Saturday, February 2, 2008
That's it, I'm drinking bottled water
I had a glass of water this afternoon with ice in that I didn't finish drinking. Tonight I went to take a drink out of the glass.... Ugh, there were white floaty things in it. Yark! Where the heck did those come from? Yes - the glass was clean when I used it. Ugh. No doubt it was floatsum and jetsum from the Muddy Mo (I can't believe we get out drinking water from that disgusting river), or else it was a glob of fluoride, maybe even some blobs of some germ killing chemical... Whatever it was, I'm hitting the grocery store for a LOT of bottled water tomorrow. Gross.
Friday, February 1, 2008
I was right...
Today was much improved over yesterday! Still colder than heck out. I know we have it relatively easy compared to Minneapolis or Fargo, but it's still too cold for these aching bones. My brother suggested I move to a warmer climate, but I don't think we can afford to live anyplace warmer. Other people thought it was a good idea before us, so it's too expensive to live anywhere nice! I was reading in the Salt Lake Trib that they're expecting another snow storm this weekend. Park City, Utah, has exhausted their snow budget for the winter already. They've gotten a lot more snow than usual - so have we, really. By this time last year the snow was all gone and we didn't get any more for the rest of the winter that amounted to anything. I wonder if we're going to get the remnants of Utah's storm? That would be nice. Just keep the wood stove going, honey...
I moved my work computer into the newly repainted, smaller office today. It's so nice and cheery! Having 6 dogs keep me company gets a little crowded though. Still no word on a more permanent foster for Sophie. I really don't care, she's not that much trouble to have around. What's one more scoop of dog food when you're already feeding six? Her former owner called me tonight to check and see how she was doing. I feel so bad that they had to give her up. She'd like us to try and find Sophie a permanent home that will let her have "visitation" now and then. It's so nice to see someone care that much for their dog, so many are just dumped at the side of the road without a second thought. I feel sorry for the former owner's mom, she has Alzheimer's and they said at her adult day care the day after they surrendured Sophie she just cried all day long about her little dog. Poor thing. Sophie was sure a loved little girl, what a sad situation.
Steve wants to use the old home computer down by his radios, but he's going to have to get a new monitor. I didn't buy that huge flat screen so he could use it occasionally... As a matter of fact, we still have the old monstor monitor in the store room in the basement. He couldn't hear that noise it was making anyway, he can use that. There. Problem solved.
I see the morons at Westboro Baptist "Church" (and I use the term loosely) are going to picket at President Hinckley's funeral. What a bunch of dirtbags. That's been my opinon of them from the start. Every time they picket somewhere I'm sure they can't stoop any lower and then they do... I remember how horrified (for lack of a better word) I was when I found out they picket at funerals of soldiers killed in Irag. It just chaps my hide that these service men and women died so these idiots can have the freedom to picket at their funerals. That's just wrong on so many levels. It just boggles my mind that they can be so blind because of their perverted thinking they can't even be decent human beings. I'm glad they all found each other, nobody else wants them, that's for sure. Deluded nutcases, all of them. It's pathetic to think they're bringing children up to be such hatemongers. When I hear about people like them I almost wish the first amendment wasn't quite so liberal!
It's my weekend to work. Oh happy day. I hear the weekend is supposed to be relatively nice too, before it gets cold again next week. Bummer. The good thing about working weekends though is there's no set shift I have to work, so I can do a couple hours here and there and don't have to sit for 8 hours at a stretch. The bad thing is, I'm on call from 3:30 p.m. Friday until midnight on Sunday night, so I can't really go anywhere or do anything, that's the worst part.
My friend Dorothy sent me a quiz on "A Christmas Story" that was in their local paper. I'm looking forward to quizzing mom about it the next time I see her. As I mentioned before, that's her favorite movie and she's watched it over and over. It'll be fun to see how many questions she gets right!
Quote for this week - "The magic of first love is our ignorance that it can never end" Benjamin Disraeli. I kept forgetting to put this in earlier this week. I'll try to do better with my quote for next week. (Ha! Who am I kidding? I'll probably never remember to do it again!)
Stupid spellchecker isn't working, sorry for the typos - I'm sure there are some.
I guess that's it for today. Time to call it a night and hit the sack.
I moved my work computer into the newly repainted, smaller office today. It's so nice and cheery! Having 6 dogs keep me company gets a little crowded though. Still no word on a more permanent foster for Sophie. I really don't care, she's not that much trouble to have around. What's one more scoop of dog food when you're already feeding six? Her former owner called me tonight to check and see how she was doing. I feel so bad that they had to give her up. She'd like us to try and find Sophie a permanent home that will let her have "visitation" now and then. It's so nice to see someone care that much for their dog, so many are just dumped at the side of the road without a second thought. I feel sorry for the former owner's mom, she has Alzheimer's and they said at her adult day care the day after they surrendured Sophie she just cried all day long about her little dog. Poor thing. Sophie was sure a loved little girl, what a sad situation.
Steve wants to use the old home computer down by his radios, but he's going to have to get a new monitor. I didn't buy that huge flat screen so he could use it occasionally... As a matter of fact, we still have the old monstor monitor in the store room in the basement. He couldn't hear that noise it was making anyway, he can use that. There. Problem solved.
I see the morons at Westboro Baptist "Church" (and I use the term loosely) are going to picket at President Hinckley's funeral. What a bunch of dirtbags. That's been my opinon of them from the start. Every time they picket somewhere I'm sure they can't stoop any lower and then they do... I remember how horrified (for lack of a better word) I was when I found out they picket at funerals of soldiers killed in Irag. It just chaps my hide that these service men and women died so these idiots can have the freedom to picket at their funerals. That's just wrong on so many levels. It just boggles my mind that they can be so blind because of their perverted thinking they can't even be decent human beings. I'm glad they all found each other, nobody else wants them, that's for sure. Deluded nutcases, all of them. It's pathetic to think they're bringing children up to be such hatemongers. When I hear about people like them I almost wish the first amendment wasn't quite so liberal!
It's my weekend to work. Oh happy day. I hear the weekend is supposed to be relatively nice too, before it gets cold again next week. Bummer. The good thing about working weekends though is there's no set shift I have to work, so I can do a couple hours here and there and don't have to sit for 8 hours at a stretch. The bad thing is, I'm on call from 3:30 p.m. Friday until midnight on Sunday night, so I can't really go anywhere or do anything, that's the worst part.
My friend Dorothy sent me a quiz on "A Christmas Story" that was in their local paper. I'm looking forward to quizzing mom about it the next time I see her. As I mentioned before, that's her favorite movie and she's watched it over and over. It'll be fun to see how many questions she gets right!
Quote for this week - "The magic of first love is our ignorance that it can never end" Benjamin Disraeli. I kept forgetting to put this in earlier this week. I'll try to do better with my quote for next week. (Ha! Who am I kidding? I'll probably never remember to do it again!)
Stupid spellchecker isn't working, sorry for the typos - I'm sure there are some.
I guess that's it for today. Time to call it a night and hit the sack.
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Note to self - let the dachshunds fight it out.
DO NOT stick your hand in the middle of a dog fight. Idiot. I'm just thankful we don't raise BIG dogs.
Miss Sophie Playing Ball with Dad
The room is a mess because Steve isn't quite done painting, but that doesn't deter from the joy of a good game of catch!
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Day of Crap
Where do I start with what a lousy day this was? I'm trying to think of one redeeming thing that happned today... Oh yeah, my brother is sending me his old computer, which is newer than my computer and it has more memory and will run faster... Oh yeah. THAT is the one redeeming thing that happened today.
Slugatha is off work until the end of February. Her back hurts. Oh wah. Cry me a freaking river, chickadee. I don't know when my dear employer is going to realize that keeping this slacker on the payroll is costing them bucks. The funny thing is, we more caught up now than we were when she was working - and I don't think it's because there's OT either. I think there are only 3 people working any OT at all and at most 3 hours a week per person. That's about 1 of the slug's days, hour-wise.
We picked up a dog for NDR last night. I e-mailed Cheryl and told her we needed a foster home. She said okay and I haven't heard a word since. Which is good and bad. Good, because we really like the dog. Bad because Buttercup really doesn't like the dog and in the ensuing turf war this afternoon I got a nasty dog bite on my two middle fingers of my right hand. That's not exactly conducive to fast typing - and it hurts like the devil. I'm thinking maybe I should have gone to the ER to have somebody look at my one finger, there's a huge flap of skin that isn't going to come off on it's own I'm afraid, but it happened during work hours and I didn't want to go then, and now it's probably too late. I'll just have to wait and see how it heals.
Anyway, the new furkid is Sophie. She's an 8 year old black and tan female. She has more energy than the other 6 combined, I think. She loves to chase a tennis ball and will do it, quite literally, for an hour or more if you let her. She brings it right back to you too, none of this playing coy with the toy. She wants to RUN! She's very sweet, but kind of skittish around Steve, the male in her last household wasn't very good to her, so she's not liking men so much. She'll come around, if she stays.
Then I got an e-mail from my friend who had cancer surgery a couple months ago. She's had some problems since and was hospitalized for over a week last since her initial surgery. She since transferred to another doctor who sat down and reviewed her entire record with her and it seems the surgeon wasn't quite as forthcoming with her concerning her diagnosis as he should have been. The cancer had spread to other organs, which he didn't tell her about. She's opted for no more surgery and no chemo or radiation, and I respect her wishes, but it wasn't good news to hear. She's such a good person and a good friend.
The hospital called tonight because a patient was going to surgery and they needed the history typed right away. No problem. Usually. For some reason the next job in my queue, which automatically downloaded as soon as I finished the report I was typing when they called didn't load correctly and my computer locked up. Usually I can just exit the TA program and restart it, but for some reason tonight the entire computer locked up so I had to restart - which is a royal pain in the rear. I have to connect to the hospital VPN and then map the drives, which for some reason takes about 3-4 minutes. Then open the TA program and wait for 6 jobs to download before I can open the first one. Then, since I had a STAT that wasn't entered as such, I had to assign the job to me, which takes another 3-4 minutes. I went through all of that and the darn thing still locked up. I had to call our lead to see if she could get the job typed while I restarted the computer again. I was not a happy camper and I'm sure the OR staff wasn't too happy with me either! Then about 9:30 the hospital called again and said a patient was being transferred to Omaha via helicopter and they needed a consult which the doctor had just dictated. Again, no problem. Excpet for some reason the job didn't download into the system for about 5 minutes. In the meantime I called the hospital back to make sure he had dictated it into our system and not the hospital where the patient was being transferred and about that time it finally showed up in the work queue. Grrrrr.... I then allocated it to myself and it didn't load, which locked up the computer again. I wish I could have checked by blood pressure at that point, I'm sure I would have set some kind of record. I restarted the computer again and it locked up again! I finally got the job done, but it took nearly an hour. Ugh.
Well, it's 6 minutes to midnight, so tomorrow is going be a better day! There's always tomorrow...
Night!
Slugatha is off work until the end of February. Her back hurts. Oh wah. Cry me a freaking river, chickadee. I don't know when my dear employer is going to realize that keeping this slacker on the payroll is costing them bucks. The funny thing is, we more caught up now than we were when she was working - and I don't think it's because there's OT either. I think there are only 3 people working any OT at all and at most 3 hours a week per person. That's about 1 of the slug's days, hour-wise.
We picked up a dog for NDR last night. I e-mailed Cheryl and told her we needed a foster home. She said okay and I haven't heard a word since. Which is good and bad. Good, because we really like the dog. Bad because Buttercup really doesn't like the dog and in the ensuing turf war this afternoon I got a nasty dog bite on my two middle fingers of my right hand. That's not exactly conducive to fast typing - and it hurts like the devil. I'm thinking maybe I should have gone to the ER to have somebody look at my one finger, there's a huge flap of skin that isn't going to come off on it's own I'm afraid, but it happened during work hours and I didn't want to go then, and now it's probably too late. I'll just have to wait and see how it heals.
Anyway, the new furkid is Sophie. She's an 8 year old black and tan female. She has more energy than the other 6 combined, I think. She loves to chase a tennis ball and will do it, quite literally, for an hour or more if you let her. She brings it right back to you too, none of this playing coy with the toy. She wants to RUN! She's very sweet, but kind of skittish around Steve, the male in her last household wasn't very good to her, so she's not liking men so much. She'll come around, if she stays.
Then I got an e-mail from my friend who had cancer surgery a couple months ago. She's had some problems since and was hospitalized for over a week last since her initial surgery. She since transferred to another doctor who sat down and reviewed her entire record with her and it seems the surgeon wasn't quite as forthcoming with her concerning her diagnosis as he should have been. The cancer had spread to other organs, which he didn't tell her about. She's opted for no more surgery and no chemo or radiation, and I respect her wishes, but it wasn't good news to hear. She's such a good person and a good friend.
The hospital called tonight because a patient was going to surgery and they needed the history typed right away. No problem. Usually. For some reason the next job in my queue, which automatically downloaded as soon as I finished the report I was typing when they called didn't load correctly and my computer locked up. Usually I can just exit the TA program and restart it, but for some reason tonight the entire computer locked up so I had to restart - which is a royal pain in the rear. I have to connect to the hospital VPN and then map the drives, which for some reason takes about 3-4 minutes. Then open the TA program and wait for 6 jobs to download before I can open the first one. Then, since I had a STAT that wasn't entered as such, I had to assign the job to me, which takes another 3-4 minutes. I went through all of that and the darn thing still locked up. I had to call our lead to see if she could get the job typed while I restarted the computer again. I was not a happy camper and I'm sure the OR staff wasn't too happy with me either! Then about 9:30 the hospital called again and said a patient was being transferred to Omaha via helicopter and they needed a consult which the doctor had just dictated. Again, no problem. Excpet for some reason the job didn't download into the system for about 5 minutes. In the meantime I called the hospital back to make sure he had dictated it into our system and not the hospital where the patient was being transferred and about that time it finally showed up in the work queue. Grrrrr.... I then allocated it to myself and it didn't load, which locked up the computer again. I wish I could have checked by blood pressure at that point, I'm sure I would have set some kind of record. I restarted the computer again and it locked up again! I finally got the job done, but it took nearly an hour. Ugh.
Well, it's 6 minutes to midnight, so tomorrow is going be a better day! There's always tomorrow...
Night!
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Tuesday morning blahs
I'm on call until 4 a.m., so I'm considering staying awake and trying to decide what to do. If I hadn't watched the weather tonight I could sure tell you a cold front is on its way in, I can hardly move from my chair. I'm creaking and groaning more than the house! I was supposed to drive up to the hospital tomorrow morning for some meeting on our insurance benefits, but since there's snow, blowing snow, and an wind chill expected to be about -10 in the morning, I think I'm not going anywhere. They'll be lucky if I get out of bed in time to go to work at 3:30 in the afternoon!
I'm on pins and needles (note the sarcasm) to see if Slugatha (aka night-time coworker) is going to decide to have surgery on her back or not. She was off all last week because her back hurt and she was supposed to go to the doctor today so she took tonight off (explain to me why you have to take the night off for a doctor's appointment when you start work at 8 p.m.). Supposedly she and her doctor were going to decide if needs another surgery when she had her appointment today. Personally, I think she's looking for a 6-week paid vacation since she has no PTO time left, but hey, that's just me. She'd like the little boy who cried wolf, unless I see her personally get hit by a bus, I wouldn't believe her if she told me.
Steve has the the small room all painted for me to use as a new office. Cox is coming out on Wednesday to put another cable connection in that room, so I can move my office in there. It looks really bright and nice. I didn't realize how dark the gray walls were before. I chose a pretty light yellow, but it sure brightened the place up. I'm looking forward to getting some curtains and getting my office stuff moved in there. It'll be a job, but to be warm at night while I'm working will be well worth it. I have to admit though, the little heater I got the other night does a good job keeping me warm if I remember to turn it on an hour or so before I work. The dogs love it too, they've all been as close to it as I let them. The unit itself gets hot, which is the only drawback, so I make sure the doglets don't get too close. I'd hate to have them burn themselves on it.
After 1 week of prednisone I don't think Toby is seeing any better. I was kind of hopeful last week after he had taken about 4 days worth, I waved my hand in front of his eyes and he blinked, but he hasn't since, so... He's adjusting pretty well. He's back to being surly when I change his belly band and doesn't want to just lie on the sofa anymore, he prefers to be out and about. I think he was just a little depressed and scared about the sudden change in his sight. Poor thing. I still let Steve do as much as possible with him, I value my fingers.
Well, I'm going off in search of a good book to keep me awake a little while longer. Even though I've caught up on all the stuff that should be needed for work I just know as soon as I fall asleep the hospital will call for something. Of course, if I say up, they won't call, that's just the way it works isn't it? Wow, they were right about the cold front blowing through, I hear the wind howling as I type. Brrrr...
Happy dreams.
I'm on pins and needles (note the sarcasm) to see if Slugatha (aka night-time coworker) is going to decide to have surgery on her back or not. She was off all last week because her back hurt and she was supposed to go to the doctor today so she took tonight off (explain to me why you have to take the night off for a doctor's appointment when you start work at 8 p.m.). Supposedly she and her doctor were going to decide if needs another surgery when she had her appointment today. Personally, I think she's looking for a 6-week paid vacation since she has no PTO time left, but hey, that's just me. She'd like the little boy who cried wolf, unless I see her personally get hit by a bus, I wouldn't believe her if she told me.
Steve has the the small room all painted for me to use as a new office. Cox is coming out on Wednesday to put another cable connection in that room, so I can move my office in there. It looks really bright and nice. I didn't realize how dark the gray walls were before. I chose a pretty light yellow, but it sure brightened the place up. I'm looking forward to getting some curtains and getting my office stuff moved in there. It'll be a job, but to be warm at night while I'm working will be well worth it. I have to admit though, the little heater I got the other night does a good job keeping me warm if I remember to turn it on an hour or so before I work. The dogs love it too, they've all been as close to it as I let them. The unit itself gets hot, which is the only drawback, so I make sure the doglets don't get too close. I'd hate to have them burn themselves on it.
After 1 week of prednisone I don't think Toby is seeing any better. I was kind of hopeful last week after he had taken about 4 days worth, I waved my hand in front of his eyes and he blinked, but he hasn't since, so... He's adjusting pretty well. He's back to being surly when I change his belly band and doesn't want to just lie on the sofa anymore, he prefers to be out and about. I think he was just a little depressed and scared about the sudden change in his sight. Poor thing. I still let Steve do as much as possible with him, I value my fingers.
Well, I'm going off in search of a good book to keep me awake a little while longer. Even though I've caught up on all the stuff that should be needed for work I just know as soon as I fall asleep the hospital will call for something. Of course, if I say up, they won't call, that's just the way it works isn't it? Wow, they were right about the cold front blowing through, I hear the wind howling as I type. Brrrr...
Happy dreams.
Monday, January 28, 2008
WOW! Warm weather alert
Oh my gosh - It's 50 degrees outside right now, it's supposed to be 56 by afternoon's end! Isn't that great! Woo hoo.... Oh wait, the high tomorrow is supposed to be 19 with snow?!
Oh living in Nebraska sucks.
Oh living in Nebraska sucks.
Sunday, January 27, 2008
Good bye President Hinckley
I knew this day was coming sooner or later, but I'm so sad that our prophet and the leader of the LDS church has passed away. He was one of my favorite prophets, next to Spencer W. Kimball, and although I know he will be missed so much, I'm sure there's a grand reunion in heaven between President Hinckley and his beloved Marjorie, who he has missed so much. Here's the link from CNN.
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