Pictures soon...House remodel!

I have done the following to my house:

• Changed out kitchen counter tops from vintage 1962 to oak butcher block
• The above required installing a new sink and newer gas stove (as opposed to electric - how can you cook on electric??? Food requires fire!! But I diverge...)
  
• Sanded and painted the kitchen cabinets
• Changed out the hardware on said cabinets
• Painted the vent -a-hood
• Installed new bath vanities
• Reseated both toilets
• Redone the flooring in both baths

Totally love it! I am assembling the pics as I have been taking before and afters...

Oh! We mustn't forget the GYNORMOUS hole in the backyard that facilitated the city's cleaning out the blockage in the sewer main that forced the faster-than-planned bathroom remodels....

Still have to install the access to the main before I cover it back up....

A Few More Additional Things...

Yes, I stand corrected....

Duct Tape should be added to the "What everyone (woman) should have and know how to use...blog.

Also:
Cable Ties
Teflon tape - used to connect plumbing so it does not leak!

Thanks for the correction!

The Month to Reflect

Ah, tis' the month of Thanksgiving!! What are you thankful for? A quick few thoughts on what I am thankful for:

1. Health - You can't buy it and it is a gift
2. John
   
3. Love - Love of friends, love of family
4. The ability to learn from my mistakes so that I don't repeat them
   
5. The freedom this country offers
6. My attitude
7. The fact I really love my job
8. The fact that I really love my life
9. Being able to persevere
10. Being happy with what I have

Give it some thought...what are your really, really glad you have?

Tools every woman should own...And know how to use!

This a list of tools, a basic set, that everyone, especially a woman should own and know how to use:

1. Hammer
2. Level
3. Drill with accompanying drill bits and phillips and flat -head attachment
4. Tape Measure - good one
5. Carpet knife
6. Ratcheting screw driver - these usually come with interchangeable heads for different sizes and flat vs phillips head. A must have.
7. Picture hanging set - they sell little sets so you can hang your art work/pictures!
8. Pliers
9. Channel locks - these are the long-handled pliers with adjustable bite

And last but not least....a desire to get dirty and feel great about your accomplishment!!

Latest Movie Suggestion

If you want a moving, engaging movie that has an unlikely setting, Greenfingers is your movie.

It is about prison inmates that end up in an "open" prison. They are transformed by gardening and the trust the warden shows in them. Oh, and they end up entering a gardening show help at Hampton Place.

It is based on a true story and is a beautiful tale of how facing your demons is the only way to progress. Even if those demons are represented in bare earth, rocky, acidic soil and little outside help.

The movie is a definite watch for anyone. A wonderful story about life, learning to nurture one's self by nurturing and loving things around you.

A must watch!

Raw Food

Over the last two months, I have been getting my eggs, milk, beef and chicken from a co-op. Good Stuff Co-Op is a source for raw, unpasteurized, straight-from-the-cow milk, farm fresh eggs, and ranch raised beef and chicken. Usually the chicken is slaughtered the morning of when you pick it up.

All the animals are raised on pasture which is free of pesticides and they all roam around, well, like animals are supposed to. I had done lots of research on raw milk and the free range, ranch animals. It all points to a MUCH healthier way of eating.

Two points I can attest to: The milk alone has cured my digestive issues. Regularity and a life free of stomach cramps is my new existence.

My allergies, have virtually vanished. I had suffered for a long time of sneezing fits and watery eyes that itched until I thought it would be better to claw them out.
All gone.

Cooking with the chicken and beef is fantastic as it has only healthy, omega 3 fats and is so much more flavorful. I highly recommend it to anyone.

The down side: Expense. The "good stuff" is pricier but I think it is really worth it. I see all kinds of illness and know first hand that your health is a gift that no amount of money can buy. You have to feed your body the right stuff, and take care of your body, so it can take care of you. In that respect, I guess buying better food is a way to buy your health...

You are what you eat. Make sure it is really, really good stuff.

The List

Does any one else out there have "the list?"
You know, that list of stuff you want to do. People say it all the time, "That is going on the list!"

I keep trying to make progress on my list, but it also keeps growing. There are several things I've done but so much to do!

I hope to sky dive in the near future, toy further with the idea of a tattoo (WHERE?), get back to diving, travel, and do more remodeling on the house.

Oh, and the ever present get out of debt. I am making progress....

What's on your list??

CCRN

In October I will be going for a CCRN review: Critical Care Registered Nurse certification.

It is a tough test, but I am determined to do well. It will be a nice feather in my cap if all goes well. The test covers everything in critical care, even stuff I don't do a lot of at this time.

What I do will also change soon. In October two of our ICUs are combining; ICU1 (me-neuro) and ICU4 (hearts).

I look forward to learning about cardiovascular ICU but I am a little, well a lot, scared to death as it is serious stuff. There is a lot of gadgetry in heart management, and I like that part. It is heavy duty nursing and I hope I am up to the challenge. So much to learn!!

My hope is the CCRN review and subsequent test will help gear me up for being successful in the new combined unit!
Wish me luck!

Cooking

I am reminded how much cooking de-stresses me. This last week I work 5 days instead of the normal three. I agreed to work Tuesday as we were short at work, believing I would be canceled later in the week.
Alas, no, our unit was slammed and I worked all five days.
I was so mentally and physically exhausted by the end. Sunday I slept. We did manage to go to the gym and work out. I am pretty adamant about keeping up with my running now.

Today....well, I am cooking. Baking too. My co-workers will be happy!

I enjoy the prep, the smell of the food, the finished product...
I just enjoy cooking. It is a much needed de-stress-er. I made a chicken stir fry with garlic, ginger and soy, lots of veggies and rice on the side. Jasmine rice always smells so good.

Now I have lunch for the next two days for work, and I am content to go back to all the chaos that work can be.

Having problems?? Go Cook!!

A year of reflection

Last month marked 1 year as an RN!

Looking back, I can see just how steep the learning curve was and still is. I feel like I am at mile 4 of those 9 miles out of the Grand Canyon; It has been steep already, but I have 5 miles to go and it is still straight up.
Overall I have tons of fun at work. My colleagues are fantastic people, super knowledgeable and just as crazy and fun as I am. I am very fortunate to work with such an experienced staff.

Even the days like today, where none of us sat down practically all day, ran our behinds off and even someone passed away, we still had great fun, got it done and took excellent care of our charges.

I love what I do, and when/if the day comes where I don't, I will do something else.
I will not torture my fellow coworkers with a bad attitude.
And absolutely not my patients!

Unexpected Thankfullness

Strangely, I have come to really appreciate my difficult childhood. The trials, tribulations and abuse taught me coping mechanisms. Granted not all of them were healthy and thus I had to learn which to keep and which ones to discard. The coping mechanisms I kept have served me well in helping me get to where I am today. Despite my mistakes, I have learned a lot and really like where I am today.

At work I see so many people who had a nice, easy, spoiled, 'got whatever they wanted' childhood. They have no coping mechanisms and cannot deal very well when thrown into adult life. They turn to drugs, mostly, either illegal or prescription in order to function. Many also turn to food or destructive behaviors.

As horrible and difficult as it is, you have to face what you don't like about yourself, your choices and your life, deal with it - either with help or by yourself. The drugs don't solve the real problem, the food only makes you more unhealthy and more depressed, and still, there is a hole inside you.

Strangely, I have come to appreciate all the things I learned to do as a kid. Granted these things were in self preservation, but now as an adult, I love my life and have the attitude there is nothing I cannot accomplish if I really want it.

I do not see that attitude all people of my generation and definitely not in a generation after me.

Sometimes difficult is necessary. Pain is usually the best teacher whether that is physical or emotional.

My thoughts to parents?
Let your kids fail and have to try again, and maybe even again and again.
They learn how to do it and that they can.
There will not always be someone to solve their problems for them.

It is not PC, but I don't care...

I just finished reading an aritcle in CNN about how airlines are about to start charging people who are too fat to fit into one seat. There was this disenting comment:



Still, some larger passengers who need more than one seat believe being charged extra is discriminatory and the airlines are not accommodating the growing American waistline.
"The airlines need to be making bigger seats," said Peggy Howell, a spokeswoman for the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance, a group based in San Francisco, California. "It's not safe to be cramming us into two seats."



Really...there is an association to promote accepting fatness??? Where is the society for acceptance for hypertension? Or to accept congestive heart failure??



If you are fat, deal with the fact you are fat, pay for the extra seat or whatever and decide to do something about it. Join weight watchers, count calories, something, but accepting your lack of health is not an option. Educate yourself on nutition, do something proactive before you develop diabetes and your extremities start to rot off.



The fact that America has just decided to accept being fat...well, I cannot abide by that. Obesity is so detrimental to one's health and well being. Not to mention it does not kill you out right, but slowly, at great expense and at great pain; to you and your family.



How can we have a National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance???



It is time to throw polically correct out the damn window and face up to realities. If you take more than one seat on an airpane you are are too large and it is no one else's problem but your own. Get your MD on board, get a plan and work your plan for weight managment. It won't be easy but the benefits are limitless.



to hell with PC!!

Humans need animals

This is a hear-warming story of puppies in prison. There isn't enough space to go into all the things that I think are wrong with our prison system, but this is something that is very right.
Puppies in Prison

Please take a moment to read. It brings up something important....unconditional love. I think in order to be well balanced, whole people, we all need to know what it is to be loved unconditionally. I think few people really understand what that truly means.

The Path of Alzheimers

As Alzheimer's progresses, you find yourself asking awful, bizarre questions:

1. At what point is it best to have professionals assit/perform the care of your family member?
2. When is the quality of life compromised to the point of not having quality?
3. Would your family member want to live like this?
4. How the hell will the average person afford any kind of dementia care?
5. Can someone please euthanize me in the event I get to the point of not knowing anything and not being able to care for myself....?

Our health care system is in no way, shape, form or fashion set up to deal with the coming onslaught of dementia care that is going to be needed. People will suffer, and families will suffer simply because no one knows what the hell to do.

Example: Right now my mother is at a lovely assisted living facility that I would recommend to anyone, Apple Tree Court in Richardson, Tx. The cost for the services there are about $2700-$3000 per month. Needless to say, my siblings and I pick up some of that tab. However, as she declines, as she is showing signs of doing, she may necessitate leaving there and being in a memory facility. These are a minimum of $5000-$8000 per month. A tab we cannot afford. Most people cannot afford this unless they have planned very well for their future.

I wonder, at what point would my mom not want to participate in life. Depression is a major problem because of the lack of mobility (can't drive) and because your life does not have fluid memories any more. We are no more than a collection of our memories....

I am thankful Mom can still do all the things she needs to do; bathing, grooming, feeding herself. What a blessing. But what is next? And worse....I feel 'next' is going to be less than good...

How are we to live out our days?
Where are we to do that?
So many questions and no answers, or at least, very poor answers.

Update!

It has been too long since I have blogged!

I am back to the grind of day-to-day, but am loving it none the less. I have only the back splash to do in the kitchen and it will be complete...OK, a little touch up paint here and there, but done otherwise!

Next?

Probably the guest bath. It needs caulking and texture/paint. So much to do!

I picked up my bike today, I am very excited to start mountain biking. With 20lbs to lose, I need all the exercise I can get!
When the kitchen is officially finished, I will post more pics!

This is not the best pic, but you can see petroglyphs on the rocks, especially if you look on the dark, farthest back rock. These were very old art left by the Indians that lived in the painted desert before it was so completely a desert. These rocks were very far away and it was hard to get good pics of them.

Monument Valley to the Petrified Forest…

I really enjoyed the Petrified Forest which was coupled with the Painted Desert. It was easy to see where the Southwestern palette of colors comes from. Pinks, whites, sand and red stripes decorate these hills. The bands of color are so perfectly arranged, so consistent; one could think these hills were painted, thus the name.

The petrified forest was just down the road a bit. I loved the colors the wood takes on once petrified. It fascinated me how the wood still appeared to be wood, except for the colors and lack of branches. The bark appears normal until you touch it. I loved looking at all the different colors. The samples of polished petrified wood were so beautiful.
However, even what appears to be a regular size piece weighs a ton. The piece we looked at was coffee table top size, beautifully polished and weighed 800lbs. It’s easy to see why the big pieces don’t run away! Sadly, the forest has been plundered and continues to be prayed upon. Leave the wood at the park!! A lovely time!

Monument Valley was on the list as well!
Grand Canyon to Monument Valley…
Our next park was Monument Valley. These huge monoliths of sand and rock are beautiful in their own, desolate way. Many photographers were there taking pictures. Here are the few I took…

Just a couple more shots...The hike out was BRUTAL, for anyone who has not tried it. It was about three days before we could walk normally again.

The Grand Canyon

Words cannot do justice to this natural wonder. Here are a couple of my favorite pics so far. John’s will no doubt be even better, feel free to view his website, they should be up in a week or so: www.johnwilkins.smugmug.com

We spent three nights and four days at the Grand Canyon. We camped on the rim for two nights and hiked to the river for the night of third camping. Backpacking in was fantastic with expansive views. However, the last 2 miles, were straight down and by the time we got to the bottom, our knees and calves were screaming.
Phantom ranch was lovely and the Ranger programs we attended were great. One was on the recovery and reintroduction of California Condors into the wild. The other was on bats and how essential these little critters are to our ecosystem. Of course, they were preaching to the choir on both accounts! An interesting point I wanted to tell everyone about; Condors were devastated by lead poisoning. Studies performed on how lead shot behaves once shot into an animal were very revealing. Any hunter who hunts and shoots an animal then brings this animal home to eat will be bringing home lead to poison his family if he has not change over to the copper shot that is being promoted now. The lead scatters and fragments once it enters the flesh. These microscopic fragments will accumulate in the body of whatever eats the contaminated flesh.Food for thought…