When you come in to work a shift at the hospital, you always know who the senior nurse in the room is. It’s the person who has worked on the floor the longest – the person who’s the most experienced. You identify that person early on so if things go south, you’ll know who to look to.
It’s the person you want to ask if you have a question or a problem to solve. It’s the person who will offer to pass meds on one of your patients if you’re having a crazy night. Someone who will get up and just start helping you before you even ask.
Last night, that was me.
A year ago today, I ran the CDPHP Workforce Challenge at 36 weeks pregnant. It’s a tradition I have, to run one race while pregnant with each kid. It’s also a personal tradition of mine to do the Workforce Challenge. The hospital where I work is huge, and the race itself is huge. I can go to the race and disappear amidst the 10,000 participants and have time to myself, sandwiched in between walks to and from my car wherever I manage to find a parking spot downtown.
In order to do the race, I have to sign up in February, because the 10,000 spots fill up long before race day. I missed it a time or two because of that, and now I have a reminder in my calendar that lets me know when it’s time to sign up each year.
Except this year, in February, things were so bad that I couldn’t think about May. I couldn’t plan anything definite so far ahead. Just getting through each day took so much energy, let alone thinking about the future. So February came and went. March, too. And in April, things started to get better.
Do you know about Me Made May? Since I sew and follow a number of sewist bloggers (blogging sewists?), I’ve known about it for a couple of years now, but this is the first year when I felt like I had enough homemade clothes to do it. The idea behind it is that you show off homemade clothing during the month of May.
You might wear something you made each day. Maybe you only wear a few homemade clothes some days in May. Ideally, you post on social about it, so other people can share in your superiority and over-achievedness… but maybe I’m getting off track.
Ever since we’ve been married, my parents have supported the Chaplain and I by keeping the kids so that we can go away by ourselves about once a year.
Last year at this time, we were spending a week in Portland, Oregon together. In fact, it was the first time since I’d become a mom that I’d spent Mother’s Day away from my kids.
The trip felt like an escape for many reasons. The Chaplain was at a stressful, demanding job. I was eight months pregnant with Seven. We had a busy home life. We were tired and tense.
I’d planned the trip on the back of a trip to Portland I’d done with my dad and siblings in 2014. We’d gone to celebrate my dad’s 60th birthday by climbing Mt. Hood. The week was spent hiking, with the mountain climb in the middle.
Building on that, I hoped to revisit my favorite trails, and try one or two new ones. I also wanted to spend some time in downtown Portland, which we hadn’t had time to do on the 2014 trip. The Chaplain and I both had some ideas and recommendations for places to check out in the city. And I really wanted to see a Pacific Coast sunset.
Above, me at nursing school graduation in 2007, with Two, who was 3 weeks old.
This past week, I went in for several hours of continuing education to keep my nursing credentials current. Due to some weirdness on my employer’s website and their internet sign-up for the class I was taking, I wasn’t sure until I arrived in the room whether or not I was even at the right building.
I was running a couple of minutes late. My education had to be completed by the end of the month or I would no longer be allowed to come into work. I had snagged the last spot in the class at 3 a.m. during a recent night shift.
What if I showed up at the wrong place for my class? Driving somewhere else would make me even more late! What if I couldn’t attend the class and had to find another one?
