hospital etiquette

Every day I am at work I watch fathers pushing carts of stuff down the hall on the way to their cars. They probably came to the hospital for the birth of their child with one bag, a carseat...and maybe a pillow...and were there for four days at the most. When they leave their things have multiplied at least twofold.

So, although you might think that you are being kind and generous by bringing your friend or family member who has just given birth to a baby a gift or some flowers...remember that you are probably not the only one who had that thought AND they are the ones who have to take all of those things home. More specifically, dad is the one that has to push or carry all of those things out of the hospital because mom is not allowed to lift things that weigh more than her baby.

I do however, have a solution. When you speak to your friends or family (which I also urge you to do before showing up at the hospital...don't show up unannounced...it's possible that mom and dad have been up for days, or that mom has just had major surgery...and they have a new baby to get to know...and they might be exhausted since babies are not born with a sense of day and night), tell them that you have a gift for them but offer to drop it off at their house when they get home from the hospital. And if you do show up at the hospital and they have bunches of flowers and gifts in their room...offer to take a load home for them.

It might not seem like much, but it will save some wear and tear on a new dads back!

prestigious family

The Anchorage Daily News did a story on my cousins in Kotzebue: http://community.adn.com/adn/node/147056

Read it.

two years

John and I have been dating for two years! Where has the time gone??

Unfortunately I had to work, so I came home tired and in a non-celebratory mood.

Good thing John is a thoughtful guy (when he wants to be anyway). He made salmon chowder for dinner in honor of the fact that, in his words, "I'm pretty sure I lured you to dinner with promises of salmon." AND he bought the first season of Scrubs on DVD because, again in his words, "that is how I got you to hang out with me." Pretty good for a guy who forgets conversations we've had three times! I guess he remembers the important stuff, and as much as I grumble about his general forgetfulness, the important stuff is fine by me!

smile

What did you do? What did you say?
Did you walk - or did you run away?
Where are you now? Where have you been?
Did you go alone - or did you bring a friend?

I need to know this - cause I notice when you're smilin'
Out in the sun havin' fun and you're feelin' free
And I can tell you know how hard this life can be
But you keep on smilin' for me

What went right? What went wrong?
Was it the story - or was it the song?
Was it overnight - or did it take you long?
Was knowing your weakness what made you strong?

Or all the above - oh how I love to see you smilin'
And oh yeah - take a little pain just in case
You need something warm to embrace
To help you put on a smilin' face
Hey, put on a smilin' face

Don't you go off into the new day with any doubt
Here's a summary of somethin' that you could smile about:
Say for instance, my girlfriend she bugs me all the time
But the irony of it all is that she loves me all the time

I want to be you - whenever I see you smilin'
Cause it's easily one of the hardest things to do
Your worries and fears become your friends
And they end up smilin' at you
Put on a smilin' face
- "Smiley Faces" Gnarls Barkley

15 minutes of fame

John has been very involved in getting Arctic Valley to open this year...a little too involved if you ask me, but no one did.

In late December an email went out saying that they were going to get a free full page ad in Coast Magazine. I had made some posters to recruit volunteers, so I volunteered to do the ad since I had something to work from...and in true Arctic Valley style there was a three day deadline.

So here's the ad that is published in the January issue of Coast Magazine!

so what HAVE I been doing?

I am thankfully back from the land of night shift, until next fall...but I'll take what I can get. I'm not really a morning person, but I am DEFINITELY not a night person. I don't think I have ever felt so awful so consistently as I did while working nights. Days are much better.

John and I had a wonderful trip to see his dad in Vermont. The weather was cold but beautiful. Vermont is so scenic. Tons of rolling hills with old farmhouses, streams (this is the Green River), and the occasional random cemetery in the woods.

We went to the Ben and Jerry's Factory in Waterbury and on the way we (no joke) randomly stumbled across the birthplace of Joseph Smith. We stopped for lunch in a small town off the highway (as most towns in Vermont appear to be) and as we were driving into town we saw a sign with an arrow saying that it was 5mi to Joseph Smith's birthplace. Of course we pulled out our iPhones and investigated further...and it was true. So we went to check it out. However, we didn't get out of the car or make eye contact with anyone, just a slow drive by for some pictures.

The obligatory temple

And an obelisk serving as a monument to Joseph Smith, it's 38.5 feet tall, one foot for every year he lived.

After Ben & Jerry's, we checked out Stowe, since it was only a couple extra miles up the road...too bad we didn't have our skis.
We also went on a snowshoe adventure on about 2 miles of a trail that runs the entire length of Vermont. It runs across more than 200 pieces of private property and is only a winter-use trail (http://www.catamounttrail.org/)
Other things I did: read two books, beat John and cribbage TWICE (between John, his dad, and his brother, they probably have over 100 years of cribbage playing experience...I have less than two...granted we were playing on teams...John's dad and I still won), learned that maple syrup in my coffee is amazing, had the first (of three total) Christmas celebrations, went to a cheese factory and ate amazing cheese, and got lost in Boston after a snowstorm on our way to the airport after stopping for gas.

After I got home, it was back to work, and then I got sick, and was sick on Christmas. But I have since recovered and am now getting back into the swing of having a semi-normal work schedule again. Nothing terribly exciting has happened at work, just a few nutty patients with psychosocial issues that no one should have (much less make other people have to deal with).

A look back at 2009

2009 was a successful year (although not quite as successful as hers: http://dooce.com/2009/12/30/2009-photos). I finished school, became an RN, and got a real job.

Here's my 2009, in pictures (minus anything related to school or work):

2009 in Pictures from Martha Rosenstein on Vimeo.

The song is "Around the Bend" by Asteroids Galaxy Tour
Most of the pictures are mine...although I stole a few off the internet...if they're yours...thanks!!

yup...still alive

Working nights has caused me to do pretty much nothing but eat, sleep, and work...I'll be back to the land of the living next week...updates to follow.

work and such

I realize that an update on how my job is going post-orientation is long overdue. The first couple of days were really hard. I suffered from massive information overload after 12 hours of everything being new. Next week will be my fifth week and I'm finally starting to feel comfortable with the daily routine. I've had a lot of really great patients and even a few patients that other people found difficult but I didn't have any problems with.

The most exciting thing that happened (and I don't use exciting in the positive sense of the word, it was actually a little scary) was I had a baby (the boy in a set of twins, who was also a whole pound bigger than his sister at birth) who dropped his temperature and had to go under the warmer. As he was warming up, we thought it would be a good idea to check his oxygen sats because he was breathing kind of funny. So we put him on the monitor and he was fine, then the nurse that I was working with left me in the nursery with him...and his sats started to drop...yikes! Luckily there was another nurse there, but she was dealing with another baby who wasn't doing very well. However, she was able to answer my questions while I was standing there not really knowing what to do. Anyway, the baby was fine, turns out his blood sugar was a little low because he was too sleepy to eat. It was very scary to be in a situation and not really know what to do or when to really start worrying.

In another couple of weeks I'm moving from the post-partum unit to nights on the prenatal unit for eight weeks. It's kind of like school...just when you start getting comfortable with something, they change things on you!

day one

Yesterday was my first real day at work. It was long and it was busy, but I made it. For the most part, I followed the nurse who will be training me while she did all the work. It was a busy day so I ended up doing lots of little "menial" tasks. She was very apologetic about making me do so many little things, but I was just glad to feel useful!

I learned that I did learn something in school and I actually have opinions/ideas about the way things should be done! I had no idea! Mostly I suffered from massive information overload and by the end of the day I thought my head might explode (partially due to the extreme headache I had in the afternoon). Hopefully I absorbed something that she told me so when I go back tomorrow I can feel a little less lost.

a week of sitting

I started working on Monday, although I use the term working very loosely. I sat for almost 40 hours of orientation...yuck! It wouldn't have been so bad if I hadn't just finished school. Most of the information was not new (to me) or was something that was drilled into me over and over again in school (i.e. wash your hands, it prevents the spread of infection).

I start real work on Wednesday and I am very much looking forward to it!

oh what a tangled social web we weave

I don't know if this comes from living in Alaska or if it's because I've spent most of my life in one place or what. But I found out today that I (unknowingly) fraternized with the ex-girlfriend of a very close friend's (now) husband.

Now, we females have an unspoken code where we despise ex-girlfriends of boyfriends/fiances/husbands (past or present) of our friends. Same goes for the ex-boyfriends/fiances/husbands of friends...we hate them too. Which makes life more difficult when people start dating people they've already dated who we hate by default. It's a hard-won appeal to "the committee" to get those in good favor again.

Anyway...said friend tells me a story about husband's ex being at an event they attended over the weekend. Friend describes said ex to me...and a situation where friend's husband's sister was forced to work with said ex while ex was doing a rotation for med school through said husband's sister's unit. As friend is describes husband's ex...I say, "wait...I know her! I spent a whole evening with her!" Turns out an ex of mine was really good friends with her (friend's husband and my ex were roommates at one point...which is how friend's husband's ex knows my ex...which is a connection I knew about...thank goodness because at this point I doubt I could have handled it otherwise). Not to mention the fact that I saw friend's husband's ex on the same unit as friend's husband's sister works on while I was doing my rotation through there for nursing school. She (friend's husband's ex) did not recognize me and I chose not to bring our connection to light..thank goodness, that might have made things more complicated when I found out that I had to hate her by default.

Did you get all that? There will be a test later.

motivation comes in many forms

Today I saw something that I really wish I didn't see (it's my own fault...but that didn't make it any less awful).

How did I deal with it?

Well, I took my trusty iPod and went running. And ran...and ran...and ran...for an hour.

Do I feel better? Why yes I do! I suppose that it helps that I may have seen a certain East High Alum, we shall call him AH, playing soccer with no shirt on at APU. Very nice...

Here's the playlist that saved the day:

Sort Of - Silversun Pickups
Hearless (Kanye West Cover) - The Fray
Run - Gnarls Barkley
Touch the Sky - Kanye West
Want You Bad - The Offspring
Lights Out - Danity Kane
You Haven't Told Me Anything - Keane
Two Weeks - Grizzly Bear
Tiffany Blews - Fall Out Boy
Shake Me Like a Monkey - Dave Matthews Band
Set Out Running - Neko Case

an early saturday morning rant

Although I haven't been following the story very closely, what I have read makes me angry. No, not angry, I think I might be flat out disgusted. How dare the President of the United States want to speak to children about staying in school. Blasphemy! I think the Anchorage Daily News said it best (which is actually quite surprising considering that they pretty much never say anything best...or anything at all for that matter), "fear of Obama's school speech testifies to the need to stay in school and learn critical thinking." YES! If you can't send your child to school with the confidence that they will practice a little bit of critical thinking...then perhaps you should do some critical thinking about your parenting. I know I'm not a parent and therefore I really have no idea how these things work, but based on my own experiences being parented along with those of my close friends...I don't feel like expecting your children to think about things before they incorporate them into their worldview is particularly far-fetched.

It makes me so angry that closed-minded parents are teaching their children to be close-minded. Please, send your child to school, let them hear what the President has to say (oh here's an idea...listen to his speech yourself so you know what they heard), and then when they come home talk to them about it. Use it as a learning experience, as an opportunity to find out how they use the morals and values you have filled them with to process information. If you don't like what they took away from it 1. deal with it, they are obviously smart enough to think for themselves 2. agree to disagree or 3. help them to understand why you don't like what was said.

End rant.

the great scrub debacle

Whew! Who knew that buying scrubs would be so hard. There's only one store in town that sells scrubs, and they have a pretty limited selection, which left me ordering them online. The problem...I don't know what I want/need! The possibilities are pretty much endless. Solids, prints, brands, number and layout of pockets. I don't put that much thought into my every day attire (is it comfy? and is it not ugly?) so why should I have to put so much effort into my work attire...they're just scrubs...which resemble pajamas...which are supposed to be comfy and not require such extensive decision making skills (which if you know me at all...you know that is NOT something I'm good at)!!

After two hours and $50 I managed to order one set. Then after a walk and some sustenance (and $50 more), I managed to order another set. The second set proved more difficult than the first. I ordered them from a different website and they wanted to charge me SIXTY DOLLARS for USPS Priority shipping. I think not! Then I had to find another website that had what I wanted and that wasn't going to charge me more for shipping than product. I mean, I guess living in Alaska I can understand that if I was spending $5-$10 on something, the shipping might work out to be more than whatever I purchased. But when spending $50 on scrubs (which are not heavy or bulky), I expect the shipping to be significantly less, especially when you tell me it's USPS Priority shipping. Do you know how many books I could ship for $50? A medium flat rate box is only $14.95 (how do I know this you ask...because I've been making a living selling textbooks online the cheaper the shipping the more $$ go into my bank account) and a pair of scrubs would definitely fit into one of those with room to spare!

Anyway, I found a place with much more reasonable shipping rates (thank god for the internet!) and in 7-10 days I will be the proud owner of two shiny new pairs of scrubs :o)

the wall

I have officially hit "the wall." It's time for me to go to work. The only problem with that is I have to wait two more weeks. Don't get me wrong, I've thoroughly enjoyed my summer. I've been fishing and berry picking and reading and cooking and relaxing...all things I haven't done (or enjoyed doing) for awhile. I still have going to the fair and going out to the Copper Princess Lodge to look forward to. And yes, when I start working I'll probably wish for my unemployed life back (minus the part about not having any money)...but for the time being I wish to be a valued and contributing member of society. I want to pay back the people to whom I owe money. Let the countdown begin...two weeks...

unfruitful berry picking

Another attempt at berry picking...apparently we were in the wrong place because we found no berries. At least it was a beautiful day!

shopping...but not spending

I have no money...soon I will. I've started a list (really more like a compilation) of things that I want when I can finally afford to spend money on non-essentials again!

This is at the top of my list, but with the $600 price tag, it might be awhile...

Rancilio Silvia Espresso machine

Anything from lululemon, but especially the Beat the Heat Dress and the gym bag.

And these sheets from Crate and Barrel

And these cups to make lattes in:

And this to keep me warm. I have one of these shirts and I LOVE it (Christmas present from John...he does a good job).A girl can never have too much wool, especially when she lives in Alaska!I'm sure I'll be adding to this list...but that's all for now :o)

fish and bears...mostly bears

John and I took one last trip down to the Russian River to see if we could top off the fish stash in our freezer. Sadly most of the fish were pretty much done for.

Really red fish in the river

John fishing

We also saw three bears...I don't like bears...

The two guys in this picture decided to throw rocks at the bear...

Fishing, but not catching...at least we weren't the only ones!


Yup, another bear...

But at least it was a beautiful couple of days (minus the torrential downpour that occurred on Tuesday afternoon)

berry picking

Last week Brittany and I went and picked blueberries at Arctic Valley