Oh the pies, the pies, the pies!

I LOVE the food at Thanksgiving. I love the potatoes, the turkey, the gravy (oh the gravy!) the stuffing (Love love love the stuffing). But the best part is the pies. I love pie. Ya know, now that I think about it. The pies would eb even better if we didn't eat them ON Thanksgiving. Then I could eat more stuffing and gravy without even considering having room for dessert. We could wait and eat pie the next night and spread Thanksging over TWO days. Now THAT'S a plan! Check in next year to see if I convinced the rest of the world...

Pie Making at our house. The mess is worth it!:


Apple Pie hot out of the oven:



Sugar Cream and Pecan:


Cookies made out of the trimmings from the pie crust. YUMMY YUMMY YUMMY!


Natalie likes the cookies too!

We think it's muscular...(which means it's not cancer!)

That's the verdict. I have a bunch of muscles on my right side that have decided a great way to be is in knots. The other possibility is that the membrane that lines the hip socket, the labrum, has a small tear in it. Can't see that with an x-ray only with an MRI. The fix for that is an orthoscopic surgery to trim out the tear. Since an MRI is quite expensive and the doctor is leaning toward the muscular explanation, I am going to Physical Therapy twice a week for the next month to exaust the muscles so they will calm down and stop being so irritated. I'm also taking 600 mg of ibuprofen 3x per day. AND NO RUNNING. I need to cross train. I hate cross training because I like to run. But I probably injured myself from running too much so I know this is the right thing to do but no other exercise appeals to me that much. I could go to the YMCA and do the eliptical or the bike. Or I could swim. I could get the tires fixed on my bike and bike around my neighborhood (that's more appealing than going to the Y.) I could rollerblade, which I really like but honestly it scares me a bit because if you wipe out on blades the concrete is going to end up with a significant portion of your skin. I don't know about walking. Anyway, after 4 weeks of PT if I'm doing better we go with the muscular explanation. If I'm not better we do the MRI and look for that tear. I'm very very hopeful that the PT folks think that massage is a vital portion of my recovery. (Fingers crossed!) By the way, that's not my hip up there just a google image. Although my hip looked pretty similar to that one!

Going to the doctor

So today I have an appointment with my friendly orthopedist. I saw her about 2 years ago for foot pain that was dxed plantar fascitis. I did 2 months of physical therapy and was as good as new. Now I've been having this really annoying pain in my right hip. It's been going on for several months and I can't seem to get it to go away. If I take 600mg of ibuprofen twice a day I'm pretty pain free. It just doesn't seem like that is a good long term strategy. And with the holidays I need to be able to run ALOT so that I can eat ALOT! I'm very curious to see what she says...I'll update later.

Creativity rears its head

I am not the most creative person. Crafty stuff and I don't get along well. I can't draw or paint. I don't have a hobby that invilves making things. I don't scrapbook...you get the picture. Occassionally though, the small amount of creativity that I do have comes bursting forth like the pent up energy of a geyser. Friday was Character Dress Up Day at my two youngest girls school. The kids are supposed to dress up like the character from a book. And I must say, the creativity burst forth and we had some seriously cute costumes....

So first we have Natalie as Fancy Nancy. Now Natalie wanted to look EXACTLY like Fancy Nancy which required me
to add a felt poodle to the skirt she already had. That is seriously creative!












Next was Isabella as Junie B. Jones is a Party Animal. The pajamas were new because she didn't have any warm PJs but we had the elephant, the hair wrap and the slippers were already had. We also bought the feather boa because really with a house with three girls a feather boa comes in handy!

Surprising self discovery from nursing school

I have small hands and short fat fingers. Not a value judgement just a fact. And I have always tried to grow my fingernails out because I thought it would make my fingers look longer. Problem is that when my fingernails get long they bend and look very very odd. They are also pretty thin so they are never long all at the same time. When I started nursing school they told us we had to have short fingernails in the clinical areas. I sadly cut off my fingernails. Guess what?!?!?!? I love having short fingernails. They look so much better. No amount of growing my fingernails out is going to make my fingers look longer. And having short finernails that aren't all twisted and funky looking is much much better than what I had before! Here's a couple pictures, and actually, they are a little on the long side compared to what I've been doing. Off to happily clip and file!

My Violet

On the window sill behind my sink, I have a violet (and a scrubber brush and my drain cover, there was no editing for this picture!). I got the violet at a charity auction at least three years ago. The kids that the charity helps painted clay pots and they were about $10 at the auction. Seeing as how most of the other stuff started in the three digits we were happy to support the cause by buying a hand painted pot. In the pots were these violets that were barely hanging onto life. They were decrepit. I'm guessing they were donated but the nursery that donated them didn't remove their stickers from the plastic pots before they gave them away so we all knew which nursery had fobbed off their dying plants on the children's charity. Anyway, I brought home this little violet and totally expected it to die because I have a propensity to kill plants. But it didn't! In fact, as long as I watered it on a fairly regular basis it thrived! And it grew and it bloomed these beautiful purple flowers! Eventually it outgrew my hand painted pot and had to be transplanted to a bigger home. I love my violet because when I look at it I remember how sick it was and that somehow, I made it better. And that is just amazing to me!

So, Mom, how do you want to die?

This is the question I was asked by my 7 year old in the car today. It was just the two of us which is pretty rare. But that is definitely a question you don't expect. So i told her something pretty boring (If I'm young I hope it is cancer so I have time to say good-bye and if I'm old a massive stroke would be pretty good.) So after a little discussion (Apparently, my mom said she'd like to die eating ice cream out of the container with my dad. Love that!) I asked her, how do you want to die? "I want to go for a walk at night in a beautiful place with my husband." Isn't that awesome? I asked if I could come too because it sounded good to me. Sure, she said. Then a few seconds later, "But Mom, I think you'll already be dead by the time I'm old." Moment over, but I hope I remember that forever.

Only two clinicals left for the semester!!!!!

So part of the reason why I was so absent for the month of October was the mess that Ike caused with our clinicals. I was in the precepted group which means that instead of going to the hospital a certain day of the week with a group of 10 students, I was assigned a nurse and I scheduled my clinical times according to her schedule. Since I had three clinicals this semester, that meant three sites and three nurses. This has a lot of benefits in keeping my schedule flexible and because I work with the nurses schedule I work 12 hour shifts which means I work fewer days to get my hours in. However, when Ike hit, we lost two weeks of clinical time. AND the instructors for those precepted clinicals hadn't really gotten them completely organized before Ike. So after Ike they were trying to get our classes back on track and get preceptors for all of us at the same time that the hospitals were trying to get back to normal. THEN, if that weren't enough we knew before the sotrm that there was some kind of problem with our site for our ICU clinical. But our instructor assurred us it would all work out and we could work on our other clinicals while she straightened it out. After the storm we found out that the hospital we were supposed to go to had a major administrative shake up and no longer would accept precepted students. Uh oh! Now we are behind AND we have no clinical site. This is not good. Our other clinical sites were still good but the instructors were still working on getting precetor information to us. Another lost week goes by. Finally we got our info for the other two clinical placements and got started. In order to make up for lost time, I worked four clinicals a week for a couple weeks, which meant including school and clinicals I was putting in 50-60 hours a week. It was brutal. My family was holding it together but barely. At one point working 7 a- 7p two days in a row meant I didn't see my kids for 48 hours! I was cranky and exhausted. And i was mad at a system that set us up for this my having such little organization. The storm wasn't anyone's fault but not having our clinical sites set up before Sept is just inexcusable. And this has been a theme throughout the nursing school experience. Sometimes I wonder if the disorganization and last minute expectations of us showing up for required stuff is part of the training to accept that nurses have huge responsibility and low independence.
So anyway, I haev two days left and I am going to be soooooooo glad to be DONE! Over all my clinical experiences have been great. All my preceptors were wonderful. I learned a lot and I got to see some pretty cool stuff (especially in the cardiovascular recovery room!). I'm sort of getting a sense of what I want to do after graduation (that's a topic for another post). And most importantly, I made it through!

Hurricane Ike update

So last we heard I was ready for things to get back to normal....

Well, I guess we are at a new normal but there are soemthings that are just interesting consequences of the storm. (That's what people 'round these parts tend to call it, just "The Storm")
First, traffic was completely crazy for about 6 weeks after the storm. It took longer to get to school in the mornings, there was traffic in places that there hadn't been before and the afternoon traffic started up earlier. Then last week, suddenly, it was better. I guess some of the relief workers went home or something. I'm glad it is better, very very glad but it was weird!
Second, there is this gigantic pile of tree trimmings in an empty field on the highway I use to get to school. I would take a picture of it but I think there wouldn't be enough perspective to appreciate how big it is. I would bet it is about the size of a football field and about 5 stories tall! It is slowly being turned into mulch but it is a site to behold!
Third, insurance.... Wow. Until you actually have to use your homeowner's insurance for a disaster claim, you will never understand why all those Katrina people complain about insurance companies. It is a pain in the BUTT! There are all sorts of rules and regulations and you have to document in 47 different ways and then you get an offer but you might need to renegotiate the offer if you don't think it is fair. The roofing company will "work with" you insurance company to get you a good settlement which feels alittle like you are being ripped off except that the insurance company really prefers it that way because they don't want to climb up on your roof. it is all very overwhelming and scary because you are talking about thousands of dollars!
Lastly, when our fence was down, we talked to our neighbors and felt all neighborly and had this little community going. Lacked a little privacy though! Then the guys all bought materials together and built the fence together and it was great and neighborly. And now we have fences again and we never talk to each other. I liked it without the fence....

A day in the ER

So yesterday I spent the day in the ER of a tiny little community hospital where one of my instructors works as a nurse practitioner. I got clinical hours and I got to experience another aspect of nursing so that was cool. I just really like the ER. I like trying to figure out what's wrong with people. I like the fact that you get to talk to people but they are in and out, it isn't long and protracted. I like that there's alittle bit of everything, trauma (not like gun shots and car wreck trauma , this is a little community hospital, but like sliced my hand open trauma), pediatrics, geriatrics, minor illness and serious illness. I like that there's downtime where you can get to know your coworkers (and work a cross word puzzle - a drunk group of opera fans is a "juiced box") but that when it is busy the time flies by. I got to give a couple injections - just a note to big strong guys with tattoos, lots and lots of tatoos, the 7 year old boy made less of a fuss over a much bigger injection than you guys did. How can you whine over a shot when you have tattoos all over??????

O-kay alarm went off late gotta shower and go to school and take an exam!

Can someone please invent...

A device that allows me to post on my blog through oral dictation while sitting in traffic. Seriously, I could be prolific blogger if I could post while in traffic. I have all sorts of erudite, insightful thoughts in traffic. For example,
"I wonder what would happen if health care were delivered as a traditional fee for service model with -- GET OVER YOU IDIOT! THAT DUMP TRUCK WILL CRUSH YOUR PRECIOUS PRIUS!!!"
or
"I should totally blog about how antiquated nursing education is. When your model for education harkens back to the days nurses were educated in hos-- NO NO NO NO NO!!!!! IT IS 9:22 a.m!!!! THERE IS NOT SUPPOSED TO BE TRAFFIC AT 9:22 a.m! RUSH HOUR IS OVER! GO HOME!!"
or
"We have a black president. Wow, wow, wow. I don't even think my children can understand what an amazing -- WHY ARE YOU DRIVING 27 MILES AN HOUR IN A 45 ZONE?!?!?! DON'T YOU HAVE A JOB OR SOMETHING IMPORTANT TO DO???? MOVE!!!!!!"

Doesn't that inspire you to get on with your inventing?????

I have a blog and I'm not afraid to use it

I just might choose not to for like, oh, six weeks at a time. Sometimes when you have let something slide it becomes harder and harder to get back on track because of the embarassment factor because of the length of inactivity. For example, thank you notes. If I haven't written a thank you note within two weeks, I probably am not gong to do it. Not because I forgot but because I'm too embarassed to follow up so late. The worst is when I have totally put off going to the dentist or get my well-woman exam. They've sent reminder cards, called to remind me and now I'm months overdue and I just have to suck it up and make the appointment. Do they care? Probably not. Probably not...what am I saying, of course NOT!

Anyway, so here I am posting on my blog after a six week absence that was extended by the shame of going back to something after that long. (That and the fact that seriously, like two people read my blog and I absolutely perform better with an audience.) Do I promise to be better? Nope. But I'll try and post often enough to avoid shame based extended absence. And get some therapy for my neuroses related to thank you notes and doctor's appointments...