I went, last night, to see Matilda with Sofie in the title role. She smashed it out of the park – 90 lines, a solo song, I am so proud of her. I missed Alice intensely this week, wishing she could see Sofie, not only at the play, but also to see all the hard work Sofie and Mike did together. Going through the lines every night, 1,000 times according to Mike – Mike voicing all the other parts.
Jeremy made cubano sandwiches this week for dinner with Mike and Sofie on Tuesday.
I’ve been quiet on the blog because I worked at the hospital a lot this past week. I did myself a favor and took time off of my desk job while working a full time nursing schedule for a week. I did this because Vince is coming home!!! And I didn’t want to put in any shifts at the hospital while he is here.
Elka and Pip are good friends. I can’t believe it, really. They will spend a long time happily playing with each other.
It is hot here today! But we were outside this morning, Jeremy biking and me at the dog park with the doggies and Edda at camp. I’m working 3 shifts at the hospital in 6 days which is a totally normal amount to work, but unusual for me. So I’m trying to rest a bunch and taking time off the desk job. I finished my first shift yesterday, the next is tomorrow, I’ll have the weekend off and then finally the last one on Monday. Then I don’t have to be at the hospital when Vince is here! I came home last night and snuggled with the doggies. I think I look a lot like my mom in this photo.
We are hosting Tianpei for a month while he is between gigs.. He told me that he made it to the final round of auditions for the NY Phil (violin) a few years ago. Then I realized I have no shame anymore. I’ll practice my dorky ukulele right in front of him, no problem – basically playing Mary had a Little Lamb, missing notes, slightly out of tune and not on the beat. But I don’t care. I would have been mortified to do that 25 years ago.
We had a nice weekend. Vickey asked what my plans were for the weekend and I said it was to be nice to my husband. Haha. Mission accomplished. Friday night was nice, Isabella was here with Edda and we ordered out pizza and wings from CS pizza and really enjoyed ourselves. If I could eat only one food for the rest of my life, it would be pizza. You can put almost anything on pizza and it’ll be delicious.
Jeremy was asked to fill out a form which asked what color his hair is. He was about to check off “brown”, which he has done his whole life, but then he thought maybe he should check off “gray”. He asked the person at the desk (? – do you think my hair is brown or gray?) and she replied – I think you should mark off gray. And then I think Jeremy was a little taken aback and she kindly defended herself by saying – the choice is marked gray/partly gray. Hahaha. Just a few days ago, I found a gray streak (meaning a clump of hair that is all white) on my head in the center of my crown. I’m contemplating a hair style which will show off this streak. I kind of love my gray hair(s) – so few women go gray, but I enjoy it.
That evening, Jeremy asked if there was any brown hair left on his head. I said he had a stripe effect on the back of his head, but I’m not even sure that that is brown anymore. I think it’s dark gray.
I reluctantly gave up Spanish – I just couldn’t make it happen, it was frustrating and I was not making good enough progress to feel like I was drawn to it everyday. It felt like a chore, I don’t want things that feel like a job. But I got a guitar free from Edda’s closing camp. I’m trying it out. It’s for sure more fun than Spanish. Sofie wants to take lessons with me in the fall. That is an interesting proposition.
Jeremy went to Detroit/Ann Arbor for one night. Outbound flight was 3 hours delayed. About 50% of the flight was masked. At the conference, Jeremy was only one of the two people masked. We know so many people with covid the past few weeks. We are wondering when we’ll get it again. Jeremy got a reminder to get his 2nd booster shot. He hasn’t gotten one, it seems moot now since he got sick in April with a more current version of Omicron.
I’m not on Instagram really, so I make Jeremy follow people that I’m interested in. Olivia from Peloton got married a few weeks ago and I really wanted to see the dress. Jeremy obliged. I love the photo and I’m ok with the dress.
We also texted about our pokemon woes.
Jeremy wanted to get a ride in on Tuesday morning before the meeting and so he borrowed this bike from the hotel. I’m not sure what kind of workout he did on it, but it has coaster brakes! It’s been a long time since he rode a bike with coaster brakes.
We toured a very nice aftercare camp for Edda on Friday. Arguably, it may be better than Edda’s old camp. The hours are longer (they have Saturday hours too!) and they have swim! So we are a “go!” for camp. It’s a tiny bit further from the house, so I need to straighten out the bussing from school, but I think I can manage that.
I was at the hospital yesterday and found out that our hospital is hemorrhaging (haha, punny.) money. They restructured cost centers (there are three cost centers, I gather and they reduced it to two and kicked out the person running one of them – there is an ice cream social to thank them for their hard work next Tuesday) and they are also looking to lay off about 30 management positions and no bedside nursing positions. I was most interested in reading the memo about how to stretch bedside nursing capacity. Basically, they are seeing that nursing will be short for the next generation (?) and so what can you do? We are still running our floor with 1/6 of the beds empty and have been for many months because we can’t staff them. So, in an ideal, fully staffed floor, I should have only 4 patients. I usually have 5. On occasion I have 6. They are trying to figure out, I think, how a nurse can cover 8 patients. So I read the memo. One idea is a virtual nurse (?). I was a little shocked about this. I’m not quite sure how this person would help me. Could they do all the paperwork and I would not have to chart? The thing about a virtual nurse is that, they are helpful when the patient is completely oriented and competent. But when the patient is slightly confused, or really confused, or hard of hearing, or english is their second language, etc – which is a lot of the the time, it’s hard to see how this would help me out. Here is a company that does it:
The other idea, which I like better, is to team the nurse up with another person 1:1 like a CNA or a LPN. I would prefer someone who can pass medications, so that would be an LPN. So two people would have 8 patients. The thing about this is that you can be teamed up with a person that completely annoys you or a person that is completely wonderful. As a side note, often, the first half of the shift, I’m completely annoyed – “Can I have some creamer? What’s up with Kosher meals, will they make them low-fiber? This water is room temperature, I take my medications only with ice water.” Argh, these are enough to drive me crazy, but then I settle and I’m ok with it. And then I don’t want to ask my server at a restaurant for anything.
Elka graduated from training school on Saturday. She did very well. But at home three hours later, she peed on the floor. I was disappointed. We are all terribly, terribly flawed. Ruby had this terrible leash aggression and would pull all the time whenever she saw another dog. Maxi had anxiety and wouldn’t let you snuggle with her and she had regular panic attacks. Elka is very loving – probably the most loving of all the dogs, but is the most unwilling to do what you say and still likes to pee in the house.
Sofie spent the night on Wed night. We had a little dinner party – Sofie and her friend Elen and Elen’s mom. Plus us and Eliana. Seven people and we had a great time (though I always feel like covid is lurking around the corner). Jeremy made turkey tetrazzini and talked to Elen’s mom about local planning/zoning. The dogs played. We like having these little parties and it’s loads of fun, but it always messes with our sleep schedule.
Jeremy thinks it’s an unreasonable goal to sleep slightly more than 8 hours every night. If we want to sleep 8 hours every night, it basically means no night activities ever, lol.
I got into nurse practitioner school at Maryland at the campus 2 miles away from the house which starts in a few weeks! I’m so pleased that I got offered a late spot, but I’m going to turn down the offer. It would be a 5 year program which is 3/5ths time. The full time is 3 years. I think I would enjoy NP school, but I don’t really want to be an NP. All those people who want SSRIs, adderall, opioids (I mean, I get it. At times, I’ve wanted these things and I’ve wanted them quickly.) People who do want vaccines, or really don’t want vaccines. Antibiotics for viral infections. Ivermectin or who knows what. Or, honestly, the worst thing is missing something very important thinking that it isn’t important or never figuring it out despite trying very hard. I’ve been on the edges of this at the hospital and I can’t believe I ever wanted to be a doctor. I have other ideas. Anyways, it’s also true that I can’t really find the 10-15 hours a week to do this. Honestly, to do a good job at NP school it would be easily over 20 hours a week. I’d have to let go of doing my very very best which I hate doing. I’d also have to quit my bedside nursing job, which I don’t really want to do just right now.
Isabella (Edda’s camp counselor) and Eliana (Edda’s weekend caregiver) both tested positive for Covid last week. They do not see each other, they know of each other, but have never met – so they caught it from different people. We generally do not mask in the house anymore, though we have done it in the past. Isabella was working on here on Friday night, having dinner with us and preparing to give Edda a shower and tuck her into bed when I heard a few sniffles and coughs coming from her direction. She said she was at the doctor’s on Thursday (the day before) for a well check up (for which she was 100% well) for college and they offered a PCR (?) test and that was negative and she took a rapid on Friday am (with the slight cough) and that was negative and she went to work (with Edda, all day!) – but I quickly sent her home on Friday night and tucked Edda into bed myself. The text came in on Sunday that she was positive. So we are testing Edda each day before we send her to camp. Edda has not yet gotten covid (Vince has not yet either, which I can not believe). Edda has had many lengthy and known exposures, so I’m not sure quite what is going on. We will just have to wait.
Last week was very active and stressful and in response, I’m trying to pull back and make it a quiet week to recover. Slow the socializing, cull obligations, reduce the running and sleep more. Both Jeremy and I enjoy using our Garmin watches to track our sleep – esp our body batteries. It’s not that easy to get yourself to 100 every morning. In order to do that, it really needs to be lights out at 9pm, which means we need to be getting ready for bed at about 8:30 – which is craziness. But we try.
We are taking care of Pip during the summer while Kiki and Bob are traveling to New Mexico. I took him to the dog park for the first time today. They’ve been resurfacing the mulch with astroturf which I’m undecided on, so it’s been closed the last week. I can only exercise the dogs so much – it takes a lot to wear out Elka – and they have completely different walking personalities, so optimally they should each get separate walks which sometimes happens and sometimes does not and they were bouncing off the walls today. It took a little while for the vaccination records to be cleared up at the front gate, but we made it into the park and Pip was happy. Living his best life.
I’m still training for this marathon. You know what is useful about having a partner who trains 16-20 hours a week and does races which range from 5-7 hours? One’s own marathon training seems totally reasonable and not very much training. I try to not think too hard about training, the paces or the time or the distance. I like to run, I like to get faster, and I like to take it seriously, but not too seriously. I, unlike Jeremy, have no hope of being on any podium of any race. Paul is still sending me weekly workouts, which I, for the most part, follow. But sometimes I change it. Which is why to my surprise and kind of shock, last night I dinner, Jeremy and I calculated that I ran 47 miles last week. Here’s how it sussed out:
M – 6 miles, 80 min NYC. Slow over bridges – lots of stopping and navigating.
T – 10 miles, 2 hours 5 min NYC, I wanted to get to Prospect park, beautiful day. I thought this would be 7-8, but it turned into 10.
W – 1 hour easy – 5 miles (with Elka)
R – 8.75 miles 90 min on treadmill at 10:15 pace
F – off
S – 1 hour easy – 5 miles
S – 13 miles on the canal – this took almost 2.5 hours (11:49 / 11:10 / 11:07 / 11:09 / 11:14 / 11:01 / 11:07 / 11:05 / 10:56 / 10:43 / 10:38 / 10:39 / 10:19). I did run the extra 0.1 to make it a half marathon
So, way way more than I usually would do, the NYC runs were entirely of my doing because I wanted to do it, but the rest were workouts that Paul sent me. This, I think, is too much running right now, but it felt good. I feel strong.
