We switched to 9 am church with the new year, and let me tell you. It is GLORIOUS. As much as I hate getting up early on the weekend, it is totally worth it for a free afternoon. Last year we had church at 1 pm. So you sleep in, eat brunch, dress, go to church, and then it's 4:30 when you get home! Time to start thinking about dinner. And the day is gone.

Today I squandered the afternoon playing Rock Band at Brian's house. I know, not the best Sunday activity. But man, is this game fun. I wish I could play hard on SOMEthing. I'm medium on guitar/bass, easy on drums (although I can limp through a medium), and singing is completely hit or miss. If I know the song really well I'm fine. If it's punk or new to me I'll fail on medium.

I made supper tonight using Ricky's Hot Sauce, which you may remember from The King of Kong as the hot sauce made by the villainous Billy Mitchell. We got the sauce in our stockings and Santa refused to name his source.

Tomorrow I start my Health Care Ethics class at Regis. It's my first online course, which is kind of shocking. How did I make it this far in the 21st century without a class on the webs?

P.S. How could they dare make the Rock Band game without including Queen or Journey?

Awesome. We've been without water since 4:30 pm. It's 9:20. The HOA just distributed fliers saying it may take 24 hours or more to fix the break in the main line that made it necessary to shut the water off.

I'm glad I have close neighbors who let me use their toilets. I hope I don't have to go to work greasy-haired tomorrow.

Here I sit, nearly 24 since losing water. Still can't poop in my house or wash my greasy bangs. Then I come home from my office and find that the internet/phone are down. Comcast can't check on it until tomorrow, when I'm supposed to be in the office again. I jiggled and reset all the wires to no avail. I really hope Ben can fix it when he gets home, and that the water gets turned on soon. Right now I'm at a friends house to use the toilet, and I just jumped on the internet to check emails and such.

What a crappy day. At least I got to spend most of it at the office.

update: Ben determined that our modem was kaput. He got a new one and after registering it on the phone with comcast, we are back in business! Still no water. They're saying they can't locate the leak, that it was higher up the pipe than they anticipated when they busted up the parking lot this afternoon. So more digging tomorrow and hopefully it will be resolved by the evening.

a quick update: as I walked by the work site a plumber said to me "twenty minutes." that was two hours ago and still no water

The water came on after 2 1/2 hours, and even still we don't have water in the upstairs sink. Strange. They said they haven't fixed the leak yet, but they're giving us water for tonight and then turning it off tomorrow. We were able to do the dishes that were interrupted on Monday (stinking up the kitchen) and flush the toilets (stinking up the bathrooms). I wiped down all counters and refilled the pets' water. I took a long hot shower. I filled various containers with water so that I can cook dinner at home tomorrow and clean up afterward. Since I won't be in the office I stockpiled to ensure comfort while waterless. Overkill?

They turned the water back on, although we hear rumors that the leak actually isn't fixed. It's been a big ball of confusion here. For a while the upstairs sink wasn't working, causing much consternation because everything else worked and it doesn't make sense. Then we took it apart and found a big piece of crud blocking the spigot. Fixed! For now we are happy. When our hoa fees are increased to cover the (possibly ongoing) repairs we'll see how happy we are.

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Last weekend we saw “I’m Not There” at Neighborhood Flix in Denver. It’s a new theater that combines dinner and a movie in a swank atmosphere. It’s located in the same complex as the new Tattered Cover and Twist and Shout. The crowd was hip and polite. The food was delicious, healthy, and well priced, and the theater had the nicest employees I have met in a long time. What a great experience! We can’t wait to go back for lunch and a matinee, where tickets are only $5. Sadly, they only run a few movies at a time and there’s nothing coming up that I want to see. But you better believe we’ll be back soon.

I finally relented and set up a flickr account. SIGH. I've always been annoyed when people link to their photo set instead of actually posting their pictures. But Blogger hasn't improved their photo upload capabilities and I'm too lazy to go through each Christmas photo individually. So here. I will try my best to continue posting pictures directly on the blog. Like this one of the cake I made for Ben's birthday:

Do you ever feel like everything is broken? Here's our current list:

• upstairs toilet
• Ever since the water came back on it won't stop running.
  
• Ben's watchband
• He tripped and busted a piece off.
  
• my engagement ring prongs
• They've needed replacing for almost a year now. Just had my 6 month inspection/cleaning and they reminded me.
  
• my macbook keyboard
  
• stops working for a few minutes periodically. Probably a loose connection. Just don't want to give it up to get it fixed.
  
• sewing machine
• has needed repairs for who knows how long. It's extremely clunky now
• Ben's uvula
• He woke up with it stretched down, touching his tongue. Icky.
  
• my ipod
• tells me I need to reformat it. Strange, it worked fine when I had it tuned to windows. Now it doesn't like the mac ;-)
• Jem's eyes
• Red and oozy since New Years. We have eye drops that help, but it comes back after we stop using them.

grrrrr. And no money to fix any of it. Life is great, eh? I console myself by trying to list the things that aren't broken. That list is much longer. The others still irk me though.

Two hours spent fixing the toilet not counting buying a part, checking the tank, and returning it for another part. One hour was spent on this step:The old plastic parts were so old and corroded I couldn't get the large nut off. After wrenches, knives, and a blowtorch I found success by pounding nails between the nut and bolt and then prying off chunks of the bolt.

And when it was all done and I turned the water back on, it appears that one of the parts in the kit was defective.

I think it will work fine. Probably not worth the hassle of explaining to the Lowes returns cashier that they need to take back just part of this kit and give me a standalone part - for free.

And now I will enjoy the cinnamon rolls I baked today.

I dismantled the "defective" part to further investigate the dripping. After tightening it up I think I might have fixed the problem. Ben's uvula is shrinking back to normal. Jem's eyes have been clear since we replaced her kennel bedding. I spent a good part of this morning cleaning out my craft room/office and I'm quite pleased with the results.

It's week three of my online Ethics course, five weeks to go. At times the class is thought provoking and interesting. Most of the time I'm bogged down by the online course format. I hate the forced thread posting for credit. It makes me glad I've gone so long without having to do an online class. Tey r teh suxor.

I'm taking a Monday night ballet class this term. It's great to stretch and leap about. I'm trying to do aerobics everyday so I can improve my stamina. (Denise Austin in hilarious.) I think I'll do better in dance class if I don't wear out so easily.

Bugger. The toilet piece is hissing at me now. It's not defective, it's just bad design. Irg. I still don't want to pay for another piece after I bought the whole kit!

It's time to get busy in the kitchen!


Buffalo Chicken Pizza was absolutely delectable! My fresh ham sandwich was also tasty.


This winter meal was made with alternative cooking vessels. I steamed the sprouts, carrots, and parsnips with herbs and butter in a clay pot. I cooked the lentils in my pressure cooker (which I'm LOVING) and stirred in some kielbasa.


Desserts! This lemon pound cake got a little too brown because my oven was too hot. I covered it up with lemon glaze. I couldn't wait to eat the cinnamon rolls before taking a picture. They have cream cheese frosting but I store it separately so the rolls don't break down from the gooey-ness.

The spare bedroom has been a slow work in progress. I use it as an office, a craft room, a dressing area, and storage. With a little extra spare time this week I made some strides in personalizing and organizing it.

I got these sweet black boxes when my office bring emptied. Now there are neatly labeled boxes for pens, scissors, embroidery, ribbons, etc. Next to the desk I set up a charging station for all our electronics. Above the ironing board (that I use more for clutter than ironing) is the painting Andy made me for Christmas.


My vanity (how did I live without it?) with my Black Apple print. On the right is the cabinet I rescued from our dumpsters. Behind the dress form is an improvised scarf rack made of foam board, fabric, and thumbtacks.


My little sewing desk, now with bulletin board so I can quickly glance at my patterns. Now I just need to get my sewing machine fixed ;-)

By the way, a certain someone has a birthday coming up. She has a list here if anyone is looking for ideas. Ben and I still want to make a better wish list site, but for now this ugly one will have to do.

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If you've logged on tonight you might have noticed the site looking all sorts of different. I'm trying out new templates and trying to customize them to my liking. Still working . . .

Welcome to my redesigned site! If you check my blog on a feed reader you should click through to see my new decor. My html skills are totally 1337 ;-) Seriously though, this took much twiddling to get out all the little kinks, all the strange roundies, the wide margins with short borders, the residual side bars.

Yes, that's me in the header. The colors are kind of weird so my eyes don't look blue. Those are flowers Ben gave me for May Day when I was living in my closet, I mean, dorm sophomore year. I'll probably change the picture from time to time. Maybe I can come up with some iconography. What other new features are there?

• Wide window for viewing two photos on a single line
• Larger font for easier reading
• Colors that are easier to read
• Updated profile

What do you think?

Taking a cue from Oh Happy Day (a blog Miranda turned me onto), instead of buying some clothes I'll post pictures of them.

These are from Forever 21. I cleaned out my closet this week and made a huge donation pile. I realized I have very few blouses. Many button ups (I hate wearing them but felt compelled to buy them for work) and MANY t -shirts. I like the ruffles and poufy short sleeves.

Man, I was really hoping for Doogie. I made some dumb assumptions.


NameThatDisease.com - The Disease Test

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For the first time we went to the National Western Stock Show on Friday with the Walkers. It was fun to go as a cultural excursion. Everything was new to me. Everything was familiar to Ben and reminded him of his younger years. We saw cows and chickens and bunnies and sheeps and dogs. The dog agility show was pretty fun, but they took far too long to set up their courses, especially since it was just a demonstration, not a contest. I had a giant hot dog with kraut for dinner. There are more pictures on Ben’s flickr site.

Stuck at home today with a cold. Well, I would be stuck at home anyway, but today had the distinction of including a headache. I tried to do my reading for class but didn't get through it all and not much stuck to my brain. I didn't even try to do some dictation. Too bad really, because this week I might actually be busy. Wednesday I want to bake and assemble treats for Movie Club at our house. Thursday I'll be helping film interviews for my old job. Saturday we'll be filming a good old Movie Saturday (fingers crossed!). I hope all my resting today will help this cold blow over quickly.

One thing I can still do is ogle pretty shirts from Anthropologie. I love the feminine details! Even if these are several times the cost of what I would ever pay for a shirt.

What a week! I've been running around for three days on very little sleep and the remnants of a cold. So I felt like the dead when Ben woke me up this morning.

We shot a new short movie yesterday! It's a script that Brian and I wrote a few weeks ago. Amazingly, we had a large crew and a great cast all by asking friends of friends to help out. We had a Friday night meeting and rehearsal and did all the shooting Saturday from 10 am to 7:30 pm. We worked on post production until 11:30 last night and we'll pick it up after church today. I got the play the female lead and be editor.

I gotta split for church now. I promise that someday I'll post all the great photos I've been collecting of craft projects and cooking and such.

Between editing I went home to watch some superbowl commercials and eat buffalo chicken pizza with my buds. Then we watched some Arrested Development. Because we CAN'T STOP! Then I went back to Brian's with him and tweaked all the transitions to smooth out the cut. He needs to go over it tomorrow to work audio magic with evening out background noises. I came home at 11:30 to a filthy house. Now my kitchen floor is swept, dishes are humming in the washer, and all the dog toys and dog toy fuzz have been picked up. only 12:30 am. not bad.

Here are pictures from filming on Saturday, courtesy of Nate Walker. Today I polished the editing to a final cut. It needs widescreen bars, credits, and music slapped on and it will be done!

Ben worked from home today. It was lovely seeing him for breakfast and lunch. I made sausage, eggs, and toast to get us going. Then when we were both done at 4:00 pm we took Jem to Crown Hill together. It was cold today! I made hummus, falafels, and dill yogurt sauce for dinner. Last night we watched Waitress (good movie!) and so of course Ben asked me to bake a pie today. I made a tart apple and cranberry pie. It was quite good! We shared it with Nate and Miranda (one week overdue now) and Brian and then watched Arrested Development while our dogs played together. What a fun Tuesday!

Ben is growing a moustache. Yesterday he asked me "on a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being Tom Selleck and 10 being John Waters, where is my moustache?" I placed it at about a 6, but it's only partly grown in. We hope it will place a 4 or 3 when grown in. His scale intrigued me. What would a full moustache scale look like? I came up with the following. (Click to get the full sized view).

Doing this lead me to create the three laws for judging the awesomeness (and skeeviness) of moustaches:

1) A thick moustache almost always better than a thin one.
2) Moustaches look better on older men.
3) The eyebrows must match the moustache in bushiness.

Songs and Bands I wish were in Rock Band
1) Don't Stop Believing - Journey
2) Another One Bites the Dust - Queen
3) I Believe in a Thing Called Love - The Darkness
4) Don't Tell Me - Madonna
5) Don't Speak - No Doubt
6) Psychokiller - Talking Heads
7) Birdhouse - TMBG

I made some changes to my moustache scale in the previous post. You can click on it again in the original post to see the new one. With some reflection I decided some of the order wasn't quite right, and I wanted to change some of the representation. I take these things very seriously. Serious.

Ben wanted me to point out that this is a "gross out" scale. That means 1 is the least gross, and 10 is the most gross.

Intuition from Brian Omura on Vimeo.

uhh, 4? I have to agree with mom that the short trim above the lip is kind of weird. But on a "gross out" scale it's really not gross. Note how well the eyebrows complement the stache. Then again, I'm biased. Ben calls my crush on Edward James Olmos a "daddy crush." :-)

Bruce sorry I couldn't include you in my scale, but I didn't have a photo! I welcome other submissions though.

So very not pregnant. The only thing gestating in me is a nursing degree.

nataliedee.com

I took a wrong step today and fell splat on the gravely asphalt. Yuck. Just a big swollen bruise. Although I scratched up the casing of my cell phone I was holding, luckily it appears to be functioning still.

How nice that Ben had a Valentine gift to give to me today - these cuddly pajamas! My old set were 7 years old and shrunken from the wash. I've been wearing sweats and t shirts to bed. It's so cozy to slip into these instead.

In other news, Miranda had her baby!! After a long labor (I think about 30 hours) she was finally delivered by c-section this morning. I'm so happy for them!

We had a fantastic three day weekend in beautiful San Francisco with my family. We stayed in a posh hotel near Union Square, next to lots of shopping.

That night we met with Drew for dinner and good old Ghiradelli ice cream.

Saturday morning we took a tour of Chinatown with Wok Wiz. Our guide Lola gave us cultural insights into the area, having grown up there. The tour capped off with a dim sum lunch.



At night we saw the local cabaret must-see Beach Blanket Babylon. I've seen it three times now, my parents much more. It's a hilarious fast paced musical revue with pop culture parody. It's been playing for 32 years and sells out every single show. They pack you into the Club Fugazi tight, elbow to elbow. But you forget about that as soon as the show starts.
Sunday we rented a car so we could cross the bridge to see our old house in Marin and the beach we used to visit.
We drove to Muir woods to ogle at the redwoods and sequoias. Despite huge crowds, the forest felt magical.
We crossed back into the city and did a driving tour of the Castro and Mission neighborhoods. We stopped to take photos of the pretty painted lady houses.
Then back to the hotel for a quick rest before eating a superb meal at Zingaro's. I'm going to try to recreate my entree later this week. To walk off dinner we hiked up to the Grace Cathedral and walked the labyrinth.
That night I opened some birthday presents and ate Valentines chocolates. Ben and I had a fast, safe flight back to Denver early Monday morning. The Salt Lake crowd weren't so lucky, but they eventually made it back too. We are all tired, like usual after a Waterhouse vacation, but we had a great time!

More photos are on flickr, mine and Ben's.

Hoorah! Just a quiet celebration this year. Ben and I opened presents in bed this morning. I had lunch with him at my favorite sandwich shop, Panera Bread. We're going out to dinner and then having ice cream cake with friends. In between is normal stuff - transcription work, school work, walking the dog. Actually, I've been at the library for most of the day so I don't have to deal with the dog :-) It's nice and quiet here with wi-fi, allowing me to do lots of work and posting (as you may have noticed).

Birthdays always make me think of The American Astronaut. "Aren't you going to wish me a happy birthday?"

(I just like this 1923 photo of a ballerina. No reason)
Almost done! I finished my online class discussions. All I have left is a 14 page paper, due in 30 hours. I have an outline and most of the research done. I'll be so happy to be done with the class.

After ethics I go back to my old job to write up a final report on our last study. It'll take me a few days, but then I'll be officially done with that job too. That leaves transcription to fill my days. Yes, I suspect I'll be pretty bored. Hopefully I can volunteer at the cat shelter some more and visit Miranda and her new baby.

Tonight is another Movie Club. We're watching a western called Shane, Trevor's pick. We actually might have a large crowd tonight, maybe up to ten people. I better clean my basement tonight.

I usually like to have food for the movie watching, but money does not permit these days. Sadly, we're really feeling the strain of my reduced workload. We actually sat down and wrote out a budget last night - something we've never had to do. No restaurant week for us. No rabies shot for Molly this month. Some things will have to wait for better days.

Now if you'll excuse me, I must continue my internal battle as illustrated below.

And just like that I'm done with my online ethics class. Yup, shipped off my final essay over the intertubes this morning. Feels sooo good.

Now I can tippity type all the day long to try to earn some cash. Ben is home with a headache this morning. He didn't really have to go into the office today so he's working downstairs. That means I get to work in my lovely craft room, ignoring any strange noises coming from dog downstairs because she is not my responsibility! Maybe Ben and I can even eat lunch together :-)

Shane was pretty funny. It had everything I expected to see in a Western - drunken brawls, quick draw shootouts, swinging saloon doors, covered wagons, smashing chairs on bodies, a guy getting shot and falling face first off a balcony, all that stuff. I'm trying to remember all the movies we've seen now. . .

• Sleuth - Brian
  
• xXx - Ben
  
• A Room With a View - Rachel
  
• Igby Goes Down - Trevor
  
• Cannibal the Musical - Nate
  
• Kill, Baby...Kill - Brian
  
• Keeping Mum - Cate
  
• Blood Simple - Shawn
  
• Marie Antoinette - Rachel
  
• Shane - Trevor
  

Hmmm, I feel like I'm missing one but it's not coming to mind. Well, anyway that's a pretty good list! And most of them are movies I wouldn't have seen if we didn't have the club.

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I love this flickr group! They cook recipes from mid century cookbooks and upload photos, with appropriate food styling and tasting comments!
http://www.flickr.com/groups/midcenturysupperclub/

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Here’s another old recipe. This totally cracks me up! Does anyone want to hold a mid-century cooking party with me?

Ben's birthday present finally arrived! The XOPC is shockingly small. Ben is very excited to create programs for it. He plays with it almost as much as his xbox ;-)

I'm knitting a sweater vest. This is the biggest project I've done with yarn, more complicated than scarves and hats. Following the pattern will actually matter. I'm very excited about it. I used birthday money to buy the yarn and I want it to be put to good use, something I'll actually wear. Miranda helped me pick out this lovely charcoal combination from the Recycled Lamb shop. I bought 6 extra large skeins.

This is the back piece of the vest, just before I realized I made a major mistake in counting inches. So I ripped it back to the light grey ribbing and started over again :-) I'm not too downtrodden, because I really really want to get this right. I'm more confident in understanding the pattern now and I think I have my gauge adjusted appropriately.

My sewing machine is fixed so when I finish this vest I can pick up my half-done sewing project. Apparently it just needed a thorough tune-up and a little tightening. It sounds beautiful now, no more clunking!

Tonight we indulged in a craving brought on by the snowy evening by going out to Woody's in Golden with friends. I love their pizza buffet and giant sodas, especially on a wintery night. Now we have friends to play games and let the dogs play. I hope this gets Jem very tired so she just wants to sleep all day tomorrow.

We had crazy Colorado weather last weekend. Saturday was 70 degrees and I think everyone in the metro area was out enjoying the warmth. We fought through the mountain bikers to hike up Green mountain. I took this picture of Ben and Jem in the same spot as the right hand picture, nearly one year ago.

Link

Need a break? Take the Arrested Development Quiz. I'm ASHAMED I didn't get 100% so I'm not posting my score. Seriously. Ashamed. I better start over again with episode one. After I finish Twin Peaks (Don't tell me who killed Laura! I'm trying very hard to avoid spoilers).

(Ben wants me to post something so he can read it :-)

This Gnarls Barkley video has been banned from MTV because it failed the Harding test. A quick net search explains "The Harding Test is the common name for the Harding Flash & Pattern Analyser developed by Cambridge Research Systems. The purpose of the test is to help determine broadcast flash patterns that may cause epileptic seizures in viewers."

I'm surprised because the black and white doesn't seem that bad. I found MIA's Boyz video much worse, and there was no news of it being banned.





As a side note, who else is disappointed with the return of 90s fashion? Not so much because it was bad (although it is, and so is the 80s which we are phasing through) but because it lacks originality. Every couple seasons the fashion industry decides - yes, decides - that a decade is hip again. They reinvent the fabrics and colors, channeling the shapes. Blah. Why not something new? Will 2001-05 fashions be hip next year? Do I need to wait for three years for them to catch up with the current time? Or will they start over again with the 60s? You know, I read a few style blogs and more than anything they make me annoyed with fashion. I guess I read them so I can make sense of what I see on the racks.

Huh. So, my first thoughts were that this was an interesting take on the ballet. Neat costumes. The acrobatics don't really have the same beautiful line and symmetry that good ballet has, but those are neat tricks.

Then about 3 minutes 45 seconds in my jaw dropped. That was INSANE.

Then I thought about it, and really it makes sense that of all people it takes a ballerina to execute that kind of balance. After all, their training yields the utmost in strength and balance combined with movement. So I guess it's not surprising that when you combine ballet and acrobatics you can get something like that. Still. Wow. Strange production though. Did they only do these two scenes? What else is that large audience going to watch?

UPDATE: I have received so many comments on this video! Here are some more thoughts
-I can't speak for their acrobatics, but their ballet dancing is just as high quality as any professional company in the states. The grace and performance of the main dancer would guarantee her a primo position were she to move here. She blows the Colorado Ballet dancers out of the water.

- On the other hand, if this is part of a larger full ballet, what an odd show that must be. I was totally annoyed that a spotter comes out to help, it ruined the theatrics. But then again, it seems necessary.

- The main swan is either the most skilled/trained/naturally gifted ballerina evah, or she is under a real evil spell by a real Rothbart/Devil. First, she does the incredible feute pirouette and STOPS IT in arabesque en pointe (which seriously, only really really good dancers can do that well).

- Then my mom pointed out that she rotates while in arabesque on his head. I can't figure this out. It's faster than a promenade but slower than an arabesque turn. I don't think there's any trickery to the guy's hat - there's no way a motor could fit on it and be strong enough to turn her that fast. I thought maybe he gave her a little push when he pulls his hand off, but I didn't detect any. Also, she speeds up into the turn, rather than slowing down after a push. So maybe she's just doing a fast promenade en pointe. But you HAVE to understand how freakishly hard that is - how few ballerinas can do that - and she's doing it on his head?!?

So yeah, I'm pretty much as blown away as everyone else with this video.

Cooking holiday feasts of corned beef and spiral ham. The holidays are too close this year!

Playing The Phantom Hourglass.

Reading Pride and Prejudice.

Knitting the final large piece of my sweater vest. Then trim and finish!

Searching for a PDA. Regis requires it but they are quickly becoming obsolete. Not many options. Do I dare buy one used?

Completing background checks and immunizations for Regis.

Sewing curtains for the bedroom and craft room.

Watching Ben play N+ and Resident Evil while I knit.

Last weekend I had the pleasure of visiting my family in Utah. My brother and sister live in Salt Lake and my parents drove up from Grand Junction (I echo my sister's sentiments - hurrah for my parents, we love them so much!)

The main event was Amanda's spring musical, Once Upon a Mattress. Details of her directorship and the performance are her blog, linked above. I enjoyed it immensely! She should be proud of her students. I've never seen middle school performances as great as the shows she puts out.

Aside from that the weekend was all about food and shopping!


Here is Andy showing us around the shop where he works. He showed off the vegetable display he arranged :-)

Here's my mom's sister Martha and her daughter Caitlin, down from Logan for a lacrosse game. On the right is the cast of Amanda's show giving her a well-deserved congratulations!

Doing what we do best - talking and eating.

Mmmmm...hot chocolate. Mom told stories of working at Arctic Circle while we noshed on their shakes and fries - don't forget the fry sauce!

While it snowed as if it were December we cozied up in a french bistro for a late night dinner. Delicious!

I had a craving for peanut butter and chocolate. Mom made these delicious bar cookies a lot when we were younger. I called her for the recipe and in less than an hour I had my own pan.










2/3 cup shortening
1 cup peanut butter
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 cups white sugar
1/2 tsp salt
4 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
2 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder

Combine the wet and dry like you would for a standard cookie recipe. Poor batter into a jelly roll pan (I used a large rimmed baking sheet. Is that the same thing?).

Bake at 350 for 15-25 minutes. Generously sprinkle chocolate chips on top and let melt. If you need to dash to the store to buy more (like me) then just pop the sheet pan back in the cooled oven for a minute. When they are nice a melty spread the chocolate over the top. Let cool completely then cut into bars.

Ahh, the sense of accomplishment. With no dictation or office work today, I decided it was finally time to do some deep cleaning. I emptied the kitchen onto the patio and mopped the whole floor. I scrubbed the baseboards. I wiped the greasy dust off the top of the fridge. I mopped the bathrooms by hand with rag. I even cleaned my oven, something I had vowed to do for my own enjoyment, instead of only when I move out of my apartment. I only got one chemical burn on my elbow. Pretty good.

And now I can kick back with a cold diet coke and rest. Sure, I need to clean the carpeted areas of the house, but that can wait another day.

I'm free! Yesterday was my official last day of work for the psychiatrist. I turned in my keys and said my goodbyes. Quitting can feel so good :-) I think a year's notice was adequate, don't you?

Yesterday was also another rousing night of Movie Club. This time Justin and Julia picked the Canadian comedy Strange Brew. Funnier than the terrible jokes was hearing Ben crack up at them.

Today is a beautiful rainy morning! I indulged in a little sleeping in, then did some school prep work and my aerobics. Later today I have the delight of peeing in a cup for the drug test. I look forward to seeing Amanda tonight, who is visiting Denver through the weekend. Yea!

This is a hard one! I got 20 out of 24 right.

Some knitted organs. I love her choice of a fine mohair.

After working on art projects at my parents' office, we ran some errands. I settled on a Blackberry Curve for the requisite nursing software. It seemed like a better value for the money, compared to Palm PDAs. T-Mobile says I can use the browser in preexisting WiFi spots without paying for their monthly internet. I think I correctly hooked up to the home internet and checked my gmail. I'm still a little unsure how to block it from switching to the paid internet, that would cost 1.99 per minute. Yuck! I need to decide whether to hook it to my desktop pc, or download intermediary software to hook it to this mac. Hmmm. Then I can explore all the functions it offers.

Then a jaunt into target led to sundries like eyeglass cleaning kits, infomercial wall hanging products, girl scout cookie ice cream, and a ipod nano. :-D Yea! I know, I'm totally spoiled. Thank you thank you thank you Mom and Dad. After it finished syncing all my music, I'm going to swipe some Spanish lesson's from Dad's ipod using Senuti and add it to mine.

But the funnest was yet to come! We went back into the office and Dad taught me how to put in an IV, use a vacutainer, and put in a butterfly line. It was great, he's so encouraging and consoling. I wasn't nervous at all about sticking him. It definitely boosted my confidence for doing it in school.





And we did all of that AFTER dinner :-)

My cat did NOT want to leave. She was so so happy to be in a huge house all to herself. I don't think I've every seen her so content. So when I drove home she was extra annoying. She meowed constantly, used the litterbox 4 times before we got to Parachute, barfed her breakfast down between the seats, and wandered into the back window, panting in terror at the 360-degree view of cars and wide open spaces. She completely freaked out and was too scared to come down. After ten minutes of coaxing I pulled off the road and she got down.

But I'm pleased to report that all the cuddling she exhibited at the house in the country is lingering still. She actually jumped in my lap while I was transcribing today - and she just wanted scratching! No food requests! I let her purr away until my legs fell asleep.

Whenever I leave my parents house they pack up some groceries from their pantry. It's a good deal: I get some nifty food items and they get to clean out their overflowing cabinets. This time my dad packed up three bags and a cooler while I was packing my suitcase. What a strange array Ben and I found when I unpacked them four hours later. Let me give you an idea of the vastness and variety included in these bags:

• canned lychees
• lingonberry bread mix
• tuna in foil packets
• roasted pepper bruschetta spread
• Power Rangers kinder eggs
  
• water chestnuts
• two dozen eggs
• Swedish sour jelly stars
  
• fresh herbs from Mom's garden
• roasted cashews
• japanese rice cracker snack mix
  
• dehydrated mushrooms
• dried mango strips
• coconut milk
• tabouli and gumbo boxed mixes
• creamed honey
• 3 pounds of short pasta
  
• a bottle of sauvignon
• fritos
• 4 boxes of pocky
• marinara sauce
  
• cat food treats
• marinated artichokes
• various canned beans
  
• and the strangest of all - rye bread mix in a milk-carton like jug.
  

I love it. It was pretty hilarious sorting through all of it :-) So now I have a well stocked and diverse pantry. Ben was especially happy to see the tuna, since I don't eat any seafood whatsoever. (Really. Nothing from the sea. Period.)

I get two questions asked almost every day since Febuary (which is quite an accomplishment since I don't get out much).

1) When does school start? (May 5th May 5th May 5th)
2) What do you do all day?

What DO I do all day? Well, for starters, it's very hard to wake up when you have no schedule. I set my alarm for 7:30 and fully intend to obey it when I go to sleep each night. But then I sleep until 8, that becomes 8:30, that becomes 9. On good days I get up then and on bad days I stretch it to 10.

I try to do my Denise Austin aerobics video for 30 minutes each morning, but my hit rate is about 50%. I have some cheerios and read a magazine or book. I shower and dress. By then it could be anywhere from 10:00 to 11:30, so my day is almost half over!

I do medical transcription for a couple hours, taking a break for lunch and to walk the dog. I work slowly, usually chatting with friends and checking my rss feeds between letters.

By 2 things are pretty slow. I may tackle a to-do item, like today I cleaned out my basement storage room. Tomorrow I might deep clean my carpet. Then I'll usually watch TV or a movie while working on a craft project. Around 4:30 I start thinking about making dinner and we eat around 6 pm.

At night I hang out near Ben, usually reading or crafting. I might play games with friends or go out on shopping errands (like tonight we got groceries). We go to bed between 10:30 and 11:30.

Wow. That's pretty boring. I don't know why I bothered writing all of that out. I guess because when people ask me I say "oh, I'm working from home and I do this and that." But that answer doesn't make sense to me because I know I only work for a couple hours. So maybe I needed to see for myself how I pass each day. Somehow something usually comes up that I can spend time on, whether for school or my parents' work or household chores. On the days when nothing comes up I get a bit depressed. It's hard to enjoy free time when there's a lot of it. People say to enjoy it because I'll be so busy once school starts that I'll miss it. But you always want what you can't have.

Four weeks left.

Created by OnePlusYou

So sad :-( Obviously I need to watch more sci-fi action thrillers from the 80s and 90s.

I don't want to sound negative all the time, but often I forget to post when things are going well. Remember that long list of things that were broken I wrote in January?

• upstairs toilet - My repair job is holding, although the flush is a bit weak.
  
• Ben's watchband - Fixed
  
• my engagement ring prongs - Will fix when we get the economic stimulus rebate.
  
• my macbook keyboard - Spontaneously fixed. It hasn't acted up since January.
• sewing machine - Fixed. Sounds like a dream.
  
• Ben's uvula - Shrunk back to normal within a couple days.
  
• my ipod - Never fixed, but now I have a Nano!!
• Jem's eyes - She occasionally has eye boogers, but the redness and itchy irritation has been gone for weeks.

Also I took Molly to the vet today. She was examined and is perfectly healthy, except for a pulse of 240(!) because she was so scared. She got her vaccines for rabies and distemper so we don't have to go back for three years.

Last night I figured out how to sync my blackberry with my mac. Like all the forums say, pocketmac (the free software for linking them) is pretty terrible. It stalled repeatedly. After noodling around for a good hour I figured out that if I sync each application one by one it will work. Good enough for me! Next I need to find a good ringtone or acquire my old Mario tone again. Then maybe transfer some photos and look for free third party apps.

I'm 3/3 for exercising in the morning this week! I registered for the Adult Ballet class at the Arvada Center again and attended last night. I'm not sure I'll be able to attend all 12 weeks, what with school starting in May. But Ben pointed out that I did dance last spring when I was working AND taking classes in Microbiology and Anatomy. So I can probably find time. Just to be sure, I'm going to try to go twice/week this month so if I miss some in May and June they will already be made-up. If I don't miss and run out of classes I can pay the drop-in rate.

I made a delicious fritatta for dinner last night. It has beer brats (casing removed), red peppers, and onions. I love eating it with cold ketchup. Tonight I'm going to try making home made mayonnaise to accompany artichokes. I'm also going to make a lovely marinara with red wine and basil and meatballs. Mmmm.

I ordered a vinyl decal from this site for my BB today. Choutte, non? I had to restrain myself from getting ipod and laptop decals too. I also got a clear acrylic case for my phone. I dropped it the other day and the back panel came off. No harm done, but it made me realize that I need some protection.

I ate at Jack in the Box for the second time. Once again I got an upset stomach. It was tasty during the moment. Isn't that true for a lot of life?

This afternoon we unearthed the tennis rackets from my trunk and played a few games at Morse Park with Brian. My skills are severely lacking. Frequently I outright miss the ball, whiffing my racket 10 inches above or below while it whizzes by. Traditionally I've blamed this on my missing depth perception (I have good vision in just one eye, so without glasses I rely on that one. This renders the world in 2D). But I shouldn't be THAT bad. Today I came up with a new reason - I never played ball sports growing up. No softball, baseball, basketball, soccer, tennis, golf, or anything. A little volleyball during one semester of gym in middle school, and a little four-square in elementary school at recess. Do you think that missing out on those sports left me with terrible hand-eye coordination? It was very pleasant playing, even if I only won 1 game.

We tried a new restaurant in the hip Highlands neighborhood (where the party in front of you are wearing leather and cashmere and has a Louis Vuitton diaper bag for their toddler). Big Hoss BBQ totally hit the spot for Ben, Brian, and myself. Warm, spicy pork and beef with delicious baked beans, potatoes, and rolls. We will definitely be returning the next time we want barbeque. We even bought a bottle of their "balanced but aggressive" sauce to slather on our home grilled dinners this week.

I finished my sweater vest a while ago but haven't taken a picture yet. Did I already mention this? I can't remember. I'm pleased with how it turned out. It's not perfect, there are definitely changes I would make if I were doing this again. But it taught me some skills for determining fit and construction of larger garments. I'm excited to try another big project. Alas, the weather is turning warm. I'm knitting washcloths right now, and I have a couple sewing projects. Knitting with wool will have to wait for the fall.

Kind of makes me wish I had cable.

I love to watch the snow.
I love knitting turtles.
I love peanut butter.
I love ranunculus.

What a cool idea! People post pictures of themselves imitating old pictures of themselves. I hate to repost something that boingboing linked to, but this is really fun to look at.

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Ben organized a Game Day for Saturday to celebrate his 10,000 gamer score on xbox. Costumes were encouraged, but we took them off for most of the day so we could play outdoors. We had tennis, frisbee with the dogs, and a rousing game of kickball! I’m sore in all kinds of places :-) In the late afternoon we ate and played indoor games. I barbecued burgers and brats, and served carrot sticks, chips, and angelfood cake with strawberries. More pictures from the day are on Ben’s site.

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We hiked up Green Mountain at dusk on Friday to take long exposure pictures. I really like how this one turned out. Click the links above to see more of Ben’s photos from the night safari.

blach



How do you like the skirt I made out of my Ikea curtain fabric? It was a great three hour project. Last Friday Miranda called me up to accompany her on some shopping. Afterwards we had leftover chili at my house and got Zaley to show off her laugh.





Here are the new decals we got for our gadgets. I love my purple dots! I finally got my old ringtone running and got an ebook reader for the scriptures.

I made these peanut butter and chocolate oat crumbles last week. They deserve 7/10. Easy to make, fairly tasty, healthy oats...but they were not spectacular. Sort of blah. And they are super crumbly, leaving messes all over. I might make them again, but I would not reserve the base crumble for the topping - I'd put it all on the base. Then I'd put more chocolate on the peanut butter-condensed milk layer and smear the melted chocolate around, like on my mom's peanut butter bars. Here's the recipe if you want to give them a try.


Things are going to be boring this week. My folks are out of the country so there isn't any dictation for me to transcribe. I'm slowly reading a book on how to create websites. I might work on theirs a bit. I have my second hepatitis shot tomorrow and I made a dentist appointment for Wednesday. Tuesday we're going to see Ben's cousin's jazz band perform. I'm excited to see his family again - it's been months, maybe more than a year since we all got together.

On the school front, I'm down to two weeks. That's also the estimated time when Regis said they would be sending us our schedules. Nothing so far today. I need to go to campus to get a medical terminology book to take their pre-requisite quiz (that they just sent out Friday. Gargh. Why can't they give us more warning for anything??). This morning I matched codes on my tuition invoice to the bookstore book search and I think I have a list of the books for my first term. Before tax the estimated total is $889. Criminy. And that doesn't include lab tools, scrubs, shoes, the required PDA software, or my stethoscope. I'm so glad I have supportive parents who are willing to help me get all the education I want.

That's funny, after posting my skirt (below) I noticed that I never put up my curtain pictures! Voila.

Hey look, I'm on the internet again.

We did poorly last week, but tonight we took third place out of sixteen! Yeaaaaaaaa. We left before posing for a picture. I was pleased to figure out that 80s cartoon villain Phyllis Pizazz Gabor is from . . . . . . . Jem! It would have been a shame to miss that one.

This is a great little internet gem I came across years ago. Waxy posted it again recently, and so I will share it with you. It takes me back to being a kid, where events are so dramatic, emotions are intense, and adults just don't understand. You MUST watch this.

(I should take a cue from my sister and warn you that there is some bad language.)

http://blip.tv/scripts/pokkariPlayer.js?ver=2008010901 http://blip.tv/syndication/write_player?skin=js&posts_id=603355&source=3&autoplay=true&file_type=flv&player_width=&player_height=

I'm kind of missing doing transcription this week, if you can believe it. I like the easy, mindless working at home. It's a perfect part time job. Reading my medical terminology book reminds me of it. For fun, I re-transcribed a recent (short) letter below. It shows my shortcuts for typing before Word translates them into their proper form. For example, "ctw" is "continues to do well." Even my capitalization will be fixed. See if you can make sense of it :-) I bet Mom and Dad can easily break my code (maybe Dad can even tell which patient it is).

jhn xx mar 2008
c+v

djh

Name dob ctw with bt avt for bt cnv. The most recent ttm for the le was 1 feb 2008. He wbt for ev and ttm of the re. He describes no wor.

Ac od is 20/40. iop 13. Asg is quiet with ns. Df exm reveals mce and srf with fibrous ped. disc and pery are stable.

Ac os is 20/100. iop 18. The le wndt.

octi. Iaa deming mild mce, srf, and fibrous PED.

With his ic today I placed another avs ttm od. Ewp. He unimp if he has wor including sinf. He h24. He akai ou. His nxv here will be 17 mar for ev and ttm of his le or sooner prn. asa ikp.
And that's how you type 570 characters and charge for 1,478 characters. Most of these shortcuts I made up in high school when I first started transcribing. I have many more shortcuts than shown here. Probably hundreds. Even when it's been years since I last did dictation (like most recently when I picked it up again), my fingers remember the code. Our brains are like magic.

I came across a design blog post about pointe shoes integrating a hot new design material, d30 (whatever that is). I checked out the shoes and my oh my are they fancy. I'm impressed with all the detail and thought they put into the design. But I doubt they will catch on. Pointe shoes are a fascinating form of athletic gear that hasn't changed much in over a century. I have a theory that dancers like the fact that they have to bang and cut and generally beat up a new pair of shoes before they are wearable. It's the same masochism that draws them to ballet. What other "sport" combines ruthless auditions and rehearsals, intense competition, the ego of celebrity, the body image disorders of modeling, the social hierarchy of old European cultures, and yet is unpopular with the public and thus underfunded? You almost have to be a masochist to be a ballerina.

They like the old. They love to show off how little padding they wear in their shoes. The professional dancers sometimes depend on a single cobbler to make all their shoes, panicking when he retires. Here are some examples:

"Though she says the shoes fit so well they feel like slippers, Ribeiro modifies them slightly. "I bang them on the floor, squeeze the front and side, three-quarter the shank [cut the heel portion of the shank off to make it softer and more supple] and cut the tip of the satin," she says. Depending on her schedule, Ribeiro goes through up to four pairs a week, each one getting a pre-performance kiss. "I love them," she says. Artur Fuchs [her cobbler] is delighted to help. "I'm proud to be part of such a wonderful event," he says."

"New York City Ballet soloist Pascale van Kipnis switched to her 5 1/2 D Capezio "Special Make-Ups" midway through her career. Now, eight years later, van Kipnis says, "I'm sticking with these." Van Kipnis' shoes are handmade by Maker #7, Tony Sousa, a cobbler with 20 years' experience. Capezio makes lasts (plastic models of the foot) for dancers who order customized shoes. The result is a shoe that fits every time. "And they last," says van Kipnis. "I can use them for a performance and then for rehearsals the next day." Though she could request the shank be shortened, van Kipnis three-quarters them herself. "I don't need much support," she says. "My feet go on pointe and stay there."

"Grateful for her Grishko "Maya I" models, Lunkina thanked Alexander Shemenyov, her cobbler of five years, face-to-face and invited him to see her perform. Though he has several clients at companies worldwide, Shemenyov knows Lunkina's order (size 4, width X) by heart. Once, noticing a lapse in orders, Shemenyov said he was afraid Lunkina found a new cobbler. "I felt so relieved to find out she was on maternity leave!" says Shemenyov. Soaring through 250 to 300 pairs of shoes each year, often 2 per performance, Lunkina's only special request is to specify different shank strengths. "For Giselle I prefer a very soft shoe, for Don Quixote, a stronger shoe," says Lunkina. "My shoes fit perfectly, I don't need to think about my feet, I simply melt in my role.""

" After the retirement of her longtime cobbler, Royal Ballet principal Leanne Benjamin "was in a terrible state," she says."


There is incredible variety among traditional pointe shoes models. Students may switch models each time they get a new pair. Basically they are all constructed the same with different sizing around the different parts of the foot. There is just one other "revolutionary" new model shoe, the Gaynor Minden (on the left, standard Capezio on the right). I remember when I was on pointe and they were introduced.

I was sure it was the wave of the future. Customizable! More durable! Quieter! More comfortable! What else could any dancer ask for? Yet I was the only one in my class who tried them, and I didn't like them as much as my old moldable, low-tech shoes. In my classes at the Arvada Center I have only seen one other girl try them. From what I hear most professionals still prefer Freeds, if they can get them (their cobblers are dying out faster than they can train new ones).

So I think these new Capulet shoes won't make more that a little splash in the pointe shoe scene. Ballerinas are too romantic, too superstitious, and too stubborn to adapt.

(As a side note, while the shoe itself has not changed, pointe shoe accessories have evolved and flourished since I was in pointe. Everyone still used lamb's wool for padding when I started. In the mid 1990s they introduced a gel-filled plastic pouch for you toes. This quickly changed to silicone pads, and the line expanded to all sorts of accessories: individual toe gels, capped and uncapped, various sizes, trimmable toe pouches, toes spacers, etc. After I stopped dancing they added something I always wanted - ribbons with elastic cut in where they cross behind the achilles tendon. I hear they actually don't work that well. Now I see they invented a false arch, a beauty enhancement not far from padded push-up bras. That cracks me up.)

After spending an hour trying to rearrange my living room I decided I truly hate the computer desk we bought when we moved here. The corner shape is an inefficient use of space and it limits placement to two spots in the room, the only other option being where the dining table currently resides. And I don't want to move the table across the room.

This is my last week of being home alone all day. I feel panicked and lazy at the same time. I still have lots of projects to do, but none of them have a deadline. A couple projects for the Retina Center, some sewing, some knitting, some cleaning and organizing, etc. But I just want to read my latest book, The Know-It-All. I feel very blah. Starting school will be a very good thing for me.

With my Everyday Food magazine I have a tasty menu planned, with fresh ingredients in my fridge from Sunflower Markets. We're going to eat:

• BBQ pork giant baked sandwich (finished off leftovers from last week)
• Feta and Israeli couscous salad
• Two pea pasta
• Chicken paella
• Artichoke and parsley linguini
• Thai chicken with noodles.

Hmm. A lot of pasta in there. So much for cutting back on carbs this week.

We had a quiet weekend. We watched Grosse Point Blank on Friday after I had dance class. Saturday Ben went to a pinball expo while I knit and watched episodes of The Office on hulu.com. (I realized that the Office is MUCH funnier now that I don't work IN an office. It was too close to home.) After lunch (grilled cheese and tomato soup, tuna for Ben) we went to Sur La Table to spend a gift card (I finally have a garlic peeler!). A quick jaunt though Whole Foods provided a nice snack what with all their free samples. For dinner we went to Virgilio's with Brian. We finished off the evening watching Battlestar Galactica and Doctor Who.

More of the same this week. I'm going to trivia tonight and dance class tomorrow. Wednesday is orientation day for school. I get to meet my classmates and teachers, tour the campus, buy some more supplies, and hopefully get all my lingering questions answered. I can't wait to start!

The view outside my window this splendid May morn:

It was 75 degrees yesterday. Gotta love Colorado.

Heck yeah.

Iron Man rocked. I may be reeling from the excitement of its freshness, but this may be the greatest superhero movie yet. Never dragged, great humor, rich characters (not stereotypes).


I'm ready for the sequel now!

I used my birthday money to buy a subscription to Everyday Food Magazine - the one from Martha, not Rachel Ray. You may recall that a long time ago I was a devotee to this publication. In fact, I started with issue number one and I think went through the 50s or 60s. (The first year of issues are apparently highly prized, going for quite a few bucks on ebay. I've heard tell of $50 for the first issue. Mine are far too splattered and beloved to sell.) But after a few years the recipes got repetitive and I got bored. When I noticed I was no longer cooking out the issues I canceled my subscription.

But now my cooking is stale and I needed inspiration again. I realized that it wasn't the novelty of the recipes that was so great. It was the seasonal ideas, the pretty pictures, and the simple preparations that inspire me to get in the kitchen. My first issue arrived a couple weeks ago and it has served us well. The following recipes are all from the current issue.


Pulled pork shoulder barbecue sandwiches slathered in Big Hoss sauce. The honey glazed carrots are also from the magazine.











Simplified Paella. I omitted the shrimp and added saffron.














Lemon Poppyseed Cake. This was delicious and served at Movie Club. Unfortunately, it was so tasty that there were no leftovers for me to eat later!











A fresh salad made with a variety of ingredients. It had me hunting the aisles of Sunflower Market to get everything. In fact, I tried three stores for Israeli couscous, aka pearl couscous, aka Middle Eastern couscous -the name by which I finally found it at Whole Foods. It was sold in bulk and I'm happy I bought extra since we really enjoyed it's texture! The salad also has steamed green beans, cucumber, golden raisins, pistachios, and feta cheese.





Yesterday afternoon I made their basic muffin recipe. I added dried sweetened cranberries (again, hooray for bulk foods at Sunflower!) and topped them with a crusty raw sugar coating. They are deliciously creamy and have just the right amount of sweetness.







I have a couple things left on the meal plan from this issue. We're going to have their Thai chicken with noodles (substituting udon for glass noodles) and their two pea pasta - made with snap peas, frozen peas, and ricotta. I might also make the artichoke linguine. Yum yum yum.

link

I freaking LOVE these shirts. They had another collection that I fawned over for quite some time before it eventually sold out. The sweet embroidery and feminine cuts coupled with irreverent words - it's wonderful! They have posted a new collection. Many are reprints of the same design but with new sayings. Sadly, I'm not as fond of these new sayings because they overuse the F-word. High impact, I guess. But there are still a few I would conceivably wear. And some I wish I could wear. Were I to spend $90 on a shirt (Ha!).

I got a couple great products at REI today. This anti-chafing stuff is supposed to prevent blisters. I put it on this afternoon, after going on a long hike this morning in thick boots. Oh my, my feet felt so good in my stiff red flats that I had changed into. I don't know if they will truly prevent blisters, but it was very soothing. It's also a sunblocker, great for my frequently burned footsies in the summer. It can be used anywhere on the body. I hate applying sunblock in the morning (so greasy!) so if I unexpectedly find myself outdoors for a while, I can whip this out of my purse and protect my nose.






Ben and I have been lusting over these stylish, cancer-free aluminum bottles. Especially since Nate got one. Since I'll need to stay hydrated to power through 7 hours of classes each day, I can justify buying this cute bottle, right?

Miranda has started a monthly dinner group for a bunch of girls. I'm so excited for it! We're planning our first dinner for the middle of May. She started a website, which I added to my list of links to the right, or you can click to it here. There should be a lot of great recipes you can browse!

I'm posting this and the previous from my classroom in Regis. I got here a few minutes early and decided to test the wi-fi. Success! I promise not to use the net once class starts ;-)

I hate pepid. I hate installing applications. I'm mad at my BB. It will be punished.

So I will watch a kitty video to unwind. Hard to stay mad when you're watching this.

Have you seen the Green Porno on Sundance channel yet? Isabella Rossellini demonstrates the mating behavior of creepy crawly bugs. It's artistically creative, performance art-like, but with graphic scientific explanations. It's bizarre. start with the spider or earthworm. If you don't mind seeing an elderly Italian actress humping a life-sized puppet insect, try the others.

This is brilliant.

Waxy pointed out a hilarious out-of-context list from a Grand Theft Auto forum on in-game girlfriends. Ben plays GTA for hours every night. Maybe I should write my own girlfriend list so he doesn’t get confused.

snip

Good Advice From
a Grand Theft Auto
Dating FAQ.

BY DAVID ABRAMS

- - - -

[I]f you kill a girl through abuse, she will no longer be your girlfriend.

The main reason to date a girl … is to get stuff from her.

If you raise your relationship level with a girl to 100% you’ll be given a special outfit.

You can date more than one girl at once, and as far as I know, your other girlfriends won’t mind if you pick up another.

I haven't said much about starting the nursing program. It's been a little confusing and halting, but I feel like we're about to fully swing into the schedule now. Here's what I'm doing:

Health Assessment
In this class we learn the very basics of a health assessment (duh). We started by talking about interview technique and how to get a full health history. Then we started learning about the examination, starting with the head and working toward the toes. So far we talked about palpated the head and neck region, and checking for skin, hair, and nails. This week we have had lectures on the eyes (acuity, peripheral vision check), the ears (visual examination and tuning fork tests), and the lungs (auscultation and percussive exams). In lab Thursday and Friday we will practice these techniques.

Professional Nursing Role part 1
This is a touchy-feely, getting to know yourself type class held in one weekly 4 hour class session. Last week we told stories about what our name means to the class, had a long lecture about the Service Learning component, filled with fluffy meaningless verbage about philosophy and diversity and charity (Amanda knows all about these talks), then we went to the nursing home where we will be "volunteering" for the Service Learning. Basically SL is part of the Jesuit tradition, where students must spend time doing charity and journaling/writing essays about how it helps them grow. Blah. I'm trying to get my hours done as soon as possible. This week we spent the entire class session each giving the class a 5 minute presentation on "Who am I? Where did I come from? What can I bring to Regis? What do I expect from Regis? How will I take care of myself during this program? Gag. Most people went on for 10 or 15 minutes instead of the allotted 5. So the teacher scrapped the rest of the day's activities "because what you were doing was so important, I didn't want to interrupt, and it accomplished much of what I wanted to do." This class is supposed to eventually cover other aspects of the nursing role, like duties as part of a health care team and legal knowledge. I hope that makes up for this fluffernutter stuff we're doing now.

Pharmacology I
A class about drugs. We did a couple introductory chapters on drug research, drug laws, and drug names last week. Today we talked about pharmokinetics, or how the drugs are absorbed, distributed, metabolized, and excreted. Tomorrow we start on GI drugs, probably only covering diarrhea and constipation, she said.

So that's what I'll be doing for the next month or so. The classmates are still great. I love that I easily find 2 or 3 groups to eat lunch with me (I've eaten lunch alone for years). A good bunch of them are already getting their pants in a twist, fretting over the first two exams next week. They're doing the sample tests before we have covered all the material! Whenever people ask me questions about what I think will be covered and how we should study, I respond simply and reasonably, trying to get them to chill out. I figure there's no reason to worry until there's something to be worried about.

It was a busy Saturday for the Masons. I had to do some nursing home hours first thing in the morning. Well, 10 am, which seems early on the weekend. Then we went to Sam's Club (ugh) to get supplies for the annual Memorial Day BBQ we're planning.

Once we got home, we just picked up the dog to go to Chatfield Reservoir with friends. It was quite sunny and fun to let the dogs run around off-leash. Jem is still terrified of water but Izzy dove right in.







At home I collapsed in a much needed nap. Being in the sun makes me SO sleepy. I worked on schoolwork for a few hours and threw together some steak soft tacos for dinner. Brian came over around 9 pm and we watched a FANTASTIC movie - Danger: Diabolik. In the words of Brian, "it's so sixties it hurts." He's a big Mario Bava fan and had been wanting to rewatch this movie for some time. I'm glad he let us join him.


Some you may know that I went through a Beastie Boys phase in high school/college. I LOVE their videos and Body Movin' is one of my favorites. It uses footage from Diabolik and recreates some of scenes. Enjoy.

Beautiful images of cities taken with long exposure from space. Does the narrator sound just like George McFly?

Ugh. Yesterday was the first day I have felt the "stress" of school. I had an exam and lecture all morning. I went to the fitness center and did 30 minutes on the elliptical (woot! 3rd time now!). I had to get groceries and run some errands because our house was nearly empty. So I didn't get home until after 2 pm and I hadn't had lunch yet. When I miss my feeding time you know I'm REALLY busy. For some reason food didn't sit so well with my tummy. Ironic, since our lecture today was on assessing the abdomen. I studied, laid down for 30 minutes, then rushed to study because we wanted to get to trivia tonight. I have an exam today so I was frantically trying to absorb all my notes and highlight my textbook.

We did make it to trivia, but I was extremely tired and, unusually, not hungry for dinner. Our team came in 4th (I think) but I didn't really help. I came home exhausted and instead of more studying I went straight to bed.

I'll spare you details, but I lost about an hour of sleep in the middle of the night being hunched over the toilet with a fever and nausea. This morning I had to drag myself out of bed. Tuesdays are my once a week professional roles class (and they take attendance), and I have that pharmacology exam this afternoon. Anyway, I don't feel THAT bad. Mostly tired with some uneasy feelings in my belly. I plan to take a deep nap this afternoon and feel better by tomorrow.

Yay! I feel almost normal today! I'm happily on a break during lecture. With 4 hours of class we stop every so often to stretch our legs. Today we're learning mental assessment and neurological assessment. This afternoon we're going to continue in pharmacology with GI drugs.

Sometimes you see something and you think "YES! "



nataliedee.com

(You probably don't care about my errands, but since I was already complaining about these items, I might as well post their resolutions.)

Once in class I found out that the blackberry version of pepid required an internet connection to access certain critical parts of the program. Well now, that doesn't jive with my situation. After long negotiations, customer service calls, and some help with my parents I have reconfigured the whole PDA situation. I bought a Palm Tungsten E2 to serve as Pepid software reader and my calender/to-do solution. Then I gave Amanda my blackberry. It was a happy exchange, since she was in need of a phone and I did not need a fancy schmancy phone now that I had a palm. Then I got a new motorola phone. It sucks that I donated my old one when I got the blackberry. It worked just fine and I'd be happy to still have it. But I need a phone one way or another, and this one is purple and shiny and all kinds of pretty. So that's something. The palm I got is working great. I had one when I went to CU so the user interface is second nature. Pepid was obviously designed for this kind of device, because it works more smoothly than it did on the BB.

I ordered some Dansko clogs to wear to clinicals. Zappos is a fabulous company. They sent my order overnight as a free upgrade. They answered all my questions about how the shoes should fit and style/size availability. Sadly, of the four pairs of shoes I ordered none of them fit that great. I should have listened to the great reviews on their site, that advised ordering a size up. By the time I was ready to return the shoes (at no cost!) they no longer had my size in ANY style of Dansko pro. I looked feverishly all over the internet. No where could I find my size except on weirdo sites for horse trainers and chefs, with no free shipping. Today I took my big box of Zappos returns to the UPS store in Applewood and stopped by Mucellis's Shoes, which was listed as a Dansko supplier. 15 minutes later I walked out with a great pair of exactly the shoes I wanted. The shoes are handmade, so even within a single size the fit will vary. The store manager brought out all 4 pairs in my size of the narrow shoe (which is hard to find, I called several places and they didn't carry the narrow). She apologized they only had 4! She helped me figure out the best fit and color and was extremely friendly. I was glad I tossed my student ID in the purse because they give a 15% discount on closed heel shoes to all nurses/students, and 10% all other shoes! (They also give the discount to teachers, and specialize in carrying larger sizes. One of my readers may be interested in that.) I totally lucked out by trying that store. Apparently people come up from as far as Castle Rock to get shoes there.

And it's a beautiful cloudy day with spots of rain. My herbs are flourishing, my clematis and primroses came back this year. I'm enjoying one of my guilty pleasures for a few moments before starting an essay about myself, due Tuesday. You can guess which class it's for. By the way I got A's on my first two exams - woot! Oh, and So You Think You Can Dance starts up tonight. Ah. What a great day.

This is a quick post, because I gotta fly in 5 to get to trivia tonight.

We had to move the big church BBQ to the church building because of possible rain. And boy, did it rain. Decent turn out, probably would have been higher if nice weather, but everyone seemed to have a good time anyway.

We saw Son of Rambow this morning. Good movie. I feel like it could have been better, but still good. I liked it better than the new Indiana Jones. You should see it.

Yesterday I got to see the Sim Lab. Ours looked similar to this picture I found online. It felt so real and also so artificial. The mannequins are controlled remotely by the instructor outside the room. They can talk to you like the Wizard of Oz, so you can ask the patient questions. They can control the various sounds and stats coming from the patient. There's a phone and some equipment, but a lot of it is fake, so you just say "Let's increase your oxygen 2 liters" and she types that into the computer while you feign the motions. It was awkward having three of us trying to assess the patient at once. We all had our scopes out on her chest, trying to determine whether we heard severe tachycardia, or the plastic chest vibrating from breath movement. We eventually figured out that our patient had lobar pneumonia. I think I'll do a lot better next time. I'll ask more questions instead of jumping into assessment. Because we were limited in time we were not sure what exactly we were supposed to be doing. Getting a history? Exploring her body sounds? Attempt a diagnosis? I found it very stressful from the lack of instruction. Also, our first time with a real patient will be with an instructor at our side helping us, not on the other side of the glass grading us. Now that I know what to expect I think when it's really time to use the sim lab for testing, I'll be ready and confident.

Today we had our lab for neurological assessment. I had no idea there were so many reflexes! It was pretty fun whacking my lab partner. ;-) I committed myself to learning the cranial nerves this weekend. I learned them just barely enough to pass my exam in A&P. Now that I'm doing assessments that apply to them, I want them ingrained in my memory for fast recall. No mnemonics, just know them.

I'm excited for my Weekend of No Plans. My family is visiting SLC for Andy's graduation (Go Andy!). I finished my nursing home hours (woot!). No parties or church activities. I'm going to nap and run errands and do chores and all sorts of fun stuff like that.

I'm going to grill pizzas and artichokes for dinner before going to the Walkers to watch BSG. Azalea is growing up so fast! She is seriously the cutest baby I have ever seen. Every time I see her she giggles and wags her tongue at me. Darn baby giving me baby lust.

Harder than it looks. Can you beat my score?

Time for a test. I'll list them from memory:

I Olfactory - sensory
II Optic - sensory
III Oculomotor - motor
IV Trochler - motor
V Trigeminal - both
VI Abducens - motor
VII Facial - both
VIII Acoustic - sensory
XI Glossopharyngeal - both
X Vagus - both
XI Spinal - motor
XII Hypoglossal - motor

How did I do?

Woohoo! The wonderful Threadless is having another $10 sale. If only I had $10!*

We entered our second block of 5 week classes with a whoosh. Today I had lecture and lab for Nursing Foundations. We discussed hygiene and bathing patients. In lab we learned 3 skills: hand washing, gowning up for infectious patients, and how to put on sterile gloves. I can tell that I'm really going to like this skills class. In between in the afternoon I had a meeting that was supposed to be an info session for clinicals - but they didn't have time to answer many of our questions and didn't really tell us anything new. Then I met with my group to review a presentation we're doing tomorrow.

I actually had school from 8 am until 5 pm, with just a 30 minute break between group work and lab. Then when I got home I studied madly for a pharm exam tomorrow (GI drugs, antimicrobials, antivirals) and put the finishing touches on our group presentation. This is the kind of work load I was expecting from this program, so I'm ready to handle it. Nevertheless, I'm quite tired and ready to fall into bed.

Despite the flurry of schoolwork I've been doing a lot of the things I like doing this summer. I haven't been taking as many pictures, but here are a few from the past month.

We hiked up Apex trail in Golden with our friends and our dogs.

We go for walks at Crown Hill about every other day. I caught this cute goose family crossing the walk to take a dip.

Last weekend we visited Neil's home in the mountains. Seriously. Mountains. He lives outside of Idaho Springs. The last 5 miles to his house is up steep dirt roads. You can see several peaks on the Continental Divide from his house. We had a sweet little barbecue, laid back, and watched the clouds roll by.

Here's a picture of the Rockies game I think I mentioned earlier. I went as part of my volunteer work for school. On another day we went to Golden for rhubarb, but the farmer's market hadn't opened yet for the season. Instead we went for a quick walk along Clear Creek, where they had these statues that scared Jem.

I'm still cooking! Most nights, in fact. Our gas grill is awesome. I use it a couple times each week. I love not getting the house hot. It turns outs grilled pizza is easy and delicious. Much better than oven pizza. I also make some cookies. I tried substituting whole wheat pastry flour for half the flour. I had heard this works well, but apparently not. My cookies were flat as pancakes. I added some more all-purpose between batches and they turned out sturdier. I made some peanut butter jelly bars that were ok, but I was expecting greatness. Disappointing. Then just last night I made a raspberry tart with vanilla pudding. We devoured it while watching BSG and SYTYCD with friends.

This afternoon we went to the Highlands Street Fair to watch Paper Bird play a free concert. It was blistering hot! We met our friends there and took Jem. It seemed like everyone wanted to stop and pet the her. I think since the beagle won the dog show this year they've become more popular. The band was good but I was eager to get out of there for a $1 shake from Sonic. We got home and collapsed for a nap. Then I grilled some brats. Now Brian is patiently waiting for me to stop blogging so we can play a game of some sort. Maybe we'll watch some more Doctor Who tonight. I borrowed his set for this latest incarnation and it's pretty fun.

The Arvada Center where I take ballet classes put up a little video promoting their art programs. Starting at about 1:40 in the video below you can see the students I take class with (the very same girls I choreographed a couple years ago), the studio where we have class, and of course my wonderful ballet instructor, Christina. Now you can see what I've been talking about!

The dancing Matt has produced another beautiful video of his travel. This is so lovely and inspiring.



This guy made his first video (below). Then he put it online and started a little website to supplement it. Pretty soon he caught the eye of Stride gum, who gave him the money to continue traveling and dancing. What a lucky guy!

First video

This is the season for exams! I think I've had two a week for the past two weeks - and I'm only taking three classes. Lab is still pretty fun. We learned to put in foley catheters. Nothing to it, really. Just keep it sterile. But I'm thinking that the meatuses on real people are a lot smaller and harder to find than the gaping holes on our mannequins. I think it would be so fun to try it on a person. I'm getting very anxious for clinicals to start.

And soon they will! I got my schedule for my first "mini" clinical at a nursing home, where we will take lots of vitals and administer hygiene (yes, that means sponge baths). The first real clinical has also been scheduled, for my Adult 1 class starting mid July. That one's in a real hospital. I'm gonna refrain from writing where I'm going to keep things confidential online. I'm happy to talk about it outside of the blog though.

I made date pinwheel cookies just like Mom used to make. Now I understand why she always made so many - it's a huge batch! We're going to enjoy them while watching Zatoichi tonight



OKAY. whoa. While writing the above Jem escaped. Ben was out moving our cars (our carport spots were blocked by construction all day) and Jem was on the porch. Apparently when Brian opened the back gate Jem ran out. Ben called me and said "Jem ran away." I panicked, hung up the phone, and ran outside. Brian came running up the parking lot, saying he lost them in the apartment complex next door. I tried to call Ben back but couldn't reach him, so I just started running around the neighborhood looking, calling her name, no idea where she or Ben were. (Might I mention that at this same moment a thunderstorm started, making it unusually humid.) After circling a few blocks of the neighborhood I came home. Brian met me at the gate to say someone phoned who had found Jem, Ben and Justin were driving to pick her up. By then everyone had arrived for movie club. Miranda plopped Azalea in my lap and commanded her to make me feel better. They came back with a thrilled beagle, panting hard. Do you know why? She RAN TO 26th AND KIPLING! That's 1 1/2 miles away. She had to cross two major roads to get there. She was caught at the gas station across the street from Crown Hill. We think that was her destination since it's her favorite place and she definitely knows the way there. I'm glad she didn't try to cross Kipling.

Damn dog. Doesn't feel the least bit sorry for what she did either. Let this be another lesson to everyone with pets: even if they are microchipped it's important to have your phone number on their tag.

So the evening turned out great. We got our dog back. Zatoichi came from Netflix and the disk was cracked. Brian brought alternative choices, Nate picked Monster Squad. Funny, terrible 80s kids movie, apparently making a big cult come-back. Some new folks came to the club, hopefully we can continue to expand our little circle of friends. They said they would come next month too.

Egads. I'm all wound up. Between destroying my knitting (tangling four skeins, two needles chewed to splinters, row counter demolished), chewing up the basement phone this afternoon, and running away, Jem is really trying my patience. We should have named her Demolisher instead of the cat (that's Molly's namesake).

I heard that some readers wondered how my tests went. Fairly well. In Foundations I have almost a perfect grade (98-99%). In pharmacology I'm still floating an A overall, but I'm waiting to hear back on the last test. I think I got a low A or high B. Pretty good, but not great.

Lots of homework, lots of other things vying for my attention. Amanda moved this week! I went down after school today to help unpack. Is it sick that I'm jealous? I wish I could move all my furniture around, go through my house item by item, and have a fresh start. I hope she likes it here. I'm going to love having her in town!

Little update, I got my pharm test back - 94%! Rock!

I'm writing this in my serene clean house. Ben is visiting his family in Maine for a few days. I indulged myself by taking Jem to Beds n Biscuits for an overnight stay. She will have tons of fun and exercise and I don't have to worry about getting home to take care of her tonight or getting up early on Saturday to walk her. It's just me and Molly chillin' this morning.

My classes for five week two are finished. We had our first set of real clinicals in real scrubs last thursday, yesterday, and tonight. I'm at an extended care nursing home, 3-8 pm. It's been tough - I'm not interested in working in extended care plus we were assigned the dementia/Alzheimer's unit where more than half the residents only speak Russian. So the class objectives to work on our bedside manner and focus on communication isn't really happening. But I'm getting to practice our basic skills and get my ankles wet in working with patients. I've done a lot of patient transfers, even using mechanical lifts, toilet care, making beds, feeding, taking vitals (using the nurse on a stick, not manual equipment), and passing PO meds. I hope tonight I get to do a glucose stick and insulin shot.

Last weekend was super fun and busy - hence me not posting about any of it! The greatest news is that my sister moved to town! You can read all about it on her blog (linked on the right). I can't believe I didn't get any pictures of her move. I'm going to hang out with her tonight after clinical, so I'll take my camera and try to get some shots of her new home. My family came to help her settle in. We ran lots of errands and ate lots of good food (as usual). We also went to the dog park with the Walkers and swam in Brian's pool wiht Azalea (again, more pictures on their blog, linked to the right). I have a few new pictures in my camera to share.


Believe it or not I still cook most days! Here's a smashing cake for summer, and in the back you can see another grilled pizza. I kind of OD'd on the grilled pizza in June. I also make the corned beef using my pressure cooker and baked the rye bread from that weird mix in a carton from Ikea.


The dog park in Arvada where it was horribly hot. We got cold drinks at Sonic on the way home. I baked a pineapple upside down cake on Sunday and it was delicious! Pretty easy too, I will making this again. We found this darling patio set and succulant plants while shopping Saturday. I eat breakfast outside with Molly every day now, she just loves it. I can't wait to get some flowers to put above on the windowsill to pretty up the corner even more.


My parents very kindly got me that Ikea desk I was pining over! Sunday it came together in a snap. Moving the furniture around took longer. We also cut our old desk in two and kept the side drawers, you can see them to the right of the desk. I just love this new arrangement - it makes the living room feel wider and more airy.

This weekend will be great! Pharmacology, touchy-feely class, and Foundations are done, I just need to show up to clinical tonight. I start Adult 1 on Monday - so this weekend is a little mini break from schoolwork. What a relief!

This is just a quick update. I really don't want to type a lot but I feel bad for not posting much lately.

Adult 1 is awesome so far. We've covered cardiology, fluids, respiratory, and ABG's in just 6 sessions. Needless to say these are pretty intensive days and I've been exhausted most nights - hence not posting much. We also have lab where we've learned really basic care for trachs, ostomies, chest tubes, PICC and central lines. Most of the learning is going to be in clinicals.

Today was my first clinical. Most of it was spent in computer training and orientation to the unit. For the evening I was assigned a super nice patient to do vitals and assessments. My patient had MRSA so I got pretty fast at gowning up. But I had to chuck my pen and folder at the end of the day because I had taken them into the room, forgetting that they would be contaminated then. I need to learn to memorize vitals like a waitress memorizes orders.

Left the house at 6:30 am, got home at 9 pm. Dad is probably thinking "welcome to my world," right? The school week is done for me now, I have 4 days to study and catch up on housework before returning on Monday.

I just want to mention how great Ben was today. He watered my plants since I was dashing to leave this morning. He waited until I got home to share dinner together and even offered to pick up a blizzard treat before I got home. He listened intently and patiently while I chattered about my day. It's nice to have someone to come home to :-)

I read my myriad of blogs using Google's Reader. It allows me to share interesting items with other Reader users. Recently I figured out that it dumps all my shared items onto its own webpage, so non-Reader users can see what I browse. I added this page as a link on the right bar, "Rachel's Shared Items." It's a smattering of weird and interesting articles, pictures, and videos. I tend to share items often, nearly every other day. So it will be updated much more than I get a chance to update this site. Enjoy!

My first 12 hour shift actually working the floor start to finish. My legs are exhausted but I made it. The nurses were more receptive to help and at times enthusiastically assigned us new things to do. My patient was recovering from a cat bite on his hand. It looked terrible! Very swollen, hot, and red. He also has "a bit of Alzheimer's" (seems to be my disease specialty lately), but just pleasantly confused and flirtatious, so it was easy to deal with. Made assessments a bit harder, but at least he's interesting, right?

So some cool new things I got to do:

* Soaking the wound, then dressing change with an ace wrap (I love putting on ace wraps. I was a little sad that I didn't have more injuries in dance so I could wear them)
* Administered meds using the computer scanning system
* Finger stick glucose test
* IV insertion (Failed, actually. Despite my dad's excellent teaching both of my two tries blew. Weak veins. Always blame the patient, right? My teacher got it in by taking off the tourniquet as soon as we were in the vein to release the pressure).
* Bladder scan to check PVR (post void residual)
* Came to the rescue with air freshener after my patient had BM all over the bathroom. Psych. Not so cool.

I did plenty of other more mundane things like vitals, linen changes, helping with ambulation, etc. All in all a good day. Let's see how I feel after another 12 hours tomorrow. I might turn out to be an 8 hour shift girl :-)

Another really great day at the hospital. In the morning I took complete care of my patient (same as yesterday). I got to talk to the family about discharge a bit. I did my first IM injection - a pneumonia vaccine. My nurse was patient and gave me good feedback and tips afterward.

I did a gastric tube feeding for a different patient's lunch. I listened to his belly while we squirted in air to make sure the tube was in place. I aspirated the contents from his previous meal, measured, and put them back in. Then we flushed with water and I gave him lunch. You just pour in the can of liquid slowly and let gravity draw it down into the stomach.
As we watched it flow the patient said "Did you hear about the tomatoes?" Hmm no, we said. "This man was known for growing these beautiful red tomatoes. His neighbor asked him how they got so big and red. Well, he told his beautiful neighbor, every night I take off all my clothes and walk around in front of my garden, and my tomatoes blush this pretty red color. What a great idea, she said, I'll have to try it. So that night she took off all her clothes and walked around her garden. The next morning the man asked her if it worked. Well, she said, my tomatoes are still small and green. But you should see how big and long my cucumbers are!"
Imagine that you're pouring lunch into a guy's stomach down a tube while he tells you raunchy jokes. What a surreal experience. Oh, and he followed up with two more to finish the meal (but they weren't as funny).

Once my patient was discharged around 1 pm I could only roam. Our unit was pretty quiet so Darcy, my clinical instructor, scouted out something exciting for me to do. In the meantime there was a COR code call (cardiac/respiratory arrest). Darcy was on the COR team so she grabbed me and we ran down together. We were the first to arrive since it was the unit right below us, but immediately there were 20 or 25 people there - COR team, medical teams with students, nurses, respiratory team, lab people, the works. I couldn't see much but I could seem them start compressions and bagging (breathing), and they tossed yellow gowns in the room because he was another MRSA dude (isolation is an afterthought in an emergency). I was shooed away soon, but I couldn't see over the heads anyway. I later learned the worked for 15 minutes but weren't able to save him. It was so exciting and adrenaline fueled, I'm really pleased to have been able to see how the response team comes together and what exactly makes a COR response.

But the excitement didn't stop there! Ok, it was more mellow, but very interesting. Darcy let me follow around the IV nurse in the surgical and medical ICU's. The character of each floor is pretty unique. I must say I preferred these types of units. We checked various IV's (peripheral, central, PICC) for infections and dressing changes. She found a guy I could try an IV on, but then the Cath lab got a patient and they thought that would be a more unique experience so I switched over to cardiology. The patient had come into the ER late that afternoon. They put a catheter up his femoral artery to his heart to get angiograms of his coronary arteries. He had a few 18 year old bypasses that were full of plaques. So then they placed a filter, used a balloon catheter to place a stent, removed the filter, and checked perfusion. I sat outside the lab behind a glass wall with the record keeper. She explained what was going on while we watched both live and on the monitor images of his heart. I'm almost ashamed to say the sweetest part is that I was sitting in a chair for the whole two hour procedure. My poor legs!

So interesting, so much to learn. At some point during the day I had a couple epiphanies.
1) I'm so much happier being here learning all these new things, compared to where I was last year and the year before, stuck in administration and management. It's definitely a sacrifice and struggle, but it's definitely worth it.
2) I'm so grateful to have a healthy body myself and for my family. I'm so glad I'm not the one visiting their parents in the hospital. I'm so glad I don't have to help my husband eat breakfast, take a bath, or use a urinal. I hope and pray we continue to be blessed with healthy, functional lives.

Zaley and Jem from Rachel Mason on Vimeo.

I got to babysit Azalea this morning. She thought Jem was hilarious.

Not bad considering how long it's been since I've read/seen Shakespeare.

I'm off for two weeks from school - normally one week but thanks to the DNC coming to Denver we get until Labor Day to put our books on the shelf.

My clinical was fantastic. Great instructor, great staff and patients, interesting experiences, pretty much all you could ask for. I got to spend my last day in the surgical ICU, what a treat!

This weekend Ben and I are headed to NYC with Brian in tow. We're going to stay with some friends in Brooklyn for a long weekend away from dusty old Colorado :-) I can't wait!

Yeah, this is a short, kind of lame post. I waited too long since clinical to write, so my interest in revisiting it is low. I'm loving that my house is clean, my kitty is in my lap, and I spent 2 hours today watching Scrubs and knitting. How about some quick stats as a final note on my Med/Surg 1 experience?

Number of MRSA swabs taken down to the lab: 11
Number of times I almost fainted: 1 (PICC line insertion = YOWCH!)
Number of old men I showered: 2
Number of times I yanked up my compression socks per day: 7
Number of nurses I shadowed: 6
Number of lungs auscultated: 7
Number of times I washed my hands: 288 (give or take)
Number of times I applied soap thinking it was alcohol rub until it failed to absorb: 3
Number of times I entered vitals in the wrong column of the flow sheet: 5
Number of times old men winked at me: 6

How could I resist Amanda’s list of the top 100 foods every omnivore should try? She has a pretty impressive span (see what I mean here). Let’s see how I compare. The foods I have eaten are in bold with a -. The foods I’m discounting for religious purposes have an X. Links take you to a description of the food.

The VGT Omnivore’s Hundred:

-1. Venison
X 2. Nettle tea
-3. Huevos rancheros
-4. Steak tartare
5. Crocodile
-6. Black pudding
-7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp
-9. Borscht
-10. Baba ghanoush
-11. Calamari (yes, I tried fish)
-12. Pho
-13. PB&J sandwich
-14. Aloo gobi
-15. Hot dog from a street cart
16. Epoisses
-17. Black truffle
X 18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes
-19. Steamed pork buns
-20. Pistachio ice cream
-21. Heirloom tomatoes
-22. Fresh wild berries
-23. Foie gras
-24. Rice and beans
25. Brawn, or head cheese
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper
-27. Dulce de leche
28. Oysters
-29. Baklava
-30. Bagna cauda
-31. Wasabi peas
-32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl
-33. Salted lassi
-34. Sauerkraut
-35. Root beer float
X 36. Cognac with a fat cigar
X 37. Clotted cream tea
X 38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O
-39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail
41. Curried goat
42. Whole insects
43. Phaal
-44. Goat’s milk
X 45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more
46. Fugu
-47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel
-49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
50. Sea urchin
-51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone
-54. Paneer
-55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal
-56. Spaetzle
X 57. Dirty gin martini
X 58. Beer above 8% ABV
-59. Poutine
-60. Carob chips
-61. S’mores
62. Sweetbreads
63. Kaolin
64. Currywurst
-65. Durian
-66. Frogs’ legs
-67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake
-68. Haggis
-69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette
-71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini
X 73. Louche absinthe
-74. Gjetost, or brunost
75. Roadkill
X 76. Baijiu
-77. Hostess Fruit Pie
-78. Snail
X 79. Lapsang souchong
X 80. Bellini
-81. Tom yum
-82. Eggs Benedict
-83. Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant.
-85. Kobe beef
-86. Hare
-87. Goulash
-88. Flowers
89. Horse
90. Criollo chocolate
-91. Spam
92. Soft shell crab
-93. Rose harissa (common in African cooking, so I’m pretty sure I’ve tried it)
-94. Catfish
-95. Mole poblano
-96. Bagel and lox (well, not the lox, but I’ve had my chances so I’m gonna count it)
97. Lobster Thermidor
-98. Polenta
X 99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
-100. Snake

I have eaten 61 items. 13 items are disallowed alcohol, coffee, or tea.12 items are seafood which anyone can tell you I detest. But I’ve actually tried 3 of them. Ha! I beat Amanda’s 59 even with her my fish handicap. I think it helps to have a husband who likes exotic foods. To sum up:

• 61/100 or 61% total
• 61/87 or 70% of allowed items
• 58/75 or 77% of non-seafood, allowed items

Not bad for someone my age I should think!

We're back! Back from a glorious long weekend trip to NYC. I'll get my photos up soon, I promise. In the meantime have a look at Ben's fabulous flickr photostream.

I uploaded my photos to flickr this afternoon. You can see them here or by clicking on the widget on the right side bar. I promise that I'll follow up with a photo blog post, explaining where we are and what we're doing. I might even toss a couple videos online if I get real fancy. For now, here's a little background on our trip.

We knew Jeff and Mavi from high school in Fruita and all went to CU Boulder where we really became friends. I hooked up with Mavi when we both signed up for East Asian Civilization, me because Ben recommended the Japanese history portion, and Mavi because she was majoring in Chinese language. Jeff was at CU's film school. After school they got a cool place on Capital Hill. We went out dancing, crafted, cooked, and even made a Movie Saturday at their place. Soon they decided to move to New York to give themselves more opportunities in music and film. They make internet movies and are working on a film about their Breakfree Project music tour. Meanwhile, we had a standing offer to come visit New York and stay at their place for free. That was . . . three years ago.

Gosh darn it - it was high time we took them up on their offer. I had these two weeks off from school so we booked a flight and convinced Brian to come along (later finding out he had NEVER been to New York. Ben and I have been several times). Even more than visiting the city, I think we had a blast just spending time with great friends. Ben and I got to see a different side of NY, away from the touristy stops.

Now I'm home and despite the laundry and work to be done, it's nice to be back. There's nothing like a trip to make you appreciate home. No more polluted humidity making us sweat the moment we step outside. We desert folk like our dry, clean air. My comfortable bed encouraged me to sleep much later than I should have this morning. Molly is affectionate and happy we are home. Jem is exhausted from playing nonstop at her kennel. My tomato plant has tiny green tomatoes(!) and my clematis bloomed a second round of purple stars. I'm so glad I have until Tuesday to enjoy the quiet of Colorado before going back to school.

Welcome to Brooklyn! We arrived via taxi from LaGuardia around 6 pm. Mavi and Jeff gave us a quick tour of their abode before the hit the streets looking for food. They had Thai on their minds. (That's one of my patented "Rachel holds the camera at arm's length" photos)

Below is the menu for our resteraunt - I forgot the name. It's in Williamsburg, hipster central so I'm told. Sure enough, we entered through an unlabeled barred garage shop-like door revealing a hidden warehouse converted fancy resteraunt with a DJ table by kitchen.
Ben ordered squid (on the left) and I had delicious peanut chicken curry. Sorry for the low lighting pictures, but I try not to make a show about taking photographs in resteraunts.

After dinner we walked to the Williamsburg bridge and admired the city lights. We crossed over into Manhatten and took the subway back. We finished off the night at the Barcade (bar + arcade). Ben set a few high scores before we called it a night.

Saturday morning. Here's a nice shot of our bohemian friends' living room. Buenos the cat was very social while Trixie mostly stayed out of our way (that must be a tiger tabby trait!).
Breakfast was at Tiny Cup where I had my requisite toasted bagel with cream cheese and a hot chocolate.
After a long subway ride we arrived in Queens. We walked all over the park and cooled off in the fountains, despite a cop warning us that it was "the dirtiest water in the city" since they reuse the same tanks filled in the 60s. Whatever. It was a hot day.
The US Open was happening at the stadiums near the park so there was a lot of security and tennis fans wandering about. Once we were thoroughly hot and tired Mavi led us to the "real" chinatown for supper. We ate "hot pot" at the place with the red awning. Hot pot is where they bring a pot of flavored broth and spicey oils to your table stove so you can cook your own food. For just $25 including tax/tip you can eat and drink all you want. You mix your own sauces (note that that had a bowl of M.S.G. you could add to your mix) they bring you whatever frozen meats or fresh veggies you want. You can also order dim sum items like dumplings. The staff got very excited when Mavi started talking to them in Chinese. They were eager to please and helped us use the correct tools and mix good sauces.


With full bellies we rode the subway home to ready ourselves for an evening of fun. First off, The 39 Steps at the Cort Theater. The show was a real hoot, we all loved it. (Thank you Mom and Dad!)
We walked through Times Square to gawk at the lights then ducked underground to get to Marks Place. This time we went cheap and grabbed sandwiches from Bamn, an updated automat. Across the street I finally finally got to try Pinkberry! I've been curious to try it for over a year but alas, they are only in NY and LA. It was delicious and I'm already trying to recreate fro-yo at home. I hear their is a place in Denver called Kuulture that makes a similar fro-yo.
Next came my most anticipated activity - Karaoke! Sing Sing Karaoke is Asian style karaoke. Instead of singing in front of a large group you rent a private room with your friends. This has two benefits: 1) Everyone is encouraged to sing without the public embarassement and 2) you get to sing more songs in your own room.
I have some videos of the night that I might not get around to posting (do you really want to hear our drunken/full sugar cola insprired 2:30 AM ravings?). We sang our wallets dry, slumped onto the train, falling into bed well after 3 AM.

So Sunday we decided to take it slower. We slept in mightily and cooked breakfast at home. Mavi took me shopping on 5th avenue and the guys went to central park and Toys R Us.
Late afternoon we met up and took another long train ride out to Coney Island. I think our true destination was Nathan's Hot Dogs, but what the heck, we looked at the park too.
I gotta say that most everything about Coney Island, aside from the hot dogs, was disgusting. The beach was filthy. The whole area stank even more than usual. The rides were ancient and overpriced. Nevertheless we had a good time laughing at it all. Brian rode a couple spooky-type rides and Ben took a lot of gorgeous pictures. We took one last trip into Manhatten for another Pinkberry and headed home.

Monday our friends needed to return to work. We just had time to have breakfast in Bedford, Brooklyn, walk around a bit, and go back to gather our luggage. Travelling home was very smooth. I'm so glad we took the time and money to make this trip happen. Jeff and Mavi were FANTASTIC hosts!

Ack! only a few more days until I have to handle responsibilities again. My fridge is busting with desserts. Amanda brought over a delicious carrot cake with cream cheese frosting. I made the NY Times chocolate chip cookies (verdict: decent but not worth the hassle). I made the fruit salad from Cooking Club again. I have greek yogurt to make fro-yo. April and I canned peaches and made peach jam this morning. Tasty tasties surround me!!

I discovered Ravelry.com and am loving it. I found all sorts of projects I would make if I had lots of lovely silk and alpaca balls. Lots of patterns to browse and great organization. I uploaded my "stash" of yarn and lined up WIP and queued projects. Little Sheldon here immediately caught my eye. I'm working on another knitted tortoise (almost done!) then I'll try a couple of these before school starts.

Mavi and I spent some good time in Anthropologie cooing our eyeballs out. So much cuteness! Look at those grape-colored pleats! That pink sweater has POSIES in the pocket! Their stuff is so inspiring and beautiful.

Brian posted his pics on Flickr. Hooray! Pictures without me holding the camera at myself! Check out the rest on his flickr page.

Whoa whoa, Brian is going nutso with his new flickr account. Today we made jam out of his box of peaches (lots of peaches in August). He took pictures all along the way and already put them online! He also has photo sets of old stuff. If you're bored you can browse around past movie sets, halloweens, and other events.

School started again and it's good so far. I have OB - lecture all this week, half lecture half rotation starting next week. The professor has the obligatory baby-love and cutsieness (The picture you see was the first slide she showed in class) but so far she matches it with physiological knowledge and thorough lectures. I would be more annoyed with her talk of God and "baby" versus "fetus" if she hadn't been so upfront about her opinions. As long as she acknowledges that she addresses her lectures with a spiritual tone I'm ok with it. Also, it's a jesuit university, so I feel like this sort of thing comes with the package. Labor and Delivery is definitely an area I'm interested in specializing. Not because of the "Oh look at the baaaabeee" factor. Newborns are kind of gross. No, I'm interested because I think it would be a nice balance of routine and excitement. I can expect the course that each patient's stay will take, so I'll have some nice routine there. But there's always the chance for disaster and strange occurances, giving little adenaline rushes that appeals to me the same way OR, ICU, and ER do. Most L&D patients are going to come in healthy (bonus) and probably leave after just a short stay, hopefully fairly healthy (another bonus). The emotional issues may get the best of me. As I get older I get more tearful when babies are born in movies. Also the family stress may be too much. Who knows if I'll actually like it, but it's up there on my list of things to try. I'm also stoked because this next rotation is at my local hospital. It's a super short commute and a place I would potentially like to work! Next week I also start an 8 week course of Evidence Based Research in Nursing on Mondays. It's another loose, liberal arts education class. I hope it's more interesting and useful than our last "bachelor program" style class.



nataliedee.com

I started a knitting streak on break thanks to free time, cooler temperatures, and joining Ravelry. I have a very portable project now and took it into class yesterday and today to knit during breaks. (Actually the prof came up to chat about knitting and quilting and said that it helps her listen, and said she was totally cool with me knitting DURING lecture - sweet!). I've brought in my knitting at least a dozen times and every single day at least 5 people come up to talk to me about it. I'm grateful for the chance to make friends, but it gets kind of annoying. Natalie Dee hits it on the head with her comic. Knitting is not that hard. I think anyone can do it. If you really want to then you should learn! I didn't learn until high school and I taught myself all the advanced stitches. If you used to knit then bring it in! Don't say to me every day how you should bring it in. I don't care if you do or not. Ok, my gripe is done. Thanks for listening :-)

I got mad that when I uploaded yarn photos for my ravelry account they took up precious space on my free flickr account, knocking good photos out of view. Hrumph. So I got myself a pro flickr account and went a little crazy. My pictures from the last year are back up and I just uploaded the last of all my old digital photos onto flickr. All 5,107 of them. I put them all up privately so no one can see them. Over the next few . . . days? months? I'll fill in titles, descriptions, tags, and organize them into sets. I'll switch them to public view as they become ready. If you want a glimpse back to old times you can subscibe to my feed with your rss reader and watch as they get released. Or check out my flickr account periodically for updates the old-fashioned manual way.

Here's one of my oldest photos. Look at the shiny adolescence! And the skinniness, the excessive hair, the untamed eyebrows! Oh what fun this will be.

[Ben has been accepted as guest blogger on Rainy Morning.]

I wanted a way to watch Hulu on the TV, but I wanted it to be as complicated as possible. I also wanted to not use the over priced and under-performing wireless adapter for the 360.



This wireless adapter costs $100, and for that - it works. Barely. I could barely watch any of the streaming videos on"Inside Xbox" and I had more lag than I should have when playing online. I wanted to somehow use a better adapter for my xbox.



Rachel's TV has lots of awesome inputs, one of them is a VGA input - which means I can plug a standard computer into it. I remembered that we had this port after a while of us longing to watch hulu on the big screen.



Rachel also had an extra computer, that was just sitting around. It's nice because it's decently fast, but doesn't have too much memory. That's a plus because it can go into hibernate mode really quickly. That makes it just as convenient as other Home Theater equipment to use!



I had a WRT54G router that I could put the famous DDWRT firmware on. With this firmware, one of the basic features is the ability to turn the wireless capability into a receiver instead of a transmitter. It then sends the signal out from the ports on the back. Perfect for getting hulu to the computer and for getting Inside Xbox to my Xbox.



Of course I still needed a router, so we bought this cheap netgear router. It works great!



Here is the computer displaying on the TV!



and full screen 480p Hulu video!



Here's where I hid the big computer. It's nice because the mouse is always there, and we don't have to have a computer cluttering the place up. We have other things for that.



All nice and hidden. You can see the router behind the speaker. Everything works how I wanted. It's a little over complicated, but given the equipment I had and the results I wanted I think it's the most cost effective, and it was fun to put together!

Weird story. I have my first exam tomorrow covering embryonic development, labor and delivery, and newborns. After studying for a couple hours I called Ben upstairs to quiz me from my study guide. When we got to the section on amniotic fluid he made the most disgusted face when he discovered that fetuses "drink and urinate" the amniotic fluid. "That's totally gross." Fish do it too, I offered. "Yeah," he said, "and that's gross too. But I'd eat a fetus." We cracked up, me knowing that he said that to be outrageous (as he often does) and to make the comparison to fish. Then he went on, asking if any cultures ate fetuses. I said I didn't think so, that it's probably taboo. Surely someone eats, like, goat fetuses he said. No, I said again, I really don't think so. I know about lots of weird things people eat. He said, "Well, I'm sure people eat goat fetuses. People eat gross things. Like a delicacy, you know?" With that he popped online and typed this search and came up with this video. What do you know? People eat goat fetuses.
http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/player/flash/syndicatedVideoPlayer.swf
I can't believe he was right about the goat part. And the name (kutti pi) is hilarious to boot.

One of the worst things about clinicals is forcing down breakfast before 6 AM. It does not taste good and goes down unsettled, making me queasy. But if I don't then I'll get faint by 10 AM. Yuck. This oatmeal tastes like boggy tissue paper.

I can cross OB off my list of possible specialties. I had two days of clinical this week at our local hospital. The first day was spent following the lactation consultants. Boooooring. Boobs boobs everywhere. We visited postpartum moms to make sure they are feeding well. We had an open group session where 5 moms with babies of various ages up through 3 months came for assistance and weight checks. The rest of the day was private appointments of the same thing. Mom and sometimes Dad came in. Undress baby and weigh him. Change the diaper. Weigh him with the dry diaper. Nurse for 20 minutes on one side. Weigh him. Nurse for 15 minutes on the other side. Weigh him. Hmm, he could go for more. Nurse and weigh for anothe 30 minutes. Chat while they dress him, say good bye, and another couplet comes in. All. Day. Long. My eyes were drooping by 2 pm.
Yesterday I was in the postpartum "Mom Baby" unit. I had a good nurse who explained a lot of things and let me pass out all the medications. Unlike my med/surg unit we weren't allow to access the pyxis drug carts or log onto computers to chart. So I spent a lot more time just observing. I did one newborn assessment and one mom assessment in a 12 hour shift. I had a whole hour where there was nothing to do so I studied class notes. I was lucky. Another student in a different MB unit read a novel for 3 hours. We're all packing reading material now. It seems that aside from the labor and delivery unit everyone just needs to rest. I hear that Special Care Nursery (their NICU) is even more boring because you're SUPPOSED to leave the babies alone as much as possible so they can rest, feed, grow, and be unstimulated. Even the girls in LD yesterday were bored. One was assigned to a nurse whose two patients wouldn't let a student in. What was she supposed to do all morning??
I talked a lot to my nurse in MB about what specialties to go into (she had a marvelous Boston accent, I suppressed giggles all day). She said OB was always pretty quiet. Even in LD you just don't get much experience. It's just uteruses and boobs in and out all day. It would be hard to get another unit to accept you once you're done working there. She said it was great while she had kids in school because it was so mellow, but it wouldn't be good for new students. I noticed that most of the nurses were more laxed, doing wimpy assessments and chatting an awful lot. A bit more bumbling, forgetful, and slow. Most have been working in OB for 20+ years. I got the feeling that OB was looked upon as the easy nursing specialty. Kind of like how psychiatry is at the backend of the MD specialties (not that there's anything wrong with psychiatry! They just don't get much respect).
So I haven't had my LD days yet, but I'm pretty sure OB is not for me. I want more exciting critical care.

So what am I still interested in?

• General Med/Surg (but not rehabilitation)
• medical or surgical ICU
• Wound care
• OR nursing
• ER (I at least want to try it, I'm not sure it would be a match)

What have I nixed?

• Postpartum/NICU
• Long term care (especially Russian speaking Alzheimer's units)
• Hospice
• Mental Health
• Pediatrics (I'm pretty sure, but I won't know until my peds rotation later in the year)

Studying pre-eclampsia and other pregnancy/labor complications.

Watching It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia and Burn Notice.

Shopping for new glasses. My frames broke yesterday :-(

Snacking on Fruity Pebbles leftover from my fro-yo for cooking club.

Loving the cold weather turn. Bring on the sweaters and long sleeves!

Knitting a lovely project that will be secret for now.

Desperately needing a haircut. A color job wouldn't hurt either.

Contemplating getting my ears pierced.

America's Best Contacts and Eyeglasses rocks. As I said before, my light purple glasses I've been wearing for 7 years broke. I was able to hot glue the hinge back together to wear them during class but clearly this is not a long term solution. I started looking for a cheap way to replace them - cheap because I have no eye coverage with my bare-bones health plan and because we're living on a student budget. Here's the breakdown of what I found:

Eye exam:
Target = 55
Lenscrafters = 65
Walmart = 62
America's Best = free with purchase (40 without)

Frames:
Target = start at 99
Lenscrafters = start at 99
Walmart = start at 19
America's Best = start at 49, but buy two for 69, lenses included

Lenses:
Target = 100+
Lenscrafters = 125+ but had a half off deal through November
Walmart = 69+
America's Best = basic lenses are included in the two for 69 deal. Upgrades start at 69.

So really no comparison. Any other place would total 255+ for the whole package, or just 69 from America's Best plus you get a second pair. I figured if they didn't have good frames then I would get the cheap exam and take my prescription to an online shop like zennioptical, where frames + lenses start at $8. But they had decent stuff and at least I could try them on. I'm glad I got some new ones ordered so quickly - not so glad I have to wait 7-10 days for them to arrive.

Those are the two pairs I ordered, but the one on top is purple/pink (I could only find a pic of the blue version). Miranda graciously accompanied me to offer much needed advice. She was very direct and honest and made me feel really good about my purchases. I'm pretty excited to have two pairs because I frequently leave my glasses in my school bag or my purse, and then when I get to the movies or lecture I realize I left them in my other bag. No more!

By the way, remember my shoe conundrum this summer? Just wanted to let you know how awesome my dansko clogs are. I would wear them everyday if that wasn't so boring. They feel great on my feet and offer the most support I've felt outside of a pointe shoe. Amanda has been converted to the dansko love as well. If you need some good shoes I whole heartedly recommend them.

By the way, I got another A on my OB test today. So far I'm rockin' the 4.0.

LD was very slow today with only 4 laboring patients, and mine was the only one who looked like she would deliver during our shift. The other student and I faced off with rock-paper-scissors to win the patient - I was lucky to get her. She was very sweet and pregnant with her first child. Supportive family was there the whole time. She delivered vaginally with an epidural and episiotomy. The pushing was only 20 minutes long and not nearly as gross as I expected. I followed her the rest of the day until she went to the post-partum unit.

I got to check her cervix (or attempt to - it's very gooshy and confusing in there), remove her foley catheter, and assess the newborn after an hour. I helped her get the baby latch in order to breastfeed. I even got to put in a straight catheter to empty her bladder just before she left the unit. So even though it was a super slow morning and I sat around waiting for a long time I got to do a lot of fun things in the end. (Yes, inserting catheters is fun!).

The birth was totally exciting and happy. We were a little worried about the fetal heart rate, lots of decelerations during contractions. My nurse surmised that the cord was wrapped around the baby's neck and she was right. We worried that having all that trouble would exhaust the baby before she could be pushed out. But pushing labor went fast enough (20 minutes) so there weren't any real problems. The placenta came sliding out quickly with a waterfall of blood behind it. The placenta had a marginal cord insertion site so that was cool to see. I would have liked to look at it closer with better lights, but I decided it might be inappropriate for me to sneak off with the tub and poke and play with it. They might think that was weird :-)

Question posed on another blog: What are your most re-watched movies? In no particular order:

The Princess Bride
Star Wars Return of the Jedi
The Lord of the Rings (all three, plus bonus features when I'm sick)
Singin' in the Rain
Rushmore

TV shows?
Arrested Development
Seinfeld
Friends
Family Guy
Spaced

Did you know that fish, stage make-up latex, and dog butt musk share the same unpleasant scent?

My hoodie stank so I washed it. It still stinks. It smells like alkaline chemical, like the stuff I used in darkroom. I haven't been in a darkroom in 8 years.

This week in clinicals was great but I'm pooped and don't want to get all worked up writing about it on this here blog. My legs are moaning with ache - I'm not sure if it's because I couldn't find my compression socks this morning or because it's the end of two 12 hour days. I was ravenous and exhausted when I got home a couple hours ago. Now my tummy is full of tacos and my veins are coursing with happy diet coke, my legs up propped up on pillows and I'm catching up on two days of internet hoo ha (whoa, 700 BILLION?). I hope to write up my experiences tomorrow, but I may not get to it. Then the weekend will be here and I won't every get around to it. That happens. Basically I'm writing now to at least say hello, so I don't feel too bad about myself for not writing later. If you're a bored passer-by on my blog, entertain yourself by figuring out what this is - I talked to a Certified First Assistant RN today (she was so cool!) and she talked about this:

Ben has taken up his blogging pen. That's a link to his new site and I updated the link on the right side of this side as well. Please add him to your usual internet browsing!

I was assigned to the NICU Wednesday. It was pretty boring because for the most part you just let the kids sleep so they can rest and grow. We do assessments every two hours, alternating doing a hands-on assessment and just taking vitals off the monitors. You want to disturb them as little as possible because it's stressful. We had a little girl born at 27 weeks (her mother was getting sick fast with high blood pressures) who was on her second day in the NICU. She was under 1 pound. She looked more like a fetus than a baby since she hasn't put any fat on. Just a large head and skeletal body with frail muscles you can see under her skin. She was getting her nutrition through a central line in her umbilical vein and was breathing on a ventilator. We had to suction her trachea a few times for fluid build-up. She was also hooked up to an ECG, had a pulse oximeter on her foot (that you have to switch feet each day because the little light can burn their thin skin), and a temperature probe stuck to her belly. It must be frightening for parents to see their kid like this. She was on a bed under a radiant warmer and pumped in moist air to keep her from drying out. They use saran wrap over the bed to keep the air in. I guess the fancy "giraffe isolette" was being used by another preemie who was not so badly off but was born first. I loved taking care of the little girl. She was so completely helpless. When she cried it was soundless because of the intubator. Kind of surreal.

Thursday I was assigned to Labor and Delivery. First I did a transition for a newborn c-section just before I started my shift. I gave the baby its first bath and took vitals every 15 minutes. I also gave it the vitamin K shot and put in the eye ointment - those little guys can screw their eyes shut really tight! I saw a beautifully easy birth at 10 am. It was the second in the family. The mom had an epidural and just breathed out her boy in less than 5 minutes once she started pushing. The umbilical cord was crazy long. The midwife was so impressed that she had someone get a tape measure. 44 inches! They're usually 14-18 inches. I helped a spanish-speaking only (SSO) patient who was having a natural birth. Nooooo thank you. Compared to that gorgeous epidural earlier it was clear which way I should have my first. I really have no motivation to try natural. I hoped to stay through her birth but it was taking much longer than planned (she was already fully dilated) and I wanted to see the c-section at noon. I heard it took another hour and a half after I left before the birth. The c-section was great. I love watching surgery. When they take the uterus out to sew it up I thought it looked just like a roast chicken with its neck sewn full of stuffing, with drumsticks/fallopian tubes on either side. Like I said before, I spoke with the first assistant RN who assisted with the surgery. She told me all about the surgery, the tools, the healing, and her education to get to that role. I tooled around after lunch following a nurse on an antepartum patient. I dropped in for another vaginal delivery, seeing just the end of it up to stitching up the mom. I have to admit by that point I was getting kind of bored with deliveries. I feel the same about c-sections. It was a cool experience, but you've seen one you've seen them all.

One week to go and I'm done with OB.

Toward the end of September is the time to start thinking about Halloween costumes. Why so early? Because inevitably I go all cosplay crazy and need lots of time to A. Make it happen or B. Talk myself out of it. Luckily this year I have it all figured out:

Ah ha hah aha ha. Right. But I do like her hat. And I entertained the notion of being a tired/dead nurse with copious body fluids on her but Brian informed me that that would be "The Lamest Costume Ever." Here are some other characters that have crossed my mind as cosplay-making goldmines. First those that must be done in pairs:

Amanda and me as the red and white queens. Oh, how I would love to be Carol Channing. NOT AFRAID OF MARMALADE!!! Then there's sweeney todd and Mrs. Lovett, particularly the beach scene. Can you imagine making that though? I would have to wear it to the beach one day. And we can't forget the Doctor and Donna Noble, again with Ben filling in the partnership. But where am I going to find a brown pinstripe suit and trench coat in his size for under 10 bucks? Next we have some solo costumes.

Jem, Lindsay Funke, or Patty O'Green. Eh. I feel like these have all been played and/or they would be too difficult. I need something fresher, funnier, and simpler. Time and money just do not allow for much creativity this year. I'll probably be a ghost. Sigh.

Sometimes putting on a big sweatshirt and fresh socks can make you feel a lot better about the world.

Swoon.

Yes, I'm very distractable when I should be studying for my final test. But when you're reading sentences like "Lochia rubra lasting longer than 2 weeks postpartum is highly suggestive of sub involution. Some women report scant brown lochia or irregular heavy bleeding. Leukorrhea, backache, and foul smelling lochia may occur if infection is a cause," you need to take some time to not think about vaginal bleeding.

My folks came to visit us this weekend, just for fun! I love just sitting around and catching up with my parents. They spoiled Jem with lots of treats and a new stuffed duck. She adores it and carries it everywhere. Molly got some new catnip toys that she seems pretty happy about. I also got an early Christmas present from Ikea. That store is so great. I can't wait the two years until they build one in Centennial, CO.

Saturday we went to Amanda's school and dropped off a trunk-load of young adult novels from our personal collection for her classes to use. It was so fun browsing through those old, musty pages. It brought back memories of riding in the car for hours, me in the backseat reading the latest Sweet Valley High. Here we are laughing at Amanda's note on the cover of what would have been her newest acquisition:

After that we loaded up Ben and went to Boulder! Oh, how I love and miss living in Boulder. We arrived in time to visit the farmer's market and I'm so glad we did. I used to walk down the Boulder creek path to the market nearly every weekend when Ben and I lived in our first home there. I would visit every stand, searching for the best prices with the best quality. We found many late harvest delights! Dad took lots of pictures of me packing my sack with yummies. I'm going to make a leek soup with parsnips. Dad insists that I use the entire leek by boiling the whole thing until tender, like his mother used to. I don't know about that. I've always sauteed the tender parts and tossed the thick green tips. I might have to get her recipe. I also picked up some rainbow chard - too pretty to pass by, and sunchokes. I've always wanted to try sunchokes but they're expensive in stores. Not here! Mom went wild for mums and got us each a plant and several for herself. I also picked up a lavendar plant for just $4.00 (instead of $20 at a nursery!). Miranda, I need to take you to the market one day. There's only 4 weeks left so we have to hurry.
We ate out a lot this weekend, at 3 Margaritas, Brasserie Ten Ten, and Pei Wei take-out. I love taking my parents to NIJ resteraunts ("not in Junction"). This morning we had a delicious breakfast of bagels, fruit, bread pudding, hot chocolate, cider, and OJ. Yum! I sent Dad home with more homemade peppermint marshmallows. He doesn't mind that I got a little girly with my decorations. These remind me of My Little Pony.

I'm surprised how few of these I have eaten. Actually there are many that I have never heard of.

1) Copy this list into your site, including the instructions!
2) Bold all of the sweets you’ve eaten!
3) Cross out any of them that you’d never ever eat.
4) Consider anything that is not bold or crossed out your “To Do” List.

(I also ?? ones I don't know and !! ones I want to make now!)

1. Red Velvet Cake
2. Princess Torte
3. Whoopie Pie
4. Apple Pie either topped or baked with sharp cheddar !!
5. Beignet
6. Baklava
7. Black and white cookie
8. Seven Layer Bar (also known as the Magic Bar or Hello Dolly bars)
9. Fried Fruit pie (sometimes called hand pies)
10. Kringle ??
11. Just-fried (still hot) doughnut
12. Scone with clotted cream
13. Betty, Grunt, Slump, Buckle or Pandowdy
14. Halvah ??
15. Macarons
16. Banana pudding with nilla wafers
17. Bubble tea (with tapioca “pearls”)
18. Dixie Cup ??
19. Rice Krispie treats !!
20. Alfajores ??
21. Blondies
22. Croquembouche ??
23. Girl Scout cookies
24. Moon cake ??
25. Candy Apple
26. Baked Alaska
27. Brooklyn Egg Cream
28. Nanaimo bar ??
29. Baba au rhum ??
30. King Cake
31. Sachertorte ??
32. Pavlova
33. Tres Leches Cake
34. Trifle
35. Shoofly Pie
36. Key Lime Pie (made with real key lime)
37. Panna Cotta
38. New York Cheesecake
39. Napoleon / mille-fueille
40. Russian Tea Cake / Mexican Wedding Cake
41. Anzac biscuits ??
42. Pizzelle
43. Kolache
44. Buckeyes
45. Malasadas ??
46. Moon Pie
47. Dutch baby ??
48. Boston Cream Pie
49. Homemade chocolate chip cookies
50. Pralines
51. Gooey butter cake
52. Rusks ??
53. Daifuku ??
54. Green tea cake or cookies
55. Cupcakes from a cupcake shop
56. Crème brûlée
57. Some sort of deep fried fair food (twinkie, candy bar, cupcake)
58. Yellow cake with chocolate frosting
59. Jelly Roll
60. Pop Tarts
61. Charlotte Russe ??
62. An “upside down” dessert (Pineapple upside down cake or Tarte Tatin)
63. Hummingbird Cake ??
64. Jell-O from a mold
65. Black forest cake
66. Mock Apple Pie (Ritz Cracker Pie)
67. Kulfi ??
68. Linzer torte
69. Churro
70. Stollen
71. Angel Food Cake
72. Mincemeat pie
73. Concha ??
74. Opera Cake
75. Sfogliatelle / Lobster tail ??
76. Pain au chocolat
77. A piece of Gingerbread House
78. Cassata ??
79. Cannoli
80. Rainbow cookies
81. Religieuse ??
82. Petits fours
83. Chocolate Souffle
84. Bienenstich (Bee Sting Cake)
85. Rugelach
86. Hamenstashen ??
87. Homemade marshmallows
88. Rigo Janci ??
89. Pie or cake made with candy bar flavors (Snickers pie, Reeses pie, etc)
90. Divinity
91. Coke or Cola cake
92. Gateau Basque
93. S’mores
94. Figgy Pudding !!
95. Bananas foster or other flaming dessert
96. Joe Froggers ??
97. Sables
98. Millionaire’s Shortbread ??
99. Animal crackers
100. Basbousa ??

Reading books by James Herriot. I loved his stories when I was a kid and I love them now.

Renting my textbooks instead of buying them at this site. Saved me a lot of money!

Studying the history and basic components of community and public health nursing.

Playing Wordigo. I'm terrible at it and I need a lot more practice!
Baking apple pear pie with cheddar cheese. Yum!

Shopping for the many many birthdays in October.

Savoring the early fall weather.

Discovering that I love chard! I hate cooked spinach and collards and mustard greens, so I'm thrilled to find a leafy green that tastes delicious.

Crafting a large crewel embroidery project.
Drinking coke zero and apple cider. Not together.

I'm so starved for 30 Rock and this clip from Conan whets my appetite. Oh Kenneth I miss you!

http://www.hulu.com/embed/C0Wc29325fqBEsZNmoqg7Q

This has been a GREAT weekend. Friday night we had lots of friends over for dinner. I made two apple pies this week, the first being a regular pear and apple pie with cheddar in the crust (left). The second one was a sour cream apple pie (middle) from this website. Justin's mother in Iowa sent him home with oodles of apples from her yard and he shared the bounty with me. I gave some away, made two pies, and have enough to make applesauce still! Miranda made beef stew and biscuits and the others brought side dishes. Later we played the Action Movie game with a terrible Dolph Lundgren film.

Saturday we woke up to a rain and fog. Together with Nate, Miranda, Izzy, Jem, and baby we trekked to Boulder. I got some lovely brussel sprouts and baby squash. We went to Half-Fast subs (wow their website is crappy) on the Hill for lunch (above right). I felt like I was back in school, studying for finals. But wait, I am back in school . . .


We parted with the boys, baby, and animals down in Lakewood and met Amanda at Fancy Tiger. Goodness gracious, so many pretties! We wondered in their tiny store for almost two hours, picking out the perfect fabrics and patterns. Amanda and I got fabric to make matching cats based on this free pattern. Miranda and I ventured into needle felting and it is FANTASTIC. Seriously, so much fun and so easy. I made a robin and she made an owl. We have enough roving leftover to switch kits for a second bird. I hope to make a whole forest of woodland creatures and hang them on a small tree for Christmas. By the way, felted creatures are a hit with babies and cats alike.


Today I started on my new calling at church - Young Women's secretary! The presidency is a great group of women who I'm very excited to work with and get to know better. In this ward we only have YW for the third hour, so I can still go to Sunday School. Best of all, this means I'm off the hook for organizing the Christmas party. Sing Hallelujah!!

Tonight we're doing more crafts, this time Brian will join us to make a hanging body covered in spider webs.

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Brian finished his hanging corpse - behold!

Follow the links to the rest of the set, where I make a cameo appearance with my super-craft-woman knot-untangling skillz.

I started my rotation as a school nurse in Littleton. Today was not so bad. Lots of following around and watching the nurse manage but not much actual nursing. It’s kind of interesting though and a nice change from being in the hospitals. I’m sure I’ll tell you more about it later. My cozy flannel pajamas and kitty-warmed bed are calling to me.

I'm stuck in my last class session for our Evidence-Based Practice class. We're spending the whole 4 hours giving group presentations. My group is done (100%, thank you). There are four more to get through before I meet with my next group for another group presentation tomorrow. Group group group.

Luckily I have my computer to distract me by studying for my exam (also tomorrow). I'll admit it, I wander onto the internet occasionally. Suddenly I've decided that I need to learn to spin yarn. Not only will it be a fun new craft, but maybe I can save money on good quality yarns for knitting! Am I silly to think that?

I found a class at Fancy Tiger that Ben says I can go to (as a gift!). Now I'm getting carried away, dreaming of keeping a couple angora rabbits to gather my own fibers and maybe work my way up to a pair of sheep.

Ok, the next group is starting (does acupuncture really help with chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting?). I better close up here and pay attention again. I think I would name my first ewe Annabelle.

Here I sit 8 days before Halloween without a costume plan. I haven't even carved a pumpkin. Sigh. I don't know what it is lately. School isn't too hard, as I've told several of you this rotation is pretty light on the clinical hours and assignments. Money is tight as usual, but that's not the demotivating factor. I don't know what it is that has me in a funk lately.

I haven't said much about community health nursing and that's probably because it bores me. I think the only thing I have learned so far is that there are three levels of prevention and intervention: primary, secondary, and tertiary. I'm sure that tidbit of information will serve me well. Pretty much everything else I either already know or guessed using intuition to get good grades on our tests so far. Lots of group projects. You all know how I feel about those.

Clinical for this rotation is silly. From what I can tell it's a total crap shoot whether you get a good experience based on the nurse preceptor they pair you with. Some people sit around for an hour in the morning waiting for the nurse, then watch them type on the computer for a few hours, then get told they're done for the day. Some do busy work that the nurse does over again. Some were assigned to clinics where they were told to have a little spanish knowledge, but then find out that that's ALL they speak there and they're not prepared for it. Others are having an okay time with pretty good nurses. This includes me, working with school nurses. But we're not getting enough hours. All the nurses at my location (I've worked with a few different ones) are great teachers and pleasant to work with, but they're only there part time. However we're responsible for getting 8 hours W/Th/F. It irks me that they hold us responsible for hours that they can't assign to us. Also, even those of us with good placements feel like we've stagnated. Just halfway through and we're bored, ready to move onto the next place. I think that's because this placement is mostly about management. There's little patient contact, mostly education (which the nurses prefer to do themselves), and a LOT of paperwork.

I figured out what I'm going to be for Halloween. It's not that hip or specific, but I already have the parts for the costume. You'll have to wait and see. Tonight I helped Miranda make the tutu for Azalea's bumblebee costume. Who would have thought that my tutu-steaming skills would be needed again? We enjoyed my coconut-cardamom rice pudding and watched America's Test Kitchen while we worked.

Tomorrow night I'm babysitting while the rest go to a haunted house. Wednesday is Movie Club, Thursday is the ward Halloween party and our mini 30 Rock party, and Friday is a big party at Brian's (of course). I'm baking treats for movie club and Halloween too. It will be a busy week! To top it all off, I signed up to work a (literal) drive-thru flu shot clinic at Kaiser on Saturday. In Northglenn. Be there at 6:30 AM. The day after Halloween. It's a crazy idea but I really need the hours (we get 8 hours for working 6!). Who knows? I may be so deliriously tired I'll enjoy standing in the freezing cold car fumes, leaning over windows and stabbing people in the arm.

Last weekend I drove home to GJ for an impromptu trip home. Andy and his girlfriend were going to visit as Amanda drove back to Denver, and they wanted our dogs to play together. I couldn't resist! It was a fun reunion not doing anything in particular but watch the dogs wrestle. Jem went ballistic with joy. I have lots of photos I'll post later. I need to edit them down a bit and upload them, and it's 10:30 so I'm calling it a night now. Sorry no fun photos this time, but I felt guilty about not writing for so long I needed to just write. (Usually I read it over and fix typos, but I'm even going to skip that this time.) Ok, one lolcat to say goodnight.

Like I said yesterday, I drove to Grand Junction a couple weeks ago to spend time with my family. There are a lot of pictures, especially of dogs, all posted on flickr now. Even a couple videos. I put a few of my favorites here.

This one was really fun! I'm not familiar with 7brides for 7brothers. And I think I was tricked on Guys and Dolls.

The Golden Age of Broadway Musicals Score: 85% (11 out of 13)

Today I'm doing paper work for the school nurses. Their office is located in the same building as a preschool. I have to walk down the hall to make copies and on one trip a poster caught my eye. It asked the students what is inside of a pumpkin? Next to each name was their response. About half of them were some variant on "seeds," "goo," or "seeds and gooey stuff." But the others cracked me up:

• Eggs
• Cheese and salt and cabbage
• Seeds and eggshells
• Books and bugs and Clifford
• Glue and shoes and feet
• Scary
• Halloween and snakes and a bunny

I just got back from the flu clinic. My eyes are heavy and tired, but I'm wide awake inside. I hate when that happens, it makes for bad napping. The clinic was awesome and I'm really glad I went. KP had themselves ultra organized. After orientation and getting flu shots ourselves I strutted out to the assigned lot and found a table full of helpful cheerful people and supplies. I probably gave 40-50 shots over four hours. No one was cranky and except for some lulls due to slow traffic directing and slow vaccine supply refills, the day went smoothly. They even gave us a 30 minute break with a minor banquet of breakfast foods.

Had a fun Halloween cooking and dressing up. We had so many great costumes! My camera battery died out before the party started, so when Ben uploads the photos from his camera I'll post them here. I didn't get to bed too late. I should have been able to sleep from 11:30 to 5 am, but my back hurt so badly I woke up every hour. I've had one sided lumbar back pain for three weeks now. Aleve and other NSAIDS aren't kicking it. It comes and goes too. The last two days were fairly pain free but last night and this morning were agonizing. I can't wait for it to wear off; I read that back pain usually goes away on its own in 4-6 weeks. That's enough complaining. Hopefully I'll get some fun pictures up here soon. Nap time!

See Ben's blog.

How do you get rid of terrible back pain? Evidently you complain about it on the internet. 4 days pain-free...

Crafting of all kinds happened today! Amanda and I spent a lovely day in Denver. First stop was Fancy Tiger for our spinning class.

We're showing off our first works. Amanda is some kind of spinning prodigy. Despite her wool being from an ancient biblical breed of Jacobs sheep that is supposed to be harder to work with, she made the most lovely even, thin strands! Mine is rather lumpy and bumpy but I love it anyway. Of course after the class we had to gather extra supplies from their store.


We had thai food at Tuk Tuk on Speer. It was meh. Who thinks putting bone-in chicken in a curry is a good idea? At least the curry sauce was good. Mostly I enjoyed the company and conversation. (Summary = American school system needs major work)

Then we went to the art museum for the Houdon exhibit. The sculptures were amazingly detailed and lifelike. Amanda has a membership so we visited only the part we wanted without feeling like we had to "get our money's worth." A little at a time is a great way to see art. Behind the Houdon works was a demo area with modeling clay and styrofoam busts. Probably for kids, but we jumped in anyway. I had to cut Amanda off. It was obvious that this girl needs to enroll in a puppetry and mask-making work-shop (I mean for enjoyment, not for lack of talent).



Before going home we dropped by the Recycled Lamb to check out their spinning supplies. Amanda leveled-up her spindle and got a great deal on some alpaca roving. So silky!

Back in Lakewood Ben had spent the day with Carl, Nate, and Brian to make a camera out of a scanner, based on this project in Make Magazine. They put the camera together but didn't have much success with waning daylight.

Amanda had to leave to do important grown up things. I joined the guys at Brian's house to use his super lights that we use for movie-making. They actually got it to work.

Onto Pediatrics this term, my last term before a month long winter break (wahoo!). This professor is the best we've had. She's organized, to the point, smart, and funny. I've been assigned to work in the pediatric oncology unit of another hospital. I'm really excited for this one. I have a lot to learn about cancer and its treatments. They split us up so the 6 of us in this hospital group are assigned to three different units. I'm going to like working with just one other student. It worked well in community health. Sometimes I get the feeling the students overwhelm the staff when we're grouped all together.

I made a sour cream apple pie this weekend and it's heaven. I could eat the whole pie in one sitting.

I'm still waiting for the first snow so I can make waffles! I'm getting impatient.

I'm also taking a joke of a class on Leadership and Management. Seriously, the teacher acknowledged it. So the only assignment is a group presentation on how to handle a problem that arises in our future workplaces. I partnered up with some great students and we decided we were bored with the regular nursing problems of shift lengths, scrub policies, holiday scheduling, etc. So we found a more colorful subject. . . . for which I created this MONTAGE!

Just an FYI that I removed my montage from the blog temporarily. I gave out my url to some fellow students and I don't want the surprise lost from our presentation. The original post will be back when it's over.

http://oleswerdlow.blogspot.com/

Relive Movie Saturday magic.

So great. I love the walrus mustache

I'll try to keep this short because I'm very tired and I need to get to bed early, say by 9:30.

Despite going to bed at 9 pm last night it was not restful. I had just finished my prep sheet for my first patient the next day and I was in a state of panic. How do I measure input and output for a three year old? How do you get a UA dip each time she pees? How I will know when she needs to pee? How do I get into their omnicell? What counts as hypotension for a kid on chemo? What does chemo look like? And these are in addition to all my normal anxieties about new clinical, such as will I get a good nurse? Will she like me? Will I be bored? Will I get to do anything good? And what if I screw it up? What if I get sick tomorrow? What if I'm late? How early do I need to leave? How will I meet my clinical instructor? Like I said, I'll stop there to keep it short.

So I slept from about 10 pm to midnight, then woke up every 45 minutes until 5 am. As usual breakfast (oatmeal, banana, OJ) did not taste good that early. I felt like throwing up and had diarrhea - my usual anxiety woes. They usually dissipate by the time I get to my clinical/first rehearsal/performance, but they make the getting there part fairly awful.
I was nearly late and had trouble with my badge access to parking.

Luckily my nurse Anna was in no hurry and set me up for a great day. She worked with me at my pace and let me do all the things I wanted, without pushing or assuming I knew a lot. Of course I fumbled and felt flustered and slow throughout the day, but she was a great cheerleader and teacher. I even dropped an open port of tubing on the floor TWICE in one hour and she showed no disappointment in me. I worked with all three of her patients including the one who I prepped to care for, a 3 year old girl with a stage 4 neuroblastoma. She was a cute little girl who liked The Little Mermaid and wanted to play with the empty syringes and bags after we changed her fluids.

I felt like I mostly shadowed today, which is what I wanted. They had set me up to believe I would be doing total patient care, and indeed I heard some horror stories from other students who were at the hospital last weekend. Nothing like that for me. It's a top of the line hospital with the cheeriest staff ever.

My biggest complaints with my rotations so far have been 1) It's too slow and 2) I don't get to do enough procedures. Well today was anything but slow with NO downtime and I worked with more IV meds/tubes today than I have in all my schooling combined.
I don't know how I feel about peds. I don't have any spark of "Oh yes! Working with kids is the best/my calling/all I ever dreamed of. " But I don't dread it or have any trouble getting over the fact that we have to do things to the kids that hurt. I'm dead neutral. I wonder how I'll feel in four weeks.

(I'm cheating on this post. We have to respond to questions in an online discussion group for class. Instead of writing a post about my week here, I'm just copying my response to the group. Mwa haha, I'm so clever).

* Describe your patient assignment this week. What was the child's diagnosis, treatment, nursing challenges?
I cared for a three year old girl with neuroblastoma. She was here for a 4 day course of chemotherapy, I cared for her on the third and fourth day. The first day she was very quiet, sleeping a lot, not feeling well. Her father was at the bedside and I get the feeling he wasn’t thrilled about that. Not involved in care. The second day her mother came in the afternoon and the girl perked up immensely. Suddenly she was all about playing and talking. Very fun and sweet.
With her chemotherapy her I&O’s are extremely important. her kidneys get blasted so you want to keep fluids going through her. We had her on D5W + ½ NS + 20 mEq KCL round the clock. We weighed her diapers and measured emesis to make sure her output was at least 45 m/hr per orders. Otherwise you replace ml per ml. She also has a strict regimen of fluids and electrolytes after her chemo, which was during the night shift so I didn’t really get to see that.

* What was your most significant thing learned during week #2? (In other words, an "aha" moment!)
First to answer some of the group’s questions, the oncology patients are here for various amounts of time. Like I said, my girl was here for a specific course and many are like that. In for a week at a time every month or two. Another child I cared for was here since he was diagnosed 9 days ago. My nurse also had a patient in the BMT (bone marrow transplant) unit so I got to shadow the care there. It was an 11 year old girl with aplastic anemia (her marrow stopped making all types of cells). She had a 10 day course of chemo, then go a transplant of stem cells from cord blood, and now was waiting for her body to respond. It can take just a week or two to work, but she’s been here in isolation for 34 days now with no response. They talked another a kid who took 120 days for his body to start producing. They also had a 18 month old kid who had been the hospital since birth. So the length of stay on our unit can vary quite a bit.
I’m not sure I had an aha moment, but obviously I’m already learning a lot about oncology care. I got tons of practice giving IV medications (working with the tubes, doing calculations). I also had some variety with my little 3 year old – getting assessments while she sleeps and getting assessments while she’s talking and jumping and playing with my steth (including banging the bell with it in my ears – OUCH!). You have to make special accommodations to get the information you need. You have to be creative and flexible.

Bestest. phone call. ever. I won 4 free burritos from Chipotle in their weekly drawing. YEA!!!! No cooking tonight!!

Here is my 2 ounces of yarn spun on my drop spindle. I counted roughly 76 to 78 yards of single ply yarn. It is recommended that you unwind your yarn onto a chair back if you don't own a niddy-noddy. They don't mention that you should choose a chair back which is not wider at the top than in the middle. Luckily I was able to stretch my yarn over the upper corners after I discovered my error. That's Jem cowering all guilty-like because I caught her on the table, licking my bowl of chicken soup while I was away from the table. She knows that was wrong, but she can't stop herself!

After two soaks in the sink I hung my skein to dry. The wash and dry is supposed to set the twist. Sadly there isn't much I can do with 78 yards. Next time I'm at Fancy Tiger I'll check for more roving from this sheep.

But then we ate them without taking pictures. So you get Demolly pictures!

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I had the pleasure of seeing Andy perform as Mies Gloriosous in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum last weekend. It was a great show - the perfect part for him I think. It was a whirlwind trip but a lot of fun seeing all my mom’s side of the family. I put up some more pictures on flickr.

Remember way back when Amanda and I got fabric to make kitties? And then she made hers in a reasonable time-frame? Well I finally finished mine. Behold!


The little guy's purple nose is hard to see. I'll probably replace it with some peach felt. Otherwise I like them very much!

Thanksgiving post and pics to come, I promise. Been a crazy busy but good week at school I don't want to write much, but don't want to forget my experiences. Thus bullets!

• Leadership is over and I think I got 100% in the class. woot. Also didn't pass their ATI practice test - the first time this whole program. What does that tell us about the class?
• Tuesday in outpatient dialysis. Pretty boring on the whole, but I have a better understanding of renal function and got to help set-up dialysis, blood draws, and talked about transplants.
• Wed/Thur two GREAT clinical days. Cared for two kiddos both days.
• First an 11 month old, hepatoblastoma, here for fever and neutropenia (FN). Tiny kid, was twin-twin transfusion in utero (both survived, he's the small one). Had necrotizing enterocolitis, has a J-tube in place. Been vomiting up all his feeds until today, when he kept down a lot of PO as well as gavage overnight. Yea!
  
• Second a 19 year old guy with ALL (a leukemia) also in for FN. Really skinny and malnourished as well. Had him eating more by the second day and doing a lot better
• Basic care for both: give antibiotics, pain meds (dronabinol for one, or as my nurse said "the ganja pill"), get food down, measure pee and poop, vitals, and gown-up every entrance since both were on droplet isolation.
  
• Also got to see a lumbar puncture - it's like maple syrup dripping out of a tree!
• Worked with the same great nurse as last time. She and my instructor are so encouraging and I had many chances to shine. I feel like I got the adult equivelent of gold star stickers all day.
• It snowed today! White out conditions made my preceptor late - she lives in the mtns and it took her 3.5 hours to get here.
• I got to work with a non-floor nurse for a couple hours (more gold stars) and do more independent care. I felt like I took the lead!
• Kids get the coolest stuff. Marshmallow shooters that act as incentive spirometers. "Beads of Courage" that they collect for a necklace - a different colored bead for each type of procedure like transfusions, chemo treatment, etc. My nurse said while I was in my clinical conference she went in the OR to help place a broviac in a teddy bear! They let the little girl scrub-in and help the surgeon place a central line in the teddy's chest along with a bag of fluid so she can flush and draw blood from her own toy. I told my preceptor that if the do one next week to make sure I get to assist.
  
• The snow was swirly outside the windows. When I walked out to my car at the end of my shift I could see it was the perfect picture-book crystals that sparkle like glitter in the parking lights.
  
• There are Christmas decorations all over the hospital and I love it! We gave one of our kids a stocking of cherry candy canes because he hates peppermint ones. A singer came to the floor and serenaded us with carols.
• I'm dead tired after three shifts in a row (8, 12, 12) but I'm on a high from it going so well. My back is pinched and I have so much homework that tomorrow won't be a day off at all.
  

• But I came home to this:

• Ben is so fantastic. He had decorations up, dinner hot on the stove, and Christmas swing music playing when I walked in the door. I love my man. I'm getting so excited for break and for the holiday. One week to go!
  

From our class discussion forum: For Week #4, compare the similarities and differences between pediatrics and your Adult I experience. Address the patients (diagnoses, ages, challenges), clinical sites, staff, and personal comfort you have experienced in these two settings.

The tone between my two floors is striking. I had Adult I at the **** – lots of old men. Some were depressed, some told riske jokes, some made racial comments, some were jolly, and some you could read their hard life experiences in the lines around their eyes. The staff was caring but emotionally distant. We were polite and cordial to these men who grew up in a different era.

At **** the mood is jolly and full of encouragement. We try to be pals with the kids and give them good experiences. Since they come in repeatedly they develop strong attachments to their nurses. The nurses reach out to make them comfortable, whether it’s extra stickers or special candy cane flavors, or even making custom toys out of hospital supplies.

One night at the **** a gentle man held a concert for our unit. Nurses, secretaries, janitors, and patients gathered around him in the staff lounge. He sat in his motorized wheel chair in his yellow gown (MRSA positive) and softly sang old love tunes from WWII. His voice was crackly and quiet but you could tell that he was a grand singer when he was younger.

This week a professional singer in a green velvet dress and santa hat popped onto our floor and sang Christmas carols. Her voice was smooth and honey-like, the rumor was that she was a relative of Amy Grant. Kids and staff poked their heads out of doors to get a better look at where the beautiful voice was coming from.

Both were a capella performances given for love of the patients and staff, but they were quite different experiences. Either way, everyone had a fresh smile on their face afterwards.

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It’s finally done. We had to make an educational tool for our pediatrics group project. They decided to make a game for a cancer patient and I volunteered to make the game because I’m the only crafty person in the group and I wanted to get out of writing the paper (for once). Unfortunately there were so many snafus along the way, I spent at least 8 hours on this game over the weekend. So please excuse my rediculous bangs in this photo.

But it’s done! And kind of cute in the end. You can’t see the playing pieces or cards well, which is too bad because those are my favorite parts. Oh, and Cancerland is just a play-on Candyland. I realize it sounds ominous, hence the subtitle.

Off to class. Two days left, then three days of clinical before winter break. Woo hoo!

I have no obligations!!!! Pbbhttttttt! :-p

I'll catch up the blog posts and clean my house . . . eventually.

No fooling - check out this afternoon's forecast:

So I'm really happy I don't have anything I need to do this afternoon except bundle up in my quilt and watch movies.

It's been a fun but busy weekend. I hosted the Cooking Club cookie exchange Friday evening. It gave me an excuse to get the house back in order, vacuuming every floor and even mopping the kitchen. Saturday I had to do my last clinical by helping out with the Easter Seals Discovery Club program, where parents can drop off their special needs kids for the day. I was paired with a sweet freshman boy with cerebral palsy. He couldn't do much more than gesture yes or no and smile, but we had a fun day together. Well, sort of fun. I HATE changing man-pee diapers. It's the closest I come to barfing when I have to deal with adult urine. But it's gotta be done so I fulfill my duty. Glad it's over though. After clinical I quickly put together salad and deviled eggs for a little dinner with friends. We had great food and played some Rock Band. Brian has pictures up on his flickr site.

Today I gave a lesson for the YW. We just looked at various artworks portraying the nativity and talked about them. It went very well, they got really into talking about each work, the symbolism, the times, and the emotion the artist put in them. I was very impressed with their comments. We listened to soft Christmas music and ate ginger cookies while we talked. It went over so well I'm thinking about doing another similar lesson for Easter.

So then I came home and wrote how happy I was that I have no obligations, and that's still true. I love being unfettered, no deadlines or assignments. Sure I have a ton of personal projects that need attention (organizing the basement storage, shopping errands, finishing Christmas craft projects, turning in school papers, starting the job hunt). But I only have to answer to myself! Love it. Love it love it.

I went to trivia last night and have the photographic evidence to prove it. We held first for half the game and got bumped to a two-way tie for second, then lost the tie-breaker. How tall is Mt. Everest. We guessed 29,430 ft. It was 29,029, and the other team was just over 100 feet off. I guess they deserve it. But if Bob and Elle hadn't missed the first two rounds we would have gotten at least 4 more points, putting us in first. Brian rocked the visual round - identifying images of He-man's sidekicks. I earned my keep in the convenience snack food round, although I'm kicking myself for thinking that sponge cakes with orange jelly and chocolate are known in England and Ireland as Spotted Dick. Something about the description threw me off course and in retrospect of course they were Jaffa cakes. Funny, because I even mentioned them at one point during that round.

Photos from thanksgiving were put up on flickr. The longer I wait, the less I feel like writing :-) Basically there was a ton of good food, lots of crafts to do, and natasha demanded a lot of attention. Check out the photos. Note that now you can go to my flickr page by typing in http://www.flickr.com/photos/rachelsmason/

Blogging to you live from my shiny new iphone. Oh, the wonders and bounty we unwrapped this morning. The biggest surprise would have to be a pair of sparkly earrings and ben's blessing to get my ears pierced! Ok, blogging on a phone has been proven possible but slow, so I'll be giving a proper, longer update on my laptop later. Back to app hunting for me!

Merry Christmas all! I am squandering my days eating lots of dairy products on refined carbs, knitting up a storm, drooling at the yarn store, watching How I Met Your Mother with Amanda, and watching 30 Rock with the whole fam. I haven't tracked down a firewire, so no new pictures yet. Above are pictures from my phone of what it's like to have your ears pierced at The Retina Center. Also here are the "family portraits" that we took before Christmas to give to our folks.