Spring Cleaning

After Christmas sometime I stopped for coffee while I was covered in paint from our new house. One of the patron's of Starbucks struck up conversation and told me that the most diffucult thing I will ever do is move into my(our) first house. Their comment stuck with me, and now I am pretty sure that they were the smartest person I've even met.

It is SO MUCH WORK! I live with my boyfriend and our two dogs in a house that we bought in November. We gutted the place, replaced floorboards, doorframes, carpet, tile, resurfaced all of the walls and painted.

We worked every weekend for months to get this place looking livable, and another few weeks on finishing touches (hanging lights, smoke detectors, trim, etc).

We spent so many hours over Winter finishing projects and now that it is getting to be Spring time there is an entire new list of things to be done. I see our yard eroding away everytime it rains, and I want to put in a fence with a dog run so that our grass grows in naturally instead of patchy and yellow. We have windows to wash, a garage door opener to fix, and so many things that I could probably go on until next week.

Our house was built in 2005, it is baffling how much needs to be done already. I am starting to understand why people live in condos and stay with their parents until their 40s. This house is kicking my butt! I just want to be done and able to sit around on the weekend with a beer and grill burgers.

This post made me tired... time for a nap.

My Motivation

This was a really tough week at work. I was covering for a lady whose sister had surgery and I essentially did her job plus my job all week.


About a year ago I wrote a personal statement as part of an application for Nursing School. It is not very long, but I keep a copy of it in my email for when I have a really bad day. It helps me remember why I do what I do.
I am short on creativity this week, so here it is... my motivation.

I get my hands dirty and I love it. I got a hug from a 92 year old lady this morning. I helped two family members to chairs at the nurse station while my nurse did CPR on their father. I changed a diaper of a grown man that held my hand and told me a joke 2 hours before he passed. I helped a lady feed herself for the first time in two years because I had the time and patience that her nursing home did not. I make time to chat with the lonely isolation patients atleast once a day, because I would hate being alone in a room for days where people were afraid to touch me. I bring the TB patient water because her assigned Nurse Aide is afraid to breathe too colse to her. I make jokes with the newly quadrapelegic patient because I think it is important she still laughs. I feel proud when I work in home care and happy when the single, lonely, old lady clips things out of the paper for me. I am glad that she smiles again because there is someone there to see her do it. At the end of the day, I don't need my name tag because my patient population knows my name.

Professional Facebooking

Facebook. Most everybody is on it by now, and I know this because I am facebook friends with my mother. If she can figure it out, I'm pretty sure everyone can figure it out. But my thoughts this week were about whether or not we should be facebook friends with people at work.

Facebook has almost become this subculture at my job. Certain pieces of knowledge are found only on facebook and there are discussions in the break room based solely on facebook events. We are all friends with each other, but recently it has gotten a few people into trouble.

There is always the girl who goes home and sets their status to "Shitty day at work" or something similar. If your personal information states clearly where you work, then is probably not ok to put negative comments out there. I knew these things from years at a major university where the business school pounds it into your head, but not everybody is as well informed. I know not to ever go out in uniform if I'll be drinking, or complain about work in public places with my name tag still on. Common sense in reality, but the cyber world is getting to be the same way.

Recently we have had a few people let go for things found on facebook. The logic behind it is that if you put your company's name on your profile, you directly represent them; like it or not.

A guy was let go because he was in facebook pictures holding a beer with his work name tag on. Another girl was disciplined for implying bad things about her boss in her status.

Some atmospheres are more personal than others, but people really need to be careful what they vent about, especially if all of their personal and professional information is up. Facebook allows us to represent ourselves, but we also take on responsibilities when we join groups and corporate networks.