Secret 'Stache

About six weeks ago I started an experiment.  I started growing facial hair.  Ever since I grew my first precious few whiskers, I've always shaved completely clean.  I never did this for a particular reason other than that I had a clean face before and no need to experiment with a mustache, beard, or other facial hair combinations.

The few times I thought about growing out some facial hair, I was reminded that no one in my family has ever successfully worn facial hair.  I recall my dad when he would go on a week or two vacation and not shave at all.  The results?  He had some sparse whiskers that looked more like a connect the dots drawing, rather than a true outline of facial hair.

Neither of my grandfathers wore facial hair, and I recall one grandfather saying that he didn't wear one because it didn't grow out fully.  Both of my brothers have facial hair... but it never looked right to me.  My younger brother wears a mustache.  He hasn't cut the hair above his upper lip since he was 18.  My older brother never fully shaves off his facial hair, instead he just trims it down every few weeks.  Even if he didn't trim it down, he has the same problem that my father had.... it doesn't all connect.   So with this genetic information running through me, why give this a try?

Mom's Heart and other notes

So I received quite the scare this past Friday night.  Coming out of work I went about my normal routine... get into the car, start her up, grab my phone out of the storage bin, turn it on, and start to drive out.

Now, when my phone turns on (techn...


Gotta run, she's going in for her Echo and Heart Cath now.

To Be Continued.

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Sorry about that.  Just as I was beginning to write up this post, I got a call from my Aunt saying that they were taking Mom in for her Echo.  I dropped everything and went in to be with her (as much as you can be with someone during that particular exam.  I am now writing this up on Tuesday the following day and she's had both the Echo and the Cath.  The good news is that they found no new physical defects.  Her cardiac arteries are fine (as fine as they can be on someone with a triple bypass and with three internal stents), and her ejection fraction is good.  The bad news... they have no idea what caused her defibrillator to go off.

City of Broad Shoulders

I talked recently about how a couple friends and I are planning on a trip together.  Those plans have been put on the back burner for awhile as one of those friends recently moved his entire family from the friendly confines of Michigan to the unknown and seemingly unfriendly Texas (just outside of Dallas).

We collectively figured that after going through the whole ordeal of packing up the family and transplanting them far away from any family, friends, or other support structures that he might need some time to get his new house to feel like 'home'.

The other point on our friend triangle was still, however, biting at the bit to travel and get together with friends.  I guess that's fair, as the recently moved friend and I have lived close enough to each other that we saw one another several times a year.  He, on the other hand has always been far away.  So a couple weekends ago, he invited me to Manhattan.  He was going to be there on business and figured we could have a good time around his scant few hours of required work.

At first blush, I thought this was a great idea.  I've been to New York city once, but that was as a child.  I've never experienced the Big Apple as an adult.  But he invited me with a single day of lead time.  This was after a bad week of work and frankly I would have been a horrible travel mate.  I ended up begging off and promised that the next weekend I had off, I'd come down and visit him (his current base of operations is in North Carolina).

Dental Tripping

As I begin writing this post I should be pulling up to work and parking my car.  You see, my shift starts in 15 minutes.  Why am I not there?  Well hopefully the image I used to illustrate this post gives you a good idea.

No, I didn't have one of my incisors removed.  But yes, I did have one of my molars extracted.  Number 19 if I'm being specific (although I don't know the numbering system and just overheard this from the dentist and his assistant.

Unfortunately this was my very first trip to a dentist's office.  Along with health insurance, vision insurance, paid sick days and all other manner of benefits, when I got hired into the state I also got Dental insurance.  According to the receptionist, it seems to be fairly good dental insurance too.  The total cost of having this emergency visit (including the visit, extraction, and the prescription antibiotics and pain meds), was just under $40.  I really don't have any idea what dental visits should cost, but before I went I made sure to know what I had in my checking account (about $1400), and what was available on my credit card (about $2400).  I actually was ready to pay all of that ($3800) AND ask for a payment plan on the remaining balance.

Like I said... I have no idea what dental visits cost.  But to rid myself of that pain, I was willing to pay just about anything.

Going back to 8s, and looking for a new watch

So I talked to my supervisor yesterday.  I told her that I was done with the 12 hour shifts, and that on the next schedule (starting in about 3 weeks) I want to move back to 8 hour shifts.

I honestly went into the 12 hour shifts with open eyes.  I knew that no perceived 'benefit' is free.  For all the good and glory that my 12 hour shift co workers talked about, there would be bad things weighting it down.

Before I get into the nitty gritty, I should pause and say this.  If me working 12 hour shifts benefited me overall, benefited my co-workers, or benefited my employer, then I would have no problem staying on this shift.  It's not exactly what I want, but I can certainly deal with it.

But that's just it... it doesn't benefit anybody.  Let's look at all three of those groups in turn.  First up.. Co-workers.

So I got mom a new car

She finally accepted my offer!

That's right... after posting about it in late February, I talked to Mom again about buying her a new car.  She of course balked, giving variation on the same reasons to not accept it... she didn't want to rely on me or my brothers, and she didn't want to hurt my finances.

It seems I made a good case against both of those reasons.  I simply put it in this way;  She wasn't relying on us and the only reason she couldn't afford a new car now was the fact that she had been helping me out so much.  As for my finances... I actually broke out my spreadsheet showing what money I have coming in and what money I  have going out.  It's pretty black and white that I could afford this.

So the first thing we had to do after she accepted the offer was figure out what she wanted.  I don't mean what model or make of car... I mean what features would make her enjoy the new car.  First and foremost was fuel efficiency.  She was sick and tired of putting so much damn gas into the van.  She also wanted to retian as much utility as she could.  She was used to the versatility of having a mini van.  Surprisingly she wasn't all that interested in some of the newest 'toys' that you can get in car.  Touch screens, navigation, keyless entry with push button start.  In fact her list of wants when it comes to tech is some of the most basic features... cruise control, power windows, air conditioning.  That made it simple as every car we would look at would include those 'toys' as standard.

It's only half a day!

Maybe it was just how the day's worked out.  Maybe it was just three bad days in a row... but maybe it wasn't.

I left you off last time saying that I was entering the 'bad' time of my schedule where I would be working three days in a row.  Well they weren't pleasant.  In fact I've only now really began to get out of my bad 'mood'.

Tuesday was my eight hour day, and I can honestly say that being the last nurse 'in' isn't fun.  All of the computers were full and I had a call out as soon as I walked in the door, so I had to scramble to get a workplace set up.  Technically I was in the med room that day, but the scheduling supervisor seemed to forget that and had me almost a full day's worth of appointments to keep.  That meant I got into the med room late and did a barely acceptable job of it.

Wednesday was certainly not a 'normal' day.  First off we didn't have enough people on staff, so there were two people brought in on overtime to cover.  But the shifts that they worked were far from anything 'normal.  One med room nurse cam in at 4pm.  The other was scheduled in at 6, but came in late and didn't arrive until 7... just before the med pass started.  Not having any time to set up the med room before the med pass invariably led to the med pass taking about two hours (as opposed to the normal one hour).

12 hour shifts, new music, a new car for mom, and Joanna.

Well, I've had my first week of 12 hour shifts.  Obviously with an 80-hour, 2-week pay period, there is a 'light' week (working three 12 hour shifts), and a 'heavy' week (working three 12 hour shifts, along with an eight hour shift).  In my case this difference is actually enhanced by the way the days on and off are arranged.

This past week was my 'light' week.  I had Sunday and Monday off, then worked Tuesday and Wednesday.  Thursday and Friday are off, then Saturday on.  I'm now entering my 'heavy' week as I worked Sunday, have today (Monday) off, but will follow it up by working Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.  On normal pay periods, that last Thursday will be my eight hour shift.  Because there was a holiday this pay period (YAY for getting paid for President's Day!), the eight hour day got moved around a lot and finally ended up on tomorrow (Tuesday).

Now I can't possibly make up my mind on whether I like the 12 hour shifts and its accompanying schedule better or worse than the 8 hour shifts and their accompanying schedule after only working four shifts and having four (now five) days off.  But I can at least share some of my impressions so far.  First, sleep hasn't been as much of an issue as I thought it would be.  Before this schedule started, I normally woke up between five and seven in the morning, and went to bed between eleven pm and one am.   To ensure that I get up in time to go to work I now set my alarm for six am.  That gives me enough sleep, and gets me up with enough time to have a casual cup of coffee, peruse some websites, and get ready for work.  Oddly enough I woke up naturally at five am this morning.  As I didn't have to work, I just got up and assume that I'll take a slight nap later this afternoon... if I had to work I would have rolled over and waited for the alarm to get me out of bed.

Hanging out, Bitch Nurse, and new music

I've come to a realization... I love hanging out with my friends.  This isn't an entirely new realization as I've always known that love to hang out with my friends, but I'm bumping this up my list of things to do.  Two things in particular have opened up my eyes to this.

First was re-connecting with a friend that I met in Truck Driving School.  We both went there not to get a career, but to get a J O B.  Neither of us gave it enough forethought and neither of us turned out to be successful commercial truck drivers.  Out of the 20 or so people in our 'class' and the 10 or so I stayed in touch with after getting a truck driving job, he's the only one that I remained close with.  It helps that we only lived 40 miles apart.  We hung out every other weekend or so after we both re-entered out non truck driving lives.

But after I started nursing school and started working every Sunday morning, we stopped hanging out.  It wasn't a lack of desire to see each other, it was merely a set of conflicting schedules.   The only time that I couldn't hang out was Saturday night.  The only time he had to hang out was Saturday night.  So we drifted apart and only occasionally chatted via text and email.

A couple weeks ago we finally got together and hung out.  We did as most people do and made it an event.  We went to the North American International Auto Show in Detroit.  We had breakfast, drove over in Fiona, hit the show, had dinner in Greek Town, and drove back. The show was completely awesome, and the dinner was fine, but the thing that I'll remember most of the trip is hanging out and chatting with my friend.

Fiona's New Shoes

This past Thursday I finally decided it was time.  Fiona was going to get a new pair of shoes.  I decided I was going to get something local as any savings earned online was surpassed by the costs of shipping and having the wheels/tires assembled and installed.

I really had it down to two places; Belle Tire and Discount Tire.  Discount Tire has always treated my family fine and has given years and years of service to my dad, mom, various aunts/uncles and of course myself.  Sadly their website is a little lacking.  They only offered a couple options for snow tires on my current rims and had no easy way to display which 16 inch wheels that would fit onto my car.

Belle Tire, by comparison, let me put in my car's information and then offered the option of choosing a 'downsized' set of tires and wheels.  Now I could have just assumed that Discount Tire would have options available and that I would simply have to visit them to get all the options... but that was more work and more opportunity for me to throw up my hands and say 'whatever' and end up buying something I didn't really want.  So... Belle Tire won out.  I printed out an order of cheap (but stylish) 16 inch wheels and Bridgestone Blizzak WS70 tires.