These Are The Days of My Life....

Have you ever had one of those weeks in which you lay awake worrying, stay up late doing research, and getting lost during conversations with people? All the while putting on a happy face and conducting your life like nothing is happening? That is the week I have had. Needless to say, G and I are having to make one of those terrible decisions that shake you to the core. I had one breakdown that caused me to have to pull over in my car to calm down. The second breakdown of the week came on Friday, when we actually received some good news as a surprise. I was so exhausted and so taxed, that all I could do was burst into tears in the office of the very person providing the good news. I am not a crying, breakdown person, so I am sure I scared the hell out of this person, as well as more poor husband. We have not survived this alteration, but I plan on writing a book, blogging, and sharing this story, as it is a journey and one that most people take without support.

I had an opportunity to spend some time on the various units within our hospital. I have always thought that I would find my way into the surgery service. Things were quiet, so I offered to take on the tasks of our verifiers (which got me some strange looks, but if you don't know me, then you have no idea that I prefer to stay busy, even if it means hunting down tasks that are not mine!). The floors are so quiet and so, I don't know, clean. The halls are lined with work space where surgeons, residents, nurses, and the like, sat charting. Ugh. It was too quiet. I finished my task and got back to the ED as quickly as possible. So we are responsible for the urgent care clinics also, but even those facilities are busy, busy, busy, and exciting in their own respects. So I was registering a patient in the ED, which required me to go to the patients room, and he says to me, "Didn't I know you in prison?". This was funny on many levels: 1) I have never been in prison, 2) The medicine desk is right outside this particular room and everyone heard him say this to me, 3) Even if I was in prison, I would have been in the women's facility, while my new friend would have been with the men. So I replied, "Sir, I do not do confined spaces, and I certainly do not do stripes of any sort!" These are the days of my life.

If you make a guy laugh, make sure he is not coming off of abdominal surgery

So I applied for a promotion within my department a couple of weeks ago and had my first interview today. There are two or three interviews in this process and the next one is a panel, but more on that one at another time. One of the questions was what do you do best? Of course I said, "Talk to people" and it is true. I have been in my current position for 90 days and I strive to meet one new person each day. I talk to Otis, the groundskeeper, who has been with the organization for more than 30 years and to Momma, who works in the cafeteria and makes sure I eat vegetables everyday - she calls me Angel Baby and on my worse days, she is what I need, and to Yolanda, who keeps the ED so clean, you could almost eat off the floors. I tease the nurses, EMT's, Police Officers, doctors, and security officers. My best friend has worked there for almost three years. She teases me that she has been there for 3 years, I have been there for 3 months and I know more people than she does. So I am funny, really I am funny. Unfortunately for 5F- who had abdominal surgery last week, I am funny. I am pretty sure I am responsible for much of his continued pain.

Anyhow, my Director disagreed with me, she said she thought I do listening best. That blew me away, until I realized that we had just completed a listening exercise in which I succeeded and she failed. After all the time I spent in sales and figured that I could not remember conversations because I was old and tired, I have discovered that I just did not care what the people were saying to me because the topics, conversations, prospects, etc, were just so damn boring, meaningless, and trivial in the grand scheme of things. Now I am in an environment in which we are considered essential personnel, we are each an important piece of something that just works. Most of us are there because we truly care and if we did not, we could not serve the homeless, the drug addicts, the criminals, the abusive, those that are abused, the men & women who serve in the police force or as fire fighters. We could not dig in the pockets of those broken by car accidents, found down, or victims of crime with such a compassion. When you think about these people, the employees and our guests, how can you not care about their stories, how can you not want to listen?

Next topic: How I can get into an elevator, ride up and down because I always forget to push the buttons, and laugh at myself when I get busted in the act of being blonde!

Blathering, but I am Back

So you are thinking one of two things: Thank God this silly girl took a break from her random rants or God where have you been. Regardless of which camp you are in, I am back!
So I started my new job on January 28th, spent the first week in orientation and the second week in computer training - as sick as a dog. I literally sat at my computer sweating with fever and trying to catch the snot with Kleenex as it ran down my face. Gross for you the reader, but even worse for me as I have a booger thing! So why not call in sick you ask? Well, 1) it would have put me behind in my training and I could not get to my job until I went through each class, 2) I hate calling in sick, and 3) I did not have any sick time. I am a co-lead within my department and by February 14th, the other lead was so sick, she could not stand up straight. She ended up with pneumonia and was out for 5 weeks. A week after she left, our Supervisor resigned, leaving me to learn on the job, apologizing for my mistakes along the way, and the person in charge. On top of this, I was sick the entire month of February.

The good news is that my co-lead is back and working her way back to healthy, the better news is that I too am healthy, and the best news is that I am being considered for the Supervisor job.
And my 90 days review is 5 days away (ok, so I have already seen it and it was all positive).

I am still working out with the trainer 2-3 times a week and feel great. My body is changing shape and I feel great. Now that the weather is getting nicer, I am going to try and walk after I get home at night. My running is getting stronger, but I am still not able to endure for as long as I want to distance or time -wise.

I have read two of the most delicious books ever: sTori Telling by Tori Spelling and The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory. sTori Telling was a delicious tale of Tori Spelling's life and her answer to all the tabloid stories about her from before 90210 until now. What I discovered is that she is a poor little rich girl and our mothers were created from the same bolt of crazy. I always thought that Shannen Doherty was a no-talent ass clown, but this confirms that she was also an arrogant, manipulating bitch.

The Other Boleyn Girl was a fabulous book as well and I was reading it for my book club. I was hesitant to read it because it is a time piece and over 600 pages, but once I picked it up, I could not put it down. It is the story about the fall of Catherine of Aragon, the separation of Rome/the Pope/the Catholics and English, and the advent of the Church of England. It is so well written and I have bought the next book. We went to see the movie as a girl's night out. I went with low expectations and so I enjoyed it, but fully understand why the critics hated it. They left so much out that you would have had to have read the book in order to understand any of it.

So I think it is really cool that people are reading my nonsense, and I am sorry I have been gone for so long. Life is going well, with a few bumps and bruises along the way. I am jazzed about baseball season - Go Rocks! and have knocked off a few more things on my list.

In case you are keeping track, I have done nothing with the Jillian Michaels thing, but I did watch the season finale of Biggest Loser - go Alli.