Do I bitch or just shut up?

Lately my blog has become a diatribe of bitchiness dedicated to work. Should I continue with the latest, or just let it go? Sadly, I must vent. In the great wisdom of our management I was pulled from a class today in order to be put on the schedule tonight despite the fact that they claim they want to support us with training, etc. Then, I get to work and what do I find out? They've scheduled me to work on Easter!!! Even though there are people with less seniority than me that have the day off. Grrrrrrrr!!!

Ok, news other than bitching about work. I still don't have a computer, so will have to live with only blogging on the weekends, but hey that's still an improvement from before when I blogged once a month.

I tried to freecycle several items this week, warning the people that I would not have computer access, tried 3 different people before I lost access, and what do you know - the stuff is still on my front porch. Some days it just doesn't pay to try and save the planet.

Good news this week? My babies are beautiful beings which bring me joy and happiness every day. I'm amazed by how much they change from day to day and feel incredibly lucky to have them in my life. My hubby made me another great dinner tonight, and apparently the twins helped - I got a biter biscuit as a treat. (Sssshhhhh, don't tell them I didn't eat it.)

My oldest baby (Stacey) was promoted to assistant manager for her division. I'm very proud of her. She has also rededicated herself to her diet and getting more exercise, so think encouraging thoughts of support for her. BTW, she would hate it that I called her my baby, but it is what it is. She will always be my baby no matter what. I love her too.

More bloggin Tourettes

Ok, looks like I'm gonna be without a computer for a while, so I figure I better get this out of my system as I'll only be able to blog on weekends at work now.

Went to the theater tonight, and saw A Chorus Liine. Not what I expected, but I had never seen it before, and now I have. I think I can safely say I don't plan on ever seeing it again, but it wasn't the worst thing I've ever seen. At least it wasn't as bad as the 2 hours and 15 minutes of my life that I will never get back that I had to spend on training at work Monday morning AFTER having already been there working for 12+ hours that night.

Speaking of work - I have another training (at 7 freakin' thirty in the morning tomorrow) and I have to get this computer purged, so I need to sign off.

Andrea, I need a power cord until I can ante up for a kick of my own. ;)

Should I really be getting paid for this, or am I getting paid enough for this?

The answer to that question is rather elusive. Some nights I feel like, "It's great to be here" while others I feel like, "Why am I here and why do I put up with this crap." Lucky for me I don't have too many of those nights and they don't generally fall one after the other. However, it has caused me to re-evaluate what I am doing with my life (my work life that is.) I'm quite happy with my personal life at the moment.

Options available to me:
1. Quit and live the extremely poor life as opposed to the semi-poor life I'm leading right now.
2. Change jobs. Definitely showing possibilities. I'm thinking about checking out the ED over on the Stanford side of the house. Other possibilities are OR, Day Hospital, and Telecenter. Things to contemplate.
3. Go back to school (not mutually exclusive of the other two options.) Hoping to accomplish this in Fall 2006. This could have a big effect on what I do later in my career.

In any case, until I get off my tookus and make a decision, I am going to be generally unhappy, so I must move, and move soon.

Other than that, life is good.

Interesting thought

Ever notice how the very people who complain that noone helps suddenly disappear when they are asked for help?

Strange hours of the morning...

I've just noticed that a great deal of my blogs are posted from 3:00 - 4:00 in the morning. Does this mean that I feel my most creative then, or that I'm my most delirious then? You be the judge.

Middle of the night nonsense

Ok, here I sit at work. The night is slow thus making it very long. This is a mixed blessing. Slow, long night for me = good night for the little babies I am caring for. Busy, fast night for me = very bad night for the wee ones. As you would expect, I'm trying to figure out how to get busy and fast for me without the little ones having to suffer. There is no good answer.

On another note HIPPA sucks!!! I can't be emphatic enough about this. For those of you that don't know what this is, it relates to patient privacy and various laws that have been enacted to protect this privacy. While I don't have a problem with the concept, I do have issues with the implementation. For instance, I spent over an hour tonight taking a test on how to protect patient privacy - a good third of that test related to software development and how information is transferred between software clearing houses. AND I CARE ABOUT THIS BECAUSE? Like this in any way affects how I do my job, or what I do with info gathered on my patients. Since when will I, as a nurse, ever have anything to do with software development, etc? Why not test me on info that would be pertinent to my job, such as, "Should I give patient info over the phone to people I don't know?" That would make more sense.

In any case, at the end there was a survey which had several multiple choice questions, but then there was a comment section at the end. Boy, did I comment! Just part of my comment included a phrase that went something like, "...senseless waste of time which could have been better spent at the patients bedside providing quality care..."

Ok, venting over.

The sense of humor starts early

Some things we are just born with such as a sense of humor. True, it can be enlarged if you work on it, but the basic sense has to be there. Having said that, Riley definitely has a sense of humor (even if Mom doesn't totally appreciate it all the time.)

Today, after having rocked Riley to sleep (she was limp as a rag in my arms), I go to lay her down only to find out she was playing possum. How did I know this you ask? Cuz when I tried to lay her down, her eyes popped open, she waved her arms Riley fashion (you have to know her to understand this), and she giggled, yes giggled. She found it quite humorous. Mom, though understanding the humor, was not quite so appreciative.

Yesterday, she laughed so hard she snorted which gave her pause, but then made her laugh even harder. That was hilarious. Got both me and Sam laughing with her.

Speaking of Sam, she has her own winning ways. She is such the flirt and rather demanding. Today when I got home from the boring class I have to take for work (BLS - Basic Life Saving), Sammi's face lit up, she smiled the biggest smile you've ever seen, and did a full bodied happy dance, then started in with the repetitive Mama, Mama, Mama until I picked her up. As Andrea can attest (from her visit last night) Sammi will fuss/whine what have you until you pick her up, if you put her down (which entails any part of her body barely coming in contact with the floor) the fussing mantra starts. It's quite funny to witness. Sammi fusses, Andrea picks Sammi up, fussing stops, smiling and flirting commense, Andrea allows Sammi's toes to touch the ground, fussing recommenses, toes 1" off the ground, flirting, toes on ground, fussing. This was repeated 4 or 5 times just for effect.

P.S.

There is a bag of hockey gear stored under the crib (no other room in the house), so hopefully it will work it's magic and make the girls hockey players. Now if I can only get Stacey and Bill to skate out. Hmmmm? A Fishwick hockey team, now that's a concept.

My babies are growing up too fast...sigh.

It finally happened. With much sadness I took down my beloved co-sleeper today and put up a crib. The babies were just too big for the co-sleeper. We'll see how the crib goes. I'll be really sad if I have to put up another crib so they can have seperate beds. However, I have to say, they do look pretty cute sleeping in their new bed. Grandma and Grandpa came by today, and Grandpa worked his baby voodoo magic and managed to get both girls to sleep which is where they are now. So, am I napping? No, I'm blogging, and then I'm heading off to do dishes and laundry - oh, such a daring life I lead.

Survival of the fittest

Apparently my children are going to have to be tough, cuz Mom just doesn't think everything quite far enough through. For instance, their little toy basket. Did you know toy baskets (and I do mean basket) should not have handles? I would have never thought of that, but here's the scenario: Sam, "I want that toy, let me reach into the toy basket to get it", basket tips, thwack on the head with the handle, Sam sits back. Reaches for toy again, thwack again. Tries different angle, thwack. Riley gets in on the effort to access lone toy stuck in basket (the rest having been dumped out), and thwack, handle smack on forehead. Both try to duck under the handle, thwack, thwack, and double head smack. Kind of cute to watch the thought process evolve. Did they eventually get the toy - yep. Grab basket by offensive handle, and dump toy out. Yeah Girls!

Decisions Avoided

Today, while bringing up my blog, I noticed my side bar and grinned a little because, well I haven't given up my Jeep or motorcycle yet despite the declarations of the last year. I have to admit however, that I have not ridden (lovely english) my motorcycle in a little over a year and a half, but I do drive my Jeep now that I'm not on bedrest anymore. Perhaps I will change my side bar eventually, but for now it makes me smile.

Water soluble ink is NOT water soluble

This may seem like a no brainer, or a common sense thing, and to a certain extent it is, so I must take responsibility for my own foolishness. That having been said, this all started with the fact that I have been doing hand/foot prints and photos of the twins on a monthly basis since they were born. Until now I have been using an "inkless" system so all was good. However, the babies have outgrown the old system so we had to go to a more regular way to print them thus the water soluble ink. I have a water based inkpad that I thought would work just fine, and it did to get the prints. However, when it came time to wash those cute little hands and feet the ink just wouldn't come off, even after an extended soak in the bath tub. Samantha was quite distraught and cried everytime she looked at her fingers until after the tub soak which did lighten it all up quite a bit. She is afterall, our confirmed finger sucker. Riley didn't seem quite as disturbed though she kept looking at her feet quizically. So, for those who have thought of trying this, think again. As for me, apparently I'll have to find a new method for the next printing session.

Gadget Girl Rival

Riley may soon rival the Gadget Girl (she has bonded with her after all.) Riley has learned that when a toy is out of reach, no need to crawl to get to it, just use another toy as a scooping, reaching tool to pull it into you. That's my girl.

My Pacbell superhero

Ok, that might be a little dramatic, but they were great. I simply filed a service request online - they reported back that they would have the problem fixed by 7:00 P.M. the next day. I thought that was that, but no it wasn't. Only a couple of hours after filing my report, and after dark (after regular business hours) the Pacbell man arrives to say he believes my problem is fixed and to check if I have a dial tone, and what do you know, I do. It was amazingly quick, easy and simple. The only downside is that I had to listen to his "lecture" on how phone wires operate (which I already knew), but that is a small price to pay for such great service. Here's where you can go if you're having issues. (Oh yeah, it's SBC now, not Pacbell. Old habits die hard.) http://www.sbc.com/gen/general?pid=1080&cdvn=localize&prod-snip=repair
-sa

My babies, what else? ;)

Ok, so I didn't get to blog this weekend - work was incredibly busy and I ended up going out on an ambulance transport to get a baby in Watsonville.

As for the babies, they are growing and changing so much I am more amazed and entertained by them every day.

This week we started off with pancakes for breakfast Monday morning. Sammi immediately bit a hole right through her Sammi style while Riley went for the divide and conquer approach to eating pancakes. By the time they were done there were pancake "guts" all over them, their highchairs, and of course the floor. (We really need to get another dog.)

Today Sammi was trying to fill the role of family dog. As she was trying to nurse, I noticed she was having great difficulty, and then I noticed a "chewing" action going on, so I stopped her and looked in her mouth. To my surprise I found a little piece of wood from where she had apparently taken a bite out of our wooden wine cabinet. I have no idea what possessed her to do this, but she was quite irate that I had taken her "prize" away from her.

Currently she's fussing because Riley won't stay still long enough for her to crawl over her. Oh, I see why. They are both angling to get control of a plastic piece of mail from their playhouse. Sam is currently the "winner" crawling around with it hanging out of her mouth.

Apparently the nursing hour is upon us as both babies are melting, so this is all for now.