that time flies

guess it's been a while since I posted. not a whole lot going on, just working nights and feeling isolated from the rest of the world. tonight will be my 6th shift in the last 7 nights, blech. but it's all good, since I'm off the weekend and headed to jersey tomorrow morning after work. not sure how I'm going to cope with getting up with the kids in the morning. it'll definitely be a shock to my system to have all that exposure to daylight.
happy to report that tommy should be home next week!!! planning to go to nc to see him arrive safely on u.s. soil. can't believe it's been a year, it doesn't seem like that long, but we've been lucky to have been able to talk with him almost weekly. i stayed up yesterday after work hoping he would call, since he called the last few mornings, and of course, he didn't. oh well. once I go to sleep this morning, my phone will probably ring.
been cleaning and organizing like a fiend when i'm up all night with nothing to do. ridiculous how much junk i've accumulated since moving into my condo almost 7 years ago. it's borderline ridonculous to me that i've had my condo this long, i thought i'd keep it maybe three years and then move on, funny how things work out. still trying to figure out where i want to be. it's so hard to know if you're making the right choices, or just doing what other people expect of you. i've struggled with figuring out the difference for years, and i'm no closer to knowing definitively that i'm doing the right thing. guess the point is to take chances in life, and be brave.

that sleep can be elusive

Night shift has been an adjustment. I love the girls I work with, but my sleep schedule may never recover. We've been having lots of fun at night after all the patients disappear. The last few nights the ER has emptied out around 2, and we've had lots of downtime. Friday night we did lunges up and down the hall, used bottles of Sterile Water for weights during our arm workout, and frightened the visiting attending when we wrapped our hands in blankets and started boxing. It was totally hysterical.

We had so much fun I had to sleep it off the next day. I've been having lots of trouble falling asleep when I get home in the mornings, so I fell asleep sometime between 10 & 11. Annie called me sometime after 5 to discuss our plans for the night, not sure what we talked about, I think I told her to call me back in an hour. More than an hour passed, she called, I went back to sleep until 0830 Sunday morning. 22+ hours, not too shabby.

Sunday I brunched with Court since we hadn't gotten together in forever. Since we no longer work two doors down from each other, I miss all of our random chats and trips to Starbucks. It's cool that no matter how infrequently we see each other, we pick up where we left off and on it goes. Trying to talk Court into traveling with me, we'll see if she goes for it. Heck, I don't even know if I wanna travel again, but having a buddy along makes it that much more appealing.

Guess I should try to take a nap. I need to sleep a little, so that I can sleep tonight. Tomorrow I'm volunteering at the USO at noon. Granted, noon is not early, but I'd like to be somewhat functional.

BBC 2010

Last week I went on my first (and probably last) cruise with some girls from work. It was interesting. A total of nine girls went, which is just too large a group to keep happy and together even when confined to a cruise ship. We started out in Miami for two nights, which really highlighted how age affects nightlife plans. I've never been so glad to no longer be in my 20's. Despite my unwillingness to join in during some of their drunken anctics, I had a good time. Miami is a weird town. I thoroughly enjoyed all the Art Deco architecture, but the people were not friendly, more solicitous, which was kinda unnerving. Granted, I don't speak the language, but I can't put my finger on why the people we met were so aloof and kinda pretentious. Shopping in South Beach was horrible, don't waste your time. FYI-I have more clothes in my laundry basket than they do in Dash.

On to the pics:

It seemed like every 10 ft one of the girls would try to get a group picture, which got old really fast. They'd ask someone to snap a pic, and the poor person would end up with multiple cameras on their wrist. So here's the only group pic I have, the girls have posted all of theirs on facebook, so I might be forced to join soon. It's never good when you get text messages from people you haven't seen/talked to in months asking about your vacay.

South Beach-beautiful, but cold! The water temp had to be in the 50's.

Downtown Miami from the boat deck prior to leaving port.



Pulling into Nassau. I was so disappointed that it was cloudy and overcast, but the clouds burned off and we had a beautiful day in port. Got off the boat and took a $4 cab ride over to the Atlantis Resort. The hotel is amazing!! It was way too cold to enjoy the water park that morning though.

Inside Atlantis' lobby they have an aquarium. There's lots of pics of us girls kissing the fish up on facebook apparently. Forget kissing frogs, the BBC girls have moved on to fish.

Straw market in Nassau=knock off heaven. Never in my life have I seen so many fake bags in one location. But I managed to fight the power and not buy any. I know, it's so out of character for me to pass up a knock off. Can you tell I'm maturing? Or maybe I just didn't have any room in my luggage or the willingness to haggle in a confined space.



Another shot of Atlantis, this time with the sun out. It's amazing how blue the water is in the Bahamas. Being able to see my toes in the water is something so foreign to me having grown up on the Lake, but it might be my favorite thing about beach vacations.

And to prove I was actually in the Bahamas, a self portrait on the Nassau Pier.

Our second day in the Bahamas was spent on NCL's private island, Stirrup Cay. The rest of the girls went over after breakfast, but I choose to sleep in, have brunch and drown myself in spf prior to taking the boat over. The Island was gorgeous, and with beachside bartenders, good times were practically guaranteed.

This might be my new favorite picture.

That's our Cruise Ship, the Norwegian Sky, from the hopper boat to Stirrup Cay. Funny how this pic looks like so many on their website, maybe I should try to sell it to them.

Overall, it was a good experience. With the continuous deluge of snow here in Ohio, it was great to spend some time in a warmer climate with the sun shining bright. If only I could have bottled up some of that gorgeous weather and brought it back here with me.

And some final comic relief: