What I Need is All Around Me

It's time for some fatshion! Hung out at the park today with Bryan & Ganon. I didn't want to be cold, but it got all the way to 59 degrees today, so I did want to be SLIGHTLY springy. Enter my long skirt! Old Navy had these last summer, & I don't know what crack they were smoking, because after years of being pissy because I couldn't even fit into some XXL things there, the summer 2010 stuff fit in an XL! WEIRDNESS, I SAY. Whatever. I took advantage.

What we have here:
Earrings (green hoops from Earthbound Trading)
Jacket: Torrid (winter 2010)
Cami: Lane Bryant
T-shirt: Old Navy
Skirt: Old Navy
Shoes: Sanuk Scribbles (tho you can't see them because I'm not wearing them here!)

This was at the corner of Main & Highland this morning at about 7:30am. It was coming down pretty hard; visibility wasn't the best.

And there's my favorite person, all slumped in the couch. Our couch MAKES you slump, btw; it slowly tries to consume you over time.

Momma makes these & they're beyond awesome. Want to make friends? Bring a plate of these to the party. Sure, they'll just be using you to get to the delicious treats but HEY. Quit being so picky!

...I think I'm scaring them. :D

This is my newly designed report sheet! Everyone else here uses a 1 patient-1 sheet format, but absentmind nurse has to have all her 6 patients at a glance. Enter NeoOffice for Mac & wireless printing! I drew this up, printed one, then brought it to work & made copies. So far I've had 2 other people ask for a copy.

sent from my Project 365 app
bit.ly/5G0JwQ

Bryan says it best: "We hang out for a few days with my family, have a low key dinner & presents...and then we drive for 7 hours home and run the gauntlet with your family!"
 
He's not wrong. That's exactly how it happens.

On Saturday, after I got off work, we drove to Dallas. I "slept" most of the way, which is in quotes because Ganon was also in the back seat. This meant my sleep was punctuated with "Hey. Mama. Mama. Mama. Are you asleep?" I woke up a few times to eat & the rest of the times I just sort of dozed. Bryan was an awesome trooper & drove the whole way, listening to Wheel of Time on his iPhone. It was pretty uneventful, as Bryan had his entertainment, Ganon had his iPod touch, & I had sleep. Modern technology makes road trips SO MUCH better.

I spent Sunday sick! I ran a low-grade fever in the morning and I couldn't breathe all day. In fact, I slept most of the day, waking up at supper time, just in time for beef pot pie! THAT was nice. Sick in bed all day only to wake up to comfort food. Monday & Tuesday were better, spent shopping for Christmas gifts & generally going places we don't get to go when we're at home. I was irritated that the cell network didn't seem to handle Gowalla very well; I think it was so overloaded with people, you know? Booo. Christmas celebrations were on Wednesday, when we ate lunch & exchanged presents. We left for home at 5pm so we could spend as much time as possible with the Texas Grandminions.

I got a LUSH trip! Yay big! I got some Buche de Noel facial scrub & some Ultralight. Because of the mass amounts of snow dumped on Canada, the store only had what was out on the floor. This meant I could get a large bottle of Ultralight...or none at all. A large bottle is...rather expensive, but it'll last me all year. MAN, IS MY FACE HAPPY. If you're the kind of person who gets dry, extremely chapped skin in cold weather, this moisturizer is a great choice. I also picked up some light pink color corrector, which is this REALLY cool stuff: you use a dab of it in your moisturizer & it tints! You can do anything from a very sheer tinted moisturizer to a much more opaque one, like a base.

For Christmas I got a Sephora gift card (OMG YAY!!!) and this really adorable tiny Coach purse. Augie took Ganon shopping for gifts, and each of us seemed to get a Thomas playset. We happily shared these with Ganon. :D

When we got home, I slept all day & then went into work. Thanks to Bryan, I was the most popular nurse on 3 East...he brought me dessert from my mom's family party. Banana pudding, peanut butter bonbons, strawberry pizza, & pumpkin roll! Of course I slept all day on Christmas Eve, then went back into work. 

Work was weird on Christmas Eve. It's different: patients are only there on Christmas because they really HAVE to be. That means they're very high acuity, and there are very few of them.  Of my three, 2 of them were enough to make me worry the whole night.

Work got VERY bad about 4am on Christmas morning, when I found that I was actually in the staffing computer for Christmas night, though I had been promised I would not have to work both Christmas Eve AND Christmas night (it's hospital policy you only have to work one or the other). When I mentioned this to Carol, the house supervisor, she told me there wasn't anything she could do; my manager would have to remove me from the database. Before I left, I told Debby, the oncoming house supervisor for Christmas Day, that I would be calling in sick that night. Technically I could be written up for that, and obviously you can see why. If everyone called in on Christmas day, the hospital would be screwed. On the other hand, the people who work Christmas day are SCHEDULED to work Christmas day. I wasn't; it was sprung on me at the last moment. I figured if I was going to be written up for the first time, I might as well walk into it knowingly--but who wants to be written up for a call-in when it isn't their fault to begin with? Not to mention the matter of the policy.  All this outweighed my desire not to call my manager on Christmas day.  So when I got home on Christmas, i called my manager & asked her to take me out of the computer. She did, so no write-up for call-in for me!

I did not go to sleep on Christmas. I know, this is ill-advised, but I had missed all of my family Christmas parties up to that point. We opened gifts at my parents' house in the morning & had Christmas breakfast (biscuits & gravy, bacon, & eggs! YOM!).  I got some AWESOME red Dansko clogs! Danskos are all I ever wear at work; I have a matte white pair and a "petrol" black pair, which is black with an oil-slick finish. The red ones are going to look AWESOME with my blue scrubs. <3 I also got a "Shark" vacuum cleaner; it has bare floor & rug settings so I can use it all over the house. 

After all that, we went to my Aunt Mary's for a late-afternoon lunch. THAT'S where I got all the fun Christmas food I'd been wanting. Sweet potatoes, broccoli, rice & cheese casserole, yeast muffins, all the good stuff. I have TONS of leftovers, including all the sweet potatoes. :)

I woke up feeling nice & refreshed this morning...after sleeping for 15 hours. Not kidding. WOW.

December 26 is really starting to be one of my favorite parts of Christmas. We hang out, just me & Bryan & Ganon, sometimes going to the mall for a little return fun or to check out the sales. Sometimes we meet up with my family for a movie, but sometimes not. Eating is always easy because of all the delicious leftovers. Today I had aforementioned delicious leftovers for breakfast: a Cajun ham sandwich & a cocktail of orange juice & Mt. Dew. Ganon is putting together a Thomas puzzle & watching Thomas on the new Apple TV, which was Bryan's gift from Augie & Mimi. Funny how, given all the Thomas videos on Netflix, Ganon is making MUCH more use of Daddy's new Apple TV. :D I'm thinking about the Bath & Body Works sale. This is the week for the super huge "rubber duck" sale they do twice a year, and it's the only time you can get the classic scents like Cool Citrus Basil & Country Apple & White Tea Ginger. And today they're $3. This might be worth getting my lazy butt out of the house.