Times They Are A-Changing

We've had all sorts of things going on - Jackson is currently in Pittsburgh with the navy, he took his ASVAB and scored a 70 which is very good and is doing the medical part today which he was actually more nervous about. They had a heck of a time completing the forms, I was getting all sorts of calls from both him and David while I was out driving yesterday morning and then while I was sitting in the waiting room at the surgeon's. Good thing they'd cancelled school so he had plenty of time before they left for Pittsburgh. He  called us from the facility last night and was having a good time despite being nervous. And yes, I finally did see the surgeon who does feel the hernia needs repair in the near future. It's not an emergency so I'll probably have it done mid-April, we have to get through David's stuff first as his basal cell cancer has come back so he has to have it removed again and this time the doctor will be whacking off a big chunk. That's the first of April so I think anytime after that. It's not going to be a huge deal since the hernia itself isn't overly large or in a bad spot, but I will be out of work for a couple of weeks. Adam is flying here in a couple of weeks! Whoo hoo, that should be very fun even though I can't take off too much time it will be nice to see him before he goes floating off too. I am now waiting for spring, I am so tired of snow, rain, mud, snow, rain, mud, etc..... I keep wanting to have my car washed but it will be a lost cause at this point in time..

Here's Mud In Your Eye

Given the current state of the ground I've been wearing my clog collection for the past week. We've had rain, snow, warm,cold, etc and what that all adds up to is an amazing amount of mud. For my older patients, especially of the farming and coal mining variety, the absolute worst thing you can do is track mud in the house. One little footprint will put you in dutch immediately so when the ground gets muddy the clogs come out too. Jackson has been fooling around with the navy and encountered the arch enemy of adulthood, the Dreaded Standard Form in which they expect you to remember every address you've ever lived at, every school attended including dates and years. He was making a lot of noise last night and David did the big cop out by stating "your much better at that!" - grrh! He has to hand it in by Friday so we'll see what happens. I sympathize with him, what I have in my work folder is an old application that I filled out and I take it with me on any and all interviews - it's all the same information anyhow and that way I have it. Speaking of which the new nurse we hired is probably not going to make it, a facility called our office checking her references - someone is not too smart on that subject. Everyone knows when you're getting ready to bail you do NOT give your current employer as a reference unless they're aware you're going to leave. Of course that makes it hard for me because she's still orientating and now I feel like it's a waste of time - why do all this work for someone who probably won't be staying? How annnoying is that.

The Weekend Is Never Long Enough

Yesterday I just laid around except for making a run to Michael's for some yarn. I did consider AC Moores but the weather was so iffy at that point I decided against it - it had started with the snow/rain/sleet crap again and the highway was no place to be. You would think with all the yarn squirreled away I would just have what I needed but after ransacking my stash there was nothing that even came close to fitting the bill. Michael's  not only had the yarn I needed - but it was on clearance which I pointed out to the Yarn Hater. He shot that down immediately by pointing out something was ALWAYS on clearance, such a wet blanket he is!Jackson stayed over Becky's - they were going to some late event last night so I stayed on the couch, knitted and watched Dr. Who and Torchwood. Pearl is of course still in heat and we have EVERYTHING covered (yucko is all I have to say on that subject!!) - the breeder emailed us yesterday and apparently there was some stuff we had needed to do if we wanted to breed her so that probably won't happen for awhile yet. She'd tried to call but the phones were out most of the day yesterday, there was a scheduled outage and we would have known that had we been paying attention. But it wasn't too cold yesterday and we have a kerosene heater plus the fireplace so  no one was suffering. Around here they do scheduled maintenence - they'll turn off the water or electric  for repairs and that takes some getting used to - they actually will turn off entire towns and neighborhoods for hours at a time. Anyhoo, back to Pearl - Cathy said we can use her Vizlsa that she had flown in from Hungary when we're ready so that base is covered. We are planning on breeding her at least once - and then after that we'll have her fixed -this stuff is for the birds!!

Time Keeps On Slipping

Things are moving along rapidly in some ways. Jackson and David met with the navy recruiters yesterday - Jackson signed the inital paperwork allowing them to peek into his life, making sure he hasn't participated in any bank heists or is missing a limb. He took the practice test and scored quite high on it so he was very pleased with himself, they were gone for most of the afternoon. Adam from what we understand will be leaving back into the navy at the end of March and then for the first time since we've been married, it will be just the two of us.From the day we were married, we had a full house for years. Family and friends were a constant  - and then Aunt Karen passed away, the boys were older but Amy was only 11.  The bus dropped her off at our house after school and the whole crew was there on the weekends - it was a crowd but we had so much fun. Amy even joined us for our first anniversary, she was there while we were discussing it and got so upset when she realized she wasn't included. David and I dropped her off at home and then turned around and got her - so the three of us had a romantic dinner at Dora's. After the kids stopped coming to our house I got pregnant with Adam and from then on we were a group again. So this is a bit daunting, I'm glad we're not going anywhere right now, as much as I'm looking foward to Jackson living his own life I know it's going to be stressful and sad. I think we'll need time to get past that before we can make any rational decisions and it is going to be hard to decide. I have to admit we have VERY different ideas on what is the ideal place to live. I would love to move deeper into the midwest, if I won the lottery tomorrow my butt would be on Tablerock lake on the Missouri side or riding the plains of Montana. David on the other hand would not be doing either one of those things so I think we do need some time to really sit and think about this.

Snow. Again. Yipee

They're  predicting 3 to 5 inches today and of course this is the day I have to drive to the moon and back. In other news, I got called from the doctor's office and my thyroid panel came back normal  this time so I am just Terminally Tired I suppose. I  know a lot of it is my  sleeping -  or lack thereof. I did try to stay in bed  longer this morning but to no avail, I was a clock watcher from 3:30 on and of course if Pearl even suspects you might be awake, you're done. I was supposed to be taking the new orientee to my visits today, but she called off - hmm, that is never a good sign when they call off in the first three weeks. The other thing on the boards of course is the house, David and I are now talking about maybe waiting another year before we decide anything - once Jackson is out of school and off doing whatever he plans on doing, we'll be able to take the time and make a better decision about what we'll eventually be doing. That probably has a lot to do with my not sleeping - all this worry! And then to top it off Miss Pants decided to go into heat this week - she is a total brat.

Avacados Shall Never Darken My Doorstep Again

I bought a bag of avacados at Sam's Club a couple of weeks ago - I mean I LOVE guacamole so there must be so much more you can do with them, right? WRONG. They have been lying on the counter in a green mesh bag for a week looking all mysterious  and lumpy. I finally moved them to the refridgerator because they were not only going soft, but were making me feel guilty. I looked for recipes and found them, they could be divided into two classes - A) 10 ingredients I don't have and B) 10 ingredients I wouldn't eat if I was blind drunk and in a coma. So this morning I decided to make guacamole - I peeled them which was not an easy task as they are quite ripe and slippery. So after chasing avacados around the kitchen(FYI - rinsing them makes it worse if you can imagine that!) I flipped them in the blender and hit liquify. They did not. I mashed them down and did On again. They still did not. I mashed them down while the blender was running and then spent 5 minutes trying to find the part of the spoon that got Liquified. David told me if I maimed myself on one more kitchen applience they would all go out the door. I stirred in some garlic and sour cream and then it did liquify. So the good news is it's all smooth a creamy. The bad news is I spent most of morning making something that tastes like Green Crap and I have a lot of it. And to boot I can buy the stuff I like for $4. Guacamole anyone?

Waiting For The Other Shoe

It was a quiet weekend for being on call - the one admit I was supposed to do didn't come out of the hospital so that is on the boards for today. On Saturday we were driving by the doctor's office and I noticed they were open so we stopped in and I had my blood redrawn - they should have the results by Wed or Friday even though I would like to know NOW. I did nothing yesterday, I was so tired all day I just pretty much stayed on the couch and slept on and off - the tiredness is not an all the time thing which makes me wonder if it's really a physical thing or I just don't get enough sleep. We get up at 4 am every morning - I hadn't been able to sleep past then so over time I've gradually rearranged my schedule. I figured if I couldn't sleep I could do other stuff like exercise, paperwork, etc instead of just lying there awake. Now it's routine and if I don't get up then I don't get everything done so I bounce out of bed like I'm catching a plane every morning zipping around, even though I know if I DIDN'T get up the world wouldn't end, it would just happen later. Oh what we do to ourselves. The real estate is coming today to look at the house and review the game plan - we are trying to come up with one ourselves since SOMEONE has not figured out where he wishes to be and I refuse to do anything until there is something in mind. That nightmare move from WV to PA when we had to move in under a month with no where to go will stick with me forever. Jackson is off from school today so he can help David straighten up the house - I did some this weekend and have been every weekend tackling one big job at  a time but we do need to start moving.

House Of Cards

One of the reasons you should avoid going to the doctor is they always manage to find something and then it just snowballs.I tend to drag on forever until it gets to the point I have to go, but on the other hand then I feel I've gotten my money's worth. Medically speaking it's been an interesting week - I have to reschedule  with the surgeon as she was sick the day of my appointment. It's no emergency so no rush - in the event it needs fixed I wasn't planning on having it done til April - or so. The other thing I had done was bloodwork which the initial labs came back all ok. But last night I got a call that my thyroid panel needs to be redrawn for a definate diagnosis as it came back very low. I wasn't surprised as that was one of the reasons I went in the first place. One of the advantages of being a nurse is when you go to the doctor's they ask you specifically what you would like done as they are fully aware we never grace thier doorstep without a good reason. So I sat and gave my Wish List and he added a few things to it. So I'll have it done again next week - my poor arm, not only did I have bloodwork but we have a new nurse and she did a practice draw on that arm the other day. I have one of the best veins in the universe in my right arm, EVERYONE loves it. It's especially wonderful for newbies as you cannot miss it and it tends to inspire a great deal of confidence but office nurses like it too because there is no fuss and bother. I'm oncall this weekend - I had a bit of a blowup with the manager of the other office I'm covering. She signed me up for yet another insane visit and I called her back - she's upset with me but I told her our office would never dream of doing that to one of her nurses - the admission she accepted is a TWO HOUR DRIVE from my house -ONE WAY! And I pointed out what if they had a problem and I had to go back the next day? She found someone else to do it, but boy is she mad! I told our office if the boss wants to fire me fine, I'll leave if this continues anyhow - that's completely crazy.

My Tired Valentine

We were awoken at 2 am this morning by Pearl being MIA - since she usually sneaks up and hogs the  pillows you do notice when she's not there. We found her cowering under the bed and coaxed her up,she couldn't stop shaking.We tried to figure out what was wrong - seizures? Did she eat something? Was she sick? Was the battery low in the downstairs fire alarm and chirping every 5 minutes thereby scaring the nonsense out of the dog? It was the latter which I discovered around 3:30 when I went to take her out and it chirped as we went by  and she freaked. I have absolutely no idea, that would be the Mystery Of Pearl. So at 3:40 am this morning David replaced the battery and all was well in the demented world of vizslas - to think we paid big money for this!! Work was ok, I had the orientee with me for half a day, had an unexpected visit and then back home. David surprised me with a new wedding ring! - and a matching ring on top - it's really pretty. He also gave me a box of candy which he took away from me a few minutes ago before I ate enough to barf and we went out to dinner too! Whoo hoo is all I have to say. Jackson is with Becky of course - David just went to get him and I am here with Pearl and silent fire alarm.

Happy Hump Day!

On the weather front we were supposed to have more snow but it has warmed up and we are currently having what is commonly known as "rain". I'm hoping the Channel Twelve Weather Team becomes familar with the difference in some point in time (although they did sneaky change thier predictions and then act like that's what they said in the first place). Vincent is down here being a Sneaky Cat, rubbing on my pant leg like he loves me but we both know he's actually trying to dry himself off. I went to the doctor's yesterday for my check up, I took my knitting with me and was halfway through a stitch when the nurse stuck her head out and called my name - then she called it AGAIN  but sort of crabby and didn't seem to care at all about sock #2 or where I was stitch wise. The good thing about here is you don't wait for hours to see the doctor but when they call you - you'd better have your running shoes on! I had bloodwork done and a referral for surgeon for an evalution (I have a small hernia that has gotten worse in the past few months) but other than that I'm in good shape. I went to Dr. Carey because all of his patients speak very highly of him - the nice thing about being a home care nurse is you know who to go to - and who to avoid!!

When The Wind Blows

The wind sounded like a train all day yesterday, howling down our chimney and sweeping through the breezeway. All of the trees were swinging wildly - since we've had a lot of rain and snow it gets a bit nervewracking as trees uproot pretty easily in those conditions and the ones around the house are at least 30 to 40 feet tall. Pearl insisted on going outside of course, the only thing that was mildly amusing was I could pitch the rubber frog pretty far with the strong winds. I made her come in finally before her ears blew off entirely!! Jackson has yet another cold - this seems to be his year for them. His room stinks of Vicks, but he seems to be getting better so we can skip the trip to the doctor I suppose. David and I went to a wake in Mannington last night, Susan's Grandfather passed away very suddenly on Friday - I couldn't believe it at all. I can't make the funeral on Tuesday but we went to the wake last night and I met quite a few more of Susan's relatives - it's going to be a huge affair I think. We got there about half an hour after it started and the parking lot was already full - when we left around 7:30 people were still streaming in. Her family set up a lot of pictures spanning his life and had a family album which was really nice - I never really realized how much her Dad looked like her grandfather until I saw the picture of them standing together. There was a picture of the family farm that's been in the family for generations - it was just very nice.

The Perfection That Is Claw

I have no idea why we end up with one token Nasty Cat at all times. Before Claw came on the scene we had Mitzi who began her career as Completely Evil at the age of 6 weeks. Her first victim was my friend Nancy from England - Nancy picked her tiny kitten self up and just as she declared "How cute!" Mitzi sank her tiny kitten teeth right into her hand. I finally had to have her put to sleep when she was about 8 years old and so out of control even I couldn't handle her anymore - I still have scars from her. Claw is not really in the same class, but she has her moments - she was sitting on the couch with me last night and (she does this all the time) for no reason just started randomly hissing and darted off the couch. We've come to the conclusion that she just hates everyone. In other news Pearl and I continue to spy on the snakes in the fence post hole few times a week to see how it's going. And no, I haven't tried to pick them up as I don't know what they are - I'm pretty sure they are NOT Black snakes, Northern Pacific or Garters (they are way too big to be Garters) so I'm leaving them be for now, they're most likely hibernating and will be gone in the spring. We had snow as you can see from the pictures but it's melted so now we're back to cold and clammy mud - how delightful. I'm currently working on sock #2 which so far resembles sock #1, - more or less. Fortunately David will have a Moral Obligation to wear them as I made them myself. I finally went to the Walmart off of exit one and was glad I did - the clearance aisle is FULL of yarn and you have to sort through it -even I can't come up with a suitable project for neon green and orange yarn - but I did find 10 skeins of Lion brand Microfiber yarn for a dollar apiece - it usually costs $5 so it's all mine quite naturally. I will be sneaking back there during the week. I have a doctor's appointment for Tuesday FINALLY after all this yammering about how I have to go for the past two years - I made myself make the appointment  - sometimes that's the hardest part. David didn't end up going to Ray's quite yet, the skin biopsy came back negative so he's calmed down but David will be going to see him in a few weeks when we can plan it better.

SpringSummerWinterFall - All In One Week.

I don't know about the weather in your neck of the woods but here it's just looney. Yesterday it was up to the 60's - which would have been way more fun if it hadn't been pouring rain the entire time. The back roads were a mess - I know because I was on them - and when I got to my 2nd patient's house I stopped twenty feet up the driveway, put the car in park and got out. About 30 seconds later a white pickup truck came whipping down the road and pulled in behind me - it was the patient's son who was trying to get there before I went any further and fell down the rather large hole where the driveway had washed out. He was very sweet and carried my bag for me as we carefully picked our way up to the house. I was trying to stay on the rockiest parts of the driveway to avoid falling and consequently sliding back to down into the aforementioned hole. Thank goodness I'm in fairly good shape as it was a very steep climb! After I was done I pulled over on the side of the road in Ida May which is tiny town that the only place to get beer is the Handi-Mart - you can also get all the gossip - I called the office to let them know I'd decided to head out to Mannington and get that done. After all I was only 15 miles away and if I did that patient today it would be a 15 mile trip, tomorrow it would be a 96 mile round trip. The logistics of this state still get me - trying to figure out where everything is and so forth. But over the past 3 years of being a visit nurse I've gotten very familar with the backroads. I was driving in unfamilar territory - until I saw Gallus Road and I instantly knew where I was and how to get out of there - I think that is so strange now how well I know this place.

The Uni-Sock

I finally finished the first sock and even managed to perform the Kistchner Stitch to graft the toe closed since it's a cuff down sock as opposed to a toe up. David tried it on and it really does fit so I started the second one last night much to Pearl's dismay. She would prefer we spend ALL of our time (except when we're snoozing in bed) outside running around and harrassing things. We found some snakes in an old fence post hole yesterday, I'll post the pictures tomorrow. The weekend passed fairly quietly - and nicely - except that we heard from Ray and he's been having some health issues lately. David is planning on making a trip to NJ this weekend to see what's going on with him. The computer has been behaving  better so we'll take it in next week, David suspects it might actually been the keyboard that was causing the problems, not to mention the cable. The cable guy is coming today to see what's up with that, we can't get any channels over 98 which in itself is a bit silly - I think we had THREE when I was kid, now I'm whining because I "only" have 98...... and then we have to get new phones because ours pooped out last week and we just haven't gotten to it. David hooked up the "emergency" phone which is $7 phone with a cord that makes me feel like I'm back in high school when I use it. I guess looking at this post this just might be National Malfunction Week.....

A Moment Of Zen

I'm planning on doing little to nothing today - I cleaned yesterday and got rid of some more stuff and have some paperwork later, but that's about it. The shower was fun yesterday, I met Susan at the office parking lot and we drove over to Rock Forge together - Susan wasn't sure where the church was but I pointed out that since Rock Forge is about 60 x 30 feet there couldn't be too many churches. It was right on rt 7 and we met Theresa and Jessica there. My hat went over well and everyone even knew what it was supposed to be, whoo hoo - I also gave a gift certificate since I figured Nicole would get a lot of stuff and that way she could buy whatever she didn't get. When I got home David had hooked up the old keyboard to the computer, opps! Word to the wise - do NOT spray cleaning stuff all over your keyboard even if it really really needs it. I did point out to David it was Spanky Clean but he pointed out it was Defunct so the spanky clean-ness was not so impressive. Ack! I'm letting Jackson have the car to toodle around in today, he has decided not to get one of his own since he's planning on the navy midsummer but we have him take the car when available as I don't want him to lose that skill. Speaking of the navy, we heard from Adam, the House Monkey and he is re-enlisted, they haven't given him a definate date yet but the recruiter said either mid-February to March - regardless he is excited to get back in. So we will have a bunch of navy boys come summer. In other news I wrote an email to Best Buys Customer service 3 days ago asking why it takes so long for them to repair a computer despite thier ad stating it only takes 3 days - I got a computer generated email telling me "due to the high number of emails to the customer service center there would be a delay in response" - in other words they have so many customer complaints they can't even get to them!

Knitting My Life Away

I finally finished the Dropped Daisy Baby Hat last night and got all the petals of the flower sewn on - I showed it to David and Jackson and they knew what it was supposed to be, so it passed. As I was finishing up the hat I could feel that ugly sock glaring at me from inside the knitting bag. I tend to be a One Project Woman and having two just makes me crazy. I know quite a few knitters that keep a running group of UFO's (UnFinished Objects) but I just can't - I have to finish it or frog it, but I can't just leave it. Last night at work was upsetting, I got a call around 5 pm that I would have to go to the Clarksburg's area and admit an infusion patient, and they didn't know when the patient would be coming home. I've had a pretty crazy work week - you know how that goes, Monday goes bad and then the rest of the week is just a runaway train and yesterday was no exception - so I just lost it. We're only supposed to be oncall for things that cannot be handled during business hours and instead of telling the hospital no, the office accepted it despite the fact they knew I would have to drive over 100 miles round trip, in the dark in an unfamilar place - that was just stupid. Our office wouldn't have accepted that - it ended up working out and I didn't have to go but I told Susan the next time I AM resigning as this oncall nonsense has completely gotten out of control. David is going to be bringing the computer in to be worked on, it's not doing anything overly bad but I think it needs to looked at and cleaned up. Best Buy still sucks - David called and the tech told him 5 to 7 days and he couldn't guarentee that - doesn't the commercial guarentee 3 days? They are so awful and don't even try customer service, I think they're motto is the We Don't Care About Our Customers. David will be calling around to find somewhere else to go, he should know better after our last experience we had with them. I don't know about other Best Buys but really the one here is slow and rude to put it mildly. In other news however Lantern Moon came through - boy was I shocked! I got a FULL set of replacement needles in the mail yesterday so now I have the set plus 3 spare in case they break - whoo hoo bonus! So they will get a nice letter.