Starting the Change

Ok, the time has come for me to freak out about something other than school, work, and things that I can't really control. This one is 100% my fault. I got a loud wake up call on Saturday that needs immediate resolve.

On Saturday night Ryan told me that we might be taking a trip in January to Hawaii for Heidi's wedding. I freaked out! I am so not swim suit ready. Yes, this is a very shallow and coincided blog but bear with me folks. I was a work out freak until about April of this year. Then life starting getting really hectic with my Grandma being sick. I started spending most of my free time over with her and my Grandpa. And then after that my Grandpa started having problems then he passed away too. I know that this is all excuses, but I had a lot of stress and got lazy. So now it is time to change! I am going to start working out again and get my body back (well, at least so I wont be embarrassed to wear a swim suit). I am going to get more energy again and feel better.

So, since I have to be ready by January I am doing a fast forwarded plan here it is:

• 300 minutes of cardio a week
• 3 strenghting sessions a week
• at least 3 hours of Pilate's a week

This should jump start my body and get me ready for Hawaii. And if that falls through at least I have started a routine again.

You Know You're A Nurse When...

1. The front of your scrubs reads "Nurses... here to save your ass, not kiss it!"
2. You occasionally park in the space with the 'physicians only' sign... and knock it over.
3. You can identify whether the patient has an impaction, tube feeding or infection based on the smell of their poop.
4. The ER is a mixture of can do, can’t do, and why the hell not!
5. You recognize that you can't cure stupid.
6. You own at least three pens with the names of prescription medications on them.
7. You believe there's a special place for the inventor of the call light.
8. You believe that saying 'it can't get any worse' causes it to get worse just to show you it can.
9. You wash your hands BEFORE you go to the bathroom.
10. You consider a tongue depressor an eating utensil.
11. Eating microwave popcorn out of a clean bedpan is perfectly natural.
12. You've been exposed to so many x-rays that you consider it a form of birth control.
13. You've ever heard a patient with a nose ring, a brow ring, and twelve earrings say "I'm afraid of shots."
14. You've ever placed a bet on someones blood alcohol level.
15. You have steel wool in your bathroom or other form of high grade scrubber to shower with after work.
16. Your bladder can expand to the size of a Winnebago's water tank.
17. You have seen more penises than any prostitute could dream of.
18. You believe that not all patients are annoying... some are unconscious.
19. Your family and friends refuse to watch medical sitcoms with you because you spend the whole time correcting everyone and pointing out upside down x-rays.
20. You don't get excited about blood, unless it's your own.
21. You've sworn to have "do not resuscitate" tattooed on your chest. Soon.
22. Discussing dismemberment over a gourmet meal is perfectly normal to you.
23. Your idea of fine dining is anywhere you can sit down to eat.
24. Your idea of a good time is a cardiac arrest at shift change.
25. You believe that "shallow gene pool" should be a recognized diagnosis.
26. You see reasons for attitude and mood in people based on their blood glucose
27. You believe that unspeakable evils will befall anyone who utters the phrase "Wow, it's really quiet, isn't it?"
28. You have ever wanted to write a book entitled "Suicide: getting it right the first time."
29. You have ever had a patient look you straight in the eye and say "I have no idea how that got stuck in there."
30. You've had to leave a patients room before you begin to laugh uncontrollably.
31. The phrase measure twice cut once refers to medication administration and the O.R.
32. The disoriented patient always comes from a nursing home whose beautiful paperwork has no phone number on it.
33. Your nose will itch the very moment your gloved hands get contaminated with bodily fluids.
34. You always remember "just one more thing" you need after you've gowned, gloved, and masked and gone into that isolation room.
35. When you cancel extra staff because it's so quiet, you are guaranteed a rash of admissions.
36. You'll jump out of planes, play with fire, dance around like a kid... because you know life is short
37. Everyone wants to hear your stories after you get off of work..even if it involves blood sucking leeches and the number of maggots you counted removing them from some homeless mans ears
38. You write your own prescriptions because the doctors trust you and know you spend more time looking and smelling the patients UTI's then they do.
39. You know 40 words for gauze.
40. You look at the veins of people in grocery store lines in front of you.
41. People that know your a nurse ask you to look at the sputum they just coughed up..their kid just coughed up.. their neighbor... while getting the mail.
42. You know 101 ways to say "hole" in Latin.
43. You have pads of alcohol prep floating around the house from leftovers brought home in your pockets.
44. Your sense of humor seems to get more "warped" each year
45. You believe every patient needs TLC: Thorazine, Lorazepam and Compazine
46. You can only tell time with a 24 hour clock
47. Almost everything can seem humorous ... eventually
48. You want to put your foot through the TV screen every time you see a nurse on a soap opera doing nothing but talking on the phone and flirting with doctors.
49. Your favorite dream is the one where you leave a mess at a patients bedside and tell a doctor to clean it up.
50. You have ever had a patient say, "but I'm not pregnant, i can't be pregnant, how can i be having a baby?"
51. You refer to motorcyclists as "organ donors."
52. You're uncomfortable in clothes that don't have elastic or drawstring waistbands, because you spend most of your waking hours in scrubs.
53. You are the only one at the dinner table NOT allowed to talk about your day at work.

Pumpkins and such...

So Halloween has come and gone. I was so busy all last week that I didn't have any time to post pictures from the pumpkin patch and the carved pumpkins.

Ryan and I went out to a pumpkin patch in Sherwood. It's very cute and fun. This is our second year going there. I think we will keep going there as long as it stays open. We really lucked out with weather. It was cold but sunny. Also, you can note that I am wearing the new hat that Ryan got me. He did a good job picking it out all by himself. I love hats. I could write a hole blog about how much I love them, but I will save it for another day ;-)

These are 2 of the 4 pumpkins that we carved. Ryan's is the skeleton and mine is the "Happy Halloween". The other 2 I did not get pictures taken because I wanted to wait till it was dark to take them. I left the house and came back and they were kicked in by some brats. *NOTE: I will find who you are and eat your soul!* So the other 2 pumpkins are now in pumpkin heaven. The really frustrating part is that one of the dead pumpkins was insanely hard to get open and carved out. It was like a vortex. I broke spoons and knives trying to get it open.
I'm not really into the whole dressing up thing for Halloween, so I spent the holiday in Bend working on the house. It's really coming along. I'm so proud of it. I will try to get some pictures posted of the remodel soon.
I am now going to go watch The Office that I missed.

As you breathe out and I breathe in

What a day! Ryan and I went to a tiling class with my mom. We're going to help her tile the bathroom for the remodel. Hopefully it's as "easy" as the people at home depot made it look. The tile is beautiful. I would love to have it in my own home. Some day...

After the class we helped my mom get supplies and then ran some errands. I got the new Martha Stewart cook book. I'm excited to try it out some new recipes in it. Later on we went to Julie and Steven's to pick up 2 pumpkins that Julie got us from her parent's house. Yea for pumpkin carving! And thank you Julie!! It was nice to visit with them.

Right now I should be sleeping and resting for tomorrow's big trip to the correctional institute. I'm freaked out about going. I have no desire to be a prison nurse, but they are making me go. Lame. But it's for 3 hours so hopefully it will go ok.

I'm laying in bed listening to Matt Nathanson while writing this. If you haven't listened to him before, I highly recommend him. I first heard about him from John Mayer. He had posted one of Matt's songs on his website. "Come on get higher" is my favorite song by Matt. But some of you might recognize him from his song "Laid" from the "American Wedding" movie. It is a funny song, but very different from a lot of his other stuff. Ohhh, Damien Rice just came on. He's awesome too. I love good music.

Ok, I guess I should try to get to sleep.

New Hair Cut

I got my hair cut on Tuesday and am finally posting a picture. I was going to do the before and after, but the before was just so awful that it wasn't even worth posting. I tried a new stylist out and LOVED her. She did an awesome job. I really liked that she asked questions to find out more about my hair before she just started whacking at it. I wound up cutting almost 3 inches off of it. It was nice not spending hours in the bathroom working on it. I have come to terms that I will always have to work with my hair for a bit due to it being so thick and wavy. But every minute off is awesome. Today's total styling time was 20 minutes. That was blow dry and flat iron.

In other news, I was at the grocery store with Ryan today standing in line to pay when a random lady pointed out to me that my outfit was almost identical to Rachael Ray's on her November magazine cover. I looked and wow! Same navy cardigan, black shirt, long silver necklace, and dark wash jeans. Not to mention very similar hair cuts. Upon further investigation I found out that Rachael was indeed wearing the same sweater as me. I now know that Rachael's stylist must love Banana Republic's wool cardigan as much as me. Only Ms. Ray you should know that I had it first. I loved them so much that on the day that the premiered in the store that I bought one in every color. They were just that awesome. So perhaps you should save the money on the stylist and just talk to me. I will hook you up. Also on a side note, this is why you got the scary close up of my head instead of the nice half body shot. Because I am standing in an almost identical pose to the Rachael Ray magazine cover. But I am willing to bet that most people do not read this blog or her magazine and would have never known other wise.

The Office was on tonight. I love that show, but I don't know why for some reason I was slightly disappointed by it. Humm....

Ok. I'm off to bed. Night

PS- still having a hard time with the whole blogging pictures thing. It will only let me post the picture at the beginning of my blog entry, not within the text. Anyone know how to fix that problem?

But it's hiding the quiet superstitions in my head

I'm being naughty and blogging when I should be finishing my gerontology paper. But you know what, I'm tired of old people. Let's talk about something much more exciting...me!

Life has been crazy, but honestly I can't remember a time now when it wasn't. Perhaps I should create a scale of craziness, thus allowing one to get a better feel of how crazy life actually is. Yes, I think I will do this since one persons crazy may be a bad hair day and another persons may be running over a cow. I shall implement the scale as follows:

• Level 1: almost a normal day; has minor blip such as bad hair day or bad traffic
• Level 2: lots of things happening at once such as errands, plans, events
• Level 3: holidays; extended family visits
• Level 4: forgetting something that you needed to do that was of importance
• Level 5: work/school stressful; having one or more projects due; illness
• Level 6: work/school stressful; having 3 or more projects due
• Level 7: work/school stressful; having multiple tests and projects at same time; births; skin rash/hives
• Level 8: family drama; hospitalization
• Level 9: death or dismemberment
• Level 10: full on chaos; world may be ending

DISCLAIMER: this is a rough working scale. Changes may be made at any time, at my discretion. If you have any ideas of how to improve this scale, please contact me.
Back to the real blog. I would say at this point I am running at an 8. Which means that I am experiencing things from level 1-8. Yikes! I am hanging in there, but I know that I am in for a wild ride ahead. I am beginning to think that this is slightly cryptic, but I really can't discuss a few of the things yet because the people involved have not officially released said information. Stay tuned.
This weekend was fun I studied alot along with hanging out with Julie and Ryan's family. Julie introduced me to DSW shoe store which was an amazing trip, since Julie found what could quite be one of the most amazing shoe deals ever (Pucci people!). I found some cute shoes as well, but they weren't Pucci. The next day we decided to hit the streets of downtown Portland in our super cute new shoes and paid the price with blisters. We did have fun tho.
I am getting my hair cut tomorrow. I am excited and nervous at the same time. I want a new hairstyle desperately, but I am such a chicken about it. Last time I did a big change I left the stylist looking like Billy Ray Cyrus. It wasn't quite as bad once I styled it myself, but it was traumatizing all the same. So I am trying a new stylist (thank you Karla) and hoping for the best. Right now it's medium length and has lots of layers. I am toying with cutting it on the shorter side so that I get rid of some of the funky(and not it a good way) layers and can grow it out again. I would like to have long hair again, but I think that I need to cut off the yucky stuff to let it be healthy and grow out properly. I guess I will see what tomorrow brings. Pictures will be posted.
Tonight I am trying a new recipe. I am making homemade creamy tomato soup and chedderella toasted sandwiches.
Creamy Tomato Soup: courtesy of the Food Network
Ingredients
4 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 slice bacon, finely chopped
1 Spanish onion, chopped
1 carrot, chopped
1 stalk celery, chopped
4 cloves garlic, finely chopped
5 tablespoons all-purpose flour
4 1/2 cups low-sodium chicken broth
1 (28-ounce) can whole, peeled tomatoes
3 parsley sprigs
3 fresh thyme sprigs
1 bay leaf
1 cup heavy cream
1 3/4 teaspoon kosher salt
Freshly ground black pepper
Directions
Heat the butter in a large soup pot over medium-high heat. Add the bacon and cook, stirring, until crisp and most of the fat has rendered, about 1 minute. Using a slotted spoon, transfer the bacon to a paper towel-lined plate and set aside. Lower the heat to medium, add the onion, carrots, celery, and garlic and cook, covered, stirring occasionally, until soft and fragrant, about 8 minutes.
Stir in the flour and cook, stirring, for 3 minutes. Pour in the broth and crush the tomatoes through your fingers into the pan. Bring to a boil while whisking constantly. Tie the parsley sprigs, thyme, and bay leaf together with a piece of kitchen twine and add to the pot. Lower the heat and simmer for 20 minutes. Remove from the heat and let cool.
Remove and discard the herb bundle. Working in batches, transfer the mixture to a blender and puree until smooth. Return the puree to the pot and reheat over medium heat.
Whisk in the heavy cream, salt, and pepper, to taste. Divide among warm soup bowls and serve immediately.

Fall is Here!!

Fall is finally here! I'm so excited. This is my favorite season. I have waited so long to wear cozy sweaters and hats. I love how the world looks like it's on fire with all the yellow, orange and red. It like the world is showing that it's time for change and change is good.

I got the job at Legacy and I will start at Meridian Park Hospital on the 20th of this month. I am very excited and nervous at the same time. This is a huge step in my career (not to mention a huge pay raise). I will be working in the orthopedic medical/surgical unit. In a nutshell that means that I will be taking care and monitoring patients who have just had surgery on their spines, hips, knees, and various other joints. This job will give me an opportunity to learn and be a part of a new and upcoming ortho unit. It's an exciting place to be right now.

This last weekend I went to the beach with my parents. It was a fun trip. I haven't got to spend as much time with my parents lately because of school and work. Ryan had to work all weekend and I had it off so I suggested a trip to my parents and they jumped on it. The weather was crazy there with all the wind and rain. But we had fun all the same. My parents like to gamble. The love the Vegas. Me on the other hand am not so lucky when it comes to gambling so I really don't do it. Well my parents talked me into going to the casino with them and my dad gave me $40.00 and told me that I couldn't complain because it wasn't my money. So I hit some slots and guess what...I actually won! I was so excited. I won enough money to buy myself two new Coach purses at the outlet, a bunch of clothes and still come home with $150 in my wallet. Not to shabby. Maybe my luck is finally shifting :-)

Ryan and I have been looking at taking a trip. This last April we went to Disneyland and had a blast. So we are trying to figure out where to go this coming spring. The options right now are Vegas (which neither of us have been to), a cruise in Mexico or just staying in Mexico 0r Hawaii (I wonder if Taylor is reading this). We are looking at going in mid April. Any other suggestions of places to go? We both have worked really hard and deserve a vacation!

Since fall is here and I have been talking about change I have been wanting to get a new hair cut. I just have no clue what to do. My friend Julie just chopped hers off and it looks amazing. But I don't think that I am brave enough to do that. So I am on the prowl for a new style. Keep posted for when I finally take the plunge.

Lastly, I've been trying to post a blog with pictures and it's not working for me. It will only let me post pictures at the top of the blog, not within the text. Does anyone know how to make the pictures go within the text?