200 miles, paint, 4 movies, a headlight, 2 key lime pies, and best friends

All of those things are a recipe for a good weekend (well, except for the 200 mile part). I've been feeling a little low on my Carrie quota lately so I took a spur of the moment trip to Highland for the weekend.

Carrie, the birdwhisperer, talking to a white-throated sparrow on our Sabbath afternoon walk.

So the real reason I went was to help her paint her living room. (Since when did we get to be old enough to be picking colors to paint rooms in faculty houses?) Here is pre-chemicially-induced headache Carrie eyeing the primer.

We took a break for some graffiti...

Post primer at 12:30 AM

Mostly done with the paint the next morning. We felt a little like we were swimming in an acquarium.

We made pizza for lunch, Carrie changed my headlight in the freezing cold, and we took some time for a few self-portraits as test shots for the Christmas banquet pictures in the gym. Then I was on my way back to Chattanooga for one last project and a week and a half until break!

Shorty

I brought home a little tree today. Ryan has already dubbed it Shorty. It's a Rosemary tree, with a nice strong tree odor. Does the Rosemary spice come from a tree? Cause if it does, maybe my tree is edible...

Carrie and I put these up Sunday night. She said I would think of her every time a snowflake fell down and she wasn't kidding...
(Bet you can't figure out who's on TV!)

I need a bigger desk; the kind that is big and circular where you can spread 300 books around your monitor. This is the frustration of nursing: you must own a library to do your homework. Lab reference, med-surg text book, class notes, assessment manual. I could have my massive Pathophysiology book in there but then I'd have to add my Mosby's Medical dictionary (which happens to be the heaviest book I own, and the most distracting) to decipher the medicalese so I just leave it on the floor and stick to my AS med-surg books (2 volumes) and the internet. Think of what this would be like if I had become a doctor...

By the way, I went to an auto body place today and they buffed out the scratch on my car in all of 5 minutes for no charge! I can't even tell the scratch was there.

Up with the Christmas tree and back to work

We put up the Christmas tree on Saturday night. Here's a picture almost all put together...

My "first year as a nurse" ornament

Somebody made me these mittens a long time ago

The felt versions of Mom and Dad


Our trip took only 8ish hours this time! I was the designated CD switcher for most of the trip. At the end we were driving in the dark on the windy roads by Ocoee singing along with the Veggie Tales Christmas album. This may be the last time the 4 of us get to ride on a long trip together. But we'll sure have some interesting memories...


The Pisgah exit is really the only place we hit traffic. Funny how that exit used to feel like home... We hit places with memories the whole way back. Guess that's what happens with you live in North Carolina for a long time and you've travled I-40 5000 times too many.

Thanksgiving

Cooking dinner

Waiting for dinner to cook... This stool came from my grandma's house, but it used to be covered with cracking white paint until mom decided to "fix" it. The cousins always fought over who got to sit on it at meals. I don't fit on it quite as well as I used to but it still reminds me of lots of big family meals at Grandma's house.

Stephanie playing Need for Speed

Watching White Christmas
(My grandmother always had this movie at her house and we watched it every year.)

A little post-movie fun.

Dad the photojournalist

Stephanie and I used to get these curlers put in our hair every Friday night. Mom and Stephanie decided to pull them out again...

The best laid plans... well, just don't make them in the first place

We set off this morning at 8:30, after Carrie and I both said goodbye to our respective Ryans :-( , and headed through the gorge thinking we'd be able to avoid some holiday/Knoxville traffic. A little past Murphy I was driving along in the left lane slowly passing another car when the driver slowly started to come over on me and just kept coming. She finally realized she was really close to me and slammed on her brakes and started swerving at the same time I laid on my horn. I had nowhere to go but up on the concrete median so I just held straight and stepped on the gas while she squealed around. I didn't think she'd hit us but Carrie said she had so we pulled over and waved her over. This is what we found... (Carrie and Stephanie were trying to be CSI-like with their to-scale devices)

On the phone with Ryan telling him what happened

The more I think about what happened the more thankful I am that this accident wasn't worse. Two cars going about 65 mph on a highway in close enough proximity to scrape a side mirror into a quarter panel could have been a recipe for a much bigger problem than this scratch. Four angels were working hard this afternoon.

Over an hour later we finally had a police report and we were on our way again. Between stopping to visit the Cooks, getting Taco Bell, dropping Carrie and Grant off, rain, congested holiday roadways, and a slight detour around the Raleigh Durham city limits, we have reached our destination 10.5 hours after we started a trip that usually takes 7 hours. Let's hope Thanksgiving takes a turn to the bright side... and that your Thanksgiving travels were slightly less exciting than mine.