amelia's plum

I hope everyone survived their holidays. Well I really hope people actually enjoyed their holidays, but I find this time more than a little stressful, so sometimes, just getting through them emotionally/psychologically intact makes them enjoyable. I not only got through adult 1 without winding up in the local psychiatric hospital (no small feat there given this fall) but I got high honors to boot. I don't like to toot my own horn but given the past few months I've had I'm very happy that I got through. A quarter of my class wound up with a D or worse, which means they have to retake the course again, and my heart breaks for them. Maybe it shouldn't, maybe they're not so upset, but I find this whole nursing school experience so unbelievably stressful, rewarding too, but man it really takes you to the brink in terms of seeing what you can handle. Let's see good things that have happened this past term. I had one horrible clinical instructor and two wonderful ones, one of whom I got along with especially well (when I started talking about how the computer system at the hospital drives me crazy the instructor was like 'I'm so jealous you're going to get one of those jobs in nursing with computers. Please take me with you if you do.' And as I look into nursing informatics, I don't know, it's like it would combine all the apparent dead ends in my life career wise and it would make sense and if that could work and I could get paid well and make a difference, oh my I would jump up and down with joy every day. Seriously.) I sort of collect, in my heart and head, these instructors who nurture me, because I need those good feelings to look back on during the very tough times. One charge nurse took me aside at the hospital one day, my stomach instantly dropped and I was trying to recount what I might have fucked up on, but she said that Mrs. G's students are always very good on the floor (medically complex floor) but she wanted to let me know that I was going to be paid very well and make an excellent nurse. That I was very gentle with the patients, asked questions of the staff in an assertive but gracious way and was quietly confident, she stressed that my not being loud was something her floor greatly appreciated and, unfortunately, I know what she means because I've heard other loud nursing students. I kept saying thank you and I swear I was close to crying what she said made me feel so good. Of course the next day my patient had altered mental status and insulted me most of the day, she didn't know better, but after my father yelling at me the day before he died, it cut a little too close to home. Then my instructor got upset because I was trying to fill out a pain reassessment (to document how the patient has responded to pain medication) and I didn't know what to put because she was so out of it she thought I was talking about paint not pain. And my instructor was mad at my dithering and I just burst into tears, not my finest moment. I'm telling you nursing school is like this emotional roller coaster but I made it through this term. I just need to think of Dory in Finding Nemo 'just keep swimming' and sort of maintain that attitude through the next 38 weeks of school. This term will probably be my toughest because it's the critical care term, so I'll be spending my clinical days in the ICU for the most part. God help me. I have clinical nightmares, where I forget to give medication or do the wrong thing, make horrible mistakes and feel so bad and guilty. I wish there was a drug I could take that could eliminate those bad dreams from my subconscious and put confidence boosting ones in their place. Anyhow I had such a long 'things to do' list that I wanted to cross my way through over my two and a half weeks off. I didn't cross off nearly as much as I would have liked to but I did read Freedom, which I highly highly recommend (I had to put the NPR link because he makes so many hysterical comments about NPR listeners in the book). I saw Black Swan which was good and The Fighter, which was better. I got some things done around the house but the stuff that needs to be done around here is like an avalanche I'm always running three feet in front of. I so look forward to the day when I no longer feel like there's an avalance behind me.

My resolutions for the New Year are
1. to wean my coffee intake to one large cup a day and drink water for the remainder of the day, eat more fruit and vegetables, limit my sugar and try to cut down on the processed food. yes i make this resolution every damn year but hopefully one of these days it will happen.

2. hula hoop everyday for fifteen minutes in addition to my usual gym routine. do not underestimate the enjoyable exercise that is the hula hoop.

3. try to get more friends locally, because I really have next to no social life in Pittsburgh (pathetic I know, but I'm really shy in person) and sure school is busy but it would be nice to go out for coffee or a movie or breakfast with someone aside from myself, my mom or my kids.

4. post more on this blog, even if it's just random photos.

5. do more creative stuff while in school, it's hard to carve out that time but I think it might be critical for my mental health to avoid becoming totally consumed with being a nursing student and only measuring myself through that lens. (wow! and I thought the mom lens was a particularly self critical one, nursing student is right up there with it).

To the few who read this I truly wish you all the very best. My old friends that I've loved for years and had wonderful experiences with and the new friend I met through the blogworld who I've never seen face to face but who fits right in with those I've known forever. Happy 2011!


christmas booty. the tree is topped with a fleece kitty that my kids got me for my birthday, oona said it was for me to sleep with when they aren't at my house. she's very sweet about worrying about me sleeping alone and will put her stuffed animals in my bed to keep me company. the tree ornaments are incredibly kid friendly thanks to my aunt joy sending me new ornaments every year.

oona never met a pattern she didn't like, or one that didn't go with another. i think if you asked her her favorite color it would be some pattern.

see that lavender tower in back, in the living room? the elves must have been drunk making that, at least that's what I told the kids, between muttered curses trying to snap the not quite right plastic parts into one another. what a flipping nightmare.

this picture cracks me up because owen sort of looks like those photos of politicians in the middle of making some crucial point about how they're right.

my kids love washing the dishes. the gloves are comically large on oona.

pictures of the highland park reservoir. for some reason this last one looks almost like it was taken with a fish eye lens to me. and it sort of looks austere and a bit melancholy