Picture this: Sicily. 1965:

Only replace "Sicily" with "UMass" and replace "1965" with "2014".

Yesterday I was sitting outside talking on the phone at the nearby picnic tables to my work. while there, bees and other insects were nearby, but weren't bothering me so I was fine. after a bit I hung up the phone because I had to use the bathroom. 

Generally speaking when I use the bathroom at work, I use the handicap stall because it's spacious- where the non-handicap stalls are so tiny it's a balancing act just to shut the door and not fall in the toilet. They are so small that that if the handicap stall is occupied, I will go to a different floor to use the bathroom.

Anyway, so there I am using the toilet when I feel something on my neck, I touch it and immediately realize it's a bee, and begin to swat it away frantically. ACK! it's under the collar of my shirt! SHIT! it kind of feels like it's in my hair! I rip off my shirt and throw it on the floor and attempt to shake out my hair. The bee isn't on me anymore, but it did sting me on the neck. Well shit. I sit there for a minute looking around, "I don't see the bee.. not on the floor anywhere... That's when I notice it sitting in the crotch of my underwear.

I bolt up, and strip off my clothes and the damn thing stings me again! This time in my thigh. I stand there shaking with the adrenaline rush and breathing weird. Mother F'er. It hurts and am grateful I am not my mother in this situation, for she is allergic to bees.... Can you imagine the headline of that story? "Lady gets stung by bees while peeing on the toilet, found mostly naked and probably nearly dead" (sorry mom).

After a few seconds, I see the bee crawling out of my shorts strewn in a heap on the floor, and curse under my breath as I realize my sandals which also came off in the rapid strip of my clothes, were under my shorts. It's now or never, and I reach down grab a sandal and whack the bee, hard, about 3 times. 

I manage to finish what I was doing prior to the bee, and get dressed shakily as the adrenaline started to wear off. A few beats later, I am laughing at myself, because I start to think about "what if someone walked in while my clothes were flying off", and just had a visual of the whole scenario  in my head, and it was hilarious. So upon arrival back to my Lab, I tell my colleagues, and then my friend whom I had just been on the phone with, and then mention it on twitter with a friend. I am laughing at myself. 

Just remember that when you're having a crappy day YOU can say, "Welp, at least I don't' have a bee in my underwear." and mean it. *sigh*

Which made me think, why is it that all my funny stories involve the bathroom. At work.?

There was another time I went in to use the bathroom, and the older Korean woman from across the hall was in the tiny stall (I can tell by the shoes... trust me), so I happily went into the one I like to call "my office". This stall is larger than BOTH my bathrooms at home, not combined, but still LARGER THAN BOTH MY BATHROOMS AT MY HOUSE. It's a luxury to use really, and I get a small mount of satisfaction when I can see I'm the first to use the toilet that day. I know this because the seat is up when I walk in.

Anyway, so Dr. Dolan is in her stall, and she exits, and then MAKES A PHONE CALL and doesn't leave. Cripes. So there I am all done with my business, fully clothed standing there politely waiting to flush so that way the sounds of toilet flushing won't be heard by the person on the other end. I have no idea if this is a personal or business call (because she is speaking in Korean) but after a good while of fidgeting and standing there, I finally just flush and walk out to use the lone sink to wash my hands, and she's leaning on it. She looks and moves, but doesn't leave the bathroom. I leave her in there as I exit.

While I am in the potty talk mode, why the hell do they only put one sink, for 2-3 stalls in public restrooms here? So many times there are more than 1 person needing to use the sink at the same time. Some times, someone just needs the mirror, but it's always awkward.

Thus ends the reading...

but really the year, no reading.. that is just a line from church which may be said after the person reading one of the readings finishes. It seemed fitting as this is the last day of 2009. I have been practicing saying 2010 as twenty-ten as I like the sound of it better than saying two thousand ten. History prevails as all other years are referred to as 2 double digits, with the exception of the last decade as people fumbled with saying the year in a way that was comfortable. twenty-ten. I like it. Imaging saying out 1999 or something it seems rather ridiculous. to cumbersome.
2009 certainly wasn't a banner year for awesomeness, (is any one year ever really better than the next for the average person?) but there are some things  that happened for for me that I'm glad about.
-I managed to keep my job when other people haven't been so lucky. I have been trying diligently to not complain, about the bad days (of course there have been some days where it was just so bad I had to complain) because every time I do, I feel lucky to just have a job. I have also done my best to correct the things that the boss yelled at me for, and even had some stuff added to my plate voluntarily. At my work there are no evaluations. You can only assume you are doing things okay when the boss doesn't yell at you for something stupid.

-last year I taught myself to crochet and this year I managed to get others at church to make a bunch of baby hats and blankets for the new little babies at the hospital. I have found a thrill in yarn shopping. (it's so old lady, I know) I have perfected the hat pattern on one of my favorite blogs. I have made all kids of different sizes with all kinds of different yarn for tons of different people. for grown up I make skull caps and for kids I've been known to add on ear flaps with ties.

Here is my hat in a super alpaca yarn. I also just made a little protective sock thing using cotton yarn for my new GPS which the husband got for me for Christmas.

ok. so due to children now being awake I have lost my train of thought and need to find a new one.uh.. ah ha!
I got one. yesterday afternoon I had a persistent dull headache. not a migraine, but tylenol and ibuprofen doesn't touch it. I have learned over the last couple years this is due to low body temperature. like 95 degrees low.. it's odd. at one point I scoured the internet on why this would happen and the only thing I came up with with is hypothermia.... that is not the case in my case. It is not very regular so I can't attribute it to a new pms symptom, but it happens enough that when I get this headache I take my temp and it's low. weird. speaking of which I am still adjusting to pms symptoms after having my second child.. I never had any until some time after Liam was born.  Insta-bitch catches me off-guard almost every time... and watch out when it hits, it hits with a vengence, and I feel bad about it, but my tolerance for annoying family members disappears, and I am miserable for about 1.5-2 days... the cramps catch me off guard too.. it is always a full day of being uncomfortable before I realize I can take some tylenol, in true blonde fashion.. a little slow to the punch I guess.. lol this has been happeneing for less then 2 years.. oh the joys of getting old..

oh! Evan has lost to 2 upper front teeth!!

it is hard to get a decent picture of this kid, so you better appreciate this picture! I have also misplaced my regular camera.. can't seem to find it, so I'm back to using my cell phone cam.. Thus I was unable to take any pictures at Christmas.

Oh yeah.. I have started to think bout other careers. I even took some classes as pre-req for the elementart education program at umass, but didn't take classes this semester as they weren't offering the ones I needed. In the meantime, I have also considered going into Middle school science, which I think I would really enjoy, but I need to take soem refresher courses to pass the test, and those classes weren't being offered either. unless I wanted to take them MWF at 1:25. can't do that, sorry... and with all the recent budget cuts to towns and schools having to lay off teachers, it may not be the wisest field to get into at this very moment. I have also toyed with the idea of going to photography school, which we have in the next town over.. It's very good and only a 10 month intensive program. so the down side is that I can't work while going there oh, and the tuition is $50,000.. yeah.. but you get some pretty awesome stuff once you walk in the door with that tuition being paid. including industry stand camera and all your books and stuff paid... but I bet I would really dig it, I just can't to that until liam is in "free school" aka kindergarten, most likely.

that is all for now.. I guess. I hope everyone has a great and joyous new year.. Stay Warm. Stay Healthy