10 Juicy Honest Things

The Good Flea awarded me this in the beginning of February. Another month is flying by,..and I am trying to catch up with all the things that need doing. You know how it is. So this award is one of those you must do such and such to have it. Since it was the FLEA who gave it to me I just have to play along. The must do's are to tell you ten things you don't already know. This is a tough challenge. I mean what isn't here already? Poo story on the back of the bus in Colombia. Dog stories to bawl your eyes out over. Favorite eats to drool over and assorted stories of family etc,.. so um let's see 10 juicy things.

1. I have not always been a Christian. I was raised in the Lutheran church and would not have called myself an unbeliever, atheist , or agnostic, or any other such term; but I had not known a life changing experience with God until I was 30 years old.

2. For a smart girl I can be dumb. I am the one who stands there saying, "What just happened, who did? when? where was I?" Yeah, it's true, totally pathetic, and pitiful, really. I know it's sad.

3. I have two brothers only one is living. I never had a sister so I adopt my best friends. Lucy is as close as a sister could be and just as bossy, maybe bossier. Debbie is pretty close too and we kinda look alike, especially when I was younger. When my mom called to tell me that her baby was another brother I started crying and said, "I don't believe you." Then when I saw him I fell madly in love.

4. I never liked poodles. I made fun of them along with everybody else. I love dogs and had such bad asthma we couldn't have any pets. A friend told me about standard poodles, and then another friend had a litter and that's how my best friend came into my life. He was amazing even as a puppy. They are beautiful you know, they look like poetry in motion.

5. I loved rock and roll. I wore white pants to a Day on the Green rock concert and didn't get dirty. I danced for the whole concert. I went to a lot of those. One of the very best was Loggins and Messina. Yes, I was wild and stupid, I did have a lot of fun in a miserable kind of way.

6. I paid $200 for my first vehicle a 1953 Chevy pickup truck, and it was totally stinkin cool.

7. I have been backpacking in Yosemite National Park.

8. I never learned to ride a horse but would've run off with Sam Elliot if the opportunity would have presented itself.

9. I like to clean house, decorate, and I love the smell of soap. How boring, how OCD, how whatever....it is true, even if it's not juicy.

10. When I did meet Jesus at 30 years of age, He changed me forever. I have never been so excited about anyone in all my life. I will never forget the peace that flooded over me in waves as I played Amazing Grace by Judy Collins over and over again on a record player. I had a load of guilt to lay down, and it left me. Jesus said he came for the sick, and that those who are forgiven much, love much. It's true, He did, I was, and I do, until the day I die and see him face to face. What a day that will be.

Now, I get the fun and pleasure of spreading this little goody around and finding ten things out about you. You know you want to tell.

1. Kathy,... come on tell more about the cowboy.
2. Heidi,..just because this award just suits you, you should have it.
3. Kelly,...Coffee Bean will have to dig really deep for 10 new things.
4. Angela...no videos you have to write about it!
5. Farmchick...because your cool.
6. Karen... just because, and you could probably tell 10 things about Micah you have so much to write about.
7. Jeri..because you need something positive so much has gone wrong, and you have a shining sense of humour under adversity.
8. Cathy at Noble Pig because she never plays these and maybe she will.

PS. The first 3 12 hour shifts are done. I was nearly dead myself I was so tired. But I am determined to learn this. To many doors are closed without this training and my preceptor is absolutely wonderful. We are the same age. She is an excellent nurse and is very positive and reassuring. I am going to learn a lot if it doesn't kill me. Do hard things, right? This week is all critical care classes. Hope my brain works.

News Flash- Catching Up in Bloggy Land.

Between learning a new job, and other interesting life changes; I have been nesting. I moved the cornice to over the couch and am just using one of them. I found this bed skirt that I am considering making valences out of this fabric for the other windows. What do you think? Is it too much? Use a solid or something else? I think it works pretty well, but I'm not sure. The valence would hang inside the white framing.







Thrifting can be a little spendy if your not careful. I have been several times since first finding this Goodwill. These are a few of my recent finds.
Perfectly clean toys that seem like they were never played with, 25 or 50 cents each. You never know when someone young might come to visit. It's nice to have some things young children and babies can play with. Who doesn't like Mr. Potato Head?

I also totally scored on all this yarn! 10cents a skein! I love to crochet but yarn has gone through the roof like everything else and this was a great find.


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I also found this picture frame for $1.00 and the same day I bought it Vine Hill Woman sent me this cool card. It's a watercolor of the coast line near Santa Cruz. Sorry about the flash, I tried to get that out. She got her lap blanket that I made for her and liked it. She's busy working on the new rug of Yosemite Falls. How incredible is that?






And finally, Pa and I cleaned out the shed and in it was a box of stuff that he brought back when he moved the girls here from Santa Cruz. I had shipped a lot of nice things to my daughter. She didn't keep any of it, so I was pleased to find my silver in this box. It's an assortment of utensils from my mother, grandmother, and the flea market. I found some disposable silver wipes that clean silver well and easily. It's been years since I polished anything and all of these were black with tarnish. It really looks nice doesn't it? The family has been told not to put anything in the dishwasher. Not that they ever listen.

The other good rescues in the box were my Grandma's cook book, diary, and a pile of handwritten recipes. I want to build a scrap book of those in plastic sheets. My Dad's baby photo book, and some old glass slides were in the box as well. I'll post some of those later. One of the slides is of my Grandma in her early twenties wearing an appropriate 20's style dress. She is seated in a beautiful garden holding a single iris flower. Her glasses a black little round rimmed granny glasses and she just looks adorable. She always wore sensible shoes but in this shot she has on really cute shoes too. I am blessed to have several really nice antique pictures of her.


Tomorrow is my first day actually in the ICU. I'm scheduled for the next 3 days, 12 hour shifts.
I've enjoyed the last few days off, this schedule is going to be so nice working 3 days a week. They are long days but having 4 days each week to just live is really nice.

Sunday a friend of mine told me she had found a litter of standard poodle puppies. She bought a black male for $200, no papers but a purebred dog. I freaked out just a little bit, DO THEY HAVE ANY MORE? They did, but Pa said no, not yet, not now. You know what I did? I stomped my foot and threw a hissy fit. No, actually I didn't. My blog might be junior high reading level but I managed this once, to act more like a grown up and less like a kid. I just said OK and dropped it, not even OK FINE.

If WE get a dog it needs to be an US decision. We need to get one together, both like him and both want him. Otherwise it just won't work. The good news was he did say that one day he would get me a dog, just not now. That is a first. It takes time to heal. We also need a gate across the back. It really isn't a good time to try and get a puppy, but lawdy it was tough, she had pictures of the whole litter and her little fella is awesome. I almost started bawling, I did cry a little.

That's about it for my news. I will do the meme for you Flea, thanks for the award. I'll have to think of 10 really good things to share, good as in interesting, that you haven't already heard!

Almost Finished

One more day of class! I have to admit it I learned quite a bit. I think it's very helpful to give us "old" nurses the textbook brush up. The new grads in this class have impressed me they are smart as a whip! They have learned a lot of things that I only learned after I started working.

I met another "older" new nurse who just moved here from Pennsylvania to be near her daughter, son in law and grandkids. She is pretty funny. We compared Labor & Delivery stories today at lunch. The memorable deliveries we helped with and a bit about our own, you know typical table talk. It could've been worse like about enemas, wait we included that; always good for a couple of centimeters. What surprised me is that it seems like most of the hospitals pick the worst doctors to be Chief. The good ones who do really nice deliveries never seem to get anywhere in the hierarchy of things. It's politics. I laughed when she told me about the arrogant doc who didn't come when she told him too and got his nice expensive suit and shoes "splashed." He never ignored her again and actually had the humility to admit that she had called him in plenty of time, instead of blessing her out.

When I started nursing school I thought it was because I wanted to be a nurse midwife. I worked 6 months in L&D. I didn't have the stomach for all that blood exposure. I also worked at that time for another Catholic hospital that did about 230 deliveries a month, mostly for poor women and people of other nationalities. Ninety percent of the patients we served didn't speak any English. I learned how to ask how many babies have you had, in 4 different languages. We were all good at gestures and hollering poooohaaa! I don't convert for hepatitis immunity and we were exposed on an almost daily basis. Not to mention that hospital deliveries, at least at that time, still looked like a war zone. Everything was so stinkin technical and fast you barely had time to write your documentation much less admire the new little one. Not for me. I hurt my shoulder and that cinched the deal. Moving along to the next nursing experience which was pediatrics.
The parents will make you crazy, they are so freaked out. Calming down freaked out parents is the number one challenge in pediatrics and it's understandable.

A very big raise at a different hospital convinced me to try adult care, neuro-ortho. That is a strange combination but it's put together commonly. Now that is hard work! Total care neuro patients, require a great deal of assessments and interventions, they are also very rewarding when they get better. Orthopedic patients have pain and mobility issues and you can really break your back lifting all the gear that goes with total knees, and broken hips, setting up traction, moving patients etc,... definitely sweat equity.

When we had a prolonged period of low census instead of lay offs they rearranged the staffing. We were asked to voluntarily go to other units to keep our full time jobs. That was how I found myself in oncology. Never did I imagine working there. My mother died when I was 26 of breast cancer that had metastasized to the rest of her body. Her pain and nausea were not managed. She had terrible care, it was the way thigs were done then. I didn't think I could handle seeing other people have the same problems my mom had. Imagine my surprise when I found out that not only did my personal experience make me a better oncology nurse, but my patients appreciated when I shared with them. I have a very strong commitment to manage pain and suffering. My mothers experience fueled my energy and determination to do everything in my power and on my shift to solve problems. I did go the extra mile, give the extra touch. The best aspect of oncology nursing was the use of humor. These patients NEED to laugh. Many are in the hospital for long periods of time and we get to know the whole family. Being able to joke and "cut up" are life savers for these people. Staying serious and upset will bury people. Levity also deeply reassures critically ill people that this day is a good day, this day is a day of life. These patients are the most appreciative of any that a nurse can ever encounter. It was natural to spend some time at hospice too. Like I said before I'm a professional job hopper. Actually each of these moves were a minimum of one year to a maximum of 5.

Which brings us to the present day, orientation for a new job in medical/surgical ICU. It's a bit scary. The ventilators don't worry me. What worries me may seem strange. I worry about how I will handle seeing hospice appropriate patients in the ICU, it happens all the time. I'm skilled at bringing up the subject of death and dying with families. I'm not there to decrease how many patients we have in our beds, but I always want to do the RIGHT thing for the patient. I'm sorry but it's never right to code people in their 80's, it's barbaric. On the other hand life is sweet when it's your own and everybody deserves a chance.

The other thing I worry about is living on the technical end of nursing. What kind of relationships do ICU nurses develop? What if I'm not smart enough? Sometimes my mind won't fetch and retrieve words I'm looking for, what if I start stammering all over myself, and get the fumble fingers? I've always thought that critical care nurses have nerves of steel.

I know if it doesn't work out that I can change areas and go back to floor nursing, but it is really hard for me now. The truth is I am getting older and running those halls beats me up. I do pee when I need too, but no one ever gets enough to drink and it's not infequent to miss lunch break.
Especially in oncology where you are always hanging blood, platelets, chemo, and giving pain and nausea meds. You might be attempting to take a lunch break but when your call lights go off you get up, unless some one helps you out. Lunch is 10 minutes to eat. Charting is a break ( not really), to sit down and try to get your mind together. People don't realize what all goes on in a shift.

One evening I was having a very busy "group" of patients. One woman with metastasized breast cancer was taking a severe turn for the worse. I saw the signs of imminent death and notified her doctor, who notified her husband to come, and we changed her to be a "do not resuscitate." Considering how bad the cancer was, it had even surfaced to the outside of her chest and was visible, coding her would have been a terrible cruelty. It was not really expected though. Often patients take a good bit of time to go through the process of dying, it can be months. She went from answering my questions to leaving us in one shift, it happens but it's not usual. There was no real difference in medications , nothing out of the ordinary. Within the hour of my getting her status changed she died. I was very busy with her family preparing them, helping them, and making sure my patient didn't suffer. There is a whole lot that has to happen after a death, very time consuming, above all else the family must be supported.

While all of this was going on, one of my patients had used his call light to ask for assistance. No one had answered his light and when I went into his room he was really mad. I apologized and asked him what I could do for him. He wanted his nightstand moved so it would be more convenient for him to reach his things. That was fine, I moved it, but he continued to rave about the poor response time to his request. Finally I couldn't help myself I said, " I'm sorry sir but I had a patient die." He quit complaining, he didn't know anything about the person specifically to protect privacy, and he got a little much needed reality check. The hospital is not a hotel. We still have to prioritize, it's why the person at the desk asks if the nurse can bring something with her when she comes to your room, it's why we try to find out the need when the call light goes off. Nausea, vomiting, pain, bleeding, falls, dying, are all rapid response, hopefully help to the bathroom is in there too. I know everybody has a story about the terrible care they got in a hospital, but it's a tough job, somebody has to do it. It is important to remember the somebody is a human in a sea of suffering. There is no excuse for laziness but we all need to bear with each other in trying circumstances, for everybody's sake.

Dog Dreamin

I once loved a dog, a big, tall, black, standard poodle. He was gorgeous. He was smart. He was better than most people, and he lived for 10 years. That's all, 10 years. But for those ten years he was always by my side. We were stuck at the hip and the heart, until my husband stole him from me.

It was just the natural thing to have happen because he was home all the time and I was working. They just started hanging out together a lot.

Winning over my husband was a tall order for Rasmus. My husband has a firm commitment to his "no pets," policy, that is why we have 2 cats and 1 dog. The girls have pets; well one of those cats has adopted me. But there is no special dog here for me. Not that I didn't try. I shopped on the Internet until I was crazy from looking at puppies and checking out breeders. The only local person I could find wore animal prints and seemed on the odd side, in an Elvira kind of way. Not my first choice to get a pet from. I spent the big bucks and it was a flop from the start. I finally surrendered to defeat and gave that dog away, to a good home.

So here we are. October marked the first anniversary of my dog's death. I thought over time it would get better. I find that sometimes it seems he was just in the corner of my vision, or a bark outside that sounded just like his. Papa doesn't ever want another dog. I never heard a man cry like he did when we put our dog down.

It is something I can't really comprehend, never having another dog. I'm hoping my next dog will find me, or we will happen on each other some how. I need another dog that doesn't shed, and I like big dogs, the bigger the better. They have to smile big goofy grins and be really really smart. You know, Rin Tin Tin, Lassie, Old Yeller, Big Red, the stuff dog heroes are made of. When you've had one of those you can't settle for less; but maybe one of those is all anyone can ask for in a lifetime.

Sometimes There Are No Words

More accurately, no ideas. Orientation is taking all my brain cells and pulverizing them. I never have writers block. I do now.

I have thought of posting about cooking, and haven't taken any pictures. I made a pot of soup, whooppeee...

We had a couple of daffodils bloom one day and freeze the next, with the fluctuating temperatures from 70 to 20 and flip flop , but no pictures...

Animal antics? Haven't noticed any.

Honey stories? Not lately.

New Years Resolutions for losing weight? Haven't got the heart for it, just the rump.

Kids are just putting one foot in front of the other and doing their thing...nothing really to blab about.

So there you have it. I officially have writers block. Me the Queen of blab without something to say. This is monumental folks. It has never happened before, and may never happen again! So depending on how you feel about my blabbing you can either be sad, or enjoy the peace and quiet.
Rest assured it won't last long. Orientation takes a break after the end of this week for clincial time, then one more week of intense classes where I will disappear totally, To emerge back into full time work and more patient stories,...by then my words will be superfulous, excessive, descriptive, whatever, hopefully engaging, never to be forgotten, well maybe funny.

Are you still here? Wow I thought I lost you two paragraphs ago. Think I lost myself somewhere in that mess. BUT YA'LL come BACK now HEAR! Never Never Never give up!

Saving Money

Everybody is worried these days. Seems like each of us knows some one who has been laid off. The days of living high on the hog and buying whatever we want are over. Spending a lot of money is a bad idea any time, unless you have all you need, no debt and a surplus; and those people are best at budgeting.

I have been reading and catching up on some of my favorite posts and it seems that a lot of young women are really working at learning to be frugal, and being good home makers. In fact I just found a new blog "Paint Splashes," she is a precious young mother and a good writer, go visit her and see what you think.

Other women really encourage me. I used to be very diligent in making food from scratch and either buying second hand or sewing. It seems like you either have time and no money, or money and no time. I had big plans to bake bread today and make some granola but I didn't do anything. My brain was so fizzled that all I wanted to do was, absolutely nothing. Maybe tomorrow.

We really can live on less. I don't buy soda. Most of the time I don't buy any mixes or pre made foods except for lasagna because that is so expensive to make, I think it's a wash. We don't eat out. We don't buy fast food. I avoid the sodium nitrates and am working on the high fructose corn syrup which is in cotton pickin everything! If fresh veggies are too high, I get frozen not canned. I cook and we eat salads. I love to bake which is a big downfall. We ate like pigs over the holidays. The next step is to get off of sugar. If I didn't live in a subdivision it would be fun to have some chickens. In the south where I live it's almost pointless to garden for food. It becomes a bug fest and I'm not into sprays. We also have great produce stands. My husband has convinced me that it's really not economical to try and grow food here. Up north where his relatives are, it does pay off. They have cattle which supply endless amounts of manure to amend this soil with, and a garden for them is a small farming operation. Once it's grown it has to be canned or frozen. I'll stick to the produce stands.

Tackling the big sugar addiction and portion control are big on my list of priorities this year. I'm just plain too heavy. There is a time to enjoy, and a time to tighten your belt. I think it would be fun for everybody to share a couple of their most successful money saving tips. Do you buy nice toilet paper or the cheap stuff? How do some people manage to get their utility bills down? How about phone bills? My husband and I were saying today that if he could just get football we wouldn't have any cable. We spend too much on the TV, cellphones, Internet, all this stuff we think we can't live without. Does anybody use Vonage or something else that works just as well as regular phone service? I use a lot of long distance minutes so I keep a land line. I think it could be fun to see just how little we actually have to purchase. Hang onto your hats and buckle your belts, and share your best secrets, please.

PS I bought men's undershirts to wear under my scrubs. Still thinking on that.

A Quest

Somewhere in this world there are nice soft white scrubs that are thick enough to be opaque, as in non transparent. Hopefully they are in manufacture now and somewhere I can help this intelligent person to make some good sales. EVERY NURSE AT THIS HOSPITAL WANTS TO KNOW .
People are doing all kinds of things to cover up, wear tights, which is just way to hot. Wear tee shirts underneath, and jackets on top. Sounds like layering to me which also defeats the pupose of cool comfortable clothing you can work hard in and keep comfortable. I am not comfortable with countable cellulite showing on the back of my pants.
I won't rave tonight. I will thank Grandma J for the brand of baby fpat. But somebody has got to know somebody who wants to make nurses who have to wear white something they can be happy in. Hey is this going to be my new career move? I'll make some and see, start fillling orders and whadaya got? Covered up butts. Ya'll got any ideas speak up, speak out, speak, loud, and say something great! I double dog dare you. I can do that because I passed my tests with 100%'s
thought they were going to be F's but they weren't! whooohooo. Now if we can find some decent scrubs to wear...then life can calm down from this PITCH! You do not want to see pictures of this.