Carl's Violin

I mentioned the death of one of my patients, Carl, a few weeks ago. In packing up what few boxes of possessions my patients have, the staff came across a violin in a box of unmatched socks at the back of his closet. Being that Carl has had both legs amputated above the knee for the last three years of his life, it was impossible to tell how long the violin had been hidden there. I came to work here 6 years ago and knew nothing of Carl having a violin. I asked some of the "old timers," those who had more than 10 years with the company, and only one of them knew anything about Carl having owned a violin. The others were surprised by this knowledge. Another piece of the enigma that was Carl.

Apparently Carl had this violin when he came to us in the mid-90s. According to the lady who knew about the violin, he had requested new strings for it, but had never seemed inclined to ever play it once he was living with us. That is very sad to me. While we do give many things to the people who live with us, we take away as well.

As he had no living family to give his things to, I put in a bid to purchase the violin. The money being used for our contribution account which purchases birthday and Christmas gifts for our residents. There was a note in my mailbox last week that I had won the violin. I will have it examined and appraised. If it is worth more than what I paid, I will donate additional money. It is for the my residents, after all.

So, I will always have a tangible bit of the quandary that was Carl. I think it would please Carl to know that this cast-off dream/treasure of his means a great deal to me. That the mystery behind it will always remain a mystery would please Carl even more. He left a legacy in the memories and in the stories. He will be greatly missed by all who knew him. God has never made another treasure quite like Carl.

Carl had been "in the system" years and years ago. He was living at one of the developmental centers when he had walked away and assumed another life. He lived and worked in society for many, many years undetected. It was only when he had reached 65 and went to apply for his social security that he was found out. Being the system, he was immediately "re-placed" into an institutional living situation. How sad for him.

It had probably taken 10 years back in the system before he found his way to us. Being that records were so very poorly kept by the state when it came to the institutionalized mentally retarded, we had very little history of his actual life, inside or outside of the system.

Carl was a wonderful, colorful historian in relating his life adventures. In one moment, he would tell you of his time in the Army. In the next, he would relate crossing the Delaware River with George Washington. As I said to my friend, Al, was he crazy or is there really some merit to this past life mumbo-jumbo? All that I can say for certain is, that was Carl. And the void left by his absence from our lives will never be filled.

Life still goes on.

Payday was last Thursday. When I had met with my supervisor and Barb regarding taking the night shift supervisor position, Barb had decided to make my status change effective 1 February. Brian insisted I get my check and call him back immediately. Well, things being things, it was nearly 1am before I finally opened my paycheck. Can you say, salary. This was for the pay period which ended 18 January. Our meeting had been on 14 January. Abrupt and uninformed changes in plans had occurred. In our current pay period, I had overtime this last week, as well as worked holiday pay. Had I known that I had already been changed to salary, I certainly would not have worked the MLK holiday. I would have taken it off along with the rest of the salaried folks. And, I certainly would not have put in 56 hours this week.

In going to salaried supervisor, I received a $1 an hour raise. $80 more per pay period translated to an additional $100 in taxes being taken from my pay check. So, I'm actually $20 less in net pay than I was before this whole thing began. LOL Just figures, doesn't it?

I received my company cell phone last week, the surest sign that I have been officially damned to hell. The only good thing about it is that my company phone is a Razr. It came with a car charger and a blue tooth adapter. As my personal cell phone is a Razr, I can use the car and blue tooth accessories with it.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
A mere 21 hours later, I have returned. Isn't modern technology wonderful?

It is 3am. I should be headed to Wal-Mart or to work or, at least, to the shower. I have had coffee, chatted with Genny and Al, and ignored various household chores since rolling out of bed at 10pm.

I could not get to sleep today. Hate when that happens. I fell asleep somewhere after 3pm, after relenting and taking another Melatonin and a Flexeril.

I received my bamboo and soy yarns today from Canada! Yippee!! They were here Thursday, but I was not awake to sign for them & only today got 'round to the post office to collect them. They are lovely. omg! Nice hand, nice sheen, nice elasticity. I can't wait to start working with them. (I promised myself to do SOMETHING with this house before I set needles to them, and I suppose sorting beads doesn't really count.)

I also ordered the bamboo needles from the same company. They should be here next week. I sort of took it to the extreme with the needles. As I had lamented about having to use those horrid plastic over-sized needles on my sweater and did confess to ordering over-sized wooden ones from the Canadian company...

Well, I bought all of the over-sized ones that they offer. US 17,18, 19, 35, 50. I bought a complete set of bamboo straight needles US 0 through 15. I also bought a set of 16" circular bamboo needles in the same sizes, 0 through 15 - necessary for those hats and sleeves. OK, desirable for those hats & sleeves. I bought double pointed needles, 8" length - 0 through 11, 12" length - 0 through 15. And, I bought a set of bamboo crochet hooks. I simply like working with bamboo and wooden needles the best.

The swallow casein needles are nice but tend to be a bit "sticky" with some types of yarns. They would be my second favorite needles to use. Unfortunately, I do not believe that they come in circular needles. Well, that may be a good thing or I would have to set after acquiring those particular implements of construction as well.

Back to the sweater which I was attempting to construct on these wretched needles which spawned this buying frenzy. (I spent very wisely, all-in-all... 4 complete sets of needles, one set of crochet hooks, 5 sets of over-sized needles for less than $80. Still less than $100 including shipping from Canada. Try and get that here in the U.S. A set of Clover 13" bamboo single point needles, US 0 through 15, alone will cost more than $70.) The idea of knitting any further on the sweater with those wretched needles was appalling to me. As plastic needles tend to be "sticky," my stitches were not at optimum consistently. I contemplated simply awaiting the arrival of the new wooden needles and going on with the project from my stopping point. In the end, I succumbed and "frogged." (rip-it, rip-it) That's why it's called frogging. Seriously! LOL As I often reiterate to my granddaughter, "You cannot knit if you are afraid to rip."

So, I have ripped my beautiful strands of mohair and ribbon back into their respective balls and await the arrival of the more suitable construction tools, and I am thankful that this pattern says this sweater can be constructed in approximately 5 hours.

In organizing the studio, I think I have some needles that I will be listing on eBay. I also have a couple of books that I found on clearance and purchased specifically for that purpose. Very nice books from a popular series but not my style. However, the price did make them quite attractive for resale.

Construction of the throw that I am crocheting for my son-in-law is moving along quite nicely. I was joking with him that I may actually have it finished before the cold weather disappears. Given that I really like how it is turning out, I bought a similar type of bulky chenille yarn from the same vendor in an off-white cotton/tencel blend. I bought 9 pounds of the stuff! That will be an over-sized comfy throw for the y-chromosome person of significance.

He was apologetic for being overwhelmed with school when I saw him this weekend. Obstetrics and pediatrics will generally do that to you. Why nursing programs insist on teaching those two areas of very specialized curriculum together is beyond me. The scopes of practice are so very unique to each of those fields that it boggles the mind. The rules for pediatrics are different than for adults, and obstetrics is its own area altogether. There are areas of cross-over in other areas of practice.... med/surg and orthopedics, rheumatology and orthopedics, gastroenterology and endocrinology.... And, there are rules that are practiced by multiple disciplines - cardiology and pulmonology, hematology and immunology... It is insanity to try and learn two unique areas of practice, such as OB and pediatrics, together. Yet, programs do it. They may as well just incorporate anesthesiology into the same term and give you all three strikes! LOL

I sometimes wonder if it fails to register with him that I have already "been there, done that, got the t-shirt." All of this knowledge is just innate to my being, and I didn't have to spend months poring over over-priced texts and be at the hospital before daylight and leave long after dark. I didn't write volumes and volumes of pointless case studies and care plans in order to "get the big picture" of how the nursing process fits into the framework of medical diagnostics. I didn't have to research every one of the fourteen medications that my patient was prescribed - drug classification, uses, correct dosages, side-effects, interactions, pertinent laboratory monitoring, patient teaching... Nope. I was just born Mother Superior of Nurses from Hell.

You know, I would be very, very content to leave the field of nursing in his hands and stay home all day to play with the brown babies. I would have no problem at all handing over the reins to the next generation of nurses. However, I don't see that happening immediately. I see us working for the traveling service for part of the year and vacationing the rest of the year. Three months in Southern California, six weeks in Italy. Three months in Seattle, six weeks in the U.K. Three months in Denver, six weeks in Australia. It would be a rough life, but I think we could manage. Two nursing placements for the price of one housing unit. Such a deal! Though, if there were babies along, I would only work part-time. Good money, no housing expense. Nice way to travel the country for a couple of years. Well suited to our vagabond souls.

It has become early in the morning once again. Time to get on with my day.

Americans are NOT stupid - WITH SUBTITLES

Very funny. Very sad. Very true. Gotta love it.

NIN and eBay

Nine Inch Nails and eBay have nothing in common other than the fact that those two terms happen to be presently residing in the top three slots of my limited RAM cerebral cortex. Yes, my CPU is grossly under-powered as well when compared to current industry standards. Slot number three is occupied by knitting. Specifically, the sweater which I had not gotten around to making last year for this winter that is currently under construction on over-sized 20mm/US 50 knitting needles.

While having more needles than the law should allow in the implements of construction knitting arsenal, I have but one pair of 20mm needles. They are those which have been around forever. Boye #50 plastic needles. I tend to avoid plastic needles at all costs as they tend to be too "sticky" for me. A mere 7" into this sweater back piece, I can take it no more! I popped over to eBay and purchased a pair of wooden needles made by the same manufacturer from whom I purchased the bamboo and soy yarns. They offer a fair return policy and a lifetime guarantee on their needles, and anything has to be better than my current knitting milieu.

I shop quite a bit on eBay. While my feedback rating is only 204, I have 559 feedbacks posted. That means that I am a repeat customer for several sellers. Yes, I do tend to loyalty, even on eBay. I have purchased everything from earrings to CDs to yarn to beads to vintage patterns to art supplies to quilting notions to books to knitting machines on eBay. Oh yeah, there have been a few transactions that were for several hundred dollars. LOL The most recent having been the 60 pounds of wool yarns that I bought from Bob before he stopped selling on eBay last fall.

There are items that I no longer purchase on eBay regularly. Vintage patterns would be at the top of that list. A few years ago when everyone set out to become a millionaire by selling on eBay, the price for vintage knitting patterns and magazines skyrocketed out of sight. I refuse to pay $15 plus $8 shipping for a back issue of Vogue Knitting. The idea of it is ludicrous and sheer idiocy to me.

A few of the sellers from whom I used to purchase regularly no longer sell on eBay. When the boom hit and eBay began to raise their fees and percentages on sales, it became prohibitive to make a profit to many of the noncommercial vendors. Unless of course they wanted to charge outrageous prices for items and practice extortion for shipping. The evil eBay-acquired spawn, PayPal, even charges the sellers a percentage of the shipping charges. Nothing like double-dipping. (I'm trying very hard to be polite and reasonably politically correct with that last sentence. What came to mind was more a phrase that would have been coupled with "and without lube.")

I still support the venue of eBay, however. There are some wonderful people on there, still. I can shop for goods from all over the planet from the convenience of my chair. And, there are many, many good and honest and fair merchants on there who are seeking to bring diverse and quality products to market.

I am thrilled to see sites such as Etsy www.etsy.com and Wagglepop www.wagglepop.com capturing segments of the niche and general markets.
When I finally get around to the coup that will allow me to re-occupy my studio so that I can make some product for sale, my store site will be on Etsy. I already have it set up and waiting for me to get my ass in gear.

Organizing the studio could be a good project for the wee hours of this morning before I head back to bed around 4am. The boys were behaving too badly to send to the sitter's today. After working 12 hours last night, the last thing that I wanted to do was to spend my day awake babysitting them, but I did it. The sitter has other children there as well, and it simply isn't fair to send them, when they are behaving badly, if I don't have to. As much as I really didn't want to stay up with them all day, I resigned myself to suck it up and tough it out. Michael came in a bit earlier than usual from work, so I was able to hit the bed around 4pm and slept until 9:30.

I'm just finishing up the half-a-pot of Starbucks Serena Organic Blend coffee - ah yes, serum caffeine levels are approaching therapeutic - and feel pretty good at this point. Time to consider other options and venues, take my medications and get up and moving about.

For the NIN portion of the RAM usage... Trent Reznor is tremendously talented and known to be blatantly outspoken. He has no bullshit threshold, and I love it. I subscribe to the NIN site feed on one of my Google homepages. There are days when multiple posts are made to the blog. If you are not checking, you miss out as settings show only the most recent post. Then, there are days that stretch into weeks when nothing is posted. Just when you grow really weary of checking, a post or two (or three) pops up... Damn those temperamental, right-brained, artistic types anyway! LOL

My spinning fibers and beads did not arrive today. I am a bit bummed out by that. Three new knitting patterns did arrive today, though. I have been coveting, for a couple of years now, a pattern by Karabella Yarn for a sweater that is called Traveling Cables. It is an absolutely stunningly beautiful pattern to me. The left-brained accountant offspring thinks it is hideously ugly. It is truly one of those love-it or hate-it patterns.

I have never been of a mindset to drop several dollars for one designer pattern. Though I have seen several that I really wanted to make, the idea of paying that much money for a single pattern simply did not set well in my psyche. Given that I have become quite addicted to the idea of making sweaters and things for ME (for a change), I decided last week to go ahead and take the plunge. Not only did I buy the Karabella pattern, I also purchased several patterns by Oat Couture and Just One More Row for sweaters and vests and hats and a jacket and a coat that I have really wanted to make for quite some time. I am going to make the Traveling Cables sweater pattern in alpaca. I told one of my coworkers about it and added that, for that reason, it will never be seen at work. LOL

I think my next act of submission to the purchasing of the designer patterns will be for Mission Falls. Again, another of those love it or hate it series of patterns. I love it! Creative! Different! Unique!

With that thought and bit of inspiration to motivation, I am off to the studio.

Knitting and Procrastination

I went to bed around 4am. The combination of Flexeril, melatonin, and the cold virus that I have acquired made it impossible to get up when my alarm went off at 1:30pm. I did manage to become cognizant to my reality somewhere around 2:15 thanks to dogs wanting to go outside and the repeating of the snooze alarm every 9 minutes.

Feeling miserable due to the cold, I phoned my boss and told him I didn't think he wanted me to come over and share this krud with him. I reset the alarm clock for 4:30 and went back to bed. The dogs, still outside mucking about and a knock at my door shortly after 3:00 had me back out of bed. My daughter had rescued my shipment of yarn from the UPS driver who was being barked at by stupid K9s.

UPS, FedEx, and the USPS are all familiar with our dogs. So are the people who train the Pilot Dogs. It is really embarrassing that they bring the assistive animals by here in order to train them to ignore idiotic quadrupeds. But hey, I suppose our dumb-assed dogs are providing a valuable public service by behaving like morons. It is so irritating to me because my dogs know better. I can call to the German Shepherd and she will immediately come away from the fence. Mocha, my inherited from my daughter Welsh Springer, is too stupid to care about knowing better.

The knitted wrap that my sister bought me for Christmas was the inspiration for the most recent yarn delivery. It is a beautiful rayon chenille knit from fingering weight yarn. I ordered similar weights of blue rayon and tan cotton chenille and am going to knit up a couple of wraps to give as gifts this year. I also bought a beautiful boucle navy/moss ombre wool yarn with the thought that I may just knit that guy a sweater.

Last week, I received the shipment of yarns from which I plan to knit my sweater wardrobe for this next year. Before I dove into them, I decided to go ahead and break out the yarn from the sweater that I had wanted to make for myself last year but never got around to doing. I started knitting on it in the wee hours of this morning.

Concurrent projects also include a crocheted throw for my son-in-law in bulky black chenille. He has been wanting one for a couple of years now, and I decided I would go ahead and make him one since my daughter has decided to keep him after all. And, I'm working on a decor throw in bulky novelty yarns for the boyfriend for the apartment - charcoal and cream horizontal stripes. It is a mindless piece done it garter stitch. The yarn tells the story in that piece, not the stitch.

I have also decided to venture into lace knitting at last. I purchased three volumes of Christine Duchrow's collected patterns a few years ago. Recent posts on the knitting forum inspired me to take the plunge. I ordered 3 types of lace weight yarn and a pattern for three scarfs. I bought a plain white merino yarn, the same merino yarn dyed in shades of denim blues and white, and two hanks of an absolutely stunning iris ombre baby alpaca. Being me, I had to search out some Miyuki Delica beads to knit into the patterns. Hopefully, those will arrive tomorrow. The latest batch of spinning fibers should be delivered tomorrow as well. I am awaiting a sampling of soy yarn and bamboo yarn to arrive from Canada. I have been searching for an outlet for reasonably priced, good quality soy and bamboo yarns for some time. I hope I have found it.

My project for next weekend is to add another industrial shelving unit to my studio and get back to work as a "maker." With Bob going out of the yarn business and my acquisition of 60+ pounds of wool, it has been virtually impossible to get around in my studio due to lack of appropriate storage. That amount of yarn (over 80 pounds including the weight of the cones) requires quite a bit of storage room. At around $300 for that much yarn, I could not pass it up. My yarn closet is over-flowing at this point. We will not speak of my fabric closet, either.

Knitting is an avocation well-suited to procrastination. It results in a harvest from those otherwise idle hours. To see something grow and come to fruition from your pointy sticks and string is a marvelous thing.

The Big Chill

Winter has set upon us with vengeance. The temperatures have been frigid and the wind chill serves to make being outside intolerable and down-right dangerous. I worked last night, running about in temperatures that were equivalent to around -15F. The wind chill advisory was in effect until around noon today. The temperatures climbed to around 13 with the wind chill hovering near zero all day. It was a good day to sleep, and sleep I did.

I made it home around 8:30 this morning and into bed a couple of hours later. I was up around 3pm. Wonder if my body clock is already getting conditioned to being up at that time to retrieve kiddos from the sitter's? That has become my routine for the last couple of weeks in settling back into working the night shift. Drop the kiddos to school and to the sitters, to bed around 10:00-10:30, awake around 3:00-3:15, retrieve from the sitter's, await the arrival of the big-'uns from school. Sort of funny how my body is adapting back to a routine that, though having been away from it for 2 1/2 years, I did for many, many years. The only difference being that now I have added melatonin in order to be able to sleep well during the day. It helps.

The biggest glitch in the system for the last couple of weeks has been that I have to be back in at 7pm. By the time I am relieved of the children, I have no time for a nap before work. Those 12-hour overnights are killer, given my age and medical conditions. Lemme tell ya that the frigid temps aren't any help in that scenario. My fibromyalgia was so acutely painful last week due to extreme changes in temperatures and humidity. Due to the limited amount of sleep that I was able to get during the days, there was no way that I could take my Flexeril before bed. By the time I got a day where I could take it and sleep, the muscles of my upper arms were acutely painful to light touch. We're not even going to talk about my shoulders and upper back. OUCH!!! Misery it was for a few days.

And, then I fell. Again. Thursday.

Running out, still groggy, to get the kiddos from the sitter's and tripped over the blade of a plastic toy snow shovel (belonging to the neighbor kids) near the back steps. I fell forward. Cut my lip and bruised my chin on the training wheel on one of the bikes (Not put away after the moderate temperatures disappeared last week.) I have a lump on the top of my head from the bolt that holds the rear wheel on the frame. I feel lucky not to have split my head open on it. I have a bad cut on my right hand but have no idea what I hit it on. My knees took a good bang into the semi-frozen mud. My arms are sooooooo sore from trying to break my fall. I realized the next day, when putting on my deodorant, that even my armpits hurt! Oy! Coupled with the flare in the fibromyalgia, my upper body feels like I will never be pain free again.

This pay period that began yesterday is going to be a much-longer two-weeks than the last. I have whittled my scheduled 102 hours down to 90 with a couple of changes. We'll see what happens with covering more call-offs. Oh, the joys of being the supervisor. LOL

Brian and I split the shift to cover last night's call off. Both of us had worked yesterday day shift. He had gone home and gotten a nap (luckily). I would have simply stayed through, but by the time I would have finished the overnight shift at 7am this morning, I would have been up for over 24 hours and worked 20 straight. Not a good scenario. So, he came at 7pm. I went home and napped until 12:30 and was back in before 2am. He and I do make a good team.

He put out the memo that I officially assume the supervisor position on 1 February but am the acting night shift supervisor until then. He told me he would contact accounting to make sure that my salary got retro-ed back to the time that I took over. I told him that he would do no such thing as I have both overtime and worked holiday pay during this current pay period.

I borrowed a couple of DVDs to watch this evening. Not sure if I will get to them or not. I am having a nice time crocheting and relaxing. Well, trying to relax. Some work things keep running through my brain. Not good. Maybe watching the movies while I crochet will help to keep them at bay.

A friend gave me a 30 day pass for my Pogo games account. I have yet to log-on and play. Pogo doesn't hold my interest these days. I have other things to do and can waste my time more productively on other projects. LOL

I am inclined to close this here and do just that.

... my so-called life, a vignette

My guy is a funny one.

Intelligent. Handsome. Humorous. Direct. Dedicated.

He was studying when I arrived last night around 11:15. He went back to studying after a quick tumble between the sheets, and I had wrapped myself up in the comforter to sleep. He grabbed another comforter, climbed into bed, checked to make sure I wasn't cold. He did offer to turn on the heat if I was.

His apartment building is quite poorly insulated and the heat from the surrounding units does manage to keep the apartment fairly well heated through ambient means. When he returned from Europe, I commented about leaving the heat on in the apartment while he was away. (For all of his good points, there is deficit in attention to ancillary and incidental detail at times.) He had not left the heat on. I suppose there is something to be said for that third floor apartment in the winter.

I offered to go out and pick him up something to eat. He said that asking me to do so would be evil.

I told you he is a funny one.

His plan was to sleep for a bit and get back up and study more. This morning, I asked him if he had gotten back up. He hadn't but said he was wide awake at 3am and could not sleep. I suppose he would have gone back to his books had I not been there. The lamp on the desk at the bedside would have awakened me. I am certain that is the unsaid reason for not going back to his books.

Next time, I'll take along some knitting. Provided the stitch pattern isn't too complicated, it should be easily accomplished during 3am study sessions.

I have been delegated to obtain a copy of Hustle and Flow (the entire DVD collection having been forgotten in the hotel room in Germany - ADAD - Attention Deficit Ancillary Detail, lol) and a CD from an artist from Zimbabwe that he was listening to on the plane on the return flight.

He is a funny one.

We talked politics and the indifferent attitude of most Americans to the political process and the implications and ramifications thereof. Always a good way to start the day - politics. Better than sex any morning of the week... Have I mentioned that he's a funny one?

I was supposed to go and see him Monday night. I fell asleep and never made it. He said I was deliberately avoiding him for wanting sex. I told him that was mean and while not the case Monday, I was upset at him for calling me on Sunday and wanting to stop by and see me for an hour on his way home for sex. I reiterated, I am not a "booty call." "Ah, we have been together for too long for that now. We are well past that." The brief dissertation of Africans being event rather than time oriented ensued. It is the event that matters, not the time involved. "How long is sex?" "Ah, see. Then one hour is more than enough time." Some of those cultural differences and differences in perception remain shadowy areas to me.

He is a funny one.

And has been put on notice that we will be working on the modification of some of his regimens once school is over. I am not sure how seriously he took my statement to that effect. We shall see in another 10 months or so.

He is a funny one.
But he is mine.
And I am his.

Some Things

I was, in theory, to have been rescued from having to work all night. Just go in and do the original 4 hours that I was originally scheduled to work. I did. I finally got out of there at 1:30am. Drama and an admission. That will do it every time.

I have decided to go ahead and take the night supervisor position. The biggest menace and the one responsible for most of the problems in the nursing department has given a two-week notice. Being that she will be suspended for her two scheduled shifts next week, she will not be back. I was finally able to nail her conclusively for a medication error. It has taken time and diligence, but I finally got undeniable proof that she failed to give ordered medications. I'm sure she will fall back to her tactic of a threatened lawsuit. Won't work this time. I also found another nurse had made the exact same medication error the following day. She was also written up. Can you say, "We're done with this."

I have ranted before about them not giving medications correctly. I will state again, I have been a nurse for nearly 19 years, and I still pass my medications according to the medication list. - Every time! Yes, we are all human, and we all make mistakes. However, if you pass medications following the correct procedures, it doesn't happen that often.

It is coming up on 3am. I have to get the kiddos up and off to school in the morning. I was going to send the boys to the sitter's again tomorrow, but Gabe has been so off the hook these last couple of days. I think I will have to suffer with fatigue and frustration and keep him home. Not looking forward to that, but I'm sure the sitter would like a break, too.

Time for some sleep.

A Day Off... Wow!

I am just waking up (recovering from the Nyquil hangover) and getting a start on the morning. Albeit a slow start.

I have coffee now. Hopefully that will help. I have waded through 6 email accounts this morning. On to #7. And, Yahoo awaits.

What an adventure #7 turned out to be... I upgraded my Opera browser in the process of checking #7. I had configured Opera to read my email from my #2 email addy. Problem was, I had changed passwords a couple of months back. Could not get it to re-configure to accept the new password.... Then, in seriously blonde moment, I decided that I would configure Opera to read my #1 email account as well.... OYYYYYYYYY!! OUCHHHHHHHH!!!! MAKE IT STOP!!!!!!!!
Everything from eBay goes to my #1 email. Invoices, PayPal receipts, everything. Makes it easier to go through and audit to see how much I have spent for various accounting purposes. (And, it keeps the accountant daughter off my ass for the most part. The most important part. lol) So, Opera diligently loaded all 278 unread emails from my #1 email addy. Not all of them are from eBay, Al..... I have a couple of other email newsletter subscriptions to that account as well. Interesting stuff, but I don't always read every newsletter before I file it. I went back in to Opera's settings and deleted both email accounts. Guess I will just have to be content with multiple browsers open if I want to keep up to the minute tabs (no pun intended) on my oh-so-unimportant email. And still, the specter of the Yahoo account looms...

It is 50 degrees outside today. Means that the ground is slushy, mucky mud. In turn, the dogs are a wet, filthy mess.

One facet of the impending housecleaning agenda that got messed up was the failure to obtain the Space Bags from Wal-Mart last evening. What I did end up obtaining from Wal-Mart was a battery for Joni's car. There is nothing better than two women with jumper cables and a flashlight in the parking lot at 11pm on a Saturday night.

The Yahoo inbox has been purged.

I am tempted to clean in earnest, but I'm finding this cold has me coughing too much with anything more than minor exertion. I am taking the Robitussin and drinking lots of water, but it is not loosening up as much as I would like.

Got some things done. Think I'm going to knit, watch a movie, and contemplate dinner at some point.

The Saturday Scenario

Good morning!

It is Saturday. I'm chilling with the grands while the parental units are working. I work later. Instead of going in at 11am, I will be going in at 3pm. Tomorrow, I will not be working at all. Both changes due to people adding themselves on the schedule after I had picked up the remaining hours. Works for me. Four fewer hours of running around in the cold today, and a day off tomorrow to clean my house! Yea! I have been wanting one of those. You know it's a sad state of affairs when I'm looking forward to cleaning house.

The grapevine has gotten wind of my having been offered the night supervisor position. One of the QMRPs congratulated me the other day. I asked how he had heard of it. From one of his staff, of course. LOL He said that the staff had been very positive about the news. I would imagine that the only people who would not be happy to hear that I have been offered the position are those same people who have problems with doing their jobs in the first place and would subsequently have a run-in with me about their job performance.

I'm a very straight-forward person. I operate from the simple philosophy learned in the Marine Corps. Everyone here is an adult. You know your job. Do your job. Period. It's not a hard concept. If you are unsure of what to do, I'm willing to help. I'm willing to mentor. I am always mentoring my staff. I believe that learning better ways to turn people with decreased mobility is just as important as learning more about the new medication or the new diagnosis that someone may have. I have a good rapport with the majority of my coworkers. The ones with whom I do not have a good rapport are those who simply refuse to "get it." They are few, thankfully. Generally, their days are numbered, but we have had a few who managed to keep slipping through the cracks way longer than they should have. A couple of nurses to be included in that statistic.

Just phoned work to make sure they knew I was coming at 3pm rather than 11am. The lights have been out for 2 minutes or so. Has me wondering what's up with the back-up generator, but it's OK. Brian is there. Jane is as well. Sounds like I'm missing the party. LOL

I took a couple of Nyquil capsules last night at 9:15 and went to bed about 9:30. I was dead to the world until I opened my eyes at 7:30am this morning. I am going to have to remember to set my alarm clock if I take that stuff. I figured there was no way I would have slept for 10 hours straight. Shows you what happens when I think....

My electronic thermostat has developed issues. I had not turned it back down to 68 before going to bed and left it set at 70. This morning, it read that it was set at 22. As far as I know, there is no Celsius option on it. I think a trip to Home Depot for a plain dial thermostat may be in order. I have had one of those electronic ones go bad before. On a cold January morning during a holiday weekend to boot. I think that will be a good errand for my son-in-law this afternoon. LOL

I have only had to referee a couple of minor skirmishes thus far this morning. Not bad. Far below average when you consider the "Gabe factor." Jonathan has become "very three-years-old" and prone to the screaming and crying hissy fits without obvious provocation. Add in Isaiah's ADHD and Trinity's princess affectations, and it will always make for an interesting time. My home life differs far too little from my work life.

On that depressing note, I'm off to crochet on this throw that I'm making for my son-in-law.

Off to Bed Soon

It is cold, very cold. Fortunately, the winds are relatively calm.

I stopped by Wal-Mart after work and picked up some dog food, coffee, and a needle threader. I am surprised that I remembered a needle threader. I got Trinity a punch embroidery set for Christmas and told her not to mess with it until I could help her with it. Being that kids don't listen, floss was scattered, directions were missing, and the needle threader has been lost forever. It is impossible to thread one of those punches without a threader.

I don't feel much like blogging tonight. I feel like knitting. Maybe that's a good thing.

23:16 - Things Are Looking Up for 2008

I am thought to have survived the holiday season relatively intact. The familial and other associated celebratory gatherings were far less taxing to the soul than the unrelenting bullshit factor to which I was subjected as an occupational hazard.

My daughter is a warped one. I am not sure how it occurred (yeah, right). We were talking about the willingness of Americans to accept celebrations of other cultures. She has decided that the only reason Muslim observances are not embraced by Americans is because there is no drinking involved. Americans are all about diversity and multi-culturalism provided alcohol is a component of the celebration.

Went to work for 4 hours. Double-time. It works. I was out of there by 7:15p. The drive home took a bit longer than usual due to the blowing snow had the roads quite slick.
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It is now Wednesday evening. I ran in and out of single-digit temperatures for 8 hours today. My feet are still numb. I hate this time of year. When the temperatures are this cold, I ache continuously. It isn't to the "time to take the morphine" ache yet, but it is getting close.

I have inherited my daughter's Welsh Springer Spaniel. Not my idea. Really. The dog that my son-in-law insisted they take 3 1/2 years ago when Jason could no longer care for it because it was soooooooooo attached to my daughter has been annoying to him for that very reason since the day they acquired her. "Velcro Dog." As I already have my own Velcro Dog, it has proved to be quite an up-my-butt fiasco these last 3 days. Mocha has come to visit and spend the night occasionally. She will run into my house with Addie and not want to leave until after Amanda has gone to bed, so she ends up spending the night. She even stayed the week when my daughter went to California a couple of years ago. Michael is just flat-out mean to her, so she was better off here. This is her third day here. It would seem that she has decided that she lives here now as she is challenging Addie for dominance. I have not informed Hindolo about the acquisition of Velcro Dog #2.

I inherited the dog because my daughter is getting two ferrets next week. One of the guys that my son-in-law works with knows a recent widower who wants to get rid of his deceased wife's ferrets. Being that Amanda absolutely adores ferrets, there was no question of her wanting to take them. The problem lies in the fact that Mocha loathes small, furry creatures of all types. She has killed a squirrel, an opossum, a couple of stray cats that she didn't want in the yard. She is suspected in the killing of one or more escaped hamsters during the short-lived "hamster phase" that occurred next door.

She has no problems with her own cats or with my cats. Only problems with those interloping cats. Ferrets and Mocha would not make a good mix. Being that the cats travel freely back and forth from one household to the other via a couple of gaps in the basement wall and through the plumbing access in the bathrooms, I imagine in won't be long before the ferrets figure out the passageways. As Mocha went through four owners in two years after her original owner died, neither Amanda or I have the heart to send her to someone else. She is not a bad dog, and she is happy here. So, I inherited her.

It would seem that the Nyquil is starting to do what it is that Nyquil does... I'm off to bed for now.
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Thursday afternoon and I have been relieved of kiddo duty. I am going in for four hours this evening to fill-in due to a call off. I should not complain too much. It could have been 12 hours.

I have been asked, again, to consider taking the night supervisor position. Things have gotten so bad that I am to the point of seriously considering it. We have both staff and nurses that need to be gone. It is not something that I want to do forever. I certainly had other plans that I was considering for the next year while Hindolo finishes school. Sometimes the very reason that you do not want to do something is why you should do it. We have a nurses meeting scheduled towards the end of the month. I told Brian that I would make my decision and let him know before the meeting. I have a feeling my plan to work part-time weekend day-shift starting in February is in jeopardy. This is not going to be an easy decision by any means.

I queried four other nurses. Two were positive, two expressed reservations at my desire to not really want to do this. My mom thinks it's a good thing for me to do. Amanda said that my reasoning of being 46, single, no kids is exactly why I should consider doing this rather than not. I mentioned it to Hindolo, and he expressed some reservation about me working nights. It may simply be that he doesn't want me running around grounds alone in the middle of the night. We will talk more this weekend. I need to schedule an appointment with my doctor to see what she has to say about this idea before I make a decision.

The guy started back to class today. More classwork than clinicals this quarter but a comprehensive exam at the end covering the last three quarters in order to be admitted to the final year of the program. Oh how lovely will my life become here in about 8 or 9 more weeks?

I have much to think about here in the coming days. Personal changes are underway for eating and lifestyle. I suppose those would be my New Year's Resolutions, though I began to implement changes last year. I do want to do more with my design work and crafts. Last year was a total "bust." Just write it off and start with a clean slate. At the least, I'm headed into the new year on a positive note. That's always a good thing.