Happy 4th of July. Tonight (the 2nd of July), I'm sitting in the peaceful (except for my damn neighbors shooting off M80s) evening air, listening to some newly downloaded tunes and thinking about life. This year is already half way over, do you guys realize that? How can it all go so fast?
I was at my grandparent's house the last couple days and I see how they have aged, gracefully and beautifully, but definitely aged. I hear them refer to their own deaths and it hit me that that can't be that far off. They are both in their upper 80s (respectfully) and no one lives forever.
Some pedestrian died this morning crossing the street, a 40 year old woman self-medicated with Tylenol for pain and killed her liver which killed her, a 50 year old man road his bike to the ER with crushing chest pain and proceeded to die... I'm sure the list could go on. Constant reminders of life's preciousness and the thought that not one of us knows that we will live to see tomorrow. Some idiot is bound to blow his/her hand off this holiday weekend setting off fireworks (at this moment, I'm secretly hoping it's my neighbor and his M80s!!), or be in a boating accident. People will say it was "unexpected" and tragic.
I didn't start this entry to write about death, I've just been lead this way. I hate being asked to plan for the next 5 years. What if somethign happens that requires I change the plans before then? What then? Man, as much as I like to know what's coming I still prefer to be in the dark just a bit ya know?
I saw My Sister's Keeper last week, read the book awhile ago and now finished it off with the movie. A tearjerker, no question about that, but a changed ending from the book which sort of made the book so tragic and sweet and unexpectedly touching. One sister, who couldn't survive without her sister, the other who has the role of keeping her sister alive... tragic. (if you read the book, you'd understand that last fragmented thought)
Signing off now, I'm just a bit jumbled tonight. Dreaming of heaven and what's next in life.
Happy 4th of July! Enjoy your summers.
Thursday, July 2, 2009
Sunday, June 7, 2009
A day in the life
It's finally here, my last night shift! I have been waiting for this for months, literally. I left Saint Mary's one year ago this month, headed west for a new adventure and I returned a little bit different than I left.
It's a little bit of a sweet surrender to days, I have had a really good time on nights. My co-workers are a lot of fun to be around, we laugh a lot, are unprofessional at times and have a good cohesiveness. To leave them is the harder part. The actual night shift, the difficulty staying awake when every morsel of your brain is telling you to sleep, the feeling of never being rested until the night before you go back to work, the difficulty sleeping through a beautiful day are gone. I don't know if it's set in yet, my first shift is Monday, I have five days off to prepare. It shouldn't take much.
I am ready, so very ready.
It's a little bit of a sweet surrender to days, I have had a really good time on nights. My co-workers are a lot of fun to be around, we laugh a lot, are unprofessional at times and have a good cohesiveness. To leave them is the harder part. The actual night shift, the difficulty staying awake when every morsel of your brain is telling you to sleep, the feeling of never being rested until the night before you go back to work, the difficulty sleeping through a beautiful day are gone. I don't know if it's set in yet, my first shift is Monday, I have five days off to prepare. It shouldn't take much.
I am ready, so very ready.
Sunday, May 17, 2009
NOLA Pics
Joc and her crawfish experience... it was a large plate, a lot of work and a little fish in return...
Bourbon street, Friday night... I wish this had volume because people are yelling, clubs have stereos on, jazz bands are playing in other bars, bouncers are trying to get people into bars, crazy, just crazy
Having a beer at the only NOLA brewery... I found a coupon for one free entree, yeah to saving $24!!
Laffette's (spelling is wrong) bar, was an old blacksmith shop where a couple pirates lived and worked, it was also part of the haunting tour... somebody's ghost lives here...oooohhhh!
There are a lot of famous people who live in NOLA, Nicholas Cage has a couple houses, of course everyone knows Brad and Angelina have a house, John Goodman has one, the Manning family lives there, and this house, it may be familiar if you saw "Benjamin Button" it was the house he grew up in... This is in the Garden District- most of the houses look like this, big, old, beautiful, historical, awesome. Many movies are shot in New Orleans, many are shooting now... a couple houses along our tour were pointed out as movie sites...
Just a street in the garden district, pretty very pretty there
One of the many above ground cemetery... it's a cool process for burying the dead I can explain it to you sometime... it's like recycling the dead
Cafe de Monde is pretty infamous, powder sugar donuts and coffee, it was good, if you can see the powder sugar on the ground next to me... they are coated in the sugar just coated. They were tasty!
Just a street in NOLA, it was quite beautiful there
In front of Cafe de Monde- our first full day in New Orleans
Patty O'Brien's is famous for their hurricanes, we made it in, had a couple drinks and stumbled out... they pack a punch! (c:
A picture on our walking tour of the French Quarter- I was the tour guide, very informative! (c:
Cafe du Monde (we only went once...these pics are all from that trip)
This is a haunted mansion in the French Quarter- a lady was tourturing and killing slaves... it's a freaky story...
The muffelatta- a big round sandwich, meat, cheese, olive salad, drenched in olive oil... an experience, very filling and if you don't like olives it might not be a favorite... New Orleans tradition.
NOLA
Let me translate that, since it took Joc and I a few days (and Joc even longer as I had to explain it to her straight up). NOLA= New Orleans, LA (get it? NOLA...) Creative, we thought!
Joc has bid me farewell and I am now comfortably settled in my conference hotel room and taking a day off, #1 because I have to prepare what sessions I'm attending for tomorrow's conference, #2 because it's raining pretty steady eddy and my raincoat sucks and #3 because the edema in my feet has finally decreased and I no longer look like a 9 month pregnant woman with cankles! I'm revelling in my "skinny" ankles again. Which brings me to my thoughts on the south... when they ask, where ya'll from? and you say, Michigan one of the first questions they ask is, "so you think it's hot, huh?" like we live in the artic... like we never get above a cold rain or light snow? I'll give them one thing, it is hot and muggy here and from what locals have said, it gets worse in the next couple months. I'm glad I won't be here for that experience, I really wouldn't want to see my cankles at that point! (c:
NOLA has been fun, we saw much of the city, did three tours of the place, learned quite a bit about the history (and it has a rich history!), road the streetcars (not trolley's) and walked a lot. We found a couple bars, not on Bourbon st, that we really enjoyed and shopped a bit. We ate local cuisine, Joc finally had crawfish last night which is a big local eatery... think larger than shrimp but smaller than lobster... couldn't tell you what they taste like I didn't have the guts to try them. We even had muffelattas (which are huge sandwiches with an olice salad topping... not big olive fans but they weren't too bad actually). We walked down Bourbon St, experienced it on a Friday night and then promptly left... funny how when you do that much walking and sightseeing getting drunk and being obnoxious just aren't a priority. Sort of like Ireland, you want to stay out and get pissed with the locals, but you've done and seen so much that your bed sounds much more appealing. That was us on Bourbon st, we decided if we had come down with the full intention of getting drunk and staying out all night then Bourbon street would have been more appealing. Loud and crazy are two words I would use.
I'm going to post pictures from our trip, I'll do it in a seperate posting, just so I can be more controlled on the captions and organization. Hope you enjoy the pics and my quick write up, now I'm here for learnin' from Monday-Thursday when I head north, back to the "cold" as these southerners think!
Funny note: I was wandering in the huge conference center trying to find the registration for my conference and I found a huge sign that said, "REGISTRATION" so I go in line but was confused when it said something about a gold card... I asked the chick behind me who was like, "honey you need to ask someone... it's a vendor card, you get it from the state" I was like, I must be in the wrong place..sure enough, that was a jewelery convention! OMG was I in the wrong place! HA! I heard her whisper to her friend as I was leaving that I must be lost and she hopes I can find my place... interesting, very interesting...
Joc has bid me farewell and I am now comfortably settled in my conference hotel room and taking a day off, #1 because I have to prepare what sessions I'm attending for tomorrow's conference, #2 because it's raining pretty steady eddy and my raincoat sucks and #3 because the edema in my feet has finally decreased and I no longer look like a 9 month pregnant woman with cankles! I'm revelling in my "skinny" ankles again. Which brings me to my thoughts on the south... when they ask, where ya'll from? and you say, Michigan one of the first questions they ask is, "so you think it's hot, huh?" like we live in the artic... like we never get above a cold rain or light snow? I'll give them one thing, it is hot and muggy here and from what locals have said, it gets worse in the next couple months. I'm glad I won't be here for that experience, I really wouldn't want to see my cankles at that point! (c:
NOLA has been fun, we saw much of the city, did three tours of the place, learned quite a bit about the history (and it has a rich history!), road the streetcars (not trolley's) and walked a lot. We found a couple bars, not on Bourbon st, that we really enjoyed and shopped a bit. We ate local cuisine, Joc finally had crawfish last night which is a big local eatery... think larger than shrimp but smaller than lobster... couldn't tell you what they taste like I didn't have the guts to try them. We even had muffelattas (which are huge sandwiches with an olice salad topping... not big olive fans but they weren't too bad actually). We walked down Bourbon St, experienced it on a Friday night and then promptly left... funny how when you do that much walking and sightseeing getting drunk and being obnoxious just aren't a priority. Sort of like Ireland, you want to stay out and get pissed with the locals, but you've done and seen so much that your bed sounds much more appealing. That was us on Bourbon st, we decided if we had come down with the full intention of getting drunk and staying out all night then Bourbon street would have been more appealing. Loud and crazy are two words I would use.
I'm going to post pictures from our trip, I'll do it in a seperate posting, just so I can be more controlled on the captions and organization. Hope you enjoy the pics and my quick write up, now I'm here for learnin' from Monday-Thursday when I head north, back to the "cold" as these southerners think!
Funny note: I was wandering in the huge conference center trying to find the registration for my conference and I found a huge sign that said, "REGISTRATION" so I go in line but was confused when it said something about a gold card... I asked the chick behind me who was like, "honey you need to ask someone... it's a vendor card, you get it from the state" I was like, I must be in the wrong place..sure enough, that was a jewelery convention! OMG was I in the wrong place! HA! I heard her whisper to her friend as I was leaving that I must be lost and she hopes I can find my place... interesting, very interesting...
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Gotta pee!
I don't know why I never thought of this before, but I can totally blog at work! OMG, I cannot believe I havent' done this before. (c:
Working my last night of a four night stretch, I have been really tired the last three and tonight I'm feeling pretty good and it's already 1130 so I'm almost half way done. It's been pretty busy, I've been the IV queen tonight, already started 3 on a couple different floors. I really enjoy starting IVs, the calls to start them are a bit annoying because the nurses always start by saying, "are you busy?" in this really cutsy voice and I just know that that is why they are calling. I told one nurse to not sugarcoat it, just ask me straight up and I'll tell you if I want to or not, or if I can or not! My biggest complaint isn't that I don't have the time or desire, remember I like IV starts and if I'm busy and it's not an emergency I tell them I don't have the time. But my biggest complaint is that often, I find at least one bulging vessel or a couple different options.... which tells me that they either didn't take the time to sit down and actually look for all the possible options or they never turned on the lights or they told me they did try and actually didn't. That's my biggest complaint. I'm no expert, hell I've only been a nurse for 4 years... I just take the time to sit down and look.
AND!!!! 2 day shifts are posted and one of them better be mine! I emailed my boss, and I'm almost 100% certain I have one of them, starting the third week of June, almost there, almost there. I think I can, I think I can...
Leaving for New Orleans tomorrow, for a week and a half. I'm pretty excited to get out of MI for a bit, it's been since Colorado that I've been out of here and it'll feel good to board that plane tomorrow. Joc is coming for the first four days, we'll do the tourist thing then I have a nursing conference to attend. That's the real reason I'm headed South, it is Monday through Thursday and I'll be home in time for Memorial Day and my friend Kelly's trip back to MI. (She went to nursing school with me and worked at Saints until she left to travel last September) We are all going out Friday night to see her, looking forward to it really.
I really do have to pee, I didn't just title the entry that way, I seriously do but there's an environmental services guy cleaning and he wears WAY too much cologne and it is making me nauseous so I'm thinking I'm going to be walking down the hall to another facility.
Lovely, well I'll post some pics when we get back or maybe while I'm there... I'm not going with anyone to the conference so I'll have some nights that I'm not too busy.
Thanks for reading,
Jenn
Working my last night of a four night stretch, I have been really tired the last three and tonight I'm feeling pretty good and it's already 1130 so I'm almost half way done. It's been pretty busy, I've been the IV queen tonight, already started 3 on a couple different floors. I really enjoy starting IVs, the calls to start them are a bit annoying because the nurses always start by saying, "are you busy?" in this really cutsy voice and I just know that that is why they are calling. I told one nurse to not sugarcoat it, just ask me straight up and I'll tell you if I want to or not, or if I can or not! My biggest complaint isn't that I don't have the time or desire, remember I like IV starts and if I'm busy and it's not an emergency I tell them I don't have the time. But my biggest complaint is that often, I find at least one bulging vessel or a couple different options.... which tells me that they either didn't take the time to sit down and actually look for all the possible options or they never turned on the lights or they told me they did try and actually didn't. That's my biggest complaint. I'm no expert, hell I've only been a nurse for 4 years... I just take the time to sit down and look.
AND!!!! 2 day shifts are posted and one of them better be mine! I emailed my boss, and I'm almost 100% certain I have one of them, starting the third week of June, almost there, almost there. I think I can, I think I can...
Leaving for New Orleans tomorrow, for a week and a half. I'm pretty excited to get out of MI for a bit, it's been since Colorado that I've been out of here and it'll feel good to board that plane tomorrow. Joc is coming for the first four days, we'll do the tourist thing then I have a nursing conference to attend. That's the real reason I'm headed South, it is Monday through Thursday and I'll be home in time for Memorial Day and my friend Kelly's trip back to MI. (She went to nursing school with me and worked at Saints until she left to travel last September) We are all going out Friday night to see her, looking forward to it really.
I really do have to pee, I didn't just title the entry that way, I seriously do but there's an environmental services guy cleaning and he wears WAY too much cologne and it is making me nauseous so I'm thinking I'm going to be walking down the hall to another facility.
Lovely, well I'll post some pics when we get back or maybe while I'm there... I'm not going with anyone to the conference so I'll have some nights that I'm not too busy.
Thanks for reading,
Jenn
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