Nature and Me = :)

Over my spring break I decided I needed a few healthy doses of nature to make up for how much I was missing by my job. First place I went - Spring Valley of course! It was a warmer day, so I didn't mind trekking around. The week was pretty chilly and rainy.

Salt Creek

I went to my favorite spot - Salt Creek first. It was definitely flowing as the snow was melting steadily. For some reason, I just love sitting on the bridge watching the water flow and the small creatures running around. :)

Me in the creek

Yes, I know how silly this picture is. But I saw a bottle in the creek and wanted to pick it up. So, I set my autotimer and was going to pose with to prove my awesomeness. Well, I underestimated how long 10 seconds is, as well as how soupy the creek bank was. So, my camera has about 10 tries of me trying to get it out, as well as me having fun with the autotimer in general. Haha...

Pond

I went from the creek to the cabin and took a look at the frozen pond. It was oddly peaceful sitting on the bench. There was a little breeze, but other than that, it was completely silent. A very rare moment in this spot!

Hay field

I wandered over to the farm and took the back paths to see what was new back there. This view is the back of the hayfield. On my camera lens, it looked like that light colored grass was smoke. I thought it was sooo cool!

Horse and Engel

I ended up walking all the way to my car by the time I realized that I never to got to see the livestock. I went back to the farm and caught Engel and one of the draft horses outside. I'm horrible and have no idea which horse this is! It's either Price or Duke. Ooops! I had fun watching them and sitting on the wagon seat.

Later on during my spring break week, I decided to finally go and check out the Chicago Botanic Gardens. I have never visited the gardens, and that felt silly, especially given my major, my passion, and that I wanted to apply to work there. I finally decided to go and at least see what the major attractions were, so I could sound semi knowledgeable if I got past the application stage.

I loved the saying above the door in the visitor center. Everyone here was SO friendly! And of course, there was a sweeeeet gift shop in here ;-)



This is what I saw as soon as I walked outside of the visitor center. It took my breath away and it was still technically winter! The blues were so blue and the yellow in the tree was just as beautiful. I knew from the minute I left the center that I could love working there.


I also wandered over to a huge set of greenhouses that were connected. I learned that there were different types of plants/environments in each greenhouse. I LOVE working in greenhouses, especially show/educational greenhouses. I didn't want to leave! It reminded me of working in the greenhouses during my undergrad!


This little guy is a young ginkgo tree. I do what I can to subliminally hint to my dad that we should plant one in his backyard. :) I love this tree!



Well this sure was enough pictures huh? I'll keep the pictures and/or nature to a minimum has I post in the next few weeks. Thanks for suffering through it. :)

I like to slam my fingers in doors

I just got back from a week off of work - it was ISU's spring break. It was a pretty amazing week! i got to relax, hang out with my parents, see Stephanie, and go to Spring Valley and the Botanic Gardens. It was a perfect break from all the ISU craziness.

But Amy, why didn't you blog AT ALL?

Oh, that would have a pretty simple explanation..... I slammed my finger into a door!

Haha, ok.... I will explain. I was helping close Hamilton Whitten because a co-worker was feeling under the weather. Closing a building includes checking every room to be sure the trash is removed, windows are closed, blinds are open, and everything is unplugged. The RAs do a majority of this, but professional staff needs to go through and recheck everything... specifically sign each window.

I decided to check Hamilton and was given 3 RAs. What cracked me up is all the boy RAs went with me and all the girl RAs went with the other helper, which happened to be a man. It's ok, they are very fun RAs! We started on the 10th floor and started doing our thing....

... 1 RA would unlock the doors
... 1 RA would follow me (to make sure I dont steal anything) and do a final check
... 1 RA would follow us and relock the doors

We had a great system going, and we were zipping through it. They are hilarious to listen to and they decided to play their own music, which was entertaining to watch as they danced around and sang. When we got down to the second floor, we got an text saying the building service workers suspected a cat living on the second floor. We decided to be extra thorough to see if we could smell or find any evidence. The boys started to spring ahead of me, checking the rooms. As I was done with my check, I would pull the door shut behind me so the locking RA knew I was done.

Well.... for whatever reason I was at one room and as I was pulling the door shut, I heard the boys laughing about something. I turned around the corner and simply did not pull my hand out fast enough! Plus... the door was randomly lighter than the rest of the doors!

I was INSTANTLY in indescribable pain. I felt my eyes bulge out of my head. Now, I've jammed my finger in a door before, but this was different. As I looked down at my finger, blood was seeping out around my nail. I wanted to fall to the floor in pain, but we were almost done and I didn't want to over react to something so dumb.

As I started to go into the next room, I could feel my finger swelling and throbbing. It didn't take long for the boys to notice something was wrong. I showed them what I did and got a unanimous "ahhh that looks like it hurts!"

The blue under my fingernail formed instantly. As we finished the rest of the building, I was struggling to hold back tears. I went to my apartment and wrapped my finger because touching my nail was incredibly painful. I packed up my car and was determined to still get home. As I drove, I had to keep my hand up on the passenger seat headrest to keep the throbbing under control.

I came home and showed my parents what I did. Of course, they started to laugh before anything... Amy slammed her finger into a door and it's semi-serious? Of course! After my 2 hour drive and packing and unpacking, it was feeling and getting worse.


I unwrapped my finger and noticed how much bruising developed on my ride home. I could barely bend or straighten my finger! Owie! The pain kept getting worse, and I honestly thought I was going to throw up after trying to shower with it. :(

The next morning, I was in just as much pain, if not more. My dad gently suggested going to the ER to be sure there wasn't a minor fracture anywhere. I agreed, maybe I would get an anti-inflammatory to help the unbearable pain under my finger nail!

Mom went with me to get her own situation checked out, and we split up. I was cracking up almost the whole time because it was a family trip to the ER on my first day home. Before long, my x-rays came back negative and the doctor told me (in not so many words), "Well, I can't do anything for you, this is just going to really hurt for a week or two."


She gave me this sexy, new brace and a pain pill prescription and wished me luck. Good news - it wasn't broken! But boy that pain under my nail is killer. Moral of the story, typing is pretty difficult to do over my break! What a break, huh? :) Luckily, things are getting better and the pain is not as difficult!

I'll put up some pictures soon of the rest of my break!!

Square

I haven't posted in a bit... but I can't think of anything to post about that isn't really wordy like my last post... and I can sort of tell I'm boring the few readers I do have. Hmm...

The only thing I can think of sharing is a few pictures of the square vase I've been using to make arrangements the past week or so. When I first got home from surgery, Mike, Adam, and Nicole gave me this really pretty arrangement.

It had gorgeous carnations and roses and orange and everything ! I absolutely loved it. It lasted for quite a long time, too. Once some of the flowers started to fade away, I decided to combine this arrangement with the one from my parents and grandparents. I ended up with something like that.

This is a bad angle and after I took the picture, I fixed the baby's breath so it wasn't sticking out so far. I had fun with the colors and working with flowers again! This arrangement seriously lasted another week and a half! This is ANOTHER reason that I LOVE carnations... they last so long and I just love looking at them. They are soooo pretty to me! I can't get over it. I don't like roses... at all. A few here and there are nice... but they aren't pretty to me, and what bugs me the most is how quickly they fade. I shouldn't hold that against the flower... but I do. :P



Once everything in that arrangement faded, I went out and bought a random bouquet of flowers from Jewel. I was loving the color and... they were really cheap. Haha... so I arranged them in the square vase. I think it looks fun! Don't worry, the random spiky green filler isn't there anymore... I thought it looked kinda dumb after I took the picture.

So moral of the story.... I am totally at a loss of things to talk about, and I love my new square vase!