Day in my life....



Nobody asked for it, but I've been thinking about it for a while. To post "some what" what I do in a day. Now I have to be VERY careful because of the HIPAA law, so you won't actually SEE anyone, but what you will see are things that I have to do. I won't over fill you with the actual AMOUNT of things (like the making of 8 beds, you don't need to see all 8) but, here is a rough "graphic novel" of my day. LOL!!!!

After checking my books, and doing rounds with the previous shift, I get a few people up for breakfast. I have about an hour (half hour after rounds) after I get there to get roughly 4 people up. That is NOT a lot of time. Think about how long it takes yourself to get up in the morning. Now, think about trying to do that to someone else.

This is what I call the basket of manliness.  I have an other resident who has what I call a drawer of manliness.  At least this basket of manly stink pretty has generally the same smells.  The drawer of manliness however....well, lets just say there are smells that don't EVER need to go together.  Seperately they are ok, but together-not so much. LOL

I have to make a few beds.  Depending on how many aides there are, I make anywhere between 8 and 15 beds.

I don't know why my pictures are flipped the wrong way.  When I figure out how to change it, I will.

 

When Breakfast comes out, we all have to stop what we're doing and pass trays and feed.  I know this bowl of grits looks a little sloppy, but when you start mixing things in a bowl that's too small, you kinda get some overflow.  Most residents like eggs mixed into their grits-and lots of butter.

 

 

After breakfast we continue to get the rest of the people up.  We also have to get
a set of vitals on certain people.  Blood pressure, temp, respirations, pulse. Some people
are daily, some are weekly, some are just because they are on special meds for a short
time and the Doctor wants to monitor them.  On this day, the once I decided to "document"
my blood pressure cuff broke.  Not good.  This means I had to hunt down the facilities cuff
to finish my vitals.

At the end of the day, I finally get to leave.  By finally, I usually mean 15 minutes after my shift ends.  I don't know why sometimes I can finish on time and others I can't.  I think it all has to do with when our lunch breaks are.  Seriously, who wants to take a lunch break at 2pm?  I mean, I got home at 3:15 (or 3:30 most days).  What happened to like, 10:30, or even 10.  I would take my lunch break that early.  I would MUCH rather take my lunch before the residents eat lunch.  This way we can start lying people down and not have to worry about stopping to take our own lunch.  Seriously-taking lunch at 2 sucks. 

So, I get into the car on this particular day and realize that I have ripped my pocket.  Probably on a wheelchair handle.  This isn't the first time I've ripped my pocket on a wheelchair, and also, this isn't the first time I've ripped THIS pocket.  You can't see it very well, but that thread sticking out of yellow.  It's not white like the original thread is.  I'm not sure this pocket is salvageable.

So, on my way home I talk to my husband and find out we don't have everything we need for dinner.  I've not been doing very well on my shopping trips.  I've gotten to the point where I simply LOATHE going grocery shopping.  I use to love it!  It was my solace!  I would completely be alone and not have to deal with anything!!!!  However, now I think it's because I'm in school, I don't want to go.  So, when I do go, it's all rush rush, and sucky.  I forget things.  My darling husband has offered to go grocery shopping for me, because he knows how much time I don't have, and he says he has all the time in the world.  (which, just so you know, I've been a stay at home mom, and I hated it.  He is a stay at home dad, and I don't know how he has done it all these years and stayed sane.  O..M...Gosh. But, he has his time managed pretty good, so I believe he would make the time to go, where when I was a SAHM, I didn't have time to pee, let alone grocery shop)  So, I was thinking of taking him up on his offer next month, or maybe even for just one trip a month.  I don't know (He's probably cringing right now reading this thinking "What have I done?!!?") 

All in all, though it's a great day when I get to come home to this.

My girls are awesome.  They drive me and hubby nuts sometimes, (ok most of the time) but we know at the end of the day that we love them, and they love us.  (I didn't say like here people....there are days when I know they don't like me very much, and sometimes I don't like them very much, but We ALWAYS love each other.) 

Teenage driver!

Where have all the years gone. Holy crap!
She is fully capable. I just have to give her some crap once in a while.  It helps to not look when she drives too. LOL just kidding. I HAVE to look. I can't stand not looking. But I do trust her enough to look away for a few seconds.
She is driving to pick up her sister from middle  school. Not too shabby!  She may be ready for her own car by the end of the year!!!  (Maybe. If I can find an 80's mustang) she has to get to school from seminary somehow.

She hates it when I take pictures of her while she is driving. 

I hate that when I post pictures from my phone it turns out sideways.....have to remedy that!  But how....

Going semi-unprocessed

As our house moves away from canned food I take on more and more cooking (for lack of a better word) experiments. Some fail. Some need tweeking. Some are awesome. We all just grin and bear it voicing our opinions when asked and swallowing through grimacing faces when appropriate. My next adventure in cooking is beans. I already make a pretty mean bean soup, but I'm moving up to chili beans. I've looked it up. Read SEVERAL different ways to do it and several different ways NOT to do it. (I know your cringing honey)  I think I'm ready. So tonight while I make dinner I'll be getting beans ready for dinner tomorrow. I'm going to make extra because I can set some aside and make refried beans. I hear it freezes very well.

When my mom visits in two months (I CANT WAIT!!!) I'm going to ask her to help me make tomato sauce. I can go to the new veggie stand hubby and I found and buy some tomatoes and make sauce. I just need my mom to help me "perfect" it. The sauce I made last night didn't cook long enough. I needed a little bit more sauce too. But there is a learning curve and hopefully I'm doing OK with it. My family is the judge.  Or I guess the proper way to say that is my family are the judges. 
My family is awesome. I love them all so much and tell my daughters EVERY DAY how much I love them.  My husband is my hero. He has saved me from a lot; he drives me nuts sometimes and I know I drive him crazy, but I don't know where I would be without him. (Probably a crazed lunatic walking the streets of Adrian talking to myself.)  This is why I cook our meals closer and closer to scratch every day. It shows them I care about them and their health.  After the terrible news we hear almost every day and the experiences my girls go through I can't control (public high school) they need to know how much I care and love them.  (Sorry about the side rant people but it is after all my blog LOL)

Who needs sleep

Apparently I don't. My mind wont shut off.
I keep thinking.
Thinking about kidney disease, and the 68% I got on my test. We ground our kids for that!  I am not studying right. I'm allowing myself to have a life. I can't do it. Its not going to work.  Sure with the 10 extra credit points I got an 88%.  But with out I failed that test.
And thinking about this Tampa General crap in a few hours. I'm glkad we have to retrain.  I think I forgot.
Oh yeah and this thing about the mailbox. Bill said it looks like someone tried to pull it out of the ground.
And perhaps the worst yet is about the dogs.  I keep replaying sad moments in my head.  When Gator got hit; the look in Brandens eyes the last time. I actually thought about if Coco got hit by a car.
Why am I doing this to myself?   I don't want to. BELIEVE ME!!!! I do NOT want to do this to myself.
I can't get to sleep.
Its after midnight.
I have to be up in 4 hours. 
Its going to be a rough day tomorrow.

But for now I guess I close my eyes and TRY to force thoughts out of my head.

Wish me luck

Daytona Beach here we come!!!!

We got our schedules at work today (well yesterday but it was my day off)  and we are going on a mini-vacation!!!!! 
I'm so excited!!!!!

A dear friend at Church has a timeshare and she has invited us for the week. Well, the week wasn't feasible so we are going for 3 days. Three glorious days. Away from home. Away from work. Just... away.

I'm going to ask my friend Boo from work to come let the dogs out. Feed the cats. Oh yeah and the rodents.  I'm sure my husband is dreading the whole salt and sand thing but he will have a good time!!! (cause I said so, that's why LOL.)
Oooooo! I should ask Jody...

The kids are super excited. I wanna pack RIGHT NOW!!  LOL. But its a little early. We have not had a family vacation in a few years. Last family vacation was when we took April to Disney.

I'm giddy!!!!!

Red alert!!! Fire in the kitchen!!!!

So I'm cooking dinner. Or at least I'm attempting to cook dinner when the smoke alarms start going off. Apparently I used the wrong burner. We had us a fire y'all! But Bill came to my resucue like usual and saved my life! I mean the stove he saved the stove.

Money

As I read through my older posts I see the problems we have. It always comes back to money.  But what sticks out more in my head is that we are happy. Sure every one disagrees once in a while but when it comes right down to it. We are a happy family. We love each other.  We do things for each other. Sometimes even with out asking.
I couldn't ask for a better family. Well, I could but I'd just get this one again. I have awesome kids and a great soul mate to spend my life with.
Life is a little bumpy, but I've got the best people to ride the bumps with me here in the back of the bus.
I love my family. I would not be able to handle life with out them.

They make it all worthwhile.

Snuggles

Sitting on the couch snuggling with Shelby. She's torn between playing wizards 101 and staying. She even tried to convince me to sit on the little couch and snuggle with her feet while she played her game.
We are watching Wizards of Waverly Place the movie. She's told me when they get to the cave she's leaving me. LOL

They are almost to the cave.

Down loaded a new app

Well. I'm gonna try this new app. See how well I can do it. LOL shouldn't be too bad I guess.

Test run

Alrighty then

I'm not going to even pretend I know what the heck is going on here with the controls of my blog.  It's been a while since I've posted, and I came here figuring I'd find the same ole same old.  But no...it isn't.  Oh well.

Well, not much has changed...we're still dirt poor, and I'm still in nursing school.  However, it is summer break, and I'm only half way through the break.  Yuck.  I actually pulled out my fundamentals book the other day and....studied.  LOL!

Oh well.  I need to figure out if my phone is still hooked up to this blog.  I wonder if I could post pictures here...Maybe I should figure it out?

Eating veggie-tar-in

What do vegetarian zombies eat?
GRRRRAAAAAAAAAAINS

That's what I overheard Stephanie tell Shelby this afternoon at lunch.  I thought it was funny.

I don't know if I mentioned it before, but Stephanie is a vegetarian.  Tonight the rest of the family is eating pork chops, and she's going to have eggplant chops.  LOL, I know sounds weird huh.  Eggplant is one of those things (kinda like tofu) that picks up whatever you cook it in.  If I season it right, that eggplant will taste like our pork chops.  (texture maybe different though. LOL!!!!)  Anyway-so tonight we're having scalloped potatoes, cabbage, and some fried veggies.  I have not totally figured out what we're gonna fry (I should say what I'm gonna fry), but there's gonna be mushrooms in it.  (I like mushrooms)

School is almost over...well, for the summer anyway.  In 3 weeks I'd like to say my stress will be less, but I'm not sure how well that'll be since I have to wait for my grades...I just don't know how long I'll have to wait for the grades.

It's been 3 weeks since my last Dr. Pepper.  I don't want one, but I want one.  However, the great side to this is the weight loss.  15 pounds in 3 weeks is awesome.  Not sure I LOOK like I've lost 15 pounds, but I have.  Now, I just need to "tone up".  Maybe I'll go vegetarian like Stephanie!  Nah, I like steak too much.  But we are cutting back on our portion sizes.

ONWARD!

I can't think of a witty title name

So, here I am...recovering from last nights Daughtry concert.  It was my oldest first rock concert.  I'm not sure how well she recieved the experience.  She says she enjoyed herself, but she's not exactly a crowd person, so having 2k+ screaming fans wasn't her cup of tea.  There was a point when Daughtry was getting ready to come out of the stage and everyone stood up and she said "What's this?" and I told her "Welcome to the concert"

I thought about my 11 year old.  She's a music buff.  I bet she would've been all WOOOO HOOOOOO and rock and rolll, and I love you fingers, and all that stuff.  Even if we were in the back.  However, I didn't take my 11 year old, it was Missy's 16th birthday present.  She had to wait 2 months for it, and when asked her if it was worth the wait she said yes. 

Waiting for the show to start in the back.  It's a nice venue there.  Ruth Eckerd Hall.  There is not really a bad seat in the place.  There are no obstructed views in the auditorium.  I told Bill that we should start going to see concerts there.  He's not a crowd person either.  I'll be stuck (ha ha, stuck...right) taking the children to concerts.

I wonder if Matchbox 20 will be coming to town any time soon...  Zsusanna would take me, she'd let me act like a fool and not say anything about it.  She'd have to man the camera though. 

So, it was a great experience.  I enjoyed myself.  Reminded me of how much I like concerts.

Finally got my new phone added! Yay!

Conversions

I got my Tampa General ID badge today.  Tomorrow we may or may not go do an orientation at TGH for clinicals.  However, the "worry" over that will have to wait-I have a math test to study for tomorrow.  The big test.  The one that if we fail, we are unable to pass medications in the hospital.  The one that we only get to take twice, and no matter how well we do in the classroom setting-if we fail, well, we fail the entire semester.  So, no pressure right?

Today I've been studying (before I went into Tampa) math calculations.  I full believe that who ever made up the apothecary system of measurement needs to be shot.  Not fatally, but just enough that they can listen to the medical staff calculate how many drams of whatever to give him/her to save their life.  Oh, the meds don't come in drams?  you need me to calculate milligrams?  Let me bust out my calculator...this'll only take a few minutes.  What? you don't have a few minutes? your losing blood by the ounce?  Wait, let me translate that into metric.  I'm telling you...apothecary translation will be my downfall.  I have not even STARTED on Fahrenheit to Celsius.  5/9 or 9/5 can kiss my big old tukus!  (please don't correct my slang-I'm already doing it lol.)

As the parental units of this home, the spouse and I have decided to ban all carbonated high fructose corn syrup items in this house.   That includes us as well.  It's going to kill us all if we don't.  There are (as I already know, and my dearest Imzadi has pointed out so eloquently) many benefits of not drinking pop.  (that's "soda" to all you non-Yankee's)  I have in the past given up pop, one time for more than a year, but all it takes is a few drinks to get back on the addiction train.  CHOO CHOO, next stop headachville, and aggitation station.  Luckily I have found a comprable subsitute.  Crystal Light makes a grape with caffiene in it.  Doesn't taste quite as good as Target's grape, but if I mix it together, it tastes like grape kool-aid.  Bill and I are going cold turkey.  No more pop after tonight.  We are going to save a ton of money too.  I know I said somewhere that we are poor, living frugally so we can splurge, and well, this was one of our splurges.  By doing this, we may off-set the cost of healthier alternatives (you know, because it's so flippin' expensive to eat healthy...and they wonder why poor people are fat...who's the stupid ones there government?) 

So, now the question of the night is...what to have for dinner?  I have not been grocery shopping for the next week, I've been busy studying stupid apothecary conversions.

Week 2 of nursing school and garden thoughts

So here I am.  I made it into the RN program at the local community college.  We've begun the nursing process, and I found that I need to change my mindset.  They asked the question in class "What would you do if you got a blood pressure of 180/110?"  My first thought was "get the nurse".  Problem?  I'll be the nurse.  EEK!  So, time to change my mindset and realize that I'm going to have to learn how to take care of that person.  What would I do if I had that persons life in my hands?
So, it's time to make sure that I know who is responsible-and that happens to be me.  The lab instructor on Tuesday told us, that when we walk into a patients room, make it ours.  We are in charge of that patient.  That patients life is in OUR hands.  OURS.  Not their family, not the doctor, us, as the nurse.  I have to change my mindset.  It's going to be a slow process, but I WILL change.  Mentally it's going to be a struggle, because I've been in the CNA position for so long.  My mom (who is a nurse herself) says that I'll have no problem switching over, but at week 2, I really havn't even begun to change.  I know, it's only week 2 right?

I have an AWESOME support system.  I know I can do this.  Anything I need, all I really need to do is snap my fingers and pretty much POOF things appear that I need.  I'm DEAD seroius.  I'm so thankful for the system I have.  I have the most supportive husband in the world, and my children completely understand why I'm not home, and why I have taken myself off the chore list.  I have friends at work who will work for me if I need time off for school, and nurses at work who are willing to speak to me in nursing terms so that I can learn the lingo.  I would not be able to do this without my family. 


Now, on to the garden.  I've been thinking a lot about it this year already.  It's time to start planning out where the thing is going to be this year.  I had a pretty good production last year, but I was thinking of keeping everything out of the ground.  I know, what am I thinking right?  A garden not in the ground?  Am I crazy?  The answer to that is probably yes.  I mean, can I really work full time, go to school double time, and still tend a garden?  I'm going to have to go with a yes on that.  I'm consdering using "upside down" gardening.  My mother-in-law bought me a do-hickey to use last year (ok, like 2 years now that the calendar has flipped).  I had every intention of using it, and matter of fact, I had something PLANNED to put in it, but by the time I got around to it, it was too late in the year to plant anything.  I know they work, and I won't have to weed the darn things. 

My dilema is now figuring out what I want in the garden.  I've researched what to grow in them, and what to put 'on' them.  Yes, so you don't waste space, you can totally grow stuff on top!  Like lettuce and cabbage.   I could probably also grow radishes up there too.  I think that would be great to have ready made salad.  It was sure nice last year.  Need tomatoes?  Go get them out of the garden.  It was nice to send kids to get stuff out of the garden when I needed it.  Gotta get my mind working on the details here.

but first...off to study!