Someone has a boyfriend....

Paisley and Buster
Pais says she's in love. His name is Buster and he's several years younger than her. She however is much smarter and mature. All I can say is the only thing cuter than one pug is two. : )

Besides following my dog's love affair.....I took my 4th test Friday. Only one more! Friday night I had a much needed catch up with some good friends and their husbands. One is 18 or so weeks pregnant (sorry Mere I can't remember!). She and her husband are having a boy in September. VERY exciting. Jimmy and Tara came out as well with cutie pie Norah. She managed to chill and doze throughout dinner commotion and loud cars and motorcycles passing the patio. Such a good baby. What a difference a year makes! I played on the same kickball team with all of them about a year and a half ago. Very random. In case you didn't know there is a World Adult Kickball Association....WAKA. We had games every wed night. Good times. Mom and Dad came for the day yesturday to do a little shopping. Always glad to see them. And now I'm having the most relaxing Sunday that I've had in a while. This morning I ran about 4 miles with Tara and Becky. Tara had Norah 5 months ago and Becky is 33 weeks pregnant. Impressive to say the least. At one point I was struggling up a hill a bit and I thought "seriously Meredith you are the only one that isn't post pardom or with child, step it up!". I can only imagine us in a few months when baby girl and Norah are both big enough for running strollers. Three girls, two babies, and two dogs! Oh my!

Blog threats

I got an email today from a friend threatening to take me off her blog list if I didn't start updating more regularly. I know I have totally fallen off the wagon. It sort of feels like the blog is like that friend that you need to call and want to call, but it's been so long since you caught up you know it's gonna be a long conversation so you need to plan to have enough time to talk. So you don't call and you put it off and then it sort of snowballs on you. So thats where I am...under the snow. : ) But yes I'm still here and kickin. Only 3 more full weeks in this semester! I have learned so much. I feel like I know another language. And you wouldn't believe the stuff they let me do! All supervised of course. Basically during my two days a week in clinical I provide almost 100% of care for my patient. This includes vitals signs every few hours, giving scheduled and as needed medications, monitoring their i's and o's (ins and outs..yeah the outs are less fun), pulling out catheters, changing dressings, bed baths, changing sheets, all kinds of fun stuff! When you are a nursing student you can't have the nursing assistants do things like bed baths and sheet changes. It all falls to you, but typically you don't have to do that all the time when you are a nurse. But it's far from glamerous thats for sure. Luckily it takes A LOT to gross me out. Being on the Ortho floor has been fun, but I'm looking forward to my pediatrics class and clinical this summer. Along with that I'll be taking a psych class, human growth and development. It looks like in the fall I'll have behavoiral health for 7 weeks, then maternity. Basically all 65+students all start out in 101 and then we rotate through the 7 week long intermediates at various times. It's sad because friends I have now in 101 I may not have another class with until 202, our senior level course. I think in the spring i'll have adult health 1 and then adult health 2. Then just 202 and I'll be done! Sounds simple right? You do get to "track" with someone. That means you'll go through all of your intermediates together. My friend Kristie and I are tracking together. We sat beside each other at orientation and then ended up being in the same clinical group. At times this semester I felt like we have shared a brain. It's only going to get worse from here!
Ok blog, it was nice to catch up. I'm beat now and heading to bed. This weekend I went to three babyshowers in 24 hours, one of which I helped host. I'll post about that soon. Below are some recent pictures. Two are from my 29th bday celebration and the other is just the pug doing what pugs do best...finding down comforters to snuggle up on. ; )

The BIG 6-0!

Happy 60th Birthday to the BEST daddy in the world! Thank you for always loving me so well. I hope you have had a great day! For those of you who know my dad well, you know he'll be the oldest living boy scout one day. He celebrated today by working on the chicken "palace" after work and tonight by going to serve boy scout troop 420 at their regular tuesday night meeting. If theres one thing you can learn from him it is that it's the simple things in life that make it worthwhile. Thank you dad for that lesson and countless others!
Love you!
Mere (and Pais)

Yes it's been a while...

I am still alive! Just super busy with school the past few weeks. I can't believe it's March 1st! wow! Where did February go?! Last week I had clinical days on tues/wed and then a big test on Friday. Pharmacology was not my friend. Glad that one is behind me. As always the weeks are flying by. Last week in clinical I got to go to the OR with my patient. This was an awesome experience. Being on the ortho unit our patients are regularly in the OR, pre op, post op, etc. But often they are taken down to surgery before we come onto the floor for the day or they are already on post op day 1. Well when I came in on tuesday morning I was told that my patient was going down to the OR at 10:30 and to see if I could go. This basically entailed following whoever came to get my patient for surgery. : ) I went down to pre op with him and saw the anesthesia consult. Then I was taken to the surgical locker room to change into OR scrubs. Weird, communal scrubs. Not sure how I feel about that. Soon after we were in the OR room. My patient was sedated, intubated, covered and smothered with blankets and sterile sheets, injected with IV's, fluids, you name it! The CRNA (the nurse anesthetist) let me start a 16 gauge IV! That was the first time ever I had stuck a real patient. He was already knocked out. I told the CRNA I had never done this and she said "thats ok, he's not going to move". It was a 3+ hour surgery. The patient was having his knee replacement replaced and fixing a break in his femur. Basically he was getting a lot of new parts. Bless his heart. They had his knee all loosey goosey at one point. You could have thrown it over his shoulder. I mean it was empty! I did very well. At the beginning of the surgery the doctor asked me if I had eaten that day and told me where I could sit should I feel lightheaded. It didn't bother me at all! There was lots of blood, burning flesh, sawing, drilling, you name it! Maybe the OR is my calling? Most of my time was spend at the head of the bed with the CRNA. She was great to explain to me what was going on and what she was monitoring. Half way through the surgery I declared I was never going to run again. It just doesn't seem worth the risk of loosing my knees! Of course I haven't quit running but....I see the importance of cross training for sure.
After my test on friday I hit the road and headed to laurinburg. Nick was coming through town so I went to see him and the whole fam could be together. I'm lucky I made it out of there alive. Dad came home Friday with pink eye and mom had an awful head cold. I had to do everything but tape dad's hands to his sides to keep him from touching things. Seriously he tried to set the table. I explained to him if I got pink eye I could not go to school. Not class, not lab, nada. It was nice to be at home. When Nick and I are home we bump up the dog count to six. This involves an extensive baby gate/bungy cord system on multiple levels and entrances of the house. The beagle can't go out with the anatolian shepherd, the pug tries to get into the garage to eat the big dogs food, the big white dog can't be trusted...the list goes on. Below are photos of the farm. Mom's chickens, "lamby" the currently bottle fed baby lamb (all bottle fed lambs are dubbed lamby), the multitude of dogs, the collard grave yard (the cold weather has done them in), dad's farm bell that nick and I gave him for christmas, and a few other random shots.

Snow?!

I can't believe this is the second snow we've had in a few weeks. Both happened on a Friday night and want to ruin any chances I might have of a productive weekend. I know we never get snow and I should be happy for the kids to play in it, blah blah blah, but I'm not. ha! I'm a scaredy cat when it comes to driving in it so it just makes me feel like I'll now be a hermit all weekend. Hopefully it won't cramp my weekend plans too much (although it has already killed the 6 mile run I had planned to run with Joelle). Pais says she is having no part of the snow. I don't let her off leash but I knew there was no way she was going to run off the front porch into that snow this morning. She can't even stand rain. On a positive note (yeah I know there aren't any of those yet in this post...) I have lots of school stuff I can do, a new knitting project started, and luckily food and booze in the house should the neighbors and I really get stuck in the house!

Girls weekend 2010

Just about every year me and my high school girlfriends get together for a weekend. We are attempting to ensure this happens every year by doing it the same weekend in February and alternating who the planner is. So far we're taking turns, oldest to youngest. Next year is my turn! It was such an awesome weekend and one I had been looking forward to for some time. These girls are my heart. No matter the distance or time apart we always pick back up and in a matter of minutes are laughing and cutting up like it's 1997 again. There are six of us including me, but there were seven. Almost a year ago our sweet Amanda lost her battle to pancreatic cancer. It wasn't the same without her. We were down at the beach, which was one of her favorite places. I think we all felt her in the winter sunshine and the beautiful views seen from the ocean front house.
I've known all of these girls for at least 15 years, some more. Sort of crazy considering that we aren't even 30 yet. Lots of girls in high school have petty fights and can be down right mean to each other. We were so lucky to have always been kind to each other. Some of my best memories with these girls.....Anchor club dances, Proms, Spring Break at Cherry Grove, Pucking Felicans with Parker, Homecoming, Drafting class, Sleep overs, The Cabin, MD 20/20 (ha!), Road trips in college, NYC visits, weddings, showers, being with Amanda at Hospice and scrap-booking for her, and now babies. I'm so proud of these girls. Three of the six have masters degrees and three are working mothers as well. They are beautiful and talented. Most importantly they know me better than almost anyone and STILL love me. ha! Currently I"m the only one not married. I think they were expecting better single girl stories from me. Sorry ya'll, I'll try to do better next year.
We lounged in our pj's, stayed up late, watched several movies, and had afternoon margariatas (evening margaaritas too!).

Awesome starfish that Becca and Laura found on the beach Sunday morning




This is the kind of view I like to wake up to


Not sure we had enough food.... ; )


At the beach Feb '10



At home Jan '09, almost the exact same pictures. Just different mexican restaurant! The only sad thing about being with them is that time goes by too quickly. It seemed like in a blink of an eye it was Sunday and time to leave. Typically we see each other at home or through quick visits with each other, but I bet it will be next February before we are all together again. I can't wait!

For the love of the cafeteria

Yes it's strange, but I love a cafeteria. This probably started at the mall in Fayetteville at a very young age going to Morrison's cafe. The options were endless. Fried chicken, mac and cheese, jello cut into cool little blocks (sorry mom you jello in Pyrex bowls was not near as exciting. Don't forget the strawberry shortcake. Anything with cool whip still rocks my world. When I lived in NYC I had a friend who worked in a prominent publishing building not far from where I was in school/working. We met for lunch about once a week and I always hoped she would want to eat in her cafe. It was subsidized by the company and seemed way cheaper than our Cosi (another fav lunch spot) salads and bread. The only thing my cafeteria is lacking that made hers hold a huge spot in my heart was that hers had "by the ounze" froyo. Frozen yogurt people! as much or as little as you wanted. toppings too. Yeah it doesn't take much to make me happy. of my favorite things about nursing school and being in the hospital every day is the cafeteria! This cafeteria very loosely resembles ole Morrison's. There is fried chicken on Wednesdays and cool jello and pudding cups. However there are lots of healthy options including a "by weight" salad bar, baked chips, hummus and taboule wraps, bulk dried fruit, nuts, it's all there! I've always been an avid lunch packer. This is for monetary as well as weight watching reasons. My days in clinical are long. We meet in the cafeteria for pre conference and I get an orange or some (affordable REAL) mixed fruit to supplement my Lara bar. Then it's a long time from 7:30 to noon. During this time I'm almost 100% on my feet and moving. So when lunch comes around I happily indulge in the healthy and affordable lunch options that the cafeteria has to offer me. I've decided this is a well deserved treat for these long stressful days. I have seriously considered taking fellow cafeteria lover friends on a field trip there for lunch one day. I feel I should share the love. : )
To continue with this being the most random post....I feel like being in the hospital in my scrubs I'm with "my people". Another nursing friend has used this term with me before. We'll be out to lunch and she sees nurses in scrubs and says they are her people. In the world of the hospital everyone is walking around in pajama like scrubs, going about their daily business, and according to what they wear you know their job. The doctors in one color, OR nurses matching them, techs in light blue, nursing students in white and teal,etc. It makes it very nice and visually organized, which I must say I enjoy. What if at the bank the vp's wore red ties and the svp's wore blue? ha! However as much as I do love my scrubs and their pseudo cast system, by the end of a day in the hospital, I'm barely through my front door when I am stripping off those scrubs. You start to think about where you have been and what you have done during the hours that you were wearing them. Yuck! Sorry no pictures in this post. I did search google images for pictures of pretty cups of jello in cut glass bowls, but had no luck!