Rants, Recipes, and Running

Remember making friends as a child? "Hi, I like your shoes". "Thanks, I have more shoes at home. Want to be my friend?" Done. Now, childhood friendships typically aren't the most deep and don't tend to last. As they aren't formed out off of bonds of similarity. But, dang it was easy to make friends! Then we fast-forward to college. So easy! "You're a nursing major? Me too! Want to study together? After our test Thursday, want to celebrate with margaritas?" I never really had to try to make friends in my younger years. I'm typically outgoing, so tend to meet people with ease. Then you graduate from school, enter the real world, and suddenly you have to try. How I accumulated such an amazing group of friends in Tucson is very fortunate. For the most part they are family-like-friends I'm made through work. The other half of my social network is my "Desert Tri Girls" -- as you tend to form a bond when you spend 3 hou...

The "Discovery train" has taken a bit of a halt lately. In other words, Ryan studies seriously all day every day and I've been working. So "fun time" is on break....but it will return. So I have no pictures of new discoveries to share. So I figured I'd take a break from all the Adventure posts -- and do a "currently" post!   Current Book - "The Wednesday Sisters" by Meg Waite Clayton. It's about a group of young, women, homemakers in the 1960's who become dear sister-friends. It is #1 on my list of "to read books" so graciously put together by my sister Lisa . So far, I am loving her suggestions! Glad to have a book worm of a sister to be my personal librarian.     Current Drink -  Pellegrigio or sparkling mineral water! I used to make fun of this stuff, and now I'm addicted! I got hooked on it the 4th of July, because I was drinking it with vodka and lemon (it was my feeble attempt to s...

I have offically started my new experience in travel nursing. And, boy is it an experience. Walking into this, I knew it wasn't going to be easy -- let me define what a travel/agency nurse is (in my own words). (Apologies in advance, as this is a heavy career-related post that may bore many...) Agency Nurse Contracted into a hospital that is short staffed to fill in the gaps. They are not an employee of the hospital, but an outside agency. Therefore, they are an outsider. There are a few nurses who welcome you, and say, "Let me show you where things are..." T he rest of the staff says "You're not permanently here, and I'll never see you again, you're on your own." The Agency nurse get's 8 hours of orientation, and is then expected to be completely on his/her own. My badge gets me no where in the hospital, I've had to learn a completely new charting system, and figure out the policies/procedures/doctors/protocols in 8 hours. Let me...