Friday, May 18, 2012

Synapse fire aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand Synapse catch

Do you guys ever have days when your brain feels about two minutes behind everything else? My brain has been like that for the last 2 weeks and I feel a little like McMurphy in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (see photo),
only minus that whole unpleasant Nurse Ratchet business...I'm blaming it on my Vitamin D deficiency...either that, or I'm getting the dementia and it's only a matter of time before I leave the house with the undergarments on the outside of my clothes (see photo)
In today's installment of "Funny things my kid says" Gavin gave me lilies for Mother's day. He picked them out and planted them without any help from Christopher. When he gave them to me he called them Asthmatic Lilies...they're actually Asiatic lilies, but I like his name for them better and have taken to calling them Asthmatic lilies...then he told me about the decorative pot he picked out...he said, "It's Mexican pottery, Mom. It was kinda expensive. It cost $10, but it's worth every penny!"

Friday, April 13, 2012

Flutes, get ya flutes hehre!

Another day off from work, leaves me with idle time, and since I've just put the ingredients of sun-dried tomato and asiago cheese bread into the machine, I thought I'd write. Remember yesterday how I mentioned that I'm pretty sure I'm getting dementia, well there were a few things I forgot to discuss in yesterday's blog entry. They are as follows:

1) Ann-ette, the Huxtable's dining room wasn't upstairs, it was attached to the kitchen and separated by sliding wooden doors, but I totally think if it's at all possible, one should have a dumb waiter in their house. PS and by the way, isn't that the name of a Pinter play that we had to watch at ACTF one year...which then reminds me of Handball....and then that makes me want to sell you some flutes.

2) I successfully made a from-scratch bread yesterday. I made a loaf of raisin bread, since Christopher likes it. It turned out ok...a little drier than I would have liked, but I borrowed a book from the library that helps new bread enthusiasts trouble shoot potential bread making problems. I generally have a "No Library Books" policy, since I have a problem with the germs. But I'm trying to overcome it and figure it might actually help my son not become like Howard Hughes.

3) Speaking of library books...I'm reading a book called Dear Me and it's a collection of letters stars and activists have written to their 16 year old selves. It makes me wonder if I could write a letter to 16 year old me what would I tell her. Instinctually, you want to warn her and tell her who to avoid and what choices to make, but then you think if you did that, her life would be vastly different and would 16 year old you go on to be the 33 year old you are now. I think ultimately the only thing I'd warn her about is the whole Scott relationship, as I don't think it did much for improving my life or being a very good teachable moment....I'd also tell her to stop dressing like a third grade teacher!

4) Speaking of Scott....he sent me a text a few days ago. I guess my polite requests for him to leave me alone were just "suggestions" as this is the second time he's done this to me. I've long since forgotten his number and haven't spoken to him in over 2 years. Hans says he texted because boys don't like to burn bridges. I don't know. I don't understand. We're not friends. He doesn't get the privilege of sending me a text out of the blue and asking how I am. The whole thing just makes me upset.

5) Hans and I have signed up for our motorcycle riding class. It starts in June and after two weekends, we'll be hell on wheels....or maybe scared on wheels would be a more accurate description! Christopher has already found me a little cafe style racer bike, that gets good reviews for being a good starter bike, so needless to say, I've VERY excited! Hans and I have been wanting to learn to ride bikes for a long time, so it's good to finally get to it. Anybody want to join our biker gang?!

Thursday, April 12, 2012

These are their stories....

I have the day off from work today and thought I would write on this blog of mine. A few things to discuss:

1) I bought a bread making machine a few weeks ago and have now become obsessed with making homemade bread. I understand that it's technically "cheating" as it doesn't really require me to do anything other than put ingredients in a machine, push a button, and wait for the timer to beep 3 hours later, but it's not as easy as one would think. After a few unsuccessful attempts at interpreting what temperature "warm" water would be, I've now hit my carby stride and am about to make a journey into the world of not using the pre-measured boxed mixes. We'll see how it goes....keep your yeasts crossed!

2) I had my first mammogram yesterday. I had noticed some changes in the size of my right breast and given the history of my mother having breast cancer, my lady doctor thought I should go a mammogram performed. It was the most pleasant health-related visit I've ever experienced. Everybody was extremely kind and you could tell they all really want to make it a safe and comfortable experience for the patients. It wasn't painful, a little uncomfortable at times, and it can be a little unnerving having a stranger essentially grab your boobies and manipulate them to fit on this shelf that she then lowers another shelf to flatten them into a booby pancake, but EVERY woman should do it. The staff couldn't agree more that if something doesn't "feel right" a woman needs to listen to her body and get things checked out. As it turns out, I'm perfectly fine. No malignancy. So good news all around. I got to second base with a delightful woman named Wendy and don't have the cancer, so win-win, really! Sister, if you're reading this, DON'T tell our mother, it would just worry her unnecessarily!

3) I'm pretty sure that I'm getting early onset dementia. I'm forgetting words and tasks. The other day, Christopher asked me where something was, and I said "Did you look in the place where we hang up the coats." I couldn't remember the word 'closet'!! Maybe I'm unknowingly sleep deprived. Ann-ette, do you want to come and sleep train me?!

4) Spring is springing here, too. Although, it's snow/raining today, but that's Cache Valley in April for you.

5) So Gavin's History Fair was last week and he was a superstar, he articulately answered all the questions of the people who came to his booth without being shy or confused, I was really proud of him. He ended up doing it on the Bubonic Plague after all and I must say his board was pretty awesome....I say this mostly because I pretty much did the presentation. I know, I know. "How is he supposed to learn anything if you do all his work?" Christopher said the same thing, but it was just easier for me to do it. He did help me research and find facts, but I did the rest. It took me the entire weekend to complete it. Well, cut to this week and Gavin coming home to tell me that the History Fair was completely voluntary for his class. Meaning, he DIDN'T have to do it. Meaning, I wasted an entire weekend doing my son's homework when I could have been watching episodes of Law & Order on Netflix. I was NOT happy. But I suppose, I've learned a very valuable lesson. When given the option between school work and Lennie Brisco, ALWAYS choose in Lennie Brisco!

Saturday, March 17, 2012

A week in review

I had a patient give me some homemade sauerkraut. I haven't tried it yet, as I have a mild aversion to things made in kitchens I haven't personally seen, but I thought it was a very sweet gesture concerning an off-hand comment about German food.

I had my first encounter with having to dismiss a drug-seeking patient. After being given several stories about the need for medication refills, I ended up having to call the patient and tell them we could no longer treat them for issues that involved narcotics. The patient then told me they wouldn't be back. The moral of this story is that the staff in medical offices are not dumb and your excuse that you left your medications in St. George or your medication was burned up in a house fire that ONLY affected the cabinet you keep your medications in, we're going to know.

I thought a patient had a spontaneous pneumothorax and got really excited. Turns out it was just some costochondritis. I was seriously bummed out....would it be too much to ask for a collapsed lung or a festering wound on occasion?!

There is some legislation here in Utah that would make sex education in the schools abstinence-only. HB363 would allow schools to decide not to have any sex education and the schools that choose to have sex ed could then choose not to teach about contraception beyond abstinence. I think it's extremely short-sighted and a lot of other people have agreed, so last week there was a protest at the Capitol, asking Governor Herbert to veto the bill. Hans and her friend Andrea went to the protest and made a sign. Their sign said: STDs Don't Wait For Marriage. They sign made it on TV, which was Hans' whole goal. Thankfully, the bill was vetoed and hopefully our legislators will start to realize the best thing we can do for our kids is to give them a full and complete education when it comes to their bodies and the best way to protect themselves. I've never heard of anyone having sex because of something they heard in health class....now, something they've seen on Melrose Place, that's a different story!

Continuing in sister news, Krista is now living in San Francisco and as she was on her way to work this week, she witnessed a gentleman throw himself off a high-rise apartment building and end his life in a bloody and terrible way. She said it was surreal and the body didn't look like a "real" body. Here's what's worse. This isn't the first time she's seen somebody kill themselves by jumping from a great height. That's right, my poor sister, has been unlucky enough to see it twice! I told her she needed to find a shaman and get her aura cleansed or something, because that is some terrible luck!!

Ann-ette: Does Mike clean out your ears using a water pik or does he use some diluted liquid stool softener and a plastic wand with a loop on the end?

Saturday, March 10, 2012

Me-Ouch!

Gavin has a friend at school who likes to pretend to be a cat. He has consequently given her the nickname "Kittens," which the entire class has adopted. The other day his teacher alerted the class that Kittens had fallen out of a tree and broken her collarbone and they would be making her get-well cards. Gavin described his get-well card as follows: On the front there was a picture of a tree with a frowny face and a picture of a cat, laying on its back with its little paws in the air, also wearing a frowny face, and the words "Me-Ouch" on the top of the card. On the inside of the card he had written "I guess cats don't always land on their feet."

The Boys have gone off on a boy adventure to the Harley Davidson shop and then to get chicken wings. They invited me to come with them, but I think secretly they were hoping I'd say no. I did say no, as there is now no one else in the house and I'm sitting at the table drinking a cup of chai in absolute and complete blissful quiet.

I was recently informed a few days ago that Gavin would need to put a presentation together for his school's History Fair next month. Yes. That's right. Another presentation. I rallied hard for The Bubonic Plague, but he refused to even consider it and is doing a presentation instead on The Crusades. How he doesn't want to do a report on the Black Death is beyond me....it's The BLACK DEATH, what's cooler than that?!!

I'm also watching ANTM British Invasion!! It's too early to tell what I think, but I feel like I might be breaking up with it after this season, as the girls are all starting to look like girls from previous seasons and I'm getting tired of the caricature of the Plus-Sized sassy black girl, the Country Bumpkin, the Fierce Latina, the white girl from the trailer park who is mean to everyone because she's insecure...it's starting to get old. But I probably won't, because I've watched every cycle since the first one and Tyra and Nigel and Makeovers always pull me back in!

And Ann-ette, you MUST get on Good Reads, it's like Reading Rainbow, but for grown-ups! We can be friends and talk about books. I know I'd be a poor man's LeVar Burton, but I promise I'll end every conversation with "But don't take My word for it....."

Saturday, March 3, 2012

I do NOT nurse flirt!

I will often harass Christopher about the fact that he has 900 gazillion friends and can't go out in public without talking to strangers. (For example, he made friends with another Dad in the Kohl's today, as they were both waiting for their teenage daughters to finish trying on clothes!!) He has now started to tease me back about the fact that I "nurse flirt" while I'm at work. I don't "flirt" I tell him. I'm "friendly." I have to be friendly, especially since there is a very real possibility that in 10 minutes I'm going to have to give that patient a shot in their ass or ask them about their menstrual cycles!

Gavin has to do a presentation for school about any topic that interests him. He originally wanted to do his presentation on the Norwegian Resistance during WWII, but after some initial research we found the topic to be too broad for a 15 minutes PowerPoint presentation and have settled for a Plan B of Chuck Yeager. I have decided that these kinds of assignments end up being done by the parents and not actually the child, and think next time I'm going to make him do a project on something that interests ME, since I'm the one that's going to end up doing it anyway!

I spent the evening making invitations for Jessie's birthday party at the end of the month. Glitter was involved. Beautiful, beautiful sparkly glitter!

Momma Rock recently found, and returned to me, my cotton candy machine. That's right. I have a cotton candy machine. Beat THAT, Ann-ette. Your Coke with Quik is nothing compared to my cavity fluff! And I dislike Giselle on principal just simply based on the fact that she's Mom-bragging AND Mom-shaming all of the other moms who don't have the nanny and personal chef to help them, because I'm pretty sure if we all had Giselle's resources, all of our kids would think broccoli was candy too! But then, you have to ask yourself, "Do you really want a kid who is that weird?" and we all know the answer is a resounding "No." So if eating an occasional sweet keeps my kid from becoming the kid who wears capes to school or pretends to be a pony, then I'll happily buy him that bag of M&Ms and not feel the least bit bad about it. So suck on THAT, Giselle!

Thursday, February 23, 2012

If I've learned anything, it's that if the doctor offers you pain pills after a procedure, you're probably going to need them...

I'm am VERY pleased to report that I successfully completed my second vasectomy without a single hint of needing to pass out/throw-up! I consider this a step towards complete and total nursing domination. However, I was informed by the MD that, although he appreciates my attempts to engage the patient in banter in a means to distract them from the inevitable discomfort of having their junk cut into, I need to not make eye contact with the patient, as this is causing me to unknowingly shift the clamps a little to the right and shifting the clamps microscopically to the right while holding a man's vas deferens is not a good thing.

All the standing and walking at my job is starting to give me varicose veins, which contrary to popular belief, are NOT sexy. So I bought myself some compressions stockings (think the knee high stockings that very old, fat ladies wear). So far they appear to be working, as my legs and feet are not as swollen or tired as they were pre-stockings. The only downside is they give me muffin top on my knees. Yep. I didn't think it was possible to have muffin top anywhere other than your waist, but apparently you can.

Christopher and I have become obsessed with the show The Tudors...I acknowledge we're like years after the trend, but Netflix has all the seasons on Watch Instantly and we've now started watching an episode a night before we go to bed. I've always been intrigued by history and Henry and his wives....I read a really fantastic book about his wives last year....I think I wrote about it on this blog thingamajig, but I can't remember...anyway, if I did, disregard this re-mention of the book....if I didn't, it was a most excellent book and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Anyway, as I said, we're watching the series. Henry has become enamored with Anne Boleyn and has just told Cardinal Wolsey he has to help him get a divorce from Catharine of Aragon. It's funny to watch a series where you know how it ends and you want to shake Anne Boleyn and say "Run away if you like your head still attached to your body!" I must also say that there are A LOT of boobs (both naked and clothed) and A LOT of asses in this show....I have no other commentary on that fact, just that there are a lot of them. Also, how did everybody not have some sort of venereal disease? I'm serious. Thinking about this keeps me up at night. I want answers.

Speaking of VD...did you guys see where gonorrhea is becoming drug resistant. Again. No other commentary to offer. Just be safe out there, kids.

Ann-ette: Two things. 1) Hans and I have decided that you must wear a Dolly-esque wig when we go to Dollywood, as you look the most like her. Which segues quite nicely into 2) That story about Mike running the stop sign because he was looking at your boobies made me laugh and awww all at the same time. It made me laugh for fairly obvious reasons, but it made me awww, because it means that your husband still thinks you're the prettiest girl in the room who could be a part-time model. And that melts my cold icy heart.