coming up for air

Monday AM.  A time to grieve the loss of free time.  Usually.  In this case, this morning, it is a time to say ZOWEEE! thank gourds I am done with that crap.

Yeah.  On call again.  OVER!  Yes!

I took a small project with me each day last week.  Not that I got to work on any of it, but I felt better having it with me.

Mitt Envy.  (For the pattern, go here and click on the PDF file.)  Made in lovely Koigu KPPM, in a colorway supportive of my apparent new interest in all things related to ponds and algae (P52657).

As pleased as I am that my week of on call is over, it IS still, after all, Monday AM. 

And I need to get back to work.

(sigh)

 

 

 

 

 

RN, CHPN

I PASSED!

Not only did I pass, I did pretty well. Of course the obsessive in me wants to know the right answers to the 10/150 questions that I missed, so I never miss them again.

Off to knit a bit, then take a nap.

Phew!

Scared

My exam is in less than an hour.

In perspective, I have not tested at this level since my state boards 17 years ago.

I used to get into “the zone” when testing and my brain would relax and just spew out answers.

I hope my brain still works. I know this stuff. I do.

I’m pretty sure.

So anyway…

So back to Scottsdale.

We head out to the Ocean Club for dinner, since the concierge at the Westin assured us it was the PLACE TO BE, and Paula Abdul dines there.

We dress like this, as this is how Upstate/Western New York professionals dress when on a business/vacation trip with limited space in the suitcase.

Khakis, Clark shoes, what more do you want? Yeah, I could have sprung for a pedicure, but there wasn’t time, because I spend my days taking care of sick people, and forget to take care of myself sometimes. So shoot me.

Anyway, Ocean Club attire is more like this. Evidently there’s a lot of hunting for rich men going on.

She with the sluttiest outfit wins. As my traveling partner and I had neither (A) the bodies required for this activity, nor (2) boob jobs, we sat this game out.

As we sipped (chugged?) our cocktails at the bar before dinner, we reassured ourselves that while we are middle aged, we are not old (yet), and we have good men at home who love us, so thank goodness we don’t need to be playing this trolling for high rollers game. Still. It was hard not to feel very old, and very un-hip.

At a restaurant where a teeny-tiny steak presented bare naked on a large white plate will cost you $36 and sides of vegetables and maybe a potato will run you $18 more, we opted for sides to share and two orders of vanilla battered shrimp appetizers.

Believe me when I tell you, not even McDonald’s delivers food this fast.

Seriously, five minutes after ordering, shrimp, potatoes, and snap peas were thrown in front of us, and we felt a bit like, “get the hell out of our restaurant, you’re ruining it” or something like that. Again. Old. Un-hip.

So we ate and left, but not before over-tipping the cute man-child waiter who we thought might be flirting with us until we realized we had sons his age. I think we tipped him so well to make ourselves feel a little better.

Not quite finished in the humiliation department, however, we ended the trip with over-priced “spa” treatments. I had an aloe wrap to soothe my sunburned shoulders. This consisted of laying on a table on top of a huge sheet of mylar, and allowing some girl to spray ice cold lavender water all over me. Then she slathered me with warm aloe, which was nice, and wrapped me like a giant taco. While I was heating up, she gave me a pretty decent scalp massage, and sort of darted around my feet (again, pedicure lacking). Then she unwrapped me, thereby causing my sunburn to pucker up in painful goose bumps, while she slathered me with freezing cold cream and sent me on my way. Cost? $150. Did I enjoy this ice cold experience? No. Did I tip her for her trouble? No, I did not. I suspect we would not be welcome back there again.

However, in an attempt to further our humiliation (because we just couldn’t get enough), we decided to do the hot tub. We were told that “clients” went in the tub nude. So we wrapped ourselves carefully in towels to hide the girly bits from each other, sank into the bubbly water, and discovered, to our dismay, that boobs float and the site of bobbing nipples among co-workers is probably not cool.

As we were sitting there, bobbing nipples and all, we read the “rules” of the hot tub.

#5) Proper attire is required.

Hmmmm??

*************

We took the red eye home Saturday night, flew through post-tornado
Atlanta, and arrived home mid-morning last Sunday. I’m just now
feeling back to normal.

I am spending the day studying for my certification exam in hospice and palliative care nursing scheduled for 9 AM tomorrow. 17 years after nursing school, and I am still obsessed with not just passing, but acing every question. I need to relax.

I worked late every night this week, too. Like 6-7PM late. Craziness.

So. In an effort to relax and unwind, I have procured myself the following.

Blue Faced Leicester roving to spin, as my skills do not match the merino and silk I have purchased and am in danger of ruining.

BFL has long fibers, and a crimp, or something like that, which makes it easier to spin. It spins up and plies like this.

I also got some Corriedale/Finn/Rambouillet roving, also rumored to be easier to spin. I couldn’t decide between two colorways, so got both. Roving is cheap.

And last week, this little spindle from ButterflyGirl arrived. It’s Murano glass and wood, and 1.0 oz. With it I got some of her Merino and silk roving, but again, my eyes don’t match my skills. (And my camera doesn’t capture the true beauty of this stuff.)

And that is all.

Now you know about as much about my life as I do.

Out of sync

Yes. I went to Arizona for a conference. That was a week ago.

Nice place. We stayed in Scottsdale (Snobsdale might be more like it) at the Westin Kierland. Here’s the golf course, which I’m sure costs hundreds of thousands, if not millions, to maintain in the hot Arizona desert.

We actually did attend the conference, which was a Palliative Care conference put on by the Cleveland Clinic. Either they dumbed the presentations down for the docs so they’d feel like they were on vacation, or my traveling partner and I are smarter than we thought.

We had dinner at Mastro’s Ocean Club.

Yessirree, we did. We dressed like this, because that’s what two broads from Rochester do when they go out to eat.

(Oh, crap. My battery died. Update later.)

Tune in tomorrow to see what I learned in Arizona.

1) Clark shoes are NOT considered fashionable in all parts of the country. Especially at nightclubs.

2) Ditto for khakis.

3) Boobs float.

4) Just because it’s expensive, doesn’t mean it’s good.

5) The red eye flight is really not such a good idea, after all.

6) Marrying for money looks really sad.

7) There’s no place like home.

So far away

At least that’s how it feels. I’ve been so far away.

This is Day 11/12 of work. I don’t tell you this to solicit your sympathy/empathy/wrath; I tell you this so you will cut me some slack for being absent for so many days.

I tried to post a short video clip the other night, entitled “Movie Night” (trust me, it was nothing to get excited about), but the link wouldn’t work and it was late and I was so tired and therefore liberal use of the ‘delete post’ button was used.

Sorry. I know it pinged bloglines and the rest before I deleted it.

I tried to take the edge off of things yesterday when I stopped at Knit ‘N Purl in Brighton yesterday at lunchtime. The owner likes me now, for some reason (most likely those involving the wallet), and is quite chatty when I visit, which I love. Also, her friend runs Great Balls of Yarn in West Palm near where I lived last year, and that was the first yarn store I visited when I moved to S. Florida. It made me feel like I wasn’t really on another planet. At least for the time I was in the yarn store.

ANYWAY. (I’m rambling.)

I loves me my Bryspun needles. They’re warm and flexible, and the points are phenomonal — not too sharp and not too dull.

There’s some Noro Tidori (discontinued because of the cashmere controversy?) that I think might make a cool experiment in the lines of EZ’s Baby Surprise Jacket.

And two skeins of Koigu KPPM just because.

Other than that, the Clap is nearly in the decrease row phase, and my brother’s scarf is also nearly done. I hope for some knitting time this weekend.

Looking ahead

So the craziness that is Xmas is behind me for another year. I swear. Next year will be different. Less last minute emphasis on buying. (I tried this year. I really did. But at the eleventh hour, I collapsed under pressure.) I think I need to figure out what Christmas means to me, if anything. And if it means nothing but going through the motions of buying/planning/receiving, then part of me wants to stage a coup d’etat against the whole thing.

The other part of me, the part that got some really nice presents, wants a repeat performance next year. Somehow I have to combine the fun stuff with a sense of purpose, some sort of meaning.

I have 362 days to do that in.

Looking ahead to the new year is fun. I’m a note taking sort of gal. I like colored pens and flow charts and index cards vs. notebook vs. computer program for my planning endeavors. I like to plot out hoped-for vacations against on call weeks, tack in the birthdays to remember, and set up goals for myself for the year.

New Year’s Eve I like a little time alone to sit in the light of the Christmas tree and reflect on the year gone by. Some years I get to do this. Some years I don’t. Some years I can’t quiet my mind long enough to string two consecutive thoughts together.

The busy-ness of living gets in the way of the business of living.

Okaaaaay….

Clearly this is a post that needs to end before it becomes even more of a cliche.

One of the things that goes directly on the 2008 calendar is the palliative care conference in Scottsdale, AZ in March. Can’t wait for this. It’s been a long time since I’ve been on a work conference.

Wish there was exciting news on the knitting front. However, I’m doing little more than slogging away on row after row of 2×2 rib and cable on

the waves scarf.

I ripped out the Silk Garden Lite that was trialing as a Clapotis. The Clap is going to be my Brooks Farms Four Play that I got at Rhinebeck, as originally planned.

I just really need to finish one project before I start another.

I’m considering making 2008, or at least part of it, the year to buy nothing but necessities, like I’ve read in those articles. Think of the money I’d save. Maybe I should try it for just a month, at first. Nothing but necessities. Food, gas, etc. No clothes, books, magazines, (gasp!) or yarn.

No shoes, bags, jewelry, or makeup. No notebooks or pens unless there’s a dire need. And the word ‘need’ needs to be explicitly defined, as well.

Taking it one step further, maybe I could sell all my extraneous stuff on eBay and commit to a simpler lifestyle. Who really needs all this crap, anyway?

Ah…the pleasure of the new year, and new possibilities.

Must. Go. To. Bed.

Harrison wiggles his sweet pink toes at you.

Glad THAT’S over

Being on call sucks. It’s a week, Monday afternoon at 4:30 PM, to the next Monday AM at 8:00 AM, when the potential for disaster is just a cell phone call away. Then it ends. I like Sunday nights the best. Because for about 45 minutes, I am as happy as a pig in shit. Just enough time to say, “Whoo hoo! I made it!” before realizing that “oh, crap,” tomorrow’s Monday and it’s a long, long, long way until Friday.

The carnage.

Dark chocolate and tangerines by computer light.

Laptop and paperwork urped up all over the dining room table.

Cat toys strewn around the living room courtesy of the feline.

Note the absence of a Christmas tree.

I really need to get one up. Pronto.

And worst of all. NO hardly any knitting.

It’s been a rough week. Better times are coming, right?

It’s all come back to me now

I hear Celine Dion’s voice shrieking in my head. “It’s all come back to me now” (or something like that).

Oh, dear. Tonight is why squeezing 18 hours of knitting, spinning, and other fun stuff into 4 hours after work is a great idea while one is vacationing. Otherwise, perhaps it’s best to pace one’s self.

I am exhausted, and heading straight to my bed with the cat in tow. I need to catch up on my sleep.

So as not to disappoint my great hordes of readers too much (all one of you, oh, hey, I’m talking to myself! Note to inquiring family members…I blog for myself, dearest relatives. I don’t care if no one else reads it. This is the most marvelous form of self-centered journaling ever invented), here is a picture to delight your senses until I can get back to mine.

Behold the spartan closet office space I share at the hospital. Looking at that, don’t you feel just the slightest bit exhausted yourself? Note the plethora of cleaning products, some consisting of high percentages of chlorine bleach. Like degerming the joint will do anything for the herds of dust rabbits and the piles of crumbs under the chairs. We are pigs trying to pull ourself off as clean and neat and orderly and oh so crisp, starchy nurses. Fat lot of BS, I tell you.

Knitting content tomorrow. There has been some progress on the Silky Sock socks, done during The Bachelor last night. Which I did not catch the end of. Although I hear the blonde with the crazy mother who wanted to skip to the chase and plan the wedding already got dumped. Lesson to all. Silly psychobabble about “the one” does not work on millionaires. Probably not on anyone else, either. And please, God. If I ever sound as silly as that broad’s mother was, just shoot me.