Auld Lang Syne

I've never known the lyrics to this song, traditionally sung on New Years Eve, but since it is NYE, "Auld Lang Syne" is the song of the day.  If you've always wondered about this song too, here is the wikipedia link - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auld_Lang_Syne.


Whether your new year has come already or not, I wish you all a happy and healthy (I have to say that because I'm a nurse) 2011.  May you remember the good things of 2010, or the decade of the 2000s for that matter, and remember to learn and grow from the bad things of the year.


I'm off to work tonight, so everyone out there, have a drink for me!

I Made It

I hope that anyone reading this had a great Christmas and is looking forward to a fun New Years.  I will be working the next three nights and after having a number of days off I am looking forward to getting back.


I heard the today's song of the day while driving home this morning and I was struck by the chorus.  It's a song by Kevin Rudolf, called "I Made It."  


The song was frequently on the radio this summer and while I really liked it then, I hadn't necessarily felt as though I had 'made it' at that time.


The chorus of the song is -
I look up to the sky
And now the World is mine
I've known it all my life
I made it, I made it!
I used to dream about, the life I'm living now
I know that there's no doubt.
I made it, I made it!

I'm at a place in my life where I am happy and comfortable.  I'm excited about the opportunities in my future for school and for the way that my job is going.  I'm excited to see where God takes me on this wild ride that is Life but at the same time, I feel like I am living the life I dreamed about as a little girl.

There's No Place Like Home for the Holidays

It really didn't feel like Christmas until 3:30 this afternoon on Christmas Eve.  I've worked the last few nights after being sick for the week.  


At 3:30 I walked in the door of my parent's house to my Mom and Dad, brothers and sister and of course, our faithful dog.


There truly is no place like home for the holidays.  My favorite version of this song is by Perry Como, '(No Place Like) Home for the Holidays.'


While everyone is now getting ready for some of our extended family to arrive, I had a few quick minutes (a minute is a minute, so how can they really be quick?) and decided to wish the internet world a very merry Christmas.  May we all remember the meaning of this day and thank our incredible God for giving us Jesus, the greatest gift.  I pray that anyone reading this has a great day spent with friends or family and if you are far from the ones you love, go ahead, pick up the phone and give them a call.  While there's no place like home for the holidays, there is also nothing like hearing the voice of someone you love on Christmas.  

Girls Just Wanna Have Fun

I had a great weekend with my girlfriends :-).

Thursday I got to know some of my fellow staff nurses at work better at the holiday party - not the greatest turn-out, but it was really good to get to see them outside of work.

Friday I woke up and had a full day planned that included hosting a holiday party at my apartment.  Unfortunately, I could barely talk and so my party was cancelled.  I was upset but I had a busy Saturday and Sunday planned that I knew I couldn't be even more sick for.

Saturday was one of my good friends' wedding and it was a blast!  My friend and I met in college and ended up working together for a few months at my new job before she left for her own new job.  We've gotten really close in the past year and it was so fun to celebrate her big day with her.  She was beautiful and everything about the wedding rang true to her personality.  One of the best parts was also that it brought a number of our friends together who I haven't seen in quite awhile.  Here's a picture of some of us girls (and a boy) from school -

After the wedding we all headed back to the hotel and hung out for a little while more and had a lot of fun catching up and just enjoying the time together.

Sunday night was an evening spent with some high school friends at a Blackhawks game.  We went to a game last year and had a blast, so I think we've found a new Winter tradition.  This time we had standing room only tickets again and had a lot of fun goofing off and cheering on the Hawks to their 3-2 win over the LA Kings.

The song of the weekend is Cyndi Lauper's 'Girls Just Wanna Have Fun.'  It's one of my favorite songs and was even my ring-tone for awhile, and it totally describes my weekend spent with my high school and college girls.

I am currently sitting on my couch with the Christmas tree all lit up and watching TV, something I feel like I haven't done in forever!  I am loving my relaxation before I work the next three nights and then head home for Christmas and some family time.

After being sick late last week and the eventful weekend, I have completely lost my voice... so hopefully it comes back before I have to head to work tomorrow night or I have a problem!

It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas

Alright, another Christmas song :-)

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas, by Johnny Mathis.

I love walking to work in the city at night now because I can marvel at all of the lights along Chicago and Michigan Ave.  Love them!  They sparkle, they shine, they make people happy!

My apartment has looked like Christmas for over a week and I added my final ornaments that I took from my parent's house to my Christmas tree; it looks great!

I went home for the afternoon today to get a hair cut and ended up staying for the rest of the evening decorating the tree with my mom while my dad and brother came in and out to watch.  I absolutely love my parent's house/my house (is it ok for me to still call it my house even though I technically don't live there anymore?) at Christmas time.  We put white lights all on the outside along the roofline and bushes in the front and then the tree has colored lights so it looks really pretty from the outside.  Then in the inside we have all of the decorations that I've grown up seeing that just make me feel so comfortable and safe.  It wouldn't feel like Christmas without so many of those decorations that I've seen for as long as I can remember.

My favorite decoration is a small silver bell that I believe came from my Nana.  We've had it for, you guessed it, as long as I can remember.  I remember being really little and winding it up to hear it play the 'silver bells' song and thinking that it was the prettiest song in the world.  My second favorite decoration is our tree-skirt.  It's really nothing special, but I also remember being little and thinking that it was one of the most beautiful little things I'd ever seen.  I couldn't wait to get it out for Christmas and wear it around as an actual skirt.  I actually held it up around my waist last year and couldn't believe that I'd ever been so tiny!

What's your favorite Christmas decoration?

Pony

After such a good Friday, I was feeling pretty good going into work on Saturday night.  Thankfully, I was feeling pretty good walking out of work too.


The song of the day is Pony, by Erin McCarley.  The tune of the song makes me smile and that's what I did on my way home from work for no particular reason.  It was a busy night and my admission from the emergency department ended up being transferred to intensive care, but it was still a good night.


Here are some of the lyrics - 


It’s time for you to prove,
Within your ruby shoes
You deserve a smile with no regret,
Look at you
Kicking off your shoes,
Dancing for the world to see,


I deserve to smile without having to say why, but just smile for the heck of it and because I feel like it.  I am always surprised at the looks I get when I'm walking with a smile on my face.  It's like people are thinking, "why is she smiling, nothing good is happening."  Well, how do they know?  A smile can brighten your day and make you feel like you're dancing inside.


When was the last time that you smiled at someone passing by?

You've Got a Friend in Me

I'm back posting this, even though it's Sunday, I'm saying it's Friday night - just because I can, and it's kind of cool to control time, even if it's just on here.

I'm going to mix things up and come right out and say the song of the day.  You've Got a Friend in Me, by Randy Newman.  You may know this song from one of the best movies ever - Toy Story!

Now I'll back up.

Friday was a really fun day!  After some cleaning one of my newer friends came to visit me.  We've known of each other since middle school, she dated my brother in high school, but somehow we didn't become friends until half way through college when I was at my small liberal arts school and she was a mile down the road at her huge state school.  

I think it was totally a God thing, because our friendship just kind of happened and it has been growing since then.  

We make a point to see each other around our birthdays and then every month or two during the rest of the year.  I feel like her there is no questioning what to say, how to act, or how to be.  She let's me just be me and be myself.  The other fun part is that we laugh pretty much constantly when we're together.  

Soo, we got together and went to her favorite cupcake bakery, which unbeknownst to me is just a few blocks.  I think I've found my new favorite place to go on my days off!  I got a Marble Chocolate cupcake - delicious!!!  After we got a few hours to catch up and chit-chat, we met up with my brother and his roommate since she is friends with them too, and all went out to dinner.  Yum!  We had such a nice time together reminiscing about high school, but also talking about adult topics.  I can't believe that we are old enough to be real adults in the working world with adult responsibilities (I have to pinch myself a lot to make myself remember that I am really involved with playing with people's lives-something I take very seriously, but can't believe that someone has entrusted me to do so).

I picked the Toy Story song because I hope that we will always have our little catch-up dates no matter how busy life makes us or where it takes us.

I had another day off today and went down into the loop to meet up with some people and to get some Christmas shopping done.


My first stop was to meet a girl from college who I haven't seen or talked to in over 2 years.  I don't know that I would say we were real friends in college, but we had a few common activities/groups that we were in.  It was so good to see her and to hear about what she's been up to.  


From there I went over to the Christkindlmarket and enjoyed walking around and looking at all of the booths and admiring the artisan's work.  I bought a gift for both my Godson and Godmother.  Soo much better than my usual Target gifts.  After that I too a relaxed walk up State street and Michigan Avenue to Loyola's Water Tower campus to meet up with another friend from school who I had lived with sophomore year.  It was really nice catching up with her and hearing her crazy school social work stories.


Do you ever have those days where you just walk and think?  That ended up being the majority of my day, and it felt good.  Nobody to be worrying about carrying on a conversation with, walking my own pace and stopping wherever I wanted to stop.


Song of the day = 'Have you Ever' by Brandi Carlile.


It was hard to pick a song about my day today, but then I stumbled across this one.  If I picture it in my head I see a person walking along by themselves thinking about the way their life has turned out and where they see it going.  I see them passing by scenes of their life and making their own path.


While I followed the city sidewalks today, and instead of passing scenes from my life passed some very pretty Christmas windows, I enjoyed my lonely day and my one on one time with the big guy upstairs.

If You're Out There

I've always been someone who has watched the news and read the news paper.  If I was a cynic and didn't believe that there are indeed good people in the world, the news would reaffirm my beliefs that there are very few nice people out there. Thank goodness I try to see the best in people, or else I would be miserable.

The holidays are a time when people can get very bitter or very joyful. Can you guess which I way I get? (I hope you said joyful, or I'm not doing a good job of representing myself on this blog, although looking back, I have made some complaining posts). Aaaannnyyyway, I am joyful.

It's this time of year that makes me really remember how blessed I am to have lived the life I live and makes me even more appreciative of all that I have. It's this time of year, that also makes it so clear that generous, caring, loving people are out there and during this time of year those people are recognized for all that they do.

The unit that I work on has adopted a south side elementary school class for the holidays and each of us was asked to sign up for a child and buy them an article of clothing and a toy. I picked a three year old little girl and can you believe how hard it was to stick to the guideline of one clothing item and one toy? I think of this little, precious girl and wonder if my gift will be all that she gets this year. I stretched the guideline and instead of 'one clothing item' I bought a whole outfit. I haven't bough the toy yet, but I'm thinking of a way that I can stretch that guideline too. And why not? I have a full time job and thankfully I have the resources to give. Besides, it's super fun for me to go shopping and look at all of the little clothes :-)

If 'adopting' a child for the holidays and buying them a gift sounds like a great idea to you, it's really easy!  I've done it in the past through the Chicago Sun-Times, and here is this year's link - https://register.suntimesnewsgroup.com/clickshare/purchaseProduct.do?CSProduct=charity


The song of the day is John Legend's, 'If You're Out There.'  I love this song and for a long time I listened to it on repeat.  


If you're reading this and you have the means to give to another person with less than you, give.  Whether your gift be a prayer, a donation, or a material item that the other person needs, give.  I truly believe the saying that you get more than you give.  If you're out there, do something for someone else today, tomorrow, or next week.  I beg you, step outside of your life for a moment and do something.  I guarantee, you'll feel a little extra kick in your step knowing that you've done something meaningful for another person.