hope everyone had a lovely holiday

and that you're able to relax and enjoy this time until the new year.

looted

Oona made graham cracker houses in class this past week. I guess graham crackers are a lot easier to manage architecturally with a classroom than gingerbread. Thing is when I picked up Oona the day she made it she looked at me with these very large, very sad, very manipulative eyes and said that kids kept asking her if they could have the candy from her house and she readily obliged. Hmm. Kids. So when I saw her there was one lonely candy cane shingle that she plopped off with her fingers and popped in her mouth. She continued to drag her nail through the frosting remaining on the rooftop, the better to get her sugar fix. By the time we got home the orange jelly ring wreath that hung over a door that was gone long before I picked her up was also in Oona's stomach. So I've got the pilfered remains of her graham cracker house hanging out on top of our bookshelf. I think the only thing that's stopped her from the graham cracker structure is 1. it's hot glue gunned onto a milk carton and 2. it's probably not as sweet, and therefore not nearly as valuable, as the other parts of the house that are now long gone.

pass

I took my NCLEX on Monday. 12/12 and I was supposed to take it at noon but I got there early so they let me start at 11:30 and spoiled my 12 cubed thing. I was shaking when I got there. Literally hands, body shaking. But after being fingerprinted and having my palm scanned. Being told that I'd be videotaped while taking my test and ushered into the testing room I got in my seat in front of the computer, put the earplugs in, took my boots off and sat cross legged in the chair. I went through the tutorial and then started the test in earnest, my heart thundering through my earplugged ears. But the first question was easy, and the one after that and the next. I was focused and doing what I do best (it is so sad that I'm such a good little test taker but I am. On paper, in theory, I excel). I wasn't focusing on how far I was in the test. There were a couple questions I didn't know but I didn't get hung up on them. There were a lot of 'select all that apply' questions, which I hate, because I'm always torn between adding one answer or not. But I was ruthless with myself and got through those. At 72 I started noticing what number question I was on because with NCLEX it's a computer adapted test and you can have anywhere from 75 to 265 questions (and any number in between). The screen just goes blue and your test ends when you have either passed or failed. And you can't find out whether you pass or fail until two business days later. It's a huge mind game. My worry had been how bad will my anxiety kick in after 75 if the test keeps going because you know then that you haven't failed but that you're also not in the successful pass zone yet. What a horrible way to fuck with a person's confidence. But I was feeling really good during the test, after so many weeks depressed and relentlessly studying, things were going well. I clicked my answer to 75 hit next and it went blue. I cannot tell you how happy I felt. I did the test in under an hour's time. I came out into a beautiful sunny day. I felt wonderful.

healthcare is a human right

I'm down to the wire with my last week of studying before NCLEX. Still worried that reason will completely leave me the day of the big test and I'll draw a blank on everything or forget how to read or will be so nervous my blood pressure will put me into the hypertensive crisis range (which would be impressive considering my normal BP is like 80/50 when I wake up in the morning). Anyhow I was taking a study break and drove my recycling to a local place (because they do curbside recycling every other week here but there's one truck that collects everything and tosses it together and somehow I just question whether everything is actually being recycled or if this is some half-assed fabrication to keep Ravenstahl in office). But while driving I was listening to NPR and they had the former Medicare & Medicaid Chief Donald Berwick on discussing Obama's healthcare reform. Now I don't understand why people shake their heads and tsk tsk healthcare reform. I think they're either misinformed, because they get their news from FOX, or they're inhumane. It just doesn't really make sense to me. A friend of mine had to read the bill for work and she said if you're the head of Aetna or some other insurance company I understand you being against the bill but otherwise, no. The bill forces hospitals and doctors to be accountable, rewards preventative care, stops insurers from fucking over those with preexisting conditions by denying them coverage, seniors get more money for medications, young people can remain on their parents insurance until their 26. The only potential problem that I could see is nurses and nursing aids getting screwed because the focus on reducing infections and pressure ulcers in hospitals is wonderful yet there are many non-profit (yet highly profitable hospitals) that will put the burden of achieving that success on the nurses and aids, yet not hire enough nurses and aides to do that (and at the same time admonish those same nurses and aides for not using good body mechanics but not give them the time to be able to do that). But but but, sorry I tend to go off on my soapbox tangents, the thing that made me want to drive my car into a wall, was during this interview they played an excerpt from the Teaparty Republican presidential debate in Florida back in September where Wolf Blitzer posed a hypothetical question to Ron Paul asking what he would do if a healthy 30 year old who opted out of health insurance was gravely injured and fell into a coma, should the people not pay for his care. And he responds 'That's what freedom is all about, taking your own risks.' to which the audience erupts in applause, and Blitzer counters, 'So are you saying society should just let him die?' and at least three members of the crowd shout out yes. There are many things that I read or hear or see on the news at a local, national and global level that make me think things are very end of days lately - not that I'm particularly religious but things are just dire (although if you spend a weekend in NYC you would never know it). And when I hear people say shout out someone should just die because they opt out of health insurance, which I would think would be because they cannot afford it, how can any human being be against someone being treated if they're ill? It isn't humane and therefore I don't think the person against treating the gravely injured person is human. At least I view them as far less than human. I need to make a tee shirt, get a bumpersticker, wear a blinking hat that says 'healthcare is a human right' because it is and I'm more than willing to shout it from the rooftops, hop up and down and fight anyone who thinks otherwise.

nclex study update

Still losing my mind studying for NCLEX. The thing that's really throwing me is that I keep arguing with the study guides and honestly how far am I going to get yelling at a book? But it really chaps my ass when I come across huge typos, like Parkland and modified Parkland formulas being the exact same formula (meaning someone got lazy with the cut and paste). One of my books had 6 comprehensive tests at the end and it was like they completely gave up on the last one. They'd have a question about sickle cell disease but then the answer would relate to cystic fibrosis. Two questions were supposed to contain rhythm strips to look at and they were missing. But the questions I save the most wrath for are the psychiatric nursing questions, which really make me wonder whether the 'clients' that flip out and get placed in seclusion might be the saner people there. Because when I come across a question where a man is suffering from depression and feels like a worthless father and husband and the correct answer IS NOT pointing out that his wife said he's a wonderful father and husband (no no no because that's too logical and therefore ineffective). No the book said the correct answer was to 'state that "you were able to shower and dress without any help this morning," points out a visible, realistic accomplishment and strength to the cient with self-deprecatory statements, thereby helping to increase the client's self-worth.' I would be ready to punch the nurse in the face that offered this gem of therapeutic communication. I can't think of answer more likely to increase my self hatred and push me further along the suicidal ideation path if I was this depressed man. Oh my. Please send out good wishes, cross your fingers, pray to God if you believe that I make it through this test without succumbing to hysterical blindness from the stress and that I pass the first time I take it. Pleasepleasepleasepleaseplease. With questions and answers like that I have my work cut out for me.

grainy blues

Oh Lordy. I graduated almost two weeks ago and I've already spun into a spiral of depression and anxiety about the uncertain future in front of me. The high of graduation was getting an award for third highest academic achievement, for which I got a check for $150 that I still need to cash. But by the next day I was starting to feel the dark panic nipping at my insides about needing to study for NCLEX. On the night of graduation the president of our class joked 'Who here did their 60 questions today?' and, of course, I was the only one who had. And I continue to do at least 90 questions each day, like I was told. Because I'm very task oriented and good at sticking to rules that way. But every time I score poorly on a test it takes so much out of me. And I'm like, how can I know all this information? I've never even heard of vanillymandelic acid test but am supposed to be able to figure out the foods one should avoid before taking such test. I can't get over how much the test name resembles Milly Vanilly and how many mnemonics can I make and keep straight in my head? Christ. The importance of this test, yes my future, my paycheck, rides on my passing and becoming an RN are not lost on me. Nor is the director of the nursing program having told our class at the graduation luncheon, we've had a 100% pass rate with the last three classes. To my perfectionistic mind, the implicit 'don't fuck things up!' was added and it's all I can do to keep my heart rate below 100 (60-100 being the adult norm). So I've got five different books that I can study from but when I look at the tear out 'cheat sheet' on one that lists common lab values but they don't jive with the lab values I've already committed to memory it just sends my anxiety through the roof (maybe I can blame my profuse hair shedding on that). As does every question I get wrong and can't puzzle the logic out of, like a lot of the psychiatric related questions and yet I've thought of getting involved in that field? Goddamnit. Yes, panic brings sacrilegious profanity to such a high point in me you'd think I suffered from coprolalia. I've got to get down the dirty dozen that will most likely be on my test- anything related to renal issues, diabetes, COPD, cardiac disease, cranial nerves and functions, TURP, hip/knee replacement surgery, sickle cell crisis, Diabetes insipidus vs SIADH, therapeutic levels of digoxin, lithium, aminophylline and theophylline as well as potential interactions with each. And what you want your PT and PPT times to be in relation to the control. That's over a dozen. It seems easy enough when I type it out but with each subject it's real easy to go down the rabbit hole and get lost to the point you can't see the easy answer for what it is. And can I tell you how badly I want to take the baddest, brightest red pen to the study guides and copy edit every extra 'and' or 'an' or 'as well' but I don't because I hope to sell them once I've passed. I have all these free days until I test (I'm still awaiting my 'approval to test' because everything nursing school & NCLEX related seems to be a fucking mind game, I guess this is how they weed out those that will go crazy on difficult patients from those that will handle it -Me, I'll just beat myself up in the privacy of my own home and vent under a pseudonym). But it's not like I can really enjoy this time off because I need a job and health insurance by January and that's all dependent on passing NCLEX. So as much as instructors stress how important this test is yet, in the same breath, say don't lose sight of NCLEX just being a test, well it winds up being a lot more than that for me. I'll be so glad when I've successfully jumped through this hoop and can get a job. Really. I promise to stop my complaining. Okay, truth be told, I'll keep griping about my increasingly painful lower back and hip that are making me feel like my late grandmother, at least until they stop hurting all the time.

october

First off, you've been forewarned, this post is gonna be all over the place. That's where, it seems, my mind is currently. I graduate on Friday about which I'm really excited and sort of disbelieving that it's already here. But that excitement gets tempered with nervousness (I know Quelle surprise for the few who read regularly) about passing NCLEX, which I need to do in order to practice as an RN, and finding a job, which I need to do in order to pay the bills, keep a roof over mine and the kids heads, eat. This need to find a job really weighs on me with every resume that I send off through the UPMC website, which, at times, seems akin to putting my resume in a black hole. I mean I've got previous job experience, I'm mature (at least that's the positive spin adjective for middle aged), I've got a 3.52 GPA in school (which is high honors in St. Margaret's land because they have a weird grading system that I'm still trying to make sense of, but I do know that school was ten times harder than being an English major at Syracuse), I presented at student nursing grand rounds which was hailed as the proverbial feather in my cap and supposedly this great thing to put on my resume. But I've only had one interview and that didn't go well.

It was at WPIC, a place I'd really like to work. I interviewed for two different units, the one woman was older and she went out of her way to introduce me to everyone even though I'd told her I didn't want think my skils were best suited for her unit (John Merck unit for those with mental retardation and autism). She understood why I didn't want to work in there, and as she sized me up and told me her unit is the most violent (staff has the highest number of injuries there) I think she questioned whether I could even physically be capable of being on that unit. But she still showed interest in meeting with me. The second woman, well I knew she wasn't interested in me 30 seconds into the interview, when I was trying to explain what telecommuting was and, no, I hadn't lived in Pebble Beach, California. I don't know if it was a generational difference (the woman was maybe 25) or something else but she introduced me to no one when we toured the unit and she didn't ask me any questions and the whole interview made me feel like I was failing with how little interest she showed in the whole process with me. And that was in a unit I'd like to be in. Oh well.

I finished up my last clinical day Thursday night, into friday morning. I worked on the liver and intestinal transplant unit at Children's and that unit is TOUGH but by the end of my stay there I really enjoyed it there and was finally starting to feel a bit comfortable. Maybe I am just a fucked up parent but I really want to work with transplant children or with the pediatric oncology population. You can build a long term relationship with the patient, and, for me, I think that's when you can be most effective because you truly get to know the patient and family and get a sense for their likes and dislikes, the nursing style that's best to keep them comfortable while they're in the hospital. My preceptor was young, 25, but a very good, very thorough and safe nurse who is absolutely loved by the patients and their families. It's a struggle for me, being the older one but a student learning, I don't have a problem with that but I can have a hard time reading certain people and the fact that I was working with this preceptor for 140 hours, I'm hypersensitive to my possibly driving her batty having someone following her every move, trying to help out but feeling sometimes like I'm just in the way. I learned an enormous amount from her, I just wish I knew whether she thought I was good, awful or somewhere in between. I frequently view myself as awful if a person says nothing, so I have no fucking clue. Getting a position at Children's is my first choice hospital and if I could get on the weekend program, because then I could go manage going on for my master's and not be stretched close to breaking, I'd be overjoyed then.

Being around sick children really makes me appreciate and love my children that much more because it's a very real reminder of how precious a healthy life is. There was one family I was involved with from October 1st through to my last day. Their strength and kindness in the face of such adversity is inspiring. The english major will forever be a part of me and some of the terms they toss out so quickly stuck with me, such as 'a hot mess' usually indicating a patient that's proving to be especially challenging from a medical standpoint. A 'rockstar' is the patient/family you want to have, very easy to work with, taking medications like a champ. And 'dirty' is used for patients with infections that they're trying to find a bed for, who tend not to be put on this unit because so many of the patients are immunocompromised. Like a ruptured appendectomy wouldn't be put on that unit - if it's really busy and you have the space non liver/intestinal transplant kids wind up on the floor but it would most likely be a T&A and yes, when I heard that I thought tits and ass? No it's short for tonsillectomy and adnoidectomy.

During my last week my back, groin pain, which has been a problem since June, reached new levels of pain. I worked overnight Monday with an icy/hot patch slapped on my back, popping 800 mg ibuprofen every 8 hours and still hobbling about like a none too spry octogenarian. When I got home Tuesday morning I called the doctor's office in tears and they called in a scrip for vicodin for me (because the ibuprofen and flexeril aren't touching the pain). I still can't sleep on my left side and haven't been to the gym all week, which is killing me because that's what keeps me on this side of sanity. I saw an orthopedic doctor Friday and need to get an MRI of my pelvis next week and he's scheduling me for a visit to the pain clinic because he said given my week it sounds like I need a shot of cortisone (I'm starting to feel like I need a half dozen shots of cortisone). He mentioned that I might have a labral tear (the labrum is sort of like a liner for the acetabulum, which is the socket the head of your femur goes into which makes up your hip joint). I read up on it and these injuries require rest, physical therapy (which I'd been doing in August and continued to do the exercises until this flare up) and if you still get no response then surgery. I think I rambled about this in an earlier post but this groin injury was from a massage. A masseuse told me I felt tight and manipulated my left leg and arm and both may hip and shoulder (consequently both are ball socket joints and can suffer from labral tears) have bothered me ever since. My arm doesn't bother me quite as much which I'm guess is because I don't walk on my arm but my leg, it gets me close to tears when I think about it. My range of motion is so limited now, I used to do the splits regularly when I cooled down after exercising no I'm lucky if I can touch my toes. And the pain, right now, as I type this, it's only about a 3 or 4 out of 10. But it never goes away. I feel it no matter what I do and I can no longer sleep on my left side. My Mom being my Mom had to tell me that she hasn't been able to sleep on her right side for years and then wanted to recommend another orthopedic doctor for a second opinion should I need surgery 'because he has this innovative technique and he's the best in his field when it comes to hips...' when all I really wanted to hear was 'That fucking sucks, let's go beat up that masseuse.' Why couldn't she commiserate with me without one upping me or trying to give me medical advice? I called the place I got the massage at and spoke to the owner, who hadn't given me the massage. She was very nice and concerned. She said she'd reimburse for what I spent for the massage (A LOT!) and offered to give me a massage to help out, I told her I'd hold off until I knew more from my MRI. I'm thinking of going on antidepressants because being in some degree of pain since June is really starting to affect me mentally.

have i mentioned how much i love stephen colbert?

happy birthday oona bean!

Oona's middle name isn't bean, it's Amelia. But somehow I've been calling her Bean or Beanie ever since she was a baby and would arch her back, scrunching up her legs while sleeping and her shape would resemble an adorable little kidney bean. Apparently Google is having a birthday too, 13 to Oona's 6. She was very excited to see the Google banner today.
Brought pink and purple cupcakes to her classroom
The birthday girls this week. just fyi Oona is not petite (she's 75% percentile for height), I don't know what they're feeding these girls in Pittsburgh, there's fourth graders taller than me (I'm 5'6").

goodbye summer

I have only gotten around to having a summer banner on the last day of the kids summer vacation. Oh well, it will be up until I get around to the fall banner which might take awhile given I'll be in the last 8 week stretch of school. The last day before school was quite lovely, up until Oona's meltdown when we had to leave the park. But she quickly turned it around in the car, thank God. Hope the upcoming school year is healthy, happy and fun for any (and all) readers of my blog!


Oona with Nacho, a chihuahua Owen bought Oona with the $20 he found on the floor of a restaurant (he also got himself a basketball, trick handcuffs and a cap gun with caps and had twelve cents left, thanks to 5 below)


The comedy and tragedy of Panera

Owen's friend Patrick making like part of the creek and trying to trick the fish into his net.





Owen's cave. He spent most of his time at the park building it and I hung out with him and Patrick while Oona was with the other children and Moms. Patrick caught a big frog twice but I didn't have the camera with me at the time to commemorate the event.

thought the color of this mushroom was lovely. made sure to wash my hands thoroughly after handling.

floor update

These two pictures above show the worst area of my floors before and after, honestly I didn't think it would turn out as well as it did because this section of the dining room floor is very chewed up.




These pictures show before during and after the refinishing. I love the original light color of the red oak but the dining room floor had extensive water stains the turned the red oak a greyish brown which no amount of sanding could get rid of. So I had the floors stained a dark walnut and it blends the water stains in much better than had I just left the wood the original color. I was amazed to see all the different grains of the oak and am glad that shows up with the darker stain too. This is the bookcase redone and the sandpiper walls. I still need to polyurethane the bookcase and let it cure a bit. I think the bookcase will look better once books and baskets are on it. Hopefully then it won't read as overly distressed it will just sort of blend in to the background. And I'm going to paint the inside of the fireplace a darker grey because I'm that kind of anal. Meanwhile all my books are hiding out on the stairs to the third floor and in my room, which looks like I could qualify for a hoarding show right now, it's a disaster.

torture

I have been staying at my mom's apartment since Monday while my floors were being refinished. Thank God my mom is away in Florida while I'm camping out there with Owen and Oona and my two cats. I knew that it wouldn't be the easiest thing, all of us in this small space, but I figured it would only be for a few days and that the pay off, beautiful refinished floors, would outweigh the short term stress of being sandwiched in my mom's place. What I neglected to consider is the fact that my mother is very fastidious in terms of cleaning, her house is always perfect. The thing that mystifies me is that with her zeal for cleaning, her home is jam packed with tchotchkes- artificial floral bouquets are everywhere. Any flat surface seems to be covered with a lace doily and then have little figurines or the fake flower bouquets or coasters (you'd think the woman entertained every night) on top of them. There are little faux candlesticks on each window ledge in her living room and stained glass animals suction cupped to her kitchen windows. Needless to say, the kids love visiting Grandma Cat's house because there is so much STUFF to look at and touch, where else can you find a copper lighthouse that plays music to harmonize with you while you tinkle in her toilet. Our home looks downright austere in comparison. But maybe it's a yin yang thing, my mother likes to clean to such an extent that she needs a lot of dust catchers in order to feel she's truly doing a good job. It seems almost masochist, but it's what makes her happy.

I've had to put every fake bouquet in her closet because my very poorly behaved cats were trying to eat them. They've jumped up on every surface they possibly can knocking over picture frames, getting their cat litter everywhere it seems- after having their litterbox in the basement for years it really seems that I cannot avoid stepping on cat litter, which really grosses me out. I am sleeping on a pull out bed with a very wiry mattress that is doing nothing to help my achy back. The only pot of gold is that Owen and Oona have been marvelous when it comes to bedtime. They're great for me at home but I thought it might be challenging with the two of them sharing a bedroom, but they barely make a peep and drift off without a problem in my mother's two twin beds, while I lobotomize myself with Law & Order reruns five feet away in the living room.

Anyhow, regarding the torture post. I think almost everybody, well maybe everybody I know, engages in a sort of self-torture of one thing or another. In a way I think it can be extraordinarily helpful to know what your problem areas are, parts of yourself that you'd like to work on or improve. But I know for myself that there are many areas I feel bad about (parenting, not being assertive enough, lacking confidence, placing waaay too much importance on how others feel about me - to name the tip of the iceberg) where I feel like I don't measure up and it's so easy to beat myself up about these things, it's almost reflexive. I am fully aware of my need to break free from this way that I torture myself. But sometimes you can work so hard and then someone finds your weak spots, picks at that scab, and if it happens often enough a scar forms and the tensile strength of scar tissue is 80% of the original tissue, at least that's what I learned from the wound care lecture in school last year. That being said I truly hope there's credence to the cliche that which doesn't kill us makes us stronger. The past two years have really been a struggle for me in more ways than I care to enumerate. So I just might try to limit my self-torture to eating some heirloom tomatoes soaked in oil and vinegar even though my whole mouth is cut up pretty badly from these invisalign liners I've got on (to correct my crooked bottom teeth and, hopefully, fix the right side of my jaw which pops painfully when I yawn). The joys of getting old. Nothing like being forty-two with a lisp from the plastic in your mouth. Well as long as I don't sound like Truman Capote I figure I'm golden.

They finished my floors yesterday.The man who did them looked a bit like Sam Elliot and drawled out his words in much the same way. Perhaps even slower? But he was a bit inscrutable, rather cryptic with his answers, or lack thereof, to my questions about the floors, until I learned yesterday that I've got to let the floors cure for four to five more days before moving anything back into those rooms (living room, dining room, entry, hallway upstairs and Oona's room). So it looks like we'll be at my mom's until Wednesday. But, on the bright side, I can wash the three loads of laundry that accumulated at my mom's. And I have internet access (my mom took her laptop to Florida so my only access to a computer was two visits to the library this week). And wait until you see how lovely the floors look now. It's the best $1715 I've spent- and that's a flipping bargain for as bad as my floors were. He trimmed out the downstairs with new oak quarter round, he didn't do anything to the upstairs so I've got to call him about that. Well I'm off to vacuum the fine layer of sawdust that seems to be everywhere.

Well the living room walls are sandpiper and it's just the warm griege I was looking for. Unfortunately 3/4 through the painting my back completely seized up on me. It was funny I'd bend over to put paint on my roller and I was like, why is it killing me every time I bend over to do this. Bending at all made me wince so I had to squat with my back straight to finish the last wall. I went to the gym hoping to stretch out the muscles that were seizing up in my back, on the left side from just under my rib cage to my ass, but the gym didn't help. I deliberated between going to medexpress or coming home and drinking enough Guinness that I didn't care that I was in pain. In the end I opted for buying a heating pad and popping some of the 800 mg of ibuprofen the doctor gave me for my back pain when I saw him a few weeks ago and hoping it would be better in the morning. It wasn't so I got a scrip for flexeril called in which is helping calm down the muscle spasms in my back but it also turns me into a complete zombie. I guess this is what people mean when they say don't overdo it. Total suckfest for my break without the kids.

The kids went to Toby's parents (for the week!) on Sunday morning. And since their car left the block I've been tackling my living room; attempting to make the built in book case and mantle look nicer and repaint the walls before the guy comes to refinish my floors. I painted the room what I thought was a warm grey but once up on the the walls there's too much red and not enough yellow in the grey. Yeah, I didn't realize this until I painted the entire room. I'm very picky about my paint colors, so I got yet another gallon of grey paint (sandpiper, how I love the names for paint) that I'm hoping will look better. My current state of mind is a bit altered, which I'm going to blame on huffing miniwax wood stain fumes yesterday afternoon whilst doing my many layered distressed paint look on the bookcase. I should add frustrated on top of the altered mental status because I think I might need to put another layer of pain over the barn owl, grey sky & jacobean stain I've got on the built in so far. I had to sand the bookcases a lot, to the point I had phantom vibrations in my arm an hour or two after I'd stopped sanding, before starting the paint work. Toby built the bookcase and mantle shortly after we moved into this house seven years ago and I couldn't help but draw comparisons between it and our ill-fated marriage. Of course, it was easy to compare when that is sort of forced into my consciousness because of the complaint of divorce I received in the mail. Toby had called to let me know I'd be getting it and I don't blame him for my dark mood. I just blame the whole fucking process, the harsh wording of the complaint 'You are being sued' which caused me to panic momentarily, because when you don't have a lot of money financial stuff, specifically mention of being sued, can feel like a punch to the gut. I guess lawyers aren't emotionally ruffled by this legalease but it makes me bawl. The being sued, the 'you will no longer have health insurance once the decree is filed' the myriad personal stressors that have made the stress of nursing school that much harder to bear and the worry worry worry my mind the eternal problem solver keeping me up throughout the night on Monday trying to troubleshoot how to go about passing the boards, finding a job and getting health insurance in the sixty days between graduating from school and my divorce being finalized. Oh and botox! I must get botox so the abject desperation will not be quite so easy to read on my face. Too many stressors. It would be one thing if it was just one thing, the divorce, the need to find employment, the imminent threat of no health insurance, or if it was all of them, but I had someone super supportive to lose my shit to in private. Someone who could hug away the fears or be a sounding board or just make me laugh and forget all this shit for a heartbeat. But I don't have that, which is why I air my dirty laundry here. Well I'm off to sandpiper the walls.

vacation

I am done with school until September! And, barring any fuck ups when filling in the scantron sheet for my final, I graduated with highest honors. AND I had a great final clinical evaluation with my instructor whom I'll have for PNR (my nursing intership which I'll be doing on the liver and intestinal transplant floor at Children's Hospital come this fall). I just need to get through PNR, pass my boards and find a job, then I'll be golden. But for the next few weeks I'm going to do the work around my house that's hard to do while I'm in school and relax when I can. Maybe find another non nursing related book to devour. Any recommendations?

owen's nine

He officially turned nine at 6:38 pm. We were doing a countdown at Baskin Robbins but the time struck waiting at the light on the way to the grocery store for cat food, Sam and Frodo were hungry after going without this morning. Owen and Oona counted backward from sixty once they saw the car clock turn to 6:37 and I snapped Owen (really just turned the camera to the back seat and shot so I'm glad it actually turned out well) celebrating the passage into a new year.

This is the pose I got when I asked Owen to look sweet, meaning no gangster hands and or thinking he's doing the peace sign but his palms are turned in so he's really telling people to fuck off if they're English. Oh my, how to explain this without it becoming a loaded hand weapon.

Oona attacking her sprinkle waffle ice cream cone with true gusto. She gave up a couple bites after this though. They usually just get a kids scoop but for Owen's birthday I said they could have whatever they wanted, they each ate less than half of what they ordered.

Oona is just going to kill somebody when she's older if her eyes stay that big and brown and beautiful.

unaccustomed earth

I had started reading this book last year and loved all the short stories but couldn't get into the last part, which was a novella centering on two characters, Hema and Naushik. Maybe I was put off because the story starts in the second person and I think that is a very hard narrative point of view to pull off. But I hate not finishing a book. It's just a compulsion of mine that once I start a book I have to finish it, even if it is over a year later (although I might have to break this compulsion with The Dinosaur Man, which I dread finishing). Anyhow I picked up Unaccustomed Earth to revisit the last part and I easily fell into the story and couldn't understand my initial hesitance to finish reading (although I know that how much I enjoy a book us has a lot to do with what is going on in my lives that might make the book resonate all the more powerfully to me). In fact, the last part is now my favorite of that book and I bawled on reading the last page, wept harder than I have with any other book I read, it killed me. I don't even know how to comment with respect to Jhumpa Lahiri's writing aside to say that I'm completely amazed at the command she has for writing where everything is distilled down to it's essence, she does not write one superfluous word in her books. And as good as her writing is stylistically, the level of insight she has into the intricacies of the human heart could put the best therapist to shame. I think she is, hands down, the best person writing fiction in America today.

black swan green

So I finished Black Swan Green a couple weeks ago, read it during my two days home from school nursing pink eye or paint that got in my eye from doing the ceilings, still not sure which it was but it cleared up nicely after a steroid/antibiotic combo. I can't recommend Black Swan Green highly enough, it was such a wonderful book. I love coming of age stories. Even though I'm now middle aged I feel like I can relate to adolescent angst so well, probably because I remain as socially maladroit as a thirteen year old. There don't seem to be any memorable coming of age stories told from a girl's point of view but Catcher in the Rye, The Perks of Being a Wallflower and this book are my three favorites in that genre. Oh I can't forget part two of Michael Chabon's A Model World which is a wonderful novella about this boy Nathan Shapiro, after reading it I just wanted to hug Michael Chabon. I've been listening to Summerland in the car with Owen, Oona is staging a mild protest about the book on tape choosing select times to start reading her Highlights out loud to drown out Summerland. I love listening to Michael Chabon reading Summerland, he does different voices for the various characters. It just might be better than reading his books on my own, because I love how endearingly geeky he is and his writing is so funny and kind and beautiful. There's a comment about Michael Chabon by his wife, Ayelet Waldman in the back of one of his books. She talks about how brilliant, talented and handsome he is, but how he's also arrogant, a bad dancer, and knows far too much about klingon politics and the lyrics to Yes songs. Even that criticism is endearing. I do not know either of them, aside from interviews I've heard where they seem to have a loving repartee when commenting about the other, but I truly envy people that have that, where you truly love the person faults and all, in a sense love them because of those faults.

So back to Black Swan Green by David Mitchell. Maybe I love it because the narrator, Jason Taylor, is thirteen in 1982, the same age as I was that year, but he's in England when all the great British 80s music is going on. Maybe it's that so much change in this boy's life is encapsulated in a year. It could be that I love it because Jason stammers and writes poetry under a pseudonym or that it's written in such a engaging colloquial style where, at times, Mitchell will have triple contractions. He captures the feeling of not fitting and adolescent longing, which can bring up such confusing feelings of ambivalence, like he was just thirteen yesterday. There was one line, so brief, where Jason sees Dawn Madden wet from the rain and wants to go over and suck the water from a lock of her hair, it seemed so erotic and charged with that energy of when your body first hums over someone of the opposite sex. I'd really like to read his other novels too but I'm a wee bit worried because they aren't as linear, they'll shoot back and forth in time, place and can have up to nine narrators, it seems a bit daunting but if they're as well written as Black Swan Green it shouldn't be a problem.

stupid humor

Saw this on someone's car and I laughed out loud.

pinkeye

Can someone tell me how I wound up with pinkeye when neither of my kids have it and they weren't even with me this weekend? I woke up Monday morning to a pus dripping crusted over right eye, took my test at school, stayed to figure out my score (96!) and left to go to Medexpress. Got an antibiotic for my eye that caused it to get pinker, itchier and more swollen, this morning I was not looking pretty. So I stayed home again today and got a different eyedrop (steroid and antibiotic) that's much more bearable. Hopefully I'll look more normal, less infectious by tomorrow. At least I get two days off from school, I'm spending all this luxurious free time reading. I cannot stress how nice it is to read non-nursing related material. Heavenly.

ceilings

A few weeks ago I had the ceilings replastered in all the bedrooms and the hallway on the second floor, the living room and they redid the finish on the dining room ceiling so that it's smooth and not textured. They did a fantastic job and I was really pleased with their work but dreaded having to paint all these newly plastered ceilings, not to mention all the rooms that need repainting. It's a lot of work and my lower back has been bothering me for well over a month. Plus after I went to get a massage to ease this lower back issue, which didn't ease up, I now have a pulled groin muscle and rotator muscle (to keep my miserable back company) thanks to an overly enthusiastic masseuse who was pulling at my left limbs while chiding me for being so tight. I've been hampered with pain for over a month now. From now on I only go to the kooky masseuse who talks throughout the massage but actually works magic on my tense muscles. So I really wasn't looking forward to painting the ceilings but I tackled all but one (the living room) this weekend. And I went above and beyond, two coats of paint that goes on pink and dries white, thank God for that or else I would have gone crazy trying to discern where I had and hadn't yet painted. And I'm not noticing the pain in my groin or lower back because my neck, shoulders and upper back are in agony now. Nothing like displacing the focus of your pain. I rewarded myself with a triple scoop sundae, hot fudge, dry malt and whipped cream on top - it's scary I think I'm the person that frequents the local Baskin Robbins most often, aside from the people that work there. And there have been evenings where I've gotten that and a Reese's peanut butter cup sundae - I can live off of ice cream in the summer. But my real question is do you think I can just dip myself in Biofreeze and all my pain will go away? Maybe I should rub it on my temples and try to alleviate my psychic pain.

Well speaking of pain, I have to go back to my powerpoints and study for my test tomorrow. Wish me luck. I'm already starting to panic over the idea of taking the NCLEX in the fall, my guardian angel/surrogate mother of nursing school tells me not to worry, that I'll do fine on it. But she isn't privy to the madness of my mind, that can over think the most obvious question when stressed. My God I'm going to need drugs to deal with the level of anxiety I'm going to get around that test come October. And then I need to find a job.

Deathly Hollows Part 2

Owen and I went to see Harry Potter last night, I was at a bit of a disadvantage having not seen the first half of Deathly Hollows, although I did read the book, but that was years ago. We went to the 3D version and I was so frustrated with myself that I started crying during the movie- why I should have been frustrated or surprised for that matter is beyond me since I bought Deathly Hollows the day it came out, read it in one day and was crying throughout reading it. Then I looked over at Owen part way through the movie and saw him lifting his 3D glasses to wipe away his tears. My little buddy. He's going to be my date for tearjerkers in the future, I'll just have to remember to bring a box of Kleenex for us to split. He leaned over to me and I hugged him rubbing his fuzzy head from time to time, his Dad shaved it last week 'doesn't it feel like velour' Owen said when he showed me his buzz cut. We teared up throughout the rest of the movie and on the ride home when we rehashed the best parts of the movie. He's such a sweet boy, I know he's getting older but I was so happy that he brought his wand to the movie and held my hand as we walked to the car.

Oh and can I just tell you, what a difference adulthood has made on Neville Longbottom. He is now really good looking and crazy tall, I think he towers over the rest of the cast. It's an amazing transformation I'm so happy Neville blossomed into his looks or whatever the male equivalent of blossoming is. Still love Ralph in all his evil noseless, bald glory, that man just makes me drool even as Voldemort. I also love Alan Rickman but am a bit concerned, he looked a bloated in the face with this last Harry Potter - I can't tell if it was the 3D glasses (I can't deal with 3D, I'm too shallow I guess, the glasses reflect the exit signs and it drive me batty),age, booze or illness.

sting

On Wednesday Owen got stung by either a wasp or hornet while at camp. He was near a piece of playground equipment where a hive was so he's lucky he didn't get stung more. It's the only the second time he's been stung and I didn't think more of it after he showed me his pinky and couldn't even point out where he had been stung. Then he woke me up at 3 in the morning crying saying his hand hurt. I was annoyed and about ready to tell him to just go back to bed but when I turned on the light I noticed his pinky finger was swollen. He stayed home from camp and my mom took him to the doctor's and they didn't seem terribly concerned, said it was a large local reaction and recommended Benadryl, elevation and ice to help with the swelling (the triage nurse recommended Benadryl when I had called in the wee hours of the morning but I didn't have any, having bought bottle a bottle years ago as a precaution for the kids, which I never used it and promptly threw it out and never replaced when it expired). I got home from Western Psych (my clinical rotation), got the report from my Mom and brought Owen with me (he had a dose of Benadryl in him) to get Oona from camp and then we had to stop at a mechanic's. All the while swelling continued with his hand (to continue with the Harry Potter theme his pinky resembled Dudley's Aunt Marge when Harry inadvertently blows her up while angry). His pinky was ready to pop. So I called the doctor's office again and went back over. I became more concerned when Owen started telling me his throat felt scratchy. They put a pulse ox on him that measured his O2 sats at 92% and it didn't go up- just for reference, the monitor limits (vital signs) at Children's Hospital are set to alarm when they go below 93% because children can desat much quicker than adults. So another doctor looked at the hand, was similarly nonplussed by the rash or for that matter Owen's O2 sats, but wrote a scrip for a steroid which he recommended on top of the steroid to help alleviate the swelling. This picture isn't the best because the flash wiped out the redness but can you see that the swelling went up to his wrist and across to the middle finger and that portion of his hand. I have never seen a twelve hour delayed reaction to a bee sting, let alone a reaction like this. The other picture shows a profile of how fat his hand got because he's pretty skinny so you can usually see the bones in in his without a problem, like how you can notice them in the right hand in the first picture. Now I don't know if I should have him tested for allergies to beestings or not. Most literature says people with large local reactions will be fine but they do mention that a percentage of those who have large local reactions can go on to develop anaphylactic reactions and if the large local reaction goes beyond 10 centimeters (almost 4 inches) that increases the risk. I'd hate for him to have a reaction like this if he got stung on the neck and call me crazy but I'd rather have an epi pen on me if he suddenly developed a systemic allergic reaction. Thankfully the steroids and Benadryl combo have made the swelling go down significantly. His pinky is still a bit red and swollen but nothing like it was.

batwings

Over the weekend I took a brief sojourn from all things nursing school, I had a twelve page psych assessment to type up, two care plans and an OB presentation, I was feeling a bit slammed and needed a breather so I headed over to the Gap because right after 4th of July you can get some crazy good deals. My score was this raspberry swiss dot batwing top that I got in Gap kids (XL). Originally $24.95 I got it for a dollar. Yes, $1. I was so thrilled with my score I wore it to class today, all smiley and happy thinking surely someone would comment on the cute top and then I could tell them the deal I got. No one said a thing, I don't seem to register with my nursing peers when it comes to fashion... or politics, music, anything? sigh. it's hard not fitting in. Well I went to pick up Owen and Oona from camp later in the day, the weather was crazy, torrential downpours with wind gusts so strong the rain drops went horizontal on my windshield. I was at a red light sheltered by the sizable bulk of West Penn hospital and I could still feel the wind tugging my car. I was scared to go when the light turned green, I thought my car would get carried down Liberty avenue (although if it could be written off as totaled and I could get a new car that wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing). Well I got to camp unscathed and as soon as Oona saw me she came running over at full speed, saying how much she missed me and I was putting my weight in my legs so she wouldn't knock us both over when she gave me a fierce hug. Then Owen saw I was there and ran over to hug me. The first thing he said to me was, 'I like your shirt.' so I let him know how much I paid for it and he was suitably impressed, 'Wow! That was cheap!' it was all the confirmation I needed. Between the hugs and Owen noticing the bargain shirt I felt like the luckiest mom in the world.

With my zealous nature when it comes to cleaning I don't know how it took me so long to discover the power of OxiClean. Last week I washed my scrubs and forgot to take a pen out of the front pocket. There were pen marks all over my pristine white scrubs, assorted light colored shirts that I'd thrown in with that load and my beloved shabby chic via target sheets that are a pale pink with rosebuds scattered throughout. I was devastated. I squirted Shout on all the pen marks, I went through half the bottle with that endeavor there were so many marks, washed everything again in hot water with some type of Tide stain lifter and washing booster potion, it faded the marks from black to pale blue but they still weren't budging. I've been sleeping on the pen marked pillowcases and feeling rather tawdry, I'm too close to having OCD, oh I probably do have OCD to a certain extent, I have to arrange the crayons and colored pencils in my children's plastic bin just so, I feel feel drab and dirty sleeping on stained sheets like that. And I was loathe to shell out money for another pair of white scrubs, I think I've written at length about how much I loathe wearing white scrubs. So I was complaining to another student with children and she mentioned the OxiClean and that I should just let my scrubs soak in a water OxiClean mixture, that I could leave them in it up to a week and it wouldn't break down the fabric the way bleach can, and I would never risk soak clothes in bleach for a week, they'd be gone. Well that OxiClean got rid of all the pen marks overnight, my scrubs have never looked so good. I can't wait to soak my pillowcases. It's the little things in life that can make your day and I can't tell you how thrilled I was to see those stains go away. But then it rained and I was faced with the water making its way through my sandstone foundation and into my basement. A little thing that can ruin your day. Or the graffitied load of laundry, take your pick. It's the infuriatingly pedestrian ups and downs of being a grown up and owning a house.

So my kids had their first week of summer camp and things went off relatively smoothly. No beads stuck up the nose, Oona's incident last year (which I somehow neglected to blog about, (she shoved a blue bead 'for honesty' up her nose and we had to take her to the ER, where she gave various not so honest stories about how it made it's way up her nose, to get it out) resulted in a policy change where they have a 'bead ceremony' but they give out stickers instead of beads. Sort of confusing I know. Owen and Oona are having some minor difficulties at camp because Oona idolizes her brother and wants to follow him everywhere and Owen is annoyed that Oona is trying to join drama club, which is Owen's thing. Being an only child I always feel lost with the sibling rivalry stuff, I just try to tell them both that they're going to be around each other for the rest of their lives so they might as well get along. But overall the week was a good one. They went swimming twice (I worry about them drowning even more now that I've been at Children's and since they don't really know how to swim, but it sounds like they have to stay in water under their armpits), went to the library and went to Soldiers and Sailors museum. I got Owen's report card in the mail and he did great, he got straight A's except for handwriting, where he got a B. Last term he got a C in handwriting. Truth be told he probably should get a D in handwriting because his writing is barely legible and this is only after we go over his homework repeatedly. The hardest part of his homework is being able to print well enough that someone can read it, we wound up having to erase and rewrite a lot. He gets so frustrated by this and it makes me feel awful, he'd be better off typing his homework. I just don't get how his handwriting can be so god awful, Oona's three years younger and her penmanship and drawings blow Owen's away. Oh well, what are you going to do, if that's his only trouble in life he's pretty well off. I still haven't gotten Oona's report card, don't know how to interpret this. Perhaps her behavior was so bad Mrs. M is at a loss for how many N's for needs improvement to give her? I'll leave you with Oona's article for the camp newsletter. I'm kicking myself for ever promising the kids a dog once I graduate from school.

About Dogs
Dogs are furry. You can play with them. I can play catch with them. They are fun. They live in your house. Dogs eat dog food and they can eat out of the garbage. They can sleep with you. They make me happy. Some are fast, some have no fur. They can be big or small. They can be nice or mean. And they are so lovable!

in no particular order

I can miss my father so acutely on random days throughout the year but yesterday wasn't random. He always used to enjoy watching as much golf as humanly possible on Father's Day and gmail had this creepy reminder in the contacts to call Dad, and I say creepy because what the hell am I supposed to do when my father is dead? I don't like stuff like that, it just makes me hyperaware of how people can sort of take a lot of things for granted. I know I did. I wouldn't have thought twice about something like that until now. And yes, I feel more than a little guilt at the fact that my Dad ashes are hanging out in a box on the third floor, it's so hot up there with the windows closed and no a/c, I feel like I should put his cremains in a more comfortable place. I also feel guilty that I'm mad at him that he decided he wants his ashes spread out in San Francisco, rather than Moosehead lake, where his mother's ashes were spread and where he said he wanted his ashes spread years ago. But the man lived beyond his means in life so I guess wanting his ashes spread off the coast of Marin makes sense in a way. My father was far from perfect, but I know he loved me and faulted as he was I miss him. I miss playing Scrabble with him and how he could make me laugh and making him laugh, because he when he laughed he put everything into it so it was oddly flattering to get that sort of reaction from him based on something I said.

In other news, my kids had their last day of school last wednesday, which was followed with a pizza party at the park I'll take them to when I'm able to get out of school early. They had a lot of fun, faces were painted, popsicles were eaten in bulk. My mom watched them on thursday and friday, since I was at the hospital, and they went to the zoo thursday. My mom told them that she would buy each of them stuffed animals but they had to find something under ten dollars. So Oona found a cute little macaroni penguin within the price range but apparently Owen's stuffed animal needs are so high maintenance that he just couldn't find anything he liked under ten dollars so she wound up buying him a really cool, over budget stuffed squid. Then we went to Burgatory for dinner on friday, it was Owen's choice, and I'll never go there again because it's so loud I can't hear myself think. And yes saying that I'm now officially ready for my AARP subscription. I played hangman with Oona and being the smart ass mother that I am said to my mom, 'What are the chances that Oona correctly spelled her clue?' Actually she did spell 'Hannah Montana' correctly but she didn't fully understand the rules of the game. Like when I said 'a' she only put one 'a' in and she did the same thing with 'n'. I tried to explain that it's like 'Wheel of Fortune' and you have to show all instances of the letter. To be fair though she draws a very nice interpretation of hangman where the person is jumping off a chair. Owen complained that that isn't how you do hangman but I think she gets bonus points for creative interpretation of the hanging.

Finally, I've been at Children's hospital for my clinical rotations the past two weeks and I absolutely love it there. I'm so confused. How can I love pediatrics this much when I'm not a fun parent, frequently feel inadequate and exhausted when it comes to being a mother? I don't get it. But I'm not going to analyze this too much, it's such a wonderful environment, it's 'my mother' in terms of a specialty in healthcare that fits.
Last day of school
Oona looks much better when her bangs aren't hanging in her eyes
Owen keeping the park safe

out of the mouths of babes

I stand corrected. Owen sort of elaborated on his abilities, or perhaps had a different interpretation of what his math teacher said. It turns out it was within his grade level, he's still doing extremely well, but yesterday I was thinking he was some math prodigy and I wondered how he beat out fourth and firth graders if he hasn't even been exposed to the math they do. Well no need to wonder about that anymore. I mean for the most part my children are very accurate in the stories they tell me but yesterday Owen also said his one friend was really scraped up badly because he fell off his bike and then a cub scout rode over his friend on his cub scout bike, yeah Owen insisted it was a cub scout riding over him on the 'cub scout bike'. I'm thinking the whole cub scout part might need some reexamination. And then there was the time Oona told me her dad's fiance was pregnant, and yes, I'm probably a gullible idiot, but I did believe her until I asked Toby. I can only imagine what they say about me.

So Owen just told me that his math teacher took him aside today to let him know that he tied for third highest score on his PSSA tests that he took a while back (I wrote about him taking a warmup run before the test, the principal encourages all the students to do this, where he wiped out and wound up scraping his nose up). So graceful he's not but smart yes. I mean, apparently he outscored most of the fourth and fifth graders, the teacher is saying he tied for third in the school, although I'm not sure if it was for the test overall or just in math. His math teacher is super nice and has mentioned to me before that Owen does really well in math. I was so happy for him, I had him call my mom and his dad to share the news. But then I started thinking, what can I do so he's challenged in school because I sort of get the feeling, based on what he says, that he's not. I'm wondering if I'd be able to get him into a private school on an academic scholarship (because God knows he will not be going to one on whatever I'll make once I get a job).

In other news, even though it might not look like it from the photo with the painfully prominent clavicle I promise you that Owen eats plenty of food. He just doesn't seem to put on weight, or he's growing too quickly. I imagine he'd look amazing in skinny jeans.

hotness

Maybe it's the weather, being on match or going to celebitchy every friday to check out their hot dong friday but I keep thinking of what men I find physically attractive (ooh and especially at the gym when my favorite is getting his sweat on). Sure, there are men that I find physically attractive that I'm sure I would have felt the same way about twenty five years ago and then there are those that I find attractive that I probably wouldn't have looked at twice ten years ago. But this weekend I'm thinking of hot Scots (James Mcavoy who is lovingly covered in the hot dong friday link) and the very very young (20!) Aaron Johnson, who's engaged to someone older than me (Sam Taylor-Wood). At first, this seems a bit creepy, but then I'm like fuck it more power to her. I mean, God knows I'd be happy as a clam to have that face and body lying in my bed. And there are so many men that date people where the age difference is even more than twenty-three years between them. I mean my personal rule tends to be I want someone who can at least recall bicentennial because I remember leapfrogging over the fire hydrants in my town that were painted to resemble midget pilgrims. But I see that for the very arbitrary line drawn in the sand that it is. And, really, if James McAvoy (32) or Aaron Johnson (20) decided they simply must be with me I'm sure I'd be jumping right over that line in the sand in a heartbeat.


So James Mcavoy (above) is better known than Aaron Johnson. He was in Last King of Scotland, Wanted (which I rented just to watch his loveliness) and Atonement (which I own because I loved the book and the movie isn't as great as the book but the book didn't have James Mcavoy in it so it's sort of a tie). And, yes, I'll admit to renting Penelope under the guise of it being a family film I could watch with my kids when really it was all for me to lust after James in all his hotness.

Aaron Johnson was in Kick-Ass, which was actually a pretty good movie, and he's such an adorable goofball in it. I also watched Nowhere Boy over my break in April, which is where he met Sam Taylor-Wood since she directed the film. It's about John Lennon's years as a teen and the very very early start of his music career. She got amazing actors for her film, Kristin Scott-Thomas, who is always so incredible and James Mcacvoy's wife, plus that cute little Boy that played Liam Neeson's stepson in Love, Actually plays Paul McCartney in this (and he's actually older than Aaron Johnson in real life, wow this boy is crazy young). Aaron Johnson does a really good job in this film, it's a small film but I thought it was very well done (some of the shots in the film are stunning). And, so I guess the perpetual nineteen year old in me finds Aaron Johnson incredibly hot and just wants to have a makeout session with those full lips of his and run my fingers through his goregous curls (just look at how flipping lovely they are in that last shot of him with his fiance, how does she not have her hands in his hair?!). Okay, I'll stop panting now.

dilemma

I don't know how to even go about explaining what happened today. I picked my kids up early and took them to the place we usually go to so they can play for an hour or so before dinner. One of the parents I know, it's not like we're tight (I'm not really tight with anyone) but we talk when we're up there, wound up backing into my car. I saw the whole thing from a distance of about 50 yards. The parent got out of there car, looked at my car and then got back in their car and drove off. Now it's not like my car sustained major damage, hardly, the paint got scraped where my bumper was tapped. It wouldn't be a big deal if this parent had bothered to walk over and say something to me. But they didn't. I don't know why I didn't get up, maybe I assumed they would come over to me? I honestly can't say. But it makes me feel so crappy. And I don't even know what to say to this person next time I see them. Thanks for the hit and run on my car? I avoid conflict like the plague, so I'm obviously not going to say that, but what would be a way to politely get the point across that it totally wasn't cool to back into my car and then drive off hoping that I didn't see what I did?

study break

Damn, where has May gone and how did it get to be the twenty-second all of a sudden? So I'm doing my usual panic/procrastination dance. Have a test tomorrow morning and I really need to study but then I decide I need to recycle my glass and plastic even more, and it's off to construction junction. Or I simply must stop at Anthropologie NOW and buy a scented candle (oakmoss, it's yummy) to get rid of the spunky smell in my house (a fetid attar of stinkbug, cat, and rotting bananas). And can someone please explain to me just who is buying the handsoap at Anthropologie that's selling for twenty-fucking-two dollars?! So I ponder that insanity for a while and the unfairness that all I can afford is a scented candle, even their sale stuff is pricey. But right now I have a home and health insurance, I'm more fortunate than many in this country, in that I can afford an overpriced candle. Then when I get home and sit down with all my powerpoints, well, of course, that's when I notice how filthy the house is and start cleaning like a madwoman trying to atone for the vacuum neglect this house endures during the week. And just to go off on a side note I really need a new vacuum, like the perfect vacuum (I'm on a quest for the perfect vacuum, pillow, pair of jeans to make my thighs look slender, oh and man). Speaking of which, man have I had quite a few responses from match. It gives me faith that there are other intelligent, kind, educated people in Pittsburgh and they get bonus points for good spelling (you can't imagine how many people on match have trouble even constructing a sentence). Who knows how it will pan out, fingers crossed I can get a couple free meals at Umi if nothing else. I know what I want but if it doesn't happen on match, well at least I met some nice people. And I have to give my Mom (who is also on match) a special thank you because I can't just outright reject people I'm not interested in by ignoring their emails and I figured she would have a kind diplomatic way of saying 'I'm not interested' and she did. Plus we had a giggle about some of the stuff we've seen on match, she has a 36 year old who keeps writing to her that she's had to block. I was like 'imagine if we wind up having the same guy hitting on both of us?' I go out to dinner with my mom and the kids every week and we have some good laughs, in between my having to take Oona to the bathroom. The girl has a thing for public restrooms, it really pushes the limits of the latent germphobe in me.

Okay, now to find something to eat, I absolutely have to fold the laundry and then back to studying. Really and truly this time. Wish me luck.

biting the bullet

Much like someone who holds their nose when taking a vile medicine I'm deciding to dip my foot back into online dating with match. My mom was the real motivator. She keeps emailing me profiles of men with graduate degrees and nice smiles that she notices on match. These men get bonus points, meaning my mom comments even more about them, if they are superb spellers (they've got spellcheck on match now so it shouldn't be that difficult). My mom means well and she knows I'd like to share my life with someone so she keeps trying to nudge me back into online dating, even offering to pay for my subscription, if money is what's holding me back. It's not the money that's kept me out of the dating pool. The whole internet dating scene is pretty much anathema to me but I'm looking at it as a necessary evil towards meeting someone, since I'm not getting any younger and I'm pretty much sick to death of spending all my free time alone. In some ways it's easier than meeting someone in person because I have no clue when someone is interested in me, I need the romantic equivalent of an anvil dropped on my head to get the hint. So in virtual dating I can get winks or emails and that's a hint even I'm not obtuse enough to be puzzled over. It's also much easier for me to flirt through writing than in person. But not on the phone, and unfortunately, some guys like to preemptively screen potential face to face dates with a phone call and if that happens I'll quickly fall out of the potentially date worthy pool. Phone calls when I don't really know someone make me feel as awkward and uninspired by just what to say as I was when I was middle school and the silences on the phone with boys I was 'going out' with would make me blush and stammer to find something (anything!) to fill that gap of nothingness between our ears. But another really tough thing with online dating is the need to sell myself in writing and, you know, if your skill is to pick yourself apart that isn't the easiest thing to do. So what do I write? How do I make myself date worthy? Well I can always hold off on that until I get a decent profile picture to put up, and with the way my hair is looking lately it might be months until I can put a decent profile up.

think up

My forties have not been a decade that's welcomed me with open arms. I've gone through a separation, lost my father and grandmother, am reinventing myself as a nurse, which is no easy task in your twenties, let alone at twice that age. The past couple of years have been a bit of a suckfest for the most part. Financial struggles? check. Uncertain future? check. Middle aged and without health in 2012 if I don't find a job in the two months after I graduate? check. It is enough to keep me up at night and has sucked the fat right out of my face (but not my thighs, it's so not right). But there are a couple of things that continue to go right for me. In spite of me really. Owen and Oona. As bad as things get in every fucking arena of my life, my children are the bright spots in my life. The other day Owen heard me talking to his Dad on the phone about Oona's behavior at school. She is very bright and, I suspect, very bored, and winds up talking constantly in class. The teacher can't control her and I think it's gotten to a point where the teacher has sort of tossed up her hands and Oona controls the class. We get daily behavior chart updates and there are days where the teacher makes sad faces in the row 'I will listen quietly when the teacher is talking' that drawn so violently I'm surprised it doesn't go through the paper. What can I do? I've met with the teacher. I've suggested using Oona as a helper, which I think Oona would love, she plays teacher all the time, and with 25 other students in the class it might be in Mrs. M's best interests. I've said to send her to the principal's office when she acts out (if she isn't going to positively reinforce her than send her to a place she's terrified to be sent to) but the teacher does none of this. Just puts her on sad face and I get the daily update clearly showing how taxed the teacher is by Oona's loquacious nature. So after I got off the phone Owen looks at me and it's like I can see the lightbulb over his head. He says, 'I've got an idea for how to help Oona. Why don't we send her to the talk doc.' The talk doc being a absolutely wonderful children's therapist who helped out Owen when he was having a tough time this fall with all the changes that have occurred in his life over the past year or so. It just made me want to cry it seemed so sweet of him. Just like the fact that ever since I've been able to ask Owen what his favorite color is it's always been the same answer, 'all of them' because he doesn't want any of the colors to feel left out. I kvell over that sweet little heart of his. Or Oona coming over to hug me and pat my head, she can be the most maternal five year old, when I'm lying on the couch and can barely talk my head is hurting so badly. I love that my children are such kind loving souls. I just would like to find an adult version that I could wake up next to. It's not something I need but for fuck's sake it certainly makes life much more enjoyable.

hello, my name is

Loser? Actually it's Kim, not Amelia, and I get that that might be a bit confusing with the blog name but that isn't really the issue. The issue is that I've had this lovely two and a half week break and just the word break, it usually implies all the fun things you'll try to fit into that precious amount of time, activities, seeing people, you know, something to make the transience of it jam packed with fun. And my break has just sort of stung for the most part. I had a couple days that I got to spend with two friends and they were really lovely days. But one friend I had to import from Philly and I wind up sucking the marrow out of my time with them like a starving person because I have so few friends and therein lies the problem. Now I'm not a person that needs to have five hundred close friends, or even fifty, I'd be elated with five people that I could consider true friends, but I'd be lucky if I had half that. My phone hardly ever rings and when it does it's either my Mom or my ex, who's usually calling to speak to the kids. So there's truly only one person who calls me on a regular basis and I love my Mom but I'd sort of like to have someone else calling to see how I'm doing, or want to do something with me. And even my Mom is counting down the days until I graduate so she can leave Pittsburgh because she doesn't like it here and then I won't even have her to go to the diner with on Sundays, which is the extent of my social life. And yes, I'm well aware of how cringe worthy that is. I know that I can be quiet and shy so I'm not one that people naturally gravitate to. In fact I seem to be the type of person that gets reintroduced to people because they just can't remember meeting me. But I have actively tried with some people, to get together for coffee, or a drink (I've extended invitations to my house since I'm a bit of a lightweight with alcohol) or dinner. And 99% of time I get blown off. Which really makes me feel crappy, like I must be incredibly boring or just not worth the time. At the start of this break I asked one Mom for her phone number because Oona loves playing with her daughter, she'll scream her name the way Marlon Brando screamed 'Stella' in Streetcar Named Desire when this girl isn't at the farmhouse to play. The mother wouldn't give me her number, which struck me as odd, but she put my name and number in her cell phone and said she'd get in touch over break. And I never heard from her. I just don't get it. Not only am I not friend-worthy but I'm not even playdate worthy for your child who, ostensibly, could have just been dropped off and it would have given the mom a free afternoon? I mean I don't think I look like a pedophile or otherwise sketchy and I just thought it would be fun for Oona. So I spent my break going to the gym a lot, which isn't out of the ordinary, since that's one way to pass the time. I watched season five of Lost and am almost done with my book, which is sort of petering out of its initial promise but I can't not finish a book. I start school again on Monday and my high from having done well the previous term is long gone, having a break without anyone to really talk to I quickly start feeling that I'm not really nurse material but just what material I am I don't know.

those pesky details

Last week I decided to treat myself to having the interior of my car professionally cleaned and detailed, because the seats, which I've talked about in previous posts, are tan cloth and, impractically enough, get stained with water. The carpet is also tan and was pretty wretched looking and the car had an odor of dirty, sweaty child that always made me want to apologize when I drove other students to the various hospitals that we'd go to on clinical days. So the fellow that did the work on my car was super friendly. He even brought the car to my house when he was done with it, since it was pouring and I didn't want to walk with the kids in the bad weather to pick it up. I tipped him and thanked him and, at first look, everything looked really good, although I immediately saw that the major stains on the passenger seat weren't going to come out. The stains on Owen and Oona's seats, that I yell at them about for getting mud all over, those stains came out fine. But the passenger seat, the stains that I made by using that seat as a makeshift dining tray, were unfortunately permanent, and, also unfortunate, the stain really looks like someone urinates on that seat on regular basis. So I was doing this internal fight of, well it does look better versus maybe there was a better way to have spent $110? Although, to be fair to the detailer, the carpeting really looks amazing, it's just the passenger seat that still looked bad. And the driver's seat, where the right side is stained from my wiping my (coffee or cookie covered hand on the seat, in lieu of napkins, because I feel compelled to expose how filthy I am to you and how someone, my children perhaps? should yell at me). Honestly the amount I eat in the car is saddening and, frankly, disgusting. I've had to ask another student (female, I assure you) in the wee morning hours, heading to the hospital before light has touched the sky, if I have chocolate stains on the ass of my blindingly white scrubs (and how practical is white as a scrub color?) because I eat so many cookies in the car. Fortunately the answer has been no but I seem to have a problem walking in my shoes that causes me to kick back dirt on rainy/snowy days severely enough that I wind up with spots up to my ass, it's like I need mud flaps (chaps?) on my uniform when I'm outside.

But back to my clean, but not clean enough, car. It looked much better, although the seats were still damp from the cleaning. The detailer told me to just leave the car on and blast the heat but I felt really bad doing that on Earth day so I just turned the car off and cracked the windows a bit. I had brought in the car mats to dry in the hallway but after a half hour I realized I couldn't deal with the smell of them in the house. And that's when it dawned on me. The inside of my car reeked from whatever industrial crap he had used to clean the carpet and upholstery, an awful, cloying perfume smell that was ten times worse than the child spunk of before. So for the past week I've been driving around in my Mom's Civic while leaving my car with the windows at various stages of open depending on the weather (and the weather has not been making this easy, what with all the frequent showers) and time of day. I also put a box of baking soda and an odor absorber in the car. And the car still reeks, in a super strong, permeate your clothes, headache & nausea inducing way. Granted, I am really smell sensitive to begin with. Nothing like a bout of hyperemesis gravidarum in pregnancy to give you the nose of a bloodhound. I can't deal with my laundry detergent being scented and the only dish soap I can use is Ivory (Ecover's lemon verbena dishsoap is heavenly smelling, my favorite, but too pricy to justify using and Method's lemon verbena cleanser is horrible smelling, like it's hard to believe they're both aiming for the same scent). When Oona was a month old Toby decided to paint Drylock in part of the basement and the smell was so strong I stayed in a hotel for the night with the kids and then insisted we go to his parents for a long weekend because I was convinced the VOC's were going to permanently damage my children and their vulnerable, developing brains (this became an ongoing joke with Toby's friends that he played video games with online, where they saw the opportunity in it, a cunning way to carve out time for themselves, away from family, by offering to Drylock a basement). Yeah, so I sound more and more like Julianne Moore in Safe and I'm sure you can sort of sympathize with my ex at this point.