Yesterday

We went to Logan this weekend. It was nice to actually spend some time there when my attitude wasn't so ugly. We arrived on Friday evening, when we went to Firehouse Pizzeria. It was pretty good, although I think I will try the Cordon Bleu next time. I took Benji to the Farmer's Market on Saturday, and Allen went to Becca's house to fix her computer (he sure is handy to have around!). We came home and took a nap, then I went to see Star Trek with Dad. I LOVED IT!! A definite must-own. After the movie, we went to a ward potluck/bbq. Surprisingly, Benji ate with gusto while we were there! He has been so picky with what he will eat lately. He must have been really hungry, because he ate everything I put in his mouth. I don't get it. He has been doing a lot of walking, and he's getting faster (he'll be running by next week, I swear!). He has started doing this chicken wing type thing (for balance? I don't know why!). I'm trying to get him to show his muscles, but he just does the chicken. Boff. It's cute.

I admit to doing a little retouching to this one . . . smoothing out wrinkles, cleaning up dirt and such. I like it, though.

He had fun playing with the ball in the front yard. I'd like to think he's learning laws of physics while he is doing so. ;o) He was having a hard time trying to stand up while holding the ball, but eventually he figured out that it's easier to stand, then pick up the ball. He's funny.

And today was Dad's birthday. It was nice to be there. It wasn't a big celebration, since he had received most of his gifts last week for Father's day. We just had some lemon cake (with no brown in sight, as requested), a quasi-Thanksgiving dinner, and a couple of small gifts.

So it was a nice weekend. I hope yours was good too!

Where Were You

I was in O.R. 6 today, doing a TAH with Dr. Jolles when I heard that Michael Jackson had died. Although I'm not particularly broken up about it, it is a loss for the entertainment industry. The "King of Pop" had many troubles, and I sincerely doubt he had a spontaneous cardiac arrest (I'm betting on a prescription painkiller overdose). Still, it makes you think about where you were when you hear 'big news.' I don't know why some news stories are more memorable than others. Even so, here are some of those moments. The first moment I remember is when the Challenger shuttle exploded. I was in the first grade, in Panguitch, Utah and I heard my teacher (Mrs. Holman) say, "They blew up the space shuttle." That's what she said; not 'The space shuttle blew up.' I don't remember understanding exactly what happened, I knew that the adults were really upset, and that this moment would be a defining one. I hate that I remember this, but when the O.J. Simpson verdict was read, I was in a journalism class in Logan High School. We actually took time out of our class to watch it. Silly. Who cares? On 9/11, I was in France, serving as a missionary. That story is a bit longer; I wrote more about it here, if you're interested in reading it. There haven't been many news stories that have been as memorable since then (until today). I honestly don't remember where I was when President Obama was elected; it's probable that I was at work, so I couldn't watch the results. I know it was life-changing for some people. Sorry--I'm not one of them. There are other moments that have defined me, but they are more personal, like finding out that someone I love had died. It's interesting how some external events can have such a powerful effect on you, isn't it? What moments have defined you?

Walking On Sunshine

And don't it feel good? ;o)

I'm Not Broke, But You Can See The Cracks

Last weekend was Lily's 2nd birthday party. Mach had planned on having a kiddie pool, but it rained most of the day. :o( Even so, she went all out in decorating Nanny & Papa's family room with tons of balloons and Mickey Mouse paraphernalia. It was so cute! Lily had a great time dancing and eating ice cream cone cuppy-cakes. Everyone else did pretty well too; no major catastrophes to speak of. Unfortunately, I was in a pretty bad mood. I hope I didn't put too much of a damper on things. I was stressed out, tired, and I had a headache. I ended up taking two naps that day (always a bad sign). Benji was pretty good, but he doesn't sleep in the car very much anymore. He was pretty whiny the whole ride home, which wasn't very helpful for my headache. So we put him to bed when we got home, we did some dishes, then I made a late-night trip to Wally's for groceries. When I got back, I had to finish my preparations for Primary. Needless to say, I got to bed pretty late. Allen got up with Benji on Sunday morning. I really needed to sleep in, so I was extremely grateful for his consideration. So after several weeks of practicing our Father's Day songs, making a one-day trip to Logan for the express purpose of attending our ward, all the extra prep for Singing Time, and even getting myself and my boys to church on time, we weren't on the program. I thought the Bishopric knew that we were planning on singing during Sacrament meeting (since I had spoken to the music person and the bishop last week . . .). There were only two speakers, and they certainly didn't fill up the whole hour, and they STILLforgot us. So, once we started Primary, we decided to switch things up. I pretty much told the EQ president and the 2nd Counselor that we were going to come in during Priesthood and sing for them. We didn't have a lot of kids there, so the teachers and the presidency got up to sing, too. It went pretty well. Maybe we didn't need to sing all three verses of "Fathers," but I really love the lyrics, and I wanted them to sing them. I have to admit that I kinda like the power I have over those kind of things. ;o) In tribute to my wonderful father and my fantastic husband, I'd like to share the words to that song. It's so sweet to hear young children sing it, too The father of our home Leads our family With wisdom's light in all that's right; My father's good to me. Fathers are so special With a very special love. They watch us and protect us. They guide us and direct us Back to our home above. I do love my calling. Even though it's a lot of work, I just love the kids; they are so stinkin' cute. At least I made a real dinner for Father's Day! We had catfish and one of my fabulous salads (and some potatoes that turned into a minor disaster). I was pretty proud of myself for doing that. This is an older picture (from December 2008), but I wanted to share it anyway. You can tell how much Allen loves our little man, and that makes me love him even more. Happy Father's Day, Babe! I love you!

Freedom Has A Scent

Here are some pictures of my gorgeous new niece Phoebe. Dave & Lex had her this morning. She's beautiful!

It's so fun to have a new little cousin! Thank heaven for little girls!

Keep It To Yourself, It's My Life

I'm at work again today. It has been a pretty good one so far: one of those steady/busy days that balance out the crazy/busy and slow-as-cold-molasses-crawling-across-the-salt-flats-in-winter days. It all started early, with Benji waking up crying. It's so sad! I'm not sure what the deal is, if he's teething again (he has nearly all of them, can't we be done with this already?!) or if he has nightmares or what. Allen thinks he may have swallowed a penny . . . I really hope not, but weirder things have happened. He goes back to the doctor next week. I'm pretty darn sure he has gained weight, but he's not walking on his own yet. He will walk holding your hand, or pushing the fun music bus that Granny gave him for Christmas, but he's not confident in independent movement just yet. I think he's realizing how much it is holding him back. We went to Rachael & Seuao's for Family Home Evening last night, and Benji wanted to run and play with Lily and Noah so so bad! But he's okay, and he's getting there. I don't think we'll have to take him to Physical Therapy. Even so, Tessa is crawling already and is about ready to walk, and by gum, she will NOT beat him! That's the final straw! Anyway, back to my day. I brought Benji with me to work so I could clock in on time . . . if it weren't such a pain, I'd wait for Allen to get home when he gets off work at 10:30 a.m. But I just don't think it's a good idea to leave the house when he gets home around 10:45 a.m., then drive five minutes to work, find an employee parking spot (and the best of those are a good five minute walk from the main entrance), clock in, change clothes, put my lunch in the freezer, get my assignments, gather and open my gown and gloves and mask and be ready to scrub in by 11:00. This way, I take Benji with me, clock in, and wait for Allen to pick him up. That way, at least I'm ready to go and I won't be penalized for being late. I'm sure Allen would prefer the other way, but if I'm late again before September, I won't get a raise next year. They are that serious, and it's a pain in my you-know-what. So Benji has started saying "Hi." He'll wave sometimes, but not often. We were sitting in the lobby waiting for Daddy, and he kept saying "hi" to everyone who would walk past. I love that everyone would smile and say "hi" back when he did. He's such a little charmer! I just love that boy! Anyway, after Allen picked him up, I went upstairs to the O.R. and changed. I did a first lunch in room 3 with everyone's favorite surgeon, Dr. Noyes (the only surgeon who has made me cry . . . a story for another time). He is a fine surgeon, but he believes the world revolves around him. It doesn't matter what else is happening in the other 21 operating rooms, if it's not a good time for me to give the scrub a lunch relief, then I can't--no matter what my other assignments may be. At least I got to be with my dear friend Mary, the charge nurse in that room and my comrade from working nights at LDSH. For some reason inexplicable to everyone, when we work together, we speak in British accents. Yeah, sometimes it gets on the surgeons nerves (and we didn't really do it with Dr. Noyes . . . with Rob or Ray it's fine), but most of the time they just laugh at us. It's so rare that we get to work together anymore that we have to make it worthwhile! Anyway, we were venting a bit about Dr. Noyes (pronounced like "Noise"), and how, once one realizes that the good doctor is the center of the universe, one is much happier. As we were cleaning up the room between cases, I made up a little song to the tune of "The More We Get Together," but it goes something like this: 'The more we worship Dirk Noyes the happier we'll be.' Mary got a little mad at me, because it was so catchy that she would be singing it for the rest of the day. She cracks me up. Wow--I'm rather verbose today! So, after that, I took a little break. I went to the cafeteria (not that great today . . . I should have gone with the pizza), then I went to O.R. 6 to do a little GYN and let Janet go home early. I had heard there was going to be another DCD organ procurement at about 2pm, so I asked if I could cross-train on that. I'm pretty close to being ready to go on my own, but I'd like to do a couple more before they let me loose. It went very well, and our times were excellent (and Dr. VanDerWerf decided he didn't want to do the liver transplant, which didn't break my heart!). Unfortunately, as he was pulling the liver out, part of it got caught on the chest retractor and the liver got a nice big gash in it. VanDerWerf described it to the docs at UCLA (other than the gash, it was a beautiful liver), who decided they would take it. I didn't know this, but apparently the organ recipient/insurance has to pay for the organ itself. I knew an enormous part of the cost was surgery, sterile supplies, and post-op care, but I guess they pay for the liver, too. I don't know why I find that weird, but I do. So the DCD went well; I was more of a 2nd assist/observer/suction queen than anything (Kirk was 1st Assist, Shaunette and Tami were scrubbing), but it was cool to see what they are actually doing. Tami told me that we never see what they are doing, but it's always nice to know what happens in the surgery so that I can know better what to anticipate. I think I mostly have the hang of it. I really enjoy first-assisting, and that's a big part of why I'd like to go to PA school. I don't know . . . I see all these people around me getting their Master's and Doctorates, and I think about my parents and how hard they worked for their post-graduate degrees, and I feel like I should do it. Even so, there's a big part of me that just wants to be home with my baby while he's so young. I don't know. It's still a thought swirling around. I went straight from the DCD to the kidney transplant, which also went well. I like Dr. VanDerWerf a lot--he is very calm and controlled. Things never get crazy and stressful with him the way they did with LeGrand. I am still a bit intimidated by him, but I have learned just to take my time with him. He's more concerned with my doing things right than with me doing things fast. He'll take the time to explain things to me, which I really appreciate. He's a good egg. I like working with Diane, too. I'm not a huge fan of taking implant call every week, but I don't have the dread in the pit of my stomach anymore, either. Sometimes I miss LeGrand, but I really don't miss the chaos he left in his wake. After the Kidney transplant, I got another break, and then went to finish the percutaneous nephrostomy. Luckily, they were almost done when I got there, so I got to suture the skin (and I did a good job, if I do say so myself!) and clean up. And by the time we were done, the rest of the rooms were finished, too. So as of now, there isn't anything going (yay!), and I can write a super-long blog post and get paid while I'm doing it! Double yay! :o) And that's the update for today. I do need to update you on this weekend's drama. Last Friday, I woke up about 7:30 a.m., and I sat on my bed for a couple of minutes trying to get the fog out. I don't remember exactly what happened, but I went to turn my head, and I heard a 'crunch' at the base of my skull and I realized I couldn't turn my head. I kinda started freaking out, and I wasn't sure what to do. I thought about going to a chiropractor (but I really didn't want to end up paralyzed if there was a problem). I made an appointment with our family doctor, but they couldn't get me in until 3:30 p.m. I was also supposed to go to the dentist and work for 12-hours that day. Instead, we went to the E.R. Honestly, I was concerned about the care I would receive elsewhere, and I thought they would a) give me something decent for the pain, and b) take an x-ray. Nope and nope. Two hours and a $150 co-pay later, I walked out with a prescription for ibuprofen, having only seen a medical student. I was more upset with myself than anything for having wasted so much money to have a med student tell me what I already knew and would have done if I had waited for a few hours before going in. The nurse (whom I saw for the first time when she was discharging me) saw that I was crying, and asked me why I was upset. I told her that I was mad that, for $150 I didn't even get to see a real doctor. I was still in quite a bit of pain, but no one ever asked me to even rate it on the scale, and I forgot to mention it to her. She said that the med student consulted with the doctor, and I guess that was supposed to make it okay. Whatever. I work with medical students every day, and I'm sorry, but they are at the bottom of the totem pole. They did give me a pain pill on my way out the door, and they offered me a soft-collar (I not-so-politely refused that one). I was grouchy because of the E.R. situation and mad at myself and in a fair amount of pain, so I was pretty much useless the rest of that day. Thank heavens Allen was there to take care of me and Benji. Things got better over the weekend; I went to the adult session of Stake Conference on Saturday evening, which was nice. I love Primary, but sometimes it's nice to hear sermons aimed at adults without having to wrestle a toddler the entire time. Anyway, I stayed home on Sunday, and Allen went to the morning sessions. It was a nice, quiet day, and as it progressed, my neck did feel better. On Monday, I got a call from Dr. McNalley, the E.R. doc whose name was on all the paperwork, but whose face I never saw. He said in his voice message that in a lot of years of working in the E.R., this had never happened ("this" being my having been discharged without him seeing me). So he apologized, said he'd be sure I didn't get charged for a physician's visit, and he gave me his cell number and asked me to call him back. All weekend I was thinking about who I could write to complain about my visit, hoping the SelectHealth survey drones who call about EVERYTHING ELSE would call me so I could give them a piece of my mind, but all that dissolved with his phone call. I called him back, and thanked him for recognizing his error, and told him I was feeling better. So it's not a great story, but I can consider my lesson learned: I won't be going back to the E.R. unless I'm bleeding out my eyeballs. Did I mention the $150 co-pay?!? Grrr.

My American Boy

I took Benji to Murray Park to take some pictures (see my photography blog for some flower pictures). I lost my keys while I was there . . . yeah, what else is new? This is my favorite picture of the session. He's so cute! I was 'called-out' the other day for leaving Benji in the car. I ran into the Mav to get some beverage, and I had parked him right in front of the door so I could see him, and when I went to pay, someone was telling the cashier that there was a child left alone in a car. I told her I knew he was there, and he was okay. I knew I shouldn't have left him (and I swear I won't when he decides he can walk instead of having to be carried everywhere), and I was a little huffy that someone I have never met told me that what I did was not okay, but it was my fault. I should have brought beverage with me, or I should have taken him out of the car. I have gotten lazy. Food for thought. Another thought--the new Arctic Circle commercial with the chick making the shake . . . what the heck? It's not just lame, but it's weird. I don't get it. I'll update you on the rest of this weekend's drama tomorrow. Love ya!

No Escape From Reality

I haven't written for a while; I usually don't when I'm on my 'short weekends,' because I'm so exhausted. Currently, my work schedule gives me a two-day weekend and a three-day weekend. It's on a two-week rotation, where the first week I work Monday, Tuesday and Friday, then the second week I work Tuesday, Thursday and Friday (these are all 12-hour shifts, 11am-11pm). It's not a terrible schedule, but working every Friday pretty much sucks. So I asked our schedulers if I could switch to a Thursday instead of a Friday, assuming they would take the hint that I wanted a four-day weekend. Uh, no (and we all know what assuming does). They did manage to give me every-other Friday off (yay!), but now I'm working every Monday. So now my schedule is Monday, Tuesday, Friday the first week, and Monday, Tuesday and Thursday the second week. *sigh* That's not a huge deal, but we have a Family Home Evening get-together with the siblings on Mondays. Bow-wow. We'll have to figure something out . . . hopefully it will be my schedule! Whose leg do you have to h*** to get a four-day weekend around here? ;o) On a side note, I found out that the only shift I have to work for Independence Day weekend is on Friday, July 3rd from 11am-3pm. It hardly seems worth it, since I work that Monday and Tuesday, then the princess shift on Friday the 3rd, and then I' m not back until the following Monday . . . or something like that. So, if I can get someone to cover those four hours, and if I'm eligible for holiday hours again, then I'll have six days off in a row and only have to take six hours of PTO! Woo! Here's hoping we can finally take that road trip to California, and that gas prices won't be through the roof by then! Allen started his new work schedule this week: 2 a.m.-10:30 a.m. We kicked it off by sleeping in; he let me sleep until 11am on Saturday, and I let him sleep until 11am on Sunday morning. That was pretty nice. I didn't realize that his alarm would start going off at 1 a.m. (he usually snoozes for a good half-hour before he gets up), and I was totally still awake when it did. I'm a night owl, and I have been trying to get to bed earlier, but it's rarely before 1 a.m. I guess I should work on that, especially since Benji has started waking up earlier. He'll start stirring around 6:30 a.m., and by 7:30 or so, he's ready to go. Last night was particularly bad--he whined most of the night, so I only got a few hours of sleep. I try to keep him penned in (read: out of the toilet, etc.) in the mornings, and I'll admit that I use PBS kids to keep him entertained during that time so I can snooze a bit. I was able to get Monday afternoon off so I could go to Kim's memorial. It was held at Brighton Ski resort at the top of Big Cottonwood Canyon. I have never been to Brighton, and although there was still some snow on the ground, it is closed for the season. Anyway, it was certainly not traditional, and Kim would have loved it--there was no stuffy service, no funeral potatoes or jello salad, and not even a lot of flowers; just a lot of people whose lives she touched. Some people came in suits (I wore a skirt), some came in shorts and brought their own beer with them. There were some scrapbook pages to sign and lots of pictures to look at and some of Kimmy's favorite food. I got to give Pat a hug (I totally started crying when I did) and catch up with some friends from Primary's, where we all worked together with Kim. It was nice to celebrate a life well-lived and a woman well-loved. It helped me in my own little grieving process. I still tear up a little when I think about her and her little family, but it will be okay. Eventually.

I miss you, Kimmy. You're the best.