Thoughts on Memorial Day...

I'm not sure how many people know that my dad is a Vietnam veteran. It's not a secret or anything; it's just not something he talks about. At least not with us. I'm sure his co-workers must know but, again, I doubt he talks about it much. Both he and his brother served in the war although my uncle enlisted in the Navy before he could be drafted and my dad was eventually drafted into the Army. I do know he was shot and he has a small scar on the back of his leg as a physical reminder. He almost never wears shorts, tho, so you'd never have the opportunity to see it.

There are some vets who like to talk about their time in the service and those who don't. My dad is in the latter camp. But then, he's what you'd call a "still water that runs deep." A few years ago my mom was going through some boxes and came across some stuff that belonged to my dad. There were some photos of him as an adolescent and certificates from bowling tournaments and old report cards. There were also some letters he had written to his family while he was in Vietnam. And while I won't get into the specifics of what he wrote, it made me unbearably sad to read these letters. He was always really upbeat in what he wrote but to this day I still grieve for the young man he was when he went off to war. The son who asked his mom to please send him a package with brownies because the MREs were so nasty. This person whose life was forever changed by that tour of duty...fighting a war that was needless and stupid.

Looking through the contents of the box my mom gave me I wasn't sure if I should or would read the letters. After all, he wouldn't know if I did or not. I can only presume that he came into possession of them at some point when my grandmother was moved into a nursing home due to advancing dementia from Alzheimer's back in the early 90s. Or maybe one of his sisters found them and gave them to him. Either way, they found their way into a box that got carried on and off of many a moving truck over the years before finding themselves in my temporary possession.

Ultimately I decided to read them before passing along the folder of his belongings. I didn't let Michael read them nor did I tell my brother about them. And I didn't tell my dad that I read them. But I think about them and the person he was back then and the person he might have become had he not gotten drafted and sent off to war. And then I think about the other vets and those who never made it back. What might their lives had been like if they'd never gone off to war? That is what I think about on Memorial Day. Not sales at Macy's or trips to the beach. I think about people like my dad and wonder what might have been.

Job!

It's been a few days since I got my job offer at a place that I am not going to mention here lest I be "dooced." I'd hate for that to happen before I even get started. So, we'll just refer to is as the job I have, doing the work I do at the place where work-type things occur, yeah? Also, the facility name does not lend itself so nicely to switching around letters such that we end up with the Hiami Merald (Hee! I still laugh at that one). And I didn't post it on fcbook because I didn't want to rub it in the faces of my classmates who still don't have jobs. Not that I would go out of my way to rub it in their faces but I don't even want to give the impression of doing such a thing because it sucks to find out that yet another person got a job and your sorry ass is still plugging away at job apps.

Anyway, it's very exciting and I can hardly wait to start in July. My paperwork arrived the other day so it all feels very official now. I mailed back my offer acceptance today and will need to schedule an appointment next week with occupational health to get a physical and TB test, etc. In the meantime, I'll be working 3 days a week for my friend at her chiro practice in Menlo Park and I might be picking up some part time work in a private medical practice also in Menlo. I just want to learn as much as I can and get as much experience as possible so that I can be prepared for whatever the next step will be in my career. It's never too early to be thinking about the next step although what a relief it is to finally have this first job as an RN. Yay!

Am I disappointed that it's not a bedside position? Mmmm, not exactly. Only 50% of nurses are at the bedside and the other 50% are in the community or private practice or schools or occupational health, etc. I think it's a good starting point for me and I'm perfectly happy to be doing what I'll be doing. I'll get to work with the public and a very healthy public at that. I'll be out in the community and meeting new people all the time and I like that. And I'll be trained to be a charge nurse which is a supervisory position and is great for enhancing my leadership skills. It's a good thing, as Martha would say.

And now I'm suddenly hit by this massive rush to get things done around the house before I start work. On Wednesday I finally hacked back the rose bushes in the front yard and pulled weeds/invasive grass species from the front beds. Yesterday I washed and ironed curtains. I still want to scrub down the fridge, remove the glass top from the dining room table and clean both sides of it and polish the table top, steam the creases out of the living room curtains, get the area rug professionally cleaned, vacuum under the bed and sofas, consider making slipcovers for the sofas and planting flowers in the front beds. Is that enough stuff on my "honey do" list? I also need to take another pile of stuff to G00dwill, take the sideboard runner to the dry cleaner (a lemon molded on top of it--ick) and buy tomato plants and pot them. So much to do and so little time.

Oh, did I mention that I'm going to be volunteering at the food bank? I'm excited to do that. I'm going on Tuesday to check out one of the opportunities they offered. I think it will be fun and I'm looking forward to it. I'm sure my husband probably thinks I'm trying to do too much but I've been feeling restless of late and I think all these new opportunities will be good for me. We'll find out soon enough, won't we? I'll go from being home all day to being gone all day and the dog will probably think I've abandoned her. And the cooking! Time to dust off the crock pot and hunt down recipes for tasty summer salads. Good things are coming, I can just feel it.

Making your body the solution...

Wow...the last post elicited a lot of off-line discussion and, let's face it, feelings about our *body issues* are often times lurking right under the surface. And conversations about body issues can be difficult because not everyone shares the same *problems* or *issues* but I think it's safe to say that many of us struggle and we probably have more in common than we might think. Unless you are in a room full of runners and you are most decidedly NOT a runner. That happened last Wednesday at a nutrition seminar I attended but, still, I'm pretty fit and care about exercise and so do the runners. And we had a lot of the same questions about nutrition so, see? Common ground.

Which brings me to the solutions part. What is the solution, exactly? How do you get there? What happens when you get "there"? Where is "there"? Okay, here's the thing. "There" doesn't really exist as an end point. Like, oh, I lost X pounds and wore that cute black dress to my high school reunion/wore a tankini in Hawaii/looked good on my wedding day and now I'm done. "There" is every day, eating as healthfully as possible, being active and not getting down on yourself for not looking like someone you saw on the front cover of a magazine. The good news is that every day you get another chance to do the right thing by your body and eat right, get some exercise and try not to get overly stressed. The bad news is that sometimes that is very hard. And when you are in a stressful time period, say in school or working on some crazy project at work or taking care of ailing parents or whatever, it is really hard to do the things we know are good for us. But that's life. Life is frequently complicated and hard and you find yourself managing the chaos some days better than others. That being said, here's what I've found to be helpful along the way:

* Remember that magazine covers are photoshopped--extensively
* Remember that the people on said covers are usually celebrities with wads of cash to spend on personal trainers and chefs and, whatever, their job is to look good, ergo they work out a lot and eat lots of brown rice and 4 oz of boneless, skinless chicken breast dinners (the exception being "fitness models" who also work out a lot but are not necessarily celebrities)
* Remember that even celebrities with spectacular bodies are photoshopped
* Find exercise/activities that you enjoy so you'll be more likely to want to do them and be active
* Even if you can't afford/don't want to join a gym, you can use workout DVDs at home with some hand weights, resistance bands and a squishy yoga mat if you have hardwood floors. That's what I did and I'm still doing it. It's pretty cheap ($10 for a DVD from amazon.com) and you can work out in the privacy of your own home
* The library often has workout DVDs you can check out to see if you like them enough to buy them and there are free workouts and videos on the internets
* Practice mindful eating which means limit distractions (this is difficult, I know, and I am a hard-core newspaper reader while I eat), take 20 minutes to eat (yes, 20 minutes) and cook as many whole foods as you can in your own kitchen
* Ignore the hype about super foods, supplements, blah, blah, blah. It's a lot of marketing and usually not a lot of good science. Eat a well-balanced diet with lots of food diversity and generally you'll be okay. This advice obviously does not apply to those trying to conceive, currently pregnant or breast feeding, immune compromised or under a doctor's supervision for a health problem.
* Read the labels of every single item you put in your grocery cart. Minimally processed foods are best
* Read up. I recommend Marion Nestle, Spark People and reputable websites run by the NIH and Mayo Clinic
* Pat yourself on the back. Repeat

My body is not the problem...

It is the solution. It's my new mantra and it's one that I have to repeat often. For so long I have regarded my body as a "frenemy" and it's not working out anymore. In fact, it's just down right self-defeating.

The thing is, I've been doing all the right things: eating well-balanced and nutritious meals, getting plenty of exercise and taking in plenty of fluids. Many years ago when I first did Wt Watchers, I cut down on soda (diet soda tastes disgusting so I wasn't even going to go there) and stopped taking sugar in my coffee. And I started putting more thought into what I put in my mouth. And over the next few years I lost about 5 more lbs beyond my goal weight and stayed at that weight for a long time. Somewhere in there I started eating a mostly vegetarian diet, and I say "mostly" because bacon was my downfall nearly every time. Mmmmm.... bacon.

In 2008 we moved to CA and I had my choice of fabulous produce that was freshly picked and displayed so tantalizingly at the weekly farmers markets. We ate even more veg and fruit and it was all so good for us. That December I decided to make exercising a regular part of my weekly activities and have managed to stick with it ever since. I do mostly low-fat cooking at home (along with some rather tasty full-fat baking on occasion) and we have continued to follow a mostly vegetarian diet. I started engaging in mindful eating and investigating the cause of a hunger pang--am I thirsty (the hypothalamus regulates both hunger and thirst and your body may interpret a signal for more fluids as hunger), am I hungry or am I bored?--before automatically assuming I'm hungry. I serve myself appropriate portion sizes on smaller plates and in smaller bowls so that I know I'm not putting more food in the vessel to merely fill up the space available. Also, I know that if it's on the plate I'll eat it so I have to be mindful when I'm at a restaurant or, good lord, Chipotle.

So, I've done all of these things and I've lost a good bit of weight and buffed up some muscles. And yet I'm never happy with the result. Even though my scale shows a number that I don't ever remember seeing (I swear I was just jumped from little kid sizes to size 10 in the juniors dept) and I'm wearing smalls and mediums and a pants size that I NEVER thought I would see, I'm still not happy. All I see is the poochy part of my lower abdomen or the saddle bags or the droopy boobs and I don't see the muscles that allow me to live an active life. And that is not cool.

So I decided that I was not going to let myself focus on the various fat deposits that remain and instead try to enjoy what I do have. I have a strong body that can run down a tennis ball like nobody's business, that can play two hours of tennis and then go home and do hours of yard work (I was exhausted by the end) and that looks pretty cute in clothes*. And I'm going to keep on doing the good things and try to focus less on what I can't do or what I don't look like and instead focus on all that I can do. Which is a lot. Thank you, body of mine, for doing such a good job. Keep up the good work (gives self a pat on the back).

*droopy boobs notwithstanding. Seriously, WTF? Thank god for push-up bras, is all I can say.

Date night with the Tall Man and a trip down memory lane...

And, hey, I changed my template and background! What think ye, dear internets?

So, the Tall Man decided we should have a proper date night: dinner and movie. We haven't done that in a while. Not that we don't like to go out to dinner or go see movies but I like cooking at home and most of the time there aren't any movies we want to see.

Well, it just so happened there was a movie we wanted to see so we got in the car, went for some tasty mexican food by the theater and then we saw Date Night. Oh, lord, it was funny. I heart Tina Fey and Steve Carrell! But before the movie started, they showed the requisite 20 minutes of previews, one of which for for the A-Team. And all the kiddies sitting near us are in high school and have absolutely no recollection of when the A-Team was a tv show and Mr. T said "I pity the fool..." This suddenly makes me feel old. But whatever, maybe this movie will be good because it has Liam Neeson and, well, it has to be decent, right? Liam Neeson!

And then the movie starts. They make various pop culture references like "Long Duk Dong" from 16 Candles and only Michael and I are laughing. This happened repeatedly throughout the movie. So I really start to feel old. Except I'm not old (don't let those under-eye wrinkles fool you). But, boy, I felt like it.

And it's moments like these where I find myself taking a little trip down memory lane and thinking about how old I was when I first (fill in the blank) or what year XYZ song was popular. Or, most recently, I was mailing Angie's birthday present and I was remembering the year that Gwen, Craig and I made her this godawful funfetti cake with funfetti icing and it was so unbelievably ugly. We decorated it with blue and yellow frosting and then gave ourselves mustaches and goatees with the leftovers. And do you know how long ago that was? A long time ago. Like, 17 years ago, I think. God, that cake was ugly (sorry, Ang) but we had a good time making it.

But, anyway, back to date night. We had a nice time. It was fun to go out on a date with my husband where someone else cooked and cleaned up after us and then we went to see a movie. We really should have date night more often.

An FAQ sheet I want to staple to my forehead...

I have been *officially* unemployed for 3 months now. Technically it's been 4 months but I don't count the month of January since I spent the entire month preparing for my boards. Thus, I have spent the last 3 months applying for and being rejected for RN jobs in CA and other states. I have been networking and meeting new people and trying not to sound as bitter as I feel on the inside. I know people mean well and often just don't know what to say. But, folks, now I'm at the point where I am going to rip my arm off and beat myself senseless with it if I have to explain. One. More. Time. Why I am an unemployed RN.

That seems a bit...drastic, yes? So, perhaps an FAQ I could staple to my effing forehead would be a bit more appropriate. After the obligatory "I'm looking for work" intro, I'm thinking it should go something like this:

But you're a NURSE! Isn't there a shortage?

(Sigh...) Yes, there is still a shortage in parts of the country but hospitals are clamping down on expenses and training a graduate nurse is expensive. Hospitals would rather pay a travel nurse who can start right away and not need any training short of a 2 day orientation to how *that* hospital operates, protocols, etc.

But all you hear about in the news is that health care is recession-proof...

The reality is that the recession has hurt many workers including nurses and their families. Nurses who were planning to retire have delayed doing so because their retirement accounts tanked and/or their spouse was laid off and they need the income. Additionally, many nurses who might have left one hospital for another have stayed in their current position until the economy improves. Due to these factors, hospitals have not been forced to hire new grads since so many experienced nurse have stuck around.

Have you tried talking to So-and-so? His wife is a doctor at XYZ hospital?

Yes, I have talked to his wife and the hospital she works for is not hiring new graduates. Knowing a doctor can be a useful connection but it is rare that a doctor can influence a hiring a decision unless the hospital is willing to hire a new grad.

Have you tried looking at doctor's offices/surgery centers/clinics?

Yes, of course I have. They aren't hiring either. No one wants to take the time or spend the money to train a new grad when there are experienced nurses whom they'd rather hire.

What about a nursing home?

(Smacks self in face). Well, there's a lot of stigma against nurses who work in nursing homes (skilled nursing facility or SNF is the preferred term) and many hospitals will not hire a nurse who came from a SNF. I don't know why that it is the case but it's something to keep in mind. Also, nurses supervise a lot of unlicensed assistive personnel in SNFs and it's her/his license on the line when something goes wrong. Frankly, I'm not comfortable going to a SNF at this time.

Well, isn't St@nford hiring? I mean, gosh, their hospital is huge!

Well, for one thing, no, they aren't hiring. Earlier this year they received 750 applications for 10 slots, interviewed 100 applicants and hired 7 of them. They currently have no plans to hire another cohort of new grads at this time. Also, they are doing something particularly horrible to the nurses currently employed there and given what I know about the situation, I'm not sure that hospital system is a very nice place to work even if they were hiring.

Oh, well, you're smart, I'm sure you'll find something.

That's very kind of you to say. There are thousands of new grads like me who are smart who are also unemployed.

The end.

Blarg. See? I sound bitter. And the longer I remain unemployed the more bitter I become and the more attractive the military starts to look. I mean, hell, they pay good wages and they offer loan forgiveness. I just don't want my ass shipped to Baghdad no matter how good of an experience I would get. I don't know. Maybe it really is time to say "fuck it," stop looking and wait tables. Happy National Nurses Week.