chez Colleen

chez Colleen is the internet blog and creative outlet for Colleen Berding, located in the middle of America. Recipes, reveries, and recess in no particular order.

Sunday, March 30, 2008

A little light humor...

My seventysomething aunt sent me this one. Enjoy!


A psychiatrist was conducting a group therapy session with four young mothers and their small children.

'You all have obsessions,' he observed.

To the first mother, he said: 'You are obsessed with eating. You've even named your daughter Candy.'

'He turned to the second Mom, : 'Your obsession is with money. Again, it manifests itself in your child's name, Penny.'

He turned to the third Mom, and said: 'Your obsession is alcohol. This too shows itself in your child's name, Brandy.'

At this point, the fourth mother, quietly got up, took her little boy by the hand and whispered, 'Come on, Dick, we're leaving..'

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Party, party, party

At least it seemed like it was going to be a party at my house. Bubba was thoroughly convinced that Hubby was going to have about 20 people come over and pay homage to his birthday yesterday bearing gifts. No, sweetie, big people only occasionally have big birthday parties and since Dad is not yet a big-0 (like 5-0) birthday, Mom did not arrange one.

Mom did make Dad his favorite birthday cake (carrot with cream cheese icing) fresh yesterday. This was in an effort not to burn the house down by trying to bake it late at night on Friday. Hubby and Bubba has a fun time in the AM going to estate sales and Hubby even found two sets of speakers (thankfully small ones) at the last one. Bubba was assigned to guard them while Hubby paid some ridiculously low price for them.

In the afternoon, we went to get our family photo taken for the parish directory and then we went to University City for Thai food, which is what Hubby picked. Bubba went along with things, but there was no way he was letting Hubby have two sticks of chicken satay. Truly, if I had not fought for my two sticks, Bubba would have eaten all six all by himself. He ate a little of his chicken pad thai, but we brought most of that home.

We shopped on the Loop and Bubba bought himself (he said it was Dad's birthday present) Snow Buddies. We watched that when we got home. All in all, it was a pretty good day.

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Sunday, March 09, 2008

Another silly test


I really love these silly tests...so after I finished my med calcs for my new job today, I just had to find the silliest one out there. Here's my results. Your mileage may vary, but at least it's a fun, silly thing to do while surfing...



What Your Peanut Butter And Jelly Sandwich Means



Your eating style is gluttonous. If you like something, you're going back for seconds... no matter how full you are! (NOTE: oh, no they outed me!)



You don't really have a sweet tooth. If you go for dessert, you tend to go for something light. (yeah, right!)



Your taste in food tends to be complex and sophisticated. You're probably a great cook, and talented at mixing unusual flavors. (at least the cook part is close...)



You are probably a fairly normal, upper middle class person. You don't rock the boat too often. (well, it depends...)



You are a tough person who isn't afraid to live life fully. There isn't a lot that scares you. (Yes, that's the crunchy peanut butter part---ever spread cold crunchy peanut butter...dangerous!)



Precise and controlled, you can be a bit anal retentive when it comes to how you like things. You're definitely a perfectionist. (shh! you're not supposed to tell that part!)


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Friday, March 07, 2008

This week, a new job

Yep, I've done it again. In fifteen years since I got my first full-time job, I started my eighth one. I just couldn't resist...a job within a long's walk came up, and with the potential for $4 per gallon gas prices this year, this old economics student opted to change. It wasn't hasty, mind you. I'd been contemplating it for a while. Inflation of costs and deflation of my savings account made me look long and hard. A three percent raise just doesn't go as far as it used to go.

Right now, it's been interesting working in the service of the Government. The outfit is so big that there's all those corporate perks I'd been missing since my time at a big financial services company on Jefferson, with two offices in town to boot. We've got the shuttles, we've got the bus passes, and we've got the good vacation package. Hooray! Maybe one day I will get Bubba to Disney World!

Do I miss what I was doing? Sure. Slowing down into a new, different rhythm of life makes you look back at what happened before. I remember moving from a job where I had not one, but two phones on my desk and calls all day from all over the world. I left that for a job to sit in a really small office with a bunch of computer equipment and silence, because everyone sent e-mail. This was really hard to get used to at first. I missed my salesmen and customers calling me and everyone ordering stuff. I missed talking to folks all over the US and Canada.

Right now, what do I miss? People. My people. I always miss the people more than the lights, the sounds, the smells from my jobs. My patients, my coworkers from the floor, other people in the hospital who appeared on our unit--the consulting docs, the IV therapists, the respiratory therapists, the dieticians, and all the other assorted therapists. The right people appearing in your day will make any job tolerable.

Okay, I do miss certain smells, though. The smell of coffee wafting down the hall from Cairdeas coffee stand in the lobby and onto our unit woke me up many a day...and also sent me out for my very own cup o'Joe. I especially like Kaldi's Supersonica, which normally appears there on Thursdays.

There's no coffee shop here, but occasionally, I hear a hawk in the trees near the bluffs. In some buildings, I can look out and see the river meandering by, as muddy as ever. It's a panorama that reminds me of my childhood in the far reaches of St. Louis city, and being at high school, just down the road from here, where I could stand and look a certain way down river by one of the buildings at the north end of campus and see the Arch downtown.

The long, circuitous route has taken me places I'd never imagined being, and now, it just may have led me back home.

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