Today.

My father in law is dying.
He was diagnosed with cancer about 5 years ago...a rare type with no real course of treatment. He was told he could live 6 months or 5 years. He took the long way and did it with strength and courage.
I do this for a living...I care for oncology patients through their struggles with their disease. I care for them when they get the first diagnosis. I care for them in their last days, hours, minutes. I have sat with many during their last breath. It is always powerful, always sad, always earth shattering, always beautiful. In that moment life becomes so small and so big all at once. With each of those moments I become more of who I am.

Now. Now, I am at the bedside of a great man. He is dying. My husbands father. His Daddy. His everything. We gather around him giving him comfort, reassurance. He knows he can trust us to do what is right. I am using my experience to gently float this family on a feather down the roughest waters. I am trying to be their nurse and also their family. Trying to be honest but not clinical. Realistic....but not harsh.

I always say that this job I have is the greatest teacher. I feel I know the secrets....I've been told by my patients. They share with me what they have learned so that I may see what is truly important in this life.

Let them be the ones to give me strength now. Let me be all that I need to be.

Damn.

Why is it that a non-fat eggnog latte is STILL over 400 calories?
Why is it that a non-fat peppermint mocha is STILL over 300 calories?

Why?

I...the unsuspecting dieter that I am...have gone into Starbucks twice this week thinking that I'm safe ordering the non-fat milk option only to find out later in the day after looking up the nutritional info online that I have SCREWED myself and must live out the remainder of the day eating only lettuce.

Now tomorrow I must workout after my 14 hour work day of nursing. I am going to be incredibly unpleasant after completing this workout. So....anyone who is required to engage in any sort of conversation or activity with me should just avert their eyes and do something nice to appease me.

I'm just saying.

My motto for this holiday season is this:

GAHHHH!

I've been without internet since we last spoke!
I didn't realize how absolutley, yet ridiculously, VITAL the internet is to my daily grind.
GAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
My internet providor is like a small crippled monkey...and I feel very frustrated with them. At one point during our 4 conversations over the last week I spoke loudly into the phne and said, "I'm a nurse. If I f***ked up as much as you do people would be dead...THANK GOD YOU DON'T HAVE THAT TYPE OF RESPOSIBILITY ON YOUR SHOULDERS! This is your JOB and you are sooooooo bad at at it. You should be disappointed in yourselves." Now I realize this sounds a little extrreme. But I had FOUR different conversations with them, each lasting greater than 2 hours...and EVERY TIME they still had NO CLUE WHAT THE HELL WAS GOING ON. But now I have phone and internet again and I can feel more calm. CALM......

So now, I'm just stretching my legs and getting comfortable with the internets again...will be back to tell you the story of my hospital visit...I'm fine..don't get your panties in a bunch....also another tasty recipe...and general ramblings.

Two Things

Thing One:
Trevor and I are cracking down on our budget. This is such a challenge for us and has been for the entirety of our marriage. Now with the current state of our economy it's easier to say "I'm on a budget" without feeling cheap or stingy. It allows us to stop that "keeping up the jones" mentality. So, one major thing we have changed is making a meal plan and only grocery shopping once a week. Real Simple's Nov. 2008 issue helped me this week with their "Love Your Leftovers" & "Five Easy Dinners" articles. The first recipe I tried was I the Creamy Mashed Potato & Leek Soup . The recipe is meant to use your leftover mashed potatoes from Thanksgiving....so I had to make a batch first. I just used some baby potatoes, skin on, half a stick of salted butter, & a head of oven roasted garlic. Also, I substituted half of the low sodium chicken broth with regular. Low sodium broth is the devil. I also added a touch of Old Bay seasoning, white pepper, & black pepper to taste. This soup was easy to make and I am telling you that when you eat it you'll feel like you're eating potatoes and lots of creamy fat goodness. But in reality the only creamy fat is the butter you use to make the mashed potatoes. I served it with a small salad of organic greens with homemade balsamic vinaigrette and a slice of hearty bread. HELLA!

Thing Two:
We are entering the cold weather season in the Midwest. This is distressing to me. Not because I don't like the weather....because I LOVE the cold, but because there is a large number of whiney Midwesterner's who BTICH the entire winter season about the temperature. Also it seems that the topic of conversation ANYWHERE you go is the cold. How cold is it outside? How much ice and/or snow is on the ground? What are the roads like? What is the temperature? What is the windchill?

It is cold out. The roads are probably crap. It will be this way for many more months. Get over it. It's the Midwest...either take the winters as they are or leave. No amount of your bellyaching will change it.
Thank you. I just had to get that of my chest.

Last Day of Vacation

We woke up....I drove to Black Mountain to pick up brunch for the three of us at the Morning Glory Cafe. I got Dad's Famous Fish Tacos...I'm a sucker for good fish tacos. We ate on the deck, the mountain wind blew...and then Megs friend came to pick her up to take her off to Wellspring Camp were Meg will be the Field Staff Supervisor for the summer. It was her first day and she had a lot of work to do so we said our good byes....and then she left. Heavy Heart.

Lark and I putzed around the house for a bit and headed off to the airport. On the way we stopped and bought a bucket of fresh picked strawberries from the sweetest old man on the side of the road.


I could barely understand what he was saying between his southern drawl and the wet ball of chew in his lip....but Lark seemed to understand him and we left with a big bucket of sweet tender strawberries and headed into town for one last stop.

Mmmmm. I had been eyeing this place the entire trip but we never seemed to find the time to stop. I was determined to enjoy a treat before leaving...so we stopped in and I slipped in to bliss with a Coconut Cream Cupcake from The Sisters McMullen Cupcake Corner. Sweet Mother Of Pastry Heaven. Lark and I enjoyed our treats and drove peacefully to the airport. I hugged her goodbye...I grabbed my luggage...and with a full tummy and a fulfilled heart...I flew home to Chicago with cherished memories and time spent with some very special people in a very special place.

Gone To Yoga

Yoga, Yoga, Yoga.

How I missed you. How my heart ached without you.
Once again, you bring peace to my hectic life.

I resumed regular yoga practice last week. It has been amazing. I didn't realize how badly my body and mind missed it until that first day and I couldn't believe I survived without it. Marlene, my instructor, and I talked after class and she told me that even the most dedicated of yogis need a break sometimes...that it makes you realize how vital the practice is to your life.

Boy, was she right.

"To allow ourselves to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit oneself to too many projects, to want to help everyone in everything is to succumb to violence." - Thomas Merton


Will Be Back Later,

Oops, I crapped my pants! (old SNL skit.....anyone?)

I'm totally shitting my pants right now.

I was fine until about 10 minutes ago when I came to the true realization that I am going to be on the floor tomorrow as a nurse BY MYSELF. I won't have my preceptor at my beckon call to help me when I am feeling overwhelmed by my patient load. I won't have someone right next to me to bounce ideas off of or ask stupid questions of. I am ON MY OWN. Tomorrow is that day that I have worked towards for so long and it is giving me diarrhea.

Damn.

Also, now that I am on 12 hour days 3x/week I can finally get back into my normal yoga and workout routine. It has been such a struggle to find the time and energy to devote to my personal fitness goals. My body is in misery.

Here is a list I wrote tonight thinking about why it is important to eat right and exercise regularly:
1) Prevent Diabetes, Stroke, Heart Disease, Hypertension, High Cholesterol, Cancer, & Kidney Disease. All things that come with the territory of being overweight.

2) Increase my energy level and release stress and tension, in turn decreasing my risk of stress related physiologic changes

3) Be a better example for my patients and future children

4) Increase fertility

5) Improve my self image

Back to being scared. My God. I am so nervous right now.
I know I can do it. I'm just friggin' terrified.

Stop the Bullshit

I'm sitting home, watching the snow fall...AGAIN, and relaxing by a warm fire in the fireplace, on a day off from nursing (the BEST job in the world BTW), reading blogs. Through my WWW exploration today I found the You Tube clip below of Anne Hathaway excepting and award from the Human Rights Campaign for her support of the LGBT community. It moved me so much because I have a very dear and best friend, Meg, who is a lesbian. She is in a loving relationship with a cute little potter. I used to always talk about planning their vegan hippie mountain top wedding..and say when you get married this and when you get married that, until one day Meg said, "Kristin, we CAN'T get married". And I just rambled on, "Oh, that whole no gay marriage thing? That's so stupid, don't listen to them. You can get married, it's just a piece of paper. Don't be silly". After saying that I looked up and saw her face...and then realized the seriousness of what she had said...she can not, BY LAW, marry the one person in this world who she would give anything to marry. She is not allowed to do that. It's so easy for me to say it's just a piece of paper, because I am, in the eyes of our government, more civilized in my heterosexual relationship than she is. Over the years she has told me how people will look at her and her girlfriend when they hold hands in public...how she has been treated as a gay woman. It makes me SICK to think of some asshole passing judgment on her...thinking she is less of a human being than they are. I could go on and on...

I have a Lesbian Best Friend. She is kind, loving, hyper-intelligent, in love, revolutionary, inspirational, strong, hysterical, and amazing. She deserves the same amount of respect that you do. Treat her as you would want to be treated. Embrace her as a fellow human being.
Let's stop the bullshit.

Wild Geese

Today's yoga class kicked my butt. It was worth it in the end because my body was thankful for the stretching, flexing, and centering....and because my yoga instructor shared this poem with us.

Wild Geese
by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting —
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.


This was just what I needed today....this poem. I do not have to be good. I do not have to walk on my knees through the desert repenting. I can live my life and be the best I can be...whether or not it is the best to you...or good to you...is not something to be worried about. I will live my life as it fulfills me and fit into this world as I am meant to.

Learning and Growing can be hard on a girl.

Crap-a-dap-dap.

I'm done with my test. In fact, it was over before I knew it..and that is not sitting well with me. I only had answered 75 questions when the computer turned off...and let me tell you...those were 75 hard-ass questions. There were a few medication questions that I was like...What? Bippity-boppity-boo? I've never even HEARD of that medication..and you're telling me now that it treats Hepatitis C and you want me to tell YOU if the dose is correct for the patient based on their hieght and weight? WTF? SERIOUSLY!?

I really had a lot of questions that I had to make "educated guesses" on...so we shall see.
I know it's not the end of the world if I don't pass. But I am just ready for the next chapter in my life. I am ready to move on.
I honesltly felt like I was going to crawl out of my skin after finishing...but luckily I had enough time to schooch over to my yoga studio and catch a class. After Marlene rocked my world in downward dog for and hour and a half (I know this sounds sexy...but it wasn't, trust) my anxieties and fears were replaced by the feeling of...it is what it is and I'll just roll with it. I decided I needed to replace the awful & fearful emotions with peace and respect for myself and the effort I had made. However, it's so easy to feel that way while laying on a warm wood floor in the sunlight with Eternal Om bounding through the speakers willing you to give up your ego....it's a lot harder to carry that out into the world with you.

So that's where I am....in this place of limbo. One minute I feel peace and the next minute a pang of anxiety waves over me like a hot blanket and I feel sick. Trying. Trying. Trying.

Yoga quote of today:
"The jump is frightening between where I am and where I want to be...Because of all I may become, I will close my eyes and leap!"
-Mountain Dancer

Happy Valentines Day!

Hey all...I just got back from yoga..and I feel like my legs are going to fall off. We did nine million hours of balancing poses and I have very weak feet and ankles. Also, my left foot is recovering from a break a few months ago...so all the balancing ROCKED MY WORLD. After the intensity ceased, we started to wind down into shavasana (the finishing sequence of yoga practice that harmonises your energy as you lay still with your eyes closed and relax) Marlene, my teacher, asked us to please use this time to open our hearts to the world and let love pour out for all beings. I closed my eyes and took a few breaths into my heart and then began to picture this:



Yes, I am a child of the 80's. I literally was picturing myself as the Love Care Bear, with little hearts floating up out of my chest by the thousands, floating out through the windows into the streets and popping over peoples heads, giving them my love! It was a very entertaining way to end the class, me in my little world...with hearts and bears...spreading the love!

Happy Valentines Day everyone....I hope you see some of my Care Bear hearts during your day today!

The Before...

Here are the dreaded before pictures...although, when I look at them, they aren't SOOO dreadful. The only one that really makes me cringe is the rear end shot. But, whatever....it is what it is...and I never have to look at it anyway.

These pictures were taken this morning before going to my yoga class at Nirvana Yoga in Barrington. The form of yoga that this studio practices is primarily Vinyasa, which I love.


Yoga has been a great way to kick-start my fitness quest. When I finished nursing school in December, my brain had melted into goo....and my body was a heap of exhaustion. I WANTED to go to the gym and start into a regular schedule, but I could not muster up the strength. That's when I decided to start yoga. Nirvana is one of two studios in Barrington, I chose it simply because I know someone who used to teach there and figured if it was good enough for her...surely it would be good enough for me. I went to a class...loved the instructor...and bought an unlimited monthly pass. The pass was costly but I used some of my graduation money to pay for the first month and will use a bit more to pay for a second when the time comes. I think after two months of daily (or 4-5 x/ week) yoga, I should have a good handle on it and from there I'll pay for individual classes or get a package of 10 to use as needed.

Many times the instructor will ask us to set an intention for class. 9 times of 10, I focus on finding strength in my body and peace in my heart (a phrase I picked up on my first day that I can't seem to shake). After I left the first class I sat in my car and tried to make a call on my cell phone...and the piece of crap wouldn't work. I got ready to curse and throw it when I remembered.....*peace in my heart*. So instead of committing an act of violence, I looked at my phone and said, "thank you cell phone, for allowing me to make important calls wherever I want....whenever I want....mostly".

Namaste :-)