Fun with the Fingerprints

I love to read and I especially love to read the newspaper which is why I thought I'd pass this little tidbit on to all you in adoption land.

The US is preparing for another census. Since there are over 305 million people living in the US they will need 3.8 million workers to help with the effort. HOWEVER, they will all need to be fingerprinted and undergo an FBI back ground check. Does that sound familiar? Doesn't CIS send our prints to the FBI to scan through their databases before we receive a 171H? If so, I feel very very sorry for both CIS and FBI.

Fun with Eggs

Scrambled eggs aren't supposed have blue and green in them with crunchy stuff, are they? I'm concerned. I tried to pick around it and eat only those parts that looked yellow, but who the heck knows at this point. The breakfast at the hotel always starts nicely on Monday but quickly turns bad. By Friday I'm probably going to be picking through moldy bagels and the fruit will have turned south.

I did make a Target run last night and have a new package of Rolaids Plus (with gas relief...haha) to help with the other effects of the food. Only 60 more hours and I will be home!

Fun with Cheese

I'm not actually lactose intolerant. I am allergic to casein, a milk protein, but the end result is the same. Evidently the Texans put cheese on EVERYTHING...even things mid-westerners don't (hello...we have a lot of cows too, but c'mon, this is crazy). Yesterday afternoon was rough. In addition to the little caffeine issue I am having, they had to heap lots and lots of cheese. Yesterday's lunch was pretty much cheese with a side of lettuce. I can't tell you how hard I squirmed in my seat. Today's lunch was better (but this was after a cheesy breakfast--I just don't understand!), but it was still cheesy. Oy, the pain! All I could think of was the above scene from the movie French Kiss. That is exactly what it is like and I was quite concerned I was going to have to return to the hotel. Fortunately ibuprofen and naprosyn usually help and today I called on both of them. Ugh. NO MORE CHEESE. I guess I will be eating Japanese or Chinese food whenever I can.

Otherwise things are fine. I did discover that Texas has these nasty little biting ants no bigger than a fleck of dust. Wow, did that bugger sting.

I'm beginning to wonder if I should start selling my rain-giving services to people. Every time I visit Dallas they start having terrible thunder storms and tornadoes. Evidently they have been in a drought--less than 12 hours after arriving it starts to storm and the locals are happy. The same thing happened a couple of weeks ago in Georgia. They've had a nasty drought the past year or so. I arrive and within 12 hours they start having torrential rains. Hmmm...I may need to take my little act on the road.

Fun with Caffeine

I'm caffeine sensitive. Honestly, get two Cokes in me and I act like a drunk college girl, just without the nudity. So yesterday I'm slamming Diet Cokes down because I have a hard time sitting still for 8 hours concentrating on a lecture about programming, when it hits me...a Diet Coke buzz! Seriously, it was crazy. It hit in the afternoon and although I was tired, I felt like I was going to start crawling out of my skin. I contemplated getting up and pacing the halls, but I was a little concerned that was a one-way ticket to a 72 hour mental eval hold at the local hospital (considering EVERYONE in the classroom, including the instructor, are or were ED nurses it seemed like a bad idea). So today I am loaded up on cheese (oy, my poor belly), sugar and Diet Coke. Not sure what the day will hold, but I'm betting it will be exciting!

Thankful

I know I've been a bit irritable lately, but I have not been so far gone that I am not thankful for the people and things in my life.  Between the "waiting-for-a-referral" exhaustion prior to September 1st and all the on-call and over time at work I'd become rather out of sorts.  Definitely not feeling like me.  The past couple of days have been better and I am struck by the beauty of small things.  And little events.  And people's un-ending generosity in times of need--whether physical or emotional support.  Today I was driving down the road with my windows and sunroof open feeling the warmish cool breeze on my skin and I realized it has been ages since I have felt this way.  Free again.  And I know I am in the midst of transition and it doesn't scare me or worry me like it normally would.  Instead, I was able to enjoy the moment and appreciate that although this moment won't last long, neither will the difficult ones.  While I am often anxious to move forward with the next big thing in life, I have become so aware of late that I need to appreciate this moment.  Now.  Life changes and sometimes these changes are desired and sometimes they aren't.  Even when it is something that I want, there are often ripple effects throughout other parts of my life.  That being said, here are the highlights of what I am appreciating right now:

• It is fall, glorious fall!  I love the way the temperature changes.  I might be freezing as I go to work in the morning, but as the sun begins to spread across the horizon it warms the earth and everything on it.  Glorious!
• The feeling of motion.  There have been times when I have been so out of tune with my body that my limbs didn't seem to work together.  As I was walking the gym track this week I reveled in the fact my body is moving together and going faster than I have in years.  Just the feeling of my heels hitting the pavement brought such joy to me, especially as I remembered times when I couldn't find this place.
• Health.  Over the past couple of weeks a number of my co-workers have been out of work for the week due to strep infections or kidney stones or kidney infections.  While I struggle with allergy related issues, it is exceedingly rare for me to be sick enough to take a day off, let alone a week.  I am thankful everyday that I wake up and am able to draw a full breath. 
• Family.  I've alluded to some family rifts that have been a major stressor for me over the last few months.  It has been exceptionally painful to have to go down that too familiar road again.  I think some of that is resolving and I am so grateful.
• My friends.  While I may appear to be overly open on here, there is a lot that I don't share.  It has always been difficult for me to be completely open and raw which is why I tend to only place my heart in the hands of a few.  These two have seen me at my best and my worst.  They have celebrated with me during the good and hugged me listened during the ugly.  My life would not be nearly as rich without them in it.
• The supportive community of bloggers that I have gotten to know over the last year or two.  Your advice and your support has been very needed and appreciated.  Thank you.
• The beauty of an early morning sunrise or late sunset.  Sometimes the beauty catches me off guard as I am not expecting to see the dazzle of God's paint brush.  Most times I am glad for that interruption because it seems to stop whatever else was mulling through my brain.  Each time I see a breath taking sunset I am reminded that life is more than what I see, what I feel, what I hear, or what I smell. 
• Thinking of my children, wherever they may be.  Every time I see a full moon I wonder about them and their birth families.  I wonder if they will be seeing the same full moon that I see and if it fills them with the same sense of wonderment.
• Gifts--the kinds that don't come in boxes.  After a very difficult year it was especially sweet to receive two gifts close to each other.  Sometimes they come along just when you need them.
• The small moments.  As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, I had one of those moments while riding down the road today.  It was just too perfect--good breeze, sun, windows down, good song on the radio and no traffic.  Even though I am not an outdoorsy kind of girl, it seems that it is when I am outdoors that I find those little moments of absolute joy. 

Have a joyous weekend!

Bad boys, bad boys, whatcha' goin' to do?

You know how your mother told you to stay away from bad boys?  Yeah, I've done a pretty good job of it for years, but how could I have predicted that hanging out at the police station would lead to hanging out with misfits?

I've been enjoying my citizens police academy class.  Today we were "deputized", but I had a hard time holding up my right hand and repeating after the officer when he was a goofball (in a good way) with a gun.  Today we learned about domestic violence calls and what makes a felony vs. misdemeanor in our state.  It was an interesting, if not difficult, class to sit through.  Perhaps because I am a bit more aware of those issues since my mother counsels people (mostly women and children) following rape or sexual assault.  I know that many cops, even in this town but probably more so in the rural town she lives in, don't view domestic abuse or domestic sexual assault as a crime and as a woman it was hard for me to sit in the passively in the class and listen to how officers view it from their side. 

We also covered accident reconstruction and investigation and I will never look at our streets the same.  I now know what the paint markings on the road mean, the various radio calls, and point of impacts on the road.  We've had a number of pedestrian vs. car accidents in the last 24 hrs and they talked about how you can tell how fast the driver was going based on where the pedestrian body landed on the car.  You can bet I'll be checking out the damage photos in the newspaper now.

Following class we were in the car lot working up a reconstruction of an accident when another cop car pulled up.  I recognized the person riding shotgun as one of the ED nurses I work with.  After talking with her and the other cop, I think I'm going to look into doing some ride around shifts with them.

The more I sit through class and listen to the officers talk, I realize that their department is really no different than being a nurse.  My dad is fond of repeating a Stephen King quote "SSDD".  Same sh*t, different day.  Or, in this case, same sh*t, different department. 

When my sister and I were shopping last week I was telling her about the classes (did you know you can approximate how drunk someone is by having their eyes track a slow moving object?  Yeah, it's cool) and she told me she could see me working as a cop.  I doubt I would pass the physical, but I do like the process of dissecting a situation and reconstructing the events.  Honestly, aside from the the guns, ammo, spit and curses it's not really different than what I am already doing. 

My nickname is the same throughout the hospital and no matter who is addressing me: trouble.  It doesn't matter if I am talking to the cafeteria direction, the janitor, the pulmonologist they all seem to believe that I am trouble.  So while I will admit the cops are some fun guys to hang out with, but I am a little afraid I could find trouble.  Even with them.

A week in Review

• I worked in the nursery this morning at church and for a change, I didn't hate it.  I know that sounds bad, but I never had visions of running my own daycare.  Children are a lot of work--especially if you have multiple children under 12 months old.  I was never one of those women who received a lot of personal satisfaction from babies crawling to her, but today, I did.  There were two other workers in the nursery and yet there was something very good for my soul about feeling babies in my lap and lying against my back.  I wasn't sure why they kept flocking to me, but for once, I did not mind a bit. 
• I'm going back to Dallas.  In fact, I will spend half of October in Dallas/Lewisville area so if anyone has any suggestions about places to eat or things to do, I'm all ears!  My boss insisted that I complete these courses before the end of the year and I was left with no other options.  I'm hoping this will be the end of it so I can start planning my vacation later this year.
• Speaking of which, I don't think Kristen and I will be taking a trip to Hawaii this year.  With any luck she will be a MOM sometime in the next 6-8 weeks.  Yay!  I'm so excited and ready to be an auntie to a new little girl.  So it appears I will be flying east to visit Chennie and Peter.  I haven't had any good dim sum in nearly two years and that's reason enough to visit! 
• NO ON-CALL!!!!  I was quite nervous to open the October on-call schedule because I was dreading to see how many soul-robbing, life-stealing, sleepless weeks I would on-call and the answer is ZERO.  Thank you, Jesus!  I liked having the little bit of extra income, but I like feeling like a human more.
• My sister and I took our annual shopping trip yesterday.  I know it sounds like a big deal, but I should tell you that my sister and I are not terribly big shoppers.  The reason for the trip is because I will generally buy clothes once a year--yeah, I know that sounds crazy, but it is true.  Not only did I get a number of new pants (I definitely needed them after eating my way through all the stress of this summer), but I also bought several summer tops on sale for only a few dollars.  It was awesome!  Within 60-90 minutes we both had everything that we needed.  Yep, our annual shopping trip is short and sweet!    
• I have been working on some blog posts about my post September 1st feelings, but I'm not ready to put them out there.  They are dated and eventually I may put them out there, but I am still processing through things.  Just an FYI in case some of my future posts seem a little dated.
• Why is it still so stinkin' hot?  It's almost October and I'm ready for some cooler temperatures.