Bigger or Better: Life outside of Texas

It's like there's this pressure in my chest. Mainly in my lungs. I'm totally winning the battle, but the darn buggers won't give up. I wish viruses could lose with grace. Speaking of grace, I am most definitely at my worst with respiratory illnesses. I can and do bear migraines without complaint on an average of a trimonthly basis; not so with colds. Thank goodness the frequency is greatly reduced: just 2-3 times a year. But still, I become more melodramatic, less patient, and a bit anhedonic. Guess I'm not a graceful winner.

Fear not, those who know about HIPPA, I do not plan to reveal any patient personal information. But I feel the need to write. Actually, that might be a nursing tendency. I swear most of my days at work are spent writing updates on the patient. I know it's necessary, but sometimes I wish I could just do more of the stuff that the words I write tell stuff about [is anyone picking up these "How to Train your Dragon" references?]. [+(;-)     This is a nursing emoticon. notice the hat So, little nursing stories, ones where I get to put my feelings in right alongside the facts: I think the hardest days are when patients are in pain, not only because I feel bad for the patient, but because it can get stressful figuring out what pain medication works, or tracking down doctors to prescribe pain medication, and then waiting for the medication to come up from pharmacy. I'm sure the patients get very frustrated with it all. I wish we had time to have a little conference wi

[a small bit of] East Texas Blue Hole Because I'm a wimp. It's too cold up north, and Arizona is too dry (really, I've been there and instantly got dehydrated. by about 4 liters). The weather has finally turned for the winter. It probably amounts to the north's 'fall' season, but it's cold enough for me. I go around with fur coat and gloves for the 50-60 degree weather. But it looks really nice. Which I'm trying to show here: Honestly, this is my favorite one. I love when pictures turn out spectacular without any  tweaks to camera specifications, because I don't know how to do that. If we were in Oklahoma, I'd have sung "Oh, what a beautiful mo-or-ning, oh what a beautiful day, I've got a beautiful fe-eel-ing everything's going my way!" Instead, I sung "If I die young, bury me in satin", much to the amusement of our Thanksgiving guests. I thought it was appropriate, since we were walking through a ce

When I hear the phrase "Be Prepared," I think of two things: Boy Scouts and Lion King. This post is not about either of those, really, but I will say that I've wanted to be a Boy Scout since elementary school, and that I now have the "Be Prepared" song that Scar sings stuck in my head. Really, this post is about skills (great, now I have the line from Napoleon Dynamite banging around my skull). Once upon a time, when I was about 7 or 8, I decided that it would be really useful to learn to write with my left hand in case my right hand stopped working, and to learn to write and open doors with my feet in case my hands stopped working. I admit that I was a strange child, but I think some of the blame can be shifted to my brother Jaron, who at that point in his life was praying that people wouldn't get their limbs chopped off. I have retained all of my limbs so far, but they are still useful skills to have. It is really handy (ahem, bad pun) to be able to ope

i.e. 11-11-11. my family has been recognizing bonza bottler's day for years, but I only just recently figured out the origin of the term. Apparently it's Australian. That makes it way awesome [Auss-some. sorry. my family also celebrates bad puns.] Yeah, so bonza bottler's day is the day when the month number and the day number match. and when the year matches too, like it did yesterday, then that is extra exciting. So for the extra exciting day, I took pictures of '11' re-staining the door allows this 11 to stand out more and some of my favorite cookies lodgepole pines can come in handy re-flooring  the incredibly versatile fruit K, so I'm not really known for my photography. Be grateful I didn't post 5 other pictures to bring the count to 11. Happy Bonza Bottler's Day!

Friday night vignette: Family movie night. Usually this takes place in my parents' living room on a projector with surround sound, but my dad is reflooring that room right now, and nobody wants to lay on the cement floor with nails around the perimeter. So we are gathered in the back room study, watching "I Am Number Four." All except my brother Jaron, that is, who has a project for Science Olympiad due the next day. The most important fight scene in the movie is playing, and then the lights come on. [enter Jaron]: "Guys! I now have four notes on my kalimba!" [a kalimba is an instrument, apparently, that one can make] [dad pauses the movie] the kalimba --blank stares at a rectangular plywood piece with some metal strips attached-- [Jon]: "Your timing is really bad" [Jaron, ever unquenchable]: "do you guys wanna hear?" --plink. plink. plink-- [dad]: "Jaron, that's great. keep us updated..." [Jaron]: "okay! I'

Here, at the beginning of the celebration for dia de los muertos , aka day of the dead, I find it appropriate to create a running list of things I want to do before I die: -go to Japan with my incredible best friends -learn conversational French -get up on the wakeboard -play a string instrument -develop a taste for vegetables -travel to the countries of my ancestors: England, Sweden, Ireland, Denmark, Germany, etc. (I'm a mutt) -have a heart-to-heart with my sister -serve a healthcare mission (i.e. pro bono nursing) -become a horsewoman -visit all the National Parks -successfully grow a plant -complete a quilt -paint a canvas -participate in a triathalon -speak a phrase in various languages (right now, I know how to say "Who's your daddy" in about a half dozen languages. I'm sure it will come in handy)

Actually, I reached that point a long time ago, and made peace with it, but now is the point where I make it public. My apologies to the public. The advantage of being raised by a Licensed Professional Counselor is that I know how to use my dreams to get insight into my life. When I was 5 and troubled with nightmares, my mother taught me how to control my dreams; if I have that sinking feeling in my gut while dreaming, I assert a little bit of mind control and change my dream world. Doesn't always work perfectly, but the point is that my 'subconscious' and 'conscious' communicate a lot. Hence why I pay attention to my dreams--it is my inner communication. The night in high school where I started dreaming in Spanish, I knew I was getting fluent (theoretically, anyway. I get stage fright when speaking). The night in college when I dreamed about putting the 12-lead EKG stickers on a patient, I felt certain I could pass nursing school. So, for the past few nights I h

Although I talk to a lot of inanimate objects, I very rarely name my possessions. I don't refer to my car as anything besides 'my car.' ditto for my laptop. ditto for everything else. But I've decided I may want to name my Garmin GPS. Ty. Short for  'Tyrant.' I admit I need the thing, because I am directionally challenged (I inherited that from my father, of course). I know what's in front of me, and if the sun is on the horizon, I know which way is east/west. I have to think hard about where the other compass points are after that. I also need a moment of contemplation before identifying my right and left. How do I drive with these handicaps? Well, I drive by landmarks [my brain has figured out how to 'auto-pilot' in certain oft-traversed areas]. And I use my GPS. But we've been fighting lately. I'll want to go someplace downtown, and Ty is bound and determined that i should take the tollway. I don't want the tollway. So I drive by a

I booted up the computer yesterday so that I could work on indexing some census records, and while I was waiting for that to load up, I found the stash of my brother Jon's mission letters. How do we not know how funny our siblings are until they go? I laughed so much reading his thoughts on his mission--a sort of self-deprecating humor which mixes the Pollyanna and the Charlie Brown of life's adventures. At the end of this week, he'll be home. The shock of adjusting to 'normal' life after a mission will hit, and things will be crazy, and I am so glad that I am here to see it. Welcome home, Jon

Today, the rare occasion of me shopping gave me a nice title idea for this post. See, I was in a consignment shop, and somebody had consigned an 'Obama' baseball cap there--that's probably not a good sign for his campaign success. It got me thinking--politics (admittedly not my favorite subject) are about consignment (Merriam Webster dictionary:  to give, transfer, or deliver into the hands or control of another ). We turn the care of the country over to one guy (or girl, but that hasn't happened yet) and hope that our chosen head has a clear direction in mind. Well, I've been watching the Republican debates, and this is what I've decided: Mitt Romney: the most distinguished-looking of the group. He's also pretty good at fighting with Rick Perry. I think of all the people competing, he is the best at sounding intelligent Rick Perry: good at creating a fight, esp. with Romney (I guess his campaign manager told him to single Romney out? I don't really

I got on the elevator yesterday  at work to go down (novel idea, right?) to the main floor. My timing was terrible. I got on at the 21st floor. Someone else got on at the 19th floor. Then the 18th. I snickered. Then the 16th. Everybody in the elevator was laughing. I think we hit the 14th floor, too, before making it to base. Thank goodness that elevator doesn't service floors 4-12. The experience reminded me of another family history classic dealing with elevators. Background: A long time ago (by which I mean more than 10 years), my dad had a business trip to Dallas, and took his little family with him as a sort of vacation. We stayed on the 18th floor of a really nice hotel (an advantage of business trips). The pool (my main interest) was on the 3rd floor. The hotel was serviced by 3 elevators: two normal ones, and one glass one. The plot thickens: While my dad was off in meetings, my mother took me and my 3 other siblings to the pool. When we headed back, we obviously press

I've learned a couple of things about the hospital where I work, and so many things about it are making me smile. :) As a state employee, I get discounts on hotels in Texas. At first glance, it seems rather weird to stay in a hotel in your home state. Well, it's a big place. It takes a day or two to drive across it, so a hotel discount is useful. But still, I smile. :) The hospital has several centers around the world, so their 'locations' webpage lists the other sites and organizes them logically--'Regional,' 'Outside of Texas,' and 'International.' This makes me smile the most. Most of the rest of the world would assume "regional" referred to several states, and that "national" would be a better term for 'outside of Texas.' Maybe so. I think it's endearing. :) In a presentation, one of the trainers said, "...route [ ˈ ra u̇ t ] or rout e   [ ˈ rüt, ], depending on what part of Texas you are from." I

Well, there goes another appliance. Our refrigerator broke. Hopefully not permanently--I don't know, I'm not a maintenance man. But I'm pretty certain something's wrong--there's a puddle of water underneath the freezer, and the milk in my cereal was lukewarm. Until the repairman comes, we are using a cooler. At first I could imagine that we were camping, but we still have a/c and plumbing, so the illusion doesn't quite fit. But I think I've got it now--it's like we are in the 1920s. "Could you put milk on the table?" "Oh, sure, let me go to the ice box"  I think it's a perfect illusion--we even have to buy ice everyday to keep the 'ice chest' cold. Now where is the milk man?

So many interesting things have happened these past couple of weeks. Which means so many opportunities to blog! Today I volunteered with the American Red Cross. This is pretty much the only image for this post. I didn't take any pictures Drought conditions have really left the state vulnerable to fire. The chapter I'm in normally responds to 2 apartment/house fires a day, and now we have so many wildfires to respond to as well. [plug for the American Red Cross: volunteer! or donate! or both!] So today I helped load up some trucks with supplies for people affected by these fires, and then we drove them out to a stricken area and drove along the streets looking for people. We had three teams going: one for mental health services to help victims cope, one for medical health services to treat victims/distribute first aid kits, and one for bulk distribution (the team I was on) to give shovels/rakes/buckets/clorox/trash bags/dust masks/water to those cleaning up. [Imagine p

I got downtown today and discovered that my breakfast (a peach) and my morning reading (the Bible) got a little cozy in my bag. The hardcover edge of my Bible cut into one of the softer spots of the peach, which got peach juice on the outer page edges of Genesis through 1 Kings. This provides a great opportunity for some puns. The word of God is sharper than a two-edged sword, dividing asunder the flesh from the pit We should feast upon the word of God Man should not live on [fruit] alone, but by every word from the mouth of God The word of God is peachy? Okay, that's all I dare do without risking blasphemy. I may need a new Bible. I cleaned up what I could, but the juice stain now looks like dried blood, which makes my Bible way more symbolic, but perhaps not the best presentation.

This haiku popped into my head on seeing so many gecko-like things huddled in the light fixture. On the ceiling Night lizards gather soaking up the hot porch light a reptile high

I intended to post on my labor day weekend trip. It turns out the trip home was much more exciting than the trip itself. Texas, as I mentioned, is in a drought. A lot of flora in central Texas is dead, and a lot more are dead now because a HUGE wildfire is sweeping the area, which happened to be on our route home. Fortunately for us, we were detoured, but that led us by several fire areas. helicopter for evacuation, maybe? The good news: all of these fires decrease the humidity!!! ...WATER Switching to happier note: my attempts at wakeboarding! i spent a lot of time IN the water instead of ON the water small victory: got up for maybe 30 seconds!

Disclaimer: no ill will is intended in any of these posts. I love Texas, and I recognize the humor in the Texas ego Driving around town, I can tell there is a definite theme to companies' names and mottoes. I suppose I could enter the advertising business now: basic parts of a company name should be a) your field, and  b) something involving Texas.  So, Texas Dental. Lone Star College. Texas Health Insurance. Lone Star Steakhouse. Texas Instruments (you know, the people that make all those calculators for calculus classes. I used to wonder if other states had their own calculator companies. apparently not). Texas Roadhouse. You get the idea. Or, say you are a chain and can't rename your business to suit Texan pride. No worries! Just come up with some products or greeting signs particular to the state. Throw the words "y'all," or "Texas-sized"  around. Use the Texas shape on posters. Display the Texan flag; even better, display it with the Americ

I was talking to somebody the other day about living in Texas, and she mentioned that the things that freaked her out the most in mvoing here were the bugs: huge flying cockroaches, mosquitoes, snakes (yes, I know that's not a bug, but then, 'bug' isn't exactly a scientific classification), wasps, bees, hornets, etc. I realized that she has a point. Take a gander: This lovely thing was in our tree. I have never seen a hive so big in a residential setting, but I guess I shouldn't be surprised: it's Texas. :) Lizard-like things have a real talent for coming indoors out of the heat. Earlier this summer I caught an anole so I could stick it back outside, but it didn't like that plan, and bit me. Double reason to kick it out. The gecko (i think it's a gecko, anyway) above got in last week, and when I tried to catch him, I crushed his tail with a cup. On accident. I felt really bad. Especially because it was a baby, and because it died. This thin

Texas is, um, big, which makes driving long and (usually) expensive. But I got a nice surprise today. I was driving from Corpus Christi to Houston and stopped to fill up and just happened to pick a pump that had $20 pre-paid gas in it already. It totally made my day.

Every once in a while I have an infatuation with something cute. Usually that cute thing is something small. For example, on road trips across the state, I love stopping at the gas stations to see the miniature ketchup bottles, cracker packages, shampoo bottles, and other such things that seem so ordinary to other people. My latest "cute" thing is a USB drive. Isn't it adorable?  I think it's the big fat head that gets me. When I need to actually use the drive (instead of stare at it), I decapitate the head and plug it in: It's like a wall mount, but smaller Who would not want to see that head staring back? It is so cute I could put it in my pocket. Actually, I do...

To me, RIFA sounds like a soccer club. but it's not. For one thing, soccer isn't very big in Texas; football is THE sport as far as most Texans are concerned, so a soccer club isn't very likely. For another, as wikipedia informed me, RIFA stands for 'red imported fire ant' (somebody stayed up into the wee hours of the morning coming up with that name). Not supposed to be indigenous to the United States. They snuck their way in through Mobile, Alabama from a South American ship in the 1930s. And now they terrorize the southwest. I bring this up because a week and a half ago, I was pulling some weeds (which surprisingly still grow in a drought) and hit a jackpot of an anthill. I only noticed after two bit me on the thumb. It hurts, it itches, and apparently I'm mildly allergic because I still have the marks on my hand. But our weed situation is a bit out of control so I went in again yesterday, this time with gloves on. -----------------------------------------

Our washing machine broke last week. Its history is quite fascinating. So here I write a eulogy. The washing machine was in our possession for around 21 years. At the time of its 'death,' it bore its age with several rust spots, but otherwise functioned well until the end. But the thing that got this particular washing machine into family history occurred around 11 years ago. To protect the dignity of individuals, a royal 'we' has been adopted. The washing machine, as calculated by its age at 'death,' was in its zenith during this particularly memorable weekend of 2000. We were having a family over for dinner, and to entice them to come [side note: apparently bribes are necessary for dinner dates] they were told that we would be having a glazed ham [another side note: I actually don't like ham]. So the day of the dinner, we took the ham out of the freezer and, seeing that the sink was dirty, decided to thaw the ham in the washing machine. After all, it is

So I had the chance to watch the Houston Symphony peform the score of The Fellowship of the Rings on Saturday. It was a movie-symphony combo: the movie was projected onto a theater-size screen, and the orchestra and chorus gave the musical performance below. Basically, what that meant for me is that seats that would normally be really expensive were actually quite cheap, because the front seats gave a poor view of the movie, but a good feel for the orchestra. I got to watch the percussionist play the chains (no, really! I didn't think chains were part of an orchestra, but I guess percussionists can get creative), and I could hear individual instruments like the harpsichord, the bells, and the oboe. One of the most fascinating parts, I think, was seeing how the director coordinated his orchestra with the timing of the film. I think he had some sort of display to prompt him when songs should start, but to keep that timing clean throughout the whole 3-ish hours! I confess that I'

don't armadillos look like giant pill bugs? That big shiny armadillo grabbed my attention when I was downtown, so I figured it would grab yours. We can now dispense with the preliminaries, and move on to the meat of this mini-Texas tour. Not all of Texas is desert. There are actually several different environments in Texas (although all of them include heat): desert and plateaus in the west, hills and scrubby trees in the center, and a flat green expanse of oaks/pines/cypress/etc. on the coast in the east (which is where I live). hey, there are horses! Texas is in a drought right now--the worse we've had in about 50 years--but the southeast is still pretty green. Mostly. The grass is dying. The trees might die. Hopefully not, though, because Texas has some nice trees. SHADE=the other reason trees aren't cut down It seems that a lot of the old trees in Texas were hanging trees at one point or another. Such a history, apparently, saves the tree from

This ain't no news flash, but it is hot in Texas. Usually temperatures don't go above 100 degrees, but factor in the humidity, which means reduced sweat evaporation and subsequent cooling, and it gets pretty miserable. The number of 'hot' days per year has doubled since 2010; I hope the trend doesn't stick. I just went on a walk around my neighborhood in my bare feet on the concrete, and really regret that; it's like walking on hot broken glass. I wonder if early Texans were nocturnal before a/c was invented; it's quite pleasant in the evenings (starting at like 8:00pm), but otherwise I just stay indoors or in water. When I go out of the state, people usually ask me how I can live there because it's so hot. Yeah, but you get used to it [which is mostly true.] And then you develop a huge Texas pride thing on it [which is completely true]. And at this point they will want to change the topic... Ice cream! Good way to get your dairy and beat the heat. A