Family Gatherings

This year we had our "pre-Christmas" party with my mom's family at my sister Becky's house. She's a realtor, can you tell?

Now doesn't that look cozy?

Mom, during our annual wrapping paper fight!

We had lasagna for dinner. My grandma made sure we had plenty of wine to go with our Italian themed pasta dinner.
Overall I've really been enjoying the holiday season and the break from school spending some time with friends and family. I hope that all you have been enjoying yourselves too!

The Quicky Update

Hello dear readers (who might actually only be my own sister) I haven't blogged in a long time so I thought I should give you all the "quicky update."
Christmas Eve/Christmas: I'm at work...But I'm eating some really yummy potluck food and I'm looking forward to my mom's sticky buns in the morning.
Work: Last night I got to direct a code and push the shock button 7 times! Tonight I'm blogging at work, enough said.
The Rwanda Project: My formal proposal passed it's final "thingy." I got a leave of absence from work for the month of May. I got some of the donated medical supplies shipped with a container going to Burundi. I'm working on creating a non profit organization to facilitate such donations and exchanges of supplies for the longer term.
School: It's over! I miss students I had in clinical group through, they were a fun bunch. I won't have any students next quarter so I'll be concentrating on the Rwanda project.
Life in general: I'm tired and I want to go to bed!

Nighttime Trauma/Drama

My final proposal for the Rwanda project was due by midnight on Tuesday. My previous draft needed some serious revision to make the mark and I was pretty much busy every second of everyday until the deadline. Unfortunately I had to work that night at the hospital so I took my trusty laptop with me and called my trusty editor in Arizona as I was walking into work.
One of my patients wasn't doing so well so I thought that I would encamp myself in his room and work on my proposal close by. I just sat and prayed and asking God to hold things over until midnight. But alas that was apparently not part of the plan and found myself manually ventilating my patient and eventually intubating him. Of course while all this is happening I'm emailing my editor in Arizona. To add to the shear irony of this event I got an email from Julie (who is already in Rwanda) telling me that there had just been a bus accident and that they were expecting some pretty serious trauma patients at the hospital. Of course the bus accident gives a great argument for the need for my project but I've got to tell you that moment was a little surreal. I felt like I was on a nighttime drama TV show like ER or Scrubs or something. A little too ironic, don't you think?

But Darn it, the Students Like Me...

A card from the students!
I just finished and submitted my proposal and my final portfolio. I'm not exactly proud of them however as I feel there is MUCH to be improved upon. It wasn't too terrible, but it wasn't the best either. Just when I was feeling a little doubtful and down over the whole thing I got a little card from some of my students I had this quarter. Inside where tucked some rave reviews.
"April is a wonderful instructor with a very positive attitude. I found her to be a wealth of knowledge that she was always willing to share."
"April was very valuable in our learning process this quarter. She was always available, knowledgeable, helpful, patient and fun."
"I have nothing but glowing things to say. We're been very lucky to have you on the floor."
"I thought you were very involved and very helpful with it being our first quarter. I really appreciated how you always tried to keep us on our feet and test us on the the info and on our patients. Thank you for being so upbeat and keeping the mood bright and cheerful!"
I'm might be a pretty crappy technical writer but darn it, my students like me! They gave me confirmation that I'm doing exactly what it is that I'm supposed to be doing and I couldn't be more proud of them either. They will all be fantastic nurses and I would be honored to work with any of them.

Five Minutes Later...

As I said in my last blog entry; "If you don't like the weather in Seattle, just wait five minutes." Well... It's been five minutes! Yesterday on my way home from campus I found that my freeway on ramp had been closed due to flooding. Fortunately my house is on the top of a fairly large hill and the ground water seems to be controlable. However, everything I need to get to is at the bottom of the hill. This morning when I left to teach clinicals I had to go "upstream" to get the on freeway. For those of you reading this blog from other states, parts of Washington got 15 inches of rain in 24 hours and a 20 mile stretch of I5 is closed due to extensive flooding. This means that if you want to go to Oregon, you have to drive over the pass and into Eastern Washington to get there.
This is an intersection just a couple of blocks from my house!

A Momentary Winter Wonderland

On Saturday I woke up to snow. By about 2pm it was really starting to come down hard. I left early for work to give myself enough to time make it through traffic and get to campus before the snow got too bad. I also had an ulterior motive of wanting to see what upper campus looked like in the snow! Check this out:

I should have known better than to take a walk on a snowy college campus on a weekend! I got stuck in snowball crossfire in my scrubs, BRR...

By the end of my 12 hour shift the snow in the Seattle had pretty much mented, but I came home to this!

As is the saying around here; "If you don't like the weather in Seattle, just wait about five minutes."

Prizes in Cereal Boxes

On Wednesday, November 28th 2007 I finished my very last NEST class and earned my graduate certificate as Nurse Educator. That afternoon I made my last curriculum presentation using nothing but cereal boxes, rubber bands, and stuffed crust pizza. Now that I think about it, it's kinda funny; I really did get my teaching certificate out of a cereal box!
After that class the teacher presented us with cupcakes that had little flags sticking out of the top of them that said "Congratulations Nurse Educator." It was actually kind of endearing. That day I walked into University of Washington as a nurse and walked out as a nurse educator. As I was hiking across campus that dark raining afternoon, I couldn't help but think of how oddly anticlimactic that actually was... It's not really a bad thing, or even a big thing, it's just a thing.
I drove off campus and treated myself to a sandwich. After that I went to a Bible study,it was the first time I had gone to a Bible study since I started graduate school and I couldn't have thought of a better way to celebrate.
But don't worry folks, this isn't the end. That was only the certificate I finished, I still have to defend my thesis before I get the degree!

Stuffed Crust Pizza, Cereal Boxes and Rubberbands Oh My!

Question: What can you make out of cereal boxes, stuffed crust pizza and rubber bands?
Answer: A very "innovative" lesson on coronary artery disease.
Yesterday I had to teach a lesson on coronary artery disease in a post clinical conference. The problem was that I would be teaching the class in a room that had only a white board. In a world where everyone expects a PowerPoint that can be a very challenging task indeed.
So... a couple of hours on Monday night and a few bowls of cereal later, I found myself wiring a giant cardboard sternum. After adding a clavicle, a humorous, a scapula, and a couple of rubber bands; I had a model with which to demonstrate the importance of sternal precautions. Add to that a stuffed crust pizza as an illustration of arterial plaque and a story about a beer bellied, bare chested football fan and you've got yourself a lesson.

My Office Runneth Over

My office has been taken over by several hundred pounds of donated medical supplies!
Most of these supplies have come to be by private donors via my mom who just so happens to be the receptionist at World Vision. She gets Several calls a week from individuals who want to donate left over medical supplies to charity. World Vision is unable to accept these donations as they are not bulk so mom sends them to me.
Sadly, most of these people are families who have had a loved one with a terminal illness who has just recently passed away. It's important for these folks to find a way to help others through the death of thier loved one as it is a part of the healing process and it honors the memory thier family member. Just a few days ago a women dropped off several large boxes of medical supplies that were left over from her daughter. She also wrote me a beautiful letter with a picture of her daughter. That night I wrote an email to my friend Julie in Rwanda regarding the supplies. I wasn't too sure what she could use there at Kibogora but praise the Lord, it turns out I had just recieved some supplies that are apparently very needed and extremely hard to get in Rwanda! What a joy it was to be able to write a letter to a greiving mother to tell her where these supplies are going and how they are helping others! Last year I had a similair such situation with a family who had lost a loved one. It turns out that we were able to take nearly all of those supplies with us to Mexico City to donate to the clinic that we worked in. I have so many amazing stories about those supplies and we used them.
Sometimes it's a little ackward for me to meet these people, pick up supplies, or talk with them over the phone but I'm begining to realize that in a way it a true ministry.

Rwanda or Bust!

I've been working on my thesis/scholarly project for a couple of months now. My original plan was to create a curriculum for an advanced medical surgical nursing class which I would then teach during spring semester. The proposal for the class had gone through the office of the Provost, gotten approved and had been added to the course catalog. I had written a syllabus, a course outline, and a couple lesson plans when situations beyond my control swallowed up my project. Despite heroic efforts for its resuscitation, I was unable to revive it. I was three days from a deadline and was without a project proposal and no time to get over the nearly disabling disappointment of loosing my previous project. This had the potential to be a major setback pushing my graduation date further away.
To make a long story short (which I'm beginning to think I'm incapable of doing) an amazing opportunity came up for a project in Rwanda. Last year a former teacher had introduced me a young missionary nurse bound for Rwanda. Julie was about to leave the US for Rwanda where she would work as nurse educator in a large mission hospital there. The two of us had been emailing back and forth since last February.
The hospital in Rwanda has just recently opened an emergency room. Since this hospital has never before had an ER the nurses have had little exposure to what we would call ER nursing.
I was invited to develop a training program that helps prepare nurses to work in the ER. The only easy part about this project is getting excited about it, the rest of it is going to be quite the challenge. First of all I had to present this idea to my thesis advisor to get it approved. I am perfectly aware that the whole idea seems absolutely crazy so I knew that getting it approved would be no easy task.
We did it! On November 3rd at 0400 am my project was given the go ahead. It was rather amazing because I was at work and able to be on my email, Rwanda is 9 hours ahead of us, and my advisor was in Japan at the time which is 16 hours ahead (I think). So... with 15 emails, lots of prayer and three hours my project was approved on the very day of it's first deadline. I now had 20 hours left for a literature review and more formal proposal.
During those three hours of trying to get my project passed my advisor asked "what do you know about emergency medicine in resource constrained areas of the world?" When I told her about some of my rather random sounding experiences she emailed me back with: OK, you've convinced me that you have the experience to do this. Both you and I know that there is no "strange way" that all of this is unfolding. If you feel like God is leading you this way, go for it!" So here I am, going for it. I'll keep you all posted as the details develop.

The Perks of Living and Working in the Northwest

I've always been a "come early to work" kind of gal ever since my first job at the swimming pool. Even after all these years my coworkers from the previous shift always find it necessary to comment on my early arrival. I leave early on purpose to avoid traffic and have some time to relax before work. In the Spring, Summer, and early Fall before it gets dark; I like to take walks around the campus and arboretum before starting my 12 shift.
University of Washington Medical Center just so happens to be right next to the oceanography building and right on the ship canal. A few days ago as I was walking by this is what I saw:

After watching the fish for awhile I decided to pick up the pace a little on my walking a get some exercise to help we muster up enough energy for the night ahead. They say taking the stairs in a great way to get exercise but it's 10 times more fun outside and next to water. I call this the "Stress Test":

I've certainly noticed a difference how I alert I am during the shift and even my attitude toward working on days when I have a nice walk and days that I don't. I'm thankful that I work at a place that is so interesting to walk around.

Thanksgiving Just a Little Early

The last day of July I got an email in UW mailbox saying that all UW employee's who have used a certain amount of tuition exemption in the last year will be taxed for the worth of the tuition as if it were income. For graduate student who took classes every quarter including summer, that amounts to quite a bit. What's even worse was that we would be taxed for a years worth of tuition all in the month of August. Of course I had just quit my ambulance job and my renter had just gotten married and moved out. My paycheck for August turned out less than half of what it usually is!
A few weeks later one of the clinical instructors at Northwest tripped and broke her ankle while a t clinicals. While that is terribly unfortunate and I would never wish that to happen, it did give me a contract for this semester at NU. It's by no means a whole lot of money, but just enough to pay to bills. It's amazing how God provides!

The Exploitation of Graduate Students

I just realized I hadn't posted in a while and thought that I should at least type a quick something. Truth be told I can't really think of anything that exciting to say. However, sometimes we just need a platform to vent. I thought that this might be the answer as I don't think many people read this on a regular basis and you can always choose not to read it.
The other day I was talking with one of the full time faculty members at Northwest. She discussing a conference she wanted to go to but the conference was during school hours and was a several day event. She went on to say that this seems to happen frequently; a great conference of nursing faculty comes up but it's always during school hours. "How can anyone attend these conferences?"
The answer is simple, it's all about the exploitation of graduate students... "Mentor" a graduate student and then make them teach your class while you go and do your "research" and poster presentations. It's all about cheap (free in most cases) labor.
So... School has started for me once again. This quarter I'm taking 9 credits, five of them are teaching credits and 4 are related to my thesis. I tried to get my clinical teaching hours back at Northwest but I was told by UW that they wanted to keep me here. I met with my new mentor on Monday (who incidentally has 2 of us grad. students) and we devised a schedule for my clinical hours. I would work in the lab on Mondays and teach clinical on an occasional Tuesday. Thinking that I actually had a bit of a jump on things and had worked out my schedule to accommodate this, I was actually starting to get a little excited about what I might learn this quarter.
So Tuesday morning I made my way to clinical orientation. Tuesday night I went to work and after work I went to school ALL DAY LONG.
While in my education class my colleague (fellow grad with the same mentor) and I were approached by our instructor who told use we could no longer work in the lab and must do our hours teaching clinical at Swedish hospital cherry hill campus on Tuesdays. BLIN! So you mean to tell me that I have to teach somebody else's clinical all day Tuesday then go work that night and school the next morning. After 27 hours of no sleep and thinking about everything that has happened to me in this program, it certainly looks like I'm being sought out for trouble. I almost wanted to say: "And when were you going to tell me this? Would you like to call my boss and tell him why I won't be coming to work on Tuesday or would you like me to skip your class?" I'm inclined to think that this scheduling might be a whole lot easier for everyone if I could just go back from whenst I came and do my clinical teaching at Northwest. I would rather be exploited by them anyway.
On a positive I was invited to be on the curriculum committee at Northwest. I'm hoping that this will also give me some insight and experience with curriculum development and evaluation that will help me with my thesis and this quarters teaching project.

The Wonder of the Bus

I've worked at University of Washington for over three years now and for over three years I've fought traffic over the 520 bridge and 522 over the top of Lake Washington. Not anymore... I've finally discovered the ST express bus!
As a mentor for new ICU nurses I am required to have meeting times out side of work with my mentee. Since we both commute from the Eastside we figured out that by occasionally take the bus to work together we can get our time in most efficiently. Our "bus dates" were apparently just the kick I needed to get me started commuting to Seattle by bus regularly.
Our first semester nursing students at NU have a behavior modification project assignment. They have to choose a health goal to work on for 30 days. Some students have chosen exercise programs, sleep hygiene, or weight loss goals for example. I was thinking of this assignment one day as I was taking the bus and was inspired to do the project with them but make my goal be related to commuting by bus. So... I will embark on my journey and do a little experiment/research related to commuting by bus. I will attempt to see if the bus saves me money (or rather how much), saves time, makes me exercise more, and reduces emissions therefore increasing the health of my community. Stay tuned for the results!

Therapeutic Bread Baking

There's something about fall that really makes me want to bake bread. I find it oddly therapeutic. I love to knead the warm dough, raise it in my steamy oven, punch it mercilessly, form it in to pretty shapes, raise it again, glaze it and bake it. The best part is that in the end you end up with something beautiful and delicious. I thought I would share my new favorite bread recipe with you. It started out as recipe for raisin challah, but I don't like raisins or white breads so I played with it a little and ended up with some really yummy cranberry orange baby challahs.
Cranberry Orange Baby Challahs
Here's what you need:
2 tablespoons of dry yeast
1 3/4 cups of warm water
1/3 cup of sugar plus 2 teaspoons sugar
1/3 cup honey
3 1/2 teaspoons of salt
1/2 cup vegetable oil
3 eggs plus 2 yolks
3 cups wheat flour
3 1/2-4 1/2 cups white flour
6 ounces dried cranberries

Glaze:
2 tablespoons of orange juice concentrate
2 tablespoons water
1 1/2 cups powered sugar
orange peel (dried or fresh)

Stir together yeast, warm water and the two teaspoons of sugar. Let stand for a few minutes until yeast is dissolved and mixture is slightly bubbly.
Stir in the rest of the sugar, salt and honey. Add moist ingredients all at once.
Start adding flour slowly starting with the three cups of wheat flour then add the cranberries, then start adding white flour one cup at a time until dough is soft and elastic but not sticky.
Place the dough into a lightly greased bowl and rise in a warm moist place (covered with damp flour sack towel) for approx. 1 1/2 hours. Divide dough into 37 equally sized pieces. Roll each piece into an approx. 10 inch snake and then tie into a tight knot. Arrange the challahs onto baking sheets and rise once again from approx 1/2 hour.
Bake at 400 degrees for the first 12 minutes, then reduce heat to 350 degrees and bake an additional 15 minutes.
NOTE: Baking times may vary according the size of your challahs, your oven,your baking sheets, and my sometimes rather poor approximations. Keep a close eye on them as it would be a terrible shame it they burnt to a crisp on account of my poor instructions.

While your bread is baking start mixing the glaze:
Pour you orange concentrate, water, and powered sugar into a small bowl and mix it like the dickens. It might require more water to get it to the Constancy of a thick syrup. When the breads are still warm, paint on the glaze making sure to get it into all the nooks and crannies. Before the glaze sets, sprinkle the tops of your breads with orange peel.
Lastly, but most importantly, enjoy these fresh in the company of good friends.

Procrastination At Its Best

Some people will do anything to avoid working, I'm one of them. Last week I started writing a syllabus for the new class I will be teaching next semester. Unfortunately I didn't get much further than "started" before I ended up with a huge block. So... the rest of this week I've spent procrastinating and I'm getting very good at it. So far in my avoidance of writing I've learned to take the bus to the UW campus and back from Redmond, made 13 jars of blackberry jam, 1 blackberry pie, and one pan of blackberry cobbler, nearly cleaned out my garage, attended a faculty meeting where I did nothing but smile and nod, and to top it all off threw a rather elaborate impromptu dinner party for 8 last night.
Unfortunately since today is Friday I need to email a draft of my syllabus to the powers that be, I must stop with the procrastination. Oh wait, does this count?

Waterski to Work Day

You know it's fall when Starbuck's has the pumpkin spice latte back on the menu. It's already September, can you believe it? My sister wanted to take her boat out one last time before the weather starts to go bad so she invited me to go boating with her. Of course as Murphy's law goes, I was scheduled to work. Conveniently, the hospital just so happens to be lakefront! Hmm... Are any of you thinking what I'm thinking? It's waterski to work day!
Actually, the Montlake Cut and around 520 are "no wake" zones, but we certainly skied as close to things as legally possible and I got to miss traffic across the bridge.

Quilting Bee

I thought I had to work tonight but as it turns out, I didn't. To make a long story short, somehow I ended up at a quilting bee with my sister. It was at a sewing shop that sells fancy sewing and quilting machines. I found myself surrounded by mostly middle aged to elderly quilt crazed women. I overheard some of their conversations: Two elderly women talking about their experiences when their husbands died. Two women talking about being special ed teachers. Three mothers talking about their sons who had joined the military. A lady talking about how ugly she thinks her sofa is. A deaf woman apparently signing about wanting to go on a quilting cruise. A lady talking about her plans to go on a quilting retreat. The unveiling of the newest quilting/embroidery machine (which incidentally costs $9000).
All of the women there were either working on quilts or some type of embroidery. I sat there working my couch reupholstering project I had started 3 years ago. But hey, I got to use a fancy sewing machine! I was later filled in by my sister that a Pfaff is like the BMW of the sewing machine world, quality German engineering.
I didn't quite finish project "hideous sofa" but I'm certainly a lot closer as we all sewed until midnight. I suppose it was kinda fun...

Into the Wild Blue Yonder

I've known the Olson family since they moved here form Oregon seven years ago. I've been working with Angela, the oldest of the three sisters, on the Mexicali trips ever since. In that time the Olson sisters Angela, Katrina, and Sherilyn have become family.
It's been fun to be a "big sister" and watch them all grow up to become beautiful godly young women. Angela is now off in Phoenix newly graduated from ASU. Katrina seems to have met the man of dreams. Now Sherilyn, the youngest, just left "into the wild blue yonder" with the Air Force. I remember when she decided to join and everyone was trying to talk her out of it. I must say I was a little concerned too, at least at first. Then we met up for a little "minty coffee." After chatting, I know beyond the shadow of doubt that she joined for all the right reasons.
Last Friday I sat on Sherilyn's bedroom floor helping her pack up before shipping off.
Sherilyn, if you're reading this you really aren't vein and this blog really is about you. I'm proud of you, save up your rice krispies for me.

Recharging

Monday night was my first night off after several days work. That evening I was sitting on my couch enjoying a cup of coffee when I noticed a flash of lightning through my sliding glass door. It silhouetted the trees in my backyard against the night sky. The funny thing was (at least for this area) that it was a rather warm and thus far dry evening outside.
When I was a child I used to love to sit by the window and count the flashes of lightning whenever we had storm. It was almost mesmerizing. Now, 20 years later I find myself still glued to the window and even more intrigued by it. Believe it or not I found it quite relaxing. I didn't have to be anywhere, I didn't have to do anything; all I had to do was watch and wonder.
I couldn't help but think of the cardiac cycle, how electricity travels through the heart's circuit and creates life's rhythm (at least that's how it's supposed to go). And so I sat once again counting the flashes of lightening. I awoke several hours later on my couch facing the window thinking about how the sky "repolarizes".

Spare Change

On Sunday I had a wonderful opportunity to have dinner with a nurse bound for Rwanda. We were introduced to each other via email by the founder of Vista Ministries whom we had both worked with in other missions contexts. We had been emailing one another since Feb. while I was in Mexico City. We are hoping to develop some type of working relationship between Kibogora Hospital in Rwanda and the school of nursing here at Northwest.
We had a good time sharing stories, thoughts, hopes, dreams, and visions for the future. When we ended our visit the last thing she said to me was, "I hope the next time I see you will be in the Kigali airport."
That night I went home and dumped out my infamous coffee can which I put all my spare change into at the end of the week. The coffee can has historically been my "missions trip fund." I started to count how much I had saved up and soon found out that it wasn't near enough for an international plane ticket. It's going to take a long time to save up that much spare change.
I thought more about my new friend and how exciting but scarey it must be for her to leave her home and her family and her church to go to place that is so much different from the place we call home. I must say, that takes a lot more than spare change; that even takes more than an arm and leg, it takes your entire self.
I have to ask myself, am I giving the future God has for me just the change left in my pocket at the end of the day or am I giving Him the person that wears the pocketed garment? Am I living a "spare change" life or "fully invested" life? That's something to think about...

No Longer Homeless

Last week I saw our new Health and Sciences building at Northwest University for the first time. As I walked in I saw Dr. Christensen, the dean, (a.k.a. my boss) and Ramona our program coordinator moving equipment into the new skills lab. Wow, the place in absolutely amazing. The halls are so spacious you could drive a car through them. The classrooms (yes that's pleural) each have the capacity for 54 students. There is a very nice student lounge, a computer lab, and lots of bathrooms! But wait, there's more... Dr. C. then gave me a little tour of the rest of the new school of nursing. He ended the tour right in front of room 242 which had my name on it! That's right folks, my very own office. I took that as meaning I am no longer orphaned!?!

This is my new office. I know, it sort of resembles a closet doesn't it. It's actually bigger than it looks, and it has even more space now that I made them take away some of the excessive furniture. At any rate, this a big improvement since last year. I was homeless then and most of the time when I was working on campus I went to the students computer lab. Sometimes I could get into the adjunct office but once I got in there I had to share a desk with Annalee Oakes. For those of you who don't know, Dr. Oakes is the biggest nursing Guru who ever lived. She was the former dean of SPU's school of nursing and is known around the world. Secretly I enjoyed sitting at her desk (though I was never brave enough to put my feet on it).
This year I will be designing and teaching my own class. I am developing curriculum for an Advanced Medical/Surgical Nursing course which will be a 400 level course required for all seniors. This will double as my thesis/scholarly project. In many ways I'm glad it's already scheduled into to the Spring semester. This will keep me from being one of those perpetual thesis writers. (I hope...)
It's just been so awesome to see God's blessing on this program. Just a few short years ago we didn't even have a classroom and Dr. Christensen's office was a broom closet (no joke)! We now have a beautiful new building, 5 international clinical sites, a great faculty, and a very supportive community. It's both humbling and exciting to be a part of this growing program.

All in a Week's Work

Well, it's finally Friday! Actually it's very early Saturday morning, but today at 7:30 am I will be free at last. It's been a long work week. I started out Monday morning by going to an all day faculty retreat at Northwest University. We had a workshop on writing test questions and evaluating the effectiveness of student testing. Tuesday (during the day) was also a faculty workshop as well. Tuesday evening it was off to work at the hospital and I have been here every night since. My first nights of work I got to be "CRN" which basically means just being the "helper nurse" and putting out fires all night long. Tonight it's a case of pulmonary edema, good times...
So... 2 cardioversions, 4 central lines, 23 ABGs, 13 transfusions, 3 peripheral IV starts, 6 bedpans, too many milligrams of morphine, ativan, lasix, diltiazem, epi, and lidocaine, countless turns and ins and outs of beds, 1 post mortum care, 1 intubation and 13 cups of coffee later I'M STILL AT WORK. (On yeah, and add to that one exposure to TB.) What's wrong with this picture?
For having recently quit a job ironically I find myself even busier than before. The bright side is that I only have 5 1/2 hours left until a few precious days off. I hear it's supposed to rain tomorrow. I say let it pour, there's nothing better than going home to a warm bed in the morning and being able to sleep knowing that I'm not missing the sunshine. I get to end my day when everybody else has only just begun. I'm sleeping while they slave away. And yes, the glass is half full. (For you nurses out there that means that 160 cc need to be charted under PO intake. ;)

Just in Time

Friday was the last day of summer quarter and thank goodness! I powered up my laptop only to find that the screen (which had been ailing since I got the computer as a hand-me-down) had finally given up the ghost. For the last several months I've had vertical lines of nothingness plaguing my screen, now I only get about 1/3 of the content to show up and the rest of it looks more like a bar code.
I've been telling myself that I needed to buy myself a new computer if I ever expected to make it through grad school, but I was too cheap to do it until I had run the previous one in to the ground. Yesterday I went to a BBQ at my dad's, afterward I asked him if he would come with me to buy a new laptop. Fourty-five minutes and too much money later we emerged from the store victorious with new laptop in hand. As I drove my dad back to his house he apparently just couldn't wait and whipped out his pocket knife and opened the box as we were driving 60+ down the freeway. Of course he had to boot it up and start playing with it... Wait a minute, whose computer is it? We can just call it a "daddy daughter bonding experience."
Anyway, it's probably safe to say that two blog entries in one day is due to the end of the quarter and the new computer. I just hope that this one will last through a thesis.

Taming the Jungle

I recently attacked my very first "retirement project," my backyard (a.k.a The Jungle). The project looked very intimidating at first but with the help of my friends Tammy, Doug and Nancy, and my dad and his truck we finally did it. It turned out to be quite the project though and the brush we cleared out filled my dad's entire trailer (horse trailer size).
Now I have to decide if I'm going to do anything to landscape it further or just sprinkle a bunch of Casseron all over. Does anybody out there have any suggestions?
If any of you are feeling left out because you didn't get to help with the yard projects I've got plenty more daunting tasks as well. They include but are not limited to: applying an "anti-moss" strip to the roof, cleaning out the garage, repairing a rotten deck, fixing the upstairs bathroom fan... Ah, the joys of home ownership.

I found this interesting bone under all the brush I cleared, does anyone have an idea of what it may have come from?

Retired

Well folks, I finally did it. After 8 years of working in EMS for American Medical Response and a total of 10 years experience in the business I finally quit. If you're sitting there thinking "there really is a God," you're right. There is nothing else in the world aside from Him who could have made me retire my Smith and Wesson duty boots and reflective all weather coat.
I loved working on the rigs. No matter where I went from the streets of Seattle to Bethel, Alaska to Vancouver, Canada to Mexico City, Mexico to hurricane devastated Mississippi it seem like I couldn't escape my ambulances. I lost count of how many calls I ran after the fist 3500.
This year I had accepted a new position within the company as a CCT nurse (critical care transport RN) which came with a significant raise and was a great opportunity for more advanced training and experience. I loved it and the new role seemed to come very naturally.
So why did I quit? It's simple but complicated at the same time. The quick answer is that "my rice krispies made me do it." The real answer: "My rice krispies made me do it." To make a long story short I felt convicted, prayed hard, and heard from the Lord. Though resigning was a difficult thing to do, I was excited to do it because I knew it had come from the Lord.
However, I soon discovered that doing the right thing doesn't always immediately solve all of life's little difficulties. After I quit I didn't feel relieved, my schedule didn't get any easier, and I felt pretty miserable. But I should be excited about that too, I guess it just means that I finally figured out how to prioritize. I realized that I had tried to put my own desires and plans first. So now I'm just asking, "God, where are you taking me?" I pray that the answer is closer to Him.

Family Reunion

I've been waiting all year for this!
Last weekend was the Morgenroth family reunion on Lake Crescent at my grandparents house. Sadly there were several family members who couldn't make it. However this year was the year for a "new" boat. My cousins and I all had quite a hayday breaking it in with waterskiing and wakeboarding which we did almost nonstop.
Actually, I was the only one who skied, everyone else was wakeboarding. I tried it but couldn't figure out how to stear (or at least stear well).
I ended up spending two more nights out there than anticipated but I had a great time just relaxing, watching shooting stars, and eventually fighting traffic over the new Narrows bridge to make it home in time for work.

Birth of a Blog

Over the years I've always tried very hard to keep in contact with friends and family as they move about and go on with thier busy lives. Unfortunately I work very long and very odd hours only coming out at night and then retreating to the bat cave during what you all call "normal hours." Well folks, here is my attempt to keep in contact.
So why am I calling my blog Rice Krispies you might ask? It all happened on 53 hour bus ride with 20 teenagers. My friend Angela and I were serving as chaparones for a group of students on a mission trip to Mexico. It was probably some wee hour of the morning and I'm sure we were sleep deprived... If I remember correctly we were doing a little debriefing on our day when for some reason I turned to Angela and asked her what her Rice Krispies were saying to her. We spent the rest of the bus ride sharing and reflecting on what God had been doing in our lives and how He had been speaking to us. To make a long story short, the phrase stuck not to mention spread. Now, over four years later we share our "Rice Krispy Treats" almost weekly. Similiar "Rice Krispy exchanges" also happen with others as well.
I hope that anyone who reads this blog will find the rice crispies shared here encouraging.

This is Angela and I during our most recent Rice Krispy exchange.