Wow look at how fast time goes by… I cannot believe it’s
been nearly over 3 months since I last blogged. Inexcusable! I have that
daunting personality that once I start procrastinating, it just gets worse and
worse… But anyway, so much has happened! This post has potential to be one of
those “get your popcorn out” posts; except for the fact that I should try and
tell you everything I have to say in multiple posts so you don’t get all
WNBOverload with all this in one post. But getting me back in decent fashion
and time to this computer might take a while, so I might as well just dish it
all out now! I keep saying I’m going to work on that and then I never do. Sigh.
One of my best friends recently started his own blog and I think
that’s inspired me to get back on here and update ya’ll. When he feels comfortable with sharing it with the world, I'll publish the link here, because although it has nothing to do with nursing- he's a great writer and has a strong political voice. I truly do love my
blog, it’s been a part of my voice since 2009 (4 years!!!) and I cherish it. I
aim to make it a bigger part of my life upcoming, like it used to be.
Anyway, my new house is amazing. It’s shaping me into the
person I want to become just as fast as I’m shaping it into the house I want it
to be. There have not been any catastrophes (knock on wood) and the repair
process has been fun, and a huge learning experience. I never thought I’d be
the type of girl to watch HGTV in my spare time….yet the inside of the house
has undergone minor (but very noticeable) improvements and I love it. The
outside, however, has yet to undergo a lot of work. The Inside has all been
repainted, all of my furniture is finally in, and a lot of my decorations are
up. I can’t believe I finally get to decorate my own house. It’s truly surreal.
I’m still getting over the fact that in my apartment, my bedroom, studio and
office were all in one room. Now I have a separate room for each of those. I
LOVE my studio, I’ve been painting so much- and I plan to soon start painting
the walls and make a giant mural.
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| ART STUDIO!!!! |
It saddens me to think that whatever changes
I make to the house, although it technically belongs to me, do affect the
resell value. I know it’s mine now, but it’s hard to think about a new owner someday
living under this same roof after me. I mean this is my first true home. I still
drive past my original first home from when I was a child, my parent’s first official
house, and to me it still feels funny knowing that new owners are living under
the walls I made so many memories in- and we moved over 10 years ago!
But anyway, like I said-the outside still needs a lot of
work. I still think back to when I first saw the listing for the house and saw
the outdoor picture and I thought, “I’m not buying that house.” There I am, a
Gemini eternally known for judging a book by its cover…Then I walked inside and
saw beautiful hardwood floors, brand new windows and kitchen cabinets, and my
bookshelf! Inside the hallway wall is a built in bookshelf that pretty much was
a big factor in how much I wanted the house. It was pretty much love at first
sight.
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| Some of my bookshelf on the left with my CRAZY cat |
I aspire to power wash the entire outside of the house, for
starters. Then I hope to have the siding painted, hopefully getting new window
shutters at the same time. That alone will be a remarkable improvement. Next I
want to change a lot of the landscaping to complement the house. There are
currently these awful bushes out in the front that look like they haven’t been
attended to in over 10 years and they are pushing up against the siding of the
house (no bueno). And that’s another thing, GARDENING. Holy crap. Growing up,
like even into my highschool/college years, I *hated* gardening. Mostly because
I hate weeds. And bugs. And mulch. And flowers.
Let me make this clear, I hated weeding more than vacuuming, and I
loathe vacuuming. If my parents drug me out to weed the garden I wondered what
I could have possibly done to deserve such eternal punishment, and I’m pretty
sure my parents have only asked me to weed maybe once or twice. That’s how much
I hated gardening.
But something changes I guess when you move into your own
house. Like, truly your own. I don’t know what clicked inside me but suddenly I
saw an entire yard before me, completely mine and completely in need of some
attention and all of the sudden I had hopes and dreams of making the entire
backyard a recreation of the “secret garden”. I wanted to race out to Home
Depot and buy bags and bags of mulch, lots of mulch! And Flowers! So many
flowers! And SEEDS! Seeeeeeds! I had to contain myself. I could hardly believe
it. Once I planted one bed, I was hooked. It was mine and I did it. I made
something look pretty. My current
outside project is making a pathway in my backyard. It was originally a very
muddy area, so I decided to make a pathway with some stepping stones and some
flowers. Still a work in progress, but I was amazed at myself for getting out
there all by myself with a shovel and doing manual labor. Bought the stones,
dug up the dirt, planted the sand, etc.
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| my pathway, the beginning stages... |
Now I find myself constantly
gravitating towards the “Outdoors” sections of home improvement stores,
originally a section I never frequented. What’s happening to me?! I like
digging! I like garden tools! I like recreating! And flowers! I like them!
Woah. Change, folks, change. I also want to completely redo my outside patio
but that may have to wait till funds can support it, till perhaps Summer of
2014 or 2015. We shall see, save and hope :)
Let’s see, what else is new…I’m also cooking! It’s still a
struggle, being that I am limited on my food choices with my never-ending list
of things I can’t eat. However I’m slowly working in the knowledge of how to
cook and try new things. I finally learned how to actually cook raw chicken
(don’t make fun of me I know it’s easy), and learned to cook some Zucchini and
squash. I find myself experimenting a lot- and it always turns out yummy. Now I just need to start expanding. My goal
is to one day not rely on what I can put in the microwave but what I can cook
fresh. The thought of eating vegetables straight from a garden is alluring but
not the thought of actually tending to my own garden…Maybe in retirement. I
used to have someone very close to me, his family had a full sized garden with
lots of vegetables and it was practically a full time job. So it’s a work in progress, expanding. I like
squash and zucchini and it’s easy. I like salads. But then I go to the grocery
store and try to look for new ideas and it either looks really icky or I don’t
know how to make it or my boyfriend won’t eat it. Sigh. I used to hate
vegetables too, but I think the key here in this new change in taste is the
whole theory of if you make it by hand; you’ll be more inclined to appreciate
it and eat it. They say in order to entice children to eat vegetables, have
them help you make them and if they feel a part of it, they will want to eat
the reward for making it. I guess I'm relating myself to a child here....hm.
What else, what else… I got a kitten!!!! Holy crap, yes. Yet
ANOTHER change in my life I never saw coming. I have never had a pet growing
up, other than a fish. My dad was always allergic and my parents didn’t want
the pet responsibility in general. So I never really expected to have a pet as
an adult. Of course I had those rebelling fantasies like, “Once I move out of
this house I’m getting a puppy since my parents won’t let me have one!” but the
actual thought of raising a dog seems rather daunting when it’s actually a
possibility. When my boyfriend started living with me, he was asking from day
one that I should think about getting a puppy or a cat. I wasn’t too keen on
the idea, for reasons already stated. But one day, my boyfriend was working
very late at work. It was about 11:30 at night and I was walking around my
house and it was just eerily too quiet, and very lonely. I wanted another
little soul to be with me, to keep me company, follow me around when my
boyfriend wasn’t there. Something to talk to, to love and cuddle with. And that
was it, my mind was made up and about two weeks later we bought a 2 month old
kitten home, her name is Belle and she’s remarkable. I never thought a pet
would be able to make me laugh (out loud!) every single day. Sure she’s a lot
of work, at times, but it’s so worth it. Times like when she’s done playing
with her toy mouse or scouting my window and she comes to cuddle with me on the
couch, falls asleep on my stomach. Or when she plays hide and seek with me and
literally has me doubled over laughing because she’s so cute. Of course she
also likes to nibble on our toes at night and wakes us up at 7am so she can be
fed, it’s still so worth it. Being that I never had a pet and am not used to
it, and have never had a child of my own, it’s fascinating to me to be able to
hold a living creature in my arms- a living, breathing creature in my arms that
although not human, is a part of God’s creation and she looks up into my eyes
and trusts me, she sees my home as her home. It’s truly remarkable and very
hard to describe. I hope she’s a part of
my life and my children’s life for a very long time to come.
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| She loves to hide |
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| the vet said she's weird because she likes her belly rubbed... |
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| She thinks shes the queen of England. |
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| the day she got home, when she was a weeee bitty kitten! |
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| taken tonight, she loves me, 80% of the time |
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| Sitting on "her" window |
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| she sleeps a LOT |
Okay new topic, nursing!
The nursing world has also been incredible, packed tight
with lots of new changes! (I told you this was going to be a popcorn-post!).
Let’s see, since I last updated, approximately four brand new responsibilities
have come upon me. For those that don’t regularly follow my blog, I recently
switched hospitals in my network so that I could have the opportunity to work
in a brand new hospital and a brand new cardiac unit. For starters, seeing myself grow from someone
who sat for the first time in a telemetry course this past October to someone
who is now counseling others on deciphering EKG rhythms, it feels incredible.
This coming August will mark my second complete year as an employed RN, and I
can notice so many changes in myself and my critical thinking thought process. Recently,
my hospital has hired a lot of new nurses to my unit. Some new grads, some new
to hospital nursing but not new nurses, and some just transfers from other
hospital units in the network. Being that we hired so many new graduates, our
management crew needed a couple more interim preceptors. One night on shift I
got the call that I would be precepting a new grad for the remainding 8 hours of
my shift. Although I had never done that before, I was really excited. I never
really considered myself a teacher type- mainly because of a lack of confidence
in myself and knowledge- but suddenly I found myself wanting to teach her
everything I knew. I had to exercise the art of restraint in order to not
overwhelm her. Now being surrounded by so many new grads on shift at once on the
unit, I can truly see the difference in expertise. I remember being exactly in
their shoes, just a short time ago. Elementary questions, concrete problems. It’s
interesting to see them come to me with a problem they are so worried about
with their patient, something I remember being equally so stressed about in
their stages, only to now be able to coach them into making the right decisions
now and to educate the severity of their concerns.
A couple of weeks
after my precepting experience, the unit assigned me to be in charge of the unit
for the shift that night. I was taken aback; to me it felt like I had just
transferred to the hospital- there was no way I could possibly be in charge of
the unit. The duties include taking a lighter assignment of patients and then
overseeing the entire floor, usually about 4-7 other nurses and anywhere
between 20-36 patients, give or take a few. The charge nurses assigns
admissions to nurses, is there to help any nurse with any problem or seek the
next appropriate level of help, and is there to smooth things over with any
unhappy employee, patient or family member on the unit. The charge nurse in
general helps out wherever needed over the entire course of the floor and
throughout the shift, constantly checking to make sure none of her nurses are
overwhelmed or drowning. The charge nurse also attends and takes a leadership
role in any emergency on her unit or throughout the hospital. It’s a pretty big
responsibility, and I felt surprised and honored that they would ask me to take
that role. My first time as charge, everyone survived- employees and
patients and myself, and a couple weeks
later I was then charge again two nights in a row. Maybe it will become a lot more
common, maybe not. Maybe I want it to, maybe I don’t. But regardless, I
consider it an honor and a huge step forward in my career process.
Aside from work but also in the nursing field, I recently
have been hired to work as a substitute school nurse in the same district I
grew up in. This is a plus, since I know the district very well, they know me,
and my mother works there. It’s well paid and could perhaps serve as a gateway
for a job opportunity down the line if I want to work school hours (M-F 8-3,
summers off!), especially once my own kids (not on this earth yet) reach school
age. Something to think about…I haven’t started subbing yet but have shadowed
the school nurse in both the elementary and middle school. It’s unreal facing
the new challenges working as a school nurse will present. Suddenly you’re
acting on your, and only your own accord- making decisions without a fellow
team of nurses and doctors in the same building as you. Sure, I can give
someone IV cardiac drips and do lifesaving hospital workups but the thought of
splinting a childs fractured finger? Yikes! I’m a hypochondriac; you know that
if you have been reading this blog. Not only am I a hypochondriac in myself,
but it extends to those around me. I worry a lot. If I’m working as a school
nurse and a child comes in with complaints of a headache, I’m of course going
to be worried they could have meningitis! But of course I had these extreme
anxiety-stemmed fears when I first started as an RN in the hospital and the
fears eventually dissipated into realistic fears. So I’m sure you’ll see some
posts in relation to my new adventures of a school nurse soon! I get to go on a
class trip with the kids in late may :)
Also in the nursing field but completely on the other side of
the field, I also recently have been hired to work as what I call a “Geri-sitter”,
it’s like a “babysitter” but for geriatric population. I have a friend from my
childhood whose mom is now in need of some additional household overseeing, and
I’ve been highly recommended as a good choice to come sit with her. It’s been a
very interesting journey so far and this journey will continue until mid-June.
It’s fascinating to me, because patients I only see patients with dementia or Alzheimer’s
as my patients in the hospital. Sometimes I wonder what their daily life is
like, how they are at home. I realize that when these patients are placed in
the hospital without their family or familiar surroundings, their dementia
worsens- they become more forgetful, scared and act out more in a defensive
manner. And I wonder, are they OK at home? How can the family take care of
patients like this? But here, having the opportunity to witness and observe
this woman with early onset dementia in her own home, it’s fascinating. Yes she
is forgetful and asks a lot of the same questions, but she moves about the
house comfortably. She doesn’t enter harm’s way, or harm anything. She’s
comfortable here. It’s very interesting and I’ll probably be learning a lot
more about the dementia phenomenon in the months to come…
Anyway, I think that’s about all I have to update you with
on my life. Sorry it’s such a long post. It just truly blows my mind to see how
much my life has changed. In May last
year this was my life:
MAY 2012:
Living: With a roommate in my first apartment
Working: RN on a surgical/oncology unit, no change foreseeable
in the future.
Dating: Single, and looking L
Hobbies: Photography, drawing, painting
MAY 2013:
Living: In my first HOUSE that I OWN! Well, the bank owns-
but I have a mortgage!
Working: On a brand new telemetry unit in a brand new
hospital- lots of change foreseeable in the future, new opportunities. Also
working as a substitute school nurse and “geri-sitter”.
Dating: The most wonderful, kind, caring, thoughtful,
forgiving and romantic young man I could ask for, and were going on 8 months J
Hobbies: Photography, drawing, painting, gardening, home
improvement, cleaning
And I have a kitten!!!
So that’s my update. Hopefully I’ll find something new to
update you all on soon! Thanks for reading if you’ve made it this far! Thank
you!
_WNB
