Evolution

Well, my "mild-bronchitis but not really feeling sick anywhere else" has morphed itself into a full blown body-aching, sinus-swelling, mucous- dripping, throat-scarring something evil. And I woke up about 5 minutes too late to call out sick. Can I just tell you how miserable I am right now?

My throat is completely raw from too much coughing, to the point where I won't breathe deeply anymore because it will make me cough and it hurts too much.

My nose is red and horrid from blowing it so often with cheap tissues, made worse by having to wear masks all night and trapping it in a humid sickbreath-sauna.

My fingers and wrist are red and dry from washing my hands every time I blow my nose, which I've probably done at least once every 20 minutes.

My back and shoulders ache in that tired, sicky sort of ache that has no real source.

And let's not forget my hurting lower back, just part of the joy of being pregnant.

I cannot even tell you how excited I am to go home in 20 minutes. I am setting up a sick nest, and sleeping until Friday night.

Work and Life

I've been signing up for extra shifts here and there for the mad money. On President's day, they put me on call for half the shift (the half that I would have mad holiday pay for... boo!), then come Thursday for my mandatory on-call, we're suddenly understaffed, overbooked, and almost literally shoving patients into corners. We had one baby that had to hang out in the hall until we could find a room for her. Every unit in the hospital is double bunking, and we've starting setting up rooms for 3 patients that were really only ever meant to hold 2. It's craziness! Respiratory season has officially begun. Seriously, don't bring your small children outside. Embrace the bubble. It's worth it.

This doesn't really change how much I've been working, except that I'm definitely working all the extra shifts I'm signing up for. But I'm doing it to myself. Because I'm dumb. And the money is nice. But now it's coming back to haunt me.... I came home yesterday morning (after working 4.5 shifts in one week) with a gross productive cough. I don't feel sick at all, except for the cough, and now the secondary sore throat from coughing so much. But I think I'll take a voluntary "sick day" today, and lay around and drink a lot and not do much. At least until I have to go back to work tonight. And after I walk the dog. THEN I'm totally not doing anything else all day.

More shows I love to hate....

I caught the back half of a new (?) show tonight on TLC.... "Twins by Surprise." So I only saw two of the four cases, but those made me laugh, in a sad sort of way. The first delivered at home, with a "midwife" and a doula. I would bet $500 it was a lay-midwife. The second decided to do an unassisted home birth, no medical or wanna-be-medical personnel whatsoever. But don't worry, she researched on the internets, so she was practically like a doctor. The part that really made me laugh/cry was the first case when at the end, they were saying what a neat story it would be to tell their twins someday. Right. "Yeah kids, it was so awesome, we totally endangered your lives by not being prepared at all! How special is that? Love ya!" /eyeroll

Some Things

The real problem with working nights is not that I miss out on sleep... I make up for it throughout the week. The problem is it does weird things to my sleep schedule in general. Like if I fall asleep on the couch because my back is killing me and sleep for a few hours, my body assumes it's supposed to stay up all night. So I don't get back to sleep until after 3 AM. It's workable, but awkward, and annoying when you're awake at 1 AM with nothing to do.

I'm really annoyed with Facebook right now. Updates seem to disappear between one click and the next, and the consistency of what/who shows up has absolutely no rhyme or reason to it. It makes me wonder what I'm missing.

I haven't had any real cravings yet, except orange juice.... I drink about a gallon of that a week... But yesterday I was craving Arby's. Apparently, the baby disagreed. It's a weird feeling to crave something, love every bite, but have every bite make you almost barf. Totally worth it. I also got Trix, my other "real craving" right now. I'm trying not to eat a bowl for every meal, but I don't know how well I'm succeeding on that.

I have a lot of random thoughts lately. I bought a notebook to write them all down so I don't flood facebook/blogger with random thoughts nobody cares about. But I guess I don't care about you enough today.

lolz

(This is more for my husband, but it makes me giggle)

Reasons My Puppy Owns Your Puppy's Face

I was just talking to a friend about Chess, and realized it's been a while since I informed the general populace (who reads my blog) about why she is THE BEST PUPPY EVER IN EXISTENCE. Allow me to enlighten you. And make you jealous. You wish your dog was as cool as mine.

~ Her #1 motivation is.... us. Or people in general. As long as she gets petted and snuggled, she'll do anything you want, and is perfectly content.

~She doesn't come in our room unless she's invited. Or on the couches, or the chairs. She knows what her boundaries are and waits for us to tell her it's ok. (The giant bean bag chair is her giant dog bed, though, as far as she's concerned.)

~ I can walk her without a leash. I usually do. And she stays right by my side, even when crazy stupid neighborhood dogs are running out in the middle of the street and yapping at us.

~When we're walking without a leash, she automatically sits whenever I stop walking, and sits before kids come up to pet her.



~When Ben's 10 month old kid wants to climb all over her and pet her, she lays down so she doesn't knock him over.

~When Ben's 10 month old kid drops a tasty treat on the ground (well, throws) she listens when we tell her to leave it and just watches us pick it up with sad, hungry eyes

~ When I eat my dinner with my plate in my lap on the couch, at perfect puppy nose level, she listens when I tell her "Go away" (even though I usually have to remind her several times) and leaves my dinner alone. And watches me eat with sad, hungry eyes.

~ We never worry about her running out the door when we open it, or even leave it open. Unless she thinks she's going on a car trip, then she'll try to get to the car. But bolting is not in her vocabulary.

~ She respects the kitty's space, even though she's fifty times bigger (and the kitty is kindof a bitch).

~ She likes to learn new tricks, and gets SO EXCITED when I pull out the treats. And when she doesn't get what I'm saying, she runs through the gambit of everything she knows trying to figure it out. It's the silliest.

~ She's figuring out the "trick" that was the hardest thing for her to do not very long ago... Laying down on command, when she's not right next to us. She really struggled with this for a while, but she's doing awesome now! I'm so proud of her.



~ She's cute and little and awesome.