Freaking COLD!!!

Holy cow it's cold here! Its' been -20 to -30 for the past three days! I've had to start plugging my car in at work overnight. Good thing I have Travis around cause he had to look for my heater cord. I'm sure I would have found it eventually but it's so much nicer to have him do it for me ;0)
We had a great weekend. Weekends have never been very significant because I do shift work but now that Travis has weekends off it really sucks when I have to work especially going back to work on Mondays! On Friday night we went to Banff for a movie and Saltlik martinis with another couple who work with EMS. We went to see the new James Bond movie, Casino Royale. My first James Bond movie acutally. I enjoyed it but apparently it wasn't as 'gadgety' as most James Bond movies. Saturday was supposed to be my 'surprise' birthday treat. Travis had planned a helicopter tour as my birthday present. How great is he eh?! It didn't happen though cause the weather wouldn't co-operate and it was too foggy :0( We went up to Kananaskis in the afternoon to the grand opening of Dave and Michelle's rental shop. It looked great, I'm sure they will be very successful. Travis and I bought matching down mittens even though it was my idea to buy them first ;0) and a crazy carpet!! We went out and had a very nice dinner with his parents then went to Dave and Michelle's for celebratory drinks. We had planned to crazy carpet home, I wonder if that counts as drinking and driving though, but ended up forgetting it at home...darn! next time. Then Sunday was a lazy day of grocery shopping for this week's dinners and then I had to go to work. This is the last of my night shifts and then I finally switch to days on Friday for the month of December.

December is going to be a busy month. My birthday is coming up next week and I'm going to try and completely forget about it. Turning 26 just means I'm getting a whole lot closer to 30. Oh well. Maybe the botox they want to give me for my neck can be used on some of my multipying wrinkles. Then we've got Christmas parties galore for the rest of the month and then it's Christmas! We're spending it at my mom's this year and I'm super excited because it will be our first christmas in her new house. We're leaving on the 22nd and coming home on the 26th. I'm so excited that I'm not working Christmas again this year but not so happy that I have to work New Years Eve. Oh well, I guess I can't have everything I want.
Better get back to work. It was a hellish evening but seems to have settled down, all except for the screaming baby out here at the desk but she's adorable so it's ok.

Busy, busy, busy

I've been working nights for the last two weeks, two nights on and two nights off, two on, two off. The hospital has been really busy lately with some really acutely sick patients. I've been working in emerg, in charge of the acute care ward and "float" which means that I'm in charge of the long term care unit from 2300-0700, relieve the emerg nurse for breaks, help out on acute care and go to the labor and delivery room should a maternity patient come in. I was the float nurse last night and thank goodness no maternity patients came in cause I had my hands full in emerg helping out the nurse down there. The RCMP brought in a patient who was found wandering down the TransCanada in the middle of the night. It was a very strange case cause we couldn't put our finger on what was specifically wrong with him. We definately suspected mental health instability because he was covered in lesions that looked like he'd been picking at his skin, was disoriented to place and time and was fixated on specific events. It ended up being an interesting night calling the RCMP to come in 3 times to deal with him as he's yelling, swearing and threatening us. They ended up arresting him for mischief at the end of it all just to get him out of the ER. The doc I was working with came up to me at the end of the shift and said she'd give me the silver star and purple heart for how well I handled the patient and the situation! Yea me! She said she's be glad to work with me anytime and she was very impressed with me. The docs out here in Camore are so much more personable that the docs at the Foothills. If a doc at the Foothills said that to me I'd be ordering a psych consult after I'd regained consciousness from the shock of it all. I love working out here. It's challenging at times but we're allowed to use our brains and the docs give us so much more freedom to make our own judgements and they trust us! The docs at the Foothills barely let you make the judgement to take an extra blood pressure without them ordering it. I've learned so much in the 3 months that I've been working here and I feel so much more like a 'real' nurse now. I've been selected to take a labor and delivery room course, fully paid for and so once I'm done that I'll be a 'real' labor and delivery nurse. It's a lot of self study but I get paid to take the course, the couse itself is paid for and I get paid for 40hrs of self study. Can't pass up a deal like that!
Alright, I just got reamed out by the realtor who is showing our house. I'm so sick of having to deal with them. She's being totally unreasonable and rude. She's not a nice person. She just told me that Sue and I should look into moving because we're not cooperating with the realtors schedule for showings. ARAGH!!!!!!!!!!!!! Can't think anymore. I hope you're all having a better evening that I am :o(

Perfect Saturday morning

I used to think that the best Saturday morning was spent sleeping in till noon, waking up, making a coffee and having a lazy morning at home. I was wrong. Now the best way to spend a Saturday morning is being woken up with a Starbucks gingerbread latte and having breakfast made for me and all I have to do is "sit there and look pretty" Done! I did manage to stay in bed till noon though which is good since I have to work tonight.
Work has been crazy busy lately. Last weekend I worked in emerg and it was busy all night. Usually the place clears out by midnight then you might get the odd straggler in the middle of the night but last weekend it was constant all night long, all my beds were full and there were people in the waiting room. Then again last night I worked in emerg from 3-10pm and I was running from the minute I walked in the door till the minute I left. I got home and realized that with all the rushing around at the end of my shift I forgot to leave behind the keys to the narcotic cupboard so I had to go back to the hospital. I was on-call last night after my shift and I'm really surprised that they didn't call me cause it was so busy when I left and it was a Friday night.
I think today is going to be a lazy day. My chef is almost finished cooking my breakfast so I'd better go. Have a good weekend!!

Have to mark the date

I have to mark the 13th as a forver special day rather than a bad luck day. It's been a month today since I met the most amazing man who makes me happier than I could ever imagine I'd be. I think I've probably told everyone about him but I have to make it 'official' by doing a blog post. We met in emerg at the hospital (see I knew the job change would be good for me!) and a few weeks later we met at the bar and the rest is history. It's only been a month but it already feels like we've been together a lifetime. The past month has been amazing and I can hardly wait to see what happens in the months to come!

Las Vegas tomorrow!

Oh my god I can't believe I leave for Las Vegas tomorrow. This has been a trip I've been waiting to go on for the last 18 months. Freaky coincidence I realized yesterday....last time I was planning on going to Vegas we were leaving on the 27th and I broke my neck on the 22nd and this time we're also booked to leave on the 27th! At least this time I survived the 22nd with no major accidents. I almost feel like I'm holding my breath just waiting to actually get there this time. Ever since we booked the trip my friend Allison (who I'm going with) has been asking me if I'm ok and if it bothers me at all that we're going on the trip that never happened before and I've always just brushed it off and said "of course, it doesn't bother me at all!" Although I admit, it does make me feel kind of anxious and scared although excited to go on the trip that I never made it on before. I think I'll be holding my breath until I acutally set foot in Las Vegas and then again until I make it home. Going on this trip is going to be one more milestone in the neverending journey of getting over my accident and come hell or high water I'm going to make it! I'm still a little scared though. *Deep breath* it's going to be ok.
I'm still soooooooo excited! I've been packed for the last 3 days and I just have a few more things to do today like go to the bank and get some American money and pack a few final things and then I'm all ready to go. I'm leaving the house at 8am tomorrow, meeting Allison at her house and we're taking a cab to the airport where we're meeting Andrea and then our flight leaves at 12:22pm and we arrive in Las Vegas at 8:22pm! Our flights are retarded. We go from Calgary to Edmonton, to Denver to Las Vegas. We're flying all over the country before we eventually get there! At least on the way home we have a direct flight. We leave on the 30th at 11:59pm and arrive home on the 31st at 4am. Not to worry, I'm going to sleep at Allison's for a bit before I drive home. Send me safe, healthy vibes this weekend and pray that I make it home ok.

Funny pics!

My Mac is soooo cool! Check out the funny pics that the webcam can take!

The Night Shift Turn Around

I've finally got this 'night shift turn around' thing down pat. I think so anyways, ask me how I'm feeling in a few hours and it might be a different story. Work called at 6am this morning and woke me up asking if I wanted to do a day shift and of course I screened the call and didn't answer as soon as I saw "Private" come up on the call display. It can only be one person calling if "Private" comes up, Monique from scheduling. We're on a first name basis and I know all about her kids and we've never even met, that's how often Monique from scheduling calls me. Anyways, so my cell phone wakes me up after an awesome 6hrs of sleep and I can't go back to sleep so I figured what the hell might as well go to work but I cheated and told them I couldn't be there till 11am cause I had an appointment, total lie but they're desperate for staff so I'm going to take advantage and have a lazy morning. I really should have taken the day off today since I rarely get days off anymore but hey...all in the name of Vegas baby! After working today I'll have made an extra $234.29 to spend at Victoria Secret. We leave in 14 days! 2 weeks!!!! Oh crap, know what I just realized?? Today is Friday the 13th and I'm leaving the house. The most accident prone, looking for a place to happen girl, is leaving the house on Friday the 13th. Oh well, I've already broken my neck once so I guess I can't do it again and really it can't get much worse than that, other than actually dying of course but I've proved that I have at least 9 lives, nevermind that I've probably used 5 of them. Speaking of my broken neck my massage therapist (yep I have my own massage therapist who I see once a week) says that we're making great progress. Yesterday she worked on breaking up the scar tissue around the plate and screws. Holy cow, let me tell you, what a weird feeling that was. Only slightly painful depending on where she pressed but before I started with the weekly massages my entire neck, from the base of my skull down into my shoulders felt like it was one solid piece. So yesterday I was lying on my back and she had my neck in her hands pressing on each of my vertabrae and I could actually feel them move! It was so weird. It was like bend, bend, not bending, not bending, not bending then bend. I could totally feel where the plate was when my neck wouldn't bend. It was only slightly painful but apparently that's a good thing although this morning it feels like I've had a major workout at the gym, which we all know hasn't happened in months and months, but she says it's good to be sore the next day cause that means the scar tissue is breaking up. So now all my pseudo muscle definition in my back and shoulders is going away cause she's working out all the scar tissue that was keeping my muscles so tight! Now I look like the unfit blob that I am! I guess that's the price I have to pay to be able to move my neck :) I'm going to see a neurologist next month too which is pretty exciting. He's going to do some nerve pathway studies (sounds kinda scary) to try and figure out where the numbness and tingling is coming from. I'm hoping that it's just from the tight muscles compressing the nerves and not from the actual fusion site. If it's from the actual fusion site I'm facing the choice of having decompression surgery on the nerves or living with it but because of the lawsuit I'll likely have to have surgery to prove that I've done everything I possibly can to get better. Cross your fingers for me that it's just from the muscles cause I don't think I can go through another sugery. Although decompression surgery isn't nearly as involved as the one I've already had. Any surgery from this point on would be a walk in the park. I'd better have some breakfast and get ready to go to work. Have a good weekend!

Extended Turkey Weekend

Since Sue and I both worked all weekend we're extending the holiday to Saturday when we'll finally get a chance to cook our turkey. They were 99 cents a pound at Safeway! I almost feel like I should have stocked up! If only I had more freezer space I would have! Turkey dinner is my absolute favorite! Especially our 'special' mashed potatoes that only mom, sue and I know about ;) Shhhh.....don't tell the family secret! Sue's friends Jake and Kim are also going to be here from Kamloops this weekend so we'll even have company for our turkey dinner.
Holy cow! I'm watching the news and a teenager in Quebec threw a house party this weekend while his mom was out of town and totally trashed the house. Almost $40,000 in damages and the mother pressed charges against him and rightfully so in my opinion. They have no furniture and basically only a frame of a house to live in. That must have been some house party! What's wrong with kids these days?!?!
I'm leaving for Las Vegas in 16 days! I'm sooooo excited. It's going to be warm and I plan on spending a lot of time soaking up the sun by the pool. We're going to take in all the sights, all the free shows, check out all the hotels and of course all the shops during the day and all the bars at night. It's going to be so much fun.
Mom, I know you're dying to hear about the weather and guess what?.....it's just like autumn here and no, we don't have any snow. It's chilly in the mornings but warms up by afternoon. Although the snow line is coming further and further down the mountains towards town so it's coming soon. It's really quite pretty here this time of year. The mountains are all snow covered the air is crisp and the sky is clear blue.

Is it really true??

am I really coming to the end of all my computer problems?? Not quite...almost...but not quite. Here's the problem. I finally have both my laptops at home and now I'm trying to set up the wireless router. It seems to be working on the HP but I can't seem to log into it on the Mac. It gives me the option of logging into it but then asks for my password and I enter what I think should be my password but it says it's incorrect. I don't get it. I'm positive that I'm using the right password but I guess not and I don't know how to change it. Anyone know how to change a password to a wireless internet connection?? I can't figure it out and when it comes to computers my brain turns into knots and I want to throw things I get so frustrated. Help me!

Love this time of year!

This is my favorite time of year. The leaves are either completely yellow or fallen off the trees, the mountains have snow but the sky is blue. I love Canmore!

Almost there....

I'm getting closer and closer to feeling comfortable calling myself an ER nurse. I'm LOVING it. I passed the ACLS (Advanced Cardiac Life Support) course this weekend. That was a HUGE stress and weight off my shoulders. It was a hard course and even at the end I wasn't all that confident that I'd pass but I did! I scored 88% and 85% on the written tests and a 'pass' on the 'mega code' That's all I needed. Now I'm certified to care for all cardiac patients and run a code (cardiac arrest) when a doctor isn't there, I'm in charge...ordering drugs, defibrillating...just like on ER. The only thing that I'm not certified to do is intubate adults which is silly cause I'm certified to intubate babies which is WAY harder than adults but that's ok cause I'm not all that eager to do it anyways. I worked the last 2 days in emerg, still orientating but pretty much doing everything on my own and just having someone else there to ask questions when I need to. I have two more evening shifts orientating and then I'm on my own in the ER next Tuesday night!
So far our condo hasn't sold yet. They've showed it to a few people but in my opinion it's overpriced. We talked to our landlord about it though and he assured us that if and when it does sell they'll do their best to find us a new place and likely even in the same building so we're ok with that.
I have the next two days off and I'm so excited. I have no idea what I'm going to do but hopefully I'm going to sleep in tomorrow!

Much improved

After a rocky start to my week, I'm happy to say that it has only improved. I'm heading into my last weekend of night shifts at the Foothills and I couldn't be more excited. Any shifts I book there now will be on my own accord. Even though I absolutely love, love, love my job at the Foothills I'm really looking forward to the new learning opportunities that the Canmore hospital is offering. I'm currently preparing for the ACLS (Advanced Cardiac Life Support) course at the end of the month. It's proving to be more challenging than I had expected. I don't know if it's the course material that's so challenging or the fact that my study skills aren't what they used to be. I still have 2 more weeks to prepare so that's what I'm going to be doing in most of my spare time. It's a $450 course, that the hospital will reimburse me but only if I pass so I can't afford to fail this one! I start my orientation in the ER on Tuesday. I'm so excited about it. I've always wanted to give the ER a try and no better place than a rural hospital where you're resources are limited so you have to be that much more on the ball with your assessments. It's going to be great, I can't wait!

What a day.....

What a day I'm having...and it's only 9am. I'm starting to think that I should have stayed in bed this morning. I got up at 7am prepared to go to the classroom orientation session at the Canmore hospital. The educator, that I've been trying to reach for a week, finally calls me at 7:50am, as I'm on my way out the door to tell me that I don't need to attend today. That's when I should have gone back to bed but since I was up I figured I should get some studying done for the ACLS course I'm taking in a few weeks. So I head off to Starbucks to get in some quality study time. When I was in university the only place I could actually study without being distracted was Starbucks. So I get there and I order my usual triple shot vanilla latte and settle into a table in the corner. Oh I forgot, before I went to Starbucks I went to the bank and decided to actually go into the bank rather than go through the drive-thru. I go to all the work of parking and walking into the bank only to find that that one machine they have is out of order. I walk all the way back to my car, get in and go through the drive thru where someone has ripped all the envelopes out of the envelope thingy so I have to actually get out of the car and find a suitable envelope off the ground to be able to deposit my cheque. Then I find out that the bank took out my car payment for my Civic by mistake so now I still have to deal with that today. Ok, now back to Starbucks. Since I was staying I asked for my latte in a mug, well what did I get, a to-go cup. Not a big deal but one more thing to add to my list of "things gone wrong" today. Then my latte tasted funny. Not sure what was wrong with it, either too much vanilla or they had previously used the milk container for soy or whole milk and then added skim, it tasted weird, and trust me, I've had enough of them to know what they should taste like, I can tell when there's something off about it! Don't mess with me and my latte!! So I've been in Starbucks for an hour tediously going over the ACLS textbook trying to stay awake and interested when I'm accosted by a group of about 10 mothers celebrating their kids return to school. The all piled into the table next to mine, even though there were other available tables and not only did they pile around the table, they completely blocked me into mine. There was no escape! I can usually concentrate really well at Starbucks but when you're surrounded by 10 mothers shouting at eachother about which class little Johnny was in and which teacher little Jane got stuck with this year and who was with their friends and who wasn't and who got stuck in a split class and who had male teachers who never take the effort to plan social activities so now the mothers would have to volunteer and if they want their children to have social activities then they'll just have to plan everything themselves....it went on and on and on.....and I'm blocked into my table with a little boy on the other side of me swinging his feet off his chair and inevitably kicking mine....I had to leave....but I was stuck! I packed up my stuff and no one even noticed that I was trying to get out until I loudly pushed my chair back, stood up and excused myself from their group. How rude! They were probably thinking the same thing of me but whatever. I was there first and they totally took over my space, not to mention that they blocked me into my space, when I was obvioulsy trying to study. I understand that Starbucks is a public place but come on people, have some respect for other people's space. I didn't want to go home because the house is a mess and that would only aggravate me further so here I am at the internet cafe which is blissfully quiet except for the girl across from me who keeps staring at me, what's that all about, is my hair sticking up? i don't think so...what's her problem? ARAGH. So even though I have internet at home now, here I am spending money on internet and getting stared at by a creepy girl just to stay away from my messy house, where's the logic in that? I think I'll go to Beamers, my other favorite coffee spot, get a matcha latte, some breakfast and try to do some more studying. I can't believe it's only 9am. What will the rest of the day have in store for me if this is the way it's started? I shudder at the thought. Wish me luck I think I'll need it.

Still Offline

I took the HP into Future Shop yesterday to see what they could do to fix it and it's going to take at least 2-3 weeks! The good news is that it is still covered under warranty if there's anyting wrong with the hardware. I think it's just a virus but who knows how much damage it's done. I feel so disconnected without my computer at home!

Nothing new happening lately....I bought 500 thread count bed sheets and it's like sleeping in a cloud of softness. When you have the bed of champions you have to have the sheets to match. It's tough getting out of bed now. God, that can't be the most exciting thing happening in my life lately! That's pretty pathetic. Ummm...there's gotta be something else...I worked overtime yesterday and we had 18 empty beds. I don't think I've ever seen that happen. It was the easiest overtime shift I've ever had. I hope it's like that next week cause I've got 3 shifts scheduled. Sue and I watched Texas Chainsaw Massacre tonight. It was gross, disturbing and too graphic and the fact that it's based on true events just creeps me out. I'm supposed to be studying for my ACLS (Advanced Cardiac Life Support) class that I'm taking in Sept but I'm procrastinating. It's just like I'm back at school. I used to be the master procrastinator and it's all coming back to me full force. It's going to be a tough course I should really be studying. Instead today I went to Banff, have been here twice today to check my email, went grocery shopping, cooked a casserole for my lunches next week which I havn't done in months and months, watched a movie, went out for a candy run, did laundry, had a bath and I think I might have read 5 pages of my textbook. Aragh....I guess I better go home.

Computer problems

The seemingly neverending computer battle rages on.... The PC now has a virus, for sure, and isn't working and the Mac is still being fixed in Toronto. I have two computers and neither one is working...what are the odds? It would only happen to me. So I'm going to be offline for a bit. I'm at an internet cafe right now and will try to get here as much as I can to keep you all posted on my life but no guarantees how often that will be. I can still check my email at work but likely won't have time to write too many so keep em coming but don't hold your breath for a quick response ;)

Let's see...what's new lately...

My friend Liz and her family were here for a short visit last week. It was great to see Liz, Justin and Hunter again. They introduced me to Bohnanza (I think that's what it's called??) It's a great game! I really enjoyed it, not to mention that I won! Yep, that's right Jen! I won! I think they took it easy on me though. It's too bad we couldn't spend more time together but unfortunately I had to work the next day. Work always gets in the way of having a real life! Gotta do something about that. Better start buying lottery tickets I guess.

Work is great though. I'm really lucky to be one of those few people who can genuinely say that they love their job. I hate having to get up at 4:30am when I work days and I hate having to stay awake all night when I work nights but when I'm there I really love what I do. It helps that I've had some really cool patients lately too, they make the days fun. I'm finishing out my last few weeks in Calgary and then I start my job in Canmore on Sept 19 (Sue's birthday!). I've completed my orientation to the Acute Care ward at the Canmore hospital and so far it's really great. They have a very knowledgeable staff and a lot of them are around my age so it's fun. They've been really good about offering education opportunities and I'm already registered for the Advanced Cardiac Life Support course and there's a few more coming up this fall/winter that I'll be able to take. There's lots of courses for pediatric emerg and trauma nursing so I'm excited about that.

My new car is still AWESOME! I'm really, really enjoying it. I think I made the right choice between the Vibe and the Matrix cause now I see the Matrix's on the street and I really like the look of the Vibe a lot better. It's an awesome car. I'm so happy with it. I'll post a pic somtime. Just gotta take on first!

Sue and I spent the day in Calgary today trying to get some stuff done but nothing seemed to work out the way it should have. Although, Sue was successful in getting new tires for her car and we got a water cooler that we've been needing for a really long time so I guess it wasn't all a loss. We were going to go to Ikea to get some shelves to hold our DVD collection but were too tired to drive to the other end of the city and decided to just come home and deal with that another day. Our DVD collection is way over 100 now and we desperately need better storage for them. Or stop buying DVD's, one or the other. There's a movie store in town that sells previously viewed DVD's for super cheap, 5 for $25. Not to mention that we're still addicted to eBay and buy movies there too. I recently bought Hotel Rwanda, my favorite movie of all time, on eBay for $1.99!

That's all for now....

Major Update!

Alright, back by popular demand.....my old blog! People didn't like that you couldn't comment on the other one so I'm back to posting here. I'll try to keep this short but there have been some major developments in my life the last month or so since I've posted here.

First of all, my new computer, the Mac, crashed not even a month after I bought it. Unbelievable eh? Actually it didn't crash the backlight died on the screen so it would turn on but I couldn't see anything. Luckily it's under warranty so it's off being fixed as we speak. What's even more unbelievable is that my old PC laptop that I thought had crashed, hence the reason why I bought the Mac, is now working again as though nothing was wrong with it! So now I have two laptops! I must say though that I do prefer the Mac to the PC so I'm eager to get it back up and running.

I got a job at the Canmore hospital! My temporary position at the Foothills in Calgary is ending in a few weeks so the timing couldn't be better. I started orientation last Thursday and so far I'm really enjoying it. It's a small hospital so I'll be working in all areas, acute care, emergency and labor and delivery. I'm feeling much more confident in my skills and knowledge than I had expected to feel. I was nervous because I've become so specialized in postpartum and now I'm back to medical, surgical, cardiac, psychiatric, palliative, everything patients. I havn't started my ER orientation yet and that's the area where I'll need the most orientation since I've never done it before. I'm really excited about being in the delivery room again. It's been a long time since I've been in a delivery but I seem to know more about it than some of the people orientating me! I guess my postpartum/antepartum knowledge does transfer over somewhat. So I know own a permanent 0.70 part time position. I've never, in my almost 4 years of nursing, had a permanent job in the hospital. Just another reason why I should stay in Canmore forever! I love it here and now that I have this job, I have no reason to leave.

I bought a new car! I traded in my 2002 Honda Civic for a brand new 2006 Pontiac Vibe. I pick it up tomorrow. There were a lot of factors contributing to the decision to trade in and it was a tough one but I'm happy now that it's all over. I tried to sell it privately but didn't get any interest so I relented and traded it at the dealership. I know I didn't get what it was worth but I didn't do too bad either considering all the km's I put on it commuting all these years. So now in 5 years, if I'm unable to work at least I'll have a 4 door, practical vehicle paid off so it will be one less payment that I have to work for.

I've started physiotherapy for my neck. It's going to be a very, very, very long process and after a few weeks I havn't felt much improvement but I'm still optimistic. I had an x-ray done and it was "normal" well except for the metal plate and screws in there but at least there's no degeneration of my vertabrae below the fusion. That's the risk in the future, having the rest of my neck degenerate because it's compensating for the loss of motion in the upper half of my neck. So we're working on loosening my mid/upper back so that it's compensating for the fusion rather than my neck. It's tough and I have a lot of stretching exercises to do. I've lost pretty much all deep muscle function in my neck so my jaw, traps, shoulders and accessory muscles are all compensating for that loss which is why I'm so sore all the time. I need to build up as much of that deep muscle as I can as well as learn how to fit my limitations into my natural environment. Right now we're still in the very basic stages of loosening my muscles that seem to be tense from my head to my butt and getting more range of motion out of my lower vertabrae. So I'm doing physio 3 days a week and massage therapy once a week. For $800/month in rehab expenses it had better work but really, at this point, I'd pay anything to get my active lifestyle back.

Let's see what else is new with me....that's pretty much the highlights, life is good.

New computer!

My computer crashed on Tuesday :( So I bought a new one! I was thinking of getting a new one anyways and I ended up getting the Mac that I had been looking at. You can check it out at futureshop.ca or on a post I made a few weeks ago. So far I'm really liking it. It is a lot different than operating Windows so I went to the library and got Mac for Dummies. The guy at Future Shop says that it takes a few months to really get used to operating a Mac. The multimedia options are awesome! I even have a built in WebCam. I bought Microsoft Office for Mac so it's compatible with microsoft documents. Pretty cool eh? The only downside is that I had to buy the display model because it was the only one left in the entire province. The techs were supposed to reprogram it for me but something went wrong and now everything I try to do asks for a password that I don't have. They don't know what happened and can't fix it with me over the phone so I have to take it back in tomorrow to have it fixed properly. As long as they can slove the problem, I'm happy.

Happy Canada Day!

Happy Canada Day! Ok, I realize that I'm a day late but I've been working nights and when I work nights everything in my life other than work seems to happen a day later than it should. It's the "Night Shift Syndrome" Other symptoms include extreme mood swings, nausea, feeling as though you're on another planet, a level of fatigue that is unexplainable, complete loss of the english language and vocabulary, low self esteem (why the hell do I do this to myself, I'm a complete idiot), hate your job, hate yourself, hate everyone you work with (part of the extreme mood swings), complete loss of social/home/family life, extreme cravings for anything deep fried and unhealthy and when those symptoms become too much to handle there's always....career change. Fortunately I'm not there yet. I'd like to pay off the student loans for this career before starting another which means more student loans and more night shifts to pay them off. It's a never ending cycle, black hole, abyss of night shifts.
Anyways, back to Canada Day! I hope you all had fun celebrating the birth of our country. I was at work, of course, but we all gathered in the kitchen to watch the fireworks which were actually pretty good this year. It's a good thing the people I work with are like family to me otherwise I'd be a lot more upset having to be at work on a holiday. Actually, it's not a good thing that they feel like family because that means I'm spending too much time at work! Speaking of which, I have to get ready to go!

Everybody wants me....

I think I made the right choice when I decided to be a nurse. I'll never be short of work, ever. I worked 12hr nights all weekend and got home this morning feeling like a zombie, barely took my shoes off before falling into bed and when I woke up 6hrs later I had three messages from the staffing office asking me to come in for overtime. Days, nights, evenings, 8hrs, 12hrs, whatever I wanted for the rest of today and tomorrow. My 0.5 position is perfect cause extra shifts are double time so I'm making full time wages but not working full time. Why didn't I figure this out sooner? I've been busting my butt for the last 3 1/2 years working full time when I could have been less than full time but still getting paid as though I were. There's a few of us 'young ones' at work who have dropped to part time over the last few months and we're all kicking ourselves for not doing it sooner. It makes much more sense So I'm working 3pm-7pm on overtime tomorrow and told them that if they needed me to extend to 11pm I could do that too. A four hour shift really counts as 8hrs but it's only 4! This is so exciting and I got a raise too, well sort of $0.68 a hour or something like that for my third year of service! Yippee. Only 6 more years and I'm at the top of the payscale, halfway there! It's been a good day for me It's a good thing I can get so much overtime to combat my eBay addiction. I need to go to work so I'm not on eBay bidding on things that I'd never normally buy Stupid eBay!

Thinking of buying an Apple

I'm thinking of buying an Apple laptop. Anyone know anything about them? I like the features it offers for photos and such. This is the one I'm thinking of:

http://www.futureshop.ca/prodlink.asp?P=0665000FS10075463&L=EN

Check it out. Feedback would be greatly appreciated as I know next to nothing about computers.