So it turns out...

that I'm not very good at remembering to post. However, I just learned how to link my blog to my facebook page, which means that I can post here and there together. This might mean that I make more than one entry every 6 months. Maybe.

I'm waiting for my jeans to finish in the laundry so I can go outside and play with my puppy. What's ridiculous about this is that I have only 2 pairs of jeans and they are both dirty from our swamp camping trip, and that it's so cold outside that I have to wear jeans, while 2 days ago it was 80+ degrees and I was wishing I had shorts.

Actually, there might not be anything ridiculous about only having two pairs of jeans. My closet is overloaded as it is. I often wonder how it is that I can have so many clothes and nothing that I like to wear. I fight off the urge to give everything away to Goodwill at least twice a year.

Since I just posted nearly 50 pictures to Facebook, I think I won't add any pictures to this post. Also, I need to get back to laundry, so that's it for this time. Here's hoping I post again soon!

Back in the blogging saddle

So we have a African American President.  I must say that I'm more surprised than I thought.  But honestly, I think that most people went about their voting color-blind, voting their political beliefs, and then we all blinked and it turned out that we'd elected a symbol.  Hard to believe that 40-50 years ago it was difficult for African Americans to even vote, isn't it?  Having Obama as the president-elect makes me hopeful in many ways, perhaps the least of which is the obvious economic/political way.  But there is also some fear... he's so young and inexperienced to be president. And I hope that the color of his skin doesn't make him a more popular target for the looneys out there.  His children are really cute. 

And that's all I have to say about that.  

Daddy Mushroom and I decided to send the oldest to public school this year.  Big mistake, I think.  He's bored, he's not learning basically anything, and to top it off, he gets in trouble for talking when he's not supposed too.  I think that comes from the stricter 'discipline' of a traditional classroom when what he's used to is the looser Montessori classroom.  I'm so angry with the school system, his teacher, the school guidance counselor.  He's ready for multiplication, he gets single-digit addition.  He's ready for chapter books, he gets 'See Jane Run' .  Dad and I have done more to advance his knowledge than his teacher has.  We've talked to his teacher, emailed his teacher... nothing.  Of course she has 25 other 6 year-olds who can barely read, write, or add to worry about, and I didn't expect much there; she's over-worked as it is.  So I asked the guidance counselor to suggest our course of action.  We talked once on the phone about 3 weeks ago, and the only thing we got was an 'advanced reader' folder with one extra book a week for us to 'help' him read (he doesn't need help, it's still too easy).  I'm about to explode.  It's not that I'm saying that K is a genius.  He's just about a full grade level above what he's being asked to do, and I want him to be challenged, not bored and depressed.  But no one seems to care.  He's above level, which means that he won't count against them at testing time... and I guess that's all that matters.  It's utterly ridiculous that to get a decent education in this state you have to spend $15,000 a year to send your child to private school, and that is pretty much the only option.  Which means $45,000 for all three mushroom babies... and there goes pretty much my whole salary. sigh.  

My life as a nurse... the ongoing saga

First things first... here's the latest cute picture I have to share of my precious mushroom boys.

I'm in a funk lately, and I don't know exactly why.  Although I frequently make pessimistic statements sometimes, I really haven't been a pessimist since I left high school and all it's angst behind.  I know I'm tired almost all the time now.  I'm sure that's a side-effect of hard work and too much stress.  Often on my days off I sleep just about around the clock, when I used to try to get household chores done, catch up on reading for fun, knit, and just generally do whatever relaxing thing I could think of doing.  I hate that I sleep so much.  I have so many things I want to accomplish on my days off.  (Like blogging... though at this point I'm sure no one reads this but me)

I suppose I had unrealistic expectations for life as a nurse.  Of course the (much) larger paycheck is making life financially easier.  It seems that Money really is not the only thing.  (Although I am happy to report that I have a new beautiful oven, new countertops, a new sink, and now the L-man is putting up new siding, and has already installed a new custom mahogany front door.  So, even though the house is definitely no bigger, it is looking nicer all the time.  Oh! and about 70% of our debt is paid off too.  So that's all very nice... and all within the first year of my new employment.  

I think I just have to take a further degree of separation from my job.  Mentally and emotionally that is.  But given that nursing is an intensive mental and emotional job, that may not be possible.  My positive well-being is very closely linked to my ability to get my patients through the night.  I find myself actually praying for my patients, and I don't even know who I'm praying to., or what I'm praying for.  Sometimes, with some patients, it's hard to say whether living or dying would be the greatest blessing.  Especially in my particular specialty.  

What's peculiar about nursing is that while we are in the business of caring, there is a certain emotional detachment that we seem to cultivate, to insulate ourselves from the humanity of our patients and their families.  We care... but only just so much, and only while the family stays within their ordained boundaries.  When the family actually does what a good, caring, and reasonably intelligent family should do, and questions the appropriateness of the care we provide we medical professionals get very irate.  It's funny to see sometimes, from an outside perspective just how offended we all get when we are questioned by family.  I say we, because I do it too.  We all want our patients to just do exactly as we tell them to, and never question.  

I suppose I'm going into all that because I have a patient right now, and a family that are from a different culture.  And none of the nurse on my unit can deal with the family, because to them it's too foreign, too strange. They don't understand that it is just a wife and an extended family, very worried about a good man who is at death's door, and they don't know why.  I seem to be the only one who can deal with the family of this man.  Thank you mother, for raising me to be more accepting and more culturally aware than the average person.  

Well, that's enough for one post.