Saturday, September 20, 2008

sand/thunderstorm

Well I had a day off the other day and I witnessed my first thunderstorm in Iraq. Now I know right now back in the states that isn't a odd thing to see. In fact maybe its a little odd to have a perfectly cloudless and sunny day. But let me tell you, here any kind of rain is amazing, let alone a thunderstorm. So I got a few video's of it I hope you enjoy them. In the first video you can see the dark blotch on the horizon, that isn't dark clouds, that is the sand coming. Because of course we can't have any kind of storm without sand being involved. The second video right after the rain passed and all we had was sand. It was orange out for a few days, just about the same color as a basketball.
I hope you enjoy my video's!


Friday, September 19, 2008

I got an award

I received this award the other day from my sister. She must like me or something. :)





These awards are nice to receive! She is my favorite sister. Before you start feeling badly for my other siblings she is my only sister. If I did have other sisters I bet she would still be the favorite.
As far as the awards go I think I will save them for when someone has a particularly good blog. Also I would like to apologize for not blogging as much lately. I switched departments at the hospital lately and I'm all out of wack. Thanks for continuing to read!

Thursday, September 18, 2008

Dinty Moore Beef Stew

Well about a week ago I got a package from my hubby. He sent me some things that I asked for plus some special things he thought I would like. Among those things was a six pack of Dinty Moore Beef Stew. I know that a lot of people don't consider this to be a delicacy but rather more like dog food (Steve). It is one of my favorite things even when I'm not here. Only at home I like to make it on the stove top and put some red wine in it. I'm not allowed to have wine here...sob.
Anyway when Steve sent me this box I don't think he realized how happy it was going to make everyone.

Doesn't Julia look happy. She said she usually can only eat half a can, but that she couldn't stop because it was so good.

I know I look like pure evil in this picture, but my eyes always turn red it pictures.

Jani had hers with a sandwich, she always knows how to make everything better.

These are some of the guys that work in the EMT, they were also excited about getting some Dinty Moore Beef Stew.

Thanks again babe from the whole gang!

Saturday, September 13, 2008

males in pink wig

Well I had a request for some of the guys in the pink wig. Unfortunatly none of the guys that you are used to seeing were there the night I got the opportunity to take some pictures with the wig. So you are going to see some new faces. I hope you enjoy them.






So I'm really sorry I haven't been able to blog lately. Changing shifts put a kink in my routine. Anyway I have one for a lot of days week. I'm sorry its been so long. Hope everyone has had a good week. :)

Thursday, September 11, 2008

Is that ravioli?

Well the other day I was talking to Steve on the internet and he sent me a picture I have been hoping to get for quite some time. You see its a picture of something you just don't see every day.

Yeah I know that looks like an ordinary can of ravioli. But if you want to take a look at this other picture I have you will see a different story.

This is maybe the largest can of ravioli I have ever seen. The boys found it at the grocery store. Of course they buy a lot of canned things because I'm not around to cook any more. So Steve saw this can and had to have it, so they own the largest can of ravioli ever now. Steve says they can't quite bring themselves to eat it, it has become like a family pet now. And no they haven't come up with a name for it yet. :)

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Don't leave your camera laying around!

Ok I'll admit that occasionally I do snap a silly picture and just to prove my point here are a few that I took.


Yes that is metamucil. He likes it. He is only 22.



Why can't these two have their picture taken without posing?

The following pictures are ones that I didn't take. I'm sure you really didn't need me to tell you.



That should teach him, take a picture of your open mouth it is going to end up on my blog.

Why do I need a picture of your ear?

Glove on the head, certainly not the first time it was done. But it is the first time I didn't even know the picture of it was there until I downloaded my pictures.
Alright that is all I had for today, I'm sure it was enough.

Tuesday, September 9, 2008

One who is missing

Today I feel compelled to mention one of my co-workers that had the day off when we took the family portrait picture. Gustavo, need any more be said. If you remember from one of my other blogs, he was the one with the mustache.
Well I am not only going to mention him, but I also have a story about him. It has been his habit to claim that he doesn't know how the make things, so that I will come and do it for him. The other night I told him that he was going to have to figure it out for himself. He had a mini microwave cake thing. I told him to put in enough water to make it look like raw brownies and cook it until it looked like cake. This is the result.

I know what your thinking. Stupid Lauren you should have helped him, now he has blown up some perfectly good chocolate. Well I happen to know that this is just a ploy so that I will help him next time. And that he has used something that I have a soft spot for to make me feel bad, that would be the chocolate. How do I know this, and how can I prove it? With a picture.

Does anyone look that happy when they have just blown up chocolate? Not unless they had some other motivation for doing so. Well I'm here to say that it isn't going to work mr. Gustavo, your trick won't work. And next time your going to just have to read the directions instead of throwing them away!
Just in case this all seemed too serious for anyone, I'm just kidding. About everything except helping in with microwavable things. Have a great day! :)

Monday, September 8, 2008

Family portrait

Well a few days ago we were having a little fun at work, and we decided to take a picture of all of us that were at work, that weren't taking the picture.
The first one is a serious picture.

Then we did one fun picture. Actually we did a lot of fun pictures.

In this one we are doing biggest to smallest.

Then we tried to reverse it without success.

I hope you enjoy my pictures!

Saturday, September 6, 2008

Sunday

Well I don't have much to share today I think I'm just going to share some of my sky watches that didn't make it.

I like how it was just floating out there all alone.



Picture of the sun, just as I was getting off work. It was already really hot.


Sunset on the way into work. The only reason this one didn't make it is because I have done a lot of sunset pictures. :)
I hope you all have a great Sunday.

Great flood


Why does he look like that you ask. Well the truth is I think he just didn't know I was going to take his picture right then. But I like to think its because he is in dismay over our bathroom being flooded.
This...problem happened the same night as the luau. I had just gotten back and another group of people from our section had gone when it happened. One of the patients, who happened to be Iraqi, came out of the bathroom in somewhat of a tizzy, but I couldn't find out why because he didn't speak english. So I went in there and water was shooting out of the back part of the toilet. Maybe shooting isn't the right word, maybe gushing is better. Anyway, I don't know anything about toilets or their repair, so I went up to the desk and got this fellow in the picture to come and fix it for me. He turned off the water and the water stopped gushing/shooting out from behind the toilet. Of course at that time we were faced with a new and interesting problem. The clean up.

You may notice that in this picture the floor looks shiny. Let me let you in on a little secret we don't wax, that is water. The whole bathroom was flooded before he was able to stop the water.

This is the mop bucket when we started. You may notice the floor doesn't look flooded I took this picture before we went in the bathroom.



This is the mop bucket when we were finished.

Thursday, September 4, 2008

Sky watch friday

Well this week, for my Sky Watch picture, I have a picture of the night sky its very nice. The sliver of moon means that we have started Ramadan, which is a Middle Eastern holiday. Hope you enjoy.

Hula

Well in our company we have a very good recreation person. She spends a lot of time organizing things that are fun, and getting us lots of food that we wouldn't normally get and so on. Well the most recent event that we had was a luau. I went for a little while, but I didn't have my camera with me. So when we were all back we got some pictures in our luau wear.

I never do get a very good picture of this lady, but she is one of the night RN's. She is a very nice lady with a wonderful sense of humor.

Here is Kim again, she really went all out.

And lastly this is a picture of another one of the night nurses who is a hoot, and Micheal. This is our night NCO, the man who leads us, and he is wearing a skirt!

Tuesday, September 2, 2008

Football season

All of my friends and family know that I am not a huge football fan. And by "huge football fan" I mean that just about the only time I will watch football is when I'm actually at a game. And when I am at that game I will route for the appropriate team. That team being the county high school team, college football team, where I live or that state. You tell me that football is playing on tv and I can't even force a pretend excitement. Around here for one reaason or another there is a lot of excitement about football. The other day one of my roomates, with the assistance of some of the other day staff, put up a football corner in the back part of our ward.

What you can't see in this picture is the tv off to the right, and rocking chair. This is going to encourage a patient/nurse/medic togetherness on our ward I am sure. Also this may help to bridge the small gap between the different armed forces. A problem that may not have occured to some of my companions, is that sometimes, concerning football, there is a rivalry that can get kind of dirty. We will see what really happens in the coming months that are referred to as football season.

Monday, September 1, 2008

A weight test

So at the same time as the wig pictures, we decided to test out a theory had by one of our nurses. This is him.

The theory was that if someone got in the pushup position on a scale with their hands on the scale.

Checked the weight, and then got on the scale in the push up position with their feet on the scale.

That it would equal their total weight.

Well this is what we do with our breaks at work, can you believe it? The weight test was only off by about 10 pounds. I actually credit the "wig" with the data anomaly.