Come out, come out, wherever you are...

...at exactly 1:01pm CST on Saturday, March 27, 2021.  

I felt great the rest of the day! My arm barely hurt at all.  The trick to IM shots is to focus on relaxing that muscle...it makes such a huge difference.  It also makes it so much easier for the person giving you the injection.  Honestly.

At about 1:30am on Sunday morning, I woke up feeling dizzy and nauseated. Not enough to get up, just enough to wake me up and then for me to lay there perfectly still and wait until it passed so I could go back to sleep.  Could've been from the shot, could've been dehydration. Who knows.

Sunday morning I woke up and my arm hurt.  But I slept on that side, because that's the side I sleep on, and it didn't hurt when I was sleeping on it.  No biggie.  I'm groggy when I get out of bed anyway, so I didn't notice anything else.  Got up, took a shower, got dressed, drove to church for drive-in church.  By the time we got back home, I felt like I'd been hit by a Mack truck.  I felt feverish (meaning I was really cold but my skin was hot), my body ached all over, my eyes hurt, and I just wanted to do absolutely nothing.  I take that back; I wanted to cry, but that seemed unreasonable, so I sat in my recliner, bundled up under my favorite blanket for as long as I could stand it, then I took some Dayquil.  

You have to know something about me: I absolutely HATE that feeling that I'm coming down with the flu. And that is exactly what I felt like.  Not actually sick enough to be sick, but not feeling good enough to do anything.  I even kept telling myself that I wasn't really sick, it was just from the vaccination, but that didn't matter.  I hate body aches. I hate feeling tired.  I hate low-grade fever.  The only reason I didn't go to bed after we got home from church was, three things:  for one, I wanted to crochet.  I'm working on a couple of shawls right now, and also, crocheting makes me happy.  Two: the Bristol dirt race!! and Three: our new laptops were supposed to be delivered yesterday.  I could put up with a little discomfort knowing I could distract myself with crocheting, racing, and a new laptop.

But then the race was called off, postponed until today.  Due to rain. Grrrr!  I mean, whatever.  I could still crochet, and wait for our laptops to be delivered.  The FedEx app said they'd be delivered by the end of the day.  I could wait.  I really wanted to go upstairs and crawl into bed and sleep my discomfort away, but nope, I could stay awake and get some crocheting done.  And wait.  And check the FedEx app every half hour to see if there were any updates on when exactly they'd be here.

And then, when the "expected delivery time" on the app changed from "end of day" back to "pending", I really could have cried.  The DayQuil had worn off by then, and I just wasn't in the mood for anything. I felt just rotten and horrible and shortly thereafter went up to bed where I couldn't get comfortable or warm enough, and my hubby kept trying to pull the blankets off of me because my skin was hot but I was getting mad because I was freezing.  

Anyway. I'm feeling a lot better today.  I'm super glad I don't have to go through that again (because I got the vaccine that only requires one dose -- YAY ME!) and also glad that I can now stop feeling like I'm not a team player for being an unvaccinated nurse.  

That is all for now.

Betterday...

We had a staff meeting during lunch today so I'm taking a few minutes now to write before I get back to work.  

It's a cold, dreary day in Minnesconsinland today.  I'm working at home, under my favorite WFH blanket (it's actually a fleece quillow I made many many moons ago -- it's perfect because I use the pocket for my feet). I'm so cold today, I broke down and made a pot of coffee.  This is when I miss the boy the most; when I have to drink a whole pot of coffee by myself.  

Yes, the boy's employer decided (the way he tells it) that COVID doesn't exist anymore, so they all had to go back to WFW full-time.  No more of this WFH every other week thing.  I kinda miss having him around all day every other week.  It was nice to know someone else would be here if I wasn't.

Let's see if I can write this without crying.  :)  I always felt so incredibly guilty about leaving the dogs home alone for so long during the day once I got the job I have now.  Because even thought the hubby and I work slightly different schedules, there were still times when they'd be home alone for 8, 9, 10 hours at once.  Or more.  I can't tell you how happy I am that I got to spend the last six months of Luger's life home with him most of the time.  ...nope, didn't make it without crying.  And it's not just that I miss that dog.  Those last three days were horrible, horrible days. For him. For me. For all of us.  It was like, from a certain point everything just kept getting worse and worse and worse and when you thought it couldn't possibly get any worse, it got way worse.  Like, I wouldn't have even thought it could get that bad and I've been around dogs all my life and I'm going to change the subject now because I'm going to start ugly crying soon and no one wants that.

I'm obviously not ready to talk about it yet.

I like to crochet. I'm on a sweater and shawl kick lately.  Last night I started my first "Lost Souls" shawl -- you know, the one that has skulls all over it?  But I'm making it in prettiful, bright colors because why not?!  We'll see how it turns out.  Like I said, I just started it last night.  I was starting to get the hang of the pattern, but it still takes a while, and I get impatient sometimes.  But I do want to make things that require more skill than repeating a double crochet stitch 168 times, then turning and doing the same thing over and over and over again.  Anyhoo, I think it'll look cool when it's done, and I might even try to sell it.  I'm on a couple of crochet groups on FB and people are always talking about selling their stuff, and I always think, I could do that.  Not enough to quit my day job or anything, but enough to, you know, buy more yarn or something.  It gives me an excuse to buy pretty yarn and make pretty things and then not feel bad for not wearing it.  I just don't want to take special orders anymore.  That sucks all the fun right out of it, honestly -- making something because I "HAVE" to.  

Anyway. I should get back to work.  Darn MPIP won't report itself.

Toodles!

Boogity, boogity, boogity!

I just learned that journaling is one way to help prevent nursing burnout.  I wonder if doing burnouts is another way to help prevent burnouts?!  If so, sign me up!

...but find me some tires to wreck, too, then.  Those things don't just grow on trees, you know.  I kind of need the ones I'm using now.  

I'm not sure where I'm going with this entry. I started off wanting to write about depression, and I even found an image that I sort of liked by Googling "nurses with depression" that wasn't a nurse in blue scrubs sitting in a hallway with her head in her hands.  Because seriously, ewwwww.  What nurse in their right mind would sit in a hospital hallway?!  Those floors are NAS-TEEEE!  Yuck.  That's definitely not where an emotionally-wrought healthcare worker would sit and contemplate the challenges of their life and career.  Not unless they were hoping to pick up some conglomeration of God-only-knows what diseases that lie in wake on the floor.  (No offense to the environmental services team; I know y'all work your asses off to keep the facilites as clean as humanly possible, and we all love you for it!  But just in general, you know.  Health care facilities are germy places.  If I didn't see you just go by with the super deluxe heavy duty cleaning thingie set to Max Clean, or whatever, I'm going to assume the floor is as contaminated as the cleanest part of the bottom of my shoe. Yuck.)

But depression really does suck, though.  Yesterday I was driving to work at The Office (do you watch The Big Bang Theory? You know in that episode where Leonard is seeing Dr. Stephanie whatever her name was behind Howard's back, and the one night he tells Sheldon he's going out but doesn't want him to tell the rest of their friends where he's going, so he tells Sheldon to tell them he's going to "the office" and when Sheldon says "Leonard is going to The Office" he says it all dramatically with the hand gesture and everything? Well that's how I say it in my head, which is why I have to capitalize it now.) and I took Warner Road.  For those of you who aren't familiar with Warner Road in St. Paul, it runs parallel to the Mississippi River in downtown St. Paul. I do love being next to the water, which is why I take that particular route.  It calms me.  Being next to a river makes me feel less like I'm in the city and more like I'm, um, I don't know...not in the city.  But the problem with Warner Road is that it goes under several bridges from which people tend to like to jump.  I have an almost irrational fear of witnessing this one day, although it's not entirely irrational because I have missed several events by half an hour or so on that route in the last 5 years.  Sometimes it scares me away from driving there, but usually not because the call to be near the water is louder than the sorrow and fear.  In my mind, I refer to that part of  Warner Road as "Suicide Row".

And right when I turned on to Warner Road, the song "War on Drugs" by Barenaked Ladies started playing.  Have you ever heard it? It's super depressing.  Here, I'll find it on YouTube -- with lyrics even!

Anyway...that song, combined with the driving where I was driving at the time, combined with my anxiety about being in the city and at work in The Office that day, combined with the kind of week I was having (can't tell you -- HIPAA!) just got me thinking... it must be nice to not have depression and anxiety. To not have to wake up and deal with this shit every single day of your life.  To not have to fight with yourself to get out of bed, to get dressed, to take a shower, to go to work, to eat, to clean the house, to do things that normal people do without even thinking about it.  To hope that today is a day where your meds work really well so you can actually accomplish something because lately, they haven't. Which means YOU haven't.  How hard is it to just DO something?  Other people do it all the time.  

I just want to be normal.

When You Dream (what do you dream about?)

Disclaimer: I haven't watched the above video yet, but I've seen the band and I know the song, so hopefully I'm not making a huge mistake here.  ha, ha, ha, ha...

I had originally posted "I Dream Myself Alive" but just as I was about to start writing, it dawned on me that "When You Dream" was more appropriate.  Don't you hate it when that happens? When you think you have the perfect line and you get all set up and then all of the sudden (just kidding, I hate it when people say "all of the sudden") I mean all of a sudden, a more perfecter line comes to mind?  I shouldn't hate it, I know, because it's a more perfecter line, but still.  Now I'm off track.  And I'm not going to apologize for using "perfecter" the way I used it, even though that's not how it's supposed to be used.  Welcome to my mind: my inner proofreader is annoyed by the use of "all of the sudden" but not "perfecter".  

I've always been a vivid dreamer. At times, I've read about dream symbolism and the hidden meanings behind dreams and all that, but truth be told, I don't really buy it.  There might be a sliver of truth to the idea that dreams in which my teeth are all falling out mean I'm anxious about something in real life, but maybe the thing I'm anxious about in real life is going to the dentist and finding out I have to have my teeth pulled, eh?  (Come to think of it, I haven't had that dream in a long time... they probably stopped around the time I, um, you know -- went to the dentist and had that one tooth pulled. OH MY GOSH THE SYMBOLISM!!)  I'm also not completely convinced that dreaming about tornadoes (another common recurrence in my dreams) means my life is about to be in upheaval.  Maybe I just don't like tornadoes, okay? And don't want to be caught in one ever again. 

I don't know.  On the other hand, I know the subconscious mind is an enigma and it seems like it stores all kinds of funny things in there, and probably can manifest these things as common relatable objects any time it likes.  When I was younger, I'd overheard my mom and my aunt saying that dreaming about being chased by bears was common after getting out of an abusive relationship. I don't know why I held on to that bit of trivia when I did, because I was probably like 8 or 9 or 10 or so, but it stayed with me for a long time.  So then, fast forward some years, and when I was getting out of an abusive relationship, I'd have frequent dreams about being chased by bears.  Now, is that because I had that tidbit stored in my memory banks for so long, or is there really something to that? That's a rhetorical question.  I didn't make the connection right away, I just knew I kept having awful dreams where I was running and running and this stupid bear would almost catch me and then I'd wake up. First I'd be terrified and then I'd be mad that I couldn't stop having the stupid bear dream.  Eventually I remembered overhearing what I'd overheard (and I don't even know if I overheard it because I wasn't supposed to hear it, or if it was one of those things that I overheard in plain sight but didn't ask questions about because it was an adult conversation and I was just a kid so I didn't really care) (or maybe I didn't even hear them talking about it at all, maybe it was on TV or something, I just know that when I think of that piece of information I think of my mom and my aunt and I can totally imagine it was something they would have said in conversation for some odd reason).  And then I started telling myself that I was going to start fighting the bear instead of running from it.  I don't remember how long that took, but eventually it worked.  The last time I had the stupid bear dream, I stood up to that damn thing and told it to leave me alone and basically I scolded it back into the dark forest from where it came and I haven't seen it since.  

So there's something to dreams, that much I do believe, but mostly I just find them amusing and entertaining.  When I first had the idea for this blog entry today, it was because I've had a few dreams this week with my sister in them, and those are angry dreams. And I know why they've resurfaced again, which is because I was at my parents' house earlier this week and my mom said she texted my sister a few weeks ago but hasn't heard back from her (not that she expected to because she never answers back).  And I was thinking, I should write about that now... "that" being my sister and whatever is going on.  I'm not even sure what is going on, I thought maybe writing it out would help me figure it out from my angle.  But now I'm out of time, because I'm writing this on my lunch break. 

So, maybe next time....

Spring Has Sprung!

 

It's Meteorological Spring!  

Not that you can tell it by me.  It's 40ºF right now, and I'm still cold.  It could be -40ºF as far as I'm concerned. I'm tempted to go grab another sweatshirt, that's how cold I am right now.  I'm sitting here at my computer underneath a blanket and contemplating grabbing the space heater, because that's how cold I am right now.  Even though most of my brain is yelling at me because it's sunny at 40ºF above fricking zero and I shouldn't be cold, but, I'm cold.  

I mean, I'm glad it's "spring".  I know it's still winter, but I'm happy to be able to call it something with the word "spring" in it, even if it's just to trick myself into feeling warmer.  (Which isn't working!)  It's only March 3rd.  We've probably got at least one snow storm ahead of us before winter is actually over, but the good thing about March snow storms -- as any Midwesterner will tell you -- is that the snow doesn't last long.  And that's the best kind of snow!

But spring isn't my favorite season.  It really is not.  I like that things are warming up and new green things are starting to grow, don't get me wrong. But I don't like the mud. So much mud... the only thing I don't like about living here.  (And even then, it's not enough to make me want to move back to the city!)  Aaaaaand, now I'm having flashbacks to last year's Flood.  THAT was horrible... that made the usual spring thaw look like nothing. I'll have to keep that in mind this year.  After The Flood, there was mud caked on the grass and the trees and the fence posts and inside our vehicles and on the walls of the barns and the garage and every-effing-where and forever... there are still muddy tools out in the barn.  I think that's why I'm even more anti-spring-mud this year. I'm still traumatized by The Flood.

But anyway...

So here we are, it's almost spring and I didn't plant any tulips last fall like I always say I'm going to, but so far have not done.  I want to have a prettiful yard, I really do! And it's not like I don't the space for it, it's just that I don't know where to start.  I've never had a green thumb before.  I was actually thinking about that earlier today while I was watering the Easter lily I've had for a few years now.  I used to be a plant hospice worker, but now I actually do okay with them.  (I don't think I've improved much, I've just learned which plants can survive the longest without being watered!)  I don't know.  We'll see.  I'm getting too far ahead of myself here.  There's still snow knee-deep behind the barn, so I've got a while before I can fathom planting pretty stuff in my yard this year.

I had the fun of driving an all-electric car last week!  I had to take the Nox to the shop, which is another annoying story.  This happened while my hubby was on the other side of the country, of course, and we were in the middle of the polar vortex or whatever it was. I was driving to work one morning, and it was about 5ºF (so it was warming up after the polar vortex!) and I was contemplating getting a car wash because the Nox was super dirty and before you tell me that's too cold for a car wash don't even get started because IT IS NOT, in fact that's about the lower end of my limit but it is NOT too cold. Anyway, it was just after 6am, the odometer had just turned to 17,901 miles (don't ask why I paid attention to that but I did), I had the cruise control set to 75mph and the heat cranked up to max and was listening to a-ha on shuffle when all of a sudden the warning beep started beeping and my driver information center flashed up a message that said, "Driving Power Reduced. Service Engine Soon." and the check engine light came on and I was like.... well, I'm not going to tell you exactly which words came out of my mouth because they're not flattering.  Instinctually, I cut the cruise control off, turned off the fan, and turned down the radio so I could hear the engine. It sounded fine.  Checked the gauges -- wasn't overheating, oil pressure was good, still had power.  As I pulled off at the next exit to stop at the gas station (because I was running at about a quarter of a tank and thought maybe that had something to do with it), I got a text.  I still have it saved! It says: "Diagnostic Alert: Service the engine and transmission system in your 2020 Equinox within 7 days."  Which of course sounds much more ominous when it's like three minutes after lights and bells and whistles started going off while you're driving said Equinox to work in the morning in the dark during a snowstorm (oh yeah, I forgot to mention it was spitting snow that morning) when you're halfway to work and your husband's on the other side of the country and you can't hear anything because you have an ear infection and you're kinda just fed up with life at that moment because it's so cold your drain pipes are also frozen and you're not sure who you would call if you actually did break down because your son is home but even if he is an adult he's still your baby boy in your mind, and it occurs to you for the first time that you wouldn't call your dad to rescue you anymore either because it'd be dangerous for him and that makes you kind of sad because he's always been the one to rescue you when your vehicles have broken down but you don't have time to get all nostalgic and emotional because you have to Adult Now.  Right Now.  And oh Lord, transmission problems didn't even occur to me until then!  I didn't want to go back home because I had clinic that day, and I didn't want to put that off on someone else.  So I stopped at the gas station, topped off the tank, checked the oil (it was fine -- clean, not low).  And that was about all I knew how to do, lol.  I did text DH and let him know he'd be getting an email from the Equinox (because after it texts me Diagnostic Alerts, it emails him. Weird, I know.)

SHORT STORY LONG, I had to drop it off at the dealership last week to get looked at.  Turns out it was some sensor that got messed up when it was super cold and then warmed up again.  They took the sensor out, cleaned it up, put it back in and reset the codes and it was fine.  Oh, I mean, they ordered a new one, too, but the ETA on it is "who knows?!" and they said it was safe to drive so I picked it up the same day and have been driving it since without any further issues.  But when I made the appointment, they said they'd get me a loaner car.  I didn't argue :)  I'm a car girl, it's fun driving something different for a short time!  Of course I imagined (wishfully) that I'd get a nice new Camaro, or a Silverado, or even a Cruze or a used Impala or Malibu.  (In order of least likely to most likely there, of course!)  When I got there that morning to drop off the Nox, they had a Cruze about the era of ours parked in the garage with the key in the door handle, and I was convinced that was my loaner.  Not bad, I thought.  I've driven a Cruze before, I can handle it.  Then they had me go to the front to sign the papers, and the nice lady said something like, "OK, this car is all electric..." and I was like -- um, what now? Quickly trying to remember what Chevy has that's all electric.  What's it called -- a Volt? A Bolt? 

It was a Bolt.  Which is something you use to put cars together, not something you should be driving on the highway, if you ask me.  I got to drive it from the dealership to work and back. It was alright. Roomier inside than I thought it would be.  Under-powered. Smaller than just about every other vehicle on the road, which displeased me greatly.  (I have issues.)  It had a heated steering wheel, which would be nice to have on the Nox.  Super easy to park, but, I can parallel park a Suburban so that's a bonus but not a deal-breaker.  All in all, it was an okay car, but not my deal.  I was very glad to be back in the Nox at the end of the day.

And on that note, I have to get back to work now.  TTFN!