My Boy

I saw this on my sister's mother-in-law's blog and thought it too cute not to pirate.  Thanks, Debi.  :)

Name: "The Boy," although for some reason, everyone else calls him "James"

How long have you been married? 3 years

How long did you date?  11 months to the day, including engagement.

How old?  He's 2 1/6 years younger than me.  He digs the "older woman" thing.

Who eats more sweets?  I do, hands down.

Who said "I love you" first?  He did.  (Upon reading this, he replied, "I did?")

Who's taller?  He is, unless I'm wearing heels, which he encourages, since he also digs the "taller woman" thing.

Who can sing better?  Photo finish, but I'd have to say him.  Sexiest bass voice you'll find in a white guy.

Who's smarter?  Again, it's a toss-up.  Let's just say that we're going to have darned smart kids.

Who does the laundry?  He does, almost exclusively (he just started a load).  Whenever I start a load, he has to wash it again a few days later because they never made it to the dryer and have soured.  On the other hand, I'm pretty AR when it comes to folding, so I usually at least fold my own clothes.

Who mows the lawn?  Our apartment manager (ha ha).  I tend the small container garden on our back patio, but that was my idea in the first place.

Who cooks dinner?  If it's one of us, usually him, but we love to cook together.  Cooking is our second favorite thing to do together.  ;)

Who drives?  Usually him.  After working as a home health aide for two years, I'm tired of driving.  Also, my driving makes him nervous, so he volunteers to drive even in my "girly" car.

Who is more stubborn?  He's too easy-going to be stubborn, and I'm too absent-minded.  Ask again in twenty years.

Who kissed who first?  He kissed me first.  Of course, given that it was my first kiss in almost three years (mission plus a date-less post-mission year) and he'd just gotten off of his two year kissing-celibate mission, it was without a doubt the worst kiss in the history of our relationship.  Of course, we've gotten a lot better with practice.

Who asked who our first?  I'd have to say that I initiated that one with "Do you want to give me a reason not to move to England?"  Straight out of a romantic comedy, if only we'd been at the airport with my flight being announced over the intercom.  Needless to say, he did.

Who proposed?  He did (of course, I told him to).

Who has more siblings?  I do, but he has more nieces and nephews.

Who wears the pants?  The Boy made me say this: we each wear one pant, becoming the greatest three-legged-race team of all time.  (Of course, since he made me say that under threat of nipple abuse, I'm not sure I believe it.  You'd think with this "older, taller woman" fetish, he'd be okay with a domineering woman.)

TRACU

Thanks to the Health Information Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), I have avoided blogging about my wonderful term of Legacy Emanuel's Trauma Acute Care and Recovery Unit (TRACU) these last few months.  I think I would have been too tempted to tell about the amazing patients and families that I have had the honor with which to work in details that might have compromised their right to privacy, so I will abstain from discussing my patient, but instead talk about the nurses.

TRACU nurses rock.  I worked with several nurses in the six weeks I was on the floor, and each one taught me something important.  I even had nurses who I never specifically had as a nurse mentor pull me in to either help with patient care or observe a neat procedure.  That's how I got to give my first intramuscular injection.  Not only are the nurses great, but the other disciplines are wonderful, including speech therapy, physical therapy, occupational therapy, wound care, transport, and the residents and physicians.  The way that the teams all came together to plan care for these patients reminded me of the real interdisciplinary teamwork I recall from hospice, instead of the loose collaboration of healthcare workers trying to just not get in each other's way that I have observed in other areas of healthcare.  I would love to work here after I graduate.

Ok, just a little about the kind of people who end up on the TRACU without a job application (i.e. the patients).  As far as I've observed, the majority of patients on this floor are one of two groups: elderly ground-level-falls and young men after motor-vehicle-accidents (often involving chemicals in the bloodstream, but sometimes that was the other driver).  I enjoyed working with both groups, plus some other patients with unique disease processes and complex wound care.

Things I was able to overcome while on the TRACU:

Horrid, gaping wounds - it's been hard for me to see the really nasty wounds, but after assisting changing a few, especially when it wasn't painful for the patient, I came to appreciate the art.

Sputum - before this term, I'd've traded my trach patient for your colonostomy patient in a heartbeat.  While I'm still readily available to help with colonostomy care, I came to appreciate sputum on the TRACU.  Especially when I can suction it out and give the patient some relief.

"Difficult patients" - although I know I will get frustrated again and again over demands on my time and the patient who always seems to take more time than the others for no real reason, I learned about the service/charity relationship first-hand.

My own timid nature in choosing patients - since we have the opportunity to choose our patients (which we will mostly lose once we're getting paid), I had developed a habit of choosing "not too complex" patients in previous terms.  This term, I specifically chose complex patients and learned so much more!

Oh, I can't summarize everything I learned, but I'm just so grateful that I was assigned to this floor instead of "post-op," like I had wanted!

Beetles and Fleas

First for the good news: we now have two working cars.  I stress the word "working" because we technically are in possession of three cars, one of which is simply keeping the stuff in our garage company.

Due to the increasing frequency of my nursing clinicals and my fast approaching graduation from nursing school, we decided to invest in another car.  As it so happened, James's brother had a car that he no longer wanted, so we arranged an elaborate transportation chain involving various people returning from various vacations meeting up and trading off the 15-year-old piece of technological wonder.  Surprisingly, it made it to Portland in one piece, and then proceeded to break down literally the next day.  According to the mechanic, it would cost over three time what we were paying James's brother to get it back on it's struts, so we opted "no thanks."  We're currently awaiting the title so we can milk the carcass for what it's worth and send the proceeds to my brother-in-law and his family.

This still left us with one working car, and we had convinced ourselves that we needed two.  So we decided to go the other route, and buy something that didn't qualify as "beater."  We reflected on gas prices, our continuing dependence on the petrochemical industry, and our previous positive experience with VW and opted to buy a Beetle TDI.  (For those not aware of VW's diesel cars, they get 40-50 mpg, which more than off-sets the higher diesel prices.)  So we began our search.  After a solid week of pushy dealers, eco-snob private owners, and wonderful bankers (we love our credit union), we came upon the perfect car.  

We had come home late-ish on Friday night after driving up to Vancouver to test drive a white TDI with emphysema (or at least, the previous owner probably does, if you know what I mean), when I made my becoming-a-religion check of craigslistings of "TDI beetle" (you know you're obsessive when you type in "T" and the computer fills the rest in for you), and up came MY CAR.  It had everything I wanted: leather, seat warmers, CD player, and moon roof, as well as everything James wanted: low miles, manual transmission (automatic transmissions have a tendency to blow up around him), two years newer than anything else we've seen, and within our price range.  Of course, by now it was eleven at night, and it's just not cool to call that late, so we went to bed hopeful.

The next morning, Saturday, we woke up and got ready while I deliberated as to how early is "too early" for a craigslist post.  I know garage sale patrons will knock on your door at 6am, but I really didn't want to piss this seller off.  I also didn't want to miss out on the perfect car out of respect for the seller's sleep.  I called at 8:57 and we were at her house by 10am.  I shan't drag on the mundane details, but by 2pm, we were the proud owners of a 2004 VW Beetle TDI.  I like to name my cars, and still refer to our 99 Jetta affectionately as "Jack," so what did we name the Bug?  Why, "Jill," of course.

And in other news . . .

So, our little Hamlet came down with fleas about six months ago, so like good cat-parents, I went to the pet store and bought the $50 three-months supply of flea medication, figuring that I would really only need one month's worth, because Hamlet is a strictly indoor cat and this current bout of fleas must have been a fluke.  Well, the medication worked . . . for exactly a month, so we re-treated, and then again another month down the road.  Then school got busy and I just grew apathetic and ignored the cat when he started scratching exactly 30 days after the last flea treatment.  I was out of treatments and didn't feel like shelling out $50 every three months for an obvious scam in flea-treatment.  

I suppose I must have been relating my plight to some acquaintance (I cannot recall who) because I learned somewhere in the last few weeks (did I mention that school had gotten busy again?) that fleas only stay on the animal for long enough to feed, and that they do the ever-important business of procreating elsewhere, like the carpet on our apartment floor or on the cat tree we made for Hamlet about six months ago (six months . . . that sounds familiar . . . note to self: never trust "free carpet" on craigslist).

Anyway, after deciding that the pet store hadn't sold me a scam, I went back to inquire after a systemic solution to our infestation.  They directed me to an area completely dedicated to environmental flea-riddance.  The helpful salesman recommended a certain brand that was safe for pets and children (I would hope that it would at least be safe for pets, being in a pet store to treat a pet malady), and I proceeded to peruse the list of ingredients.  Ingredients: boric acid-98%, other chemicals-2%.  Price: $30.  Huh.  I don't recall investigating further the critical importance of $26 worth of "other chemicals-2%" because I was thinking too hard on how I could buy a box of boric acid (20-Mule Team Borax) four times this product's size at Winco for about $4.  Thanks, pet store, I'll be back if my 20 mules fail me.

Three Months

So I've had these braces on for three months now; time to report.  Things are looking really good.  The gaps are closing, my front teeth are straighter, and my lower teeth are almost all straight.  Hooray!

Camera Fun

So while I was down in Texas, Ansley, Hailey and I had some fun with the Photo Booth on my computer. Here are some of my favorites...

Happy girls

Ghost people!!

Mind Meld

Ansley after her nose reduction

Three eyed Hailey

Hailey the goat-girl

Loud mouth

One foot...

...two foot

Spring Break

After a long, gray winter here in Portland, I really needed some R&R in Sunny Texas, and the only time one can visit Sunny Texas without regretting it is in the Spring. I flew down to see Heather and her family on Wednesday and got to stay through Easter Sunday and fly back on Tuesday. The weather was perfect, save a bit of drizzle on Easter itself.

It was a lot of fun (exhausting fun) to play with Ansley, Hailey and Emberly. We had jump-rope contests, races, games at the playground, decorated Easter eggs and then had several Easter egg hunts (same eggs over and over), and a fun fondue party. I don't think I could have kept up the pace for much longer, but I'm at least good for a week-long romp every year or two. Next time I'll bring James to mitigate the energy-expenditure.

Heather and I got to have great conversations about anything and everything, especially after the girls went to bed and wonderful Michael held the fort down while we ladies went out for food and fun. We got to go see "Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day," which I wanted to see but knew James would have none of it. Very chick-flick, so we enjoyed it. We also had a fun late-night ("Ladies and gentlemen, the store is closing in ten minutes...") ramble through Target my last night there to get James a present for allowing his wife to leave him for a week. He was thrilled with the Leggo bucket loader, even though I could have bought it down the street and saved myself the sales tax. He also liked the TEXAS magnet I got at the gift shop at the airport.

What a great week!

Bath time for Emberly!

The girls showed me their fancy bikes

Decorating Easter eggs

Vanna Ansley

Easter fashion a la Gymboree

And Emberly, too, who wouldn't sit still for a group shot

Hunting for eggs

Finding eggs

Not even looking for eggs :)

Quilt Top

I've been less than diligent in blogging, so since I'm on vacation this week and next, I'll try and catch up with at least the interesting stuff, starting with my budding quilting skills.
I have completed the top of my first quilt! I saw this pattern on an OPB quilting show and Kathleen drew out the pattern I described, including altering it a bit for ease of quilting (if you look closely, the yellow segments are really three pieces, making it a much easier quilt with the same visual effect). I put the block wheels (I'm sure there's another name for that in "quilters-ese" but I don't know it yet) on the corners of the borders for fun. This was a really fun activity to familiarize myself with my new machine and enjoy the applied arts of geometry (I always liked geometry). Now for the daunting task of quilting it. We have all the materials and I've purchased a few books on the topic, so I'll let you all know how it goes...

The Quilt Top, measuring 73" X 73", Hamlet wanted to show some perspective

The Corner, a bit of whimsy on my part