when I'm at work. Yep. So I don't know what happened...I had eaten and slept and am entirely certain that I'm not pregnant, so who knows. I wish I knew how to keep it from happening again...it's not the first time I've had to interrupt a case to sit down and come back into my head. More like the 8th. When I came out of the OR looking all green and white the nurses said, "oh no Marie, did it happen again?" But it is the first time I've actually fainted all the way at work. I just get really...hot.

Today is the most beautiful day we've had in a long time. It's been in the 70s all day, and when the wind blows it actually feels a little cold and fall-ish. The sun is out, and there's an arts festival going on down the street from our apartment. I went to a cute little grocery store to get some vegetables for dinner and it was all full of grandparents and grandkids and people smiling.

I've had issues with grocery shopping lately, so this was kind of a big deal to me. I go to Wal-Mart usually, and I get frustrated by the crowds. Every aisle is clogged with people, with their mouths open, staring at things and shuffling along in their flip flops as slowly as possible. It kind of seems like they wanted to come to Wal-Mart just to hang out and look at stuff. I come tearing around the corners with my shopping cart and the viejitas in my way make these awful faces at me and refuse to make eye contact, so they can't see my "whoops sorry" face. So I've tried going at different times of the day, to avoid these people, but I am sometimes praying for patience too.

The reason it's been so lovely today is because we had a huge storm yesterday. It rained so much that the roof leaked a big wet circle onto my bed that went all the way down to the mattress! So I slept on the wrong side of the bed last night, to let it dry. That's probably how you know you have a big bed, if you have a side you sleep on. Anyways the roofer guys came today to fix it.

This time next week I hope to be in St. Louis. Steph is going to try on her wedding dress for me, which is probably going to make me die. And I'm going on a statue tour with April. I wish those Cheneys weren't gone.

Okay and I'm up to 153 babies. I've been working with nursing students lately, which feels really weird. I was just a student this time two years ago. So maybe I'll get better at teaching. Right now I'm not so hot, I don't really know what to do with them.

I read a good book. It was called The Maytrees, by Annie Dillard. It was sad but it made me lose track of where I was, which I like doing. Fainting's good for that sort of thrill too. :) Okay I'm getting stupid, sorry.

Last week in Washington

Well....I went to Washington. I'm back in the heat of Georgia, back catching babies, back on the brown couch in my cute living room with Elaine. I'm going to write about the trip but that doesn't mean any of you dudes are off the hook for calling me to hear about it firsthand, that is if we have that kind of relationship anyway. :)

Okay well the whole getting there to the airport an hour before PR was just as scary as I expected. His fam was super nice so I guess it was just my own nervousness and expectations that made me want to pee in my pants. Anyways I didn't. But I was really glad when I saw him walking towards us in baggage claim. That night we didn't get back to the house from the airport with all the ferry stuff, etc, until 1:30 am, which was you know, like 4:30 for me. Ha! I was tired.

So the next day we ate breakfast and looked at pictures and picked blackberries on the side of the road. Then we went and hung out with PR's friends in Tacoma and walked around and ate and played pool. Then later we went to Oregon with the whole family and stayed in a condo at the beach for 2 days. I slept in a king-size bed with 2 of his sisters, which was fun. I saw whales from our balcony. And I ate good seafood.

When we got back to Washington we stayed over with his older brother and his wife, because we missed the ferry that night. The next day PR and I went to have a picnic by a lighthouse and had dinner at the big brother's house. I liked them a lot, they seemed easy to get along with. AND they had a hot tub with grapevines twirling around the roof part, so you could stand up in the hot tub and eat some grapes...if you really wanted to. I did.

On the last day I was there, we went to Seattle and walked around and saw all those fish that they throw at people, which was brilliant, of course. And I saw where his Dad works, and went to Costco. :) Then we had big family dinner and a bonfire and sang some songs.

Then early Friday morning I flew back into Georgia, where it was hot and loud and my great roommate came all the way to the ATL airport to pick me up.
I liked it, and them. It was fun and vacationish and I never got bored.

Latest pictures

So...the top two are of me and my roommate Elaine.
Then Gustavo and Steph, then Bechtels, then Cheneys.
Then Christie and I in Charleston, looking disheveled.
Then Larissa and I at my apartment before she left for Germany.
Finally, Jackie and me at a park in St. Louis. Try to guess what she's saying to me.

I'm going back to Cali

You know that LL Cool J song? I just learned it last week.

Well I am now technically able to upload pictures but blogger's having issues. So give me a minute. Or a week.
Thanks for all the fun comments, guys:
-Yes, PR has my same cell phone provider. I'm pretty happy about that.
-Thanks for the A2D props, that was certainly intentional and I'm glad it was caught.
-The Brooklyn Trees DOES have good voices! And voices are usually so annoying on audiobooks! But this one is good, you're right Bert, I bet it was the same.
-Maybe I say wild now but PR definitely uses "whatev," which is a bigger deal, vocab-wise. So I'm talking like an old person and he's talking like a valley girl. Whatev, it's cool.
-My ears NEVER burn but I would like a good excuse to come to Chattanooga, Ben. I've been avoiding it out of sadness and weirdness and busy-ness lately. But I still like being there, I think.

All of a sudden I'm sitting in the dark with my bright laptop screen. I should probably turn the light on before Elaine gets home and thinks I'm creepy.

So really all I can think about right now is that I'm going to Washington in 2 days. Yesterday I packed all my favorite summer stuff and then looked at the weather channel thing PR sent me about how its going to be 50-70 degrees the whole time, what the cold. So I'll bring the white sweater, so what. I'm not bringing a coat, it's August.
Ooh! I just got one of the pictures up! That's me and Peter Rowan in Charleston last month.
Let me end this and see if I can post more pictures. Elaine's back now anyway.

Excuses...

So it's been more than a month, and here are my excuses:

A. My laptop's been having struggles.

2. I got it fixed and now it won't recognize the SD drive and so I have not been able to upload any new pictures. Which is lame. I don't like only posting words. Now you can just know that I have all these interesting new pictures to post that you can't see, because I haven't gotten around to calling the guy back to tell me how to fix the SD thing.

D. Work's been really wild.

Okay that's probably good enough. Since the last time I wrote I've had a big fat vacation too, during which I took Peter home to meet my family. In SC. For a week. So that was sort of frightening to think about but it actually went really well. We went to Charleston and had Cuban 4th of July and swam a lot and read a funny books to each other and went to NC briefly and then drove back to GA via the Blue Ridge Parkway. It was fun to have that much time together with my family, and to see him on a Tuesday. I've never hung out with him on a Tuesday before. He's good on Tuesdays too.

I've also gotten a roommate! Which is really good. It is really great to have Elaine here now. Today when I got home from work, I flopped on her bed and complained about my day, and it was much better than getting home from work and sitting on the couch and going over it all in my head. Not that I had a lame boring life before, but it just feels better to live with people than alone.

And I don't know why, but I've been feeling way busier, even though it's summer and most of my usual standing weeknight commitments (church, Spanish, Krista's house, dinner with Sus) are not going on. I used to always get 5 books from the library and that was usually the perfect amount to get through in the 3 weeks, 4 books really, because there'll always be at least one dud, and now I can't anymore. I have to renew now. Or get books on tape, like I did this last time.

But I only got books on tape because I was driving up to St. Louis last weekend, and I needed something for the car. So I got A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, remember when we all read that? It's still good, but not a terrific choice for staying awake, really. I went up there because those Cheneys are moving away to California this weekend, and I'm never going to see them again. Also because I like Peter and the Bechtels and the Stephs. It was fun, but a weekend feels way short. I didn't get there till like 9 pm Friday because of traffic, then left after church and got in bed in Dalton at midnight. Whatev-it was worth it. All those dudes are way cool.

Anyways now me and my ROOMMATE are going to watch a movie. Gotta go. I'll post those pictures as soon as I figure it out. :)

Good times with baby James

Lists.

Stuff I saw today:
1. A happy new Dad wiping his eyes with gauze because there wasn't any kleenex in the OR.
2. 14 patients. Which doesn't sound like a lot, but all crammed into one morning, it was.
3. Elaine's new car (which means she's moving in with me in the next few days!!!)
4. My tomato plant's first yellow flowers.
5. A guy running with a heart-shaped sweat stain on his red-shirted belly.
6. Four tiny green chiles, lined up on my desk in a neat row. Judy suggested that I use only two of them if I don't want to kill Peter when I make enchiladas verdes for him next week. :)
7. The first ten minutes of "So I Married An Axe Murderer."
8. A REALLY cute 3 year old Guatemalan girl.

Stuff to get done before I go home next week:
1. Say goodbye to those girls that I really like, those ones who I used to live with last year in the yellow house.
2. Consider writing sappy goodbye letters to aforementioned girls.
3. Clean up the place so Peter & Elaine don't find out that I have developed our beloved KBM's habit of leaving socks just...everywhere.
4. Help Elaine move in.
5. Finish library books.
6. 6 deliveries...umm that's going to feel like a lot in one week!
7. Dust. Yesterday Judy came over and she offered to purchase me a Swiffer. Hmm. Do you really get dust that fast? I've only lived here a month!! Maybe I'm just a dusty girl.

Ninety-seven degrees and too little wind to be outside, even in the shade with some really delicious lemonade.

Okay sorry I know it's been like a month. My main excuse is that I moved, but work's also been pretty crazy, and I've also been spending much of my leftover time talking on the phone to a particular seminary dude. :)

Anyways things are good. Yesterday Liz Crusey came by to visit for the afternoon and we had such a fun time, we repotted some of my struggling plants and went to the nursery to get some new ones for my new place. It was really fun. Now on my back patio I have cherry tomatoes and a mint plant to go with my lemon tree, and inside my peace lilies are much happier in their new pots, and then I have the orchid and my new button fern in the kitchen. I'm excited about them, I hope they don't all die.

Last weekend I got to see Peter Rowan and Steph and those Bechtels and Cheneys and a bunch of other good ones at Wim's wedding in Nashville.

I'm trying to put some pictures of all of us on here....the formatting on blogger's pictures has been weird lately though so forgive me if this is all dorked with awkward spaces.

Oh! And also Lydia, my roommate from Vandy, just had a baby a few weeks ago. I got to meet him when I went up to Nashville, his name is Elijah.

I've been liking my new apartment so far. It feels airier and brighter and smells better than the last place.

I'm almost used to hearing trains and sirens all the time (it's right by railroad tracks and the police station and the hospital). And so far no ants or roaches, which is awesome. Ha! I guess i sound pretty easily impressed.

What else? Work's okay. It's been crazy. Everyone has their babies in May and June. I've done 7 or 8 deliveries this month so far. On Tuesday I had 3 in one night, which was kind of rough, especially the next day. Wednesdays tend to be our busiest days in the office. I went to bed SO early that night when I got home from work. It's actually kind of generous of me to call it "night," because it was definitely still light out

when I got under the covers. :)

Peter Rowan is great, I just really like him. I'm not going to be seeing him again until the end of the month though, which is kind of a bummer. He's going to come down to SC with me and hang out in Oburg for the week! Apparently he's heard about the crazy Independence Day festivities in the Carolina low country and couldn't bear to pass it up this year. Or something. I'm glad he's coming. :)

Last night April came over and we flopped on the couch and talked and played Truth or Dare. It was really fun. I'm probably going to miss that girl and her Japanese friend when they finally move on to greener pastures later this summer. I'm kind of trying not to think about it. I haven't found that preparing to be sad is actually helpful in making me less sad when the moment arrives. But I've been thinking I need to have a going-away party for them now that I have a mint plant and can make my own awesome mojitos. I've been feeling like making beans and rice again, so there'll probably need to be a party on my back deck soon.

Alright. I think I'm going to go eat pizza, paint my toenails, make puppy chow, mop the floor, and read library books now. In that order. Unless someone's water breaks.

New apartment!

I just found one! I'm excited about it, mostly. I'll be posting boring pictures of it here sometime soon. :)

Graduation weekend

So here's some more pictures from this weekend, when Peter and lots of Bechtels were in town. Sharalyn graduated, that's why. I got sick this last week so that kind of sucked to be blowing my nose the whole time, but I still had fun. Chris and I took like 8 pictures together trying to get a normal looking one, and it never happened. Eventually we gave up. His eyes don't actually stay open...very much.

You can't tell from the pictures but I actually had sweat, baby pee, and red wine on my shirt this day.

Two pictures from this week

Wanted to post these, now that I've uploaded them...Rachel and April at P.F. Chang's the other night, and Linda holding Etienne. With her awkward hand. :) These are on my facebook too, but I know Mom can't see them there...which you should fix, Mom. You could spy on Linda much more efficiently if you had a facebook profile.

Mostly about food

So, last weekend this dude Peter drove down to see me and it was really fun...we went hiking at Cloudland Canyon on Saturday morning and brought a picnic and then went to the 4 Bridges arts festival and then Coolidge and then ate sushi and then we heard jazz at the Chattanoogan. We talked the whole time even though at Coolidge we sort of just meant to chill out and rest for a second because it was hot and we'd been walking around all day. I even got a little bit sunburned.


Umm, yeah. So I really liked it, it felt easy to hang out with him. He's a seminary dude and so he lives like 7 hours away, so that is sort of lame, but whatev, he has Verizon too. :) I'll probably go up and see him and all my other St. Louis favorites in a couple of weeks.

In other news, I am on call this weekend and I have no food in my apartment. Even the Brita pitcher is empty! I totally need to go grocery shopping, but I haven't been in the mood lately. Usually I get in the mood to grocery shop about every week and a half, so it works out well. Yeah but sometimes you just need to make yourself do stuff like grocery shop so you don't go out to eat for every single meal! Ew. That's weird.

Today my boss took us all out to lunch at Longhorn and I was psyched because I ordered steak and ate the WHOLE thing. Do you know how long steak will fill you up for? You can do other stuff and not even worry about eating again for like 7 hours. It reminds me of when I used to go to that Pancake Pantry when I lived in Nashville and eat this huge salty potato/egg/cheese thing. I'd eat it for breakfast and then not be hungry again until dinner. So I don't know why I'm thinking about food so much right now. I think the steak is probably wearing off. :)

Yesterday I got to see those Lewins again and it was great. Linda stopped by to meet Etienne and then I took some awkward pictures of her holding him. She's got finals next week--can't believe she's going to be a junior in college this fall! That feels weird to me, like I'm supposed to start taking her seriously now or something. :)
Afterwards I went to P.F. Changs with some folks to celebrate April's 25th birthday. We had fun and I tried sake for the first time. It was gross, but that place is otherwise completely delicious. Great, now I'm talking about food again. :)

So while we were at Longhorn today, the owner brought us out complimentary desserts, like this huge chocolate cake with ice cream around it. We were all pretty full so it was kind of like, "mmf, thanks dude" and there was a bunch left over. My boss suggested that we take it back in box "for Marie to eat sometime late next week" and everyone was kind of like, "What? Why her?" And then he goes, "in the year we've had with Marie, I've learned that she is not particularly discriminating about her food" and then everyone started laughing and making fun of me like, "oh yeah! remember that crusty old quesadilla she brought in that one time?" and "didn't you eat potato chips for breakfast yesterday?" Anyways it was pretty funny. And yes, I did eat potato chips for breakfast yesterday. But I had some milk too.

Okay! No more about food. I really just meant to update everyone on Peter Rowan, who is a cool dude. He likes to eat too. I'm still trying to figure out if he has good taste in beer though, because that is important and I can't tell. :)

It's time to hang up your boa.

Well I was trying to post some pictures of my coworkers and I but...blogger's dorked up, as Eric Graves would say, so not tonight guys.

I've been kind of doing stuff all night with the tv on in the background, and it looks like there are tons of scary movies coming out soon. I used to try not to watch scary commercials even but I think I'm over it and they don't really stick in my head anymore. So I watch them. (Let me tell you what the dumbest show ever is: The Search For the Next Pussycat Doll. Doesn't even deserve to be on in the background. Although it does make me wonder if I'm supposed to get bangs that almost cover my eyes. Would I be cool then?)

Okay wow. What a very insightful blog post. Here's what I'm thinking about lately:

---I'm wondering if I should join my church. I'm getting the feeling I'll be around this town for awhile. Maybe I should settle in.

---I need to find a new apartment soon, unless I want to live in this ant-y apartment for another year. Elaine's going to live with me I think. That will be good times.

---I can't sleep in anymore, even on Saturdays. I wake up early thinking about a million things, not necessarily worrying, but going over my day and week a lot. It's a little weird and old-ladyish, but it's been helping me pray, so maybe I should be glad.

---Fireplaces can be very messy. If you have one you should use it anyway though.

---I really like my friends, a lot. I forget how much I enjoy them until I see them again. I'm sort of dreading the loss of April and Rachel this summer. I like them individually but I like being around their friendship too.

---I still haven't gotten to wear my dress.

---I'm happier and busier with stuff than I was 6 months ago. It's good.

That's probably all I feel like saying for now.

Easter was so fun.

So this weekend was great. All these St. Louis types came down for a couple of days and we hung out, and I really liked it. The top picture is everyone who came down (except Chris), then a picture of James, Zach & Chris, then the Thompsons, who are clearly not from St. Louis but came to the Good Friday Cuban dinner party, then Deana, me, Nicky, and Carol with Etienne, then Chris and I, then Steph, Gustavo, & Peter, and finally me and those Cheneys.

It was fun but I was really tired by the time they all left last night.

P.S. it's Chris's birthday today so you should call him. I'm going to bed now.

The smallest Lewin

So here he is, guys. The newest Lewin, who was just born this afternoon. I showed up about the same time as Erica and James and I got to watch big brother meet little brother. So that was really cute. In that 2nd picture of the two of them James is excited because he just ripped Etienne's hat off and tried to wear it. Then he tried to dump Sprite on him. So yeah, we laughed. He's cute for being 3 hours old, huh?