In with the New!

 I enjoy creating things, I think its good for a person to work on something and get the end result. For me, its a good stress reliever to create things. I usually get good ideas to repaint, reupholster, re-whatever but I never follow through with my ideas. Not enough time and mostly I'm afraid I'll just end up screwing it up. I usually have good intentions, it's just the outcomes that turn out to be not-so-good. Well, I followed through and it turned out to be great!

For a long time I've been wanting to reupholster my piano bench. It was not cute. So one day, I just did it. It only took me about 20 minutes at the most! It was a quick and easy makeover and it looks sooooo much better. I wanted something a little bit spunky but not something that wouldn't be a neutral color. I'm really into zebra print right now and I found the perfect fabric! I didn't take a "before" picture because my brain is just slow like that. But to give you a visual, the piano bench used to be a dingy, faded, 'pink' color- you know, the color of your great grandma's furniture.
And here is the "after" picture!

Brown Zebra! Love it!

The never ending question of 'what to do with my shoes' has been the case for a couple of months now. I re-vamped my closet a couple of months ago and ever since then, I haven't had any room for my shoes. My closet is small, and so I put in a second bar for all of my clothes! Well, that leaves no room for shoes in the closet. I really don't have very many shoes, I have a lot of flip flops and a couple pair of boots. And boots take up a lot of room! I tried putting them all in decorative bins but it looked too cluttered for my liking. Then, I got this brilliant idea. I really like vintage stuff and I was talking to my mom about how I wanted an old trunk to put all of my shoes in. It would be a decorative piece that would serve some purpose! Then my mom remembered that my dad used to have one but we couldn't remember if we had gotten rid of it. So I went out and looked in the storage room and there it was! I was pretty excited. I did need a little bit of a make-over. It was blue and my room has white furniture and lavender walls! So I repainted it! It took awhile to tape everything off but it was worth it! All of the buckles and locks are slightly rusted giving it the vintage look, but a new coat of paint makes it pleasing to look at. Spray paint is awesome! I found the perfect, pearly white color too! It turned out to be the perfect thing for all of my shoes! They all fit and it even has a divider inside that makes it so once side is all of my shoes/flip flops and the other side is boots! It sits at the foot of my bed and I just love it!
The pictures are kind of bad but take a look!

Before

After

I also made a scarf. You know those popular scarfs that are out right now, they are lightweight and they are more of a spring scarf than a summer scarf!?! Well I have quite a few of them but I couldn't find a black one that I loved. So I just made one! It took me f o r e v e r. I'm glad I did it but I don't know if I'll ever do it again. It was really simple and cheap but the dang sewing machine wouldn't cooperate! So it took me much longer than it should have and it caused a lot of frustration. But the end result was good.

I'm not one for self portraits, it's embarrassing. But this is what the scarf looks like on!

P.S. I go to New York in 2 1/2 weeks and Jodi says it's been in the 70's and 80's! HAHA! Whoohoo!

That's my name, don't wear it out.

"bleepidy-beep-bleeped-beeper"

"$^%#*/^ !*%$@"

~That's my name, don't wear it out.~

Remember how I work in the Emergency Room with the crazy people? Okay, some of them are normal, but most of them are crazy.When I say crazy, I mean it. Rude? Nah, I'm convinced that we're all crazy, some are just a little (a lot) more crazy than others. Sometimes I use the word "crazy" lightly. In this blog post, I'm not. I literally mean psychotic, mentally ill, etc. It's sad, yes. But I'm this post isn't about the sadness of it all- I'll save that for later. One thing that should be in my job description is "professional verbal abuse victim". Let me explain. . .

Today at work I had a patient who called me every name in the book. Which isn't a new thing. I get called lots of names by patients. And it gets old. Really old. But what can you do? Most of them are mentally ill and angry. We're trained to just ignore the patient and not engage in any arguments. . . sometimes I throw that out the window. Sometimes I just have to walk away from the patient because I'm moments away from smackin' the crap out of them. And sometimes we just restrain them (tie them down to the bed). And sometimes we chemically restrain them (give them drugs to knock them out). It's easier if we restrain them, but we can't always do that, there has to be a lot of criteria met. My philosophy is -if you act like an animal (able to control it or not, you will be treated like an animal). Just kidding. That was harsh. I'm just saying, if you are going to throw things at me and yell at me, I'm gonna tie you down so you don't hurt me or yourself. BAM, take that! I will digress from talking about the joys restraining for a moment. . . anyway, back to the story!

My patient today was pretty cooperative but it changed on a dime. One moment she would be completely kind and cooperative and the next they would freak out. After they ripped off their wrist band, threw their water cup at me, and called me many names. . . I just started to laugh and then the nurse and I removed all chairs, tables, etc. from their room so they didn't throw more things at me (yes, it's happened, too many times- I'm a pro at taking verbal abuse and deflecting flying chairs). To keep it G Rated (I'm pretty sure my Relief Society Pres. reads my blog, and I don't talk like this anyway!). . .the patient kept calling me a "freaking brat". . . and obviously that's the edited version of what she was really calling me. The real thing looks more like this $^%#*/^ !*%$@. . . I'll let you use your imagination on that one. Many patients have called me names, patients often use potty language with me and call me really vulgar names. I just tell them "That's my name, don't wear it out". . . yeah, that just makes them more angry. Or if they call me a "brat", I just say "You think I'm a 'brat'? HA, I'll show you "me being a 'brat'". This particular patient was treating everyone this way, the doctor, the nurse, me and security. We were moments away from restraining them when the crisis worker finished the paper work and we took them upstairs to be admitted to the psychiatric unit- behavior health. Whoohoo, they are out of my hands now!

I'm about to just put "$^%#*/^ !*%$@" on my name tag at work. Ridiculous. Words can be harsh and they can ruin your day. But whatev- if it makes the patient feel better, they can call me whatever they want. Anyway point is, there is no point in arguing with a mentally ill person. It doesn't make it easier to listen to profanity, especially when it's directed toward you, but what can you do? Just smile. The good thing is, words don't really hurt me as much anymore. Also, because of this job I've developed an automatic "BLEEPER" in my head. Cuss at me all you want, it just sounds like "bleepidy-beep-bleeped-beeper". So if anyone else wants to call me a name. . . here's your chance! Go for it! "I'm rubber, you're glue, whatever you say bounces off of me, and sticks to you"! Childish? I think not!

After all of that at work today, I went and taught primary, sunbeams no less. What a day. I'm worn right out.

 Use kind words to one another, and if someone calls you a mean name, laugh it off, they don't really mean it. . . well, maybe they do, but they'll regret it one day. Because I think you're awesome! Don't let any one's mean words ruin your day. Just smile at them!
The truth of it all is. . . "$^%#*/^ !*%$@" is NOT my name, and it is SOOOOO worn out.

Wishing you all a happy and a 'name-calling-free' week.  ;)

Reba McEntire & George Strait Concert!

Grandma, Me, and my mom! Three generations!

 The Queen, Reba!

Last Saturday, April 2nd my mom, grandma, and I went to the George and Reba concert! I love ALL kinds of music but Reba has got to be one of my absolute favorites. We've been anticipating this concert for such a looonnng time! Tickets to this concert was my Christmas gift to my mom and grandma. Since tickets went on sale shortly after Christmas, it's been a long wait! I was a little worried when I bought tickets because they were way out of my price range but it was soooo worth it! If you aren't a country music fan and you've been hiding under a rock for the past 30 years and you aren't sure who these legends are, look them up! Reba is the Queen of country music and George is the King. They've been in the business for a long time! Reba has done everything from Broadway, to her own tv show, to movies, and of course she's made hundreds of number 1 hit songs. George has also made countless records.

I have seen both Reba and George in concert more than once. . . but never together! In the country music world, it was legendary! I love Reba, and always have! First, she's one of my people (redhead), her music is history making, and she is so entertaining live! George's music is great as well, although he is a little less entertaining to watch perform. It cool because the next day was the Academy of Country Music Awards in Las Vegas and Reba was hosting them so she was talking about that, which was fun to hear her talk about then watch them the next day!

So now that I've introduced them. . . I'll get on with the point of this post (I get distracted easily). I got all cowgirled up. I had my cowboy boots, my cowboy shirt, and sporting "the higher the hair the closer to heaven" country music theme goin' on! My grandma, mom, and I went up to Salt Lake early. We ate at this yummy southwestern grill place and it was quite good! We then headed over to the Energy Solutions Arena (I still call it the Delta Center, whatever). We looked at all the tour buses, and hung out around the radio stations for a bit then we headed inside! We went to our awesome seats (so worth the money) in the almost sold out 21,000 show! And the show started! LeeAnn Womack opened the show, she sings "I hope you dance". . . you should know that song, it's in quite a few movies. Then Reba came out. It was so awesome! She put on a great show, she hits the craziest notes without even breaking a sweat. And all I have to say is I hope I can move like she does when I'm 56, heck, I wish I could move like that now!! For an old school country music singer you wouldn't think it would be too wild but it was pretty rockin'! She also had Barbra Jean (Melissa Peterman)  from the Reba tv show come out and do a comedy bit and it was hilarious! I was laughing so hard! Reba was so personable with the audience. Then the encore was my favorite part of the entire night! No one will know what I'm talking about unless you're a hard core country music fan but in Reba's "Fancy" music video it starts with her in an old taxi, so while that music video started to play on the screen, Reba came back out in a real taxi! She drove the taxi on stage! It was so awesome, the whole crowd was freaking out. . . heck, I freaked out! She sang the crap out of the encore songs! Then George came on stage and he sang a bunch of songs, he just played one after another! It was a great concert. So legendary and they'll probably never tour together again!

Reba's encore, "Fancy", when she drove the taxi onto stage! Awesome!

Reba

Melissa Peterman (Barbra Jean) and Reba doing a funny comedy bit!

We got a huge bang for a buck! LeeAnn played for about half hour or 45 minutes and Reba played for an hour and a half. Which is a concert in and of itself. Then George played for about an hour and a half! It was so great! And what a fun way to spend time with my grandma and my mom and celebrating Christmas in April, no less. We all love Reba and George! I headed home with a scratchy/lost voice from screaming and it was all so worth it! What a great night!

Here a few more pictures, I would post video that I took but you can mostly just here me screaming, and I think I embarrass myself enough on this blog as it is!

Enjoy!

Grandma stole my hat! She looks much better in it than I do!

Reba rockin' out!

 Reba's encore.

 King George!

That's me, yep I wore that hat. It even lights up. You should be jealous because I got a lot of compliments, looks, and pointing! Such a fun night!