I'm in New Yorkkkkkkkk!

This post is definitely going to seem out of place, but I HAVE to blog about it! At the end of March I decided I was finally going to visit Erin in New York. I have never been to New York and what a better way to see it that with my lovely cousin? I had it all set for the weekend after my birthday, but then I was required to stay at work and be on call. :( Luckily, between my schedule and Erin's, we were able to find a common weekend. End of April! I was so excited... even though it was a few weekends before I had to leave ISU.

I was lucky to have my parents drive me to the airport on Friday morning to fly out to LaGuardia. And that was the beginning of an amazing trip! Please enjoy these pictures and commentary of the coolest trip I've had in awhile.


First of all, I have never flown alone before. Second, when I do fly, I HATE being at the window seat. I did both of those this time! So this was a picture of me overcoming my fears. :) I survived flying out of O'hare and into New York!



Erin met me at the airport and took me to a bus which took us to the Bronx. It was exciting, we drove through 4 of the 5 areas of New York in just that time! We got to her (adorable) apartment and got ready to walk around and get dinner.



We (finally) decided on taking a walk over the Brooklyn Bridge first. It was very beautiful and exciting!



After we walked over the Bridge, we went to a yummy pizza place in Brooklyn. It was very fun to walk over the Bridge and have random conversations with Erin. We hadn't talked like that in a long time and it was wonderful. :) Once we got to the pizza place, we waited in line for about an hour... which was ok, we got to talk more!



Here is a picture of the AMAZING pizza we ate at Grimaldis. Incase you were wondering, we finish the whole thing. :) DELICIOUS!



We had a very cool walk back to the Bronx over the Bridge at night... I can't even describe how pretty it was!



The next day, we got up early to meet Erin's friends for a yummy Indian food lunch. Then, we ran off to... TIME'S SQUARE! We picked out a show that we wanted to get tickets for, but we wanted to try to get half price tickets, so we went to stand in line for awhile. I was seriously stunned about the size and lights and busy-ness of it!



After we bought our tickets, we had some time to kill, so we went to see the Empire State Building. Talk about a massive building! We decided to pass on the $26 tour fee to see the top. :P



We were on an ethnic food kick, and while walking around, we found a cute festival thing around dinner time. It was about to close, and a lot of the food was being sold for very cheap. What good timing! We found this sushi for about $5. Talk about DELICIOUS and very affordable, lol. We decided to take it to Central Park and eat it together. How adorable. :)



After we finished our dinner, we had time to walk around Central Park... and we got this adorable picture in front of a pond. Talk about love!


A beautiful view of the trees in Central Park. Next time I visit, I want to do a bike ride tour of the park. :)



After our wonderful Central Park tour, we went back to Times Square to watch the show we bought tickets for.... Wonderland! It was a take on Alice and Wonderland, but was set in New York and the main character fell into an elevator shaft instead of a rabbit hole. It was AMAZING! It was funny, entertaining, well written, and had wonderful music. It was the best experience ever!



On the way back home to the Bronx, we stopped back in the middle of Times Square to get a picture of me with all the lights. Again, I was in awe of how busy and bright it was, for 10pm! What an awesome experience.



The next day, we decided to check out the Statue of Liberty. We went to buy tickets and got into line for the ferry, while eating hot dogs and pretzels from the carts. Yummy! I cannot even express how cold the ferry ride was! Brrr... but we finally got to Liberty Island and it was amazing! After we saw Lady Liberty, we also went to Ellis Island to look around and get educated.



That day, we also went to Ground Zero. It was a very humbling moment and very powerful. This is the memorial wall. It was amazing how silent the grounds were compared to across the street, where it was bustling. Very powerful moment.



That night, we went to dinner at a great Italian restaurant in the Bronx. We had quite the experience. We planned on eating at Roberto's, a place that Erin loves to go to. We walked over to it... and found that it was closed! What?!?! We were devastated! But luckily, there was a sign on the door indicating that the owners had another location, a few blocks away. Well, why not! So we went over there and were overjoyed to see that this location had basically the same food and atmosphere. We split 2 entrees and a bottle of wine. Whew, that wine sure got to us! :) It was a great meal and I would totally love to go back there! Plus, that waiter was pretty darn adorable.... ;-)




The next morning (after an evening of even more wine at Erin's apartment, and watching Obama's speech), we went to breakfast at another one of Erin's favorite restaurants. We had yummy eggel sandwiches and did NY Times crosswords. It was so adorable and I want to do this again with her!



The last thing we did on the trip was see Fordham's campus. It was absolutely beautiful! I'm glad Erin loves it so much because I certainly did!


It was a great trip and I had a BLAST. I can't wait to go back and see more of New York and hang out with Erin some more. I can't even express how much fun I had seeing an exciting city with a dear cousin! Thanks for being a great tour guide, Erin! :) <3

New Feature: Foliage Friday - Ginkgo Tree

Since this blog is called "Amyluvstrees" and I love plants and work at a Forest Preserve, I thought it would be fun to do a feature called...

Foliage Friday!

Each Friday I am going to pick a plant that I love and share it with you. Maybe you will be inspired to plant it in your yard to make it more green. :)

Plant: Ginkgo biloba


Why: Ok, this one is sort of obvious, but I have to start off with this one! It is my absolute favorite tree and was one of the trees in the unit of my woody landscape plants class that sealed my new love for plants. It has a very unique leaf, very different from other trees. Also, it is one of the oldest trees that has been found as a fossil, approximately 270 million years ago.

Picture: Unique leaf


The leaves of the ginkgo tree are very unique in the fact that they have fan-shaped leaves, with radiating veins. Also, the leaves usually also have a notch in them between some veins, which makes them also easy to identify. They have a lovely light green to dark green color in summer, and turn a vibrant yellow in fall.

Landscape info: Ginkgos adapt very well to urban landscape areas, as they can tolerate pollution, soil compaction, drought, and small soil spaces. They do not have many (if any) documented disease or insect problems. They are also a great shade tree when they reach maturity! They can be found planted in street medians or alongside roadways.

Other uses: I'm sure you've heard that ginkgo can be used in supplements for short term memory lost. The medicine is extracted from the leaves. Also, roasting the fruits from the trees is considered a delicacy in China.

Fun facts: There are some ginkgo trees that are believed to be over 1,500 years old and are still standing in China today! In fact, it is a very common tree in China. Female ginkgo trees produce a round, fleshy fruit... which unfortunately smells like a stinky diaper. Be sure to buy a male plant if you are interested in planting this tree! This smelly fruit also gives the ginkgo tree the nickname "Stinky Tree." In Japan, it is rumored that gingko trees planted near the 1945 atom bomb explosion were the only living things that survived. Even though they were charred, they healed and were strong, healthy trees again. Amazing!


Hope you enjoyed this first edition of Foliage Friday! Hope to see you again next Friday for some more foliage fun. :)


Some information found from: http://www.arborday.org, http://landscaping.about.com, and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ginkgo_biloba

I'm not flippin' you off....

But I slammed my finger in a door!

Back in March I mentioned in my post called "I like to slam my fingers in doors" that I accidentally slammed my finger in a residence hall door. It looked like this the night after:


It was lovely! As it started to heal, I noticed that my nail was getting funky looking. I got sensation back and could type, use the computer mouse, and text just fine within a week or so. I used the brace for awhile, and then was able to move it without any more pain. I thought things were getting back to normal. But still... the nail was looking funky! Like this...



The blue part seemed to be spreading... this was about a month after the slammage. Hmm. Not long after this picture, the pain started to come back. Almost as severe as when I slammed it in the door. I started to freak out about my fingernail spontaneously falling off, so I went to the doctor to be sure.

That appointment was interesting. I explained what I did and he actually laughed at the situation. It's ok, I really liked this doctor, lol. When he started to take a look at it and considered draining the blood from under the nail. To be sure that was the best idea, he asked an associate for a second opinion. And the associate decided that it was worthless since the injury was a month old. However, they did notice that I couldn't bend it all the way down and it was hyper extending. I honestly didn't even notice it was a problem!

They left the room for a bit and my doctor came back in. Concerning my finger nail, he blatantly informed me that I was going to lose the nail and there's nothing he could do about it. I turned to him and said, "Look doc, I do NOT want to wake up in the middle of the night with my fingernail laying next to me in bed. That horrifies me."

He laughed again.

But seriously, he apologized because removing it that day would be more painful then letting it fall off. *sigh* Then he gave me a few exercises for my finger to get the motion back. If not... arthritis will set in and surgery is a major option. Eek!

I won't put any pictures on here of what the nail looked like as we started trimming it, or how it currently looks NAILLESS (yes, it is finally gone, and now I look all gnarly!) because I don't want to scare away my very loyal readers. :)

What injury should we go for next? Hehe....

Ending ISU Career

Greetings!

I am indeed the owner of this poorly maintained blog. :( To be fair, a LOT has gone on since my last real post, but still... I deserve a slap on the hand for this! Let's see... since April, there were a few fun events that happened down at ISU. I'll throw a few pictures in here with the events!

Passing of the Gavel
I've written about ARH's Passing of the Gavels before. This year I was invited as an alumni! Talk about funny feeling, but it was great to catch up and see some people I haven't seen in awhile. Shannon came down and we went together... and caught up with Glenn and John! We had a blast sitting at a table together reminiscing. Of course it was a little awkward at some moments, but let's not talk about that anymore. I'm over it!

Roommates at their fourth Passing of the Gavel!


Last year's President and Vice President


Part of the 2009-2010 ARH Executive Board. So sweet!

Another really special moment was being inducted into the AAFN. That stands for Association of Alumni and Friends of NACURH. What does that mean? Well, the current ARH executive board decided to induct someone into the AAFN to represent ISU. The AAFN are a group of people recognized for their support and activity within NACURH. I was very honored to be nominated, let alone chosen to be inducted from ISU. (Because let's face it... 1/2 of this year's board doesn't care for me.) At Passing of the Gavel, they announced I was selected!

Maureen (director of UHS and the last person ISU inducted) presented me with the selection


She had some very sweet things to say and it was very cool!

Finally, I got to see a good friend of mine, Angel, become the new President of ARH. I am very proud of him and look forward to what he can do! I remember when he was just a small freshman, running for president of West Campus... :) Regardless, I am excited for him and Kayla, the new Vice President. I'm always here for you two!

Angel giving his presidential remarks!

It was awesome to catch up with Kim and Shannon and Glenn. We had so much fun remembering good times and making plans to return to ARH's Passing's for many years to come!

End of Contract
Well, I did other things between Passing of the Gavel and my contract ending, but it fits into this blog post better than any other ones. Plus, I don't really want to write its own post. Honestly, I very excited to finish and start another opportunity. I was counting down the days... but right at the end, I got very sad. Looking at my empty office and empty apartment was very rough. Some employees and coworkers came forward to tell me how much they were going to miss me. That meant a LOT because a lot of the time, I didn't feel appreciated at all. My last service area meeting (with all 55 of my employees) was very touching. Some came forward to hug me, while others verbally told me how much it meant for them to have me around.

I'm getting teary thinking about it...

Even though I didn't really come out and tell any of them, they were probably the number one reason I stayed, next to my loyalty to my boss. Some of my coworkers, higher administration, and the extreme demands of my position pushed me farther and farther away. Some days that I wanted to throw the towel in... an employee would say something, do something, or show that I was needed for that moment. Now, having 55 people to supervise is a lot, and keeping track of them all was tough... but in most of them, I saw some sort of improvement. Whether it was in organization, reliability, respect, or job pride, they all took small strides. I couldn't leave that or them for me. I started the job and wanted to finish it. Some days I wonder if I stayed another year, what difference that would continue to make in their lives.

I'll never know, but I can thank them for a nice "goodbye" experience at the end. VERY few coworkers said goodbye or made an effort at all. It was very tough to put in the extra hours I did at the end, do summer training that was not required of me, and empty my office without anyone really caring. However, the outpour of facebook friend requests, letters, and emails that came in were really amazing. And once again, those crazy kids kept me going. :)

My office the night before I moved out. All empty.
No more of my color or spunk. :( Good times in there!

And with that.... that is all I have to report from my ISU experiences. On Wednesday, May 11th, my parents came to pick me up, and I turned my keys in for the last time. As I drove away from Atkin Colby, I did tear up and I knew this was an experience I'll never have again, and I did learn A LOT. But here is to new beginnings! :)

BREAKING NEWS!!!!

THERE IS ACTUALLY AN OWNER TO THIS BLOG.

Her name: Amy.

We have located her. She is indeed still alive and does accept full responsibility for the lack of updates of her blog. Slacker.

Please stay tuned for ACTUAL UPDATES regarding the end of her ISU employment, her trip to New York, her new job, and... of course her poor finger.

Regrets and apologies are passed along from Amy.... if there's actually anyone left!!!