Right....

Today was my first day to drive Old Blue. This morning Nick and I got up, I took him to work, then headed into the lab. Nothing crazy...no big problems. So imagine my surprise when I leave work in the middle of the day to run to the bank and home to marinate some chicken (damn, it is great to live so close to work) and I realize there is a BIG problem.

I head to the bank and get in line. The entire time I am thinking, "DAMN, it is REALLY hot in here..." I give the car some time. Surely the AC is fine. I didn't notice a problem this morning, right?? Well, there is a problem now. By the time I get to my house I am dripping in sweat. My gray t-shirt (oh, Lord why do I have grey on?) is soaked. I am sticking to the leather...it. is. terrible. I had left the windows up in a full faith effort to wait on the AC, but there was no luck. On the way back to the lab I kept the car pumping out air, but caved and rolled down the window to get a little circulation to at least dry up some of the sweat before I walked in.

When I left work for home later in the day I first took Tarp to his house before picking up Nick. We both get into the roasting car...okay, it wasn't as bad. This was the end of the day...windows down, but it was still hot. I tell him I am so sorry, it wasn't like this on the way in to work. He tells me that his car does this sometimes. When it gets really hot it just can't keep up. I drop him off and the rest of the way to get Nick I am really working up the poor pitiful me thing. I mean, this is the first hot day and I am MELTING. It really isn't lady like to have pit stains...plus my entire body is so sticky...this just SUCKS.

Nick gets in the car and I am totally thinking he is going to feel so bad. I start telling him, oh god the heat...I don't know how I can do this...no AC! He looks at me and I am totally expecting an "oh, baby this does suck. lets go and get you a brand new car right now!" or at least a "let me make dinner and rub your feet to make up for it" but instead....INSTEAD I get "It might work better if you didn't have the heat on."....oh....right. Now I remember. The AC was working so well after I dropped Nick off this morning, I slid the temp over to heat because...you know...i was really cold...yep, yep I had goose bumps...it's all coming back to me now. AC button was still pushed in, so it looked on to me...Now...that really is embarrassing.

She's Gone

We knew the time was coming, but it is now official...Bessy the Honda is gone. Nick's mom and step dad came in today and took her back home. We really cannot even think of complaining about this. They were SO nice to lend us the car, and to be totally honest, we kept it too long....so long that it really felt like it was mine, which is what sucks about it. But now that Nick has his promotion and everything it is time for us to take on our own car payment...so now it looks like I will be driving Old Blue.

On top of that, we don't have the truck yet. This means we are down to one car. Very depressing. We can do the car pool thing, but it sucks for Nick. He can't get overtime at his job and once I drop him off, work, take my hour lunch, then come to get him, it makes a really long day. I am seriously considering taking my bike to work. Seriously. I have talked about this for a while now and people see to think it's funny, but I REALLY think I can do it. How environmentally friendly would it be of me?? Plus a workout! Win Win. I will let you all know if I give it a go. I would bum a ride off Tarp...but he is riding the bus these days and I really don't think he can talk the driver into swinging by my house.

Besides the car thing we have had a good day....breakfast with the girls at Charings this morning...a really nice lunch with the in-laws...lots of yard work...clean house....I must say I am feeling pretty productive! I even worked in a little time for the NFL draft. Not to bad at all!

A Sight

Tarp, Justin and I decided to go out to lunch today...we have actually been going out to lunch a lot lately what with Tarp being out of a car and everything, but anyways today we decided to take Justin to Ramsey's because he had never been...how sad. Obviously this had to be fixed, so we head off to Ramsey's. We end up with a table in the very back. As we go to sit down we realize that there is a large man sitting at the table right in front of us and there was clearly no way Justin was going to be able to pull up to the table. Bad start to his first trip.

Justin, being one to roll with the punches, he pulls his chair out to the corner of the table, halfway into the isle, and does not complain. We order our food and all that jazz...normal work lunch out (not even CLOSE to as good as our weekly lunch bunch at Charings, but it was good) and then it happens. The bigger man who is sitting right in Justin's way goes to get up. As he stands we notice his butt was out...we are not talking a little flash of the crack here, oh no. We are talking full fledge BUTT! To make it worse, he is SO CLOSE to Justin...like his BUTT is RIGHT THERE in his face! There was so much butt it was on the curve back down to the legs. No joke. No exaggeration. IT WAS TERRIBLE. Tarp, could not get himself under control...but the butt guy was totally oblivious...maybe he just likes to walk around with his butt hanging out. Not sure Justin will ever be okay with Ramsey's again...shame.

It's About Time

Nick and I have been trying to avoid something for a while now...maybe a while is not the right term...lets say nearly forever. When I sat down to write this post I starting thinking about the last time either one of us had a car payment. hmm....Nick is easy. Never. That's right folks, Nick has never made a car payment in his life. He has had two older vehicles and both were payed for on the spot. Now me...as far as I can remember it was the Jeep. That was 2001. Seriously. So, today was a big day. After work we headed to the bank. No problems there. We are actually able to spend more than we thought for a lower payment than we planned...can't beat that!

I am sad to say that it looks like the first new(to us) car will actually be a truck. The plan has always been to get me a car and Nick to drive the Buick (old Blue) that my parents were nice enough to give us. We would still have Nick's truck in this plan, but it was really just for the addition and what not. No longer really drivable on a daily basis. Well, this weekend the truck rolled over and screamed for mercy. There is simply no way to fix it. There is to much wrong. With the addition, we MUST have a truck...so the new truck will be Nicks. Looks like I will be tooling around in old Blue for the summer...like driving a very large, very beat up old lazy boy...I think I can handle it. Anyways, now we just have to find the truck. Dad is helping out, so I hope to have a picture of our new ride up here soon!

After we got done with the bank I managed to whip up a very delicious and healthy dinner (they are still good for you if you cover vegetables in butter and sugar, right??) and then we planted all of our flowers in the front yard. You gotta love the longer spring days!

Allergies Attack

A little earlier in the year...back when it got crazy warm right before the freak snow...I decided I no longer have spring allergies. They had totally disappeared! How lucky was I?!? Come to think of it I am pretty sure that I might think that at the beginning of every April. So far so good...must be CURED!!!!

Just go ahead and put me out of my misery now. My nose will. not. stop. Seriously. How do I sleep or even expect any skin to ever regrow on my nose if I cannot seem to take the tissue away? Oh, and my throat! The pain with each swallow. And yet...I cannot stop swallowing. Swallow..ouch..swallow..OUCH! Awesome. The ears ringing, the eyes itching...The fact that the many medications I am taking seem to do NOTHING. I guess NOW spring is actually here.

Day Off

I really meant to post earlier today...really, really I did....but I am off work and so is Nick. This is just distracting. We woke up, had breakfast, took a nap...yea life is hard. We then went separate ways so that I could go to the grocery store and he could rip down the outside wall of our house. No going back on the whole addition thing now.

I did really great at the grocery store (except in the spending money department. I did very bad at the grocery store from that angle). I got all of this fresh fruit and veggies. It will change my life...or it will all go bad and we will eat out as normal. We will see. Tonight we had Boo and Chris over and grilled out steaks, had a salad (with organic croutons..told you I did good), red skin potatoes and asparagus....sounds nice and fresh and healthily, right? I am really proud. We had Burger King for lunch, but that totally doesn't matter.

Besides that, we went to the Sunshine Grow Shop and got all of our flowers for the front and back yard (this will fill a large part of the rest of my weekend) and I worked on some Bio Girl changes that most likely you all would never even notice, but were important to me. See up there in the top of the sidebar where there is now a link to bring you back to the homepage. Yep. I did that. There is also now a link under "about me" taking you to my post about my job. Been thinking about those two things for a while now, so I am glad it's done. Okay, that's it for now. I am off to play Excite Truck on the Wii. Should be fun.

Creepy

Nick and I were out this evening after work driving through neighborhoods looking for field stone that we need for the addition. We were leaving a neighborhood that is attached to a VERY busy main road. The speed limit is 55 I think...it was on the outskirts of town so traffic really flies down through this area. Nick pulled right up to the road and stopped right as a UPS truck flew past. He says "Man, that UPS truck almost killed us". It was a strange thing to say honestly. He stopped in plenty of time, and the truck was in the far left lane of traffic. It was just something about that truck that had grabbed his attention. The statement was barely out of his mouth when the car pulling out of the driveway directly next to us was completely totaled by the truck. How scary is that?

We of course stopped, as did about a dozen other cars. This is a main road so lots of people saw what happened. I immediately got out my phone to call 911. The two people in the truck were both conscious but clearly injured. It is amazing they were not much, much worse. Their truck actually came up off the road and then slammed back down. The entire thing was very overwhelming to see.

Now we have been home for a couple of hours and I just keep thinking of it. Not really so much about "wow, it could have been us"...I never felt that we were almost hit. I really am thinking more about what Nick said right before it happened... that he just seemed to know that truck was about to hit someone. It wasn't us...but the people were RIGHT beside us. Moments like this always amaze and frighten me. The idea that people just FEEL something is going to happen, the possibility of a sixth sense, even deja vu. It really makes you think...how did he know? Was it just a coincidence? Maybe. The one thing I know for sure is that I am sure glad Nick was the one with the feeling of danger...rather than the one that pulled on out.

Exercise

So I get home from work today and am thinking it is about time I start exercising....okay, really Tarp was just talking about going running when her got off and and I realized it might be a good idea to do something besides lay on my couch and eat chocolate all night...but the motivation does not matter, I was going to exercise. I was thinking the perfect way to achieve this was to take a bike ride. I get home and inform Nick of my decision to take a nice ride to build muscle and burn calories and what not and he informs me that if I am just DYING to get some exercise I can help him with the addition. Damn. This is not what I had in mind at all.

So we get to work. I am shoveling all this gravel...then carrying it over and dumping it into a hole where it looks to make no difference what so ever. A clear bottomless pit. Nick was filling this large five gallon painters bucket...I was filling a small flower pot. We seemed to be putting the same amount of effort into it. Something seems wrong with that. I was completely covered in sweat plus this nasty chalk like dust...totally out of breath, downing bottles of water like they were..well..water I guess. It was honestly a little embarrassing.

After about two hours of work we have covered the hole...so that is something. Now that we are done I can say that, number one-I think I reached my goal of getting some exercise, and number two-I am really glad I helped. Nick does so much for this house and I watch him, but I really don't help often. I do my stuff. I cook, I clean, but I know it was better with the two of us. I would like to believe we got twice the work done, but lets be real. We maybe got 1.2 times the work done. I am still thinking he liked the company, and I enjoyed helping...kind of. Now I am heading out the door to get dinner at Red Lobster, because come on, a girl needs a reward for something like this!

Who Knew?

Last night my sister Boo had a huge thirtieth Birthday bash for her husband Chris. I will have an entire post with pictures up on the ZPO website in the next few days, but I will tell you all now that the party was AMAZING! Boo seriously transformed the clubhouse into the best looking party I may have ever seen. There was a ton of food and a ton of beer...it was great...maybe a little to great.

I have a TERRIBLE headache today. There is no way to deny it...this headache is a direct effect from my high level of beer consumption last night. In my own defence (not that I really need a defence, but you know...) this was a SERIOUSLY long party. We started drinking at 5:30 or so....and didn't stop until we were basically kicked out of the club house a little after one. I constantly had a beer, but by no means did I feel I was tossing them back like crazy and getting crazy drunk...maybe this is why the headache is now coming as such a surprise....

But anyways, this morning when I woke up I had the THUMP THUMP THUMP in my temples that let me know I had indeed consumed to much last night so I stumble to the kitchen to fire up the trusty coffee pot...damn...my coffee is gone. (I was at Kroger two times yesterday but somehow this necessity never popped into my head...) So I throw on some clothes and fly out the door. I have to work and I am hoping to catch McDonalds breakfast. It is 10:45, so I am thinking I might have to settle for a cheeseburger, but my body is telling me that it NEEEEEDS a sausage egg and cheese biscuit. I wait patiently in the line (thump thump thump goes my temples...)and when I get to the speaker it is like 10:55. I am crushed. I give it one shot and ask if they have any breakfast left. The guy tells me...wait for it....THEY SERVE BREAKFAST UNTIL 11AM ON SUNDAYS!!! YEA! Amazing, right? Can't start a day hung over any better than that! It could change the world. So that's it. Just wanted to share my amazing discovery with the Bio Girl faithfuls.

***One more little thing from the party...at one point I walked into the bathroom. I shoot myself a quick once over and notice that ALL of the eye make-up I had one was gone...off of ONE EYE. What the hell?!?! How do I go to town rubbing away on one eye while leaving the other perfectly made up? So here I am thinking all was good and in reality you might as well call me cyclops what with the dark outline making it look like my one eye is about three times larger than my naked eye. Awesome.***

When All Else Fails...

Sleep! That has been my motto for the past few days. We are back around to the wonderful time of the month where my endometriosis nearly kills me. I have managed to make it to every day at work, but have been crashing once I get home. Yesterday I actually came home at five, was in bed by five fifteen, and slept until nearly eleven...woke up STARVING so Nick went out and grabbed some dinner for us (poor thing had not eaten either...what would he do without me?) and then I went directly back to sleep.

This has been the basic outline for every night of the week (except I usually eat dinner first, so then I crash by eight and am gone for the night). A little sad, but I have to say it is working. As long as I can get all the way through the work day, I am okay with the rest of the evening being a bust. The only problem is when I sleep past when I need my next Lortab...then I wake up in tears and in terrible pain, but once I take it I can get back under control fairly fast.

So...the point of this post is to say that I am sorry I haven't posted in a couple of days, but clearly sleeping took priority. I should be back to normal with much more interesting things to talk about than my sleeping habits this weekend!

***Happy Friday the 13th! I just realized it was today...creepy....Should have had a good scary post ready, but you all know I am not one to think ahead like that****

My Job

A reader emailed me this morning and said that he had found my blog and although he enjoyed my site, he was disappointed to see that it talked very little about my life as a Biologist (he is getting his degree in Biology as well and wanted to know how I liked it...). This is the second time this has been mentioned....I guess people assume that if I am going to take the web name Bio Girl, I should mention Science once in a while. I have given this some thought and decided it is a fairly good point....in my defence it is kind of difficult to describe what I do and I just thought it might be a little dull for all you non-science people out there. Now that requests have been made, I will tell you about it (feel free to skim past this post if you don't care in the slightest what it is that I do)...then maybe I will even put a link to it over there on that trusty sidebar so that strangers can always find it and stop making me feel bad for not embracing my science roots!

So...to the point....I work for an environmental lab. I mainly do toxicology testing on water that companies are releasing into the environment. Basically we are making sure the water is safe for the water life in the streams and rivers. We work with two species in our testing... a fish and a water flea. I also do some Microbiological work for drinking water testing....making sure all you people out there are not drinking e. coli or what not... There are lots of other small tests we run, but those are the big ones. If anyone ever is dying to know the details of HOW we do this testing, I will be happy to share, but I am thinking this is good enough.

I am not an extreme environmentalist. I do recycle...but mainly because the city gives me a very convenient Rossie to keep it all in and it seems pretty wrong to just ignore it. Ecology and Environmental Science were not my favorite part of my Biology degree, and I am very surprised to have ended up in this field. The job fell in my lap and I jumped at the chance to begin working as a Biologist. Anybody with a general Science degree will tell you it is very difficult to get your foot in the door. Now that I am here, I really love what I do. I have always excelled in a laboratory environment so I guess this should not be surprising. Anyways...that is about it. My job in a nutshell...see, not really that exciting...I do love it though! (yes, I might just be a really big geek)

Easter Weekend

After my last post on Friday I decided to lay down and take a nap...a four hour nap...and I had only woken up about an hour earlier in the first place... I have never felt quite as lazy in my life. Anyways, I woke up to something a little surprising. I knew it was cold, I mean I had even gone to all the trouble of covering some of our plants in plastic because it was suppose to freeze...but come on now!

look at how cold Fanny the Flamingo looks...poor thing

This is ridiculous...It is April people!! Look at all this snow. Clearly I thought is was amazing since I took the time to take pictures and everything...I am pretty lazy (if you doubt me look up at the nap time again) so this is saying a lot!

Saturday Boo and I took my cousin Natalia to an Easter Egg hunt with Charing and her family. Needless to say it was a little..no no VERY cold, but she still had a really great time! That night we had a small gathering for Nick's birthday over at Boo's house. Nothing to big, just picked up some dinner and hung out and played with one of his new video games. It really bothers me that he was gone for his real birthday because even though we got together, it feels like we totally missed it. Oh well...I guess I will just have to make it great next year!

Yesterday we had brunch with my family over at Boo's (man, seems like she does a lot at her house...) and that was great. My parents and my Nana were there. Natalia had her Easter basket and she LOVED IT! That afternoon Nick and I headed over to Nick's dad's for dinner. After the delicious feast of Sonic for Easter dinner (It really was good...but funny for Easter dinner...) we stood on the back porch and shot the BB gun at a can. Could we get any more country that shooting off the back porch? Maybe not. (Amazingly I was the first to actually hit the can! Yea for me!!) So...I basically had a random weekend...therefore you all get this very random post. Hope everyone enjoyed their Easter!

He's Back!

Well, as of this morning at 1am Nick is officially home from New York! His flight was delayed an hour, and I was a little worried he would get held up until the morning (our airport actually closes, so I just thought they would say no way) but he did make it home.

Charing, being the best and most easy going person in the world, answered the phone from me at 11:45 last night. I told her I was bored and she had me over to hang out until he got in. She is awesome! Speaking of Charing, I snapped a couple of pictures of Carter while I kept him overnight earlier in the week....does this look like a kid that just might LOVE the park??

Sorry this one is a little blurry....he was moving at the speed of light...so all in all the camera did pretty goodSeriously....LOVED the slide...

Anyways, (got a little off the subject there, but come on...how cute is he??)Nick opened all of his birthday presents from me last night. He was a big fan of the breakfast bars. I didn't even try one...I was muuuuuch more interested in the cookie cake. We were up until nearly 4am, so we slept in late this morning. I did get up and make pancakes...how awesome is it that it worked out to be my Friday off??

Now Nick is taking a nap on the couch. They wore him out for sure! He worked all through the nights. He said he actually saw more deer than people...doesn't sound like a ton of fun, but he says they got lots of work done. I am just happy he is home safe and sound. It just wasn't the same around here without him!

Carnation Breakfast Bars

I mentioned back a while ago that Nick has been wanting me to make him Carnation Breakfast Bars for years....I meant to do it for Valentines day (Hell, I have MEANT to do it for every holiday since he asked....) but today I finally have done it! Since he was gone for his birthday, and he comes home tonight (YEA!!!) I thought I would finally get the little project done.

Oh. My. God. Never again people, NEVER AGAIN!!! First off I had to go to the Wild Oats store to get some of the ingredients because normal stores don't even sell things like toasted rolled oats....annoying. I get everything home last night, scan the recipe, decide it is simple and push it off until today.

Get home from work, look around the house and think "damn...must clean before Nick gets home or he will definitely think I am worthless..." then I get to work on the bars. (what's that?? Spring cleaning was on my list of things to do...shut up. You should know me well enough to know things like that creep onto my lists just to make me feel better...) I start with a cup of my toasted oats...cool, got it. Then I move on to my Spanish peanuts. I notice that it says "one cup of peeled, crushed Spanish peanuts". I look over at my bag...non-peeled whole Spanish peanuts. Damn. How hard can it be, right?

I pick up a peanut, it slides out of its shell, I think "EASY" and toss it in the cup. About 156,238,219 peanuts later I am hating this. I look in the food processor...looks like a cup to me! Hit grind....peanuts turn to sticky powder and now equal the equivalent of a tablespoon. Awesome. Keep peeling. Make mental note that dogs don't actually eat everything that falls on the floor...and when you step on peanuts they turn to dust (dust=dirt when on floor) and create a HUGE mess in your kitchen...the kitchen you need to have clean before Nick gets home!

Finally I get them made. They look fine. They look like breakfast bars. I am not sure if I hope he loves them and thinks I am the best wife ever, or if I hope he hates them and thinks "aww, baby, good try, but please never make these again"...damn Spanish peanuts.

Sucker

I have decided that I am a total sucker. I can get completely taken in to thinking I need (NEED) something just by walking by and seeing a nice display. The TV also gets me, but that is another story.

I was at the mall this weekend. I swear to God every store that I went in made me believe that I HAD to get all new clothes. Nothing I owned was nearly good enough....I just kept telling myself "Look at all of these wonderful new and different things! Yes, that looks nearly the same as my j.crew top from last year, but looooook at all the new colors! It is just a little longer...they have finally made it perfect!!" I pull myself away from that store only to walk into some stupid store like Cosmic Colors and I am still talking myself into stuff..."I could TOTALLY use some new screen printed shirts...how cool is it that I can put ANYTHING on them...oh the possibilities!"

Luckily I pulled myself away from the mall with no new purchases. I was there to help Boo with some returns and entertain Carter. Job done, no need to spend any money (except that money for Nick's b-day...but obviously that doesn't count).

I am thinking I have this sucker thing under control...then I stop by Kroger on my way home from work today. Yep...there in all of it's glory was the Easter candy. My mind starts going again "it is only out once a year....it would be WRONG not to buy something...just a little candy..." So I walk out of the store with one bag of Wonka chocolate eggs, one bag of Sweat Tart Bunnies (these are for work...so I will share), One 4 pack of Cadbury Egg's...and then one tub of butter creme icing...so I can dip gram crackers in it...or maybe just my spoon (this is a bad habit from my dad...not my fault...it is clearly in my gene's). Nick better get home soon before I double in size!

All by Myself...

So now I am four days into Nicks eight day trip. I have to say I am really starting to miss him a lot. Yesterday was his birthday and I just hate that we were not able to see each other, or barely even talk. His schedule is so backwards while he is there because he is working nights. I just can't wait for him to come home!

While he has been away I have done a fairly good job of keeping myself entertained. In a double bonus of friendly favors Charing and I made a deal that Carter could stay the night with me last night. this would help me out by preventing me from falling into the depths of boredom, and it would help her because it would give her a chance to wean him off of breast feeding...A win win situation!

You might find it odd that rather than go out for a crazy Saturday night of drinking and partying while Nick is out of town I instead take my friends baby...maybe you would be right, but I don't care. We had a great time! Boo stayed the night with us and we went to the park and the mall, then had Chinese and watched Anne of Green Gables. Missy even came by for some of the movie. It was so great!

Today we all had family dinner in Danville with my parents and my Nana. It was really nice and Mom made a great dinner...mmm...really should have brought home some leftovers. Anyways, I am sure the rest of the week will go by fast. We should be busy at work, and I am going to Liz's one night for dinner...maybe Tarps...most likely back to Charings to see all her family...Family night...how many nights do I have left?? Yea, I think I will make it! Okay, I am off to watch Anne of Green Gables part two...you all don't know what you are missing here...these are some really great movies!