KirstenL4W

I really must learn to get up without hitting the snooze button. I swear, when I fall back asleep like that it’s a much deeper sleep than anything from earlier in the night. That I can’t even hear the alarm and it gives up on me after an hour is disturbing. I really must have more self-discipline to just get my lazy ass out of bed. Then I might be on time for work once in awhile.

Speaking of work, I had a rather funny experience the other day. Our copier broke, and the operations manager called for someone to come fix it. When the copier fixer came in, they took one look at me and the shock was quite easy to see on their face. See, I am part of a, um, let’s call it a secret society, as is the copier fixer. However, one of the unwritten rules of this secret society is that when we come across each other in regular society, we don’t reveal that we know each other so as to avoid potential embarrassment of either one of us (unless of course the people are friends in regular society, then it’s ok). This person was surprised to see me, probably because they had been into the office to fix the copier before and I did not work there at that time. I do not even know the real name of this person, only their secret society name, so as much as it would have been a habit to greet them as I would at one of our secret society meetings, I held back and acted like I did not know them. I still think the look of shock on their face was priceless - I wish I could have captured that on camera. Ah well. I won’t even be able to attend our next secret society meeting since I have to work at the store, but the one after that I should be able to make, and I can’t wait to discuss the surprise with this person next time I see them.

Hopefully I won’t have a super late night tonite. A friend is coming over (a secret society friend) and the visits tend to go until the week hours. But I must be on time for work tomorrow. I must, I tell you - MUST!

• Current temperature at my house in Las Vegas, NV: 35°F
• Current temperature at my mom’s house in the middle of New Hampshire: 49°F

That’s just not right, people! It’s nearly December. New Hampshire should be covered in snow by now, and Las Vegas still should be getting warm enough in the sun during the day to use the air conditioner in the car. But noooooooooo. I’m digging out my hat and mittens so that I can go outside in my woefully inadequate clothing and trying to figure out how to work the heater so that I can be warm. My mother, on the other hand, still isn’t sure about putting away her summer clothes. This is just wrong.

I stopped at the gas station tonight to fuel up my car, and I decided to wash my windshield because of all the dust and bug guts on it. The so-called cleaning solution froze. I was squeegeeing ice off my windshield. Then I got home and it was 64°F in my apartment. Inside! Please, warm weather, come back soon! I don’t like being cold! I moved to Las Vegas in part to get away from the cold. Boo hoo!

Enough complaining. In other news, my busy social life continues, but last night I had a night off from everything. My plans fell through so it was really nice to just sit at home and catch up with some tv. My DVR is getting full and I never have time to watch anything anymore. I’ve even had to stop reading threads on my tv shows on the message boards I frequent because I’m so far behind. But don’t breathe a sigh of relief for me yet. Tonite I worked at the store, and since it’s the holiday season, my hours are extended and now I’m there past 10pm, whereas the rest of the year I’m home by 9:30pm. So that’s going to wear me out. Also, I’ve got plans tomorrow night and Saturday night, along with work at the store on Friday, Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday. Phew. That’s a lot, but then I don’t work at the store again for nearly a week, which will be nice. Perhaps I will be able to catch up on some things, such as finding my desk under all the papers. Only time will tell.

I’m sure I have more to say, but in my fatigue I can’t remember what it is, so I’ll just go now. Hopefully I’ll get up on time tomorrow; that damn snooze thing is still getting the best of me!

Sis got the gift I sent her. I was a bit worried that she might not get it, because the town she lives in has no imagination in naming the streets. They’re all numbers. SW 1 St, SW 1 Place, etc. But she received it ok, on time, and she loves it. What was the gift, you ask? I got her (drum roll, please) a digital camera. Yes, it was a bit self serving, since I’d like more pictures of Mia and I can’t very well take them myself. So I sent her a digital camera with a 256Mb card to go with it. As soon as I get a new picture of Mia, I’ll post it on here.

And an update on Mia - she’s 1 pound over her birth weight, so 4.5lbs now. She’s in a crib and out of the incubator. She’s also starting to feed with a bottle, but eating my sister’s breast milk, of course, since Sis has pumped gallons of it in the past few weeks. Mia’s dad said the freezer looks like some sort of cryolab experiment. Sis says Mia is a bit weirded out by the bottle but is starting to get used to it. As soon as she’s got that down and is feeding like a pro, she can go home! I can’t wait, and I don’t even know the next time I’ll be in Florida to see her. But it’s definitely looking like she’ll be home before Christmas. Good news, for sure.

Now, I must be getting to bed since I stayed up way too late again playing on the computer. The alarm clock assault works so far, as long as I don’t cheat and try to set a snooze alarm anywhere. That’s my downfall is the snooze. No snooze for you! We’ll see if I can get up ok in just a few short hours, and if I can resist the snooze.

As I was on my way to work this morning, not really looking forward to working this weekend in a retail setting, I got a call from my boss/friend asking what my plans were for the day. I told her I was working until 4:30, to which she replied, “Perfect!” See, she was going to do Thanksgiving on Thanksgiving, then it got moved to Sunday the 26th, but I thought she meant the 19th, so I took the 19th off from the store and ended up with a day off to myself, which was also the case on Thanksgiving. Due to the travel plans of a friend who came to town (which is half the reason she changed the plans around in the first place) she moved the turkey dinner to Saturday - today. So, after all that I finally got a real Thanksgiving dinner with my family away from home. I love spending time at her house. There’s always interesting people there to talk to and the kids give the place such a great energy that really makes it feel like a holiday. I’m thankful that this year I can spend my holidays with such a great family.

Now the turkey is finally getting to me, so I’m going to bed.

Off from work, that is. I need the money, but believe me, no one wants to go into work at 5:30pm on a Friday night of a holiday weekend. So, I lived it up. After getting all my errands done, I came home for a bit to relax and get ready for work if I needed to (which we now now was unnecessary). F got online and said he was leaving the office, and would I like to have dinner? Sure! So he came over, I cooked, and then he fell asleep in my chair. Um, ok. At least he didn’t snore. After an hour he woke up and I managed to kick him out convince him to go home and go to bed.

As soon as he left, I was outta there. I went to a regular Friday night gathering that some of my friends attend, and after that we moved the party to a club on the strip. Mind you, I’m not the clubbing type. Usually it takes me a few drinks to enjoy something like that, but I don’t really drink anymore, and I had to drive myself home. However, I did enjoy myself. VampireMan showed up, and was very generous with the bites. Oh, he gives great bites. Who would’ve thought that a simple bite - on my arm of all places - could bring me to my knees in a totally good way? It was fun. But, mindful of my schedule today, I left around 1:30 so I could come home and sleep. And now, since I have to be at work before noon, I must get my butt in the shower so I can be on time. I tell ya, sometimes this work thing really gets in the way of having a life.

Since my Dead Turkey Day plans fell through, I was so afraid it would be a dismal day. In a way, it was sort of depressing. These are the times when I really miss being around my family. There’s nothing like family at the holidays. But, I did get the much needed rest that I was craving. I slept until noon or some ridiculous hour, spent some time on the computer, vegged out in front of the tv, then took a shower. I knew F was working since he never ever gets a day off, so I headed over to his office to hang out for a bit. One of his co-workers brought him a huge plate of food, so he shared that with me. I got turkey after all. At least I had someone to eat turkey with, so it was nice. After that we went out for a drink, then I came home. I simple, ordinary day.

Today I have some errands to do. Somehow I don’t think I’ll get them all done, but I would like to get over to my storage unit today and clean a few things up around my apartment. I also have a couple errands to run, and as much as I say I’m going to avoid the stores, I will most likely end up in the mayhem. I can’t help myself - I’m a glutton for punishment. I might have to work at the store tonite, but I won’t know for a few more hours. I’m on call, which means that I call in to see if they need me. I’m hoping that mid-afternoon will be the busiest time, and by the time darkness falls everyone will be all shopped out and heading home to eat turkey leftovers, or in the case of the tourists, heading back to their hotels to get ready for a night of shows or clubbing. Assuming everyone shows up, I’m pretty confident that there will be enough coverage and I won’t have to work tonite, which would be really nice. Keep your fingers crossed.

So, now is the time to head out and run those errands before call-in time occurs. Here’s hoping for a Friday night off!

I need to sleep. I’ve spent the last week and a half nearly falling asleep at work, being late for work, and keeping my usual wild hours. Yesterday I went home and went to bed fairly early, but still overslept this morning. I need a new tactic when it comes to my alarm clock. Normally, I use my cell phone as an alarm clock, with a small travel alarm clock in the bathroom as a backup. Neither one of these has a snooze feature, so I need to be able to get up when they go off. But I like the snooze, so I have the travel clock set for about 20 minutes after the cell phone. This obviously isn’t working. This morning, when I realized that I had overslept again, I looked at my travel clock and the alarm was turned off. I know I set it before I went to bed, because I made a point of doing it. So the only thing I can figure is that I went to sleep after my cell phone went off (which I do remember) and slept so deeply that I got up, walked across the room, turned the alarm off, and went back to bed without any memory of this event. So, seeing as how mornings are totally not my strong suit, here’s my plan:

• Set cell phone for 5:30am
• Set travel clock for 5:30am
• Set computer alarm clock program for 5:30am

This total alarm clock assault should get me on my feet and bring me to consciousness. We’ll find out on Monday.

In the meantime, I’m gonna get to sleep. I have tomorrow off with no plans, which I’m actually looking forward to, and then I need to ready myself for the next month in the retail world. AJ turned in her notice at the store and Assistant Shoe Boss has been recruited away and will most likely be leaving us, so I offered to be a keyholder in AJ’s place so that Shoe Boss will live to see Christmas. But of course that means that instead of getting out at 9:30 or 10pm, I’ll be working until 10:30 or later, and possibly more than my usual 2 weeknights and Sundays. But I could use the money, especially since I’ve been putting a lot of things on the credit card lately and since I’ll have to borrow money to pay my rent this month. Yuk. I hate having to do that, but I suppose swallowing my pride is better than the alternative.

That’s all for now. Good night, and have a great Thanksgiving.

You’ve made your blog private and open to certain readers only. I would be very much obliged if I could make it onto this elite list, however I do not know your email address to ask you directly. I find it very cathartic to read your blog, and even though we live half a world apart, I enjoy the closeness we share through our experiences. You can leave me a comment, and don’t worry about whether or not it contains personal information - I won’t publish it.

Thanks,
Kirsten

Well, well, well. What can I possibly say right now? My hours and schedule are getting regularly irregular. I have the office job, which is going well, so I need to be able to keep my messed up hours to accomodate the debauchery I’ve been participating in lately. For example, I had to work on Saturday at the office, so I worked 8-3, went home and napped for about 4 hours, then got up, did laundry and took a shower before F came over to pick me up for a party. We stayed at the party from 10 to about 2, then went out to breakfast with a couple we met up with there. After that F and I drove around for awhile, then he dropped me off sometime around sunrise. I slept for an hour, then got up and got ready for church.

I ended up having Sunday off from the store, because I was supposed to have Thanksgiving dinner at my boss’s house, but I got the day wrong. I thought she meant the Sunday before T-day, but she mean the Sunday after. I won’t be able to do that since my second job is retail, and everyone knows you don’t call in sick on that weekend. No way you can get out of a retail shift Thanskgiving weekend unless you call in dead, and I have no plans on ending my life to avoid work. So no turkey for me, but things are still open and an invite might materialize.

Anyway, with this unexpected day off I did some grocery shopping and went home to catch up on a bit of tv watching. I thought for sure I’d nap since Sunday afternoon naps are the best, but I didn’t even blink for a second. I did, however, get all excited when I got a major blast from the past in the form of a MySpace message. Courtney, sit down. You’re never gonna belive this. Seriously.

Wait for it…

It was from…

Get ready…

Glenn.

Holy Shit was my reaction too. And, believe it or not, he lives in SoCal now, just a few hours from me, so we might get together sometime after the holidays. Of course, now he’s the grown-up and I’m the one involved in certain extracarricular activities, but I know he still craves the fun. He told me so himself. We had a great IM conversation and it was so awesome to hear from him again. I was wondering whatever happened to the gayest thing to ever hit New Hampshire. Hearing from him again seriously made my week.

So, as I was chatting online with Glenn I also started talking online to F, and he ended up coming over. We went out for some eats then went back to my place to watch a movie, and I must have fallen asleep because I woke up running late for work as usual. My door was locked and I only have 1 key, which I still had this morning, so he must have told me he was leaving so I could lock up behind him. That’s the only thing that makes sense, but I don’t remember. I guess that’s what happens with fatigue, eh?

Work is getting better. I’m really starting to get into the swing of things there. Tomorrow I get to go out with the sales manager so we can estimate a job. For this particular account we have set prices for certain sizes, but this falls way outside the parameter of what’s normal, so in these cases it’s always best to get a first-hand look to see exactly what we’re dealing with so we can schedule the job properly. I’m looking forward to it.

And of course, with Black Friday looming ominously on my calendar, I have to start thinking about Christmas shopping even though I have no idea how I’m gonna pay my rent this month. I did use one of my store credit cards to purchase my sister’s Christmas gift, which she shall get early. As soon as she receives it I’ll tell you what it is. Knowing her, even though she doesn’t really read my blog, she’ll take these 5 minutes away from visiting Mia to look at my blog and find out about it, and dammit, after all those years as a kid when she’d put extraordinary effort into finding out what she was gettinf for Christmas, I’m not going to make it easy for her.

I’m finally catching up with VegasRic for the first time in like a month. I seriously haven’t seen him since before I left for my trip. We’ve both been really busy, but way more for him than me. I’m over his house blogging and he’s sitting next to me on the computer for work, and of course on the phone. But that’s ok, that’s how it usually is here. Work work work is all he ever does, so if one is to be friends with the great VegasRic, then that is to be accepted - along with the fact that since he is a photographer, you are always subject to being photographed in the most mundane situations.

I think that’s about all for now. I should probably be getting going now, I’m actually starting to get tired so I might sleep a normal schedule tonite. Interesting thought.

But I’m not complaining, really I’m not. I worked a full day today, and after work I went to hang with one of my friends at his office, since it’s like 2 blocks from my office. He’s always busy at work, and the shit is constantly hitting the fan there, so I helped out with some filing and such and then around 10pm we finally left to get some dinner. Now, I did tell myself I was going to do laundry tonite, and - OH POOPY!!! - the church powerpoint, which I will do in a few minutes, but no, instead I was feeling like not going home to do boring household stuff. Yeah.

Tomorrow (today?) I have to work at the office since we’re off on Friday, but rumor has it that it won’t be a full day, which is nice since it will allow me to get some laundry done in the afternoon, assuming I can come home and actually get it done. I have plans to go to a party tomorrow night, so it’s looking like my only chance to get myself some clean clothes. Sunday is church and for a change of pace, I’ll be having an early Thanksgiving dinner at my new boss’s house instead of going to work. So it’s looking like Thanksgiving day will be a real day off, and if I can get home and get my butt to bed on Wednesday night sometime, then I might actually have a day off to myself, which would be really nice since it will be the first real day off to myself I’ll have had since I got back from my trip.

I talked to my sister today and got an update on Mia. She’s stepped down (in hospital terms, step down is a good thing) and she is no longer in the NICU. She’s now in the Progressive Care Nursery and is doing really awesome. And, she finally had her poop. My sister warned the nurses to just leave well enough alone and not give Mia the suppositories to help her poop, but they didn’t listen. My niece’s butt totally exploded all over the incubator. Gross, I know, but this proves that she really is related to me. Blowouts aside, Mia is doing terrific and Sis is really hopeful that she will be home by Christmas.

So, since I was out too late being social and then stayed up too late to read blogs and write in my own blog, finally remembering that I absolutely must get the powerpoint done for church, I’m going to do that before I hit the hay and risk oversleeping yet again.

But I’m still up, so it must count as Wednesday’s post, right? No need to tell you why I’m still up at this late hour; I’ll let your dirty minds imagine something sinister. And I’ll just burst your bubble right now and tell you that you’re all wrong (except maybe AJ, since she knows me IRL).

Work is getting better, since I’m getting back into the 9-5 groove and getting more stuff to do. Pretty soon I’ll be so busy I won’t know what to do. I don’t have internets at work, which is just fine by me. I might actually keep myself busy all day long if I don’t have any distractions. So I have to cram all my internet time in when I’m home, which isn’t very often these days. You might not see me as much as a result, but believe me, blogging is still a priority, at least when it comes to online activities.

I’m gonna leave you with that for now. I’m a bit tired and I’m working both jobs tomorrow and going out afterwards, so no rest for me, as usual. I’ll post again…soon.

Gouda gave me a plug on her blog and mentioned that I am an extremely dedicated blogger. As if I didn’t already want to blog all day every day, now I know I have an audience that expects it. That’s ok though. If you want to meet Gouda, I recommend starting with the post where she introduces us to Huggy Bear, a classmate of her daughter.

My second day of work didn’t start out well. I was up half the night with acid reflux issues, and didn’t really want to go in this morning. A massive headache didn’t help either. I started out a bit bored, but by the end of the day (which was at 2pm, for reasons that will be mentioned in a moment) I was getting into the groove and had more to do. I’ll get used to this whole work thing sooner or later.

Now, I left work at 2 today to go and get my head shrunk. When I worked at my previous Job #1, this was rather easy as my head shrinker was just half a block away, so I could walk over in the middle of the day. Now, I work on the other side of town so I have to leave early to get there. I got there just in time for my 3pm appointment, but my head shrinker was running a bit late. I ended up taking a bit of a snooze in the waiting room, and woke up when her 4pm appointment arrived. She walked in a few minutes later, and after a quick negotiation she decided to take her 4pm for a shorter session, and I would go later. So, I napped a bit more and went in at 4:45 for a 45 minute session. Now, I was supposed to be at work at Job #2 at 5:30, which was impossible if I was still at my head shrinker’s then. But Shoe Boss is cool and had no issue with me being late, so I got my head shrunk, got to work, and now I am home.

I have a few more things to look up online before I hit the hay, since the next few days look to be pretty busy for me, especially with the holidays coming up. But don’t worry, I will be sure to blog about it.

Today was my first day working back at a traditional office job, and I didn’t like it. The job itself is fine, but it’s such a drag going back to the daily grind. I’m still really feeling the need for something a bit more non-traditional instead of the regular old office job. I guess I should give it some more time, since I do need to have a job. But I did have a lot of fun with my all over the map schedule when I wasn’t working at former Job#1, and it fit into my recently expanded social life or vice versa.

I’ve been getting updates on Mia (here ya go, Courtney!). Sis says that she’s most likely going off the bubble cpap soon, and has graduated to the plastic box. Contrary to how serious it looks, the incubator style boxes that NICU babies are in are for babies that aren’t as serious, since quick and complete access is not available in the box. Mia doesn’t seem to like the box too much, but Sis is able to hold her now, which they both really like. She’s also up to, what did Sis say, 14 cc’s of food now at her feedings? She just needs to poop, which she will since she has before. I wish I had more updated pics, but that’s just not happening right now since Sis is more concerned with actually being with her baby instead of documenting it for all to see.

That’s about it for now. I’m tired and still need to eat dinner.

Despite my best efforts since I returned from my road trip, my sleep patterns still seem to be a bit backwards. Yesterday I woke up, got ready and barely made it to church on time. After church, I grabbed lunch and went to my favorite picnic spot to watch airplanes take off and ended up napping for over an hour before heading to work at the store. I yawned a lot through my shift, then came home to try and pay bills. I chatted online a bit then went to bed, but was more awake than I had been all day. I had to force myself to turn the tv off and close my eyes, but I could have been awake all night, easily. Now it’s 6am and I’m supposed to be getting ready for my first day at my new job. I feel awake enough now, but the urge to sleep will hit me about 10 minutes after I walk in the door and won’t go away until around 8pm tonite. With a new job to do, I so need to get back on the right track with my sleep routine.

My hand seems to be healing up just fine after all that’s happened to it. After getting my cast off, I not only had alligator skin but my left hand is noticeably smaller than my right hand. Not being left handed, it will take some time for this to return to normal. I’ve been advised to exercise with a stress ball or something similar, but typing has been the best exercise and I’m so glad I can type normally again. I’m sure my backspace key feels the same way.

Time to get ready for work now. I’ll let everyone know how it goes.

Surprised? Not me. Besides this cold or whatever that’s been bugging me, I feel like I could sleep for a week. The cold - yeah. As soon as I got into the deeper parts of the southeast, my allergies went beserk. Then it all exploded when I saw a caravan of lawnmowers on the highway in Florida. I managed to suck down enough sinus meds when I was at my sister’s so the nurses would let me into the NICU to see Mia, but I think that besides the massive allergy attack, looooong days driving, and many climate changes over the past week have made my body go haywire. Now I just need to get used to being back home and get myself some freaking rest.

I feel like I’ve finally caught up with reading my blogs. I’ll never be caught up on all the things I want to do online, but I did manage to get pics of Mia up on my flickr page. Sis sent pictures of Mia to Dad but he complained that they were too big. I can’t even begin to figure that one out, because Sis only thinks she knows what she’s doing online and Dad will readily admit he doesn’t have a clue when it comes to computers. I figured the best way would be to put them on flickr and give Dad the link, then he should be able to see them just fine.

As for cleaning my house, I did do a mad dash last night in preparation for guests, but there’s still more to be done. There’s always more to be done. My bathroom has multitudes of travel sized toiletries all over the place, and my toilet needs a good scrubbing. I don’t know what it is with the water here, but I get nasty and impossible to remove water rings in the bowl. I bought a pumice stone to try and take care of that, and some industrial strength cleaners. I hate a dirty toilet.

And tired, yes, I am very tired. Like I said I feel like I could sleep for a week. I overslept for work this morning. I was supposed to be at work at 11:30. That’s practically lunchtime, and yet I still woke up at 11. I ended up being a half hour late, since personal hygiene was a bit of a priority for me. And of course a half hour into my shift the need for caffeine hit me. I really need to get off the caffeine. I drank gallons of it on my drive cross country, and I usually try to avoid it because I’m too sensitive to it. Now all sensitivity has been lost, so I need to get off it so it will work again. (BTW, my caffeine vehicle of choice is diet cola - I hate coffee in all its incarnations, so good old diet coke or pepsi it is, preferably cherry flavored.)

Oh, and I must rave about my new jacket that Mom got me when I was in NH. We went to the LL Bean outlet store so that I could buy a 3 season jacket, which would be perfect for winters here in Las Vegas. I ended up picking out this one with a windproof shell and thinsulate lining, which you can see me wearing in the first photo in my slideshow about my trip. It’s pretty comfy. As I’ve been wearing it, I found a few more neat features that it has. There’s a hood that rolls up into the collar of the shell, and it’s removable so that I don’t have to have the bulk there if I don’t want it. And of course the hidden inside pockets. This part is my favorite. On the shell of the jacket, there are 3 inner pockets, and they are LABELLED!!!!! Oh yeah, this is the jacket for me. There is a cellphone pocket, the perfect size for a phone, a music pocket, with a little hole in it for your headphone wire to go through, and a glasses/goggles pocket, and in that one there’s even a lens cleaning cloth attached with a tether so it won’t get lost. Is this jacket awesome or what?

Ok, that’s enough random rambling for now. I really need to set my alarms and get my butt in bed so that I can make it through church and work tomorrow.

I still have soooo much to do to catch up with my life, but instead I get thrust into a busy work schedule without a day off to decompress. I got back Wednesday evening, did some laundry, tried to relax, then a friend came over for awhile. Thursday I worked 12-8:30, then went out with friends. Today I got up early to go get my cast removed (Yay!), got my car’s oil changed and got it smogged so that I can register it, did some grocery shopping, then came home to dump off the groceries and eat a quick lunch before going to work. I just got home and am about to do a mad dash to clean up a bit before my social life comes calling again. Tomorrow and Sunday I work at the store, then Monday I start my new job. No rest for the weary, I tell ya. And boy am I weary.

So, since I am apparently not being allowed to sleep tonite, I must hurry and clean my apartment a bit to make it guest-ready for an evening of debauchery.

But then again, how right can it be when it’s determined by a 5-question quiz? However, the last sentence of these results is so accurate, they must have had me in mind when it was written. Because it is all about me, after all.

Your Blog Should Be Purple

You’re an expressive, offbeat blogger who tends to write about anything and everything. You tend to set blogging trends, and you’re the most likely to write your own meme or survey. You are a bit distant though. Your blog is all about you - not what anyone else has to say.

As I traveled, I wanted to take pictures, but also wanted some consistency and of course wanted to remember where I took the picture. So, state welcome signs were it. Here ya go:

I’m back. Here are my journal blog entries from the time I was gone. If you can’t read it, just click to enlarge.

I’m finishing up lots of other things, and I’ll blog more later.

I was in Washington, DC on Thursday finishing up a DigsLunch with Jstrizzy when my phone rang. I let it go to voice mail, but when I checked it, there was a message from my mom saying, “Don’t panic, but call me as soon as you get this message.” Yeah, right. So what do I do? Panic, of course. When I called her back, it turns out my sister went in for an emergency c-section. Apparantly there was bleeding. I found out later that she had a placental abruption, was gushing “buckets” of blood and had to deliver at 32 weeks. So, since I was so close and already away from my life, I decided to go down to Florida to visit her.

Mia Rose was born on 11-2-06 at 2:02 pm. She weighed 3lbs, 8oz and was 15 inches long. She’s in the NICU now and will be for a while, but she is doing well. She’s breathing on her own, with a little bit of help, but isn’t intubated. She’s eating thru a feeding tube, and is crying and pooping. My sister is doing well too, shuffling around and getting stronger every day after losing that much blood and having surgery.

This of course sets my plans back a couple days and means I need to reschedule my cast removal appointment, but I also got to meet my niece, visit my sister, and visit a couple more relatives who were out of the way of my original route. Still a good trip, even if it brings me two days out of my way.