yes please

Last night a bunch of us went and saw Act of Valor.  It was interesting to me because I don't know anything about military or special-ops, but the acting was horrendous, seeing as how they used real Navy Seals.  Today I went on a walk with the significant other, and it was chilly but very nice and now I have some homemade spaghetti sauce on the stove and can't wait for a good hot, home-cooked meal!!  I swear anticipating the spaghetti made the walk better somehow....

Dog Walking

Dog Walking by lcaton featuring michael kors jewelry

Alice Olivia open back dress
£215 - oxygenboutique.com

Christian louboutin pumps
$895 - net-a-porter.com

Michael kors jewelry
$85 - shopbop.com

LORD & TAYLOR long earrings
$30 - lordandtaylor.com

Oversized top
ebay.com

good dinner

I made the best dinner tonight, found the recipe on Pinterest.  You saute a minced clove of garlic in olive oil, then add some basil leaves (I only had dried), add some pine nuts and saute a little longer, pour it over hot pasta, squeeze juice from half a lemon on it, add salt and pepper and Parmesan and voila!  Your meal is ready.  Sooo good.  And it is a good vampire repeller ; ) 

On the mend

Finally feeling a little better today, the gunk has moved from my head to my chest I think, but I am ok as long as that sinus pressure is gone.  My poor nose is chapped though. : (  Boo hoo I know, I know, such a travesty.  Today I finally did laundry, and tonight I have been pretty darn productive.  I paid my bills, folded and put all the clean laundry away, made my bed up with clean sheets, wrote a letter, cleaned my bathroom, including going through all the drawers, cleaned all my makeup brushes, and am getting ready to take a shower so I can fully enjoy my clean sheets tonight.  : )

samesies

Same as yesterday.  I wish I had a laundry fairy.  And those Ghirardelli dark chocolate brownies from the box.

sick sick sick

I think my crazy work schedule finally caught up with me.  I am so glad I have a few days off of work to get back on my feet again, but for now it is Netflix and Hulu in bed, popsicles, Nyquil and Mucinex, sleep, fluids and some Vick's Vaporub for good measure.  I must look rough because apparently the new thing at Walgreen's when you are buying cold medicine is that if you are under 40 you need a photo ID.  The cashier looked at me really hard this morning for a few seconds and then asked me, all perplexed like, "Are you under 40??"  Sheesh.  Good night!

dysfxn

Last night was an odd night, no flow, poor communication, too many patients, weird cases, and I was tired.  And it was raining on my way home from work.  Weird.  I am going to sleep.

long night, back too soon

Last night was long and I have to be back this afternoon for skillz training.  Here are the highs and lows - Highs:  my ham sandwich I packed was delicious.  My co-workers were fabulous.  I was not in the psych pod. None of my patients died.  My eye makeup was very pretty.  Lows: we were busy ALLLL niiiiight. A weird male patient who had on women's underwear asked if I wanted to cuddle with him.  I had to help 6 other people move a 500 lb woman and it hurt my back.  

You look tired...

Who in their right mind tells someone they look tired/exhausted/worn out?  That is not even a subtle way of saying "You look bad".  I work with a nurse who is a big fan of telling me this, every time I see her.  I feel like I work with her all the time and I hate it, cause either she a) tells me I look tired/exhausted/worn out, or b) looks me up and down and I know even if she is not saying it she is thinking it.  Well she happens to look like a Halibut with a receding hairline but you don't see me telling her that.  After the first 3 or 4 times she told me this I finally told her it was not very nice of her and it was a poorly disguised way of saying I looked awful.  After an awkward silence she wandered off, and now it doesn't happen nearly as frequently but it still annoys me every time I see her.  It is poorly disguised passive-aggressiveness.  Did she never see Bambi?  If you can't say anything nice keep yo damn mouth shut was a lesson from that movie if I remember correctly...  Or at least something along those lines...

I need a personal chef

I am doing my inner-domestic goddess no bueno...my fridge and cupboards are pathetic.  The thought of going to the grocery store and spending all that money makes me cringe, so I just keep putting it off.  My fridge has some pickles, some condiments and some whitening strips from my dentist in it, my cupboard has approximately 5 boxes of different kinds of tea and some rice and pasta, but nothing sounds good and it has to be easily packable for work.  I think when this crazy week is over I am going to make some spaghetti, and my brother-in-law told me about this teriyaki  broiled salmon I want to try, even though I do not like salmon that much, I like anything teriyaki.  Tonight before work I will stop by the store and pick up a loaf of bread, it looks like pb&j for the next few nights.  My inner domestic goddess is sighing right now...

Me gusta

Things I am loving right now:

coral lipstick
Downton Abbey
David Guetta and Nicki Minaj song 'Turn Me On'


Things I am not loving right now:

clunky high-heels with a non-stiletto heel
flying the flag at half mast for Whitney
the movie Chronicle

Sa-weet

I want to do this.  I have dreams where I can do this. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgKiAooWfsU

Necessary Steps

So, occasionally, since we both work nights and are nocturnal, if my significant is working and I am not, and he happens to be in my neighborhood he will swing by to say hi, usually between 1 and 4am.  Tonight I got off of work at midnight and came home and showered and was Pinterest-ing (see how I made that into a verb?) when he stopped by to say hi.  I ran downstairs to answer the door quickly and it didn't even occur to me what I did in the 30 seconds between hearing the doorbell and answering the door.  Let me break it down: I put on my cute sweat pants, took my hair down and ran my fingers through it, took my glasses off, and took out my retainer.  I wasn't even aware I did that stuff until I just came back up to my room and found my retainer on the steps.  If that isn't subconscious self-improvement, I don't know what is.  Oh new relationships...

clear yo head

Several times today at work I had to remind myself to step back and take a deep breath.  High patient numbers, low patient IQ's, and exasperating co-workers really try my patience.  Sometimes I think "Is it just me?  Am I the only sane person left around here?"  and then thankfully the charge nurse or co-worker from another pod will pull me aside and confirm my beliefs that something (or someone) is bonkers.  Too often I am discovering that instead of encouraging other staff and co-workers who need an extra nudge in the work-ethic department to do their job, I just take on their responsibilities myself because a) I am tired of asking them to do stuff they should already be doing b) I know it will be done correctly c) I know it will be done quickly.  Thank goodness my charge nurse saw this happening tonight and talked to me about it because that is another good way to burn myself out.  I was having flashbacks to group projects in junior high, high school and college and unfortunately the trend seems to be that people are fine with someone else taking charge and either telling them what to do or just doing it for them. Luckily, I usually work with people that have great work ethics, but sometimes when the planets align I have to work with "special needs" people and throughout the shift I can feel my blood pressure rising.  I think this happens much less frequently here than where I moved from.  That is all, I just had to vent for a minute.  Thank you. 

V Day

I feel like unless you are in an established relationship, Valentine's day is just awkward.  Gifts? Dinner?  Do you even feel like celebrating it?  I am thinking Chinese food and Batman marathon with the boyfriend, but what does he want to do?  What if he gets me a present and I don't have one for him?  Should I get him one?  Should I get a card?  Ug, it's so stressful.  V-day is weird and I am not a fan.

pre-work

Getting ready to head out the door to work...all I want to do is sleeeeeeeep.

Bayou

Last night during my lunch break I found myself sitting alone in the break room watching Swamp People.  For those of you who have not seen this show, you are missing out.  I had no idea such a different way of life, language, recreational activities and diet in humans existed in the continental US.  Every time I watch that show I find myself repeating what the people say, the accent they have is so outrageous I have to hear myself speak it. I am glad that the History channel decided to provide subtitles.  I could watch that show all night long. 

Also regarding last night at work...it was weird.  Odd complaints and lots of sick people.  I had another patient with a heart attack, that is three heart attacks in two shifts for me, must be some kind of record.  Well I am out.  Goodnight. 

Busy

Last night was busy, had 2 heart attacks and an SVT...all my patients of course ; )  I am back tonight and we are short-staffed, I have a feeling it is going to be a good night though, I don't know why.  I am getting ready to go crash on the couch, a maintenance worker is coming at 10am to fix my broken locks (one I might have broken trying to pick it when I locked myself in the garage, but the other broke on its own).  I need to be downstairs so I hear the doorbell.  Last time they stopped by I slept through them knocking and ringing the doorbell.  My apartment is all cozy and warm and the snow is coming down outside.  I am so fortunate to have a place to live like I do, especially when I see the amount of transient, homeless people this community has.  Sweet dreams! 

back to nights...

I put in a work request for a full night's position.  I have been doing late-mids and nights, which means I work either noon-midnight, 2pm-2am, or 7pm-7am.  I thought that would be better than all nights, but mixing afternoons and nights is pretty brutal I discovered.  I will be so relieved to consistently know what time I work and not have to worry so much about switching constantly, and there is a pay raise for full-nights.  Keep yo fingers crossed!

Sometimes..

Most of the time I believe I am of above-average intelligence, and then something comes along and I realize how dumb I can be.  JUST the other day, probably not even a week ago, it occurred to me for the FIRST time EVER that the song Amazing Grace is not about a person named Grace.  Wowza.  I was floored. I always imagined that song was about a black woman named Grace, who obviously was amazing.  Yeah, not what that song is actually about.  I feel like my friend when she told me she realized relatively recently that in The Sound of Music, a movie she had watched a hundred times growing up, they were not playing hide and go seek, they were actually hiding from the Nazis and it was during WWII.  Oh the stuff we misinterpret as kids and then grow up to still believe.... 

that face looks familiar...

Time got away from me for a few days there!  I had some much needed time off and got to spend some time with some friends out on the town, went skiing, watched some movies, overall a pretty good few days.  Yesterday/this a.m. I was back at work running around like a wild goose like normal.  At one point one of the other nurses asked me to set up the arterial line during a trauma.  I have never set one of those up before and after putting it off for as long as possible I pulled it out of the packaging and looked at it.  Imagine approximately 600 miles of itty-bitty tubes and clamps and plastic pieces and caps you hook to a bag of saline and then attach one million different yellow legos to all the white legos on the tubing, and then hang it so it looks wrong and upside down and you basically have the jist of it.  Ufta.  I need to set one up again soon to help me remember it.  If another 3 years goes by and I don't set one up I don't think I will remember. 

Also, new experience for me - reading in the newspaper about a horrific, gruesome murder of not only one person, but two, then after seeing the mug shot of the murderer, realizing that the murderer was your patient two days previous...I banished the "Did I miss something?  Could I have prevented this?" thoughts as soon as they entered my head because a) they would drive me insane and b) one of the reasons I remember the patient is because they were very cooperative and pleasant and stood out in a good way from my usual mess of rude and angry patients.  Odd...very odd and slightly nauseating.