Change, and Me

I read back to how devastated I was when I started my new job. I felt stupid, lost, confused, and inexpert. Ithought I hated the job. I think I hated the feelings I was having. As they say on Wayne's World, "We fear change." I don't know if enough practice would make me any better at it- any more that falling off a cliff more often would make me a better cliff drop survivor, so I'm not sure how to do that. The job itself is pleasant. I haven't figured out how to tell stories about it and still keep patient confidentiality. Not enough story backlog to blend details.

I was watching my Big Son at karate today, and I realized that a month of being in the dojo has desensitizing me to people yelling. They yell all the time in karate; really, really, loud. If the kids aren't loud enough, they give pointers on how to yell louder. He's pretty chuffed about his yelling abilities. I was completely unnerved by yelling, prior to this. Even yelling that was not directed at me, was not even in my language, was not even really near by. Now, not such a big deal.

Annie the little dog is lying on the bottom shelf of the book case, her little body fitting there neatly. Very cute, but if I get up to get the camera, all dogs will follow me down to the kitchen in hope of biscuts, and that would be the end of the cuteness.

Settling In

The new job? The one that was causing me despair? I'm better now, thanks for asking. The hard part about it- being all over the hospital, working with all departments, discharge planners, home health, hospice, out patient services- pretty much everything the hospital has to offer- the hard part is I have to see where the hospital fails its people. Its patient people and its worker people. I hear every weird story there is to tell, and some of them are true. I see overworked people frantically trying to shift some of their overload to me, and I ain't taking it. I see department clashing over which is whose and whose is whats.

But, I also see where people work together, even when none of us know exactly how to solve the problem. Little groups of nurses and doctors and family and patients, all trying to figure out how we do something we've never done, how to fix problems we've never heard of before, how to make sick people well and hurt people better. So, yeah it's ok.

Knitting: I'm making this.

Sewing- I'm obsessed. I'm taking a class next month, and I have now got a new way to spend money and get goods inefficiently. ( You know, like knitting socks. Why just buy socks when you can spend thirty hours a pair knitting them?)

My little son keeps telling me he's not going to ever grow up. I keep having violent stabs of fear that this means he will die young. It happens, you know, all the time, for no reason. I just don't want it to happen to him. I think it means that he likes being who he is, and that he lives totally in the present, as he should. But I don't think that I will ever be un-broken after my time as a pediatric nurse, especially a PICU nurse.

Hey hey

It's summer vay-cay. Yep the big son is out for the summer. Of course, the little son just started four day a week preschool, but still, it's summer. Well, no I don't get any vacation time this summer, because I am still fairly low senority, and we can't really go any where, because my smart husband is still sort of mostly unemployed. But summer, none the less. Perhaps the weather will cooperate. I am off tommorow, and Saturday, and Sunday. I own giant heaps of yarn and fabric, I have two charming children, a brace of dogs, and I live in a lovely town near the actual Pacific Ocean. If I had been told, during my long boring suburban child hood, where I live within walking distance to NOTHING, not a payphone, not a pretty view, NOTHING that I would grow up to live within walking distance of the Pacific Ocean, I would have not believed you. I like it here, yes I do.

The towel bar fell off,

And so , of course, I am repainting the bathroom. The usual insanity- if I have to spackel, I have to paint, and if I have to paint, I have to match the paint, and if I have to match the paint, I have to go to the groovy paint store that matches colors by computer, and if I have to go to the groovy paint store, I have to walk by the paint color display, and voila two gallons of new colors. Every thing in the bathroom and pantry, which is what we call the odd little room at the bottom of the kitchen stairs, the almost room that you walk through to either go left,into the bathroom, or right, into the family room, every thing is pulled out and newspapers are everywhere.

After much deliberation, I chose an intense robins egg blue. You shall have pictures tomorrow. The other color is a shiny white. There is a lot of woodwork and cabinets in the pantry, and I may have to add another color, just to keep the blue green from being overwhelming.

Adding another color is my usual solution, be it knitting, quilting, dyeing, and now, painting. Color is good.

Worst thing to do on a hot day:

Assemble the fan. The one I bought last year, on sale, for six bucks. Should have bought ten of them at that price, but there you are. Now it is assembled and blowing directly on my head, and It is possible that I will not burst into flame. But I might. All the little screws anf things seemed so complicated when I didn't have anything cooling me off now seem trivial and simple.

The all batik log cabin is coming nicely, yes?