A typical day at work

Anyone bored enough to know what a typical day at work looks like for me?

2:51 PM- Sitting in my car outside the building. I usually arrive a couple of minutes early and sit out there listening to talk radio.

2:54- Clock in

3-4- Do rounds with the nurse going off shift. Count the narcotics. Make the CNA's assignments for the day (who has which residents, baths, that kind of stuff). Check results for any labs drawn that day. Take assigned blood sugars. Set up my med cart (a more involved process than it sounds like).

4 (if I'm lucky)-6... or 7- Five o'clock med pass. I usually have nearly 20 patients, many with PEG tubes (translation: all medication must be crushed and administered with liquids through this tube). On a good day, I might complete my treatments (dressings, creams, etc) while doing this med pass. I also try to sign out all my treatments and check for safety devices (bed alarms, mattress on the floor next to the beds) during this time.

7-7:30 (or thereabouts)- Dinner break. This past week, I escaped from work by diving into Sense and Sensibility. I am reading it to prepare for my next read: Sense and Sensibility and Seamonsters.

7:30-8- Do treatments that I may not have completed before. Prepare for my next med pass.

8-9:30 or 10- Nine o'clock med pass. Usually lots of injections.

9:30-11- Tie up loose ends. This includes completing treatments that can't be done until someone goes to bed, hanging new bags of tube feeding to help the next shift, and straightening up. I also do my paperwork, which takes up a nice chunk of this time.

11-11:24- Make rounds with the next nurse, count the narcotics.

11:24- clock out and go home. Usually I get to do it all again the next day.

Did anyone make it to the end?

Nope, we still haven't made up our minds.

Narrowed Down

Well, we have an appointment to see a bunch of apartments tomorrow, but for now, we are narrowed down to 2 options.

Option #1- First floor apartment in a row home on a quiet street 1 block from Clark Park. This apartment has charm. It has wood floors, a mantle in the living room, and arched double doors leading into the kitchen. It has an eat in kitchen with a dishwasher and tons of cabinet space. The living room and bedroom are both small-ish. It also has a separate laundry room in the unit with a washer and dryer. It has lots of closet space, a back yard, and an unfinished basement with plenty of storage space, making this apartment an enormous 1100 square feet. It also has radiator heating. The downsides: smallish living spaces, top of our price range with no utilities included. It would most likely be cheap to keep cool in the summer, but would be expensive to heat in the winter.

Option #2- Southwest corner apartment on the 11th floor of a 13 floor high rise. This building also has charm. One of the units we looked at had a juliet balcony and wall sconces, but we decided we'd rather have the view (plus the double doors leading out to the balcony in that unit would prevent us from being able to put an air conditioner in that room). Our unit has neither, but it does have wood floors, radiators, a view, and the original valet door (it used to be a hotel. Hotel guests could open a compartment in the door from inside the room and place clothing in there. The valet could then come and open that same compartment from the outside to pick up the clothes and have them pressed). The living room is HUGE. It has a kitchen with plenty of cabinets and a dishwasher. The bedroom is decent sized. The building has coin-op washers and dryers on site, and since we're apartment hunting in the off season, they would include free parking in their covered garage for 1 year. They also have a rooftop garden area. Downsides: slightly more expensive than the other even, but on the up side, we would only have to pay for electric. It is a corner unit facing southwest, so it will probably be very warm in the summer. We might have to fork it out on the electric bill to keep cool. We are worried that we'll get attached to the garage parking and then we'll have to pay a fee for that once our year of free parking is up.

We have been going back and forth between these for days. We are waiting for an agent to answer some questions we have about option #1 still, and we think we want to go see both again before deciding. Opinions anyone?

Center City Restaurant Week

We decided this year to go check out Center City Restaurant week. We went for lunch because it's cheaper. We picked the well-known Stephen Starr restaurant, Buddakan. The setting was very cute, with a giant Buddha statue on one end of the restaurant. We got to pick 3 small dishes a piece. We both picked cashew chicken. Zack also had a tuna dish and some ribs. I had some fried rice and a slider (itty bitty hamburger). Yummy! Then we got dessert. Zack had a carrot cake with cinnamon ice cream. I don't like carrot cake but he really enjoyed it. I had this ridiculous chocolate cake that was so crazy delicious. It was bitter the way dark chocolate is. Mmmmmm. It came with coffee ice cream but they were nice enough to substitute that for vanilla. All the food was so pretty to look at also. Major points for presentation on their part. All in all, we enjoyed ourselves, we thought the food was good, and we left stuffed. Yay for restaurant week.

Once again...

we are apartment hunting. If we move, it'll be our 4th apartment in 2 and a half years of marriage. What can I say? I just want it all.

This has been a particularly difficult apartment hunt for a couple of reasons. First, our lease ends at the end of February, so we are looking for something available in March. That's kind of a random time of year so lots of companies have only a few things or nothing available. Second, Zack and I are working opposite schedules, which makes it really hard to coordinate with each other and landlords to see things. We have cancelled several appointments and been cancelled on a couple of times. Zack often has to miss some work to go see things. Still we are excited and have high hopes.

Our wishlist: dishwasher (if you've been reading this blog for any length of time at all, you know how I feel about this one. Being picky about this really narrows the apartment field), laundry on site (in the unit would be awesome, but we can all dream, right?), parking that's not too terrible, we want 1-2 bedrooms, excellent closet space, and we'd really like radiator heat. In fact, that is probably the primary reason we have decided to move. This apartment is FREEZING, and costs a lot to keep warm. We miss our radiators from the last apartment we lived in.

So far, we have seen some good stuff, but nothing quite fits the ticket. We saw a beautiful 2 bedroom with a dishwasher on an adorable street, but the rent was hefty and there was no laundry on site. We saw an amazing 2 bedroom with all new fixtures, new laminate floors, a new kitchen, a bay window, and a balcony, but it was on the wrong side of the street to still be in our ward (right on the boundary), it would've been a PAIN to move in and out since it was on the 3rd floor of a building with narrow and windy staircases, no radiators, it was at the top of our price range, and parking in the area would really suck. We also saw a cute one just down the street that was really good space and had a really, really nice price, but it didn't have a dishwasher or laundry on site. We have more appointments set up for this week (hopefully we can keep them all) and we have high hopes for some of the things we are going to see. Meanwhile, we are not taking staying right where we are off the table. This is a pretty good apartment. I just hate the cold so I'm feeling pretty miserable about it right now.

Wish us luck in finding something. I'll keep you updated.

December 31

I worked. Got home in enough time to watch the countdown on Times Square, and have a sparkling cider toast with my husband at midnight. Then we went to IHOP. Yum. Happy New Year.

Dec 24 and 25

We came home from New York the morning of the 24th and we spent the rest of the day just relaxing and enjoying ourselves. We opened a special present that we got for ourselves... A Wii.

We funded Christmas using a $500 gift card that I earned doing an online deal, so we decided to go for something really fun, and that is what we decided on. I found a smashing deal also, so it really worked out.

We set that up and spent some time playing our new games. We (Zack) also prepared us an excellent turkey dinner that evening.

We got the turkey for free from my work, so we figured we might just as well use it. It was yummy. In the evening, we watched the cartoon version of the Grinch, and we opened sibling presents with Zack's family via skype. It was just wonderful and relaxing. Plus our apartment was actually pretty warm for most the day with the turkey cooking in the oven.

I actually didn't take a single picture on Christmas, shame on me. Our Christmas started when my mom called and said my family didn't want to wait anymore to open presents. The youngest is almost 18. We should be past that stage. Oh well. It was almost 10 here so we got over it. We got to open some presents and watch my family open theirs with the help of Skype. Afterwards, we ate cinnamon rolls for breakfast and then did the presents/Skype thing with Zack's family. That pretty much claimed our morning and early afternoon. Some of the presents we got: Wii games and extra controllers, books, Halloween decorations, clothes, board games, cookbook, new bedding, I got jewelry, Zack got a new ipod dock/alarm clock/radio, money, a Chicago ornament to represent our trip there in 2009, bluetooth headset for me, and other things. We really made a haul. I am especially excited about the Academy of Music tickets Z's parents gave us.

We will be going to see Wicked, the Lion King, and Avenue Q in the upcoming months. Woo hoo! We polished off our Christmas with dinner at Wawa (a convenience store). We had our fancy dinner the night before. We just wanted to pick up something quick on our way to the movies. We saw Sherlock Holmes, which was kinda fun. And then we relaxed at home some more. I had to go back to work the next day, so that ended my little holiday vacation. It sure was awesome though.

Here's our tree. It is a little lopsided but for some reason, it looks way lopsided in this picture. :)

We are grateful for the greatest gift of all at Christmas and every day. Jesus Christ was born, lived, and died for all of us.