To 2013, A Year of Kindness

Something I saw on Pinterest as I was about to head to Barnes and Noble

Life is too short not to love your job

Why I'm Grateful for my Eyesight

I've been spoiled. 

I have.

I've never had glasses or contacts. 

I've woken up every single morning of my life with perfectly clear vision. 

I can read near and far without glasses. 

I didn't realize how awesome this was until last year. 

I wasted 26 years of my life not waking up every single day and thinking: 

I'm thankful for my crystal clear vision. 

But I am. 

And here's why

The other day I had an eye checkup. 

As part of the whole checkup, they dilated my eyes. 

And my vision got blurry. 

I couldn't read texts. 

I couldn't tell if that was or was not the girl I knew across the waiting room. 

But that wasn't the worst or even the scariest part. 

The scariest part was as the medication was easing it's way out of my eyes, I looked like this. 

Now, wouldn't it be distracting to me,
nurse practitioner that I am,
to try and look myself in the eyes without thinking:
"Hey, I have anisocoria." 

Everything at Once

Do you ever feel like you just want to know everything about everything right now, but then you realize that if you actually knew everything about your life, you wouldn't be ready to handle it right now? Yeah, me too. 

Dental Floss

Why do I ever have to run out of dental floss? It's small enough that I'll probably never remember to go to the store for it, but big enough that every night when I remember I'm out of it, I remember that one time the boy told me that if I don't floss every night I'll have to get dentures when I'm older, and all I know is I'm too young to lose my teeth.

At Least I Tried it.

I have this friend who is a pilot. Impressive, right?

But the thing is, he doesn't actually like being a pilot.

He works 100 hour weeks; he makes less money than he used to at his old job. He has a lot of downtime. He wishes he could spend more time with family and friends.

Today I asked him, "So why did you decide to do the pilot thing?" And he said, "I really like flying." He talked about how everyone is always talking about following your dreams and doing what you love for a living. He said, "Even though I don't really love this, I'm glad that I tried it. If I hadn't, I know I'd be spending the rest of my life wondering what it would have been like if I would have been a pilot, and now I know. Now someday when I'm sitting at my desk job, I'll be able to say, 'At least I know I like this better than being a pilot, and at least I tried it.' That's worth a lot."

Amen.

The Thing About Dance Parties

Tonight as I was unpacking, my girl Lindsay asked me if I needed a break.

Me: Maybe, what do you have in mind?
Her: ...ugly sweater party...
Me: Do you have an extra sweater
Her: As a matter of fact, I do.

Any chance to wear a costume.


And so it begins.


We get to the party.
Maybe it was the tan and brown and red sweater. Maybe it was the music.
But they had a catwalk.
And sometimes when you're wearing an awesome sweater
you just have to strut your stuff.
There's just something about the braggadocio, you know?
Sometimes it's fun to be the catwalk lady in the sweater
dancing to Gangnam Style and wearing lipstick.

The Slightly Abridged Drafts (Part 2)

Round two of slightly abridged drafts. For round one, click here.

1.

Jenn once left me a message that started out with:

"Let me tell you what is not helpful."

Over the past month or so, that phrase keeps popping into and out of my mind.

2.

PS. I have a goal in life to avoid passive aggression, so I'd like to acknowledge that the following post is indeed passive aggressive and then apologize for occasionally being hypocritical and writing passive aggressively on my blog. Also for using passive voice, but they are totally different.

3.

For Lent this year, I gave up calling myself fat.

The three letter f-word.

FAT.

I've read a lot about this word as part

of various and sundry activities in my

life of late

Mostly commonly this word surfaces as a part of my

P-R-O-J-E-C-T

The theme that keeps surfacing is the general state of disgust that most American women feel toward their bodies. Most women spend their whole lives wishing they were thinner. When they are in high school they wish they weighed how much they did in middle school, in college they wish it was "high school skinny"

4.

Does anyone else get all sorts of nostalgic listening to The Rocket Summer?

5.

Hey honey, How's it going? What are you doing? Who are you with? Where are you? Are you doing something cool? I wanna know what you're doing and who you're talking to, and I wanna know everything that you're doing, and I don't want you to act like I'm being annoying. I just want you to answer all my questions.

An Exercise in Gratitude

Dear Tall Girl who is Dating a Short Boy,
Thanks for the great chat the other day. I'm secretly hoping you marry this boy but still have tall sons so my daughters can marry them.
We're sisters. With different moms......and dads.
Liz

Dear Datexx Timer,
Thanks for being the best best best thing ever to happen to naptime.
Liz

Dear Boy at Church,
Thanks for saying, in front of everyone, "I need to kiss more girls." It was my 3rd favorite part of today.
Liz

Dear James,
Thanks for letting me eat fish at your house even though theoretically I don't eat fish. You're always good like that.
Liz

You Know You're a Nurse When (Part 10)

A girl says she was talking to a fellow and you start to wonder if she is a med student or resident or something. But then you realize, in this case, fellow is just another word for guy. So, there's that.