Tuesday, January 28, 2014

Hola from the Arctic Tundra!

Hello from the arctic tundra! There's a major news flash!! Antarctica has relocated to Greenville!! It is a bitter 19 degrees and I am snowed/iced in my cozy little house. I went to work today at 10am, supposed to work to close at 10pm, luckily we closed early at 8 because of the weather. Well, not so lucky, I went outside to my car, which had been sitting in the ice for the last 8 hours, to find almost a solid inch of ice over the entire thing. Twenty minutes of defrosting could not warm this wicked ice and I quickly gave up. So I went back inside to try to find a scraper… I'm in North Carolina, of course no one has a scraper. So we use a kitchen tool to attempt to scrape the ice. No such luck. I am now beyond annoyed and on the way to despair that I am going to have to trudge home a mile in the weather in my 10 dollar k-mart restaurant shoes and no hat. Before you all groan that I should have thought ahead and worn warmer clothing, yes I know, I am well aware of my mistakes thank you. But alas, I made it home okay my coworker dropped me off and my poor honda is a frozen ice cube in the Longhorn parking lot.
Literally, the walmart was a war zone for shovels and bread. But anyways work has been crazy and I really wish I remembered all the crazy things that happen to me on a daily basis. Only in restaurants do people act this crazy I swear. 
I feel this way every single day. I have to try with ever fiber of my being to care that people have enough ranch dressing, or their 64th refill of sweet tea. This next picture is awful but truly depicts what happens to me every day. Larger people are notorious for informing me that they are on a diet and will have water or a diet soda, which to be honest with you, i don't care to know you're trying to lose 12 pounds, that is not information you need to share with me. Your doctor? yes. Your family? sure. Your server? No, I could care less, I will absolutely sell you this 1400 calorie cheesy chicken dinner with mac n' cheese. But sure, you want a water to cut down on those calories, by all means go for it.
And my last server picture, truly represents how I felt about the 18 person table I had last week that left 17 dollars, and the 11 person table that left me 15 cents. thats right, cents. They took away our auto gratuity for tables above 8, so now we just get whatever they leave us, which is almost always less than 5 percent. This job will make you a hateful person, I now know why you see older waitresses that haven't smiled since 1982, its because people are awful haha. But I do love my job and I am grateful for it every day, I am a lucky girl!
Oops! Haha, very wrong, but very funny. Other than work, school is going well. I am a genius, and the last couple classes have been walking around helping other students because this last class was about "What is in the cell, and what are the functions of the contents" … Learned that in 8th grade but hey who doesn't need a review! I should be in for another few A's!! 
My weight loss journey is continually heading in the right direction and I've been working more on my back lately, hopefully in time for summer I will have some definition in my shoulders!! But below is a chronicle of my starting, one month, three month, and now picture!! I am so proud of the progress and never want to go back to the unhealthy lifestyle!


I am heading to JMU this weekend, and looking forward to seeing all my friends again and letting loose after a busy January, it really flew by!! I am also looking forward to going up to Vermont with my parents and the Murray's in just a few weeks. Hope all is well with everyone, and I should post again next week!! Here's my quote picture of the day, really how I like to live each day:
High: JMU this weekend!
Low: having my car snowed in at work :(
Weather: SNOWW!!




Monday, January 13, 2014

Finally over the Plague!

          Before I get the moans and groans about this blog post being late, BELIEVE ME, I had a very good reason. I had the plague. I am not kidding, the actual plague. Let's rewind to last week so I can tell you about my life pre-plague and post-plague. I had 8 closing shifts last week… well two I had to give up because I was sick, but 6 shifts were closing. Talk about living at the longhorn. I should really set up a cot in the back it would save me time and gas.  These next couple weeks should be easier because I told them I needed 2 days off a week because I started classes, let's hope they listen. Fingers crossed.



          Anywayyyyys, I started back at my hardcore gym regimen last week, and only have 14 pounds left till my goal!!! I am really down to toning up and losing probably 7 more pounds around the middle but still could not be more proud of my progress. Though I will say getting back in the gym after 2 weeks off, my trainer kicked my butt!! I needed a nap to recover because even though it was only 2 weeks, I felt extremely out of shape! This leads me to the plague… Thursday morning I got up and headed to the gym for my 8am workout and had a fine workout, still getting back into things. Had my normal protein shake and the Bails and Lauren came over to hang out before I had to go to work. I went to work at 11:30 to close lunch till 4:30. I felt weird, and it all started going downhill from there. I had sharp stomach pains starting in the early afternoon, but not debilitating by any means. I wasn't hungry and was eager to get off work, especially since there are no longer grats on parties above 8 and surprise surprise I get the big table thursday morning. 17, yes, 17 forgien people ALL OF WHOM didn't speak english, and wanted separate checks. YOU ARE KIDDING ME. 17 SEPERATE CHECKS. PLEASE LEAVE AND REPORT TO THE MCDONALDS DOWN THE ROAD. As you can see, I was not pleased by this. Nineteen loaves of bread, 30 coca colas y aguas, 2 and a half hours and 17 checks later they finally left. I actually made alright money off the table, which was shocking because customarily forgien people do not tip well because in other countries it is not custom to tip. But it made for a long day, and I was very ready to get off work.
I started my downward spiral of death shortly thereafter. With each passing hour, I felt worse and worse. By 10pm I knew something had to be done because I am not the owner of a Life Alert, nor do I know a friend with one, so if I fell and could not get up, I would just have to lay there. So my savior, Casey (a girl I met through Lauren that she works with) came and scooped me up and took me to the emergency room. At this point I am doubled over from stomach pains, going from sweating to chills, headache, and trying not to puke. They triaged me right away and I hoped that it would make a speedy process because I was definitely down for the count. They sent me to the waiting area where I met the King of all the Rednecks. Oh yes, another delightful term to add to your southern vernacular. He had brought his wife in for stomach pains as well, as well as his cousin, his son, daughter, and two brothers. Yes, all of them, at 12am. One of them was eating this massive cheeseburger and I legitimately thought I was going to heave all over him. The father looks in my direction, where i am curled in the fetal position in those uncomfortable hospital chairs and says " Oh darlin you don't look good you got the stomach problems like my baby over there? HA HA don't throw up on the floor!!" Oh don't worry sir, if i need to vomit it will be on your lap for continually mocking me while sick. He then directs his questions to his wife where he asks "Babe, what do you want to eat?! I'll go to mcdonald's, cookout, taco bell, hell ill even go to hardee's for you tonight if that'll make you feel better!" Okay, if this lady is feeling anything like me the thought of fast food should make her gills green. She responds, " No i don't like that cookout gives me the runs and my stomach already hurts, just go get me some m&ms and a snickers bar from the vending machine while I wait." Okay, see I have a problem with someone going before me to be seen by a doctor that can down a king size package of peanut m&ms when their stomach is "Killing them." yea no lady, chill out on the twinkies and corn dogs and pop a pepto you'll be fine. I apologize for my socioeconomic stereotyping but I was not feeling well and was in a great deal of pain. I finally got called back at 12:30 and they gave me anti-nausea meds and morphine and I felt MUCH better. They took a cat scan to rule out appendicitis because I had such awful abdominal pain, but it turns out it was just the stomach bug.. or so I thought. I got home at 3am and went right to bed. I slept on and off till saturday night when I had to go to work. I still felt crappy and hadn't been able to keep any food down since thursday morning. I got through my shift, but took another downward spiral Sunday when my fever kept spiking. Kris came over at 3 and gave me flu medicine which made me feel better for awhile, but it wore off at about 1am and I should have taken it as soon as it did, but I didn't. I is not a smart girl. By the time I finally took it I was shaking with chills so badly it felt like my bones were gonna break. So I decided at 3am to sit in my shower till the hot water ran out in attempts to warm up. It worked and I got back in bed and fell asleep. I woke up about 45 minutes later after sweating right through my sheets because my fever broke. I didn't get much sleep the rest of the night and into the day so I am looking forward to sleeping tonight. I had to go to class tonight so I rallied and went to class and got a slurpee after and finally feel half way decent. I am really looking forward to my mommy coming down next weekend and giving me a little TLC. We all know how I revert back to being 5 years old when I am sick, and it seems nothing has changed.
I apologize for my crude humor, but that one is just too funny. 
I started my class last Wednesday, Anatomy and Physiology I. I am retaking it to get an A so I have better quality points to get into nursing school. Let me just tell you how smart I feel. My professor took and hour and ten minutes to explain the syllabus…. then took and hour and a half to go over the first 10 slides of the power point. What a gem. Oh and when class was finishing up she said we were going to have a firedrill so everyone knew how to get out of the building.. Oh I'm sorry I was not aware that a room full of 18-30 year olds didn't know how to walk down the stairs and out of the doors, but sure let's pretend we're in 4th grade again and line up on the parking space lines. Really brought back great memories of my PCCS days. So the teacher watches and follows all 20 of us down the stairs and outsides, sees that obviously no one left, but still calls roll to make sure we're all there and "safe." Oh community college, you are never dull. This evening was no exception. We had a lecture for the first part of the class, then lab for the second half. We were instructed during lab to complete the first half of the 11 page lab in the left over hour and 25 minutes. I completed the ENTIRE lab with 50 minutes left.. awkward. Everyone else was on page 3 and I had to raise my hand and ask what to do now. Yes, you all know a genius now, feel special. She said oh wow! you teach class next week ha ha! Yes, exactly like that because her english is not so hot. This class will prove to be entertaining I am sure. I look forward to keeping you informed along the way! My next blog will be January 22!! Promise this time, as long as I don't contract the plague again.


High: mom comes friday!
Low: the plague
Weather: goes from 20 to 70 in a matter of days, I can't keep up

Wednesday, January 1, 2014

A new year, a better blogger

I can only hope that you all squeal with glee when you randomly check my blog and find a new one here, so feast your eyes my faithful friends, I have written again!!! As I think back upon 2013, the decisions I made both poor, and wise I can honestly say it was one of the greatest years of my short life. I graduated college, had a great last "kid" summer, and moved down these here parts of the great state of North Carolina. I was both challenged and rewarded and I can only thank you all enough for being incredibly supportive and being my greatest cheerleaders as I trailblazed my way through this difficult transition. I have an awesome life down here in NC, and I could not be happier. To catch you up on the month of December…
        The month of December was extreeeemeeely busy for me, especially at work. I finished up my online class I was taking and got an A in it!!! I have a 4.0 for the first time in my life, my parents are weeping silently out of joy at this I think. Happy tears. I am taking a class online next semester starting Monday, as well as a class on campus so it will be another busy 4 months because I am still working full time at the Longhorn.
You just cannot make up the stuff that happens at my work, and I really should start a journal so I can share all these funny stories with you because people these days are crazy. I had quite the redneck table today just to share a small bit. A man came into the restaurant smoking a cigarette, we immediately asked him to put it out, and he replied "don't worry darlin' I'm gonna sit in the smoking section anyways.." After we informed him there was no longer smoking in restaurants since (and i had to look this up because i know its been awhile) 2006 in Greenville. He replied well shoot I guess I haven't been out in awhile…… 8 YEARS?! I should have known this was going to be an interesting table from the start. He then asked me to pick the softest food out in the menu for him because "I ain't got no teeth since like 1988 I believe, wasn't Shirl (to his wife, who grinned with her missing teeth and replied Yep!)" So I showed him the softer foods and they ordered…. 15 minutes later I take their food out and check back and find them eating with their hands….. Not ribs, or burgers, or bread… steaks… mashed potatoes… mac and cheese….Keeping a straight face is not my strong suit as some of you may no, I have absolutely no poker face, so taking a man seriously who has no teeth and a beard full of mashed potatoes was one of my finest hours. The south… what are ya gonna do with them. I feel this way after a long day at work sometimes…
My Christmas break was stupendous, thanks to you all! It was so nice to see everyone and here is a HUGE thank you for all of your gifts, I am more spoiled every year it seems. Kris and I also went to the Eagles games, so here's a few pictures from that since you guys already heard all about it!!!


I will also share a few Christmas photos of Bailey and such!


This was one of my christmas presents from Kris, along with a starbucks tumbler, gift card, yankee candle, and michael kors scarf….. why yes he is an awesome boyfriend!!!!

I had to close new years eve so I decided to be festive for work!! Then the picture below is of Kris' and I just after 12, happy new year to all!!!!

Lastly, I shall share with you my drive home on Thursday evening, and the myriad of emotions that I went through after a 9 hour 15 minute drive back to north carolina. As you all know, i have been blessed with the patience of my delightful father, aka I have NONE. So traffic tends to ruffle my feathers so to speak. Well lets just say this drive plucked every last feather I had by the end of it. There was an accident on every single major road that I went one, EVERY ONE. The lanes went from 4 lanes to 1 lane the day after Christmas. I jumped from rage, to despair, to denial, to annoyance, to suicide, to all out hopelessness …. and this was only 3 hours into the ride. What usually takes me 1 hour to get to baltimore took me 2 and a half, what usually takes 1 hr 45 min to get to washington DC took 4 and a half hours… you can see why I was slightly perturbed in this duration of the drive. But alas I finally got home at 11:40pm and was very ready for bed.
Another blog has come and gone, and since you all are not happy with the frequency of my blogs, I am going to give you a blogging schedule so that you don't have to get on every day and then cry yourselves to sleep with despair when you find that I have not written. Today is January 1, 2014, the next blog will be posted on January 10th, I hope you all will keep reading. Love you!!
High: making lots of money at work
Low: still working 6 days a week every schedule -___-
Weather: Chilly!!