I can't fake it anymore.
I'm such a hypocrite that the rotten stench of my hypocrisy gags even me.
The baby's doing great-- fat and growing like a weed. Brown hair, who'da thunk it.
The other kids are fine.
I spent last week in a mental hospital, detoxing from my alcoholism and drug addictions and getting medication for my bipolar disorder, which was way out of whack.
There's a lot of the past few weeks that I don't remember, simply because when I'm manic, I do a LOT of drinking and drugs and other horrible things (affairs, dangerous driving, spending huge wads of cash on stupid things, etc.) It wasn't till I actually had the barrel of hubby's .357 in my mouth, though, that I realized I was too out of control to guarantee that I'd live through the week.
15% of us bipolars end up successfully killing ourselves. About half of us try it at least once.
I'm real medicated right now, to keep the mania in check, but it's just making me depressed instead. Plus I'm in danger of losing my nursing license unless I get into some outpatient treatment program, so it's just a lot of hassle and crap I don't want to deal with right now. So I'm signing off on this blog. It's not . . I dunno. It's not indicative of a good Catholic family? Not when the mom is crazy as hell and everythings falling to pieces around us.
Peace out.
Friday, July 17, 2009
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Oy vey
Well, things are just too chaotic here to even describe, much less to blog about with any regularity. The baby takes up all my time, my milk supply just suddenly died yesterday, leaving me producing maybe two ounces per pumping session, and the other kids are running as wild as the garden and the chickens.
I'm trying to get a handle on things. The kids are all healthy, schools almost out . . we'll see.
I'm trying to get a handle on things. The kids are all healthy, schools almost out . . we'll see.
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
The reason
Our newest son was born last Wednesday, the 29th of April.
He was 7 lbs, 9 oz. 19 inches tall. A head full of an indeterminate colored hair-- maybe brown, maybe blonde, maybe red. Not really one or the other. A hugely impressive nose.
He was fine for the first twenty hours or so after birth.
Then his breathing rate went up into the 60s. Then the 70s. Then he had periods where he was breathing ninety breaths per minute. And he started getting feverish.
And so we went from anticipating coming home on Friday to a panicked state where he was whisked off to the NICU to be put on monitors and given IV antibiotics and tube fed and poked and prodded and x-rayed and examined.
He had a broken clavicle, and elevated white blood cells, and he was a very sick little boy.
By the grace of God, he gets to come home tomorrow, back at his birth weight, off the IVs, eyes open and eating well on his own.
Thank you, Jesus.
He was 7 lbs, 9 oz. 19 inches tall. A head full of an indeterminate colored hair-- maybe brown, maybe blonde, maybe red. Not really one or the other. A hugely impressive nose.
He was fine for the first twenty hours or so after birth.
Then his breathing rate went up into the 60s. Then the 70s. Then he had periods where he was breathing ninety breaths per minute. And he started getting feverish.
And so we went from anticipating coming home on Friday to a panicked state where he was whisked off to the NICU to be put on monitors and given IV antibiotics and tube fed and poked and prodded and x-rayed and examined.
He had a broken clavicle, and elevated white blood cells, and he was a very sick little boy.
By the grace of God, he gets to come home tomorrow, back at his birth weight, off the IVs, eyes open and eating well on his own.
Thank you, Jesus.
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Update in brief
Well, I'm basically in a holding pattern, lots of bedrest. Blood pressure is real high, so we're going to probably induce in two weeks. We did decide on a name for the baby, finally, which has been a great relief.
He's more real, now, with a name.
Been taking lots of cough syrup for pain and ongoing congestion/coughing. Hopefully the baby won't be addicted when he's born. Not much I can do, though, I need it.
Circulation and kidneys aren't so great, so it's time for me to go grab some more sleep.
God bless.
He's more real, now, with a name.
Been taking lots of cough syrup for pain and ongoing congestion/coughing. Hopefully the baby won't be addicted when he's born. Not much I can do, though, I need it.
Circulation and kidneys aren't so great, so it's time for me to go grab some more sleep.
God bless.
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Egads
March has flown by. It's been miserable.
We moved. Still had to leave a ton of stuff behind, to be brought later. Simply ran out of room in the truck and trailer.
Bought a new washer and dryer, a new fridge. A tiller, weed whacker, stuff for our garden. New bed for Cara. New towels and bathroom rugs for all the bathrooms. Spent a ton of money. No one can say we didn't stimulate the economy this month.
We have a half dozen illegal chickens in the downstairs bathtub, growing up under hot lights. Ireland and Wales love them, take every opportunity to go play with them. They grow up so fast! They're Black Australorps and Americaunas, 3 and 3. When the weather warms up a bit, I'll let the boys take them out back to play in the sunshine. They're more pets than anything, but if they do survive to lay eggs (and we don't get busted for them), they should start laying eggs in July.
I've been very sick, coughing so hard that I hurt my back, then my pain made my insomnia miserable. Went to the doctor on Monday, got some good codiene based cough syrup. I haven't been coughing, but I have been sleeping a lot. It's wonderful.
Wales has a sinus/nasal infection, for which he's on antibiotics.
I have my second OB appointment with the local doc tomorrow. We're looking at an induction date around the 28th of April, given my history of huge babies and shoulder dystocia. I'm definitely ready to get this baby out. Hugely pregnant, tired, and hurting. Yes, definitely will be better to have him out than in.
We still haven't decided on a name. We have a middle name, a saint's name and family name, but no first name.
Poor kid.
Anyway. Surviving. Thats about all I can do.
We moved. Still had to leave a ton of stuff behind, to be brought later. Simply ran out of room in the truck and trailer.
Bought a new washer and dryer, a new fridge. A tiller, weed whacker, stuff for our garden. New bed for Cara. New towels and bathroom rugs for all the bathrooms. Spent a ton of money. No one can say we didn't stimulate the economy this month.
We have a half dozen illegal chickens in the downstairs bathtub, growing up under hot lights. Ireland and Wales love them, take every opportunity to go play with them. They grow up so fast! They're Black Australorps and Americaunas, 3 and 3. When the weather warms up a bit, I'll let the boys take them out back to play in the sunshine. They're more pets than anything, but if they do survive to lay eggs (and we don't get busted for them), they should start laying eggs in July.
I've been very sick, coughing so hard that I hurt my back, then my pain made my insomnia miserable. Went to the doctor on Monday, got some good codiene based cough syrup. I haven't been coughing, but I have been sleeping a lot. It's wonderful.
Wales has a sinus/nasal infection, for which he's on antibiotics.
I have my second OB appointment with the local doc tomorrow. We're looking at an induction date around the 28th of April, given my history of huge babies and shoulder dystocia. I'm definitely ready to get this baby out. Hugely pregnant, tired, and hurting. Yes, definitely will be better to have him out than in.
We still haven't decided on a name. We have a middle name, a saint's name and family name, but no first name.
Poor kid.
Anyway. Surviving. Thats about all I can do.
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
... What you need
Moving, for the first time, has given me perspective.
It's not a frantic race, this time, since we've packed so much ahead of time. We've whittled our possessions down to the bare minimum, stuffed every nonessential item into a box and taped it up, and the shelves and dressers and drawers are all bare.
What a relief . . . what a wonderful thing.
The absence of clutter is so peaceful. Nothing for Mia to shove into closets or drawers. No toys mounded in corners. No knick-knacks being moved into odd places. Just bare shelves and quiet.
We can really live with so little. We have our in-season clothes that we're still wearing. The medicines and makeups and lotions that we use and keep handy for emergencies. The food we're eating. Minimal dishes. Half a dozen books. A small box of toys for Wales. The computers are all still hooked up. The television, but only one game console. A dozen dvds and games. That's about it.
And no one really misses anything that's packed. Which makes me wonder why we are bothering to drag it all halfway across the country.
Yes, I love my books and my Pfaltzgraff dishes and the knick-knacks I've collected over the years. But I don't NEED any of them. I could walk away tomorrow and still be whole, still be me. I'd just be free of the clutter.
I'm thinking that we might not unpack everything right away when we get home. I can't imagine re-cluttering the house. There are things I want to buy, yes. BIG pictures for the walls, real art prints in vibrant colors. But those aren't clutter, really, they just hang on the walls. A rug for the floor. A new chair. Big things, objects in and of themselves, not more things to pile on a shelf or cram into a cabinet.
Sleek, spartan, and spare. That's my new motto for home decoration. But colorful. And comfortable. And . . . still mine. Still with some of the things I've collected. Just . . . not so much. And not all at once. A bookshelf doesn't have to be crammed tight with books, after all. It can have empty spaces, here and there.
.
.
It's not a frantic race, this time, since we've packed so much ahead of time. We've whittled our possessions down to the bare minimum, stuffed every nonessential item into a box and taped it up, and the shelves and dressers and drawers are all bare.
What a relief . . . what a wonderful thing.
The absence of clutter is so peaceful. Nothing for Mia to shove into closets or drawers. No toys mounded in corners. No knick-knacks being moved into odd places. Just bare shelves and quiet.
We can really live with so little. We have our in-season clothes that we're still wearing. The medicines and makeups and lotions that we use and keep handy for emergencies. The food we're eating. Minimal dishes. Half a dozen books. A small box of toys for Wales. The computers are all still hooked up. The television, but only one game console. A dozen dvds and games. That's about it.
And no one really misses anything that's packed. Which makes me wonder why we are bothering to drag it all halfway across the country.
Yes, I love my books and my Pfaltzgraff dishes and the knick-knacks I've collected over the years. But I don't NEED any of them. I could walk away tomorrow and still be whole, still be me. I'd just be free of the clutter.
I'm thinking that we might not unpack everything right away when we get home. I can't imagine re-cluttering the house. There are things I want to buy, yes. BIG pictures for the walls, real art prints in vibrant colors. But those aren't clutter, really, they just hang on the walls. A rug for the floor. A new chair. Big things, objects in and of themselves, not more things to pile on a shelf or cram into a cabinet.
Sleek, spartan, and spare. That's my new motto for home decoration. But colorful. And comfortable. And . . . still mine. Still with some of the things I've collected. Just . . . not so much. And not all at once. A bookshelf doesn't have to be crammed tight with books, after all. It can have empty spaces, here and there.
.
.
Friday, February 27, 2009
Baby stuff, moving stuff, stuff stuff
Well, according to the machines, Scotland the baby-on-the-way is about 3.3 pounds now. As well, his little heart seems to be working just fine. And, yes, it's still undoubtedly a boy.
Going to HAVE to come up with a boy name sometime soon.
Not feeling good at all. Incipient UTI, so I'm power-drinking water to keep me going. Backache. Still not sleeping.
But the baby seems okay, so I am happy.
In moving news, this weekend is our "That is IT, it's all going into a box" packing spree. Dishes, toys, DVDs, everything. Only the absolute essentials will be left out of boxes, so I expect a very busy and stressful weekend. I promised the kids that we'd have a nice dinner out on Sunday night if they worked like good little slave children the rest of the weekend. Ireland would do anything to go eat at Chili's, so I expect I can actually get his room cleaned out. And maybe the truck, too!
Beyond that, I am so looking forwards to being home in my own home. We've decided that, given the state of the economy and the dismal prospects for food prices this year, we're going to actually buy a tiller and put in a proper garden for the first time in several years. The feds are cutting off water to California and Arizona's farmers, US farmers planted 40% less this year than last, and the economy looks like it's staying in the toilet? Yeah, I want to make sure I have some food on hand. When tomatoes go back up to $4 a pound, I will be happy I did.
We're also going to store a little food in our upstairs gameroom closet, just in case. If we did have a bout of unemployment or something, I'd feel a lot better with a couple hundred pounds of rice set aside. My kids are Texans by way of China, it seems-- we go through five to ten pounds of rice most weeks. I figure I'll buy things in bulk when they go on sale . . . canned soups and pastas, flour, sugar, veggies, water, beans . . . the usual stuff. Will it help if there's a total financial meltdown? Not much . . . but it would sure help in a short-term emergency.
Maybe it's my own version of nesting behavior. We already have 90% of the baby clothes and gear that we need. We've already got a nice newly painted nursery waiting. All we need now is . . . stockpiles of food. Hey, makes sense to me.
But, then, I won't let hubby sell our ancient travel trailer just in case we need emergency housing. He humors me in this, mostly because it's paid for and it costs only $35 a month to store it. He's learned, after this many pregnancies-- you don't say no to the pregnant woman when she's engaging in irrational nesting behaviors. Not if you want to ever sleep again.
Anyway. So tired, but it's Friday night and the kids will be bouncing home from school at any minute, rejoicing that they only have 5 days left in this school district. We're going to get vegetarian pizzas and watch the Netflix that we've had sitting around the house for the past two weeks. And SOMEONE is going to clean the front bathroom, because the cat has tracked kitty litter all through it and I can't even walk in.
Godbless.
Going to HAVE to come up with a boy name sometime soon.
Not feeling good at all. Incipient UTI, so I'm power-drinking water to keep me going. Backache. Still not sleeping.
But the baby seems okay, so I am happy.
In moving news, this weekend is our "That is IT, it's all going into a box" packing spree. Dishes, toys, DVDs, everything. Only the absolute essentials will be left out of boxes, so I expect a very busy and stressful weekend. I promised the kids that we'd have a nice dinner out on Sunday night if they worked like good little slave children the rest of the weekend. Ireland would do anything to go eat at Chili's, so I expect I can actually get his room cleaned out. And maybe the truck, too!
Beyond that, I am so looking forwards to being home in my own home. We've decided that, given the state of the economy and the dismal prospects for food prices this year, we're going to actually buy a tiller and put in a proper garden for the first time in several years. The feds are cutting off water to California and Arizona's farmers, US farmers planted 40% less this year than last, and the economy looks like it's staying in the toilet? Yeah, I want to make sure I have some food on hand. When tomatoes go back up to $4 a pound, I will be happy I did.
We're also going to store a little food in our upstairs gameroom closet, just in case. If we did have a bout of unemployment or something, I'd feel a lot better with a couple hundred pounds of rice set aside. My kids are Texans by way of China, it seems-- we go through five to ten pounds of rice most weeks. I figure I'll buy things in bulk when they go on sale . . . canned soups and pastas, flour, sugar, veggies, water, beans . . . the usual stuff. Will it help if there's a total financial meltdown? Not much . . . but it would sure help in a short-term emergency.
Maybe it's my own version of nesting behavior. We already have 90% of the baby clothes and gear that we need. We've already got a nice newly painted nursery waiting. All we need now is . . . stockpiles of food. Hey, makes sense to me.
But, then, I won't let hubby sell our ancient travel trailer just in case we need emergency housing. He humors me in this, mostly because it's paid for and it costs only $35 a month to store it. He's learned, after this many pregnancies-- you don't say no to the pregnant woman when she's engaging in irrational nesting behaviors. Not if you want to ever sleep again.
Anyway. So tired, but it's Friday night and the kids will be bouncing home from school at any minute, rejoicing that they only have 5 days left in this school district. We're going to get vegetarian pizzas and watch the Netflix that we've had sitting around the house for the past two weeks. And SOMEONE is going to clean the front bathroom, because the cat has tracked kitty litter all through it and I can't even walk in.
Godbless.
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Lent comes early
So, yes, I've had humility forced upon me over the past couple of days. Trying to grow up, still. I think it's an ongoing process for everyone, isn't it? Letting go of your selfishness, your stupid guilts and greeds and self-centeredness. Not that I got rid of a lot of it, but I was pushed to reconsider a lot of things that I intially felt and thought.
I can't go on being a hurt child.
I have to react to the world as an adult woman, if I expect to get the respect and resposes of an adult.
I can't mindlessly hurt the people I love out of spite.
Hard lessons, still being processed.
I can't go on being a hurt child.
I have to react to the world as an adult woman, if I expect to get the respect and resposes of an adult.
I can't mindlessly hurt the people I love out of spite.
Hard lessons, still being processed.
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Rinse, repeat
Repeat to yourself: "You can't change people. They have to choose to change themselves."
Repeat it a hundred times.
Maybe that will make it easier when someone you love is obdurately stupid.
. . . so far, though, it isn't working.
*sigh*
4 hours sleep last night. That's a little better. Still not enough, but better.
But I have enough left in me to say that I won't just walk away. At least not without prayer and time to think. Being pregnant makes one very easily influenced by passing emotions. Like rage and grief, impatience and pain. It overloads your circuits quickly, and you try to shut down the source.
It's far easier to be vague than to be precise in this matter. It's so incredibly stupid, all of it, and so incredibly sad. Prayers, please? Kthxbai. :-)
Repeat it a hundred times.
Maybe that will make it easier when someone you love is obdurately stupid.
. . . so far, though, it isn't working.
*sigh*
4 hours sleep last night. That's a little better. Still not enough, but better.
But I have enough left in me to say that I won't just walk away. At least not without prayer and time to think. Being pregnant makes one very easily influenced by passing emotions. Like rage and grief, impatience and pain. It overloads your circuits quickly, and you try to shut down the source.
It's far easier to be vague than to be precise in this matter. It's so incredibly stupid, all of it, and so incredibly sad. Prayers, please? Kthxbai. :-)
Friday, February 20, 2009
Pregnancy and things
((Warning-- not a post for the pregnant or easily upset. If I knew how to do a "cut", I would, for this one.))
One thing I haven't mentioned is that my triple screen came back with a 1 in 60 chance that the baby has Downs Syndrome.
This is probably about 90% of why I'm having constant anxiety attacks and relentless insomnia.
Not because I'm afraid of having another handicapped child-- God gives us what He gives us, and I will thank Him and praise Him for the gift in itself. I'd prefer it if our son is born genetically "typical" and healthy and happy and strong. Who wouldn't? I won't love him any less, though, if he's a little different. We've all got issues.
No, I'm terrorized and panicked and staring into the night simply because, during my two months in labor and delivery, one of the babies I helped deliver was a Downs baby girl who didn't make it. She'd passed about a week prior to delivery. It remains the singularly worst thing I've ever watched happen to someone else. The LVN and I took care of the little girl after the birth. We cleaned her as best we could, dressed her, took photos, snipped off a lock of hair for her memory book. Then we took her to her mother and tried very hard not to weep along with her and her husband.
I was a wreck for about three days after that. I seriously thought about dropping out of nursing school. I'm not quite sure how I managed to make it through that week-- my advisor was a total airhead, my classmates were hostile because I was unable to finish my part of a project . .. blehh, it was a bad week.
Even though I've had a level II ultrasound done to establish that Scotland's little heart is forming fine, even though he's a vigorous baby that kicks all the time, even though I know the odds are still in his favor of being born perfectly healthy and normal . . . it's the tactile memory of holding that little body that I remember.
I have another level II ultrasound in a week. Even if it comes back completely normal, I doubt it will help with the anxiety. I'm too in love with this baby, too frightened of losing him, still too scarred by the memory of the baby I lost in '05.
An elderly woman patted my belly while we were waiting for a seat at the steakhouse the other night. "If it's a girl, you should think about naming her Hannah." I know my smile must have frozen in place. I couldn't say "No, Hannah was what my dead baby's name would have been, had it been a girl. Joshua if it was a boy." I just nodded and smiled while my hubby tried to foist her off with a joking comment.
It still hurts, so much. You'd think that three years would dull it a bit more. Above and beyond all the other reasons why we figure that this baby should be our last, there remains the simple fact that it's just too emotionally ravaging for me to go through this much more. Nine months of Mommy being a sleep-deprived, anxiety-plagued, tearful hysterical wreck are nine months too many for my family. I really am too old for this, worn out emotionally moreso than physically.
Seventy nine more days, the pregnancy tracker says today. I'm so tired, I consider each day a little victory. It seems like ages since the tracker still had three digits on it. And it seems like an eternity until it's down to single digits.
I'm just trying to make it through today, for now. It's hard.
One thing I haven't mentioned is that my triple screen came back with a 1 in 60 chance that the baby has Downs Syndrome.
This is probably about 90% of why I'm having constant anxiety attacks and relentless insomnia.
Not because I'm afraid of having another handicapped child-- God gives us what He gives us, and I will thank Him and praise Him for the gift in itself. I'd prefer it if our son is born genetically "typical" and healthy and happy and strong. Who wouldn't? I won't love him any less, though, if he's a little different. We've all got issues.
No, I'm terrorized and panicked and staring into the night simply because, during my two months in labor and delivery, one of the babies I helped deliver was a Downs baby girl who didn't make it. She'd passed about a week prior to delivery. It remains the singularly worst thing I've ever watched happen to someone else. The LVN and I took care of the little girl after the birth. We cleaned her as best we could, dressed her, took photos, snipped off a lock of hair for her memory book. Then we took her to her mother and tried very hard not to weep along with her and her husband.
I was a wreck for about three days after that. I seriously thought about dropping out of nursing school. I'm not quite sure how I managed to make it through that week-- my advisor was a total airhead, my classmates were hostile because I was unable to finish my part of a project . .. blehh, it was a bad week.
Even though I've had a level II ultrasound done to establish that Scotland's little heart is forming fine, even though he's a vigorous baby that kicks all the time, even though I know the odds are still in his favor of being born perfectly healthy and normal . . . it's the tactile memory of holding that little body that I remember.
I have another level II ultrasound in a week. Even if it comes back completely normal, I doubt it will help with the anxiety. I'm too in love with this baby, too frightened of losing him, still too scarred by the memory of the baby I lost in '05.
An elderly woman patted my belly while we were waiting for a seat at the steakhouse the other night. "If it's a girl, you should think about naming her Hannah." I know my smile must have frozen in place. I couldn't say "No, Hannah was what my dead baby's name would have been, had it been a girl. Joshua if it was a boy." I just nodded and smiled while my hubby tried to foist her off with a joking comment.
It still hurts, so much. You'd think that three years would dull it a bit more. Above and beyond all the other reasons why we figure that this baby should be our last, there remains the simple fact that it's just too emotionally ravaging for me to go through this much more. Nine months of Mommy being a sleep-deprived, anxiety-plagued, tearful hysterical wreck are nine months too many for my family. I really am too old for this, worn out emotionally moreso than physically.
Seventy nine more days, the pregnancy tracker says today. I'm so tired, I consider each day a little victory. It seems like ages since the tracker still had three digits on it. And it seems like an eternity until it's down to single digits.
I'm just trying to make it through today, for now. It's hard.
*sigh*
Another 2 hours of sleep. This time complete with a nightmare-- a really odd one, too, that involved the criminals from the movie "Fargo" chasing me through a city and hospital, my escape in their battered truck, and the discovery of a certain politician's wife's severed head in their glove compartment.
I really need some sleeping tablets or something, ya know?
But anyway, I promised Wales that we would go to McDonalds for lunch today, so at least I have a goal to aim for. Getting dressed (warmly, as the cold front blew in last night), driving to the Mickey's, feeding the kid. Small steps, but when you're sleep deprived, they seem really ominous somehow.
As long as no severed heads pop out of the glove compartment when we round a corner, I think we'll be okay, though.
I really need some sleeping tablets or something, ya know?
But anyway, I promised Wales that we would go to McDonalds for lunch today, so at least I have a goal to aim for. Getting dressed (warmly, as the cold front blew in last night), driving to the Mickey's, feeding the kid. Small steps, but when you're sleep deprived, they seem really ominous somehow.
As long as no severed heads pop out of the glove compartment when we round a corner, I think we'll be okay, though.
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Thursday Successes
Hrm. What did I do this week . . . I've been so sleep-deprived, I may have forgotten.
Oh.
1. Hubby and I went out to our favorite steak house for a late Valentine's dinner on Tuesday. By the time I'd made my way through the huge salad, the hot buttered black bread, and the bean soup, I could only eat about half my smoked prime rib and my baked potato. I doggie-bagged it and had it for lunch the next day. YUM. No, really. All caps YUM. Whomever thought up the idea of putting a prime prime rib in a smoker deserves a medal.
2. I called and made appointments for my new/old Ob-Gyn and for Cara's return to her orthodontist, once we get back to Texas.
3. I actually got seven hours of sleep in the past twenty-four, even though it took a Xanax and Cara staying home from school to watch Wales. My insomnia is getting epic lately-- I've been running on two hours of sleep a night. I'm just so tired, I'd do about anything to get some rest, but the stress of this move and the instability around here has just got me on the verge of losing it.
Not the greatest successes, but oh well. I own them.
Oh.
1. Hubby and I went out to our favorite steak house for a late Valentine's dinner on Tuesday. By the time I'd made my way through the huge salad, the hot buttered black bread, and the bean soup, I could only eat about half my smoked prime rib and my baked potato. I doggie-bagged it and had it for lunch the next day. YUM. No, really. All caps YUM. Whomever thought up the idea of putting a prime prime rib in a smoker deserves a medal.
2. I called and made appointments for my new/old Ob-Gyn and for Cara's return to her orthodontist, once we get back to Texas.
3. I actually got seven hours of sleep in the past twenty-four, even though it took a Xanax and Cara staying home from school to watch Wales. My insomnia is getting epic lately-- I've been running on two hours of sleep a night. I'm just so tired, I'd do about anything to get some rest, but the stress of this move and the instability around here has just got me on the verge of losing it.
Not the greatest successes, but oh well. I own them.
Monday, February 16, 2009
Addictions!
I was laughing out loud (literally) when I read Ellyn's post about acquiring a menagerie of toys for her granddaughter.
We're well on our way to Schleich animal ascendancy in the toybox here at the Comte. The knights and horses that I started buying for myself have become decorations for Wales's castle-themed nursery. The elves riding horses have also migrated into the nursery toybox. Zebras, giraffes, rhinos, a fox, stray horses . . . they somehow find their way home from trips to town. Target is very guilty in this regard, they sometimes sell older and discontinued models for half off . . . and who can pass up a gorgeously appointed and painted warhorse for half off? Not this fanatic, I tell you.
Of course, Target also has frequent really good sales on Playmobil toys, as well. I would be ashamed to admit to you all how very many Playmobil sets I have purchased over the past twenty years. It's almost irresistible when you combine the utility, durability, and all around uber wonderfulness of the toys with a really good bargain. I still have Playmobils in the toybox that I got for Christmas when I was eleven. Those are some twenty-three year old plastic people, you know. And still good.
Toys are my big weakness. I did manage to cull a large box this winter, though, so I am not totally hopeless. We'll see how well I do when it comes time to redecorate the kids rooms, though. Mia is no longer interested in her stuffed animals at all . . . but I can't bear to get rid of them. I'm working my way up to it, slowly.
(But I can't hardly wait to have some little granddaughters to spoil! Wheee, all the fun without the responsibility!@!!)
We're well on our way to Schleich animal ascendancy in the toybox here at the Comte. The knights and horses that I started buying for myself have become decorations for Wales's castle-themed nursery. The elves riding horses have also migrated into the nursery toybox. Zebras, giraffes, rhinos, a fox, stray horses . . . they somehow find their way home from trips to town. Target is very guilty in this regard, they sometimes sell older and discontinued models for half off . . . and who can pass up a gorgeously appointed and painted warhorse for half off? Not this fanatic, I tell you.
Of course, Target also has frequent really good sales on Playmobil toys, as well. I would be ashamed to admit to you all how very many Playmobil sets I have purchased over the past twenty years. It's almost irresistible when you combine the utility, durability, and all around uber wonderfulness of the toys with a really good bargain. I still have Playmobils in the toybox that I got for Christmas when I was eleven. Those are some twenty-three year old plastic people, you know. And still good.
Toys are my big weakness. I did manage to cull a large box this winter, though, so I am not totally hopeless. We'll see how well I do when it comes time to redecorate the kids rooms, though. Mia is no longer interested in her stuffed animals at all . . . but I can't bear to get rid of them. I'm working my way up to it, slowly.
(But I can't hardly wait to have some little granddaughters to spoil! Wheee, all the fun without the responsibility!@!!)
RePosting an old Nursing Post
Sunday, September 23, 2007
Nursing a general malaise
Sometimes, I am not too certain that getting a job in the hospital was a good thing for my nursing school career. Some of the things I've seen, some of the things I've had to do . . . they're heartbreaking things, nauseating things, things that haunt your dreams and linger in your nose and your memory for weeks.
Do I still want to be a nurse?
Nursing school clinicals aren't really anything like working on the floor. You've got one patient, maybe two. You have an instructor watching over you, drilling you on your meds, backing you up on hard calls, and you have other students there just as obsessed with idiocy like finishing your NANDA prep sheets and deciding what your "focus" will be for the shift. We're working right now on the "med-surg lite" wing-- we have walky-talkies, mostly, with a few peds cases thrown in. Gastritis and cellulitis. Kidney stones. Nothing too strenuous. You get to decide on NANDAs like "Knowledge Deficit" and "Pain" and come up with some nice little interventions to address that focus.
When you're working, there's no time to decide a focus. You're thrown in head first, you try hard just to get report, check charts, keep up, keep up, keep up . . . .
I've walked into a room with a nurse and found a dead patient. I've had several of the patients that I've cared for for days on end just . . . die. I read about it in the obituary column, but I can't point to their names and talk about them to my husband, not even to vent the grief I feel about it. I've cleaned out necrotic toe ulcers more times than I care to recall, and the smell of it is permanently stuck inside my sinuses. I've opened up a postop dressing in order to do a dressing change and found an open incision that very nearly made me throw up . . . and then I still had to finish the dressing change, calm and professional. I've had to hold an extremely elderly woman down as we tied her into a posey vest-- she scratched me and fought the whole time as I tried to remain calm and compassionate. And, yes, professional.
It's not that much, really. I haven't done anything hideously traumatic, haven't been in any codes, but it is still a drain.
I can't think of anything else I'd like to do. And sometimes as a student you really feel that glow of "wooo, I was caught up all day, I charted wonderfully, and I got to do theraputic communication and patient education for hours!" It's just that I work on the renal floor, and I don't see that happening in the real world environment, after the students go home and the nursing services decides to send one of our four nurses over to another wing and we're left with three nurses and no CNAs and a wing filled with really ill people. I spend the whole night running just to do all our Accuchecks, to reposition patients, to clean up incontinent patients, to fetch millions of glasses of ice and coffee, to change sheets, to help people walk to the bathroom and back, to do those nasty dressing changes, to place or remove Foleys, and to deal with the delirious patients who think the blood pressure dial is a clock badly broken or the television has to be on channel 42 as they click the nurse call light 42 times. There's no time for charting or communication. I'm lucky to have a minute to smile at someone, to crack a joke, to touch someone's arm and offer a tiny bit of comfort before I have to race off to the next crisis.
I know that staffing at our hospital is really low right now. My boss, the Nursing Manager of the whole floor, is working as a charge nurse several times a week just to make up for some of the shortage. I know we're in a crummy little town in the middle of nowhere and no one wants to move here, no matter how much of a sign-on bonus we throw at them. What I don't know is if it will be like this when we move somewhere else. If we do relocate the Comte to a more northern clime, will I be taking 7, 8, or 9 patients . . . unable to do more than rush through an initial assessment and push some meds on them before it's time to give report again?
I work on weekends on the evening shift . . . perhaps that's part of the problem. But I like working evenings. I figure that when I do graduate, I'll be working 3 12 hour shifts per week, probably including at least one weekend night. I can't imagine working five days a week. After working at the hospital four days a week, I am sick of it, I want nothing more than to go home and curl up on the couch and pretend I never have to go back there again and deal with that stuff.
But I can't imagine quitting now.
Probably, I need to find a different area of the hospital to work in. The renal floor is a horrible floor-- insulin and accuchecks, fluid restrictions and dialysis, people wasted and drained from the slow failure of their organs to sustain them. Most of them have already had something amuputated. The rest are just in the process of getting there. Unhealed ulcers become amputated toes, spread to above the knee amputations, become the patients who we have to lift with machinery. The elderly are heartbreaking to work with-- so much confusion and dementia, so much fear in their delirium. So fragile, so sick, and there isn't anything you can really do to restore them to their former health. Every intervention we do just opens up a new opportunity for infection, every minute they spend in our care increases their risk of dying.
Why did I go into nursing?
What would make me get out?
I don't know.
Posted by Frog Contessa at 10:42 AM 0 comments
Nursing a general malaise
Sometimes, I am not too certain that getting a job in the hospital was a good thing for my nursing school career. Some of the things I've seen, some of the things I've had to do . . . they're heartbreaking things, nauseating things, things that haunt your dreams and linger in your nose and your memory for weeks.
Do I still want to be a nurse?
Nursing school clinicals aren't really anything like working on the floor. You've got one patient, maybe two. You have an instructor watching over you, drilling you on your meds, backing you up on hard calls, and you have other students there just as obsessed with idiocy like finishing your NANDA prep sheets and deciding what your "focus" will be for the shift. We're working right now on the "med-surg lite" wing-- we have walky-talkies, mostly, with a few peds cases thrown in. Gastritis and cellulitis. Kidney stones. Nothing too strenuous. You get to decide on NANDAs like "Knowledge Deficit" and "Pain" and come up with some nice little interventions to address that focus.
When you're working, there's no time to decide a focus. You're thrown in head first, you try hard just to get report, check charts, keep up, keep up, keep up . . . .
I've walked into a room with a nurse and found a dead patient. I've had several of the patients that I've cared for for days on end just . . . die. I read about it in the obituary column, but I can't point to their names and talk about them to my husband, not even to vent the grief I feel about it. I've cleaned out necrotic toe ulcers more times than I care to recall, and the smell of it is permanently stuck inside my sinuses. I've opened up a postop dressing in order to do a dressing change and found an open incision that very nearly made me throw up . . . and then I still had to finish the dressing change, calm and professional. I've had to hold an extremely elderly woman down as we tied her into a posey vest-- she scratched me and fought the whole time as I tried to remain calm and compassionate. And, yes, professional.
It's not that much, really. I haven't done anything hideously traumatic, haven't been in any codes, but it is still a drain.
I can't think of anything else I'd like to do. And sometimes as a student you really feel that glow of "wooo, I was caught up all day, I charted wonderfully, and I got to do theraputic communication and patient education for hours!" It's just that I work on the renal floor, and I don't see that happening in the real world environment, after the students go home and the nursing services decides to send one of our four nurses over to another wing and we're left with three nurses and no CNAs and a wing filled with really ill people. I spend the whole night running just to do all our Accuchecks, to reposition patients, to clean up incontinent patients, to fetch millions of glasses of ice and coffee, to change sheets, to help people walk to the bathroom and back, to do those nasty dressing changes, to place or remove Foleys, and to deal with the delirious patients who think the blood pressure dial is a clock badly broken or the television has to be on channel 42 as they click the nurse call light 42 times. There's no time for charting or communication. I'm lucky to have a minute to smile at someone, to crack a joke, to touch someone's arm and offer a tiny bit of comfort before I have to race off to the next crisis.
I know that staffing at our hospital is really low right now. My boss, the Nursing Manager of the whole floor, is working as a charge nurse several times a week just to make up for some of the shortage. I know we're in a crummy little town in the middle of nowhere and no one wants to move here, no matter how much of a sign-on bonus we throw at them. What I don't know is if it will be like this when we move somewhere else. If we do relocate the Comte to a more northern clime, will I be taking 7, 8, or 9 patients . . . unable to do more than rush through an initial assessment and push some meds on them before it's time to give report again?
I work on weekends on the evening shift . . . perhaps that's part of the problem. But I like working evenings. I figure that when I do graduate, I'll be working 3 12 hour shifts per week, probably including at least one weekend night. I can't imagine working five days a week. After working at the hospital four days a week, I am sick of it, I want nothing more than to go home and curl up on the couch and pretend I never have to go back there again and deal with that stuff.
But I can't imagine quitting now.
Probably, I need to find a different area of the hospital to work in. The renal floor is a horrible floor-- insulin and accuchecks, fluid restrictions and dialysis, people wasted and drained from the slow failure of their organs to sustain them. Most of them have already had something amuputated. The rest are just in the process of getting there. Unhealed ulcers become amputated toes, spread to above the knee amputations, become the patients who we have to lift with machinery. The elderly are heartbreaking to work with-- so much confusion and dementia, so much fear in their delirium. So fragile, so sick, and there isn't anything you can really do to restore them to their former health. Every intervention we do just opens up a new opportunity for infection, every minute they spend in our care increases their risk of dying.
Why did I go into nursing?
What would make me get out?
I don't know.
Posted by Frog Contessa at 10:42 AM 0 comments
Nursing burnout
Okay, I hate MSNBC, I'll admit it. But I do check their site every day, just to hear from the opposition, and once in a while I'll find a decent article. This one regarding new nursing graduate burnout is informative. 1 in 5 new nurses quit within their first year. Why?
It's simple. The nursing schools spend 2-4 years teaching us the right way, the safe way, the ethical and moral ways to practice the art and science of nursing.
Then we get our first job and management tells you, one way and the other, to ignore all that-- we don't have the time or the money to do things "right", we're just going to wing it.
Older nurses probably have built up more tolerance to risk and to horrific staffing conditions. I know, though, that I've watched nurses with 20-30 years of experience just totally "lose it" when management has overloaded them to the point where they're unable to practice nursing safely. They burn out, too. They've just got more invested in the profession. A new nurse, coming in, just says . . . "Well, this isn't what I wanted. I'd rather do anything else besides this."
I'm not quite there, yet. I still see possibilities in nursing where I can both practice safely and keep some sanity. Give me a few more years, I might change my mind.
I'll try to post, for an example, a post that I wrote back when I was finishing up nursing school.
It's simple. The nursing schools spend 2-4 years teaching us the right way, the safe way, the ethical and moral ways to practice the art and science of nursing.
Then we get our first job and management tells you, one way and the other, to ignore all that-- we don't have the time or the money to do things "right", we're just going to wing it.
Older nurses probably have built up more tolerance to risk and to horrific staffing conditions. I know, though, that I've watched nurses with 20-30 years of experience just totally "lose it" when management has overloaded them to the point where they're unable to practice nursing safely. They burn out, too. They've just got more invested in the profession. A new nurse, coming in, just says . . . "Well, this isn't what I wanted. I'd rather do anything else besides this."
I'm not quite there, yet. I still see possibilities in nursing where I can both practice safely and keep some sanity. Give me a few more years, I might change my mind.
I'll try to post, for an example, a post that I wrote back when I was finishing up nursing school.
Friday, February 13, 2009
24 hours
Some time ago, I was digging through my Amazon Wish List and, through links and meanderings, I found a mention of Arnold Bennett's "How to live on 24 Hours a Day." It's aimed towards working men, written a hundred years ago or so, but I sat down and read it today and I can honestly say that it's like a dare . . . someone triple dog daring you to live your life well. And the definition of well has nothing to do with money, in Mr. Bennett's world, but in using your mind during the hours we usually waste with trivialities.
I'm at a different place than I was a few years ago-- half of my children are above 13, half of them are below. I've come to realize that I will never regard mothering as my reason for existing. Yes, mothering is vital, amazing, blessed, and wonderful, and doing it well is truly important to my life and to my children. But it's not why I, as a person, exist on this planet. It's part of it, sure. But I wasn't just created to pop out perfect armies of future humans, like some swollen queen bee. God made me too complex and mysterious for that, surely He expects more for me than well-polished floors and my children memorizing the presidents in order.
I got so wrapped up in all of it when I was younger. My children had to be homeschooled, I had to prepare organic, wholesome, and homecooked meals, I had to co-sleep and practice extended breastfeeding, I had to do everything perfectly or else . . . or else . . . or else . . . .
I didn't know what would happen if I didn't.
It was like a great giant competition that I never quite lived up to, even though I was my own worst judge and critic. It didn't help that the other "mommy blogs" seemed to foster that competitive air. I can make a few quick links from a typical "mommy blog" and show you that it's still rampant today. Mothers post photographs of their toddler's "bento" lunch boxes, Twitter every movement they make from soccer to ballet to Bible study, list their busy days in full detail, from their early awakenings to their habitual blog-checking.
And that's fine. If it makes them happy, anyway, there's no harm in it. It just never made ME happy.
I don't post things here on this blog to try to make people jealous or feel inadequate or even the opposite-- I don't try to post things to make people feel superior, either.
I'm just posting things that I think may interest some people, bits from my life, things I've read online, links I've found useful. If I tell you about my desire to read the Top 100 novels, it's not to make you feel bad for reading the latest Harlequin novel. It's just a goal I'd like to meet, and I like to share the reads that I really did enjoy, just in case you might like them too. If I talk about the appliances I need to purchase, it's more in the lines of talking out loud in case someone else knows something I don't-- are steam washers really worth the extra expense?
I've got a thousand odd interests and strange obsessions. This month, my focus has been becoming debt-free, sparked by the recession. Every bit of our tax return went to pay off credit cards and some of our terribly underfunded escrow account on our house. But we're still not debt-free. We still have one sizeable credit card and three car payments. I'm hoarding bits of information about how to save money, trying everything from hanging the laundry out to dry to convincing my daughter to go to a community college for 2 years instead of going straight to university. Everything I learn is valuable, and the state of "learning" things for myself just feels good.
I guess I just hate to see the very "young" mothers fall into the trap . . . the women whose children are all under 7 or so, the ones most likely to feel like they're not measuring up, that they don't know what they're doing, and that there will be some horrible repercussions if they don't do everything perfectly. Because it simply isn't true. God loves us, more than we even love our own children. He loves us so much that it's incomprehensible. The expectations, the angst, the strife, the competitiveness . . . we do that to ourselves. And to each other, sadly.
All I want from you, today, my dear reader, is this: be yourself.
That doesn't mean we shouldn't strive to become better, that we shouldn't attempt to improve, that we should just be base animals . . . it just means that we shouldn't pretend to be something we're not, something we're not even sure we can or want to be, just to impress someone else. Just be you. God will love you anyway, and . . . so will your family, most likely.
I'm at a different place than I was a few years ago-- half of my children are above 13, half of them are below. I've come to realize that I will never regard mothering as my reason for existing. Yes, mothering is vital, amazing, blessed, and wonderful, and doing it well is truly important to my life and to my children. But it's not why I, as a person, exist on this planet. It's part of it, sure. But I wasn't just created to pop out perfect armies of future humans, like some swollen queen bee. God made me too complex and mysterious for that, surely He expects more for me than well-polished floors and my children memorizing the presidents in order.
I got so wrapped up in all of it when I was younger. My children had to be homeschooled, I had to prepare organic, wholesome, and homecooked meals, I had to co-sleep and practice extended breastfeeding, I had to do everything perfectly or else . . . or else . . . or else . . . .
I didn't know what would happen if I didn't.
It was like a great giant competition that I never quite lived up to, even though I was my own worst judge and critic. It didn't help that the other "mommy blogs" seemed to foster that competitive air. I can make a few quick links from a typical "mommy blog" and show you that it's still rampant today. Mothers post photographs of their toddler's "bento" lunch boxes, Twitter every movement they make from soccer to ballet to Bible study, list their busy days in full detail, from their early awakenings to their habitual blog-checking.
And that's fine. If it makes them happy, anyway, there's no harm in it. It just never made ME happy.
I don't post things here on this blog to try to make people jealous or feel inadequate or even the opposite-- I don't try to post things to make people feel superior, either.
I'm just posting things that I think may interest some people, bits from my life, things I've read online, links I've found useful. If I tell you about my desire to read the Top 100 novels, it's not to make you feel bad for reading the latest Harlequin novel. It's just a goal I'd like to meet, and I like to share the reads that I really did enjoy, just in case you might like them too. If I talk about the appliances I need to purchase, it's more in the lines of talking out loud in case someone else knows something I don't-- are steam washers really worth the extra expense?
I've got a thousand odd interests and strange obsessions. This month, my focus has been becoming debt-free, sparked by the recession. Every bit of our tax return went to pay off credit cards and some of our terribly underfunded escrow account on our house. But we're still not debt-free. We still have one sizeable credit card and three car payments. I'm hoarding bits of information about how to save money, trying everything from hanging the laundry out to dry to convincing my daughter to go to a community college for 2 years instead of going straight to university. Everything I learn is valuable, and the state of "learning" things for myself just feels good.
I guess I just hate to see the very "young" mothers fall into the trap . . . the women whose children are all under 7 or so, the ones most likely to feel like they're not measuring up, that they don't know what they're doing, and that there will be some horrible repercussions if they don't do everything perfectly. Because it simply isn't true. God loves us, more than we even love our own children. He loves us so much that it's incomprehensible. The expectations, the angst, the strife, the competitiveness . . . we do that to ourselves. And to each other, sadly.
All I want from you, today, my dear reader, is this: be yourself.
That doesn't mean we shouldn't strive to become better, that we shouldn't attempt to improve, that we should just be base animals . . . it just means that we shouldn't pretend to be something we're not, something we're not even sure we can or want to be, just to impress someone else. Just be you. God will love you anyway, and . . . so will your family, most likely.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Small Successes
I've been reading the blog over at Faith and Family Live for quite a while now, just sort of sneaking my way back into the Catholic mommy world. Nursing school ate up every bit of my energy and intelligence for two years, I'm just now coming out of the fog. (And then fell into the pregnancy mind fog, HaHa.) But anyway I think their idea of posting some actual successes every week is a good idea, and probably more encouraging to one's self than some random list of 25 things (which I have heard is going around as well, but I intend to avoid!)
Successes!
1. I called our cable internet provider today after they shut off the internet, paid them over the phone, and got the internet turned back on. Doesn't seem like a huge deal, but the hubby has been overwhelmed at work and this was one of the bills that slipped through the cracks. It made me feel glad that I could do this for him instead of making him worry about it and try to deal with it from work.
2. I made it to the grocery store on Monday night, where I was able to buy actual real foods that we needed to prepare meals this week. I've been asking hubby to stop by for an item or three after work, but it's not fair for me to ask him to get "that thing that I need for the enchiladas, no I can't remember the name right now, but you know, don't you?" (Canned black olives, incidentally.) Of course, we used the pork chops on Monday, the pot roast on Tuesday, the enchiladas yesterday, and tonight is the stroganoff, so we'll need to shop tomorrow, but I DID shop this week!
3. I packed all the clothes that don't fit my pregnant form and the clothes that are weather-inappropriate into a large wardrobe box in preparation for our Re-Move. That was about 95% of my wardrobe. My closet is almost empty now, making it easier to get ready for the move. It's slightly depressing to look at my limited wardrobe options, but it is nice to see all that uncluttered space.
Successes!
1. I called our cable internet provider today after they shut off the internet, paid them over the phone, and got the internet turned back on. Doesn't seem like a huge deal, but the hubby has been overwhelmed at work and this was one of the bills that slipped through the cracks. It made me feel glad that I could do this for him instead of making him worry about it and try to deal with it from work.
2. I made it to the grocery store on Monday night, where I was able to buy actual real foods that we needed to prepare meals this week. I've been asking hubby to stop by for an item or three after work, but it's not fair for me to ask him to get "that thing that I need for the enchiladas, no I can't remember the name right now, but you know, don't you?" (Canned black olives, incidentally.) Of course, we used the pork chops on Monday, the pot roast on Tuesday, the enchiladas yesterday, and tonight is the stroganoff, so we'll need to shop tomorrow, but I DID shop this week!
3. I packed all the clothes that don't fit my pregnant form and the clothes that are weather-inappropriate into a large wardrobe box in preparation for our Re-Move. That was about 95% of my wardrobe. My closet is almost empty now, making it easier to get ready for the move. It's slightly depressing to look at my limited wardrobe options, but it is nice to see all that uncluttered space.
Very sad thing . . .
I was reading a New York Times article about the decision of a federal court regarding three separate suits brought by the parents of autistic children against the Vaccine Injury Compensation Fund-- the court found overwhelmingly that there was no evidence in any of the cases that vaccines, mercury, or thimerosol had caused the autism of the children. While I was relieved and happy with that decision (I am pro-vaccine, part of my nurse's horror of preventable communicable diseases), a line from the article caught my eye and I had to do some Googling.
What I found, sadly, was the story of Gertrude Steuernagel, a sixty year old Kent State professor and mother to an 18-year old autistic son. Her son apparently beat her so severely on January 29th that she died on Friday from the injuries sustained in the attack. The truly tragic thing was that Ms. Steuernagel loved her son, had recently written an article detailing her struggles with him, but had not gotten any help to deal with his (apparently) very severe issues.
Here's a quote in her own words: "I had no patience with good and decent colleagues who told me how busy they were," she wrote. "Busy? Try spending an evening sitting in a closet with your back to the door trying to hold it shut while your child kicks it in."
This woman needed help-- an aide to come in to help her to manage her son, someone to intervene during the more stressful parts of his day (they're usually bedtimes or bathtimes or other transitions that autistic people have difficulty in dealing with.) She needed someone there to support her, or just someone to support her in the difficult decision to place her son in a residential treatment center or group home. I'm just sorry she didn't get it. May the Lord have mercy upon her soul, and may the state of Ohio find a suitable place for this disabled young man to live out his life. A prison is not the place for him.
What I found, sadly, was the story of Gertrude Steuernagel, a sixty year old Kent State professor and mother to an 18-year old autistic son. Her son apparently beat her so severely on January 29th that she died on Friday from the injuries sustained in the attack. The truly tragic thing was that Ms. Steuernagel loved her son, had recently written an article detailing her struggles with him, but had not gotten any help to deal with his (apparently) very severe issues.
Here's a quote in her own words: "I had no patience with good and decent colleagues who told me how busy they were," she wrote. "Busy? Try spending an evening sitting in a closet with your back to the door trying to hold it shut while your child kicks it in."
This woman needed help-- an aide to come in to help her to manage her son, someone to intervene during the more stressful parts of his day (they're usually bedtimes or bathtimes or other transitions that autistic people have difficulty in dealing with.) She needed someone there to support her, or just someone to support her in the difficult decision to place her son in a residential treatment center or group home. I'm just sorry she didn't get it. May the Lord have mercy upon her soul, and may the state of Ohio find a suitable place for this disabled young man to live out his life. A prison is not the place for him.
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Urk
Got some rather unpleasant news yesterday-- my favorite ob-gyn, the one who delivered Wales two years ago, is not doing deliveries anymore. She's stopping at the end of April. I'm due halfway through May. Grrrr! I can't believe it . . . I was so counting on having her there for this delivery.
The practice she's referring people to happens to contain the ob-gyn who was so heartless and rude to me during my miscarriage, three and a half years ago. Needless to say, I'm not pleased with the idea of transferring over to them.
It's just too stressful for me to even think about right now. I'm going to wait until the weekend and call my old L&D preceptor, see if she has any ideas. Right now, I'm too much of an anxious wreck to call anyone. It's definitely one of those times you want to curl up in bed and pull the covers over your head and not come out until next Wednesday.
The practice she's referring people to happens to contain the ob-gyn who was so heartless and rude to me during my miscarriage, three and a half years ago. Needless to say, I'm not pleased with the idea of transferring over to them.
It's just too stressful for me to even think about right now. I'm going to wait until the weekend and call my old L&D preceptor, see if she has any ideas. Right now, I'm too much of an anxious wreck to call anyone. It's definitely one of those times you want to curl up in bed and pull the covers over your head and not come out until next Wednesday.
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Growing up
Wales is growing up way too fast.
The bittersweet thing about it is that my job, as his mother, is to help him negotiate that process, to basically smooth the way for the inevitable changes that will take him from helpless crying infant to dependent baby-talking toddler and on up to the teens where he probably will only speak in monosyllables and into adulthood where, God willing, he will again speak in intelligible sentences.
He's been trying to push the process lately. He's struggling to give up his naps, but it leaves him cranky and frustrated. He insists on wearing Pull-ups during the day, although he isn't able to control his bodily functions yet. They're "big boy" diapers that you can put on yourself. Of course they're better.
He's changing form, growing tall and lean. His uncut blonde baby locks need to be trimmed-- he'll be a big brother soon, and he needs a big brother's haircut. He's looking forwards to being a big brother-- he hugs my belly and kisses it, and asks me every day if the baby will be "home soon?"
Today, we watched a show on the farming channel about beef cattle. I told him that cows were yummy, that we eat "cow meat." He thought this was a great idea-- he ran off to his room and returned with two Little People cows and one Little People zebra. Which he proceeded to chew on. I'm not sure where the zebra came in-- I guess it became a cow by default. I let him put today's pot roast into the crock pot, to prevent any accidental ingestion of plastic animals. He added the bay leaf, the garlic salt, the spices, the chopped onion. At the end of it, he had to call his Daddy to proudly tell him that he'd "put cow meat in pot!" You could feel the happiness radiating off of him.
Cara came up to me the other day, teary-eyed. "It happens too fast! He was just a baby, now he's almost a kid! How can you stand it?"
She seemed totally unaware, of course, of the irony of her saying that to me, here only three months before her sixteenth birthday as she tries to get the pre-requisite classes to get onto the medical school track in college.
How can I stand it? She was a peach-fuzz-headed toddler herself just moments ago, towing around her infant sister and playing elaborate games with her stuffed animals and plastic rabbits. Mia was a distant curly-haired moppet, lost already inside her own mind. Ireland was incessantly bubbly and happy, with a chubby red-headed appeal. Even dour Paddy, at two, was a sweetheart at times, although always serious.
I stand it because I must, in the end. Because they grow up and you can (usually) talk to them. They become people, if you're lucky, people you can relate to as individuals, as adults, as equals eventually. Your adorable toddler disappears, but the love is not lost-- the child remains, even if it's just within that ache in your heart as you watch them growing up, stumbling and failing, and trying again.
I couldn't really answer her. I just bought her another novel and slipped it onto the bookshelf where she'd find it later, thanking God that I was blessed with a child who shares my love of books, someone I can discuss novels with. I only hoped it when she was two. Now it's a reality, and one that graces my days.
I don't know what graces Wales will bring into my life when he's a teen. But it's wonderful fun to find out.
The bittersweet thing about it is that my job, as his mother, is to help him negotiate that process, to basically smooth the way for the inevitable changes that will take him from helpless crying infant to dependent baby-talking toddler and on up to the teens where he probably will only speak in monosyllables and into adulthood where, God willing, he will again speak in intelligible sentences.
He's been trying to push the process lately. He's struggling to give up his naps, but it leaves him cranky and frustrated. He insists on wearing Pull-ups during the day, although he isn't able to control his bodily functions yet. They're "big boy" diapers that you can put on yourself. Of course they're better.
He's changing form, growing tall and lean. His uncut blonde baby locks need to be trimmed-- he'll be a big brother soon, and he needs a big brother's haircut. He's looking forwards to being a big brother-- he hugs my belly and kisses it, and asks me every day if the baby will be "home soon?"
Today, we watched a show on the farming channel about beef cattle. I told him that cows were yummy, that we eat "cow meat." He thought this was a great idea-- he ran off to his room and returned with two Little People cows and one Little People zebra. Which he proceeded to chew on. I'm not sure where the zebra came in-- I guess it became a cow by default. I let him put today's pot roast into the crock pot, to prevent any accidental ingestion of plastic animals. He added the bay leaf, the garlic salt, the spices, the chopped onion. At the end of it, he had to call his Daddy to proudly tell him that he'd "put cow meat in pot!" You could feel the happiness radiating off of him.
Cara came up to me the other day, teary-eyed. "It happens too fast! He was just a baby, now he's almost a kid! How can you stand it?"
She seemed totally unaware, of course, of the irony of her saying that to me, here only three months before her sixteenth birthday as she tries to get the pre-requisite classes to get onto the medical school track in college.
How can I stand it? She was a peach-fuzz-headed toddler herself just moments ago, towing around her infant sister and playing elaborate games with her stuffed animals and plastic rabbits. Mia was a distant curly-haired moppet, lost already inside her own mind. Ireland was incessantly bubbly and happy, with a chubby red-headed appeal. Even dour Paddy, at two, was a sweetheart at times, although always serious.
I stand it because I must, in the end. Because they grow up and you can (usually) talk to them. They become people, if you're lucky, people you can relate to as individuals, as adults, as equals eventually. Your adorable toddler disappears, but the love is not lost-- the child remains, even if it's just within that ache in your heart as you watch them growing up, stumbling and failing, and trying again.
I couldn't really answer her. I just bought her another novel and slipped it onto the bookshelf where she'd find it later, thanking God that I was blessed with a child who shares my love of books, someone I can discuss novels with. I only hoped it when she was two. Now it's a reality, and one that graces my days.
I don't know what graces Wales will bring into my life when he's a teen. But it's wonderful fun to find out.
Home Economics, part 1
I'll be honest-- I think the primary reason we're in this mess, as a nation, is because we've been, as a nation, irresponsible and idiotic in our spending.
So it's more than slightly annoying that I'll have to do some major spending over the next few months. The only good thing is that we'll be doing it with actual cash money. If inflation does become a problem in the future, at least our dollars will have been spent while prices were somewhat reasonable, right?
Still, irritating to part with the hard-earned cash, and irritating that the government seems to STILL think that we can credit-spend our way out of this mess. Gahhh!
We do need, however, a new fridge. Our old one finally bit the dust when we moved, so we've been using the one our landlord provided while we've been in this rental house. Moving back home, though, leaves us without a fridge. We're looking at the freezer-on-the-bottom types with the double doors on top. I'm tall, it doesn't make sense for the milk to be down at my shin level and the ice cream at eye level. Especially the ice cream at eye level part. ;-) Most certainly the fridge needs to be with an icemaker, but without a water or ice dispenser, though (the kids play with dispensers, making them more a nuisance than a blessing.) There seem to be some pretty good deals out there on them, and they're much more energy efficient than our old fridge was, as well. I think it will be money well spent.
We also need a new washing machine. Granted, ours is not that old (<10 years). However, it's inefficient and loud and vibrates like mad no matter how we fiddle with the levelling. We're looking into front-loading large capacity machines. I'm not overly concerned with the steam cycle options (don't really see many things around here that need steam or DON'T need to be drenched to get out the odors/stains). Again, there are some good sales going on these days, and the savings in water and electricity will really help with the monthly bills.
We won't, however, be buying a new clothes dryer. We've decided to install a clothesline when we move back home. We don't currently have a homeowners assosciation in our community, so I'm hoping that it will pass without comment. The only people who will see it, after all, are the neighbors on either side of us, and one of those families has a back yard that looks like their three boys carried out WWIII over the summer. I somehow doubt they'll mind my towels hanging on a line. The clothesline should allow us to postpone buying a new dryer AND cut our enormous electricity bills down somewhat.
Cara needs a new mattress and box springs. Hers has lasted twelve years so far, but Mia's bedwetting has just ruined it over the past three months. Mia will be inheriting the old mattress until the odor gets too awful, at which point I'll probably be purchasing a hospital type mattress for her room, one of those with a thick vinyl covering that is rip-resistant and waterproof. You can't just put a rubber sheet or a vinyl mattress cover over her bed-- Mia rips them off, no matter how securely you attach them. Then she shoves the shredded vinyl in a closet. We've bought half a dozen mattress covers over the past year. I've pretty much just given up-- autism wins again, and the hospital mattress is next. But it can wait a couple months.
I'm also going to buy the pots and pans that strike the balance between practical and preposterous-- the stainless steel All-Clad pans. I'm just going to buy the sizes I need in open stock-- the 6 quart saute pan, for instance, is perfect for one-dish meals. The pasta pot with the steamer insert and pasta insert is also a must-have, along with a few mid-sized saucepans for cooking potatoes and veggies and sauces. I don't use frying pans for anything, so I'm skipping those. Saute pans, with the high sides, work much better for someone as messy as me.
My Calphalon non-stick has just disintegrated under the cooking demands of feeding all these people, with multiple cooks abusing them in various ways. Plus, they're too small. Sure, I'd love to buy the hand-hammered copper pans imported from Italy . . . but that's preposterous. Stainless mega-sized pots are the way to go, and the company has a very good guarantee of their materials.
My savings account is going to take a massive hit from all these purchases, but it's stuff we need, at prices that are reasonable, for things which will last a very long time. I'm expecting a good decade of service from the applicances and the bed, after all. Expensive stuff, but at least it won't be charged. Credit card companies, pblbtttt!!!
So it's more than slightly annoying that I'll have to do some major spending over the next few months. The only good thing is that we'll be doing it with actual cash money. If inflation does become a problem in the future, at least our dollars will have been spent while prices were somewhat reasonable, right?
Still, irritating to part with the hard-earned cash, and irritating that the government seems to STILL think that we can credit-spend our way out of this mess. Gahhh!
We do need, however, a new fridge. Our old one finally bit the dust when we moved, so we've been using the one our landlord provided while we've been in this rental house. Moving back home, though, leaves us without a fridge. We're looking at the freezer-on-the-bottom types with the double doors on top. I'm tall, it doesn't make sense for the milk to be down at my shin level and the ice cream at eye level. Especially the ice cream at eye level part. ;-) Most certainly the fridge needs to be with an icemaker, but without a water or ice dispenser, though (the kids play with dispensers, making them more a nuisance than a blessing.) There seem to be some pretty good deals out there on them, and they're much more energy efficient than our old fridge was, as well. I think it will be money well spent.
We also need a new washing machine. Granted, ours is not that old (<10 years). However, it's inefficient and loud and vibrates like mad no matter how we fiddle with the levelling. We're looking into front-loading large capacity machines. I'm not overly concerned with the steam cycle options (don't really see many things around here that need steam or DON'T need to be drenched to get out the odors/stains). Again, there are some good sales going on these days, and the savings in water and electricity will really help with the monthly bills.
We won't, however, be buying a new clothes dryer. We've decided to install a clothesline when we move back home. We don't currently have a homeowners assosciation in our community, so I'm hoping that it will pass without comment. The only people who will see it, after all, are the neighbors on either side of us, and one of those families has a back yard that looks like their three boys carried out WWIII over the summer. I somehow doubt they'll mind my towels hanging on a line. The clothesline should allow us to postpone buying a new dryer AND cut our enormous electricity bills down somewhat.
Cara needs a new mattress and box springs. Hers has lasted twelve years so far, but Mia's bedwetting has just ruined it over the past three months. Mia will be inheriting the old mattress until the odor gets too awful, at which point I'll probably be purchasing a hospital type mattress for her room, one of those with a thick vinyl covering that is rip-resistant and waterproof. You can't just put a rubber sheet or a vinyl mattress cover over her bed-- Mia rips them off, no matter how securely you attach them. Then she shoves the shredded vinyl in a closet. We've bought half a dozen mattress covers over the past year. I've pretty much just given up-- autism wins again, and the hospital mattress is next. But it can wait a couple months.
I'm also going to buy the pots and pans that strike the balance between practical and preposterous-- the stainless steel All-Clad pans. I'm just going to buy the sizes I need in open stock-- the 6 quart saute pan, for instance, is perfect for one-dish meals. The pasta pot with the steamer insert and pasta insert is also a must-have, along with a few mid-sized saucepans for cooking potatoes and veggies and sauces. I don't use frying pans for anything, so I'm skipping those. Saute pans, with the high sides, work much better for someone as messy as me.
My Calphalon non-stick has just disintegrated under the cooking demands of feeding all these people, with multiple cooks abusing them in various ways. Plus, they're too small. Sure, I'd love to buy the hand-hammered copper pans imported from Italy . . . but that's preposterous. Stainless mega-sized pots are the way to go, and the company has a very good guarantee of their materials.
My savings account is going to take a massive hit from all these purchases, but it's stuff we need, at prices that are reasonable, for things which will last a very long time. I'm expecting a good decade of service from the applicances and the bed, after all. Expensive stuff, but at least it won't be charged. Credit card companies, pblbtttt!!!
Monday, February 2, 2009
That itchy feeling
I've started looking at job postings again.
It must be the constant barrage of bad economic news. It inspires a desire to sock away a few extra grand a month, just in case.
Well, there's still three months till little wee Scotland makes his appearance, so I won't be socking away any cash anytime soon.
But I've begun thinking about where I might be able to work and still retain a minimum of sanity. Some irrational small part of my mind thinks that working postpartum might be amusing. I think I should stop accepting calls from that part of my mind. My more rational mind says I just need to go back to the psych hospital as a part timer. Money is the same, less time on your feet. Time on your feet= bad when you've just had a baby.
We'll see. I'll be glad just to be back home in Texas, in comfortable (if uninspired) surroundings.
It must be the constant barrage of bad economic news. It inspires a desire to sock away a few extra grand a month, just in case.
Well, there's still three months till little wee Scotland makes his appearance, so I won't be socking away any cash anytime soon.
But I've begun thinking about where I might be able to work and still retain a minimum of sanity. Some irrational small part of my mind thinks that working postpartum might be amusing. I think I should stop accepting calls from that part of my mind. My more rational mind says I just need to go back to the psych hospital as a part timer. Money is the same, less time on your feet. Time on your feet= bad when you've just had a baby.
We'll see. I'll be glad just to be back home in Texas, in comfortable (if uninspired) surroundings.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
"I'm in training . . ."
It always seems like everyone's in training for something. Weight loss goals are breezily followed by "And then I'll be running a 5k . . ." or "running the such-and-such marathon . . ." or "hiking in the Andes with Juan, my personal trainer."
Leaving aside the obvious lack of a dashing personal trainer, I've decided to be "in training." I mean, why not? Sure, I can't breathe, my heart rate soars if I walk across the house too quickly, and I'm so out of shape that it's almost impossible to even ponder seeing my toes again, much less pounding them across twenty six miles of roadbed. But, hey, you have to have a goal, right?
So, I am officially "in training" for the Walt Disney World Marathon. In, umm . . . 2011? Wait, what year is that? Better make it 2012, to be safe. It's held in January, so, yeah, definitely 2012.
That will, not coincidentally, be about the time of Wales's 5th birthday. Not like I'd plan to go to WDW for anything but strict running opportunities or anything . . . .
Leaving aside the obvious lack of a dashing personal trainer, I've decided to be "in training." I mean, why not? Sure, I can't breathe, my heart rate soars if I walk across the house too quickly, and I'm so out of shape that it's almost impossible to even ponder seeing my toes again, much less pounding them across twenty six miles of roadbed. But, hey, you have to have a goal, right?
So, I am officially "in training" for the Walt Disney World Marathon. In, umm . . . 2011? Wait, what year is that? Better make it 2012, to be safe. It's held in January, so, yeah, definitely 2012.
That will, not coincidentally, be about the time of Wales's 5th birthday. Not like I'd plan to go to WDW for anything but strict running opportunities or anything . . . .
Better
Starting to feel human again. I'm still breathing through goo, and things aren't perfect, but it's a lot better than it was a couple days back.
We began packing some things last night for the ReMove. The board games, two big boxes of toys that properly belong in the gameroom of our Texas house, but have been migrating through this gameroom-less house from closet to closet. Hubby has packed a few boxes of my books, but there are still two boxes waiting for topping off and taping-- we'll do that this evening, then stack them out of the way.
I never planned on moving back into our Texas house. There are so many things I'd have done differently if I'd known that it wouldn't sell. I wouldn't have painted the nursery back to plain beige. :-( It was beautiful with midnight blue ceilings and sky-blue walls painted with green hills. Now it's just . . . beige. Blah.
I would have left a lot of stuff in storage back in Texas, to save us the trouble of moving it all.
Ah well, we don't always plan these things, but we'll have to make the best of it. I'm going to try to get the china cabinet all cleared out and packed this week, along with the sideboard and the rest of the dining room stuff. If I can pack all the non-essential dishes, we'll be ahead of the game.
The closets are my next nightmare. They seem to multiply their contents by some strange magic. Surely we didn't buy THAT many pillowcases . . . .
We began packing some things last night for the ReMove. The board games, two big boxes of toys that properly belong in the gameroom of our Texas house, but have been migrating through this gameroom-less house from closet to closet. Hubby has packed a few boxes of my books, but there are still two boxes waiting for topping off and taping-- we'll do that this evening, then stack them out of the way.
I never planned on moving back into our Texas house. There are so many things I'd have done differently if I'd known that it wouldn't sell. I wouldn't have painted the nursery back to plain beige. :-( It was beautiful with midnight blue ceilings and sky-blue walls painted with green hills. Now it's just . . . beige. Blah.
I would have left a lot of stuff in storage back in Texas, to save us the trouble of moving it all.
Ah well, we don't always plan these things, but we'll have to make the best of it. I'm going to try to get the china cabinet all cleared out and packed this week, along with the sideboard and the rest of the dining room stuff. If I can pack all the non-essential dishes, we'll be ahead of the game.
The closets are my next nightmare. They seem to multiply their contents by some strange magic. Surely we didn't buy THAT many pillowcases . . . .
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Struggling . . .
. . . to breathe, mostly. The winter crud finally came home to roost in my lungs. I'd been hoping that the disease would give me a pass this year, since I spent six months fighting off chronic bronchitis LAST winter, but alas, it got me. I've been popping Tylenol and Sudafed and wishing I had something a little more effective. Being sick while pregnant pretty much eliminates all the good drug choices.
Hack, cough, sneeze. Blah.
I seem to be a little better today. Yesterday I had cold chills and was vomiting, too. Today I just can't hear out of my right ear and I'm trying not to move my neck too much, since the swollen lymph nodes just hurt when I do. Still really nauseated, but so far I've managed to keep my food down.
The baby's kicking has intensified, if anything. He hates it when I cough-- each coughing fit sends him into a fury of kicking. He probably thinks the roof is caving in, poor little guy.
Other than that . . . oh yeah. We're moving BACK to Texas, in March. I'll only be, what, eight months pregnant? No problem. Surely I can get this house packed up, get the kids all out of school, drag them halfway across the country, put them back in school, and then pop out a baby in time for Cinco de Mayo?
At some point in the future, I will probably look back at my childbearing years and just LAUGH until I pass out.
Hack, cough, sneeze. Blah.
I seem to be a little better today. Yesterday I had cold chills and was vomiting, too. Today I just can't hear out of my right ear and I'm trying not to move my neck too much, since the swollen lymph nodes just hurt when I do. Still really nauseated, but so far I've managed to keep my food down.
The baby's kicking has intensified, if anything. He hates it when I cough-- each coughing fit sends him into a fury of kicking. He probably thinks the roof is caving in, poor little guy.
Other than that . . . oh yeah. We're moving BACK to Texas, in March. I'll only be, what, eight months pregnant? No problem. Surely I can get this house packed up, get the kids all out of school, drag them halfway across the country, put them back in school, and then pop out a baby in time for Cinco de Mayo?
At some point in the future, I will probably look back at my childbearing years and just LAUGH until I pass out.
Monday, January 12, 2009
Pondering
Over the past two weeks, I've been wrestling with some problems and quandries and decisions that need to be made. Some of them have been fairly minor, some of them have been life-altering. What to do with this blog, well, it's a pretty minor decision. Whether to move halfway across the country from my husband, that's a major one.
Somehow, the decision-making process is just draining me of the last bits of energy I might have used to blog.
Ah well.
Somehow, the decision-making process is just draining me of the last bits of energy I might have used to blog.
Ah well.
Friday, January 2, 2009
Reviving resolutions
So, delving back into the past, we find that I made at least one resolution or promise or vow or something: to read one of the Modern Library's Top 100 Novels per month, in order to finish them all before I turned 40.
I started off with gusto in June, reading during the long dull hours at work when there either actually was a tech to do the 15 minute safety checks on the patients or during those blessed rare nights when all of the patients only had hourly checks. I managed to read three novels in June and another in July. And, Lo!, all of them were enjoyable, if not exactly my typical reading fare. I'd previously read another nine of them, but I fully intended (and intend) to re-read them at some point.
But, for all intents and purposes, I only read four of the books, which makes me caught up on my resolution through . . . September? Egads. That leaves me lacking a novel for the past three months. I read plenty of novels during those months-- I had a gluttonous relationship with the local library in the previous town we lived in, and I caught myself up on all the genre fiction I'd missed during nursing school. I just didn't read anything off the list.
So, to recap: I read Henderson the Rain King, I, Claudius, The Way of All Flesh, and The Good Soldier. I recommend them all very highly. In fact, I'd say that reading each of them enriched my life in some manner. I think I've gotten a lot more out of the novels than I would have if, say, I'd tried to read them in high school. I just didn't have the perspective back them to appreciate the ironies and the griefs, the little triumphs and failings. I was much too dogmatic, on the whole. Not that I'm much better these days, but I try.
Somewhere along the way, I read another nine of them, but not in a very conscious and determined manner. So 1984, Lolita, Lord of the Flies, Animal Farm, The Grapes of Wrath, The Catcher in the Rye, A High Wind in Jamaica, and Heart of Darkness are all on the re-read list. Walker Percy's "The Moviegoer" is on the re-read list as well, if only because I am 100% in love with that novel and re-reading it will be a pleasure.
Here, I officially admit what I did not admit during my junior year of high school-- yes, "Light in August" WAS assigned to me in AP English, yes, I turned in the final essay on the novel and passed the course with a B, but, no, I didn't read the book. And, honestly, unless Faulkner has somehow mutated into a less obnoxious pain in the butt to read, I doubt I ever will read that novel. Faulkner, ugh. Imagine the sound of a cat barfing. That's my internal reaction to Faulkner.
I've got a half-dozen or so of the other Top 100 Novels on a bookshelf, awaiting their turn. None of them have really called out to me, begging to be read. Nostromo, Wings of the Dove, Zuleika Dobson, Invisible Man, Brave New World . . . blah. Nothing feels right for the time and place. I've stared at my Amazon wish list for hours, trying to decide which of the other novels to shuffle over into my shopping cart.
Right now, I'm tempted to just splurge and buy a dozen of them. My dad sent me a gift card for Christmas . . . surely a hundred bucks worth of books is a good investment? Well, a hundred bucks worth of good books, anyway.
Tempting, very tempting . . . .
I started off with gusto in June, reading during the long dull hours at work when there either actually was a tech to do the 15 minute safety checks on the patients or during those blessed rare nights when all of the patients only had hourly checks. I managed to read three novels in June and another in July. And, Lo!, all of them were enjoyable, if not exactly my typical reading fare. I'd previously read another nine of them, but I fully intended (and intend) to re-read them at some point.
But, for all intents and purposes, I only read four of the books, which makes me caught up on my resolution through . . . September? Egads. That leaves me lacking a novel for the past three months. I read plenty of novels during those months-- I had a gluttonous relationship with the local library in the previous town we lived in, and I caught myself up on all the genre fiction I'd missed during nursing school. I just didn't read anything off the list.
So, to recap: I read Henderson the Rain King, I, Claudius, The Way of All Flesh, and The Good Soldier. I recommend them all very highly. In fact, I'd say that reading each of them enriched my life in some manner. I think I've gotten a lot more out of the novels than I would have if, say, I'd tried to read them in high school. I just didn't have the perspective back them to appreciate the ironies and the griefs, the little triumphs and failings. I was much too dogmatic, on the whole. Not that I'm much better these days, but I try.
Somewhere along the way, I read another nine of them, but not in a very conscious and determined manner. So 1984, Lolita, Lord of the Flies, Animal Farm, The Grapes of Wrath, The Catcher in the Rye, A High Wind in Jamaica, and Heart of Darkness are all on the re-read list. Walker Percy's "The Moviegoer" is on the re-read list as well, if only because I am 100% in love with that novel and re-reading it will be a pleasure.
Here, I officially admit what I did not admit during my junior year of high school-- yes, "Light in August" WAS assigned to me in AP English, yes, I turned in the final essay on the novel and passed the course with a B, but, no, I didn't read the book. And, honestly, unless Faulkner has somehow mutated into a less obnoxious pain in the butt to read, I doubt I ever will read that novel. Faulkner, ugh. Imagine the sound of a cat barfing. That's my internal reaction to Faulkner.
I've got a half-dozen or so of the other Top 100 Novels on a bookshelf, awaiting their turn. None of them have really called out to me, begging to be read. Nostromo, Wings of the Dove, Zuleika Dobson, Invisible Man, Brave New World . . . blah. Nothing feels right for the time and place. I've stared at my Amazon wish list for hours, trying to decide which of the other novels to shuffle over into my shopping cart.
Right now, I'm tempted to just splurge and buy a dozen of them. My dad sent me a gift card for Christmas . . . surely a hundred bucks worth of books is a good investment? Well, a hundred bucks worth of good books, anyway.
Tempting, very tempting . . . .
Thursday, January 1, 2009
New Year, another go at this . . . .
I should probably stop making New Year resolutions.
Since I've been making them (twentyish years?), I haven't managed yet to actually keep them much past Martin Luther King Jr's holiday. Even before there was a holiday . . . .
So, with that in mind, I am refusing to make any real resolutions besides the resolution to keep the resolutions that I made LAST year. If I can remember them, anyway.
So, that leaves me back where I started last year, trying to maintain a weblog again. I deleted all the previous posts (all nine of them, representing two years of posting.) I'm starting fresh, trying to discover exactly what voice and style I do have in this new (post-apocalyptic?) era.
No guarantees. This may very well turn out to be disastrous!
Since I've been making them (twentyish years?), I haven't managed yet to actually keep them much past Martin Luther King Jr's holiday. Even before there was a holiday . . . .
So, with that in mind, I am refusing to make any real resolutions besides the resolution to keep the resolutions that I made LAST year. If I can remember them, anyway.
So, that leaves me back where I started last year, trying to maintain a weblog again. I deleted all the previous posts (all nine of them, representing two years of posting.) I'm starting fresh, trying to discover exactly what voice and style I do have in this new (post-apocalyptic?) era.
No guarantees. This may very well turn out to be disastrous!
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