A little motivation...

So, I have one more day of work before I get to head to sunny Panama City, Florida for a mini-vacation... Well, it is only for the weekend, but it will be a weekend away from the dreaded Columbus. As you may imagine, I am terribly excited... I have never been to Florida, and it has been ages since I have been to the beach.

The mere thought of a little vacation motivates me to do some laundry, make sure my apartment is clean, make sure the bills are paid, and makes me want to go workout... However, I did eat a little Phish Food for breakfast, so that makes me want to go workout too... Ha-ha.

In terms of work, things are going well... Kicking my butt on a daily basis, but going well. I have been charge nurse by myself three times now, and I am actually getting the hang of it. It is actually a good fit for me, because I get to tell people what to do and tell people "no" when they try to steal my nurses to do clerical work on other floors (the ICU tried to get the Nursing Supervisor to take one of my nurses, with three patients of her own, to do clerical work down in the ICU because they were busy... Uhhh, yeah, we are always busy on the 6th floor). I have also precepted one of the new LTs on the floor a couple of times as well, which is fun, because I love to teach.

I guess I had better get going, I need to go into work for a little "competency folder action"...

66H out...

Once again, a self-defeating day...

Why is it, that when I think about getting on the elliptical machine at the gym, I head for the local Little Caesar's Pizza, the Doritos, or the Ben and Jerry's... Sometimes two of the three?

Enough said...

66H out...

So done with eHarmony...

So, I have decided to abandon my eHarmony account... Just not too much out there that is all that appealing (except the boy, of course, which is still going swimmingly). The following are examples of some of the men that eHarmony matched to me... (The first one was my most recent match.)

The most influential person in Paul's life has been:
"I realize that this might be an inappropriate answer to the question, but I have been the most influential person in my life. Certainly I have learned much from others, but it has all been as seen through my eyes."

Some additional information Friendly wanted you to know is:
"Knowledge doesn't make one inaccessible, but merely enhances one's ability to address life's unexpected events..."

Some additional information Ryan wanted you to know is:
"I am honest and good looking..."

The last book James read and enjoyed:
"It was Kiln People by David Brain. It is a Sci-Fi book about a future where the technology exists to make a copy of yourself, a ditto, that last for 24 hours and at the end of that time you can inload the memories. I know that it sounds far fetched but the author's view of how this society would be structured seems very plausible. The part I like most about the book is it look into how we might cope with cloning and our views on do clones have souls, are they "real" people, do they have rights. These are all very difficult and intriguing questions."

Barf... I found the above answers to the assorted profile questions to be completely misaligned with who I feel I really am... Needless to say, these folks were closed out immediately...

Anyhow, I FINALLY excavated my car today... Mainly in search of my mail key, which I failed to find, but it definitely looks much better. I still need to get it washed and vacuumed, but I did get the hard part done... I now need to get myself motivated to clean my apartment, but hunger is setting in, so I need to go feed the belly...

Hope I gave you a good laugh today...

66H out...

It's Nurses' Week...

Well, it's Nurses' Week... So, in the spirit, I will do a Highlights of Nurses' Week wrap-up.

1. We got our $7 Nurses' Week t-shirts (glad I only forked over $7 for it...)
2. All of our schedules (military folks only, mind you) were changed completely without warning this week.
3. Tuesday night, I got a phone call from the boy (after we already said goodnight over the phone), wishing his favorite nurse a Happy Nurses' Week...
4. We got little goodie bags (nursing survival kits) with different items representing things a nurse needs to keep his/her sanity... Yes, they were pretty useless, except the candy, but it was a nice thought.
5. A patient thanked me for my care as he was being discharged.
6. I realized that 16 of my 63 friends on MySpace are nurses...
7. At the end of the day, after all of the complaining, I still love being a nurse and really believe that we make a difference.

So now that we have that out of the way... I had a pretty funny experience at the Winn-Dix last night after work. I went in to get bread, and of course left the grocery store with more than I needed... So I am at the check-out counter and the female clerk starts laughing as she is checking my items, so I asked her what was so funny... She says "You tell me... You are getting four pints of Ben and Jerry's ice cream, two bags of Doritos, a box of Nutty Bars, and a box of tampons..." I promptly started laughing and said, "Yeah, I guess those items are all sort of related right now..." Ha-ha. Oh, and I did get the bread, some soup and milk as well.

Man, I am SO procrastinating on the laundry I need to do... It is comedy night tonight and Kimmy is back in town... That combination is seriously a Molotov Cocktail of fun waiting to be thrown...

66H out...

Houston, we have a problem... Well, just one problem...

Well, as of today, two things are official... I officially have strep throat (gee is THAT why I have been feeling like such crap for the last five days), and the boy is officially the greatest man (besides my dad, of course) in the world. Well, he would argue, so in my world anyhow...

Why is he the greatest you ask... He pretty much stayed up with me (well, I guess I kept him up) until I went to the ER at 4:00 this morning... He didn't complain about how little sleep he got, told me I was worth staying up for, and when I got back from the ER he took me to IHOP with a smile on his face, just because we saw each other again this morning... He kills me, just kills me.

Well, I am off to nap some more now that my fever has broken again...

66H out...

Do I have a neon "I am the S-1" sign on my head?

So I found out that my new "extra duty" on the floor is tracking all of the nurses' competency folders, ensuring that they are complete for the next JCAHO review... I am telling you, the S-1 shop is going to follow me for the rest of my career! For those of you that don't know, I was the S-1 senior year of ROTC and the S-1 for my platoon at OBC. The sad thing is, I am really not that organized, and administrative jobs are actually quite hard for me... Anyhow, I threw my little fit about it when I got home the other day, then went into work yesterday for an "administrative day" to get started on my new project.

On to better news... The boy continues to surprise me and continues to make me smile randomly all day for no apparent reason (to the outside world anyhow). We definitely like each other just a little bit... But only a little. I guess you could say things are going well...

Well, it is time for me to feed the natives... A sandwich and some chips perhaps...

66H out...

Finally recovering from the horribleness that is "the night shift"

So, my buddies Marty and Peter are safely off to Ranger School... It will be really odd to not hear from them AT ALL for the next (hopefully only) 60 days or so. I told them to keep themselves as clean as they can, or they might end up at Martin Army with cellulitis... Yuck! Luckily, I got to hang out with them last weekend one last time at Savana's, where we had some beers (Marty and Peter more so than I, because someone had to be the slightly sober one of the group). I don't think I have ever seen Marty so drunk in my life, it was actually quite amusing, and really fun. I can't tell you how much I just adore these guys...

Anyhow, working nights this past weekend just about did me in... As much as I don't like working days, working 12-hour nights is the worst... I guess had I transitioned to working nights, it would not be so bad, but I go back to working days tomorrow. My body is just so confused... We also had a patient with schizo-affective disorder (that refused to take his psychiatric meds) who threatened to go AMA (against medical advice) to hit up the Krystal (a local fast-food chain). It would not have been so bad, but he started throwing things around in his room and yelling, which scared the four female nurses working that night. We almost had to call a "doctor strong" on him, but I called the doctor on duty that night to come up and talk to him, which calmed him down. He later apologized for his behavior, and blamed it on his hunger. I laughed, and told him that I understood, because I get really pissed-off when I am hungry too. We shared a good laugh about it, I gave him an Ambien, and it was sleepy-time for him.

In other news, I have found myself smiling more often than not lately. The boy that I like continues to surprise me (giving me new faith in the opposite sex)... We just have such a nice time being in each other's presence. And he is so polite... "Pleases" and "thank yous" are regular occurances, which blows me away every time... It's awesome.

Well, that is about it for now in the life of the LT.

66H out...