Friday, February 24, 2006

STUPID Car Dealership Service

Ok... my day has been nothing exciting... except wanting to jump through the phone lines to kill the service coordinator at the Nissan dealership. He/they must think I'm an idiot. My rear door (on my big stupid heavy Armada) won't work... the button, the handle, nothing. Same problem in November that they couldn't fix... just reset the system and it worked... for about 8 days. So, I was too ticked to take it back right away then I just kept procrastinating... finally took it back.
Anyways... the guy calls says it's done... said they reset the system and it's fine. So I ask, what do I do when it happens again in a week. He tells me he'd SHOW ME HOW TO RESET IT!!! So I say, what do I do if I want to sell the car?? I can't possibly tell the prospective buyer... "well, if it won't work, let me show you how to reset it" DUH!!! Would the idiots do the same if they were reselling it???? I think not.

GRRR. End of rage. for now...

BTW: I don't want to go to work. (what's new??)

HYWWP 2/24 Challenge


Today I feel....

I don't know why but just felt like stopping time for a second today and recording it. Nothing special going on, but thought about it today. SO, that's the challenge :)

Thursday, February 23, 2006

Whew... Job interview is over!!

Big exhalation!!!


So I was interviewing for a management position (ER, Step Down, ICU) at Columbia Regional. I've DONE phone interviews, but I've never been the interviewee! AND, I've also interviewed with many people before, but never on the phone. There were four, possibly five in the room. Great questions, standard type of interview.

What is cool:
They only have about a 2% staff vacancy rate (OUTSTANDING)
Low turnover
LONG retention
Three units to manage, but small units:
ER sees about 700/month (we see that in 10 days here)
ICU with 9 beds and average 4 or so (of course there is flux)
Step down with 10 beds.
Total of about 60 FTE's.... I had 54 on tele and 60+ in ER PLUS part of ICU to help with in my last management job (OK, so the ER one was only for 6 months, but still!!!)
They seem pretty friendly.

I'm not getting all my eggs in the basket or anything, but I'd sure like to have something set up. I'm just ready to move on!! LOL..... and get the garden planned ROFL!!!

We'll see... they said early next week for a decision. Hopefully they haven't really decided yet and were just interviewing me for fun. But then again, it's done, and it was good experience. I need to work on two questions: what I didn't like about my last management job (I guess I can't say that my previous boss got crazy....) and what's my 5 year plan (what is it anyway??)

Wednesday, February 22, 2006

Wednesday 2/22 HYWWP Challenge


Bright colors!!! That's the challenge :)

And by the way... I used my BRAND NEW QK Emily LC!!!! YEAH!!! Thanks to Sarah at WT for the great deal! LOVE IT!!!!

Tuesday, February 21, 2006

WT Challenge: Child of the....

What a perfect challenge!!!

I was SO TOTALLY thinking that man... I'm so stuck in the late 80's and early 90's. Why? I was loading up all my songs on the iPod and am really not surprised to see
Alanis Morisette
James Taylor
Bruce Springsteen
Jewel
Garth Brooks
Madonna
Elton John
Paul Simon
The Cure
Depeche Mode
And several more that just totally SCREAM 80's and early 90's.
I love the new stuff and am really loving evolving into the world as it comes along and as I continue to change, but it's fun to look back and hold on sometimes.....


And for the second part... I have nothing really exciting right now except I got my QK today~!!!!!!!! And my first alpha (Emily LC). I can't WAIT to play!!!!!

My new TOY!!!

I finally got one!! I got an iPod..... it's just the little Shuffle, but man is it cool!!!!!

We went to Circut City last night for some ink and I wandered over to look at them... they were on sale! WOO HOO!! I talked myself into it. I just finished almost filling it up... have probably about 20 more songs I can put on there. It was SO FUN to go through my CD's and pick songs... then I went to the iTunes site and picked up four brand spanking new songs.....

For as much as I love music, I really don't have that much. And certainly nothing too current. Plus, I'm starting to get into country and only have like 2 CDs.... not much. So I picked up some songs. How stinkin cool is that?!?!? I've been jamming all morning rather than listening to the kids' DVDs and fighting.
I'm so excited... can you tell???

Monday, February 20, 2006

Monday HYWWP Challenge


This is a LO I made for the MSS Scrap N Chat... it was an ad challenge... very fun!!!
My challenge for Monday 2/20 is to use four pictures. Simple! and can be interpreted many different ways!!!

Sunday, February 19, 2006

Work is not fun sometimes....

Whew. I'm glad it's over and I don't have to go back for another week.

I DON'T like it when I'm overwhelmed... and for me, it usually takes quite a bit. But last night did it.
OK, so Friday night I went in and looked at the staffing and out of the 5 of us overnight folks, I DIDN'T KNOW THREE!!! I know I was out sick for two weekends, but sheesh!! The good part is that the three I didn't know are strong and I had nothing at all to worry about. But, even with them being strong, it's still a lot of stress when it comes to things that they don't know about... all three aren't even from Hawaii, so they don't really have the "local" climate down.... let alone all the crazy weird things we do here that I've never done other places (like transferring everyone and their dogs to other facilities because we have no psych, OB, Peds, cath lab, thoracic, Kaiser, dialysis etc etc etc beds!!!!). But, Friday night was OK.... just normal stressful.

So I go in last night.... there's regular staff scheduled, even though we have two new grads FRESH off orientation.... one was only there till 11 so OK.... no problem
PROBLEM 1: One person calls out sick. I was told... you are getting an agency nurse that's been here before. OK. No problem. WRONG: Yes, she'd been there before, BUT she was an ICU agency nurse who had only been there for ICU HOLDS!!! Not for ER patients... very different ballgame. She was very willing to work and learn, but I still was stressing.
PROBLEM 2: One of our regular staff nurses was apparently having some kind of TIA in that she had no sense of getting anything done herself and was driving me and one of our techs nuts... I mean at one point she was just walking around in circles (literally!!) looking for a pedi cath kit... of course people are moving crap around at the drop of a hat and not POSTING it...... but still... use some critical thinking skills and go friggin look before you bother me with stupid stuff!!!
PROBLEM 3: not a major problem, but we had a doc who has only been here a few times... locums and not used to the system very well. God love her... she's wonderful to the nurses and patients but just needs a little extra TLC.
PROBLEM 4: 47 YO guy comes in sudden arrest at home. THIS HIT TOO CLOSE TO HOME. Dave's 44!!! Usually adults don't bother me too much, but this one did..... and the wailing grieving spouse almost did me in.
PROBLEM 5: Moe.... god love her too but sometimes she drives me nuts. She can be a saving grace as a supervisor, but sometimes.... grrr. Nothing blatant, but just driving us nuts (No eating... nevermind that my poor doc didn't get to pee for 8 hours!!!)
PROBLEM 6: Med error never caught on the day shift when they did chart reviews.... GRR.
PROBLEM 7: New medication dispensing system that no one knows how to use and then, I go to do count in the morning and the narc count is off in the old system... BAD off.... I call pharmacy and they are less than helpful... but finally it comes down to "why are you using that anyway?? You should NOT be using that!!" They apparently (allegedly) sent a notice to the supervisors and managers to that effect, but that was never passed along to us. You'd think that might be IMPORTANT!

So, if you are still reading...... whew. Sorry. I can't blame anyone if you aren't reading... what a painful rant!!!

I don't want to go back.

Good news is: I have an interview on Thursday for Columbia Regional for the ER/ICU manager job AND I've been playing phone/email tag with Boone Hospital Center about another interview. YEAH! I can't wait :) :) :)


OTHER GOOD STUFF: MSS had a cyber crop yesterday with GREAT GREAT Challenges that I managed to get 5 layouts done before going to work. Great thing is that Lora extended the deadline to midnight tonight before they are due!!! LOVE THIS BIG TIME!!!!! I don't get a lot of time on the weekend..... this is SO GREAT! I'll post some LO's in a little while. I need to do a couple more, but I want to go get adhesive (of course I ran out on Friday, used two way glue for all my LO's yesterday!!!!) So, I NEED TO GO TO WAL MART!!!! 4 hours left in the challenge..... I don't know if I'm gonna get anything done :(

Oh well.... done with the ranting and raving. feel better :)

Thursday, February 16, 2006

Found the COOLEST Site

For those of you who are readers, like me, but just hate spending the money then eventually getting rid of the books (But are WAY too lazy to use the library!)... I was told about this site: www.paperbackswap.com You list your books, pick what you want and swap..... there are a GAZILLION books listed! And I listed some of my books from school that I wouldn't possibly want again.... boom.... within an hour someone picked them up!!! Out of the 10 books I listed, 5 are already gone! All you have to do is pay postage (media mail... about 1.50-2 bucks each or so) and you get credit..... then you get a new book to read. Much better than the 6-8 bucks they cost.
I think I'm addicted already!

Friday HYWWP Challenge


Here's today's challenge (Ok, it's for tomorrow..... )
Use a question mark on a LO... fun, easy, great for titles and subtitles.
Mine has been sitting here for three days and I finally got the inspiration.
TFL!

What is normal?

Ok.... So it's 9 am....
The kitchen floor is as clean as it's gonna get. I HATE this house.... it never gets clean no matter how much I scrub. I'm tired of the ants. I'm tired of scrubbing black crap off the kids' feet every hour.
I'm not Ms. Clean anyway, but I do like things tidy-ish. It's hard to even do that in this house. I just want to go to our beautiful house in Missouri, move in and start again. I don't want to move to yet another military home (ours is going to be torn down so they are going to move us to another one...yee haw) to start over again on this nonsense. Besides, despite all the pain this one is causing, it's the only one with the layout we need for the dogs and the GYM!
I say, let me and the kids go to Missouri, Dave can stay here and put his gym in the living room for all I care! GRRRR!!!

Anyways.... you'd think I didn't sleep again, but alas, I did!!! Emily stayed in bed all night alone :) :) :) YEAH!! Miracles do happen.

So, I'll stop being grouchy, finish getting ready for the day, and make a list of things to do :)
Here's two pics of the house in Missouri....


Today's Challenge for HYWWP


OK... So I'm on the DT at Have Your Way with Paper.... I'm sponsoring a challenge three times a week, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.
Today's challenge is a technique challenge (Wednesday is tools, techniques and themes)

Today is color blocking.
Here's my inspiration LO.... very plain, but gets the point across. It's also one of few entries into my all about me album.
So.... here it is, yet AGAIN... Emily will not go to sleep. My ear is raw (she rubs my right ear and sucks her right thumb) and I'm frustrated. Daddy can't just let her cry... then he gets frustrated.
She's so sweet though..... I just LOVE her big huge hugs and kisses... but I'M TIRED....

Wednesday, February 15, 2006

Here goes....

OK.... so I'm a blogger now.
Let's see if I can keep it up.
Who knows...........


More about me later... but the basics:
33 almost 34
Mom to Nathan who is almost 3 and Emily who is 16 months
Wife to Dave for 7 years
Nurse for over 10 years now, specializing in critical care/emergency.
Now, I work 2 nights a week and stay home with the kids. Not something I thought I would be doing.
Got my Master's degree in 2002.... haven't really used it.
Started my PhD program this last year.... dropped out because the program STUNK.
AVID scrapper.... ok, maybe I'm a bit addicted, but that's OK.
No other life to speak of........
We live in Honolulu right now, can't wait to move to our house in Missouri......more later about all that.

ANYHOO... time to check on the food and see if Dave is going to grace us with his presence before 6 or not.... We'll see. More later.