Happy Halloween!

I was able to help at the daughter's school this morning for the Halloween festivities and it was a blast. She was so excited, she was up at 6 a.m. bouncing around the house yelling 'It's Halloween!!." And, we have creepy, blustery Fall weather with leaves blowing around everywhere. We hope you have a great day. I've included some October pictures for your enjoyment. One includes a shot of my latest 'thing.' :)

"Hurly burly"

Loving the foggy Fall morning

Oh, thank the goddess. Foggy Fall weather has arrived with chilly mornings and the strong possibility of rain this weekend. I took the dog for the morning walk and I just loved taking in big breaths of that wet, cool foggy air. Everything seems so hushed and muffled. Things are in a grey haze more than 2 blocks ahead. Mmmm. Loving it!

Of course, some trick-or-treaters and a certain soccer girl may be getting a bit wet, but it is about time we got some moisture around here.

Hooray!

Oohh, and my new toy arrived today from Hong Kong. Pictures to follow. What a happy day!

In God We Trust?

Over the last few years, it seems like the Christian-based religious groups in this country are gaining too much power. It really raises the hackles of my strict Constitutionalism beliefs. People came to this country for freedom. Freedom from oppressive regimes, from religious persecution, poverty, etc. The founding fathers made sure that our rights would be guaranteed in the Bill of Rights and the Constitution. They explained how there should be a separation of Church and State. I love that history. I love our roots. People come to our country now because of that, claiming asylum from persecution from another country and we take them in.

What I fear though is that we maybe slowly slipping into more of a religious state as the religious groups gain more political power and have their views legislated, placed in state constitutions and sometimes brought to the Supreme Court.

The latest thing to really get my goat is Proposition 8 in California. It is a proposition to add an amendment to the state's constitution that defines marriage as only between a man and a woman, thus negating all the same-sex marriages performed in this state. If you listen to the people for this proposition, they are essentially arguing for the state constitution to back-up their religious beliefs. I do respect their religious beliefs, but I have a HUGE problem with them wanting the government to support their beliefs and make them law. It is just another step closer to a religious state. The part that really makes me even more upset, is that legislation like this has been passed already in 29 of our other states! Don't people realize what this is doing? We are legislating religion into our government and limiting the rights of our citizens. I just want to scream it from the rooftops at the injustice of it.

Of course, don't get me started on the "In God We Trust" on the money (For some history on that go here). Or prayer in schools. Or putting "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance.

I had hoped if I ranted a little about it, I would feel better, but I am still steamed. I have run into people this past week that think Prop 8 is about teaching homosexuality and same sex marriages in school. As far as I know, marriages of any kind are not part of the standard curriculum. I don't even want to know what my blood pressure is like right now.

Reading, Reading, Reading,

My goodness, I have read a lot of books this month. I finished 'A Dragonfly in Amber' by Galbadon and 'Casino Royale' by Fleming. I also finished 'Twilight' by Stephenie Meyers. All three were so different in story and style it was like going from hard, to somewhat complicated to way easy. I am debating my next book. I am being told I should finish the rest of the 'Twilight' series, but I am trying out a book club and they are meeting in December to discuss 'Painter from Shanghai' by Epstein. I also have the other books in the Galbadon series and I have 'Live and Let Die' from the Fleming collection, plus a stack of miscellaneous books that I picked up at the used book store sale. AND.... I am taking a class on CCRN certification so I should be studying for that exam as well.

As for 'A Dragonfly in Amber,' I enjoyed it but it was much more dense on the political plot twists as the characters ended up in the France with the French court. I enjoyed it, but it was a harder read than the first book and not quite as thrilling for me. 'Casino Royale' had a slow start for me as the writing style was so different I was put off and was reading the same chapter over and over. Once I got into it, I understood why the movies were made and why people love Bond. The book spends too much time explaining how to play baccarat so I kind of skimmed over some of those sections. Overall, it was fun read.

'Twilight.' How can I justify that I read this book? It sucked me in (funny pun considering it is about vampires) and I finished it within days. I enjoyed how the author captured the emotions of the first teenage crush and all the angst about the first kiss. She also does a wonderful job describing the town and surrounding terrain. The dialogue between the vampire boyfriend and the teen girl, is cheeky and cute too. It is about a teenage girl that falls for a 'good' vampire. These vampires hunt bears, cougars, etc in the mountains. They can be out in the sun. The head of the 'family' is the town's doctor. They go to high school. It's like those old Sweet Valley High novels some of us read in junior high, except the love interest is a vampire and that is a huge secret you can't share with your friends or parents. You can look for the movie coming out in late November. I think they would have been better off with a tv series or mini-series. We'll see.

I think I may take a reading break and do some crafting and studying instead. Hmmmm.

"Tut-tut. It looks like rain."

At least that is what Pooh had Christopher Robin say as he was trying to pretend to be a rain cloud. We have lots of rain clouds in our skies. They are the first I can remember seeing in months and it almost feels muggy outside. Who knows, maybe we finally be blessed with some precipitation tomorrow . . . although that could mean Assistant Coach Dad and Soccer Player Daughter would be playing their game tomorrow in the rain.

Wondering why I haven't posted in awhile? I finished "Shadow of the Wind" and started "A Dragonfly in Amber," by Diana Galbadon. I finished two Renaissance Faire costumes (see picture below). I went to Disneyland for a few days (See pic to the left). I joined facebook.com. Anyone who is on there may understand the time drain that place can be :) And, I have been attempting to hack up a lung, aka battling allergies and asthma.

As for the books, "Shadow of the Wind" sucked me in from the first amazing chapter. I was in love. The first chapters describe a young boy's discovery of that first life changing book. Any avid reader knows what that is about. That first book you stumble across that makes you crave more books by that author or want to own the book or re-read passages multiple times. However, as the book progressed, the plot became so twisted and convoluted, I was about to throw it at the wall in frustration. I couldn't do that though, as it was lent to me by Newt. So I soldiered on, then there was a line where I caught myself saying an expletive out loud and I nearly burned the book. BUT . . . I endured and finished it and it was well worth it. It really was engrossing and full of rich detail. I was transported and loved it for that. I'll keep you posted on the latest Galbadon book.

Surfing the net lately

Ever played with that feature on blogger "next blog" that just randomly picks blogs for you to peruse. On those lazy mornings when I am home alone, sometimes I do that see what I'll find. Sometimes I actually will go to the links some of my family and friends send me in their joke/junk emails. You know, those emails that have been forwarded a ba-zillion times and seem to make the circuit every year. Sometimes I search for old 80s videos on youtube. Well, a few interesting sites came across my computer this week.

Dirty Car Art. Yep, that is right. I guy creates masterpieces in the grime left in your windows after not washing your car for like a year. Check it out: http://www.dirtycarart.com/

Women Suffragates

. I have been a registered voter since I turned 18. I have voted in every election except one year where I had moved and hadn't re-registered. That being said, I had completely forgotten the story of the women who fought for my right to vote. Some info is available here: http://www.hbo.com/films/ironjawedangels/history/

After going to this site, I stumbled across this picture and had to post it here. I am a democrat and was suprised by this picture. I think I need to research the donkey logo and party history a bit more. Another site to use for more info on this story is here: http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/suffrage/nwp/prisoners.pdf

Cell Phone Art. It is a topic I have been thinking about a lot lately because I see everywhere people taking pictures and videos with their cell phones. I am very guilty of this activity as well and started looking for some stuff on cell phone art. I found this site that actually is sponsoring a contest hosted by one of the Coppolas. http://www.pahnation.com/awards_cellphone.php Then this guy creates art from using the actual phones : http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5966005 And lastly, this was the kind of site I really wanted to find. All pictures taken of random things around the city using a cell phone http://www.sleepyurbanite.com/

And lastly, I'll share a phone photo I took last night watching football. Yes, it is British beer mixed with American football. I like a little irony and good beer in my life. Unfortunately the beer wasn't good enough to make the Raider game enjoyable.

Bad word problems make me all grumpy

Things were hopping at work yesterday. If a patient wasn't leaving the unit for a procedure, they were doing a procedure at bedside. I was stuck as the lunch/ break nurse. Thank goodness we didn't have any codes or RRT calls though, only a couple admissions and transfers. I was running almost all day which makes a 12 hour shift go hella-fast. It was nice considering it has been so slow lately.

However, one of the dreaded responsibilities of the lunch/break nurse is to do patient care assignments for the next shift. That means I have to look at the staffing sheet to determine who is coming and who is supposed to be the lunch/break nurse for the next shift. We also then have to factor in who is regular staff, per diem, traveler (contract nurse only working for us for a few weeks) and preceptee (a new hire to the unit that needs training and assigned to a regular staffer, who hopefully has an interesting assignment to promote learning). Other factors to consider is how sick are the patients, are they on isolation, on a ventilator and how close the patients' rooms are to each other so that the nurses can better see their patients. Additionally, unless you have had special training, certain types of patients, like our stroke patients or ones that came in for stent placement, can't be assigned to you. Plus, if you have staff that are coming in that worked the day before, they typically like to have their same patients back. Sound hard? It kind of is, but it gets worse. You then have to factor in the attitudes of people when they show up and complain about their assignments. Sounds like one of those math word problems from hell that we had to solve in Algebra class.

Well, I tried to factor in all those things when I did the assignments and I still had problems. It didn't help that we had a very sick patient that was on their way to us that had to go to a specially trained nurse that ended up dying around 7:20pm before making it to our unit (Shift change occurs between 7-7:30pm). That added to even more assignment shuffling. Lots of gripes. I think even one person in particular was mad at me when I left even after I had made multiple changes to the assignments based on the comments that started flying at 7pm. So, I left feeling a lot of angst.

I understand why most of our senior staff dislike the lunch/break position. I also understand even more how nice it must be when I show up and take any assignment they throw at me without complaining, even if it is lunch/break nurse. I am pretty sure I have grumbled about assignments in the past, but I take them anyway. I'll try next time to not even grumble.