Two Baby Showers and a Funeral

              I've been gone from the blog world for a little over two weeks now and I've missed it. To be completely honest with you, I haven't come back because I've been in kind of a cruddy place emotionally and didn't want to bring that energy to my blog for fear it would set a bad tone to people who want to come and read what I have to say/what I've been up to.             February has never been a very good month for me. Yes, it is the month of my birthday and yes it is the month of "love" and I even have someone to share that day with but it's this month, every year, that I feel an overwhelming sense of sadness. And it sucks. It probably also has something to do with the continuous subzero temperatures and the non stop snowstorms, or getting my shit rocked by the stomach flu AND debilitating head cold. What also sucks is that February was the month that Derek and I each tragically lost a friend. With out elaborating much more I would just like to say thank GOD February is over and good riddance!! With bad days always comes some great days and just so that you know I'm not a complete whiner and that I truly enjoy/appreciate this crazy tragic thing called life. Here's a rundown of things I've been up to in the last few weeks!       The weekend of my birthday I was invited to two baby showers. One was for Derek's cousin and the other was for my lovely friend down south in Arkansas. If you know me at all, you know that I have a weak spot for the south so Derek and I left on a weekend road trip down yonder. It ended up being a 9.5 hour drive down to Fort Smith, AR. When we arrived we went out to eat with my friends Megan and Maygan and their hubbies Friday night. I also got to meet Maygan's sweet little Lillian for the first time and just in time to give her a present for her first birthday!

         After dinner we went back to Megan's house where we got to catch up on life, joke around, and laugh. This is also when Lilly and I got some major bonding time in (what can I say-ginger babies love me :)). Saturday Derek and I drove around Fort Smith and hit up the mall for a bit before the baby shower meanwhile basking in the southern warmth. We even picked up souvenir Arkansas tees to make our trip official!

 

The baby shower was beautifully decorated and organized by Megan's bff Dusty. She received some great things while I got to play with Lilly some more until she poo'd her pants and wanted nothing more to do with me! When the baby shower came to an end I took my cupcake to go and Derek and I hit the road for Kansas City. {side note: When we left Iowa on Friday is was a cozy 25 degrees....a real heatwave in these parts. However when we got out of our car in Arkansas it was a whopping 60 degrees!!! And on Saturday (my birthday) it was an insane 75! Warm weather is by far the best gift someone can give me on my February birthday.}

      It was a long 4.5 hour drive up to the city. It felt terribly long mostly because we were on a time crunch to make it there by 9 when the UFC 170 match vs Sara McMann and Ronda Rousey came on. For those who were wondering--Derek and I are team Sara because of our hometown ties. Also because she is crazy good, humble, and inspiring....and Rousey just seems like a terrible human being in any/all interviews I've seen. Anyway--we made it in time and were able to enjoy a few beers and some (boneless) wings before the fight, which ended way too prematurely if you ask me.

     After the fight we headed to our hotel where we found the bed to be the most heavenly thing we had ever slept in and crashed ASAP. BUT the morning came way too soon and it was time to get up and get ready for breakfast with my favorite sassy redhead Katie and my sister, brother-in-law, and adorable nephew. Catching up with Katie and my sister was amazing. Watching my nephew open HIS birthday present from me was heartwarming. And all too soon it was over and time to head back to the cold tundra that is Iowa to attend a funeral. 

      RECAP: The weekend of my 27th birthday held a roller coaster of emotions. We were able to celebrate new life coming into this world, celebrate the year mark of two adorable children that belong to great parents, and finish the weekend mourning the loss of a person who has meant so much to me through the years past and has left this world far too soon. Its always that simple reminder to appreciate what/who you have in life because you never know how long God will let them stay, and you can never hand out too many hugs or too many I Love Yous.  Now that March is here my self pity party has officially come to an end and I cannot  WAIT for this wretched snow to melt and the temps to warm up! T- minus 5 months until I say "I do"!!

Nothing like a Keep Calm & Carry On Selfie:)

Why We Work- Valentine Edition

Yesterday The Daily Tay and The Life of Bon did a link up for Valentine's Day- Why We Work. As I struggled with the stomach flu yesterday I figure I'll give it a try today. So without further-ado: Why Derek and I Work:

We work because when I'm laid up with the flu he gets me gatorade and makes me chicken noodle soup. We work because when we go to bed at night I'm always freezing while he's as hot as a furnace so he keeps me warm. By the time we wake up in the morning Derek's cold and I'm the opposite, allowing me to return the favor (don't make it weird). We work because he always tells me that I'm pretty and I tell him "no, YOU are!". We work because we both have a love for the same music and while making supper or cleaning the house he isn't afraid to throw a dance party with me in the kitchen or living room when a great jam comes on. We work because on my days off I make him breakfast and pack his lunch and he returns the favor while I'm running late getting ready for a night shift. We work because he's willing to go along with all the trips/adventures I drum up on our days off. He also is a willing (most times) participant in making Pinterest projects for me that I find. We work because he puts up with me and my vulgar stories and foul (very un ladylike) language and I put up with his road rage on our daily drives around town. We work because we both push each other to be the best US we can possibly be by encouraging each other. There are so many reasons why we work and with many many years to come I'm sure more reasons will arise. How will we be spending our Valentine's Day this year? I'm not quite sure but last year we raided Walmart for 50% off candy, made homemade pizza, and watched a movie while getting snockered up on some mixed drinks. It was my kind of Valentine. Today is only our second Valentine's Day as a couple and I wouldn't hate it if we put last year on repeat and just made a tradition out of it!

How do you spend this lovely day that is Valentine's Day? However you spend it just know that somebody loves you :)

February, You Depress Me

After working 16 of the last 20 days it feels good to be back in blogland. What have I been up to? Well- if you hadn't already heard, the Midwest is absolutely frigid cold checking in around -10 degrees this morning when I got off of work. It is TERRIBLE. I think I saw on the news that somewhere in the area it dropped down to -15...WITHOUT windchill, earning us a record breaking cold. A record that has been held since 1901 or something like that (don't completely quote me on it--but its real.and so so cold). The only good thing about the cold is having a legit reason to curl up in my sweats, cozy blanket, hot chocolate, Netflix, and my laptop. 

Even with my birthday coming up this type of thing is exactly the reason I LOATHE the month of February. Just when you have had enough of the cold and the snow and don't think you can take anymore...WACK!! February hits you with some serious suck. And that suck has been 5 inches of snow and continued subzero temperatures. Woof.

Rebs' #Throwbacks

That moment I'm on my way to work, flipping through the radio stations trying to find that one great song to start my last shift for the week, and can't find ANYTHING on the radio. Naturally, I give in and flip on the NEEDTOBREATHE album that I already have in the cd player only to hear a little Nelly "Pimp Juice".

Kwa? Where did this come from? I didn't know but it put an insta smile on my face and a little dance in my step! I was officially ready for my shift!   Turns out my sister put in one of her old high school mixed cd's when she was driving my car back from Christmas and I couldn't have been more thrilled at that moment! So today I bring you the top 5 hits on Rebecca's Mix 2.

1. Nelly's "Pimp Juice"

2. Simple Plan "Addicted To You"

3. Sean Paul ft Blue Cantrell "Breathe"

4. Ying Yang Twins "By Myself"

5. TLC "Damaged"

How many of these do you recognize from the good ole days?! Some of them are kind of dirty, I know. I blame Total Request Live. How often do you go back and relive yesteryear with the tunes of the time? I'm pretty sure its one of my favorite past times and ALWAYS puts me in the best mood!

Night Shift Grind

As a rotating shift nurse it is often a challenge to switch your circadian rhythm back and forth between being awake during the day for several days to being awake at night. Although it is physically difficult, I enjoy night shift nursing far better than day shift nursing for so many reasons that I won't get into at this point.  I work the next 4 nights in a row starting tonight. After only two days off how am I switching myself back to the night shift grind? 1. Normally I try to stay up as late as possible the night before so that I can sleep most of the day, with only having the two days off I was exhausted last night and HAD to go to bed so I woke up as early as possible (5AM) so I could take a several our nap this afternoon. 2. Get my laundry done!! Saturday I ran on 0 hours of sleep and spent the day with my parents and Derek. Of course I didn't want to do my damn laundry on my first day off, so today it must get done. 3. Plan some crockpot meals for the week. Crockpot meals are the way to go--I can throw everything together and cook while I sleep and have a great meal ready when I get back from the gym. 4. Catch up on all the shows I missed last week while I was working. The list includes Vampire Diaries, Modern Family, and The Biggest Loser. How incredible was Makeover week?! I mean can you believe how fantastic David looks?! Uh- I cried like a baby. It is always just so incredible to watch these people transform! I can't get enough. 5. Get off my ass and make some energy bites to curb the sweet tooth I've been suffering from the last few days. 6. Take a killer nap.  7. Hit the gym 8. Put on some feel good tunes while I get ready to get myself revved up for whatever night shift throws my way. 9. Head to work to kick night shifts ass!
How would you get ready for the switch to night shift? P.S. I'm LOVING the new look on the blog and I hope you do too!! This fantastic makeover is thanks to the very talented Kayln over @ Geez Louise :)

Meet Me In St. Louie

   

  Derek turned the big 3-0 this month and I wanted to do something memorable for him. He told me once that he didn't really want to do the big party thing so I was scrambling my brain to come up with something to do that would kind of stand out from every other year, and I mean SCRAMBLING! I even started contemplating early....like this summer. I thought I had come up with the perfect plan too: Derek love LOVES red dirt country (Randy Rogers Band, Damn Quails, Jason Isbell, Whiskey Myers, Casey Donahew Band, etc. etc.) so the Friday afternoon of his birthday we would fly to Fort Worth, TX where I would have tickets to one (maybe even two) red dirt country concerts at Billy Bob's Texas and spend the rest of the weekend basking in the amazing Texas weather and hit up some of the hot spots in Fort Worth before flying home.

     So my genius plan fell through on so many levels. For starters, as I searched for plane ticket prices from Iowa to Fort Worth they were all $400-500 per ticket and I even started looking mid August. Then, by the time I found some reasonable priced plane tickets, Derek came home telling me his work on-call schedule had been adjusted and he would have to take call the weekend of his birthday (don't worry, I FREAKED OUT). I couldn't buy plane tickets not knowing if Derek was going to be able to get out of his week long call shift and he didn't exactly succeed in finding someone to pick up his call in a timely manner. By the time he did the plane tickets were back to being expensive. Also-as I kept my eye out for the concert schedule at Billy Bob's none of the bands that I had heard of/recognized were playing  the first weekend in January. This wouldn't have been all that big of a deal since I'm sure anyone playing at Billy Bob's would be fantastic. Anyway- The big 30th birthday Texas getaway was squashed. Like a bug. And I was bummed.

     So, the week before Derek's birthday weekend we improvised. I decided we would head out to an impromptu city and just see/do anything we wanted. Our options: Omaha, Minneapolis, Chicago, St. Louis, or Kansas City because they all are between 3-5 hours away. If we weren't going to a warmer location we decided to stay relatively close to home. The birthday guy chose St. Louis.

     The driving distance from Iowa City to St. Louis is roughly 4.5 hours. The weather forecast was to be temps in the mid 40s on Saturday with 1-2" of snow that night and then be in the 30-40s Sunday through Monday for the remainder of our stay. Not bad really--actually pretty great compared to the negative degree temps we have been having here in the tundra that is Iowa during the winter. So we headed down to St. Louie Friday after Derek got off work. We didn't get there until around midnight so pulling into the dimly lit sketchy looking parking garage had me wigging out just a tad (okay, maybe a more than a tad). This set off my overactive imagination and I was just sure I was going to find a dead body under our hotel bed and/or mob men were going to break down our hotel door and do God knows what with us.  I was clearly delusional and in need of some sleep so after checking all the locks to make sure they were secure, we went to bed.

     Our hotel was downtown, literally across the street from the Gateway Arch. I mean, we could see one half of the arch from the comfort of our huge handicapped room window! Very cool. So Saturday morning we headed out for brunch at Benton Park Cafe which was a cute corner restaurant that serves an AMAZING breakfast. Next we headed down the street to the Budweiser brewery, where we toured it, wafting in the delicious smell of barley and hops, saw the gorgeous Clydesdale horses' barn, and ended with a few free cocktails!

Fun Facts: Did you know at 3pm Monday-Friday the brewmasters meet and each "taste test" the beer to make sure it's up to par? Where do you sign up right? Apparently to become a brewmaster you have to get a Masters in chemical engineering, or something like that, then spend 5-8 years in Germany learning about brewing and what quality beer tastes like before coming back and waiting for one of the brewmasters to retire/pass away. The youngest brewmaster is 45. It sounds like you almost have a better chance of being president. 

     Next we headed to the City Museum which to put it simply, was SO MUCH FUN! I mean, besides all the kids running around ha! There were so many rooms to visit with all these creative structures made out of tile and old concrete structures from around the city. They even had two abandon planes that you could climb up to, which Derek checked off his bucket list! After climbing all over Timbuktu we sat down at this cozy little bar in the museum to grab an afternoon drink. While sitting there enjoying our drinks the bartender informed us that that 1-2" of snow they were expecting had turned to 6-8"and before we were done with our drinks finalized at 10-12" with temps around (-)15 degrees ~apparently St. Louis hasn't had a blizzard that large for at least 20 years. Huge bummer. 

     We didn't really put a lot of thought in to when we should high tail it out of St. Louis so after leaving the museum we found ourselves in a music store checking out acoustic guitars (my present to Derek). Then we drove around the city trying to decide on a place to eat and settling for an Old Spaghetti Factory in Laclede's Landing. Lastly we ended the day playing Black Jack at a casino in Laclede's Landing where Derek won a few extra dineros, and settled into our hotel to eat the cake we ordered from room service while everyone else in the metro area braced themselves for the crazy blizzard.

     Sunday we slept in because we are crazy. Derek had woke up earlier and after watching the news decided we should just stay where we were. After we both woke up around 11AM we decided that although the weather was awful outside it was only going to get worse. Everything in the city was closed and we would probably drive ourselves absolutely nuts if we got snowed into a hotel. So we packed our bags, I said some prayers, crossed my fingers, and hit the road north. It. Was. Petrifying. It took well over an hour to go a mere 30 miles and half the time we couldn't see the tail lights of the car in front of us. Our blood pressures were high but thankfully, the more north we traveled the clearer the roads were (weird right?) until we were driving the speed limit with no snow on the roads and it was clear sailing all the way home. When we pulled in to town we grabbed some take out and headed home to eat, watch the Jimmy Fallon's late night special, and crawl in to bed because we were wiped!

     My only hope for Derek's birthday was that we could be together and do something that he would always remember. We didn't see all the sights in St. Louis that we had originally hoped to see-hell I didn't even get a picture of the Gateway Arch, but one thing is certain, it was memorable! I think next year I'll just plan a staycation for his birthday, we will probably be safer that way :)

What A Dumb Post

Have you ever procrastinated on something that's really important for your future? Guilty as charged! Its 3 AM and I have an essay to write- so naturally I have started a load of laundry and scoured all of Facebook, which by the way, I can't stand anymore but its burned in my brain as a habit to check it and naturally get distracted with article after article. I have also spent a solid few hours catching up on all my favorite blogs, checked my email, watched several episodes of Grey's Anatomy, and rewrote the first line of this post probably 10 times (writers anxiety).

You know what's so great about watching Grey's Anatomy? Watching the surgeons provide such high quality bed side care to their patients...they draw blood, give medications, doing chest compressions when their patient's heart stops. They even hold their hands while they cry and tell their sad life story (and most the time I'm sitting on the couch crying too)...if that's what they do all day what do I do? WHERE ARE ALL THE NURSES?! I think I can speak for {most} nurses when I say it's a sore subject but I digress.

Its 5AM and I still haven't started my essay. I haven't started because I'm nervous that I'm not going to write it well enough. Its an essay for graduate school and getting accepted is something I've wanted from the bottom of my being for quite awhile now, and who knows if its the only thing standing between me and the program. So here's my off-cuff essay:

To Whom It May Concern,

      I have been a nurse for well over 3 years and in the mean time have worked in XY&Z specialties gaining not only the experience but knowledge, leadership skills, and confidence in myself and my abilities as a healthcare provider. I work great with people and will be a great nurse practitioner so please please PLEASE accept me in to your school!!!

Sincerely, 

    Sarah

Short, sweet, and to the point. No?

           

                Pleeeeeease let me in! pa pa pleease?!

Ugh, I think I have a looooonnnnggg way to go on this essay. Beer me.

Want Some Cheese With That W(h)ine?

Did you know that it's officially 2014 and I get married this year?! This is some serious shit and I am officially FREAKING OUT!!  I'm not freaking out about the whole being married to Derek thing--more so the whole putting a wedding together thing. Getting everyone's addresses, figuring out where to draw the line on inviting coworkers (there are FAR to many to invite them all), trying to keep a budget (something I've never done), sending save the dates, picking out the perfect wedding invitations, how many chairs to order, figuring out the whole open bar thing, making my own centerpieces, blocking off hotel rooms, etc etc. Holy shitcicles it can be so very overwhelming!

One word of advice to the masses of people getting engaged and starting to plan a wedding: before you decide to plan a DIY wedding, make sure you have plenty of time to actually DIY, oh, and another thing....be A GOOD CRAFTER!! I mean, I'm not terrible at this crafting gig but I'm not great either and I want everything to look really good. I mean I should have known how time consuming and detail oriented a DIY wedding would be after playing MOH several years ago and having to help frost hundreds of sugar cookies in the shape of overly detailed cattle and cowboys for my friend's country wedding...I don't focus well. I was also criticized by the mothers that I had no attention to detail and I was sloppy. Who knew?!

I'm starting to get really anxious that things won't fall together the way I see it in my head. That the hundreds of burlap flowers I just spent the last 3 days making won't hold up to expectations and people will whisper and criticize the entire thing.....or we will have a bad turnout of guests, or we won't figure out how to serve the beer in the outdoor barn that the ceremony/reception is being held in. What if the DJ sucks? Or worse doesn't show up?! These are all things that start happening in my dreams nightmares recently.

I have a coworker that is getting married this July. She's a thin bikini wearing chica but recently has gone on a "wedding diet" and asked me a few weeks ago if I was on mine yet and after giving her an awkward blank stare she adds "you know nobody likes a fat bride" and walked away. Thanks friend. I'm VERY veerrrrrryyyy aware of my need to lose a considerable amount of weight before my wedding because if you're going to lose all that weight you've been talking about losing, what better time to do it than before the biggest/best day of your life amirite? So of course I have been having nightmares about being 300lbs in my wedding gown, oh! and my photographer is nowhere to be found and my bridesmaid has to step in and snap photos......pretty much anything and everything I worry about pertaining to the wedding manifests into a soooo very believably real dream when I shut my eyes at night. This makes sleeping and not worrying about wedding things EXTREMELY difficult and I still have 7 months to go!

Am I the only one with this problem? I know I can be an Anxious Annie but maybe this is normal? Who knows. Anyway, lets talk wedding progress-- Our Save the Dates are officially stamped and sent out the door, hopefully I'll be meeting with Amber to see what she's come up with for my gown design later this month, all the burlap flowers are made and just need to be made into bouquets yet, the bride bouquet is in progress as well as my mason jars painted with chalkboard paint. Don't believe me? I have photo proof:

I smile because no matter how terrible-it was my idea.

      

                                     I'm sure their is a better way to do this but I haven't figured it out yet.

I think they look sweet-so I'm not mad about it.

The Master Crafter helping with burlap flowers

My mom helping put my brooch bouquet together

At the end of the day I keep telling myself-this will be one AMAZING party and at the end of it all I'll be married to my best friend! So cheers to the many more panic attacks, temper tantrums, terrible dreams/sleepless nights, and the wine and wedding craft parties (and boy am I enjoying the wine!) :) 2014 is going to be a great year :)