system orientation

equals BORING!!!! I mean really BOOORRRING!! But i got paid to sit there which will be nice and I did learn a bit of new things. Overall i don't want to do that again for sure! I now face three days of department orientation. those might be slightly repetitive, but at least they will be important to my actual job.

I did get to know the folks i'll be working with and they were all pretty great from the get go, which is a good sign. Today I also got to see the on-call schedule until mid December. And it works out great all around, I have no worries about getting thanksgiving off to be with family, AND I will be able to go see our niece or nephew this month sometime! So I'm really happy with the outcome for now.

ok the other thing that I have learned is that I get tired out after a full day of work, so i'm going to not spend a ton of time blogging right now, so that i can just chill out after all that information!!!

julia

weekend o' fun!

Ya'll I had a really fun weekend with my friends James and Jessica, even though we did very little! I just enjoy getting caught up and seeing my good friends and seeing them for a long time at once. They are the last friends that have not come up to visit us in NC so it was so nice to have them here. We don't get to see our friends nearly enough because of the distance and we're so busy. James and Jessica requested a quiet weekend so that he could grade papers and we could all enjoy each other's company, so we did that exactly!

Another reason that we did very little this weekend is so that i would have a good last weekend before going to start work this week. Tomorrow I begin orientation!! It promises to be pretty boring i'm sure, but at least I'll get to get paid to sit and listen to policies and procedures! I'm taking a snack just in case i get really bored and need a pick me up. After two days of orientation with the hospital then I get to have three days in the department for orientation, that's a lot of sitting and listening. But then we start right away with on-calls and working the floors, possibly even doing education stuff, all of which is a part of my job as a chaplain.

so after a great weekend I'm looking forward to a week of getting oriented in my new job. we'll see how much fun or how boring that is, either way it will be great to get into a routine and get started! Hope you had a great weekend too, and are looking forward to something you get to do this week, even if it's not a new job!

Julia

last day of summer!

Today is the last day that i have to enjoy being at home and to chill out! Audie has the day off and I'm just happy to get to spend the day at home with him. Even out doing errands and chilling out is fun when i'm with my hubby!!

Also this weekend my bff Jessica and her hubby are coming up to visit and we have no real plans except to have dinner and a movie with some people up here Saturday night. Other than that I'm going to just enjoy hanging out with my friends and visiting. Including chatting up the most recent gossip and chatting about what's up with both of us! That's my favorite thing to do for sure!

I'm so excited for what these couple of days will be like, hopefully pretty relaxing and fun. Because Monday I start my new job!! I have two days of orientation with the hospital and then 3 days with the spiritual care department, and then we'll be getting started pretty quickly into doing on-calls and pastoral care with patients. As well as those things we'll be doing educational time during the day as well. I'm hoping that I won't get too overwhelmed with all the information in orientation, and that i'll be able to maintain some 'me time' while in the midst of all that.

Also this week i began my ordination papers, for those of you that don't know, In the United Methodist Church you can't just get ordained you have to go through a huge paperwork and interview process! I'll be writing around 70-100 pages in the next few months to proove and ask that i be given the chance to be ordained by the UMC. Here's hoping that goes well too!

but for now- it's a day and weekend of relaxation!

Julia

disappointed

Audie had to switch days off with someone, so he's off tomorrow instead of today. I know it's basically the same thing but i'm really disappointed. I had plans to make him do errands with me, so i wouldn't have to drive myself around town.

So i guess we have to do our errands tomorrow, which is not the end of the world, i realize. BUT now the question is what will i do today?? so far a whole lot of nothing and that has been kind of boring! we'll see if it changes up at all. probably not!

hope your day is more exciting than mine.

julia

wow Wednesday

How is it already wednesday?? I usually feel like the week really crawls by but apparently this week has flown by. Probably because it's my last week of 'summer' before starting work next week. This week has been a lot of fun so far, it's kind of 'busy' as much my summer weeks have been. Monday we had some great friends of ours over for dinner! what's kind of funny is that several alumni of my beloved college are now in the area going to school at Duke or just working around here, so we decided to have everyone over for dinner. It was a lot of fun and we had good food, played fun games and just hung out for a while. So monday was spent getting ready for that and enjoying hanging out with friends!

Tuesday I had a dr. appointment, so getting out of the house was nice and the dr. appointment went well too. it was a nice day of just hanging out at home besides that, but when Audie came home we went out to eat and to get some stuff from target. always nice not to fix dinner and to get to look at cute stuff at target!

Today i had to go get some bloodwork done (ordered by my dr. yesterday) so i got up and went and got that done, and only had to wait about 15 minutes. NICE, right? and i found out i might have a latex allergy, ok how did i go so long and not know that?? well now i know i guess. The nurse called it more of a 'latex sensitivity'. so i guess it's not too serious, but still. Later today laundry is on the agenda!

tomorrow Audie has the day off and we're going to do a ton of errands to get ready for when James and Jessica come to see us!!!

yay for an awesome last week of summer where i have plenty to do but also have time to chill out!

Julia

lazy weekend!

This weekend in contrast to last weekend was pretty low key. Audie and I ate dinner at home Friday night then went grocery shopping, it's always nice to get out of the house and do anything together and going to the store on Saturday is always kind of exhausting! We then came on home and did pretty much nothing.

Saturday we were supposed to clean house because we're hosting a dinner party on Monday evening, but for some reason we couldn't get motivated to do that. We decided to go run some errands and go to a movie and dinner instead. We watched 'The Switch' and really enjoyed it. It wasn't your typical romantic comedy so don't expect that really, but it did have funny moments and very romantic and real moments too. I would recommend it for sure. It was really funny but in a real life kind of way, and was really sweet, and the little kid in it was so cute!! After that i was getting kind of tired so we went and got Wendy's and watched some tv shows on Netflix online. that was a nice quiet weekend evening.

Today we went back to the church that we have settled on for now. We again liked the service and were very welcomed by everyone. We decided to keep going and are really excited about getting involved in some things and at least going to sunday school once we get in our groove of new schedule of me working. It also hopefully will be a place where I can do some things for ordination as well. We'll see if they will let me do some short term ministry things. I'm getting really excited about going to church there for the next year. This afternoon I had planned to go have a pool day with my friend but she called and canceled. After not sleeping well last night I was ok with that because i wanted to have a chill afternoon for sure. we're just planning on hanging out the rest of the night especially since we'll be having a few friends over tomorrow night.

hope you have had the kind of weekend that you wanted and needed too!!

Julia

update:

The shadowing was not as hectic as i expected, but still very informative and fun! It really made me ready to start my new job!! I got to meat some of the folks doing my job now and they were all really nice and encouraging, though they said that orientation is a beast to get through (that's what i have to do in a week) oh well, then hopefully it will get fun/exciting. they didn't seem like it killed them, so it probably won't kill me either!! at least here's hoping!!

i also passed my drug test and now have to work on getting a copy of my vaccine records. let's see if i should do that today or wait until monday or so. i think wait!!

hope you have a great weekend

julia

new job stuff

Yesterday I got an unexpected phone call in the middle of my shopping trip to BJ's. It was the Human Resources dept. at the hospital where I'm going to begin work next monday! The woman was calling to officially offer me the job!! so even though i knew i had the job it was fun to get that phone call for sure. She also told me about the salary (more than expected!) and that i needed to fill out paperwork and do a drug test. SO I'm going in today to do all those things! so excited about having something to do today, even if it's just running over to my new job to pee in a cup!

In similar news the supervisor that i'm going to have at this job has been in communication with us all that are starting together and advised us to go in an shadow the on-call chaplain for a few hours if possible this week or next. so I'm also going to call and see if they have time for me to shadow today while I'm at the hospital already.

All this means however that my plans of grocery shopping today are out the window until later tonight or tomorrow, oh well!!

Julia

counting down the days

I've begun counting down the days until i begin work and I'm getting really excited about starting at the hospital. I'm also savoring those last few days of summer. My friend Hannah will come over for a pool day tomorrow and we're going to have lunch and then just chill out.

I haven't been up to much this week, just reading a lot of fun books before i get into work and can't do that as much. relaxation is the name of the game for now! got dinner in the oven for now and when Audie gets home we'll be watching some TV and just doing nothing after an evening walk. I know my life is just so exciting!! This weekend is going to be a slow one, then we're having a dinner party monday and some friends coming next weekend, and then work begins!! a week and 1/2 of freedom still left and counting.

hope you all are enjoying your summer too, i know i have!

Julia

what a weekend!

whew, that was a really long weekend with a lot going on. I loved every minute! we were totally exhausted after a lot of coming and going, so today was a more low key day for both of us, at least it was for me, Audie had to go to work.

Friday night we just went and got lost a little bit in raleigh on purpose to learn our way around. that was fun and then Saturday we went couch hunting. BUT we didn't get one because we decided to save our pennies a bit more and hopefully get something nice later on. then we went and saw my friend hannah as she moved in. I'm really excited to have some good friends in this area again, after most of our friends got done with school it's been kind of lonely.

Sunday we went to a new church and really liked it. It had a young adult class and relaxed worship at 11:00 but it was still very traditional. it was a lot of what we were looking for. We're definitely going back next week to see how we like it the second time. I'm excited because since we've been up here it was hard for us to find a church that we could go to and get involved in.

After church i got to have a pool afternoon with a great friend of mine and then dinner with a couple that we really enjoy hanging out with. It was a really nice weekend of fun and interesting stuff, not boring at all and fun was had by all.

Ok I hope you guys have had an awesome weekend too!

- Julia

ready for the weekend!

I'm so ready for the weekend! one thing that I hate about being so at home all the time is that i get really bored sometimes! SO i live for the weekend too, just like you working folks!! I don't think that people at work see how hard it is to stay home sometimes (especially you moms/dads out there, i don't know how you work from home, or who keep kids and stuff going!!) Anyway, this weekend Audie and I are going to be doing LOTS!!!

Tonight: dinner out together, which we haven't done in a really long time, i'm so excited!! Then we're going to Michael's to see what craft supplies that i can get for the next two weeks to occupy my time.

Tomorrow: looking at couches, we're sort of in the market for a couch. We're looking for one that is brown to replace my grandma's old and busted green couch, we'll see if we find one that satisfies both of us and our budget. Mostly this weekend we're just looking for a bargain if we can find it because there are a lot of sales going on. Also we're headed over to Durham because my friend hannah is moving up and we're going to be available if they need anything from someone that kind of knows the area more.

Sunday: we're trying another new church, then lunch out and then my friend Meridith is coming by to walk and talk with me! and then we might just go to the pool too! well we might have to skip the walking and just go straight to the pool for the relaxation. then James and Sarah are coming for dinner!

lots are people are coming and we are going more than usual so that meant that today i went to the grocery store. I spent a TON of money (well more than we usually do by a lot) but i saved almost 30 dollars off our bill, so exciting! That's always a good day!

so i hope you have a blast this weekend! I'm excited for a weekend where we have some plans but not too much going on!

julia

A Day in the Life

Since I'm a stay at home person right now and day in the life posts are kind of interesting no matter who you are or what your day is like, let's all do one!!

9:00 wake up. (I'm waking up 1 hour earlier each week so that in a few weeks I can get up at 7 comfortably)
breakfast and watch some things off of DVR.
shower and blowdry hair (maybe get in Pj's maybe in stretchy pants, maybe in real clothes depending on what the rest of the day holds)
do some crafting or errands
12:00 lunch - watch more dvr'd shows if any.
1:00 talk to Audie on his lunch break. (he generally calls when he gets to go to lunch)
more crafts or errands, watching a movie or maybe cleaning/picking up the house depending on how cluttered it's looking or if people are coming to visit.
4:00-5:30 Judge Judy. I have this as my guilty pleasure during the day. I love how she settles the cases with such snappy comments to the folks that deserve it!!
5:20-6:20 Cooking dinner
6:30 - Audie is home and we eat dinner and then clean up the dishes
7:15 - Audie and I go for a walk around the neighborhood or in the gym of our apartment complex, if it's inclement weather.
7:45 - done 'working out' and we get home to shower/ clean up and watch TV that evening, either stuff that is dvr'd or stuff that is on live.
10:00 - get ready and get in bed. i'm basically a small child, I can go to sleep early and wake up late, which is why i'm working on it!!


after I begin work at the hospital maybe I'll do another one and we can compare how my day has changed. SO now I challenge you to do the same!! day in the life posts by everyone!!

hope you have fun on this thursday and are as excited for the weekend as I am! and if this post as boring as it may be, my days are pretty boring too, so now you really get the essence of my days as well.

-Julia

nothing going on!

I realized that I hadn't posted since Saturday and that feels weird to me, mostly because i posted so much about projects last week. but not much has been going on around here, i mean i went to Walgreen's today to pick up a prescription and went to the bank to cash two checks... not too exciting, even though my life is so boring right now that it made it a big day for me! haha.

Well in other news I'm also excited because a good friend of mine is moving up here this weekend, maybe that will mean that I'll have some stuff to do by helping her move in her new place. In two and a 1/2 weeks I get to start work for real, a welcome change from doing nothing, but a worry for sure to how i'm going to adjust to a new schedule. I'm starting to try and get up earlier and earlier so that I'm ready for getting up for the day and not being able to sleep in and nap all day! that doesn't usually work with a day of work to do.

ok that's about all i can write for now, that's everything i have for now!!

-julia

small things

I know that most people have some things that they can't live without, and the biggest things in their life are their most prized possessions, but I've always been more of a small things kind of person.

Audie and I spent our night last night just hanging out with each other, we went to Target, Walmart and Home Depot. Then we came home and ate popcorn and watched a movie. So simple and small.

today was grocery shopping and laundry, including an awesome nap and a phone call from my mom.

Tomorrow we have planned to finally get around to trying out a new church in our area and then Zaxby's for lunch and dinner with my good friend, while Audie hangs out at home. That's a great weekend in my book for sure. Unless the church winds up being really not what we're looking for because we're so picky!! Everyone cross your fingers that it's a good one!!

hope you have a lazy weekend with all the small things, (and maybe some big things, like a great husband to share them with) you need!!

Julia

My t-shirt blanket!!

This week I finally finished my t-shirt blanket!! IT was quite a headache because my machine didn't like dealing with that much knit fabric for whatever reason. So that means that the blanket turned out kind of different, and not perfect, but it did get finished!

Here is side one:


And side two:


50 t-shirts all cut up and sewed together make a pretty cute blanket, but it was such a headache that i don't think i'll be making another one in the near future!!

Julia

Dresses

In M's box o cute clothes that i made and sent her also were three dresses. They were actually some of the easiest things to sew. I know that sounds like 'yeah right!!" but they weren't too bad. Now they were my first ones and i had a bit of issues with my machine, but for the most part it was really easy. The first two were basically tshirts that i bought at target and added a skirt to. I cut the white t-shirt so it would have more of an empire waist to the dress.





The last one was a pillowcase dress and very easy, but all from scratch!! I'm pretty impressed with my own ability. Basically though you just cute out two pieces of fabric in the shape that you need, there are patterns online.


Then I turned under the edge of the sleeves and the top, sewing a long ribbon in the casing for the top.


Then you sew the two pieces together and press and sew an even hem along the bottom.


ALL DONE!! SO easy!! The hardest part of sewing is learning to thread the machine (well and getting a sewing machine).

Hope you enjoyed looking at my projects this week. Hopefully I'll be finishing my t-shirt quilt this week and you can see the results of it.

Julia

Couple Extras

Here are a few extras that were put in M's box of fabulous gifts!! I wanted to completely give her a bunch of outfits to mix and match with and some fun stuff that she can put on for just those fun days at home!

So first I made a tutu! I have seen Tutus that go for pretty expensive online, and this was my chance to make one that was cheap and hopefully you can then make one (for yourself or a kid near you) They are really fun!

so basically i took some black elastic and made a loop about the size of my niece's waist. I sewed the elastic together with my machine, but you could also hand sew it if you wanted.


Then I took two colors of meshy fabric, tulle, and cute strips that we only about 6 inches across and twice as long as i wanted the skirt of the tutu to be.


Then I took each strip and tied a knot onto the loop of elastic. I alternated each color so that it would be a bit different. the knotting the tulle is the hardest part, and it's pretty easy!


then you just have to spread the knots around the loop of elastic so that the tutu is even.


Other extras that i put in the box were a headband with a bow and some black pants with a ruffle around the bottom. I know you're surprised that i have included more bows and ruffles!!



Hope that you think that these are cute!! go and make a tutu, you could just chill out and wear a tutu!! maybe i'll make one for myself!!

Julia

M's new onesies!!

Here goes my first post this week about my projects. I'm going to break down the big box i sent to them into a few posts so that you can enjoy them and not being tired of looking at all those photos at once!! SO i began with some onesies that i purchased at target. I wanted to just basically personalize each one in a way that they can be worn with some of the other stuff i made. I was working with a bright blue and black and white print in the other stuff i made so that's where that came from.

The first one I did with black ruffles around the neckline and across the bottom! I love a ruffle on ANYTHING, but especially across the hind end of a baby's outfit!!




The next ones that I did I basically took a ribbon and tied a bow and then sewed a button on the front to make a detail. Very simple, but pretty cute in my opinion.





The next one was another ruffly one, with a big ruffle down the front and five blue buttons down the middle of the ruffle!




The last one was pretty simple too, basically a black patch of fabric with buttons that are sewed in the shape of M's monogram.

Hope you guys think that they are as cute as I do!! I heard from M's mom (my sister-in-law) and she loved them, and i guess that's what really matters!! Hope you like it and if you need tutorials for this stuff check out at Make it and Love it because she kind of gave me all the great ideas!

Julia

my wonderful weekend!!

This weekend was awesome because my BFF came and visited Audie and I! We all had a blast, but i think especially Amber and I enjoyed hanging out a ton! It was just so nice doing nothing with another person around (if that makes any sense at all!) We played cards, and we went to a concert (really fun!!) and enjoyed the fact that is wasn't 100 degrees all weekend!! It was actually down in to 77 today at some point. I'm exhausted from our weekend so I'm going to be headed to bed early tonight. Coming attractions this week include:

- pictures of my surprise projects for my niece!!

- pictures of my t-shirt quilt!! (still in progress)

So check back this week for some really cute stuff that I made. I'm actually sort of not speaking to my sewing machine right now because it's being super frustrating (we had a fight, but after talking to my sewing machine guru (my mom) I think it was because I was sewing too much t-shirt material!!! ) BUt we're still not speaking until i can get sorted out/ spend money on some interfacing!

ok hope you all had great weekends i know i did!!

Julia