This is my journey from S.N to R.N

Ugh, I am not a fan of the man rug. I’m not gonna lie. What’s a man rug you ask? The really ridiculously furry chest hair that men sometimes like to sport.

So, man rugs are seemingly harmless right? Wrong!

How could that be, you might be asking yourself now. Well, I’ll tell you.

In my CPR/AED class, I learned that man rugs can get in the way of saving your life. Preposterous? I think not!

If, heaven forbid, an AED (defibrillator machine) needs to be used on a person, a man rug can slow down the process. The pads that go on the chest and/or back may not be able to pick up electric pulses if the man rug is too thick. Protocol calls for a razor (which comes in some of the kits) to be used to shave that part of the chest and then try again. If no razor is available, the first set of pads are applied and then used to rip out the hair. Essentially, wax the areas. A second set of pads are used for the defibrillation.

However, if there is no razor and one set of pads…well, good luck and I hope they get some pulses.

So there you go. A great reason why man rugs are dangerous and should not be allowed.

So, we are moving from a one bedroom apartment to a full sized townhome. What does that mean? We need more furniture.

I shamelessly stalked Craigslist for days in search of the best deals on the perfect pieces of furniture for our new home. We have most everything we really need. The only things we were really hurting for were some couches. We needed one for the living room and one for the Man Cave.

As of now, we have a futon from Ikea. Only thing is that it’s kinda hard and not something you can sink into. Being creatures of comfort, my husband and I agreed to splurge on two couches if we could find them for cheap. And so, the search began.

Now, all the reasonable looking couches were $100 and over. To be honest, we didn’t have two hundred bucks to blow on furniture. We didn’t want to break into our savings or closing cost money. And really, we didn’t want to spend that on something we didn’t really need.

There was a beige sofa and a green sofa sleeper that looked super comfy and had caught my eye. We planned on leaving the futon upstairs along with another sofa for maximum seating and putting another downstairs. The sleeper would be perfect for when we had guests stay and for when Isaac and his brothers wanted to unravel the bed and sprawl out during a Halo 3 marathon.

So, the emails and negotiations began. Needless to say, I got the beige sofa down from $50 to a whopping $35. She also gave us the really nice coffee table and matching end table for free.  Green sleeper sofa was desperate to get the couch out of his house for lack of room, so I got that for $50 instead of the $100 he wanted.

Time spent on computer: 3-4 hours.

2 sofas, coffee table, and end table: $85

Uhaul: $20

Knowing your house is fully furnished w/o spending too much $$: Priceless

We are officially in escrow! Things are moving along quite nicely. I’ll be more relaxed once we actually have the keys though…
Work is going well as is school. Sorry for the lack of posting, I’ve picked up some extra shifts and have gone out of town a couple of times. I’ll post about my New York/Philadelphia trip soon.
Hope everything is well with you!

Well, Nashville was all out of gas just a few days ago.

And I almost was too!

Leaving work in Chapel Hill, my low fuel light came on. I knew there was a station just 2 minutes up ahead near my house so I waited. I got there and parked and looked up to a big sign that said “all out or Unleaded Regular…”

But, I need unleaded regular. So did my tank which was still glowing with the Low Fuel light. I went across the street and there were bags on all the pumps. I’m really starting to panic at this point because there wasn’t another gas station for a bit and I was afraid of having to use my Triple AAA card at 10 at night after a long shift. I was tired and hungry.

However, in one pump there was a bag missing. I pulled up to it and it was a pump for some unleaded regular. My lucky night! I filled up and went home happily.

Moral of the Story: Don’t wait until the last minute to fill up your tank.

That’s what the sign on my Kangaroo pump said this evening.

I was driving home from class around 10pm tonight, talking on the phone with my mother and noticed that the the two gas stations near her house (one on each corner) had been marked at $3.89 a gallon. Now, I know some of you readers might think that this is inexpensive compared to some places, but hear me out.

These same two gas stations had been marked at a mere $3.66 at 5pm earlier today. And at $3.64 yesterday! That’s right. It jumped over $0.20 in the last 5 hours. So I drove and went back and forth with my mother, each of us expressing our shock at the price jump. My apartment is off the main street at the other end which also has a gas station on the corner.  I noticed the price was still only $3.69 so I decided to go ahead and jump on it before it skyrockets by morning. Luckily, my low fuel light had come on so I didn’t feel the need to procrastinate.

I pull up to my pump and notice a sign taped to it saying that the station was encouraging everyone to get only 10 gallons of gas so that there would be enough for many customers. I was thinking, “Wow, intense!” Apparently, the Carolinas along with the rest of the Southeast rely on the Gulf for their fuel. Which is about to be bombarded by Hurricane Ike. And a few of the pipelines in Georgia were damaged already.

As I pumped my gas, I noticed there were already cars lining up waiting to my pump as well as those around me. It was a hassle to get out of there!

I got home, at a light snack with Isaac and told him about the gas station. His car had been on empty also so we decided he should probably load up before morning. Rumors online said prices could be up to well over $4 by morning, even nearing $5 by nightfall- we’d rather not risk that and just get the tank filling out of the way. It was 11:10 when he left.

Isaac just walked in the door a couple of minutes ago and said the gas station, the same one I had been at about 45 minutes before mind you, was all of gas and he had to go up the street to the other gas station.

Insane! Hopefully, a widespread gas shortage panic won’t ensue. I think we have bigger things to concern ourselves with such as our brothers and sisters in Texas.

How are gas prices in your areas?