Ok, first things first.  Phillip Phillips won American Idol!  And well he should have, he is amazing!  I'm beside myself with excitement and can't wait to buy his music.

I worked Tuesday night so here I am, awake.  I slept from about midnight to 1:30 last night, but have been awake since then.  I finally stopped trying to sleep and came into my living room to watch TV.  There's some good TV on this time of day-- right now Home Improvement is on.  Nothing like good old '90s sitcoms.

Now I'm off work for a couple weeks.  This weekend I'm going to visit family up north for my cousin's wedding.  I'm excited!  Mostly excited that I got some time off of work.  I've been enjoying work lately, but it has also been stressful.  Unfortunately, I am coming down with a very sore throat and cough-- which I think I caught from a patient.  Never in three years have I caught anything from a patient, and I'm hoping this isn't too bad.

Have I mentioned that I am going to New York City next month to visit my cousin?  I'm SO EXCITED about this!  I have never been before and have wanted to go for as long as I can remember.  Perhaps first prompted by a long-time favorite movie of mine, Newsies?  Speaking of which, I am also going to be seeing on broadway!

I love traveling.  I'm excited to be doing more of that as the years go by.

It's like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo.  The ones that really mattered.  Full of darkness and danger, they were.  And sometimes you didn't want to know the end.  Because how could the end be happy?  How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad happened?  But in the end, it's only a passing thing, this shadow.  Even darkness must pass.  A new day will come.  And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer.
- The Two Towers

Magic Carpet Ride!  I couldn't ride this without singing "A Whole New World"

My mom and brother went off to join some friends, so my dad and I did the mad tea party together.  And I didn't get sick!  Yeah!

Small World... worthy of a good nap

If you go to Disney, you must stay for the Main Street Electrical Parade.  So much fun!

Here we are just after riding Expedition Everest.  So much fun!

My brother's favorite ride, The Primeval Wheel in Animal Kingdom.  Turned out to be a little scarier than we thought but somehow conned my mom into going on.

On the Kiliminjaro Safari

After riding the dinosaur ride.  That ride is a lot scarier than it sounds!

Disney was a LOT of fun!!  Although I'm a Disney veteran, I have never done two days of it in a row.  It was exhausting.  Seriously, how do people do four days of it?  No thank you.  One or two is enough for me.

Went back to work this week, turned out to be a challenging few nights but good.  Last night I left work feeling like I really made a difference.  One of my patients was going downhill... but the doctor wouldn't believe me.  That is really hard.  It wasn't worthy of a support team but that would have been my next step if I hadn't finally convinced the doctor that this patient had to be in critical care.  Of course, I'm a competent nurse but I work on a med-surg telemetry floor.  When I have 4-6 patients, I can't take care of a critically ill patient on top of all that.  I felt like a real patient advocate.  Woot woot!  Doing the job I'm supposed to on nurses week (and all the other weeks too)!

Recently I've been working on learning to love myself.  Flaws and all.

I don't know if guys struggle with this concept, or if it is just a complete non-issue for them... but I think that most women can find more than one thing that they hate about themselves.  For me, the constant battle has been with my personality and my body image.  Never quite as thin as I'd like to be... not as pretty as the next girl... in fact, not even pretty at all... and why the hell wasn't I given a more effervescent personality?  You know how there's always that girl who isn't pretty or thin, but oh, she just has such a beautiful personality?  Yeah.  Still not me.

It occurred to me recently what a boring world this would be if we all fit the cookie-cutter mold of what we think beautiful is.  Whether it is the world's perspective, or even the perfect-Christian-girl perspective (because I can think of no place else that expects such perfection out of women-- even if it isn't overtly taught).  What if we all had the same personalities?  The same hair, the same bodies?  Even if these things didn't all look exactly alike, it would still be a pretty weird place.

It isn't to say that we shouldn't take care of ourselves.  But let's face it.  Some women have issues with their body image (or health) that affects their bodies in ways they can't help.  Some starve themselves.  Others make themselves throw up.  Still, others can't control what they eat all the time.  Sometimes there are underlying health problems that you don't know about, and she can't help that her body doesn't allow her to lose (or gain) weight.  It is cruel to say these women have no will power.  That they simply don't take care of themselves.  But that is the general consensus: if she is overweight, then she is lazy.

I worked with a lady from a west Africa, and once when I was mentioning about my weight and how I wished I were thinner, she said to me, "In my country your body is desirable!"  Well then perhaps I am living in the wrong country... but you know what?  I have the body that I want.  Because I am healthy.  I am capable of running and walking.  I am free of ailments.  I can wake up each day and work long hours and make money.  So what if I don't look like a model?  Looks can only carry you so far.  I have a job that I went to school for, obtained on my merits, and continue to work damn hard at.  I'm not saying those are the most important things in life.  But if anyone were to judge me, then judge me by my accomplishments and not just the looks God did or didn't give to me!

I am well aware that yes, some women are more beautiful than others.  I'm not against beauty pageants and modeling and all that... but I think representation for women of all types would be nice.  (like opening up a catalog being able to simply say "I love that outfit!" instead of "Cute outfit but it wouldn't look that good on me..." I'm just saying!)

And I'll end by saying that I am learning to be happy with how I am.  Accepting of it.  Changing the things that I can, and accepting and loving the things I can't.

Rant over.  :)