Comments on my hair.....

(pre-hair cut )

So as you all know, or maybe don't know but will now, my self-esteem is directly proportional to how my hair is looking. And lately, my hair has been pretty bad. I wish I had documented all my bad hair days with pictures, but I didn't-it would have been pretty funny though.

It all started a month ago when I decided to cut my own bangs after watching The Thomas Crowne Affair on A&E. I love Renee Russo's bangs and I thought I could re-create her look in myself. Of course this was after working 3 nights in a row so I was fairly sleep-deprived but apparently that's when I think I get all my good ideas. Unfortunately, this was not a good idea. The bangs were completely uneven, so I kept cutting. You can just imagine I'm sure how it looked.

Then I noticed that my hair wasn't really curling so well. This is a problem with naturally curly hair. Basically I looked like I had a bad perm and lived in Payson. Sorry to all you who live in Payson-but I spent a lot of time there growing up d/t family friends and I feel like I can say that. I tried straightening it but even the power of the Chi could not help my situation.

Then I would look in the mirror and I could SEE multiple gray hairs wiring around amidst my grown-out red highlights. I think that's when I stopped doing my hair altogether-running around letting my hair air-dry (never a good idea).

The worst is that I had my driver's license picture taken at the tail-end of the hair disaster period. Don't worry-as soon as the license is mailed to me I'll post it for comments.

So I made an emergency call to a salon just a few minutes from my house. I love the place I was going to in Provo but I've been having a fit about all the driving I've been doing lately so I thought I'd try someplace new. Luckily they had an opening, and I'm back to my nice dark color with no grey hairs showing, my hair has been completely thinned out (i literally lost a pound in hair I'm pretty sure) so I no longer have what I lovingly called 'hermione hair', and the curl is back. Thank goodness.

(post hair-cut)

Comment on my new favorite store.....

So lately I'm all about REI. And when I say I'm all about REI I mean I've been there at least weekly for the last several weeks. I've joined their 'co-op' so that I can get 10% back on my purchases. I've discovered the website (http://www.rei.com/ ) and that I can make purchases online, have them delivered to the store up the street, and not have to pay shipping! It's such a situation! I don't even want to say how much I've spent in the last month at that store. It's kind of embarassing. However, I have been purchasing mountainsmith bags that I haven't liked and had to take back. I'm waiting for my fourth to be sent to the store next week, this should be my last purchase for awhile.

Here are some pics of my sweet purchases:
These are the Keen's, they are pretty sweet-so comfortable! I can wear them to work with socks, I can wear them traveling, I can wear them hiking-I mean they are fantastic.











This is my Mountainsmith Travel Lumbar pack-aka the medium sized bag, or bag #3 if anyone is counting, and I am. I ordered the smaller one online, thinking it was actually bigger than it was. I thought it would work, but it was a no-go. I took it back to see if they had this size in the store-and luckily they did-I had one lady running all over the place trying to find it. I thought it would work but realized I want to be able to put books in it when I go to work. So that's when I ordered bag #4, the day trip lumbar pack. I will return this to the store, but not the same Sandy one-I'm too embarassed. But I figure if I am going to spend this much on a bag I need to have what I want.

This is the Garmin 305-it's a GPS watch with a heart rate monitor that is SWEET. It's for running-it maps out where I've been, keeps track of my speed and my heart rate and my calories, and does a bunch of other stuff that I haven't totally figured out yet. I can download the info on my computer to keep track. It's completely revitalized my outdoor running-I've always liked running on the treadmill because I can keep track of all that stuff-and my friend Rachel told me about these watched and I was like holy crap I am in. So it's my new favorite gadget and it's helping me train for the Hobble Creek Half Marathon in August.
So as you can see-REI is like my own personal crack habit and I think I might need rehab. If anyone has any suggestions on how to break the REI spending cycle I'd greatly appreciate it-as would my budget :o)

Comment on Chocolate Fountains....

In an effort to foster unity amongst the NICU, and with the goal in mind of keeping the night shift nurses all high on chocolate, we decided to have Chocolate Fountain Night a couple of Saturday nights ago. Jane volunteered to provide the fountain and the chocolate, and we had sign-up sheets for people to bring dipping items. It was a great time! Tons of food was brought by everyone to dip in the fountain: pineapple, bananas, strawberries, apples, rice krispies, oreos, pretzels, etc. It was so great! Anyway here are the pics from the event:

Emilee, Molly and Danette getting the goods ready

Jane adding more chocolate Emilee and I are ready to get in on the actIsn't the fountain beautiful? Seriously everyone should want to work Saturday nights from now on!

Comment on MTV Cribs-NICU

So this little video was put on YouTube-word on the street was that it was made by a NICU nurse-and it's hi-larious-of course it's funnier if you're a NICU nurse but I still think everyone should watch it. My favorite parts are the PDA that sounds like a washing machine-and the baby's neighbor being named 'Miracle Neveah'. Seriously.

Comments on being tagged.....

I haven't blogged in awhile, although I do have things to blog (and pictures as well), but I just read my sister's blog and she tagged herself and everyone else, so I consider myself tagged:

1- Favorite pair of shoes right now: My fave-or-ites have been my Dansko clogs, which I wear at work, and outside of work. They are my fave-or-ites because they go with scrubs and normal clothes, and since I literally have 8 pairs of shoes (most of them of the workout variety) these work best for me.

2- New years resolution: I didn't really make a new year's resolution except a couple of weeks after New Year's I made a goal to run the Hobble Creek Half Marathon, so I guess that's it, along with losing weight for real this time.

3-Are you listening to music right now? Nope, I'm listening to Harry Potter Prizoner of Azkaban on ABC.

4- If you had 200 dollars to spend on yourself? I did on Wednesday-I bought a Garmin GPS watch for running. If I had another $200 I would buy some Keens which would make my 9th pair of shoes, and some new running pants.

5- Favorite place in the city that you live in: My favorite place in Draper-Monday when I got home from work I was completely frustrated, I went to move my Saturn but instead of moving it to a different parking spot I just took off and drove, windows down, music blaring, and I drove up in the benches of Draper and I think that is my favorite place in draper-I used to date a guy who lived up there and I loved standing on his deck looking out over the whole salt lake valley.

6- Book you are reading: Harry Potter and the deathly hollows or whatever the last book is, and I only have 4 more pages in Jesus the Christ-it's only taken me almost 1.5 years!

I now tag: Lisa, Steff, Marie, Jane and Tara

Comments on Free Jamba Day

So yesterday my friend Carrie forwarded me an email about Jamba Juice having free Jambas today until 10am. Not being one who would turn down a free Jamba, I made a phone call to my local store to see if this was really happening. The cheery girl on the other end of the phone informed me that indeed the email was correct.



When I got to work I informed the team of the free Jamba situation, and although many were informed, only 2 of my cohorts in crime decided to join me in the fun. So after our long shift (which included Jane witnessing an awesome exchange between the eagle and the bull), waiting for Jane to give report, waiting for me to decide to join in on the developmental conference in june, hunting down poor Gina the schedule queen in her "super secret schedule-making location" to change my schedule, we finally departed in caravan to Jamba on 4th south.



Luckily it wasn't busy yet, although I had just heard the free jambas announced on 101.9FM so I knew that wouldn't last long. Danette and Jane beat me there and ordered before I did, therefore Danette was able to announce to everyone, much to the dismay of the Jamba workers, that the strawberry peanut butter one was disgusting! However, I liked it so I switched my berry one with Danette, since I was planning on picking up another free Jamba in Draper to put in my freezer for tomorrow. Pretty smart idea, right? I picked up on how to get the most free food for the least amount of work from the elders on my mission. If I had been more motivated I could have stopped at the Jamba in Ft. Union as well, but I decided not to expend that much energy.



Anyway in short, it was a good time, and it was meant to be blogged. I hope you enjoy our sweet pic-don't I look hot after working 12 hours?



**Me, Danette, and Jane** **my 2nd free Jamba of the day**

Comments on septic work-ups....

So the words I don't like to hear when I get report at the start of a new shift are "you're going to have such a good shift"-that's usually when things start falling apart. Such was the case for me on Wednesday night......

I was feeling pretty good about life and work. I saw on the board that I had an assignment I hadn't had before but I had a roommate that I really liked so I figured it would be a good night. I talked to Stacey (one of my work friends) before she left, as well as Kerry (who precepted me), we were joking around and it was pretty fun. But I was noticing that my patient was having some problems keeping her sats up. No big deal, it happens.

By 8:20 I had bagged my kid twice to bring up sats from 25, trying to get ahold of any NNP, who were dealing with a very sick new admit. I took it upon myself to grab a blood gas (I was proud of myself for thinking of this-it's almost like i"m a real nurse or something) and I didn't like what I saw (again, the fact that I didn't like what I saw lets me know I'm 'getting it' as far as NICU nursing goes). I got ahold of my NNP, we did some cpap changes and ordered more labs and decided to wait and see what our results were.

I felt like things were stable so I took the time to run down and grab a diet coke, which isn't as much fun when I don't go with Stacey but it's all good. I need the 32-ouncer.

Luckily my other patient was pretty easy-he was on continuous feeds and not very fussy at all, so I chose to sit at the bedside of the unstable kid because well, she was making me really nervous. By 11:30 I had to bag a couple of more times, each time taking longer to get the kid back up on her sats, (I sure was getting a lot of practice using my bag and mask, good thing I passed NRP), plus I got my labs back and they didn't look that great.

The NNP went to confer with the attending and I went to get rid of my hiccups, which had just started and when I get them, they can last 2-3 hours, and nobody wanted to have to do any procedures annoying everyone and myself with the hiccups. I tried sucking on pudding but that didn't work, so I remembered something the Ken Konash (a family friend) taught me back when I was 10, which he learned from a bartender, which is drinking water through a paper towel. Luckily that worked.

By the time I'd finished the hiccup issue my NNP came back with the news that we'd been expecting-time to start a septic workup.

Septic workups are a good time. Basically you have to get a lumbar puncture, blood cultures from a vein, blood cultures from any central lines, cathed urine culture, and start antibiotics, all within 2 hours of when the order was written to start the workup. That sounds like it's easy to do but it can be a struggle.

Luckily I had a great roommate who provided an extra set of hands. I got the cath on the first try while the NNP was writing the orders. We intubated before starting the LP which went very smoothly and got the labs drawn up. It was my first time assisting on an LP and drawing cultures from a central line but everything went so smoothly. While phlebotomy drew the labs I started antibiotics. By the time I sat down to chart I realized that everything had been accomplished well within the 2 hour mark. It was pretty sweet. My NNP was great too-she and I were in constant contact. In fact she went to lay down for a few minutes before shift change and our clerk (Rick, who kind of reminds me of Jim from the office, not in looks but in humor) told her she would have to leave the unit completely if she wanted a few minutes of peace from me :o).

I was talking to the charge nurse when I went up to the front desk to fill out the payroll discrepency book to say that I didn't get a lunch (because I didn't) shortly before the shift was over and she asked if I was going to back the next night to 'enjoy' the payoffs of my hard work-as in I would probably have an easier time of it. Unfortunately I wasn't, but she did tell me that I did a really good job, which is always nice to hear.

When my friend Rachel came in to get report from me I had sat down for about 10 minutes to read Harry Potter, and i had my feet up on a chair. She said "oh, you must have had a good night" I thought that was kind of funny.......

**by the way these pics were taken from google images just so I don't feel like I'm violating any privacy laws or anything**

Comments on what I've been up to....

So it turns out that I've been M.I.A., but not on purpose. I went to Pocatello for the weekend to spend time with Jenna and little puppy (a.k.a. Roxy).

I had all kinds of plans to see people and to get in some nice long runs on my Satterfield/Olympus route and up Pocatello Creek Road, but I forgot that a. it was spring break and b. Pocatello is butt cold. So therefore the visiting and the runs never happened. And my friends who were in town, well, I didn't see because I was sleeping the days away (sorry team). I did get to see the girls from Dr. Alexander's office for lunch one day though so that was a lot of fun. But mostly I was just pretty lazy. I think I was also recovering from working the 5 out of 6 days.

I also bought a table while I was in Pocatello. I got it at Odell's, which I think everyone from Pocatello knows about because, like JCPenney's, they always close their doors early so they can open the doors the next day to bring you major deals. So I got in on one of those deals and bought a pub table that seats four, and is black. They didn't have enough chairs for me at the Pocatello store-they had to get them in from Blackfoot so I will get those on my next trip up. I'm pretty excited though.

While I was in Pocatello I did all kinds of eating. Of course we had to hit Senor Iguanas for the flour tortilla chips made especially for me and their wonderful salsa:

It was so good-and I ran into one of my co-workers from Alliance Title (it's Pocatello, you can't go anywhere without seeing someone you know-it's kind of fun :o) ). I don't think all the eating and the lack of exercise was any good for me-I was feeling pretty gross by the time I returned to Zion, but I had a great time visiting Jenna-watching Arrested Development-and downloading from my crazy work week. I can't wait to go back when it's not 35 degrees and snowing in March.