Dolla dolla bill, y'all

Ahem. Let me just push up my horn rimmed glasses and straighten my pocket protector before I get started: I studied my critical care book today. After three months of silence on the homework/exam front, I decided to stretch my mental faculties by cracking open the fabled textbook and brushing up on some critical illnesses. Delightful. It actually made me feel like a bonafide nurse again. Now. If only I could get a job that would soar above and beyond what I can learn in that book. It's a hard row to hoe, unemployment. I'm no farmer; I lack any type of green appendage. So I'll keep fertilizing, yanking out rocks, and watering, watering, watering until harvest time.

I've cleaned, straightened, organized and re-organized, worked out, checked job statuses, applied for new positions, planned meals, tried on my clothes (it's almost like shopping, except not), painted my toes a collegiate Cajun Shrimp and truthfully, I got bored. So, I actually ventured out of the comfort of my apartment, today--superconscious of my lack of a sense of direction and my South Carolina license plate. One I remedied with my GPS, the other I chalked up as payback for giving tourists in Charleston a hard time. I made it as far as the Southpoint Mall where I discovered myriad stores very much to my liking. Among them, Anthropology, Nordstrom, and (sigh) Barnes & Noble. My home away from home. Something about a Barnes & Noble--the smell, the books--gives me comfort. Maybe it's because anywhere, everywhere Barnes & Noble is, it never changes. The people perusing the shelves of books and magazines change and the queue in front of the Starbucks cafe might parade different looking people, but it's all basically the same. And I like it. Change is good--great--but don't change my Barnes & Noble. I sought greeting cards and Rosetta Stone Spanish, and much to my dismay the price tag on the latter boasted an arm and a leg, two body parts I'm very fond of. I've decided to go ahead and tackle the speaking Spanish dream, if it means I have to teach myself. I'm just not prepared to sell my first born to do it. So, we're still on the hunt for a well priced and worth it teaching tool.

This past weekend Andrew and I drove his truck to Hendersonville to get fixed by apparently the best fix-it man in the southeast--Ronnie. A broken air-conditioner is no laughing matter in the summertime. Too bad we couldn't have collected our perspiration and traded it for parts and labor because we sweated the whole four hours and 250 miles there. We dropped the truck off and wound our way around the mountain to the Davidson River campground where Andrew's family and then some were camped. It made me miss my family and the good ol' days. We passed the Fish Camp and Dolly's--two Cove Creek staples--ever-present in my childhood memories. Gosh, we had it good. My sister and I actually made sticky note count downs until Cove Creek camping weekend, beginning days before school even let out for the summer. We would use one sticky note for one week and tear it into 7 approximately equal parts, the idea being to tear each tab off as the day passed. It was thrilling to watch the yellow papers stuck to our bathroom mirrors dwindle to just a few tabs; our excitement heightened with every passing week, every sticky note in the trash. And finally, Mama and Daddy would pull out the camper and get our boxes down from the attic: time to pack. Joy, rapture! Nothing could elicit such giddiness like a small rectangular cardboard box stocked first with a bathing suit, jean shorts and economy sized trash bags. It's the simple things, y'all.

For tonight, it's leftover spaghetti in light of date night tomorrow (woohoo!). I don't know where we're going or what we're doing and frankly, I don't care. As long as I get some face-time with my husband, I'm good.

Until next time.