Comment on a new reason to enjoy going to work....

The last few weeks I've looked forward to going to work with great excitement and anticipation. Text messages are sent and received all revolving around the same question-are we going to carpool tonight?

Yes, that's right-I'm in a carpool. I know it's hard to believe-I'm not usually known as 'one who likes to be driven around by others'-I'm usually the driver not the driven, but I have set aside the carsickness I get at the drop of a hat (or entrance into a car driven by someone else) all for the pure enjoyment of being thoroughly entertained on the way to work.

I carpooled awhile ago with a girl from my ward who worked on my unit, but then she up and went on a mission (the nerve!) so I was once again left to my own devices. I didn't mind driving to work alone-it allowed me to sing at the top of my lungs or make phone calls or road rage at people (and who wants co-workers to see that kind of behavior?). I scoffed at joining another carpool because who wants to give that up? But one day I found myself being picked up by a co-worker* and I was hooked.

The carpool is a mixture of therapy, professional advice, comedy hour, war stories and social commentary, all done while protecting environmental resources. Sure every once in awhile the carpool is kind of a pain when certain people* can't seem to get out of the unit in a timely fashion-and I have to go out and not use "my nice words" (that was an actual order given by one carpool member), but it's all part of the fun and excitement. I mean when you can be stuck in this for over an hour on the way to work and you wish you had been stuck longer, you know you've found a good thing.

Long live the carpool!!


*names of participants in the carpool are kept anonymous to protect the guilty

Comments in pictures....

Spending a Saturday afternoon with Steff and Em, first eating an early dinner (because there's so much food you need time to digest) here:

followed by a nostalogic stop here for a coke:

(remembering that when you were young you used to come here to get 5 cent jolly ranchers and that the last time you were here was when you were dating J****** and you stopped here for drinks one Sunday afternoon before heading up the canyon for a picnic)

then proceeded to drive up:

this time not listening to Dave Matthew's Crash cd (because it wasn't a solo drive of angst, it was a drive of conversation and relaxation) instead listening to:

reaching the final destination of:

because this:

tastes better in the mountain air.

All in all this made my heart hurt because I miss living at the base of:

Oh well.......

Comment on being sick......

So as all my facebook friends know, I've been sick-people know this because I've been updating my status on facebook frequently since I've going out of my mind from sitting home day in and day out. This wouldn't have been so bad but my cousin/roommate Lisa was also out of town for work so I was completely by myself, with my computer and my tv and my thoughts. Yikes!!

Even though things haven't been exciting I realized I've had a few pictures that I wanted to post on my blog even though I haven't written whole entries about them-so here's my random pics:

This is my knee. About a month ago I was volunteering at the Draper Temple open house as a nurse, and while running to a medical emergency I tripped and fell (in front of at least a hundred people) flat on my face and this happened. You can see the lines from the plastic I fell on in the bruise. It was pretty sweet. I didn't wallow in the fact that I totally embarassed myself-instead my co-nurse Angie and I were laughing way too hard about the situation. We were more irreverant than anything-ooops.

This is me and my cousin Emily on the bus going up to do the Draper Temple tour-I don't have much to say about this pic except I think it's a cute one of both of us!

These pics were taken last week at the Blue October concert I attended at The Depot with Shannon and Lisa. I first heard Blue October's 'Hate Me' back in Pocatello and loved it-then Into the Ocean, then they were on a bunch of the Twilight playlists and the more I heard-the more I was hooked-I've been collecting their albums and I really love them. Except for a few psychotic songs-but you know, Justin is a little bipolar, but he's no longer a danger to himself (at this time). Thanks to Shannon's eagle eye (she noticed the tour bus while we were waiting for our car in the valet line) we were able to get our pics with all the guys from the band-including Justin the lead singer. I told Justin that his lyrics totally rock-he said "you rock". Yes, that's right. Justin said I rocked. The concert was a lot of fun-reminded me of the good old clubbing days when I was in college at BYU. Ah, the old days...

The funniest part of the concert to me was when I illegally parked my car in front of the tour bus so that we could get said pics, and one of the security guys was guiding a hummer out onto the street-i hung around my car just in case I needed to move it-long story short-Stephenie Meyer was in the hummer-I didn't even pay attention-not that I would say anything to her but still kind of funny.

These pictures depict what I have been doing for the last week that I've been sick. This would be the educational enrichment that we get to do for work. We read articles and do post tests and take tests over all of it and do precepted shifts so that we can take care of sicker babies. Although I have learned A LOT that makes me actually more scared of these babies than I was before (ignorance is indeed bliss), I still may or may not be cursing the name(s) of whoever came up with the articles for the developmental and HIE portions. My head still hurts just thinking about it. But I'm almost done and then I can move onto my favorite (insert sarcasm here) portion that I've been looking forward to so much: cardiac. Kill me now.

Well that's all for now-I should get some sleep since I finally get to go back to work tomorrow-Yea!!!

Comment on ER......

So many things to say about this show. For those of you readers out there who have known me for years (Tara) you know that I've loved ER since conception. I haven't missed an episode. I even got all caught up after my mission-no big deal. I stayed strong through the lame Africa episodes and through weakening ratings, and i've loved how the show has had 'life after death' (the title of the first episode of this latest season-did you catch the irony?). I've loved Carol and Doug, Abby and Kovac, Abby and Carter, Abby and Kovac, Lucy and Carter (really Noah did you have to hate that storyline enough to get Lucy killed off?), Benton and Elizabeth, Greene and Elizabeth, etc. etc. etc.

When I worked at NuSkin we had weekly ER discussions Friday mornings. In our little group we liked to say we had code team roles (I know now they're code team roles anyway)-and I always wanted to charge the paddles to 360 and clear-I got pink scrubs like Carol Hathaway and would wear them while I watched the show (yeah, that's pretty gay but what can I say?). I later upgraded to Dr. Greene green scrubs which I will wear to work the night of the show's finale in memoriam. I remember after one of my favorite episodes (the Valentine's one in 2000 when Lucy and Carter got stabbed by that schizophrenic law student) I went into work the next day and Jim was standing in the corner of my cubicle acting all sneaky like that stabber did. Seriously freaked me out. But still funny.

Some of my other episodes I loved include the one in the early seasons when there was a huge blizzard and the ER was empty so they were having ER olympics-then of course there was some huge trauma and everything went to pieces as they went about the business of saving lives. Every episode where Carter had to step up and lead things even though he was only an intern or resident (there were multiple). The episode where Abby found out her husband wasn't paying her tuition so she had to quit medical school. Any episode with Carol and Doug. The first episode when Morgenstern told Greene to set the tone. Dr. Greene's last episode as a doctor when he told Carter to set the tone. Carter's episode when he told Morris to set the tone. I also loved when that one chick (I can't remember her name) came on as the nurse manager (this was just a few years ago-like 2005) and went off on Archie about EBP and all that stuff. It was awesome-I was in nursing school at the time so I got it.

In pre-nurse years I would say that I wanted to be Nurse Hathaway when I grew up in my pink scrubs. Well, I'm a nurse now and I do wear my pink scrubs I bought to watch ER in periodically.

During nursing school lecture classes when my instructors would relate things to real patients, I would counteract with relating things to episodes I saw of ER and what happened there. I even watched hours of dvd footage to find a good scene for a presentation we had to do in our Leadership class-I figured people would find it funny considering the source. When Becky and I got the co-dependency award in our Pinning Ceremony for nursing school Cindy said something like if Becky asks about an episode of ER, Jen's seen it.

ER has brought me to tears more than once-for instance-Dr Greene's death in Hawaii-I've only seen it once and I won't watch it again. And more recently when Dr. Morgenstern returned to the ER with the old guy who had a major impact on ER medicine-his death reminded me a little too much of my primary who died in October-I cried a long time after that one. And of course, right now, as I write this blog. I'm excited for the final episode but it will take awhile to watch-I just don't want it to end. But all in all-it's been a great ride-thanks ER for producing an incredible tv show!!