A Work in Progress

It’s been a while, and I’ve been trying to think of what I did over the last 10 days. I learned that 14 hours at work is about 14 too many. It’s a little scary, because now that I think of it, I can’t remember anything I did during my shift last week. I had a clinical. It started out pretty well with an asthmatic 12 year old whose wheezing I could hear from a cross the room, and an IV on the fly. From there it went to a car v. pole and eventually faded into absolutely nothing. At work recently, I transported 9 day old in withdraw, which was kind of scary. Other than that I had I had some good conversations. One with a spry Greek lady looking forward to Mardi gras, and a minister who had actually interned at my church back in the 70’s. Today I scheduled 183 hours of clinical time between now and the end of April, got the dates for the national registry exam (gasp, shock, horror!), and really made progress on this whole real life thing (don’t look now, but I may have made a decisi...

Today marks 99 days until graduation. To celebrate, I went kayaking in 35ish degree water and high winds. Note to self: water shoes and snowy trails = seriously cold toes. Somehow, putting my feet into a piece of plastic floating in freezing water helped. Other than that it was a nice little paddle. A good reminder for me to invest in nice neoprene gloves and boots, of course. Now we’re off to happy hour (I am happily DDing) to properly celebrate 99 days.

A Work in Progress, 1 year on. It’s hard to imagine it’s been a year since I jumped on the blogger bandwagon. But, reading through the 89 posts and seeing 3800+ hits, it becomes hard to imagine it’s only been a year. Here’s a reminder of a work in progress’ beginnings and, by the way, the offer to rent my diary still stands. As always, if you keep reading, I’ll keep blogging, or is it if I keep blogging, you’ll keep reading? Vicious cycle. Either way, the next chapters of my life will no doubt be preserved in cyberspace, and I can’t wait. Happy Anniversary, blog!

On Friday, I had a clinical, it was boring. Seriously, nothing exciting happened. On Saturday it snowed, finally. We all went out to dinner and I volunteered to drive, as I’ve been waiting for a chance to test my 4x4. Have I mentioned lately that I love my truck? Let me say now that 4-wheel drive is the greatest advancement in winter travel since the ski. I’m blown away by the fact that I can accelerate and brake in snow, and brake! Awesome. The testing of the 4-wheel drive of also consisted of ahem uh, doing donuts in the school parking lots. cough! You haven’t lived until you’ve driven sideways, on purpose . On Sunday we did all kinds of snowy activities. Ewing, CJ, and I went hiking in a nearby state park, down to a broken dam on one of my favorite rivers. The snow was pretty deep in places, and made for an absolutely beautiful trek through the trees. Between the light snow and the flowing, yet tumultuous waters, I found my Zen spot; but was knocked out of it abruptly...

Last week I reported a fire, was disappointed by the real world, learned a little rain goes a long way, had the best time kayaking ever, decided to find and then pull the reins of time, and learned something in class. I guess some of that deserves an explanation. We went kayaking last week, this time over a little stretch of the patapsco river. Just as we pulled up to our usual launch spot, Ewing noticed an abandoned semi trailer near the river was on fire. About an hour later we were in the water after calling 911, escorting the engine to our remote location, watching them put out the fire, and giving our names to the police. The kayaking was certainly worth the wait. It had rained the night before raising the water level at least 7 inches. Awesomeness ensued. We didn’t hit any rocks, played in some fun whitewater, and finished a usually 2 hour trip in about an hour and 15 minutes. The only downfall was that it was, well, February, and when the water splashed up to my chi...

This week has been more of a break than most of my break was. Ewing and I went kayaking on Monday. ‘Kayaking?!’ you might say, ‘In January?!’ Well, it’s far less impressive when you learn that on Monday it was 65 degrees out. Highly irregular. I think we’ll just keep the kayaks handy for when those polar ice caps melt and flood us out. It was a lovely trip, we saw some swans, and met a local do-gooder. The do-gooder kindly informed us that we couldn’t paddle the particular area we were in because their decoy ducks were tethered with weighted wire. I do fancy myself a skilled enough kayaker to navigate through 2 plastic ducks on strings. But, thank you neighborhood watch lady, duly noted, it’s safe to go back in your house now. Those rogue kayakers will be out of your way shortly. And if that’s not fast enough, feel free to enter the 40 degree water and give us a little push. Wow, that came out far more bitterly than intended. Other than that, winter kayaking is cool. As s...