A little of this, and a little of that

Here is my rainbow from back door a few days ago.

Been a busy week, had the colonoscopy on Tue, then worked Wed, and also Thurs, and now it is Fri. already.

First the colonoscopy was quite interesting. I got to the hosp at 8 AM. On the table with IV by 8:30, Dr. was to be there at 9, but he had an emergency and got there at 11:30. I wasn't about to go home and do the prep another day. I was asleep the whole time for the last one I had, so I was surprised to wake up and find myself looking at the monitor and watched the last half of the procedure and even that I remembered. I watched them snip off some polyps, (didn't have those 5 years ago) I even got colored pictures of them to take home. (Icky). The bad part was that they blew so much air into the colon to puff it out to see and do the work, and it was quite painful. The pain lasted a couple hours till I was able to pass some of the gas. So now I wait for the biopsy reports. My concern now is that he wants to repeat it in 4 mo. to make sure they didn't "grow" back. So just keeping positive thoughts that all is well.

Now about the work. Wed. went OK. Worked with the 2 who are the gossips, so just tried to ignore and do all I could to learn more of their routines. Then I was asked if I could work the next day, as the part time nurse was working alone and the DON was coming in for only part of the day. I knew something was up after a few hrs. Judy (the part time nurse) said she had a meeting at 3pm with the Big Wheels. The DON told me later on the side that it was a sort of hearing and the outcome may not be good. So I sort of pushed all day to keep all the charts done up and tried to learn everything I could about the paper flow and finally got computer access code. (Oh, and I got to assist the PA in removing a big shot pellet from this guys forehead) So Judy left at 3pm and about 45 min. later was brought back by an officer and picked up her bag and left, escorted out. So that was it, and there is now a part time opening. I felt really bad for her. She seemed like a nice person and I really don't want to know all the details, its not my business. So I was left to do the 4pm pill call alone, and had only done it once, with help. You have to use the computer to look up each one and then document that rx. was given. Well the computer wouldn't show up the new orders, and the DON helped me some, but basically I got thru it and all ended well. So I don't know how long it will take them to decide what to do about hiring me into that slot. It may be awhile. So will wait and see.

Headed out to pick up our elk meat tomorrow. It will be an all day trip. About 5 hrs. one way

Thought for the day: A word to the wise is not necessary, its the stupid who need them.

People Watching

People watching the other day as we sat in the car waiting on SIL to do her grocery shopping. What a strange assortment there are. Does any one realize that what we see on TV has to just be the cream of the crop. Very few folks really look like that. In 30 min. I didn't see one that would get casted on a sitcom. Not even a Rosanne Barr! But isn't it sort of cool to realize that we are all so different and yet inside each one beats a heart that would look the same circulating the same colored blood around inside these different bodies. Now bodies are one thing, then you look at what everyone is wearing. Such diversity! From crack showing low hung pants, to fuzzy boots with shorts, to long sarong type dresses and everything in between.

Enjoying a nice little rain everyday for the last 4 or 5 days now. Then it blows thru and the sky is blue and air so fresh. Doing more tomato sauce today. Diced up more hot red peppers and onions to add to this batch. That's it, any more and I will just share with neighbors. I picked 3 one gal. buckets from that one plant the other day. And there are still alot left that are still ripening.

Starting my colonoscopy prep tomorrow, will be glad to get that out of the way on Tue. Then I work on Wed. Sat. we go after our elk meat. Well that's my update for this week. May have new news next time. You just never know what we are up to.





Thought for the day: He who throws dirt, looses ground.

Big Elk

Here is the proof. Hubby got a nice bull elk yesterday. Says he saw some alot bigger than this guy.

Just glad he had a same hunt and the guide seemed to take good care of him. It is sort of a once in a life time thing for him. He says he lived his dream of getting a big elk. This is the 3rd one he has taken. The first bull. Hopefully he was a young one and should be good eating. Having alot ground up into hamburger. We love chili and speg. sauce made with elk meat. I will go with him in a couple weeks to pick up the meat. Ya'al come over for a pot of chili when it gets cold.

Long lost friend

It is so wonderful to reconnect with an old friend. There is a gal that I went to nursing school with back in 86. We shared rides for one class that we had to take in Reno so we got to know each other pretty well and then graduated from nursing school together. I moved away, in 89 but we kept in touch some, and the last time I heard from her was a calender she sent me from HI. while she was there as a traveling nurse. By the time I got around to thanking her she had moved back to the mainland. So the years went by.

Last nite I was going thru some old albums and saw our pictures. I got the bright idea of seeing if she was on FaceBook like I am and I could send her an invite. No luck, so I googled her name and thought it might pop up that she had a blog or something. Well what the heck, she popped up alot of times. Seems she is an actress/nurse and has a website and I could see all her acting credits and PICTURES!! I looked close and sure enough it was her. There was a phone no. on that web page. So I called it this morning and had a great little chat with her. How cool is that?

I gave her my blog site so I know she is reading this and Hi again.

Thought for the day: Can't have too many friends and old ones are the best.

Hitting the sauce

Making tomato sauce today. I added diced up red peppers that are hot. They were supposed to just be sweet red pepper plants. But think they will give the sauce nice flavor. I will attach a picture of the monster tomato plant!

Hubby called from the lodge where his hunt is located. They went out this morning, saw quite a few bull elk but no cows. So after a rest up thru early afternoon they will go back out after 4pm.

Had a nice visit with my sister yesterday. Not much news except that she sounds like she is getting her health back now and doing alot better. They are having a family gathering this Sun. Wish I was there. I had originally planned to go back this fall to see everyone but ended up going in May to close my store down so I hope to save up a few bucks and take off in the spring and make a nice long trip out of it.

Thought for the day: Why doesn't glue stick to the inside of the bottle?

Yeah, got to work one day

Tue. I got a call to come in and work on Wed. Soooo I did. It was clinic day with the PA so I got to run the clinic line and take off orders. All helpful stuff to learn. I need to be there one day when they do labs so I can learn their routine for that. I have one day scheduled later on, but boss lady is hoping there will be a part time opening soon. Which could mean by Xmas!


All alone for a few days, as hubby is about 5 hrs away on an elk hunt. Going to get some "spring" cleaning done. Got a counter full of tomatoes that I guess I will cook up into sauce. My red pepper plant has ended up having these cute small cone shaped red peppers that are just a bit hot, so figure I will chop them up in the tomatoes.


Think I will take a day for myself and go do a nice drive up in the mountains and pack a lunch and a book and lawn chair. Think I will? I will report.




Thought for the day, was in an e-mail from a friend: Life isn't about how to survive the storm, but how to dance in the rain.

If you speak honestly, everyone will listen.(my fortune cookie)

This is the view from the front door of our tent trailer this past week when we went camping. Woke up to 34 degrees and a skim of ice on the windshield of the truck. Good fishing, Got some nice larger trout. Our promise to ourselves is to eat trout once a week. Got several 18 in. long ones. They put up a good fight and are fun to catch. It is so peaceful to sit and look at the pine trees and mountains, and breath the clean air.

My arm is about healed up from a malignant spot that I had removed. It was basal cell ca. which is what I sort of thought it was. The path. showed all edges of it were clean so that's good news. Family frowned at me for letting my family Dr. remove it. but I had confidence that he knew what he was doing and it is all good.

Hubby heads out Thurs to Utah to hunt elk. He thinks this will be his last hunt and I silently agree. He is slowing way down, but sort of like the hound dog that still gets the scent to chase a rabbit.

Should hear from the home health agency this week about working part time for them. The staffing agency that I signed up with keeps calling me to fill shifts 200 miles away. Sorry I am not that desperate. But might consider getting a little orientation with the one 100 miles away if they schedule me 2 or 3 days in a row. Plan to talk to the DON about that tomorrow. She says that "next" week she will start getting me scheduled. We will see.

SIL is still (whats new) not happy about where she lives. I plan on driving her around the area and letting her look at other neighborhoods. I don't think she will be happy anywhere, she watches out her window and finds fault with everything, kids, weeds in neighbors hard, and heaven forbid a trash can sitting in front of someones garage. She is just not used to living in a housing community with neighbors. We don't let things bother us, and personally I think it is pretty quiet.

Well enough,

Thought for the day: Why is the third hand on the watch called the second hand?

Dogs

We did a small garage sale today. One guy had a red heeler in his truck that looked so much like our Molly, at least when she was young. He was telling us stories about his dog and we shared some of ours. When he left he had her jump out of the cab and run in a circle and then back in. I was ok till they turned around in the street and I saw her with his hat in her mouth. I just had to go in the house for a tissue, cause that was one of Molly's favorite tricks. She loved to have something in her mouth, either a hat or glove when she came back to the house.

I did get to pet a big lab on my walk this evening. I feel better now.

This is a cloud formation we had today. Have never seen this brushed look before.

check out this blogger

kimberlysnyder.net This is a blogger that I like to read. Wish I had her brain and information when I was in my 20's But its never to late to learn new things.

Why do we say something is out of Wack? What is a Wack?

Read an article in the paper this week about the state budget cuts, and it looks like corrections is taking a big hit. Looking at cutting the parole time from 5 years to 2 or 3. So don't know what that might mean for these two small facilities in this side of the state. Since they house less than 500 inmates, and many of them getting ready for parole, it is feasible that they could close them and absorb the population into the bigger facilities.

In the mean time, I have a list and plan to go out tomorrow and check out the home health companies in town. Also do a little smoozing with a couple shop owners on main street. Talked to one the other day that runs a consignment shop and she is trying to find a buyer. Maybe she could use someone part time till then so she can free up her time. Who knows.

The town is left with only one used book store now and it is such a cluttered place with books up on shelves that you can't reach without a ladder. I itch to get in there and organize it. Have heard from others about not liking it for that reason. Hmmmm, maybe I will go talk to her again. Who knows.

Did I mention I joined Curves this week. I think I did. Believe it or not you do get a pretty good workout with those machines and the quick circuit you do. By moving from one machine to the next quickly you stay aerobic and don't get too tired to fast. Then the stretches at the end are great.

Oh, one last thing, I got a virus in my computer last week, had to take it to a computer guy to get it removed. I do FaceBook and when a family member asked me to allow them to add me to their "family" list, it hit me. Came from FB. The computer guy has seen several just recently. It is called Personal Antivirus. You can google it and see that it is a scam, where they show you all the infected files you have and for a fee to download their program it will all go away. I ran my antivirus and it didn't show any infected files. But this program was blocking my access to do anything on line. So now all is good. Just be careful what you do when accepting any applications from FB or any of these places. And we only think that Big Brother is watching!

If you don't drop in, smile as you go by.

Pic of hubby enjoying campsite. Guess I need to update whats going on in the work place, or should I say lack of work. LOL Haven't been called back since the 2 days of orientation almost 3 weeks ago.

I made up a calender for the next 2 mo. of available days and faxed to Mary the DON and to my real boss, Lisa at the staffing agency. She has called Mary to see if she will have a schedule for me, but the story is that she is still working on getting me computer clearance and some custody thing so that I can pick up keys so that I can actually work.

You know I am not letting it worry me a bit. I am enjoying myself and actually have come to think that this retired thing isn't so bad, except there is no money in it :( I have a list of some home health agencies in town to go check out and see if they need some part time help. Something will work out. In the mean time I am enjoying myself with the volunteer work at the library, and just this week I joined Curves. I was really feeling like my walking just wasn't enough and its not. I need some resistance training to go along with it. I always feel better when I work out so its time to get my butt in gear. Literally!

I got invited to an appreciation breakfast at the library yesterday. It was fun, they had a gal cater it that does all vegetarian food. It was interesting. I enjoyed meeting some other gals, one who is a retired biologist, and one a graphics designer. I was feeling a little inferior when I realized hey, I am an RN and have something of interest to contribute too. Made me sit a little taller.

Thought of the day: Life is 10% of what you make it, and 90% of how you take it.

About 20 years ago

This is a picture taken about 20 years ago. Myself and 2 little lambs, The one on the right is my grand daughter. She has a little girl about this size now. Boy time sure flys. Yea, I was a blond then too.

It's good to know that if I behave strangely enough, society will take full responsibility for me.

I took this picture along side a lake yesterday, up in the mountains.

I finally did get to work for 2 days of orientation, (even got paid for this) But that was a week and a half ago and I have faxed in my availability so guess I will have to wait. A sort of funny chain of events, remember I have sort of complained about it taking so long to get on board with working at the corrections, even though I was told that they wanted me. I was given quite a run around and 3 trips over the mountains for different paper work, (about 500 miles round trip) Anyway I think I might have figured out something. When I first got to visit the prison and talk to Mary, the DON of another facility (she was filling in as DON at the one I want to work at too) she told me that she thought I had qualifications for the DON position that would be posted soon and I should apply for it. See the DON had died last Nov. and the position had never been posted for applicants. Well this was the end of March. So as I have said, I got this long run around all summer, and when I finally went out for my orientation recently,(working thru this staffing agency) I find that Mary has just been appointed the DON job there and will be my boss. Now do you think maybe she didn't want me there till she had the job nailed down. I really didn't want it, but had I been offered I might have thought about it for a while. Sooooooo glad that it never happened. In fact I am glad I didn't get hired on by the state yet. Working thru the agency will be just fine for me right now. Oh, and I got a letter from the state dept of corrections, that I had passed all my tests and was now eligible for hire.

Just got back yesterday from a 2 nite camp out up in the mountains with our new tent trailer. Had to work some bugs out but I think we will really like it. The campground is about 95 miles away. Caught some nice trout, and relaxed with no TV (or computers) Hope to do it again in 2 weeks. Will post some pictures on my other blog site: dorothykarmictruths.spaces.live.com

Just for a Moment

This was copied from Depok Chopra's site.

I will practice Acceptance. Today I will accept people, situations, circumstances, and events as they occur. I will know that this moment is as it should be, because the whole universe is as it should be. I will not struggle against the whole universe by struggling against this moment. My acceptance is total and complete. I accept things as they are this moment, not as I wish they were.

Just wanted to share that. Wouldn't it be awesome if we all could practice this everyday? We would live with no regrets or wants because we would know that things are just as they should be. I have always felt that at any particular time I am where I am supposed to be at that period of time. I believe that today I am exactly where I am meant to be and I accept that. Perhaps tomorrow it will change but for today I am OK. I have a picture to share of the railroad tracks that I stood on the other day when I was on a trip thru the mountains.

Also I want to share the feelings I have every time I go over the mountains. As I start to drive thru the canyons, following the rivers, I feel an incredible peace come over me. If I have some real mellow music on it is even better. I love to wind thru the canyons and see the beauty of the land. It is awesome!

Insane people are always sure that they are fine. It is only the sane people who are willing to admit that they are crazy

Headed out in the AM to drove over the pass and spend the afternoon and nite with my niece. Looking forward to that as we will do some picture sharing. Then Mon AM will do the orientation with the staffing agency. Oh, BTW I got 100% on the second test.

Anyway plan to drive on back home after all that.

We are anxious to get our new camper out for a test run. Hopefully will do that this week for at least one nite. Here is a pic of it. Will get another one when hooked up to the truck, It is really big.

Whats that you say???

Looking at old pictures from the farm in 2006. Here is Jenny giving me the what for!

This suspense is terrible. I hope it will last.

I think I mentioned that I had to sign up with a different staffing agency, since the state's right hand didn't know that the left hand wasn't using the one that they had me sign up with a couple mo. ago. So here it is now almost Aug. The suspense is that when I did the lengthy paper work for this new agency (which is 250 miles away BTW) I had to do a 15 question nursing test. Can you believe I missed one too many questions to pass. They had about half of the questions about IV drip rates and calculating drug doses in mg. per kg. Haven't done any of that stuff for so many years! And any books I have left were of minimal help. Well they e-mailed me a second test and I was very careful to double check every question and only had 2 that I wasn't positive about. So today I will get the results, then I am headed to my niece's house on Sun to have a short visit as she is about 50 miles from the agency. And on Mon. will do my 2 hrs orientation with them, and do another drug screen test. Boy you would think I was applying for some high security job. Oh, I guess it sort of is. LOL

I'm not a complete idiot; some parts are missing.

We still sleep light at night because we are listening for Molly. Like when you have a baby in the house you hear their sounds. She frequently had to go out in the middle of the night. So now we still listen for her. Had pizza out yesterday and "almost" brought home a piece of crust for her. She always expected some little tidbit when we ate out.

We have all her "bunnies" and dog beds washed and gathered up any left over dog food, biscuits, leashes, collars, and brushes. Found a animal shelter down by where we go fish so plan to take the stuff down there the first of the week.

So we are on the mend and can talk and laugh about her now and not get to teary eyed. She won't be forgotten, that's for sure. We also just realized that we have no guard dog now.

Thought for the day: Life truly is short and we need to enjoy and appreciate what we have.

Who will remind me to go fetch the mail?

We had to put our faithful dog Molly to sleep yesterday. She lived with some health issues and in the last year had been loosing so much muscle in her hips and hind legs. She had developed "fatty" tumors in numerous sites, the worse being on her chest, and flank. On Sunday she tried to chase a cat that was sitting on the back fence and she pulled or tore something in one hind leg. As a result she was trying to walk on 3 legs, and with one of them weak she just couldn't manage. We had to use a towel to help her walk and she would just lay and look at us with those intelligent eyes, like she was asking use to help her.

It is so sad when the mind is still so sharp and smart but the rear end fails. So at nearly 13 we just had to do what was right and let her go. We soothed her while the vet did the injection and it was over so quick and she is at peace now and no more pain. I know she has suffered for some time and we had agreed along time ago we would not let her suffer when the time came.

She was the best dog ever, even if others may not have seen it, as she was not very friendly to others, but that was our fault and not hers. She was so smart that we had taken to spelling things and sometimes she figured that out too. She would mind us so well, we could let her out anywhere with no leash and she would obey us with verbal and hand signs to stay where we would tell her.

What I will miss most was her total devotion to us. Her vocal Woooo Woooo greeting when we would come in the door. She trusted us and loved us unconditionally, and you can't ask any more than that from your dog. I have only seen my husband cry twice, once when he was in acute pain with a kidney stone and yesterday after we came home to an empty house.

We have agreed that there will be no more dogs, at our age, we don't want to be tied down with that responsibility again. We have had 2 good dogs, I was counting up and we have had a dog in our lives for a total of 24 of the 27 years we have been together. Thats alot.

Glory Be

Can't believe I am finally getting the 1 day training I needed at the prison before I could start nursing orientation. It is a sort of crash course in how be behave in a prison ect. Since I won't be an actual state employee I have to have this. I will be working thru a staffing agency.

Which is another long story. I talked to the D.O.N. earlier in the week and sort of reminded her that I put my application in the end of March, I signed on with a staffing agency that she suggested, which made me purchace liability ins. and get a drug screening at my expense. And she keeps stringing me along with this training thing that had to be scheduled. Anyway she told me this week that the state wasn't using that agency now and I would have to apply thru an agency across the state in the big city. So now I got my packet, have to get a physical (Mon) and get this all sent back, then go to a city in NE part of state on Aug, 3 to do orientation with them. Then >>>>>>> I will be ready to actually work and earn some money!!

Makes your head swim but at least I am swimming upstream.