Bigger or Better: Life outside of Texas

Last week, my long-term patient asked me to take him downstairs to the gift shop so that he could buy a present for his wife for Christmas. So I got him in his wheelchair, put on his Santa hat, and with me bedecked in a Christmas light necklace, we looked pretty festive. We went downstairs, and heard a brass ensemble in the lobby performing Christmas carols, so we stopped to listen. The music was very well done, and helped with the Christmas spirit. After a while, we proceeded on to the gift shop, where 'Guy' wanted to look at purses, because he had noticed his wife's purse was getting raggedy. I held up several different options, which got turned down for price or gaudiness, but he finally liked one, and said it would be perfect. The catch: it was $39, and he had $40, and we didn't think that would cover taxes. He waved over a store assistant and asked if it would be enough, and one of the other customers, who had seen us choosing purses, said she would cover the dif

Well, I did it. Today I ran my first half marathon. It was the first race I have ever signed up for, although I did later sign up to do a 5K and a 10K to help me prepare for the big half. Not sure running half marathons is really my thing. I brought my inhaler, so I never felt short of breath, and I didn't really hurt that bad during the run, but my legs started to feel like jelly, and I definitely got blisters. I also twisted my ankle about 5 times, because the course was over this prairie-long-grass-with-gopher-holes-and-deep-sand-and-mud type of turf. I thought the course was really tough, and was really tempted to just walk (which I did for about a tenth of a mile, mainly to drink water or take my inhaler, but also just because) or just throw myself down on the ground and not get up. I did not give into the latter, even at the end. But I did promptly soak in an epsom salt bath and take a long nap. I went with one of my good friends, Tammy, and her husband and brother-in

One of my favorite songs growing up was "A thousand words" by Savage Garden, because it had the word  "damnation" in it, which I thought was hilarious. I'm guessing I haven't matured much, because I still smile when I listen to the song. For my enjoyment, (possibly yours too, depending on your sense of humor), I have compiled statements that can be sprinkled into everyday life to express strong emotion. It's clean, I promise I'm going to go run on the dam road Give me the flipping spatula Look, it's a blinking light Watch out for the bloody animal More additions to come as I think of them, but I'm afraid to think too hard. could be dangerous. ~~~~~~~ Okay, here's one of my favorite jokes: What did the fish say when it swam into the wall? Dam! What did the wall say back? Dumb bass

I'm not sure this post is for my benefit either. I don't know why I am writing this. It's just the sort of thing that I'd write in a journal, but I don't keep a journal. I keep a blog. I told a friend the other day that I felt like I was "nesting in" (usually only occurs to pregnant ladies) because I kept rearranging/re-decorating my living room, and I had more intense mood variations. Since we both know that I'm not pregnant, she suggested maybe it was a sign that I was going to get married soon. I find that just slightly less impossible than the pregnant answer. Here's the thing: I want to date guys, generally, but when it comes to guys, specifically, I pretty much freak (Just inside. Or to really close friends). It is so frustrating. If I were a shrink, I'd tell you what's going on, but I'm not, so I don't know. What I have figured out so far is that I absolutely must know the guy (in a general, observational way) for at lea

Short version of my post: Basically, I went on vacation (yay!!!), slept little, and laughed much. Long version:  For the sake of ticket price, my travel days covered pretty much 2 full days: one day going, one day returning. I had long layovers, so I wandered the airport, watched a movie on my laptop, and took pictures of the birds inside the Denver airport (as shown above).  I spent Tuesday night at my grandparents, then went down to the city of Provo on Wednesday, which was my vacation destination. Cuz apparently it's a happening place. Actually, the truth is I went there because that's where most of my friends live/work, and where my brother Jaron is right now at school. Since I prefer doing fun things with people, I just had to go to where I had a high friend concentration.  aka Provo. I paid a long overdue visit to see my cousin Madi because she's cool, and my Aunt Steph because she picked me up. I have no pictures to prove these things, so just believe me.

I got a new computer, so I've been moving over documents and organizing pictures, and I've found something to share: food. None of these 'recipes' are exact, because that's not really how I cook, and because that would make the post really long. Comment if you want the recipe, and I'll hunt it down.   Fruit pizza : just a basic crust, because I didn't want to make sugar cookies, then a base of cream cheese/sugar mixture and a topping of apples, peaches, and grapes. The best part is arranging the fruit to make it fit.   "Sunday Special" : This is a recipe from my friend Sharon. Basically, just ground beef(browned), canned green beans, cream of chicken soup, and cheese, topped with tater tots. Bake at 350 for 45-ish minutes   "Stuffed" French Toast : Make egg mixture with egg/milk/vanilla, dip just one side each of two slices of bread, place egg-side down on pan. Mix cream cheese/sugar/chocolate chips together, place on

Just to clear the air, I'm not talking about surrogacy relating to sheep or conception or anything genetic like that. I'm referring to the elbow grease, the encouragement, the patience, and the subsequent tie that comes with a long-term nurse-patient relationship. Okay, long-term may be stretching it. I've only had this patient for 3 weeks. I'm just anticipating that this guy will be here for a while. I'm trying to be vague here. I think the only information that's necessary to the story is that this guy is very weak, quite sick, goes to various tests/procedures about every day, and that his nursing care team is trying very hard to get him stronger. And I'm going to call him Guy. For the past 2 weeks, I have created a goal board for Guy, with little check boxes. I tell Guy that I'm going to gather up the posse to help him sit, bathe, turn, and move his arms and legs. Most of the time I can get him to reluctantly agree that all this activity is to help

I had a pretty stark contrast today of the use of words. Most of today I was watching General Conference [follow link for explanation], and let me say we have some pretty awesome apostles. They can be blunt, and what they say may tweak your soul, but it's always in the direction of getting better. I really, really enjoy General Conference weekends. That's the good word. But driving home after watching it, as I was sitting in my car thinking about how I needed chapstick (temporal needs are so distracting), a car behind me cussed at me. I suppose I should be glad I got through life up to this point without getting cussed at. It is totally different to have the cussing around you as opposed to directed at you. I was not happy. Basically. So I turned on some music and entertained fantasies of me showing those boys what's what. It is a fulfilling activity in that such thoughts are entertaining and definitely fantasies. So now that I've provided the contrast, let me bring

I'm not much of a pet person. I have no idea what to do with them. Except fish. I think I can handle fish. I've considered trying to become a pet person, but I'm afraid I'll kill them. I pretty much ignore my roommate's dog, and she (the dog) pretty much ignores me. Minus the times she barks at me. Anyway, so I really have not understood how some people treat their pets as family members, as far as time, money, and emotions invested. Well, I think I'm changing my mind. Due to this as-yet un-named kitten: I have no idea what kind she is. The cute kind. She's small, is easily entertained with string, and comes when called (current moniker is "kitty"). She sits on my lap and purrs, and I'm besotted. And I'm even letting her near my face. Big progress for a germaphobe I think the only thing that bothers me is that she was just weaned, and still tends to bite things. Like my toes, my fingers, and my ears. I think I should invest in a

Sometimes I feel like I haven't actually passed through the "Real Life" door. There's something about not having to work 4 days of the week that gently mocks my sense of independence. I mean, who am I kidding? I swear I take naps more as an adult with a full-time job than I did as a child with no particular purpose whatever. That's excluding infancy, of course. At least I'm more productive than I was as an infant. So, for my mental health, and hopefully for your entertainment, I'm going to list things I do on my days off: -as I said, take naps. love them -go on walks. or, since I've just started training for a half marathon, go on runs, with some walking breaks -cook. and eat -clean. I sometimes even make my bed -go to the dentist (okay, so this doesn't happen every day. more like every couple of months, if we are being generous. but it does break up the day. Last month my dentist had to cancel on me because he got in a car accident, and I h

Still don't have a lot to say on one topic, but I have pictures! More or less in reverse chronological order: Shots from near my apartment. The bayou has a faint sulfur smell at times, which seems all the thicker due to the humidity of the air above the water. Can't remember much about these two shots. I suppose that's good; it will encourage you to go see the Paleontology Hall at HMNS for yourself instead of depending on my inexperienced, inaccurate report. Anyway, those fossils on the left were gorgeous, and the turtle was big. I went to see The Lion King Broadway with my family for my birthday. It is the second time I've seen it, and the only Broadway I have seen, so can't give any comparisons, but I LOVE the music and choreography. This is a weed. A Texas weed in all rights. I don't know if it's actually indigenous, but it was doing its best to settle into our yard. I think it might have become bigger had we let it....

I mentioned  here  that I wanted to collect my favorite quotes. Well, I find that I have few words of my own to say this month, so I'm stealing from other people and following up on a promise in the same incredibly long post. Work “A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.” ~ George Bernard Shaw “Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome .”  ~Booker T. Washington “A pessimist is one who makes  difficulties  of his opportunities and an optimist is one who makes opportunities of his difficulties.”  ~Harry Truman Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work" -  Thomas Edison "I believe that we are here to work, and I believe there is no escape from it. I think that we cannot get that thought into our souls and into our beings too soon. Work we must, if we shall succeed or if

When I tell people I'm a nurse, I'm usually asked, "so what do you do all day?" I usually give a really lame answer, like, "oh, you know, give meds. call the doctors." I don't think I'm doing my profession much of a service with such an answer. so here goes the real thing: I get on shift and start looking up some information on my patients before I get report: lab information, any procedures scheduled for the day, the patient diagnoses, the latest orders from the doctors, the medications I will give that day, latest vital signs, etc. This takes a while, so I have to finish after I've gotten report so that the night nurses can go home. I walk into each patient's room to get a quick nursing baseline of the individual, and then it's usually time to start calling people. If a procedure is supposed to be done but is not scheduled yet, I call down to the appropriate department to see what's going on. If I have questions on doctors' or

Another typical tangent before I get to the point: I've been hesitant to use the word "irony" ever since Alanis Morissette made the term too popular to be used accurately. I'm going to brave it now.  In one of my many trips to the grocery store last week, I noticed that a stack of wine crates advertised their support of finding a cure for  prostate cancer. I entertain zero thoughts of alcohol's health benefits, and several of its many detriments; it seems a stick in my side that alcohol funds good things, from the Olympics to finding a cure for cancer. Why can't healthy foods fund these things? Probably because America doesn't consume enough healthy foods to compete with the revenue from alcohol. The frustrating thing is that if America ate more healthy foods, the risk of many illnesses, including cancer, would decrease. Another snapshot: I was waiting at a red light, and a man on the street was asking for donations. The car in front of me rolled down

This post, from what I have conceived of it so far, portends to be extremely random. There is a common thread, I swear. I'm pretty sure I've mentioned this before, but I mostly faked pronouncing "r" through much of childhood. That, and the fact that I tended to use proper grammar AND large words led many people to believe that I was from England, or Australia, or Africa (I'm assuming they meant South Africa).  They are, if you stretch the definition of 'from,' all accurate. Most of my ancestors come from Great Britain, one at least was born in South Africa when his father went there during the Boer wars, and my father lived in Australia for 2 years. I doubt any of these facts played into my pronunciation, as I was born and raised in America. Probably the next most influential factor to my speech, besides my speech impediment, was the media I was raised with. Right after reading, say, The Hobbit, or watching Pride & Prejudice (the long version), I aut

"A vacation is having nothing to do and all day to do it in." Robert Orben One of my best friends in the world is an old college roommate from India now living in Seattle. I never quite got around to visiting Tamanna when she was in India (oops); really no substitute for that as far as location, but fortunately she stays the same wherever. Except she'll get an Indian accent. Oddly enough, I seem to be better at keeping in touch with friends who are out of state. Right after my work talent show (post on that coming soon), I took a week off of work and flew to SeaTac. While standing in line for airport security for 40 minutes, I managed to overhear a good portion of a phone break-up conversation from the girl behind me. awkward. Tamanna picked me up, and then we went to her apartment, where she introduced me to some friends who were over, and where I used my pretend-i-can-hear-you manners because my ears hadn't yet popped from the flight. I thought for sure I would