Category: Day-By-Day

Day-By-Day, Work Stuff

Monday: I Look Like a Boy

Karen

At least, according to my husband.

SEXY, RIGHT?? (Kevin routinely “compliments” me like that – I’m used to it. Also? Tough. My hair. Deal).

I got a trim and a color this past Saturday. My hair is even shorter than it is in my profile picture you see in the right-hand column. It’s my fault, really. I allowed the stylist to talk, and talk, and talk and whack, whack and whack and by the time I really noticed how much she was taking off and on the verge of saying something, she stopped, stepped back and said, “Is that short enough?”

I nearly shouted “YES” back at her.

So yeah. It’s short. And it’s dark. Like almost black. At least, it feels that dark to me, but really, it’s pretty close to my natural hair color. Which is what I wanted, actually. The stylist used a different type of color on me this time – it’s supposed to cover gray better. *shrug* I don’t know, I can’t really tell a difference, but everyone I worked with today said something to me.

They liked it. And they thought the shortness (because I can’t really say the “length” since there isn’t a “length” to it) looked good on me. One gal thought my new “do” made me look younger.

I’LL TAKE IT!

Let’s put it this way, my hair is SO short, that the stylist had to use an electric haircutter-razor thing to shave off the tiny hairs on my neck.

I know! But you know? I like it. It’s super easy to take care of and it’ll last me a good seven, possibly eight weeks before I feel like it needs another trim. (My hair grows insanely fast. Nearly every stylist I go comments on that).

So I went to work feeling self-conscious, but left work feeling pretty good because so many people made positive comments. I have no idea if they really felt that way, but … DON’T CARE. It made my day.

I have a public service announcement:

Healthcare clinics are not emergency rooms.

I talked to a patient’s husband today, and he was concerned about the amount of pain his wife was in.

Understandable. This is especially hard for men because it’s an instinct for them to “fix” things and they want to make everything better. When they can’t, they get frustrated.

I get that. I understand that.

However. We are a clinic. Our doctors are certainly in the business of fixing people, but if it’s an emergency and requires immediate attention, that’s what an emergency room is for. We schedule patients and our doctors rely on this schedule when they see patients. They rarely, RARELY, work patients in because they are in extreme pain.

Everyone who sees our doctors are in pain – get in line.

I try not to be annoyed with people who throw an absolute hissy fit about not being able to be seen the next day, but let’s be real – we’re not an emergency room. If a patient goes to the emergency room and our doctors take a look at whatever test they do in the emergency room and determine that the patient needs to be seen in the clinic, trust me, WE MAKE IT HAPPEN.

But the norm? Is to make an appointment for people who are in equal, if not more, pain.

I had a patient ask me how she was supposed to KNOW if she needed to go to the emergency room.

No one KNOWS when to go to the emergency room, there’s no hard and fast rule, everyone is different. Every situation is different. Everyone’s pain tolerance is different. You just listen to your body and you usually know, deep down, when something is not right. If you’ve reached that deep-down part of you that knows something is wrong and you feel scared because it FEELS wrong, then for the love of God, go to the emergency room.

That’s why it’s called an emergency room – it’s an emergency. We can’t do much for you in a clinic setting, we’re not physically equipped to handle emergencies – we’re equipped to provide a setting for the patient to speak with the doctor about a standing issue and nothing more.

I can understand why doctors become de-sensitized to the whole process … because there’s just so much of it. EVERYONE is in pain. EVERYONE wants to be fixed. And though our doctors are awesome, not everyone CAN be fixed surgically. Many patients can be fixed if they are just willing to make some lifestyle changes.

But alas, society today relies too much on quick fixes – whether that’s a pill, or a surgical procedure to correct whatever is wrong or not working properly.

So please. Do not treat clinics like your personal emergency room because it’s not that we don’t want to help you, it’s because we’re not physically equipped to do so.

Day-By-Day

Reason #356 Why I Love My Husband

Karen

He helps perfect strangers whenever their car breaks down near our house:

IMG_1332

After I posted my last blog entry I started to panic. Life is passing me by! And I haven’t been blogging about it! Life is too short not to document it!

So. I’m going to try and post a day-by-day post-entry paragraph every day this week. Just a little something-something to tell you about my day. It’s the little things that are worth remembering and now that I’ve been working for one year (my anniversary is the 19th!!), I feel like I’ve done a pretty poor job of documenting my life this past year because my job has sucked so much mental energy out of me.

Life is about so much more than working, am I right??

I’m giving my secret pal, (did you know I’ve been playing a secret pal game at work since March?? SO MUCH FUN), this dachshund coin purse tomorrow:

*squee* Cute, right??? You can find more cute dachshund stuff at their Etsy store. I’m also giving her a $5 gift card to a pet store – she has two dachshunds and LOVES her doggies.

I LIVE for this stuff. I LOVE shopping around and trying to find cute (relatively cheap) stuff for people. It’s a challenge. I overheard my secret pal the other day comment on how AWESOME she thought her secret pal was.

Well DUH. Was there ever any doubt?? HA!

My secret pal, on the other hand, has forgotten about me. 😦 It’s not the gifts that I miss, but the simple recognition.

Oh well. I have more fun giving than receiving anyway. We’re supposed to reveal ourselves when we have our Christmas party in a few months. I have no idea how much money I’ve spent on my secret pal, but I don’t care – I’m having too much fun with this game.

I have been so tired today!! I didn’t take my supplements today and I’m feeling it. (I take them during the week, not on the weekend). I don’t think I’m tired because of the supplements though, I really think I didn’t get enough sleep this past week. I’ve been hooked on this new TV series “Parenthood” and have been streaming about three shows a night on NetFlix.

I can’t help it – after a stressful day, it feels so good to just zone out in front of the TV.

It’s official. I’ve become a couch potato.

Blech.

Day-By-Day

Hello Louie

Karen

I’m not a baseball fan. Heck, I’m not much of a sports fan, period. But if we happen to score FREE tickets to a local sporting event, I’m not likely to turn that down. (Did I mention the tickets were FREE??)

The son of the bass player in Kevin’s band took over our local sportscaster’s job, and he gave Kevin two free tickets to our local minor league baseball team – the Springfield Cardinals. They built this nice stadium in the middle of our sagging downtown area and I thought they were a little crazy putting it there, actually. But it’s worked out for the best because it gave our downtown area a much needed economic kick in the pants.

Anyway. I’ve never been because did I mention I’m not a baseball fan? (And no offense to those of you out there that are? But *YAWN* – baseball is so boring, and long, and drawn out … show me the highlights, I’m good). But Kevin wanted to go, so okay, we went.

baseball3

I must confess, the stadium is pretty nice. And though the day was overcast and I was convinced we would get rained on (we didn’t), there were actually more people there than I thought there would be, given the iffy weather.

More people than I thought, but not nearly full … as you can see by this picture I took of Kevin.

baseball2

We had great seats. We were on the fourth row nearly behind home plate. It was the best seat at a sporting event I’ve ever had. And I admit, I enjoyed myself. Our team slaughtered the visiting team. We left at beginning of the seventh inning, right after the “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” song. (We had to go to Kevin’s mom’s birthday party). And after being there for two and a half hours, I was ready to leave.

That was the first baseball game I’d been to in … years. And most likely my last for years. But I’m glad we went. Life’s too short not to take advantage of those free deals. 😀

baseball

Issac brought us rain. It rained two days straight. We desperately needed it. This has been a long, dry, hot summer and our local water reserves hit the 60% levels – we were on the verge of declaring water restrictions. (And we may still depending on how much rain we get in the next few weeks).

I read something interesting on Facebook the other day … it went something like this:

God answers our prayers – are you paying attention?

We’ve been praying for rain for weeks now. And suddenly, we have rain coming. But it’s not just an ordinary rain storm that finally breaks our drought, it’s in the form of a hurricane that could have hit the coast at any other point, or followed a path around us, but it didn’t.

And don’t you find it interesting that the storm was named Issac? The name of an important man in the Bible? Why not Bob, or Dale, or Greg? Nope. Issac. It was God’s way of letting us know that he answered our prayers.

God works in wonderful ways, doesn’t he?

This past week was crazy at work. We had four doctors every day, except for Friday. I have never focused more, or juggled more things at once than I have this past week.

And that was just ONE WEEK. Nearly every day my job challenges me on levels I never dreamed of. I am constantly being pushed to my limits and though I come home mentally wiped out, it’s accompanied by a deep sense of satisfaction.

I can honestly say that after working this job? There is really NOTHING I can’t do. If I can tackle an industry that I know nothing about and not only stay above water but consistently tread it, then I can do ANYTHING.

I’ve been polishing up my resume. I don’t really have anything specific in mind, but I do have my eye on one company I think I’d like to work for. I’m going to do my homework though and make sure this is what I want to do before just holding my nose and jumping in again. I’m not sure I’m really qualified to work for this company, but I’m going to give it a shot.

Like I said, if I can handle the crazy world of health care, I can handle anything.

Notices have been going out about registering for the flu shot. If nothing comes along before the end of October, then I’ll be getting mine in order to buy myself more time to find another job. As we all know, jobs aren’t exactly falling off trees right now. (Thanks to you-know-who).

I’m waiting until the end of October just in case it makes me sick and I have to miss anything. I can tell you this, if that poison makes me sick, I’m going to be PISSED.

The boys are living their lives. I barely see them anymore. We all meet up for dinner, but being boys, they aren’t exactly spilling their guts about their days.

I’ve retired my taxi mom hat. Dude has been driving himself places for a few years now and Jazz has been driving himself to school and band practices. It’s weird and I miss it, but it’s also strangely liberating. Now … if the boys would just get jobs, I think I could breathe a little easier.

My children have graduated into roommates and it’s a strange feeling.

This three-day weekend has been awesome. But strangely, I’m ready to go back to work.

There’s clearly something wrong with me.

Day-By-Day

A Lot Happened Yesterday

Karen

Jazz drove to band practice, by himself, for the first time last night.

FOR. THE. FIRST. TIME.

I hate the first time solo driving. H.A.T.E. I.T

I’m a nervous wreck. My imagination goes crazy and until my boys text me to tell me they arrived safe and alive, I’m pretty sure I forget to breathe in that time period.

When Jazz arrived, he sent me this text:

“Had a nice relaxing drive over here.”

haha! I smiled. I chuckled. I savored my proud mom moment … and then I got to thinking, Wait. Was that really code for – I nearly got T-boned three times on the way over here??

See? My imagination is really a curse.

At 9:00 p.m. – I started watching the clock. It was time for him to come home and I was praying that we had practiced enough night driving for him to know how to handle it on his own. I started cursing myself for not taking him out night driving more often.

I was watching “Fringe”, (freaky series, by the way), when I heard the garage door open. (Kevin has been driving his car, instead of his truck, to save on gas, and he’s been parking in the garage. When Jazz starts driving to school this fall, he’ll park his car outside next to Dude).

I smiled. My chest swelled and I went out to meet him.

He was home safe and sound – I could begin breathing again.

Jazz got out of the car, smiling from ear-to-ear. He LOVED it. I knew he would. He’s like me in a lot of ways and I KNEW the moment he got a taste of freedom … it was all over. We have crossed that childhood/man threshold. One part of me is sad, two parts of me is ecstatic.

He said he got a lot of attention from his band members when they found out he drove himself to practice.

I said, “of course you got a lot of attention. I’m betting there were quite a few girls” (actually, two specifically come to mind because I’m pretty sure they have a crush on him) who immediately thought, “‘Oh COOL. Jazz is driving, which means he has a car, which means we can go out on a DATE!'”

He blushed, ducked his head and began to chuckle.

I knew by his reaction I had hit the nail on the head.

Now I’m a bit worried about his senior year .. haha!

I came home from work yesterday and Dude was gone.

My first reaction is to always freak out because Dude? NEVER goes anywhere unless he has somewhere to go. I knew class had been over for hours and curiously, his car was still parked in the driveway.

When I asked Jazz where he had gone, some friends had come by and picked him up.

Dude doesn’t have a lot of friends; Dude has a few GOOD friends.

His friends dropped him off while we were sitting at the dinner table.

We asked him some questions and Dude answered them – he never elaborates, so we have to ask him creative questions in order for us to find out anything.

He had hung out with his friends and had a good time.

Swell.

And then, just in casual conversation and in passing, Dude says something about going to a Japanese-style restaurant for lunch.

I don’t know why this shocked me, but it did.

Did he have money?? Was my first thought and yes, he had some money on him (his own money) and he paid for his own meal.

I was so proud of him. I know it’s silly, it’s lunch out, but it was with his friends and it was totally planned by him. I had absolutely nothing to do with it – I didn’t even know about any of this until after the fact.

And this is how it should be. I’m just proud because … he’s becoming his own person. He’s slowly coming out of his shell and exploring the world on his own.

It’s sort of exciting, to be honest.

I had a Gyno appointment yesterday. My doctor wanted to check on my periods. Remember when I said I haven’t had a period in a while (it’s been three months now). Well. The doctor doesn’t just want to come right out and tell me I’m in menopause, so he drew some blood and is going to run some tests to see what’s going on. He also gave me a prescription for something that is supposed to try and MAKE my body shed the lining of my girl parts – just to see if there’s anything still there, or if it’s clogged up or something.

Then he talked to me about taking hormones.

Now ya’ll KNOW how I feel about the flu vaccine (seriously, just search flu vaccine – there are a ton of entries), so you can guess how I feel about taking hormones. But I told the doctor I would do some research and get back to him.

So the verdict? I still don’t know if I’m peri-menopausal or not, but I’m guessing I’m definitely knocking on that specific aging door.

Day-By-Day, Work Stuff

My First 5K, Meetings Suck, Color Change

Karen

Hold up, ya’ll … guess what I just got talked into …

Yep. My first 5K.

*high fives the monitor*

Oh yeah. I’m walking (cause who are we kidding, I don’t run, okay, maybe I run a little, and by a little, I mean about 20 steps) the 5K. Which, I just found out today, works out to be about 3.5 miles and NOT five miles like I first thought it was. Ha! (And you only THOUGHT I was an idiot!)

When I found out it was only 3.5(ish) miles, I was all like, “I’ll do it!” Cause I walk 3+ miles now whenever I do the treadmill thing.

Easy peasy.

So yeah. A bunch of us at work are going to do this and I can’t wait, actually. I don’t plan on hanging out with them the entire event, but it’ll be fun to start off with them and then talk/laugh about it later. And I LOVE walking outdoors. I’ll have my iPod playing some sweet walking tunes and it’s going to be fun zipping through all of the other walkers as I pump my arms and speed walk my way to the finish line.

(I’m one of those dorky walkers who pumps her arms … you know the ones I’m talking about. And don’t even tell me you don’t snort with amusement when you see them cause honestly? It does look pretty stupid. But it’s a GREAT workout for your arms).

Now I just hope it doesn’t rain cause this thing is a rain/shine sort of event.

I’m excited. I’ve been wanting to do one of these for a long time and now I have an excuse to do it. And it’s for a good cause. We’re raising money for the Children’s Miracle Network, a charity close to my heart (Dude was a preemie), and we’re raising money for the CARE mobile specifically, which is a mobile unit that doles out free health/dental care to about 10,000 children in surrounding areas every year.

Sweet!

I’ll be writing more about my experiences later. Stay tuned!

Yesterday was Administrative Professionals’ day. I had no idea. It’s not like I have that day clearly marked in red on my calendar and make a point of counting down the days until it arrives.

*ahem*

No really. I had no idea the day even existed until one of the nurses I work the closest with came up to me and said, “What type of topping do you want on your ice cream sundae?”

“Come again?”

“What do you want on your sundae? We have ….”

“Who’s paying for this?” I asked. (Cause nothing’s free, remember??)

She mumbled something, but I didn’t catch it. I learned from other people what day it was.

So, it was fun to be served by my boss.

I could get used to that. 🙂

I could get used to having free ice cream sundaes, too.

We had a meeting at 7:30 today. I wish they would get off the meetings kick. Meetings are okay, about once a month. But this bi-weekly thing is just annoying.

Especially when your boss calls in sick and doesn’t even make it in after she made a point of sending everyone a reminder email the day before.

And when we all sit around and stare at each other because there’s no one there to lead the meeting and we really don’t have anything to talk about.

TALK ABOUT ANNOYING.

Hey. I got an hour overtime so I’m not complaining … too loudly.

But still. I’m lobbying for monthly meetings from now on because I would rather sleep in an extra thirty minutes, quite frankly.

So we all voted on our next color. For those of you that don’t know, we wear different colored scrubs every day.

Olive on Monday
Eggplant on Tuesday
Teal on Wednesday
Lavender on Thursday (*puke*)
Wine on Friday

Olive was the oldest color, so that’s now out. And though I TRIED to rally the troops to get rid of that gawd-awful lavender color (seriously, it’s like we’re all at work in our pajamas – I DESPISE that color, i.e. Thursdays), I was out voted.

Olive is out and Charcoal Gray is in. (It’s technically called “pewter” in the Cherokee brand).

Now. If I can only persuade the girls to mix the colors/days up a bit so that we end up wearing that gawd-awful Lavender color (*puke*) on Fridays instead of Thursdays, because Fridays are our slow day and we rarely have a doctor in on Fridays, so there won’t be that many people who SEE us in our PJ’s …

I’m a rebel, people. I’ll have those girls eating out of the palm of my hand before very long, mark my words.

Day-By-Day, New Bathrooms

I Need Ten Hours of Sleep. Walls! Floor! Update on Sons.

Karen

I went to bed at 8:00 o’clock last night …

… actually, it was 7:58. I hadn’t slept well the night before and I was BRAIN DEAD. Wednesday was pretty crazy at work and it took every last brain cell (which, I only have about 15 to begin with), to get through the day.

You know how you can tell about how many hours of sleep you need in order to feel “good”? Well. I think ten is MY magic number.

If I only had TIME to get ten hours of sleep a night …

The bathrooms are coming along … more slowly now, but we’re getting there.

Bathroom 2-9-12

The sheet rock/tile guy came yesterday and worked on patching up our walls. He’ll finish patching the walls today. He also put the backer board down in the back bathroom and will likely tile that room today. I imagine he’ll put the toilet in as well so he can take the toilet out of the front bathroom and put the backer board down in that room. (They HAVE to leave us at least ONE toilet, right??)

The plumbing has been rerouted and everything has been switched around. So, the hard part is done (I think). Kevin got under the house this past weekend and rerouted the pipes to make a vent in the front bathroom – it looks like he’s going to have to get under the house again this weekend and fix the back bathroom vent. Apparently, the floor vents weren’t part of our contract. *sigh*

We’re going on two weeks now and I’m SO READY TO HAVE OUR BATHROOMS BACK. However, we’re pretty pleased with how they’re turning out and I’m looking forward to the “beautifying” stage.

Dude seems to like going to college. He’s taking three classes: Monday, Wednesday and Friday. His first class is at 9:00 and he’s usually home around 1:00. (I’m assuming, since I’m never here). He also picks Jazz up from school every day. And he took Jazz to the dentist yesterday to get a wire clipped. I really appreciate his flexibility as it takes some pressure off me and Kevin. I do worry about them running around, but honestly, I just try not to think about it.

He’s been selling a lot of books in the book store. He also sold a piece of electronic equipment that my dad gave him to list on eBay. So he’s been busy packing up stuff – he’s also been busy upgrading his computer equipment. I sort of lectured him about saving his money instead of spending it, but then Kevin sort of vetos my lecture with, “it’s his money, he can spend it as he sees fit.” Which is true, but he’s also a 19-year old man who needs to start thinking about getting a steady job and MOVING OUT at some point. I love my son, but I refuse to support him the rest of his life – or well into his twenties, whichever comes first.

We have a scheduling meeting at Jazz’s school tonight – SENIOR YEAR HERE WE COME!!!!! I can’t believe he’s going to be a senior. There are about three classes/credits HE MUST have this next year in order to graduate. I don’t think these particular classes are offered in the summer months, so HE MUST have these classes. I hope he gets into them, otherwise, I’m going to have to talk to his counselor and make it happen.

As it stands now, Jazz will NOT have to take any summer classes this go around. He’s taken summer classes for the past two summers now and I know he’s really looking forward to NOT taking classes this summer. I hope it works out that way.

Crap. It’s now 6:44 and I haven’t even taken a shower yet. I need to get moving – I have a LOT of work to do. (As Kevin likes to “affectionately” tell me on a daily basis. It’s a good thing I love that man …)

Why does it smell like hotdogs in here?!?

Gross.

Day-By-Day

Here’s your Voucher, For Your Certificate, For Your Free Turkey

Karen

This little guy has nothing to do with a turkey, but he's cute and who cares.
We got a free turkey today.

Actually. We got our vouchers for a free turkey last week.

I went and picked up the CERTIFICATE today before I went into work.

Now. I get to cash that certificate in and get a free turkey from Price Cutter.

Why my company didn’t just give us the certificates to begin with and skip the voucher stage is beyond me.

I suppose they wanted to make us come up to the hospital so they could make a fuss over us. Which. Okay. But I was in a hurry to get to work and I felt sort of silly being made a fuss over, so I simply walked in, switched out my voucher for my certificate (silly, I know), and left with a smile and an “excuse me.”

It was a nice gesture, though. My company had some gifts displayed that you could buy along with food and even a Santa that you could have your picture taken with. (And to my complete surprise, a few of the people actually took advantage of that. Call me crazy, but watching grown women sitting on some “old” man’s lap seems a little pervish to me, but I’m a prude, so …)

I have no idea what we’re going to do with a turkey. I mean, we’ll EAT it, of course, but Kevin and I are already talking about different left over ideas for all of the turkey we’re sure to have left over. Sure. I have two teenage boys, but they’re not exactly vacuums in the food department – evidenced with their anorexic appearances. (Not eating disorders, just over-active metabolisms. They actually inherited that from me and Kevin. I know. It’s hard to believe I was EVER as skinny as a bean pole but yep, once upon a time … in the land before children …)

Kevin and Dude are hitting the town tomorrow. We need five gag gifts. We’re having Christmas at my folks’ house on Saturday and we have nothing to offer.

Other than our sparkling personalities, of course.

I’m looking forward to seeing what they come up with. They mentioned something about hitting the flea markets …

If you’re reading this and happen to be a member of my family … be afraid. Be very afraid.