Thursday, June 30, 2011

agony and bliss

Yes today there was agony because I went to the dentist for a deep cleaning. Ouch my mouth was numb for a while and I ended up taking like a 3 hour nap to try and sleep thru the discomfort. This is why I'm awake now at 1am. My teeth are fine but my jaw is sore! I have an antibiotic rinse that I have to use at night now for the next little while. Boo but ill recover. The bliss was this evening. I took the girls to chuck e cheese which was more agony for me. That place is a nuthouse but afterwards we went to homedepot garden section. I love looking at all the plants. We picked up new flowers and brought them home. The girls helped their dad plant them and I watchedwith my hurt jaw. Seeing them all dig in the dirt was blissful. I love good family time. Lilly just woke up and joined me on the couch to snuggle and I just love my little family. Good night!

Sunday, June 26, 2011

we are burning up

Yes its true. It is 97 degress and 11pm right now. Hot! Its been over 110 like everyday for at least the last week. Coming from wyoming where it seemed we had no nice weather. Well there was like 2 or 3 months of decent weather and then the reast was windy and cold and snowy usually. I feel like I should not complain. It is scalding hot but we stay in the ac during this time or if we do go out it is to swim or do something with water involved. So these are our bad montys right now. I'm looking forward to fall again when its perfect nike weather and cool enough to take the girls to the park without wondering if they are going to get 3rd degree burns from the slides. Lol.
On a different note allan got another new schedule at work. He really pushed to get this new schedule and it finally goes into affect on the 10th of july. He is happy. He will be working swing shift again but he will get 7 days off straight every month. Other days too but every month he gets a week off in a row. Which means we can plan lots of vacations now. Well if my job will let me off during the same time. We may have to reschedule our vacation we were hoping to take in july though. Postpone it a month or two.. or just go visit his family in wyoming later in the fall like we had originally thought about doing. Who knows yet but he is happy with the new schedule and it let's us have new possibilities with vacations. Anyway I gotta hit the hay more tomorrow.

Thursday, June 23, 2011

music link up with GOODNIGHT MOON.








I just always enjoyed this song. Dont know why exactly just an old fav. Enjoy. And be sure to check out goodnight moons blog for other links to blogs with music.

Monday, June 20, 2011

slip and slide..



This is how we spent our evening. We had a light supper and went out back to the green belt. Talked with our neighbors who have chickens and they gave us a sack of homegrown tomatoes. It was a nice night. The girls had a blast. This is one of the things emma bought with her target gift cards from her grandma sandy and Aunt liz.( if your reading this we tried to call you guys today so she could say thank you. give us a call sometime so she can tell you all about it.) She also bought a dress she really loved, a piggy bank( yes this was my suggestion), and the board game battle ship which her and allan already played. So thank you guys!

Sunday, June 19, 2011

dad's day

Father's Day Pictures, Images and Photos

Happy fathers day to all the daddy's out there. We celebrated father's day a little early cause allan has to work tonight. We took him shopping for some much needed clothes the other day. He is such a good father to our kids and a grea husband. He rarely buys himself anything so we all went to the mall in honor of him and let him try on clothes till his heart was content. He hasn't went clothes shopping in so long he didn't even know where to look for clothes. It doesn't help that he is a weird size apparently. He is tall and his waist is skinny but he has big thighs so pants are hard to fit. They are all made for like short chunky men or tall but chunky men or skinny boys. lol seriously the skinny jeans on men disgust me a bit. Anyway that was a weird random tangent.. okay so back to allan. He brought the girls donuts home this morning and they snuck down the stairs and told him happy fathers day. It was very cute.
I plan on calling my daddy'os this morning sometime. Has everyone called or visited theirs? Does anyone have a special tradtion they like to do?

Thursday, June 16, 2011

bad at blogging

Lilly on her bike being crazy

allan supervising the kids on ride at the mall


two pretty girls.

rainbow cake


the back yard..



It's been at least a week huh? sorry. I have pictures to post in an attempt to make up for that. We had a birthday party for emma and i finally downloaded the pictures but I was goign to do this posting i think it's called 10 on 10 where you take 10 pictures thru the day of things you find beautiful. So in a combination I'm going to post some of my favorite pics that downloaded from the camera since i didn't have time to do the project. I am winding down on my school work and well.. it's killing me. I finished up a paper today. I have to more to write before tuesday. I also have to write a 5-7 page paper for a final worth 20% of my grade for one class and take an exam for the other.. i'm over all of it.! i know i've said it before but i am serious! I am so close to that bsn degree but it wont make a bit of difference at my present job so i don't feel the big push for it. Any BSN nurses out there want to give me some encouragement or tell me why it's so much better than a plain old associates degree.. seriously need some motivation!!! Talked to my friend that works at the douglas hospital back in wyoming. She tells me the ratio for nurse/patient is no more than 6 but that she has never had 6 it's almost always 4 or 5 patients to one nurse. That sounds dreamy. Do i sound sad.. lol Our census at work has got down to 33 patients i think. This may sound so small to you guys but i had half of them the other day and let me tell you 16 patients was like a vacation for me. That is what sounds sad. I know hospital nurses have more critical patients generally but if you saw the patients that we have been accepting you would think they need to be at a hospital. I can't believe they are calling some of these patients rehab patients.. I mean some seem to be holding on to life by a thread and we are suppose to be rehabilitating them? I am thankful for all the inappropriate patients because without them i would not have a job but I just don't know how this is justified. It's sad and overwhelming all at the same time. But i decided that i really like my job today because i turned down another interview. That's 2.. yeah. i mean i pick my own schedule just about and i can text the staffing lady and ask for a day off and she gets me it everytime no paperwork or questions asked. I work 2 or 3 days a week and i get paid at least 5 more dollars an hour than the hospital nurses just starting out so.. really what's to complain about? I shouldn't complain at all right? right.. So today i decided i really like my job. Yes there are things to complain or argue about but in the end i really love it and i'm not going anywhere(so long as the continue to love me and keep me around haha)! its still a good learning enviroment. I have learned about wound vacs, feeding tubes ( peg and ng), ivs, blood draws, wound care, breathing treatments, a ton of medication stuff, how to take an order from a doctor that speaks about 1000 words a minute and from one that writes so bad that you can't make out your own name if he wrote it down.. Im sure all these skills will come in handy. I have to say i'm seldom really uncomfortable doing much as a nurse. I mean i can put in a catheter and talk to you about what i had for lunch today. But the last day i worked i had my first truely uncomfortable moment. I talked to a family trying to brace them that their love one might not make it. I did not say it like that and it took me a while to get it out. I first approached the subject in curiousity. They had asked me a ton of questions about the patients condition and it sounded like they were expecting the patient to get up and do cartwheels. I was a bit confused because i thoguht someone had talked to them and told them that the pt was declining. Someone like a social worker, doctor, director of nursing.. i don't know. someone other than this little nurse. I wasn't sure what to say so I simply asked them what their expectations were for their loved one while they were here. they said " to get better" i don't want to break any hippa laws but i want to share my story. This patient had so many things wrong and had came to the point where they weren't eating or drinking much of anything. I had been putting sips of water in their mouth by holding a straw the way you would with a small child putting one finger over the end of the straw then letting go. I contemplated the family's words for a moment and thought are they looking at the same person i am. I'm not trying to be blunt but in my eye's i saw a dying person and thought this pt will never full recover and the life pt has left wont have much quality to it wouldn't it be better if the pt passed? Do Not resusitate or DNR orders are a hard topic. This pt was a full code and I can not imagine having to do CPR on a pt that was so bad off. So i excused myself from their room taking the cowards way out i suppose. WEll i went and thought about what to say got my nerve back up realized that while i was looking a the pt thru nursing eyes i did not see the same person they saw. So i answered my same question that NO WE WERENT LOOKING AT THE SAME PERSON>.. So i decided that this family needed to start thinking about what the road ahead would be like and where they needed to go but to say hey you need to just let your loved one die.. no i could not say that. So in my uncomfortable moment i went back to the room mustered up the courage and said.. "your loved one has stopped eating and stopped drinking. I am not a doctor, I have no idea what the doctors thoughts are but as her nurse i want to be completely honest with you. When i have seen other patients like this they become dehydrated, this means they need to get iv's ( because the patients skin was very broken down i told them that couldn't be done at our facility) I also said even if we got an IV in we would still need to get food in which would mean a feeding tube. I told them they needed to start thinking about if this is something that she would have wanted and if this was something they would want to do for her. I told them that this was the easier part of the road ahead and that there would be multiple harder questions than just this." I would love to be able to tell everyone that rainbows are abundant and things will always get better and patients will never die but that isn't the truth and I pretty much decided that i would be a truthful nurse. I can't be a perfect one no one is but i can afford you the truth. Am i brutal no.. but i do not steer people in the wrong direction or blow smoke up their butts. If you ask me I will tell you my professional opinion.. I will tell you that i am not the doctor and don't make choices concerning your healthcare but If there is something my patients need I work hard to gt it for them. I constantly advocate for them and Im honest even when it's uncomfortable and even when I make a mistake. I made a med error and i could have hid it a while back. It was awful and thank god no one got hurt! The first person i told (even though it could of been a lawsuit or whatever) was the patient. I believe people have a right to be informed of their healthcare. The patient was not at all worried and said i was the best nurse she had while she was there and that if i told her all was fine then she wasn't worried. All was fine, i still did an incident report and she was so concerned that i would get in trouble she kept bragging to my bosses about me. LOL>> I did not get in trouble i learned from it and they know that i am honest even when it counts. (lets face it it's easy to be honest when it doesn't matter.) ;-) Wow I got on a weird random story tonight. Guess it's on my mind. Here are some more pictures as promised from wayyyyyyy up there at the top of this post. check out the photosite for more of them. good night! lilly making fast friends at baskin robins..
fish tacos remind me of summer
and the flag makes it seem like a patriotic summer always. fourth of july is around the corner.

Thursday, June 9, 2011

Whats your song link up


Okay it's my first time adding a song in here but I wanted to try this great link up from http://www.goodnight-moon.org/2011/06/whats-your-song-link-up-week-16.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+blogspot%2FtkpAQ+%28Goodnight+moon%21%29 I'm sure i probably didn't add that in right. I'm a bit blog retarded. Sorry.. I'm good to have a background and music on here. lol anyway here is my song link up. I don't have teen age daughters yet but i'm already dreading it haha. i like this song because It reminds me of what i must of put my mother thru and what i'm sure i will have in store for me. enjoy!

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Vacation.. sheww i need one!

WEll I was suppose to be working today but they needed to watch a new nurse do iv's so i took off so she could work and get it over with. Mainly I have a ton of school work that i want to get done because i've been procrastinating on it and the class is over in a couple more weeks so i want to finish it early and be done so i can enjoy time with my family over the next few weeks. I'm going to conquer a few papers tonight when allan goes in to work. So today i'm taking my little mini me to the store to get emma's bday presents because we have been procrastinating on that also. Lilly is so excited about emma coming over and having a birthday party. fun fun!
So back to vacation stuff. WE are thinking about taking off in july at the end of july. Allan can take 4 days off and end up having 12 in a row off. I am not that lucky but i asked for the week off and they basically said that was fine not a big deal. I was worried cause they have said that no one can take off during our state inspection window but it's been draggin on and on and i heard rumors that state is running like 3 months behind and having to pay fines so who knows when they will come. geezzz.. But i have been bascially helping out and working or not working whenever they need me. I've done quite a few saturdays or sundays so i guess they were okay with letting me off .. i mean i gave them a month and a half notice and it's not even paid time off i'm asking for.. lol. So allan is going to put in for his time off later this week and then we will start planning something. WE have already started thinking about it. Allan really wants to take us up to North Dakota. He wants us to see the state he grew up in and show us his old hometown. He has wanted to for a long time. We would also like to see his sister that is up there and let all the kiddo's play together. Liz has a beautiful home on a big plot of land with tons of fruit trees and bushes and she is growing a big garden and raising chickens.. so of course the kids would love to go check that out! lol.It sounds wonderful. However, it may be too hard to get all the details together for that trip. So if that's the case then we might go visit my family in texas. It has been at least two years since we went there. Lilly has gotten big and well i hate putting off trips to see my grandparents cause you just never know what might happen. ;-( I don't want to have regrets later that i should of went there more. Plus they live on the bay in rockport texas. The ducks come and peck on their sliding glass door in the morning wanting their duck food. It's a very pretty place and you can crab off their back porch and take rides in the canoe which i think the girls woul just love to do all this stuff. Plus my grandpa has a sailboat in the harbor there and the beaches have playgrounds so really ND or TX would be great. ;-) All I know is that i need a vacation and we are gonna take one soon. Allan is finished with his class so we are awaiting his degree. He turned in all the paperwork and sheww that was a long process with starting and stopping and moving and raising kids all in between so he finally has everything done time to celebrate with a vacation! Anyway anyone else taking any fun vacations this year?

Tuesday, June 7, 2011

tuesday morning.. or why am i dragging?

its tuesday am and about 5am right now. im up and getting ready to head out to work again. i like my job but man at 5am i am dragging. lilly has been cute. i just wanted to come in and go straight to bed but she wanted to play a little. she ran with rocky in the yard and ended up getting mudd on one leg.she was so fuuny cause she was sure it was dog ppoop.. and she was not happy about it. she went upstairs and told her dada " look dad i got poop on my leg" but it was in this tiny little irate voice. like she just could not believe her own bad luck. haha so we dumped her in the bathtub and i crawled into bed. i sat there listening to her play in the tub. i love the sound of my little munchkin happy and playing with her own imagination. allan did some homework. he is about two weeks away from finishing his degree. however this stupid school chose to tell him now that they dont have the official transcripts from his other school and they have to have them of course cause he transferred like 5 classes in so sounds like some extra paperwork that should have been done before they let him do basically his whole degree. we have a busy weekend coming up. we are having emmas party, i still nee to go get her presents. im such a procrastinator now.life is just busy i guess. we are also going to try to go to a waterpark with niki (a nurse i work with)and her family. she has a little boy a little smaller than lilly and her husband. our familys havent met but she is my favorite nurse at work and we call each other all the time so it will be fun to get the familys together. anyway i gotta get to work.)

Wednesday, June 1, 2011

i heart faces challenge



Okay i don't know alot about the challenge but you can find out more here..http://www.iheartfaces.com/2011/05/peoples-choice-may/ Here is one of my most favorite pics of lilly. It just shows pure enjoyment and simple good fun. Its messy but i love her little face here. i should have blown it up and cropped it but i'm not that into the contest. I haven't really entered it i just thought it was a cute one.