On the Eve of Change

I never really understood the Sunday evening blues...until today.  Ha!  My first real job was working night shift as a nurse and each week I worked on different days so there was never the feeling of having to get ready for a full week of work.

I start hospital orientation tomorrow for my new job and although there won't be any clinical work tomorrow I'm still a little nervous.  Never having been a huge fan of change, I've kind of been dreading this afternoon for a while. 

I've got my lunch packed, paperwork ready, and my clothes laid out for my first day.  Here goes nothing!

Baron and I had a low key weekend that started out by celebrating my new job at the Melting Pot on Friday night.  Imagine my surprise when I saw this on my little menu board:

We had a nice dinner and fun experience cooking all of our own food.  Baron had never been before and I think he liked it :)  While trying to cook some shrimp on a skewer, this guy walks by and I think,  "I know him!" But then I thought, "we just moved here and there are very few people that we know and I'd be able to identify them easily." Hmmmm....

Then it clicked, it was Jared the Subway guy! At the Melting Pot. Certainly not eating a five dollar foot long.  Baron didn't believe me at first and after it was confirmed by our waiter, he too, was in awe of the big celebrity sighting in our city.

Speaking of Subway, there is one pretty close to our new house.  We went and grabbed dinner one night last week.  Our sandwich artist was very enthusiastic and even penned the words "His" and "Hers" on our sandwiches.  Ha!

Saturday was spent doing absolutely nothing.  We did drive around late in the afternoon to check on our house and just see the city.  Spring has definitely sprung here in North Alabama and it is beautiful!

I hope you all have a wonderful week! I'll try to stop in at some point but won't make any promises, this is going to be quite the 180 for a girl who's had a year off of work.  Gulp!  I'm excited to get started but kind of wish I could snap my fingers and have been at my new job for a year.  I remember saying that about my last job when I first started and the three and a half years there went by so fast. 

I hope I can touch peoples' lives.  I hope I can be a caretaker, pain-reliever, answer giver, comedian, baby rocker, comforter, and perfect counter-to-ten (you do a lot of that in Labor and Delivery) for all of the women that I will care for.  The way that all of the doors were closed until this opportunity came about, and then this door was wide open and I was practically shoved through it, helps me to be less anxious about the whole thing.  This is where I'm supposed to be.  This is what I'm supposed to do.  I can't wait to get back into the groove of it all.  I'll just keep repeating that to myself until it feels natural again.

Have a great week, friends!

April 27th 2011

Hi friends! I hope you all had a wonderful, relaxing weekend!  Baron had to work on a project for work all weekend so I busied myself preparing for tornado season here in Alabama and made an emergency kit for our family.  Tomorrow I will share with you what exactly went into our emergency kit, but today I would like to share why it is so important to us to be prepared for anything.

When Baron accepted his job here in north Alabama I had never been here!  After my last night of work in Jacksonville, Baron and I left the very next morning to make a road trip to Alabama for me to see where our future life was taking us and to find an apartment for us to live in. 

We nailed down our apartment choice early in the trip and were planning on having a relaxing, touristy day on our last day in Alabama before driving home.  That was on April 27, 2011.  You may or may not know what else happened on that day in northern Alabama.



{via}

April 27th was the deadliest tornado outbreak in decades.  Although the city we were in wasn't hit as hard as many neighboring cities, there were dozens of tornadoes that touched down and totally tore neighborhoods apart. 

Baron and I had heard from countless people on our trip that the tornado sirens went off all the time and it was nothing to worry about.  If there was actually a tornado, it was a really small one that would go through the farm lands and not do much damage at all.  The night before the tornado outbreak we actually had dinner with old friends of Baron's and they said not to worry about the sirens at all, the weathermen here freaked out about everything and they went off all the time.

On April 27th I woke up at about 4 am and heard tornado sirens.  I chuckled to myself and tried to go back to sleep.  I tossed and turned but never could fall asleep; the sirens, wind, and thunder were just too loud.  I posted this on facebook, not knowing yet what was in store for us that day...

"Woke up at 4:30AM to the loudest thunder I've ever heard & tornado sirens. Ack! Welcome to Alabama!"

Later that morning Baron and I decided we were going to just drive and try to find our way around our new city.  It was cloudy and drizzling outside, but nothing too bad.  The weathermen were just saying to stay tuned and be ready for storms later that day.  I was actually driving when we started noticing that the clouds were getting darker and darker.  We were about to run out of gas, so we decided to fill up before heading somewhere close to our hotel to grab something for lunch.  As soon as we finished filling up, the clouds really started rolling in, the thunder claps were deafening, and the wind and rain were getting intense.  As I was hurrying back towards our hotel it got really bad!  I was so scared and wanted to stop the car and let Baron drive.  I'll never forget as we turned a corner and could barely make out a street sign that was bent in half and blowing sideways because the rain was falling so hard and fast, Baron said, "We don't have time for that!"  I knew it was serious then and put the pedal to the metal!  By then we both realized that it was really serious and there may by a tornado seriously on top of us!  Baron yelled, "Turn left! I think there's a Kroger in there!" 

Keep in mind that we could not see a thing, I could barely make out the roads but I barreled into the Kroger parking lot (thank goodness!!) and for some reason I was trying to actually park the car and Baron said, "It doesn't matter, put the car in park, let's GO!" 

We ran into Kroger as fast as we could with just my purse and a towel we happened to have in the car.  When we made it inside it was like a scene from a movie.  The place was deserted.  The lights were flickering and someone was yelling over the intercom "Code Adam!"  (which is usually a missing child, so I'm thinking they were just panicking).  Then we saw the manager and he yelled to us, "Get to the back, QUICK!"

Baron and I were soaked and we ran as fast as we could through the aisles into the back warehouse of the store where there were employees who grabbed us and hurried us in.  There were about 200 other people in the back seeking shelter.  I started crying as soon as we found a crate of dog food to sit on, I literally thought this was the end of us.  I tried to text our parents and tell them that we were okay for now and we had found shelter but our cell phones weren't working. 

I will always remember how calm and professional the employees were.  They were hugging people, passing out water, and making sure that the elderly had places to sit down.  After what seemed like hours, the manager made an announcement that there should be a break in the storms if we wanted to try to get home.

Baron and I went straight to our hotel room and watched the news all afternoon.  Luckily, we were able to communicate with our parents via facebook and let them know we were okay.  I posted this at some point that afternoon...

"Survived our first string of northern Alabama tornadoes, in the back warehouse of a Kroger, with about 200 other people, soaking wet, thankful for a generator & very nice manager passing out water, crackers, & hugs. Storms expected all day. Looks like we'll be spending our last day in the hotel lobby :) Good thing I love this boy!"

At about 6 o'clock that evening the weathermen started saying to seek shelter, these weren't normal Alabama tornadoes, and that things were about to be really serious.  We headed down to the lobby to ride it out, and spent about an hour in the bathrooms with some other people before just making a spot in the lobby.  We lost power and sat in the dark for hours. 

Photo taken from the lobby of our hotel sometime that afternoon before the weather got worse

Baron and I in the hotel lobby after losing power.  We wanted to show our parents that we were still smiling :)

We thought about trying to leave that night after all the storms had passed and just getting somewhere where they had power and we could get something to eat.  We went upstairs to our room and packed up all of our belongings in the dark with just the light from our cellphones.  Baron decided (thank goodness!) that it would be best to wait until morning when we could actually see the roads.  I whined more than I should have, admittedly.  I was terrified, tired, shaken, and hungry.  We charged our phones in the car for a little while before heading upstairs to go to bed.

The next morning we woke up bright and early to make the drive home.  It was terrifying to see what had transpired the night before in broad daylight.  I am so thankful for our safety.  We had an uneventful drive home and were so happy to be back in Florida! 

Our new city would be left without power for a week.  People were left to clean up with  no gas, electricity, stores, or restaurants that were open. We learned that it was important to have at least a minimum supply of emergency supplies in case of that ever happening again. A priority in building our new house was that it had to have a storm shelter of some kind!  We decided to have our master closet made into a storm shelter and are so happy with that decision. I think it'll make this storm season a little easier for us.

Come back tomorrow and I'll break down the ingredients to our Emergency Kit!

Have a happy Monday! :)


He's Home :)

Good Monday morning to ya!  I'd love to tell you all about the exciting things that I did this weekend, but I got nothin'!  Baron was gone on a business trip to Gainesville, Florida for a few days and got back around lunchtime yesterday.  I was so happy to have a small snippet of the weekend left to enjoy with him.

Baron was asked to go on a recruiting trip for his company to Gainesville and he was happy to go back to his old stomping grounds for a few days.  Baron hasn't been back to Florida since we moved in June of last year, so I was excited for him.  After he was finished with the business part, he was able to drive to his parents' house about an hour away and spend the rest of the weekend with them.  I'll admit, I was a little sad about him being in Florida without me! But I have been back to Florida twice, just last month and in September, and no, he didn't complain at all. 

I did find time in my busy weekend (ha!) to paint my nails a cute little pink and grey combo:



When Baron got home on Sunday we went and grabbed some lunch at Subway, one of the easiest places to eat on Weight Watchers.  Then decided to go check out a place in our town that we had heard about but never seen before.

This is a 17,000 square foot mansion that was built in 1886 and now is occupied by two women that are supposedly very serious about their safety and neighborhood watch program!  We've heard stories of people driving by to take photos and being sprayed with a water hose and screamed at.  Also, lots of accounts of the resident blinding people who drive by with a huge flood light from inside her window. This mansion does not belong in the neighborhood that it's in.  It's surrounded by really old, tiny houses so it sticks out like a sore thumb!  It kind of reminds me of the Scooby Doo mansion.

We drove by fairly quickly and I managed to snap just one picture before I started squealing and telling Baron to drive away.  I just knew she was going to pop out of the bushes and start throwing rocks at our car.  We're thinking this is going to be a new place that we take our visitors :)

We got some good snuggle time in after driving past that old mansion and watched several episodes of Campus PD. It's just like Cops, but you feel a little less sorry for the miserable people they feature on the show because most likely they're just drunk college kids trying to figure things out for themselves.  Campus PD is our guilty pleasure show that we aren't proud of watching!  After a few episodes of Campus PD and a short cat nap I whipped up a delicious dinner if I do say so myself.  And I do say so.



SkinnyTaste- Chicken & Broccoli Noodle Casserole



Click the link above and make this soon! You won't be sorry!  It was 6 points for a serving, which was pretty big.  I used skim milk instead of 1% and No-Yolk noodles and it turned out great.  It must sound like the blogger behind SkinnyTaste is paying me, but I assure you, she is just that good!

I hope you all have a blessed week!

#387

Reason #387 why I love attending our hometown's minor league hockey games:

The entertainment branches far beyond the fights that break out between players.

{via}

Exhibit A:

During the first intermission between periods they always feature a live "kid bowling" event.  Basically, they strap a kid to a bungee cord and fling the little darling all the way down the rink into some huge bowling pins.  98% of the time the child continues sliding right into the wall, which is so kindly protected with a mat that is moved around by some volunteers.  The problem arises when the volunteers aren't paying attention.  Last week, a little boy who I'm guessing was about 8 years old, was flung down the ice, totally missing all the bowling pins and hit the wall going pretty fast.  It looked like a scene out of a movie.  He flew backwards after slamming into the wall and just laid there for a few seconds.  I was horrified that the arena erupted into laughter!  Thankfully, the little boy got up and raised his fists into the air like any little champion would do.

Apparently, in the past, they used to have a "Weenie Dog Race" during the first intermission but there was public outcry claiming that it was animal cruelty.  Sooooo dogs = no go, children = okay!

Exhibit B:

During the second intermission an event called "Chuck-a-puck" happens.  You can buy plastic hockey pucks for a buck (get it?) and then during this intermission they lay out targets on the ice and everyone throws their pucks at the targets.  The pucks that land closest to each target get a corresponding prize.  The prizes are fantastic (<-- Sarcasm!) and always the same: a chicken finger dinner from a place called "Tenders", a haircut at SportsClips, a ticket to the next hockey game, and the grand prize...a $500 gift certificate to Bath Fitter.  If I never hear another Bath Fitter commercial again, it'll be too soon.

The Bath Fitter "target" is a miniature bathtub, maybe just a tad bigger than a soap dish.  You have to get it in the mini-tub in order to win.  Well, needless to say, Bath Fitter shouldn't worry because no one ever gets it in.  Ever.  Until now...  The crowd exploded when the puck zigged and zagged and made it's final resting place in the little bathtub.  It was like our little team had won the Stanley Cup.  Victory was ours!  We had beat Bath Fitter.

So the MC of the event/hockey game, Freak Daddy, picks up the puck while the crowd waits in stunned silence to hear the announcement of the winner's name.  He looks like he's having trouble figuring out how to pronounce it, so I automatically think it's me because no one can ever pronounce Brekke with questioning themselves.  Oh wait...I didn't buy a puck to chuck for a buck. Crap.

Freak Daddy clears his throat and says, "Well the winner wrote something dirty so they're forfeiting their bathtub winnings."

Once again, the crowd erupted. 

And that, my friends, is why we are faithful supporters of our minor league hockey team.

It's Snowing!

I'll admit it, I've been dwelling on the house drama all day. When the snow started falling it was a nice break!!

First Alabama Snow!

Y'all, it's SNOWING!! I've been on "Snow Watch" since last night.  The forecasts were calling for snow starting at about 8pm, I stayed up til 1 with no snow sightings and woke up bright eyed and bushy tailed at 6:30 to peek out my window.  Imagine my despair when I saw just a bunch of rain and wet grass.  How disappointing!

I wrangled up the dogs and as soon as I stepped outside, the snow starting falling!  It was beautiful!  I haven't seen actively falling snow in years and I was just like a kid in a candy shop watching it fall around me.  Unfortunately it wasn't enough to get any pictures but I'm so excited to have some snow white days in our future!  Couldn't stay out long though because I'd get pneumonia.

Oh wait. I already have it! Ha!  Baron and I finally went to the doc last week and he thinks we both had pneumonia.  Sent us to get chest xrays and we got some antibiotics and are feeling SO much better now.  I can't wait to be 100% again, it feels like it's been a month!

Weekend Photo Dump

Having a low-key weekend so far.  Last night we drove around one of the neighborhoods that we're interested in to see what it was like after dark.  Other than that we just hung out with the dogs at the house.

This morning we decided to drive to Lynchburg, Tennessee where the Jack Daniels Distillery is located.  They had a cute little town square where we walked around and had lunch before heading to the distillery.

A statue of Mr. Jack Daniels himself.

The plague on the statue, lol.

They give you "samples" at the end of the tour which tastes a
 lot like lemonade.  The whole distillery thing in a dry county is weird.

My husband standing next to a barrel of Jack Daniels
which also conveniently serves as a trashcan. Haha!

After a fun couple of hours at the distillery, we headed home and took the dogs to the dogpark to let them play and get some energy out before the Gator game tonight.  They are pooped now!



Pickin' Cotton

I don't feel like there is much to write about these days.  It's still good to be home with my husband and the dogs and get back into our routine since being in Florida.  The husband is good, the dogs are good, nothing new with me.

This past weekend we drove around and looked at some neighborhoods in our area.  We found one that we both really liked but there was no one in the model home for us to look around.  We did our best, sneaking through the backyard gate to peep through the windows and explore.  Sometimes it's so frustrating to track down someone in these new construction communities to get more information.  I mean, what if we wanted to buy something today?! Too bad, I guess.

While we were driving around we noticed that all the cotton in Alabama must've started blooming while we were out of town.  It's so neat! The fields almost look like they are covered with snow.  Baron stopped so I could pick some, don't tell the farmer!!

I've had a artsy steak lately and made a wreath for our frontdoor which I probably shouldn't post on here because if I know you in real life I may be sending one to you for Christmas or your birthday! Hope you like it ;)  Haha!



I finished this one just in time for the Florida vs. Alabama game this weekend. I'm hoping none of my lovely neighbors decide to hurt my pretty wreath made with love and about 1 billion straight pins. It's a standout decoration in a sea of "Roll Tide" garbage.



What I'm Loving Wednesday!

Hey girls, linking up with Jaime over at This Kind of Love for "What I'm Loving Wednesday".   A collection of things I'm loving, I'm thankful for, and things I appreciate on this beautiful (but hottttt!) Wednesday.

- I'm loving that I lost.....wait for it....don't get too excited.... 0.6 lbs this week.  I was a little disappointed after losing so much last week but according to Weight Watchers we're supposed to be aiming for 0.5-2 lbs per week to lose.  I just felt like I ate healthier and I know I worked out more this week than the first, but we'll see.  It's a small step in the right direction.

- I'm loving that Baron got to come home early last Friday and we had a little bit of a long weekend together! Here are those pictures from Monte Sano I talked about yesterday.  I can't wait for it to get cooler so we can go out and spend more time there.

- I'm loving my husband and puppies as usual.  They are the loves of my life :)

Naptime...melts my heart!!

Max is getting big!

- I'm loving Mrs. Carrie as usual.  I want to be her friend.  Most of the time when I'm at the gym I think about her legs and how I should probably keep going because maybe onnnnnnne day I can like a lil like Carrie. Hey, a girl's got to get her inspiration from somewhere.

State Park & Bang Bang

We have a pretty neat State Park near our house but it's been so hot out lately that we haven't been able to explore much.  We drove up on Sunday and just kinda drove around inside the park.  I think it'll be fun to go when it's a little cooler and take the dogs for a hike or something.  It was really pretty.  They also had cabins you could rent that appeared to have AC and a bathroom!  Now that's my kind of camping!

Nothing new going on here.  Baron and I both did well with Weight Watchers this week.  Stuck to our points and got some good work outs in.  I go to my meeting in a few hours so we'll see :)  I made a version of Bang Bang Shrimp last night like the kind from Bonefish and it was really good!  Not fried and not the exact same as the restaurant version but it was pretty close.  I got the recipe from skinnytaste.com.  I've only tried a few of her recipes but they've all been very good!  I recommend you stop by and try some of them.

Bang Bang Shrimp, Butternut Squash, & Salad

I was going to try to post some pictures of the State Park but can't seem to get them uploaded :-/  Will try later!  Hope you all have a great Tuesday!  

Big Surgery Day :(

Just dropped this little boy off for his big surgery today.  No puppies for us in the future!  I hope he does ok, he's getting the rest of his shots and a microchip during the surgery too. Poor little guy :(  He has to stay until about 5 this afternoon so I'm taking advantage of him being out of the house today!

Got my first Weight Watchers weigh-in in just a few minutes, hope it goes well.  I did really well this week, followed the plan perfectly.  Makes it a lot easier with a husband who supports me and eats my Weight Watchers conncoctions and tells me they're delicious.  :)

We had a great visit with my mom, it was so good to have her here.  Macey was crazy-excited when she walked through the door and slept with her a couple of the nights she was here.  We got a pedicure, went shopping, and made it to the Farmer's Market and Cathedral Caverns.  The caverns were awesome!! I wasn't sure if it would be interesting but I was so glad that we went. It was 60 degrees inside the caverns which was such a relief after being out in the 90+ degree heat and humidity.  We also drove through some of the tornado damage close to our house.  It's really humbling to see these foundations that used to have houses on them, makes you think twice and count your blessings.

Outside the opening of Cathedral Caverns

Looking out from the inside...awesome!

Driving allllll over being a tourist, caught a pretty sunset :)

Some tornado damage near our house

Just a few extras :

These 2 went to Chili's back home & sent me their pic :)  Course I was there in spirit!! Miss you two!!

Found this pic on my phone.  Taken @ Lindsay's wedding, haha, love my family :)

Weekend Recap

We had a busy weekend!  It started at 8am, Saturday, when the dogs decided they were done sleeping.  Can't complain though, Max has been sleeping all night for the past week.  We wanted to go to the Farmer's Market in town and buy some produce and Saturday was overcast so it was cooler than it has been lately.  It's insane how many onions, bell peppers, and tomatoes that we go through now that I'm trying to cook more, so we figured the Farmer's Market would be fun.

It was a lot smaller than we expected but they had a little bit of everything.  Homeade baked goods, salsa, cheese, fresh eggs and tons of fruits and vegetables.  I got all this for $8 bucks!!

The big saucer shaped white thing in the center is called a "Patty-Pan Squash".  We sampled some that was grilled and it was really good.  It's similiar to a spaghetti squash, should be interesting!  And those are banana peppers in the back.  I didn't know until last night that there was such a thing as spicy banana peppers.  I chopped one up and put it on our salads.  Baron was the guinea pig and was sniffling and sweating within a minute or so of eating one.  Oops!  I must've gotten the juice from them on my fingers while cutting them, and even though I washed my hands like 20 times it still got in my eyes when I took my eye makeup off last night.  Oh. my. word.  Holy fire eyes!!  That's the last time we'll buy banana peppers.

We came home and spent some time with the dogs.  Max is doing great with potty training! Two days with no accidents!  A while ago Baron got a BOGO deal on tickets for the Botanical Gardens so we decided to try it out.  It was still overcast, hot, but not nearly as hot as it has been the rest of the week.  The gardens were really pretty, lots of things for kids to do and we even saw some wildlife. Lots of pics:



Petting a box turtle :)



Sunflower

Late last night Max was playing on the couch next to us.  He got startled by a noise and jumped, and fell right into the coffee table.  He was crying and running away from us.  Baron finally grabbed him and he calmed down but was still shaking and looked pathetic.  We put him on the ground and realized he couldn't walk on his back foot.  We gave him a few minutes, but he couldn't put any weight on it at all and when you touched it, it was completely limp.  We looked up the closest emergency vet and headed there.  They did an xray and determined that it was just a bad sprain.  He got some sedation and pain meds while we were there and some to take home with us.  The vet said to just let him be as active as he wants to be and don't try to push him or limit him at all.  Today he's been playing and moving around on 3 legs pretty well.  He's been  little more sleepy than normal but thankfully doesn't appear to be in any pain.  He broke my heart last night, it's horrible not to be able to make him feel better :(

Poor-sedated-baby can barely keep his eyes open :(

Today we've just layed low.  I don't think we got one single thing accomplished but that's okay, there's always tomorrow! :)  Max goes in for a regular vet appointment tomorrow afternoon, which will be nice to have a second opinion on his leg.  Hope our little boy will be okay.