Work life and other updates

Wandering around downtown near Frog Pond

We are doing well over here on the East Coast! I've been really busy with work which is very exciting! I've pretty much been working full time between Bay Cove clinic, Arbour hospital, and babysitting still. Since I haven't written in a while, I should let you know that I didn't get the job at MGH, but that's okay. Of course I was bummed about that, but I know God has a plan for me. I have been enjoying my jobs at Arbour and Bay Cove, and I will be starting orientation at CHA Whidden soon for their psych unit. Hopefully I can keep track of all my jobs! haha. I also just submitted an application for a summer paid externship through the VA, so we'll see!

Arbour life - I have worked 5 shifts on my own now, on 4 of the 5 units. The last two shifts were on the less acute unit and I was looking forward to a slighter easier day, but that definitely didn't happen. My first day I stayed 2 hours late and the 2nd day was 1.5 hrs, but the past couple shifts I left in less than an hour after the end of the shift. Not bad ~ I'm improving! However, when I work the evening shift (3-11:30pm), Brian likes to meet me there so we can take the buses home together. But since it is a locked facility and way past visiting hours, he has to wait outside in the cold...and the waiting lately has been about 45 minutes or so until I finish all my documentation. Another bummer about the evening shift is that buses don't run as frequently at that hour and the last ones are around 12:45am. Last Fri night, I got out at 12:30am and we took a cab home instead of waiting in the cold. I am working 4 evening shifts this week and it is my goal to be out by 11:45 or 12 at the latest! I am definitely learning time management skills...

Just a couple stories for you:

• My first day I was on one of the acute units, had 2 discharges (the first being one of the most impatient people I've seen yet!), and 1 patient who fell 4 times throughout the day requiring wound care the last time which ended up getting him a visit to the ER at another hospital (which means paperwork!). I finally discovered that he was falling on purpose (he wanted to go to the hospital). Note: some of his falls were on/against toilets - ouch!
• On the other acute unit, there was one patient who called me every other name but Theresa - at least he tried I guess. He kept saying he was going to sue us for $85million because that's what his sister has, but then later he asked me (I wasn't even his nurse that day) to get him his 85million clozaril tablets. Hmmm...I think he likes that number.
• I have heard 3 code blues called in the past couple weeks, but I thought I heard someone mention that there were only 2 code blues in all of 2010. Interesting. (Code blues are much less common at this hospital than one might see/hear in a normal hospital.) Although, the first code blue I heard and responded to was a drill. It was so awesome to see how fast everyone got to where they needed to be and how seriously everyone took it even with a fake torso on the ground.

Us with our friends Deb & Kevin near the North End

Other Updates:

• Spring is around the corner! We are looking forward to more sunshine and warmer weather. And the birds are back!! I didn't even realize just how much I missed them until now. Love listening to them :)
• Brian is no longer dog walking Baxter and Millie. I guess they were still going to the bathroom in the house even after their walks, so it wasn't really beneficial anymore.
• We did, however, take on a new housesitting gig not too far from BC. We watched 2 new Beagles, Lily and Molly, for a night (Brian and I had to share an extremely loud and squeaky twin bed with the two Beagles - let's just say it was a very tight fit). Their house was really close to a lake and also had some of the neatest chandeliers - take a look:

• My nursing school friend, Eula Mei, was just here with her boyfriend JP for a graduation. We met them for breakfast at Metropolis - It was SO great to see and catch up with her.

• Also, about a month ago, my cousin Ian was here visiting his girlfriend who is at BU. We went out for a nice dinner and then they came over for dessert another night. It was so fun to spend time with family here. :)

• We went to our first BC Hockey game - they played Northeastern (a local school), so it was pretty crowded. It was a lot of fun and ended up being a tie game 7-7!

• Lastly, we went ice skating at the end of February. After having just been to the hockey game I was amazed at how easy hockey players make ice skating look. I can hardly skate forward, but they can skate in every direction, carrying a giant stick, chasing a puck and ramming into walls. I was impressed!

I think that's just about all the updates for now. I know this was a long post, but thanks for reading!!

Sitting Jobs

About a month ago I started babysitting 2 days a week for 9.5 hrs a day for a family close by (about an 8 minute walk away). The mom works from home, but I keep Jake happy and quiet. :) They like to leave classical music on during the day, but one day she left to go into the office and I put some Toddler Tunes on for a bit (bad me!) - but he loved it! This is me dancing and making a fool of myself to keep him smiling (he's teething) and he was pretty fascinated with the blinking timer light on the camera. I should also add that I was given a W4 on my first day of babysitting here...that was a first for me in my 15 years of babysitting!

Jake is 9 months old now and in the 100th percentile for head circumference. His mom said he is very "top heavy" and thus doesn't like to be on his tummy much. Therefore, he might end up walking instead of crawling first. He loves to stand and can balance for about 2-3 seconds at times by himself. It was fun helping him build these muscles and work with him on this. :) I had to take a few weeks off from babysitting him because of orientation, but my friend Stephanie (a child Occupational Therapist) is free on Thursdays, so she has been helping occasionally.

I haven't babysat for the other family in a while - the kids kept having snow days and I had interviews, so it wasn't really working out. There were a couple times that I got a text from the mom canceling while I was waiting in the cold for the bus - that was pretty frustrating, but I was just glad both times that happened I hadn't gotten on the bus yet.

Brian has been doing the dog walking for me still and plans to continue that for a little longer. We housesat for them a couple weekends ago, which went pretty well. Only 1 thing of ours was destroyed by chewing (Brian's insole - I think she was going for his snow sneaker but discovered the insole was more interesting!). They didn't bark much and were actually more well behaved while we housesat than when we walk them! They are the cutest beagles!! This is Millie, the younger more crazy one, on the left, and Baxter with the bone on the right.

That's all the updates in the sitting job world.

Back to Babysitting & Our Weekend

I recently signed up for a website to get some side jobs baby/pet sitting. I met a family in Cambridge area last week and babysat for them on Friday night. They have 3 great kids, ages 6, 5, & 4. They have never had a babysitter before either, so they were excited to have me there I think. :) It was fun. While I was babysitting, Brian went to check out this Organic/Vegan place she told us about not too far away called Life Alive in Cambridge (pic on the left). Downstairs they have a lounge so he hung out there and worked on his last paper. Around midnight, once most places were closed, Brian came back to the house and kept me company. At 12:30am I texted the mom telling her that our last bus left at 1, and she said they would just pay for our cab home since it would be more like 1:30. I told her no, but when they got home their was a cab already waiting for us outside and they had already paid & tipped the driver!! Because of that we tried to give them some of the money back and they looked at us like we were crazy for not taking it. We are very thankful for this opportunity and that they are such kind people. She went to BC and was studying nursing, but changed to English. She said she might be able to help find me a nursing job through some of her friends, which would be great, but I am planning on babysitting for her a few times a week until a nursing job comes along.

We also met a couple for dog walking last week and did a "trial walk" with the dogs over the weekend. They have 2 beagles, but the 1 yr old pup doesn't really know how to walk on a leash and she just pulls herself the whole time, while howling (or beagle barking). It's actually sad to watch her - it would be so much more comfortable for her if she could just walk normal on the leash. Brian and I are determined to train her! haha. Their names are Baxter & Millie :) I'm sure I will take pictures at some point. The guy came home last week to a huge mess in the house so he wanted to have someone come and let them out/walk them during the day, so that's me now. They're a really nice couple and I will probably be walking their dogs 3x a week for now.

After our trial walk, we waited for a bus in the freezing cold for almost an hour! We started to get inpatient and called people to help us determine if that bus was in fact running - it was. But we were getting cold and I was really inpatient so we walked toward a different bus stop, but on our way we saw the bus that we had been waiting for. So, we ran on it and sure enough it stopped right where we had been standing! Go figure. At least we made it on the bus though. We were heading to Somerville to meet someone for cat sitting during Christmastime - they live about an 8 min walk from the babysitting house. We will be taking care of their cat Loki for 4 days - she needs medication in her ear 2x/day so we will probably just be hanging out in the area during the day. They live in a super nice/new apartment (looks like Irvine or something), but they are preparing to move out because they're expecting a baby soon and need a bigger place. Too bad we can't move in there- haha. Although, we really like our cozy apartment. After seeing some other houses/apartments in the area, we have come to really appreciate ours and how well kept it is here. If only it were a little bigger...

From meeting Loki, we walked about a mile to the Orange subway and headed up to Melrose for game night at Dan & Angel's. They live in a really cute apartment - another complex just like one we would see back home. I almost forgot I was in Boston with the moderness of it, carpeting, spaciousness, etc. We learned how to play BANG, where Brian was the Sheriff (and I was an Outlaw trying to kill him, among others. Angel was the Deputy who was trying not to kill him...although everyone's character is unknown except the Sheriff). It was fun and the outlaws won. Then we played Cranium, my favorite game. The brainiac guys won against us girls, twice!!! Then we played Apples to Apples. Fun night!!

On Sunday, I babysat again and helped build (or should I say the kids help me build) a gingerbread train (from a kit, thankfully). I took some pictures to show their parents what the finished train looked like, since all the kids wanted to do the whole time was eat it...and it was quite demolished by the time they got home.

While I was babysitting, Brian went and got a haircut and had lunch at Life Alive. Then he came to pick me up and we walked back over to Life Alive for dinner. So, Brian ate there 3 times in the past 3 days - that's pretty much against our rules of eating on Boston (we don't like to eat at the same place twice because there are so many great places!). Here's what we had for dinner:
I got the "Goddess" - brown rice, tofu, carrots, beets, kale and some awesome sauce. Brian got the "Lover", which was almost the same but with mushrooms I think. So good and super healthy! This is such a cool place and there should be more of them around. The upstairs is where you order and there are some tables/chairs, a counter with healthy eating/lifestyle books, and some plant life. Then downstairs is a lounge with more tables/chairs and more comfortable/spacious seating, plus a little play area for kids. It's really neat! This is us in the lounge:


Afterward we left Harvard square and headed to St. Clement Shrine for mass. I snapped this picture of the Harvard area street lights before we got on the Subway.
I guess they are dancers or something...I'm not too sure really. Any ideas?

So that was our weekend! It was pretty busy and also somewhat stressful getting around within our time constraints, but it was really nice to be able to get out and explore some more, make some money, and do things I love!