Bullet points, in no particular order.
* Juggling is a team sport
* kidney stones are unpredictable at best. One should not encourage one's spouse to attempt mobilization two weeks before Christmas unless one has a very good backup plan for juggling
holiday tasks.
* I lack very good back-up plans
* Cinnamon rolls are not negotiable. Kroger makes them. Note to self for 2012
* Teenagers must be awakened for Christmas morning, or it becomes Christmas afternoon.
* Christmas afternoon is just as good
* Uninspiring music at Christmas mass only affects your spirit if you let it. Don't let it.
* There is no excuse for uninspiring music at Christmas mass.
* Feed your faith wherever you find sustenance. The walls don't matter. It's all in the book.
* There is no such thing as an original translation. It's all conjecture. Who cares.
* Family, no matter how far, no matter what day, makes any day a repeat of Christmas.
* It is a blessing to have everyone gathered under one roof, even during the most frazzled of
times.
* I don't see my neighbors enough. Why is that? They are right here every day. I think I need
to work on that in 2012.
* I am profoundly blessed with good kids, even when they do stupid things.
* My Lord, kids can do stupid things.
* Somewhere along the line, I realized that instant gratification was not only unlikely, but
also unrewarding. I'm not sure when I learned that. I need to get that message across.
* Gift bags are easier, but wrapping paper and tape and bows are more fun.
* One does not require a big meal on Christmas Day
* Some traditional gatherings do not require family at all, but rather friends who are closer
than most family. These traditions must be nurtured. Lasagna and wine are a good start :)
* The Christmas Story is not available on Netflix or Hulu. That's just wrong.
* Babies are beautiful. Babies with challenges are more beautiful. Mothers waiting to deliver
babies are beautiful. God takes care of them all.
* The cookie consumption by an individual child is sometimes mindblowing in its proportion.
Baking cannot occur fast enough. Pack boxes and trays early.
* Thankfully, there is great satisfaction in holiday baking, even the second time around.
* I don't think I could adjust to Christmas at the beach. Well, maybe for one year.
* I am not a good Christmas card sender. I send Epiphany cards. It works for me.
* Every year I vow to do things differently, be organized and less stressed, find the true
meaning of Christmas. You know what? I never lost the true meaning of Christmas, and I am what I am at Christmas, and that is good enough.
Now, about those New Years resolutions.....
Friday, December 30, 2011
Thursday, December 8, 2011
Nurse, heal thyself.
I've worked in a pediatric office for 4 years. I have been exposed to and colonized with a fantastically wide variety of crud. Those cute little people who walk in the front door? A veritable parade ensemble tossing out a plethora of parasitic pathogenic organisms as if they were candy from a float. My hands are perpetually peeling. This is because I wash them 200 times a day. That Geiko lizard looks like SILK next to the skin on my knuckles.
I'm a nurse. We know a few things about infection control. We do our darndest to avoid bringing work home from the office. But it seems, when one of our lot does succumb to the virus du jour, we do it in a big way! No one I work with gets the sniffles. We get a full-blown (no pun intended) sinus Chernobyl-like meltdown resulting in copious amounts of completely disgusting stuff. In nurse fashion, the truly dedicated come to work anyway. We do not get a nagging cough. We get bilateral multi lobe pneumonia. We cough so hard our ears pop. We cough so hard our backs go out. We cough up ridiculous amounts of the afore-mentioned disgusting stuff. And we go to work. I've considered the possible truth that as nurses we may diagnose ourselves with illnesses slightly more severe than the reality--after all, if a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, a lot of knowledge is a hypochondriac's playground. We are very willing to sympathize with and support the martyrdom of the co-worker who risks personal physical collapse to support the team. We respect that go-to-work attitude (of course, we prefer that same colleague remain a safe distance away, lest any of us come into the path of his/her flying germs).
Why is it that the very profession which should know all about rest, recovery, rest, fluids, rest, and rest, is one of the most likely to drag our virulent selves in to the office when we should clearly be staying home making hot toddies and watching bad daytime TV? Why do we preach to our patients about the necessity of taking care of one's health, then totally ignore that advice for ourselves? I asked myself that today as I completely disinfected my work area so as not to expose my co-workers to whatever I'm incubating in my physiological petri dish.
After all, I do NOT want to infect my teammates with the illness I've been carrying around for 5 days. If any one of them catches this crud, I will feel tremendously guilty. I will have to sit and listen to them cough and hack and blow and moan and generally be miserable, because Lord knows if they are sick they will come to work. Just like I did.
I'm a nurse. We know a few things about infection control. We do our darndest to avoid bringing work home from the office. But it seems, when one of our lot does succumb to the virus du jour, we do it in a big way! No one I work with gets the sniffles. We get a full-blown (no pun intended) sinus Chernobyl-like meltdown resulting in copious amounts of completely disgusting stuff. In nurse fashion, the truly dedicated come to work anyway. We do not get a nagging cough. We get bilateral multi lobe pneumonia. We cough so hard our ears pop. We cough so hard our backs go out. We cough up ridiculous amounts of the afore-mentioned disgusting stuff. And we go to work. I've considered the possible truth that as nurses we may diagnose ourselves with illnesses slightly more severe than the reality--after all, if a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, a lot of knowledge is a hypochondriac's playground. We are very willing to sympathize with and support the martyrdom of the co-worker who risks personal physical collapse to support the team. We respect that go-to-work attitude (of course, we prefer that same colleague remain a safe distance away, lest any of us come into the path of his/her flying germs).
Why is it that the very profession which should know all about rest, recovery, rest, fluids, rest, and rest, is one of the most likely to drag our virulent selves in to the office when we should clearly be staying home making hot toddies and watching bad daytime TV? Why do we preach to our patients about the necessity of taking care of one's health, then totally ignore that advice for ourselves? I asked myself that today as I completely disinfected my work area so as not to expose my co-workers to whatever I'm incubating in my physiological petri dish.
After all, I do NOT want to infect my teammates with the illness I've been carrying around for 5 days. If any one of them catches this crud, I will feel tremendously guilty. I will have to sit and listen to them cough and hack and blow and moan and generally be miserable, because Lord knows if they are sick they will come to work. Just like I did.
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