Welcome to the New Year!

Happy New Year!

Once upon a time I used to be good at updating this blog.  Then I fell out of the habit and I have tried to regain it time and time again but have not kept up yet.  So, with  the start of a new year I figured now was as good of a time to try to start over as any.

Besides, I am one who falls for the cliche of new beginnings for the new year.  I almost decided to use another blog host and web address, but in the end, I decided I wanted to keep what was here.  After all, it is the guise of keeping a journal that makes me want to blog to begin with.  That, and I need a way to improve my writing again.  Technical healthcare writing that I am attempting to do does not lend well to the flights of fancy I want to take by writing a novel.

There were many things in 2016 that I wished I had taken more time to document.  Not only reactions to headlines (as there were so many) but in my personal life as well.  My extended family lost loved ones who I miss dearly, but have been horrible at expressing that.  My heart wrestles with all the changes that have happened and we can only take it day by day.  For all of my loved ones and my friends (even if it has been years since we have talked), I do think about you often and wish I took more initiative to change the lines of communication.  Know that I love you and you are in my thoughts.

All of that said, in 2017 I will try this again.  This time I will use my tools to help me (mainly an alarm set on my phone for the days that I want to update - at least 1x a week) and I look forward to documenting the year ahead.

Updating the blog as a way of keeping a journal is my new resolution for this year.  I add it to my resolution from last year: accomplish at least 1 thing each day.  So, nothing terribly hard but at times can be very challenging when I let all of my insecurities get a hold of me.  Having to report to the blog each week with something that has been accomplished will help me to not let those insecurities get a hold of me and to continue to use that resolution as I should.

And with this new year starting on a Sunday, I feel it's a great way to make the announcement as a precursor to what the week has held next Sunday (if I'm not writing before then).  Happy New Year everyone, may the promise of new beginnings inspire you all.






PS.  Don't be surprised if I change the look of the blog in the coming weeks.  With a "new" start I am sure to want to see what new things my platform offers.

Another work day

Is equal to another song with no writing accomplished.

A song that is often stuck in my head:
https://youtu.be/Aae_RHRptRg

Day 4

No big thoughts today so you get another song. This time its a song from my childhood.

Thinking hard about it, I would have to decide on I don't want to live on the moon because I've always loved it and today it speaks to me about always knowing you belong with your loved ones.

Writing Prompts

Trying to diversify my blogging, as well as getting back in the habit, I find myself turning to writing prompts.  Especially as I am truly working on NaNoWriMo (although, I do not have a word count update tonight as I have not done my writing for that yet).

Today's prompt is: Tell about a song that reminds you of your parents.

Easily that is Best of my Love sung by The Eagles.  While a horribly sad song when you pay attention to the words it is the song that my parents chose to dance to at their wedding.  Growing up, whenever the song came on, be it because it was on the radio or they were playing an Eagles album, when this song came on they recognized it.  Even when it was only one parent in the room.

Exhaustion

Exhaustion has set in so all I will say is that I did increase the word count by about 100 through the day. I left it last night at 1700.

It's November

Ahh, November!

Which really means: Just what the hell am I doing?!

November is now the month of National {fill in the blank here} month.  It started with NaNoWriMo which I had heard of but always found daunting until now. I've participated in NaBloPoMo before but haven't really carried it out in recent years (but I'm no longer good at actually blogging anyway.  And finally, as of today, I hear about NaNoReadMo: National Novel Reading Month, which sounds pretty reasonable as well.

While, I don't want to over extend myself, as I am finally writing one of my novel ideas for NaNoWriMo, I just might try one of the other's as well.  I'm not making any promises but it seems that to get more use out of my twitter account that NaNoReadMo just might be a good thing to put there.  We will see.

Additionally, we will finally get the election out of the way (have you checked to see if your candidate really lines up with you - I encourage you to take the quiz at I Side With now and vote how you really believe - your vote makes a difference!)

So, what am I doing this month - over-exerting myself and pushing hard because in addition to the writing I have many things that I am finishing up as well as general life.

What are you doing this month?


P.S. Today's word count for NaNoWriMo as of 11:12 pm is 542 which isn't half bad following a day at work, helping Chad with some school stuff, and other general chores.

Let's skip to October

It seems I have missed time again.  I suppose those of you who might read this without me posting a link to it are used to that by now.  Gone are the days when I updated weekly.

But, I hope to change that this month as I use this for the platform to track my word count for NaNoWriMo.

What, you've not heard of it?

Around the world, those who commit, choose to write a 50,000 word novel beginning on November 1 and completing by November 30.

I've blogged everyday in November before but now it is time to try my hand at novel writing.  (Yes, I am aware that I have lost my mind.  No, I'm not going to try to find it).

October is used for planning NaNoWriMo, and that is what I will do.  I may or maynot share content details, but I'll keep you up to date with what I've done.

For today, It's just declaring that I'm going to participate.

Welcome to March!

According to one of the craft store sales ad March is National crafting month. Guess I'd better get to work on one of these huh?

And this is not even all of them, its only what I could set my hands on at this moment...

Procrastination is my friend

I still seem to be in full procrastination mode, so you get another song. This time one that is often stuck in my head.

Lookin out my back door by Credence Clearwater Revival

https://youtu.be/Aae_RHRptRg

Enjoy! ;)

(No, I don't know why, but it has been for years...)

Moving on

I fell asleep last night and missed the post. I'm not much better tonight. But, I did find the dining room table again...

Night all

Songs, part 1

At the end of four shifts in a row my brain feels like mush.  What this means for trying to blog everyday without preparation ahead of time is that I am resorting to a meme.  One meme that I have saved is about songs and there are 25 different prompts.

So, today's song prompt is:
A song from your childhood and why you picked it.



I picked it because it was the first song I thought of.  Yes, I remain a Henson fan and there are so many songs that I think of that I still gravitate to that are from Henson products but this was still the first one I thought of when I read the word childhood songs.

I also used it to entertain Ann when she was an infant.

She has me beat

Still in the middle of a stretch of shifts, I find that as much as I want to post today, I will not be able to get it accurately into words tonight.  Instead, I noticed tonight how much "girlier" my little one is than me.

Exhibit number 1: Nail polish.

This is my nail polish collection.  It's really only two colors as the one in the middle is a top coat that hardens the polish.

Ann's nail polish collection:

There is no comparison.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year everyone!  After becoming overwhelmed last month with everything that had to be done, I intend to start again this month.

That said, I am starting the year out working several shifts in a row and did not prepare accordingly.

I need to review last year with you all, and plan to do that when I am off on Monday!  Until then, I apologize for the meme related content that will be the next couple of days..

In the theme of new beginings (typical January content) I will share with you my resolution for the year:
I would like to accomplish at least 1 task a day.

I am horrible at procrastinating, and have the backed up projects/poorly kept craft room to prove it.  There are so many times that I am simply overwhelmed by starting that I never do anything I've put on my list.  By setting this resolution, I am not pegging myself into a specific and can accept if I am the only one who knows what I accomplish.  I usually get lots of tasks done when I start at least one, so I am hoping that this will hold true if I make sure that I do one.

Who else is making resolutions this year?

An Old Standbye

When there is minimal time to get a post in but the thoughts in your head keep nagging you to do it, go with the tried and true alphabet meme:

A- Age: 33
B- Biggest fear: being stabbed or cut 
C- Current time: 22;:20
D- Drink you last had: water
E- Every day starts with: the snooze button 
F- Favorite song: I Don't Want to Live on the Moon
G- Ghosts, are they real? Yes
H- Hometown: Anderson
I- In love with: my husband and family
J- Jealous of: silly things I'm too self-conscious to admit
K- Killed something: whatever bug Ann called me to the room for
L- Last time you cried: last week
M- Middle name: can't give out too much information now...
N- Number of siblings: 5
O- One wish: improve the services for those with mental issues
P- Person you last called: my Mom
Q- Question you're always asked: "Mom, what is the weather today?"
R- Reason to smile: my daughter's laughter
S- Song last sang: Land of Confusion
T- Time you woke up: 4:50
U- Underwear color: white (why do we care?)
V- Vacation destination: To visit all the founding cities of the United States
W- Worst habit: picking at things on my skin
X-X-Ray's you've had: sinus and shoulder
Y- Your favorite food: pasta
Z- Zodiac sign: Pisces

Best of Intentions, part infinity

In my head, I always have the best of intentions.  Unfortunately, I have too many intentions going at the same time.  Such as now I look at the blog and it has been almost a year since I have done anything with it. Now, in spite of everything else going on in my life, I have the brilliant idea that I want to try to do another NaBloPoMo. And I'm not starting off in the best way possible as I'm here butting up against the deadline to even post on the first day.

Here's to seeing what I can accomplish this month hopefully a year in review of all the pictures I've intended to post. More tomorrow, have a good night.

Lack of Material

I'm in the mood to post something but find that I have too many incomplete thoughts to post.

I don't know if it's that I truly have a lack of material or if it's because I'm to scarred to put down any of my true thoughts into words.  There is defiantly plenty of trivial and important things that I could comment on.

I find today that the trivial are what I don't have fully formed.  The important things - opinions, thoughts, news I shy away from for two reasons:
1.  I am not on any site consistently enough to be able to host any type of banter about my thoughts and opinions.
2.  I would not want anything I would say or type to affect my professional life.

So with a lack of things to post today, but working on getting back to the blog more, I will simply wish you all a good night and hopefully I will have some work on a craft project soon that I can share with you.

Check this one off the list

Before the movie people would just say I want to do ___ before ___ (I'm 40, I've had kids, I'm dead, etc).  Don't get me wrong, I had heard of a bucket list before the movie using that term, but it wasn't as saturated through our culture as it is now.

I don't know that I have a true bucket list, or that I've honestly sat down and given it true thought.  If I were to make one it would consist of at least this - Visit all 13 original colonies (which has now become visit all states along the eastern seaboard), travel internationally, see a Broadway show in NYC, turn one of my ideas for a story into a novel, walk the Ravenel bridge (follow the link for really old pics from me of the bridge or just google search for new ones)from end to end, travel the South Carolina Heritage Corridor Discovery Trail.

Of the things I have listed above I have managed to see a Broadway show in NYC (Lion King in 2010), traveled the Discovery Trail (5th anniversary trip in 2008), and today I walked the Ravenel bridge from end to end.

I never made myself find the time before today, I also thought it would take me an excessively long time (which it might have 5 months ago) but now the distance is within a range that I am trying to walk regularly and today I sent Ann to "school" and then made the time to do it.  (Image above is a screen shot from my mapmywalk page).

Now that I've checked that off of my list I think it's time to truly sit down and create that bucket list of things I want to do.  I'm sure that if I take the time to do that it is a little more detailed than what I have put down above.

It's really hard to brag about myself...

I can't believe I'm doing this but I told Karen Griph that I would put this on facebook and so many people that see me are now asking.  Plus, I can see it when I look at pictures so this is also for my own personal reference.

I am very thankful to be able to start 2015 better than last year by having lost 37 pounds so far since August 4, 2014. (And if you look at my happy new year post from today this is what I started in August that I referenced) I look forward to continuing my journey until I can be at my healthy goal.

There are no magic pills or secrets to this loss.  I'm simply counting calories (using myfitnesspal) and am more active (love having a fitbit).

For comparison, the first picture is from when I was in Cleveland in June and the second picture is from today.

Happy New Year!

A wise man once told me that what you do on new years day is what you will be doing the rest of the year.

While I'm not overly superstitious I could only hope that this could be true as today has been a wonderful start to the new year.

I am resolving this year to take each day as it comes and not let 2015 seem to go as fast as 2014 did.

On the surface this is a simple concept, almost a cheaters way out of a resolution as so many of us share this sentiment and then find ourselves feeling the same way each December.  For me though, this sentiment has come to mean not getting overwhelmed by the end result of a project but focusing on what I can do for that project right now to get to that goal.

I actually started this in August with one part of my life and now want to work to move it to other areas.  While I don't know what this will mean for me overall this year I do hope that I will be writing more, completing more craft projects, and growing as a mom, wife, and nurse.

There are a lot of goals for me to accomplish in that list.  I look forward to the steps that it will take to do that.

Here's to 2015 and that at the end of this year I can look back and be proud that I didn't let it slip by to fast.

I'm not going to promise to blog frequently, but I hope that I will continue to follow through with my thoughts and actually get more posts up here.

International Kangaroo Care Awareness Day

I am re-posting this from 2 years ago in celebration of Kangaroo Care (skin-to-skin) contact.  This is the area that truly drives my nursing practice and I wouldn't change it for the world.  While the years have changed and I have corrected my certifying body for this posting the information is still correct and powerful.  I speak even more passionately about it now that I did then, I truly believe (and know) that every infant should receive this powerful therapy.

If, you feel that you've read this before and do not want to revisit it, let me leave you with the one statement I would make if that's all I was able to say about Kangaroo Care:
KC is essential to ALL infants because it recreates the uterine environment better than any technology.

TUESDAY, MAY 15, 2012

Happy International Kangaroo Care Awareness Day!

Happy International Kangaroo Care Awareness Day!!

For those of you confused right now, I have finally made it to the blog to talk about my work.  Most of you know that I'm a Neonatal ICU nurse.  I have done this since nursing school graduation, almost 7 years ago.  I love this field.  It's challenging, heart wrenching, sad at times and joyous at others, and incredibly rewarding.  Even more challenging is that the facility where I work is a referral and surgical center too so we see the sickest of the sick and the smallest that you can imagine up and everything else that comes before that too.

In working at my facility and learning neonatal medicine I have grown and expanded and I have a committee that I run (and have now run for three years) to help address issues in one area of neonatal care.  I chair my facilities Kangaroo Care Committee and have also become a Certified Kangaroo Care Provider from the United States Institute for Kangaroo Care who actively participates with the World Health Organization's International Network of Kangaroo Care Providers.

Kangaroo Care is a wonderful practice where a parent holds their infant in direct skin-to-skin contact on their chest.  The infant wears a diaper and a hat (hat as necessary) and then both are covered in some manner. (A blanket, a wrap, etc)

From everything I've learned about kangaroo care I could speak non-stop for hours about it.  It is so wonderful that you can call it a medical treatment that the parents can provide.  Kangaroo Care promotes bonding, better thermoregulation in infants (better temperature control), improved brain growth, improved brain development, improved overall growth, increased parent-infant bonding, increased parent confidence, better pain control for both infant and mother (no information available for pain control in fathers), improved breast milk production, improved breast milk content (a richer better quality milk), improved amount of infant sleep, decreased incidence of depression and more benefits being discovered daily.  Just to name a few of the simpler ones.

I'm really keeping this very basic.  I'm not going into the history of kangaroo care, or the over 400 studies available for it.  I'm not going into the high-tech ICU environment versus lower tech and third-work country practices.  I could tell you about how the skin makes antibodies and helps the infant receive them.  I could tell you why the skin of the chest is so receptive for this care.  I could break it down further into how a mother's body works differently from a father's body works differently from another family member's body, etc. Where I work we keep kangaroo care exclusively for mom's and dad's.  There's just too much going on to allow it to spread to all, it's the one thing we can offer a parent that can first help them to feel that they are truly being a parent and that the experience is not taken away from them.  But in tragic or extenuating circumstances, the benefits are known to apply to all who practice in kangaroo care.

Kangaroo Care is practiced differently depending on age and stability of the infant.  Healthy infants out of the hospital, using a wrap and walking around is fine.  Preterm infants that are stable, depends on age and ability to feed.  Sick infants of any age do best when the Kangaroo Care provider is laying back (we use zero gravity loungers for our parents) as it allows for the infant's heart and lungs to function at their best.  All methods of performing Kangaroo Care involve direct skin-to-skin contact.

More importantly Kangaroo Care is important for ALL infants.  So much so, that when I became a certified provider I was pregnant and completely changed my plan for how I was going to care for Ann.  See:

Please forgive the picture.  It's a really bad one but I was trying to put it on record that we did Kangaroo Care at home.  But I would have never purchased the wrap and I would not have thought to provide it at home had I not learned so much about it.

There is so much out there about Kangaroo Care:
A picture of a preemie in Kangaroo Care here in the United States:
Article from my local paper about a mom in our area 

Some reputable Kangaroo Care sites:
United States Institute for Kangaroo Care

Kangaroo Care information from the March of Dimes

A booklet from the World Health Organization:
Kangaroo Mother Care: A Practical Guide



So spread the word, share with others how powerful simple holding skin to skin can be for infants of any age and parents.  It's amazing what can be done by the human body!