Another first...

Today I experienced my first earthquake. It wasn't a big one--4.3 to be exact--and the epicenter was in the south Bay. I was at school when it happened. I heard a loud noise and the building shook a little and I thought "geez, someone must have dropped something really heavy on the second floor to make the building shake." Duh. Actually, I did wonder if it might be a quake but then I assumed it wasn't.

Anyway, no harm done but it's kind of surreal. My mom has been worrying about earthquakes since Michael accepted the job offer out here. That and wildfires, bears, cougars and, get this, tsunamis. We had to reassure her (multiple times) that there are mountains between us and the ocean so there won't be any tsunamis. You just can't reason with a mother who is looking for any reason to worry. You can believe I'm not going to tell her about this. Thank goodness she doesn't read my blog.

A new first...

I successfully put in a new IV last night--on the first try! I realize this probably doesn't seem like a big deal (maybe it does if you've ever had an IV put in) but this a huge deal for the nursing students. And I did it on a little old lady with tiny little old lady veins that roll around. Yay me!

Some resolutions. Ish...

Yes, I know it's the end of March. Like, 3 months too late for some resolutions. But, hey, this is about the time everyone else abandons the ones they made 3 months ago so it's not such a bad thing to start now, right?

This is a big year. A challenging year, if you will. I wasn't planning on any resolutions per se and I never got around to my own 31 for 31 list (I didn't do a 30 for 30 either but then 30 kind of sucked) but there were a few things I wanted to do and the only way to hold myself accountable was to publish them in a public-type place. Like the internets. Not the refrigerator door, not the bathroom mirror--the internets. So, here they are, in no particular order.

1. Make bread from scratch (no cheating with a bread machine)
2. Donate blood at least 4 times this year (can't do more it more than every 8 wks)
3. Try 3 new recipes every month
4. Do some container gardening...maybe some tomatoes, a pepper plant and some herbs?
5. Meet more of our neighbors besides just the couple next door
6. Do some sort of exercise (besides walking the dog) a minimum of 3 times a week
7. Try at least 3 new restaurants on Murphy Street (there's at least 12 and we eat at the same one every time)
8. Work on being more consistent with my tennis game
9. Hang pictures on the walls that do not feature any member of our families
10. Spend Christmas in Hawaii
11. Make this blog more aesthetically appealing (gotta have a stretch goal)

So far, I've given blood once (this morning, in fact) and I tried one of the Thai places on Murphy St. last week for Michael's birthday. Also, I met 2 other neighbors on Friday (Rick who lives across the street and 3 doors down) and Saturday (Paz who lives across the street). Next weekend I hope to buy some plants and begin my container garden. Any recommendations from the gardener extraordinaire? Also, suggestions for recipes and breads are always welcome as are travel tips re: Hawaii.

To my husband on his 37th birthday...


Happy birthday to my:

• biggest supporter

• honey do-er of everything that even remotely involves engineering or any other science or the use of his leatherman

• walker of the dog while I sleep in after a late night studying

• fetch-er of Chipotle when I just can't bear to cook dinner

• giver of awesome foot rubs

• total geek hotness husband

I love you. You're the best.

p.s. you smell like a monkey and you look like one too:>

Try not to lose...

That's commonly heard at my weekly tennis clinic when Mark has us doing drills. He'll put half the class on one side of the net and the other half on the other side and he'll tell us to play competitively and then he'll tell us try not to lose. Which is a different way of saying try to win. And while "try not to lose" and "try to win" are essentially the same thing, you want to win and not losing means winning, it's still a different mindset.

It's actually pretty easy to beat yourself by trying to overpower your opponent and then missing the final shot and giving away the win. Trying not to lose is something I need to work on.

Not really a big deal...

School, school, school. Blah, blah, blah. All the time, right? Yeah, boring. So I won't bore you with the latest and greatest in the land of incontinent older adults, many of whom have dementia and tell you they need to "go bim" even when they're already on the commode and have already gone "bim."

It's about grades and performance this time. This is a highly competitive program and none of us who are in it are "paying customers." You had to have seriously good grades to get in and you have to get better than a C in every class to stay in the program. And the curriculum is difficult not the least of which is due to the fact that this is an accelerated program not an abbreviated one. Yet, I find the work ethic of many of the students appalling.

Every week we have an exam or a quiz or some such thing do and a lot of the students whine about not wanting to study (hey, it's not like I live for studying or anything myself) and then they don't do as well on the exams as they would have liked. And then they commiserate about their grades and inevitably they ask what your grade was and my grade? Almost always an A. Which is good, I know. But, man, have I come to dread the day after the scores are posted and they look at me and my grade is only one of 3 A's in the class and they all got B's and C's. See? Not a big deal but it gets on my nerves after a while.

And on top of that we're doing med administration during our clinicals and that includes everything by mouth, nasogastric tube, topical application and injection (no IV meds until after we graduate) and all the people at my clinical site seem to want to do is jab people with needles. Yes, it's exciting and a little scary especially when you are administering something like heparin or insulin and it requires the signature of 2 RNs before you can give it but, sheesh, there's more to it than that.

There is just so much information to learn and so many things to be on the look out for and I always worry that I'll miss something. Sometimes I worry that my classmates aren't worried enough. Maybe it'll be different in another couple of months after we've all given loads of injections and it starts to become routine. It's like that saying about: what do you call the guy(or gal) who graduates at the bottom of his (or her) medical school class? Doctor. It's the same for us. And I don't know about you, but I want the goddamned valedictorian taking care of me when I'm the hospital.

Why my dog is an asshole...

Most of you have had the distinct pleasure of knowing me when I adopted Shana (maysherestinpeace - that, by the way, is on purpose and anyone up to date on the Terry Pratchett witch series will know that, right?) and will remember that she did horrible, unspeakable things like eat shoes and underwear; steal Thanksgiving turkeys; eat birth control pills; get in the trash (a lot); eat a tube of citrus face wash; eat fireworks and she got sprayed right in the face by a skunk. Oh, and she puked on a boyfriend once. Hee hee!

Normally Esme doesn't give us this kind of trouble but she seems to be channeling Shana's spirit these days and I'm seriously about to ship her off to the monkey house. She's been counter surfing and has pulled down a big loaf of irish bread, eaten half a bag of pizza cheese and one half of a ball of raw pizza dough (that one there cost us $325 in emergency vet bills, god) and on Friday we came home to discover she had managed to open the cabinets where the trash is kept and pulled out the trash can and all of it's contents and spread it throughout the kitchen and living room. She had gone after some chicken fat leftover from cooking off chicken for her behavioral training (might I add that this dog gets to eat organic chicken. Little rotter) that I wrapped in paper towels, wrapped in a plastic bag and placed in the bottom of the trash can. Not only did she eat the chicken fat-covered paper towels but she ate that little absorbent pad thingy from the bottom of the chicken packaging. That thing is wrapped in plastic and I'm pretty sure she ate some of it in the process.

I can't even begin to describe how pissed I was at this dog. Instead of having a date night with my dear husband, we spent the evening mopping the kitchen floor and steam cleaning our living room rug. Then we locked the little bugger in her crate and went out for Indian food and a trip to T@rget. So far she's passed the paper towels and we're keeping a close eye on her for any obstruction but I have to say: it's a good thing she's so cute or I swear I'd have FedEx-ed her back to Sarah, her foster person in Ohio.

'Til death do us part...

A lot of us have said those words as part of our marriage vow and even if you didn't say the actual words, you probably said something like that. And if you haven't said anything resembling those words to another human being yet you're probably planning to at some point.

In the state of CA, it is mandatory that a healthy aging class be taught as part of the nursing school curriculum. One our assignments in this class is to conduct 3 interviews with a community-dwelling older adult, so, someone aged 65+ who still lives in the community (but not in a nursing home). I interviewed Michael's tennis partner who is 69 and let me just tell you that Bob regularly kicks Michael's butt on the court. Also, they're playing at the 3.5 level which is relatively advanced.

During the course of my interview I asked Bob about whether he was married, widowed, divorced, etc. I knew he was living with one of the lady's who is in my tennis clinic and that they reconnected at their 45th high school reunion a while back but that's all I knew. But during the interview I got the scoop and discovered that Bob decided to divorce his wife of 42 years because he felt that he still had too many good years on this earth and wanted to be happy. The details of what precipitated this decision are few but he did mention that they had changed too much and didn't share enough of the same interests anymore.

Just out of curiousity I asked him if, given how long our life expectancy is now, if he thinks it's feasible to be married to the same person for the rest of your life. And he said no. And if it does happen, great, but what a rarity it will be. Being married for more than 10-15 yrs to the same person seems like a rarity these days. But it got me thinking about things. I said those very vows to Michael 3 years ago and I meant them then and I mean them now. But will we feel differently in 40 years? 60 years? We could easily live to be in our 90s and beyond and that is a long, long time of being with the same person.

Do I think Bob is right? Kind of. Marriage takes work and commitment no matter how long you're married but the thought of being divorced in 40 years is mind boggling. Clearly, this is not an issue we need to concern ourselves with right now but it's been on my mind since Saturday. Frankly, the whole thing makes me feel sad. And it's a reminder that you have to take care of your marriage and not let it languish like some half-rotted plant in the yard. But what say you, dear internets? In this age of longevity, is it feasible to be married to the same person until death parts you?

You're just dying to find out...

about the crazy things people stick up their butts, aren't you? We won't be doing a rotation in the ER anytime soon, and that's where those stories originate, but here's another example of something you don't stick up your rear: a dowel rod.

One of today lectures (well, both actually) talked about bowels (yes, again) and disease, etc., and our professor shared a story from his days as an ER nurse. A man came walking into the ER looking as if he just got off a horse, you know, crab walking. That's your first sign that something is not right. So, they do an xray and discover that he put a wax-coated dowel rod up his bum and it got sucked up into his large intestine. When that happens it often requires surgical removal. This is very much like the guy many of you heard about who stuck a big vibrator (including the testicle part) up his bum and he used a fork (yes, a fork) up there to dislodge it. In case you were wondering, the distal end of your GI tract has 2 sphincters and once you get something past your internal anal sphincter, well, it's gone. It's called the point of no return, people, so you better be damned sure that you don't stick anything up there that you can't get out. This also goes back to my own personal theory that your rectum/anus is in "out" hole not an "in" hole but that's just me. If you don't subscribe to that theory, that's cool, just practice good hygiene and never, ever use analeeze. You can hurt yourself without realizing it due to it's anesthetic effects.

Anyway, both patients required surgery and a temporary colectomy while the bowel healed. That means that they close off part of your bowel and then create a new anus by connecting the bowel to a hole in your abdomen thus giving you a place for excrement to, um, excrete. You attach a colostomy bag to the stoma (that's what the artificial anus thing is called) to collect your excrement until your bowel is healed and is then surgically sewn back together. Often this is a temporary arrangement but sometimes it is permanent in cases like colon cancer, etc.

So, my other theory is that no one wants a colectomy and there are ways to prevent needing one unless you get cancer but, hey, that's what sigmoidoscopies are for, right? And lots of fiber, but I digress. I think it should be a requirement that there should be a brief lecture during high school health class on sticking things up your bum. If you do it and something gets "lost", you should just take yourself to the ER right away and not try dislodging the item with a fork and, really, if you're going to stick something up your bum, make sure you can get it back out. Then there needs to be a talk about thorough cleanliness and hand washing. Hee, you can bet that parents don't want me running for school board...

How was it?

Well, the first day on the ward was brief but good. I'll spare you the gory details but the patients we saw included:

1. An agitated bi-polar woman with a tertiary wound and hemovac drain. She was in pain and unhappy and not very nice. But then, if I were in pain, I might not be very nice either. She was mean to all the nurses including the wound specialist. Unfortunately, we didn't get to see her wound.

2. A homeless man with a femur and tibial fracture who didn't smell so good. Also, he was still in his clothes and not a hospital gown. He wasn't wearing underwear. Don't ask me how I know that. I asked the nurse how he hurt himself but she didn't know. She says that when the homeless come to the hospital they've usually been hit by a car. That makes me sad.

3. An older gentleman who had recently had a laparoscopic cholecystectomy (gallbladder removal). We almost got to observe the insertion of a foley cath on him but then he went and voided 4 oz of urine and the nurse decided he didn't need one inserted just then. Good for the patient but unfortunate for us.

4. Another older gentleman who was post-op for the removal of a melanoma and a partial parotidectomy. He was vomiting a bit and still fuzzy from anesthesia. Melanoma, ewww.

On Monday we got to hear about the experiences that some of the other students had. Some of them were on an oncology ward and most of their patients were not long for this world. A number of the students were caring for dementia patients. 2 students were working with a patient who died during their shift so they did post-mortem care (they wash the deceased's face and hands, do a quick shave of the face--basically they make them presentable for family). All in all, lots of different things to see and experience.

Also, there was more paperwork. Big surprise, I know. And the handwashing thing? Well, some were more lax about it than others. All I can tell you is that when you are in a clinical setting, your provider, be it nurse, doc, respiratory therapist, etc., should wash with soap and water or use alcohol gel when she comes into the room and leaves the room. If you are ever at the doctor's office or the hospital and they don't wash please, for your own sake, ask them to do so.

More soon!

First day! On the ward!

There have been many times that I've thought about taking down this blog. I usually don't have anything important to say and when I look back thru the archives (not often because, well, I sound like an idiot which brings me back to my point) I am amazed at how ridiculous I sound. I'm certainly not trying to find a cure for cancer or bring about world peace here. But I also know that if I take it down I'll never write in a journal either. I had a number of empty journals laying around because I could't bring myself to write in them. They have since gone to Goodwill where someone else can buy them and keep them around the house to gather dust. But somehow this blog seems like a reasonable medium to jot down some thoughts because sometimes people come over here to read what I have to say. And by people I mean Michael.

But I digress. Today is one of those days where I think it's important to make a note of what I was thinking. Today is going to be our first day of our first clinical rotation. Yesterday doesn't count because we filled out about a million pages of paperwork and took a tour of our new home for the next 9 weeks. But today. Today. Today is the day. And can I just tell you that I am scared out of my mind? They are going to let us do things to people and we are going to try not to kill them. I imagine that med students feel a little like this, too.

Of course we'll start of easy with checking of vital signs and all that but still. What if I look at someone wrong and he keels over? It's not like we're left on the ward by ourselves, certainly not. Our supervisor will be with us the whole time and yet it's scary. Our instructors have spent the last 6 weeks drilling ethics and protocol and liability into our heads because those things are very important but now we're about to put that stuff plus actual nursing skills into practice. This is scary. Very sick people are going to let us take their vitals, help them ambulate, help them use the bathroom, give them bed baths, give them meds and, just maybe, put in a few foley catheters and nasogastric tubes. !!!!!!!!!

So, dear internets, I tell you how scared shitless I am right now but when I go to the hospital today I will exude total confidence to the patients in my care. I will be friendly and will try not to let my hands shake nervously. I will wash my hands a lot and will hope they won't feel too clammy and cold. I will be careful and deliberate in my movements and will strive to be gentle when I have to adjust equipment or parts of the body. I already cut and filed my fingernails and removed my wedding rings and I'll remember not to wear perfume. Okay, deep breath. Wish me luck.

Justice?

Lately, you've heard about poop and shipping unused-but-in-perfectly-good-condition medical supplies so you've got the warm fuzzies right about now, right? Prepare yourself for a little downer...

The drunk driver who killed my aunt last year just 2 weeks after her 58th birthday was supposed to go to trial this week. Since then, the prosecutor, victim's advocate and my 3 cousins agreed to accept a plea bargain involving 10 years in prison and charges of DUI blah-dee blah but nothing about involuntary manslaughter. The judge has approved this so I guess this man, Travis Day is his name, is headed back to prison to serve out his 10 years.

No one asked me for my opinion, and it's irrelevant really, but it feels like justice has not been properly served here. I don't know all the reasons for accepting this proposal and I am not close with my cousins (regrettably) so I'm not in regular contact enough to find out what they're thinking but I'm thinking that this is not right. This man, by his own reckless actions, killed an innocent woman and he gets 10 years in jail and that's it? How is that okay?

Right now I could care less about overcrowded jails and long court proceedings and what would have happened if the jury let him off anyway--I care about justice and I just not feeling any right now. It's not like this reckless, drunk, repeat offender is someone who slid through an icy intersection and just, by accident, killed someone. No, he got drunk, drove on a suspended license and then rear-ended my aunt pushing her car into the way of oncoming traffic. The volunteer fire personnel on the scene told my mom that they were sure she died instantly. Small comfort, tho, for my mom, my grandmother, my other aunt and uncle, my cousins, their children and my aunt's significant other. Did I mention that her dog that was with her in the car was also killed?

Accidents happen, I get it. But while I'm sure he didn't wake up on December 27, 2007 intending to kill someone, he nevertheless got drunk and got behind the wheel. He caused an accident that could have been avoided. 10 years doesn't seem like a long enough time to pay for his crime. Is this guy sitting in jail feeling remorse for what he did? Does he even care that he killed someone?

Waste not, want not...

I don't know about you, but I really don't like to waste things. I try to recycle or repurpose stuff as much as possible and that means bringing home banana peels and plastic clamshell takeout containers to compost and recycle. I scrape out every last bit of peanut butter out of the jar and I will save 1 Tbs of milk just to use it the next day in my coffee. Yes, I am that person. I hate wasting things. And on occasion when I do I feel horribly guilty about it.

During the last 5 weeks, we have talked a lot about medical and surgical asepsis (clean vs. sterile) and that means going thru a lot of single-use products like gloves, syringes, cannulas, dressings, IV tubing, catheters, etc. In America, the land of plenty, there are often plenty of health care supplies around and manufacturers are getting rich off of the single-use products they supply because we want everything to be as clean and/or sterile as much as possible. And asepis is very important, I don't want to diminish that (some of you will recall that I sprayed Lys0l on the dishes before eating off them during a vacation to OCMD), but that approach to asepsis comes at a cost to our environment and our wallets.

Meanwhile, in underdeveloped countries and even some very rural portions of our own country, there are people who are reusing syringes and tubing by boiling them in water and sharpening the needles on a strap. Gloves are washed and reused until they're riddled with holes and then the fingertips are cut off and they're used for wound drainage in lieu of tubing. Often there aren't enough dressings to go around and wounds are left open to the air. In America, once a prepackaged sterile surgical set is opened it is no longer sterile so any remaining unused items are discarded in the trash. The wastefulness is outrageous.

Today, in lieu of going to lab, we went to MedShare. MedShare specializes in collecting medical supplies and equipment from area hospitals in GA and CA and ships them to underdeveloped countries all over the world. They also fund medical missions. An online database of the supplies they have on hand is kept and governments, aid groups, etc. can request a shipping container of the items they need for the discounted price of about $20K-22K, supplies which are worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. They only collect usable items that work (it's not a dumping ground for broken equipment) and their warehouse is full of hospital beds, walkers, crutches, lights, drapes, dressings, syringes, respiratory equipment, etc. You name it, they probably have it. They get so much stuff and this is from only a very small number of hospitals. I think they told us that in the 10 years of their existence they have kept over 1 million cubic feet of medical waste out of landfills. Really, it is amazing. Their overhead is very low; they are getting more support from health organizations by the day; they're being good stewards to those in developing countries while being good stewards to the environment.

So, for those of you who have made charitable giving and/or involvement a goal for the year, I invite you to send a little something to MedShare. I plan to give a little money and a little time. At the very least I hope you'll visit their website.

It seems like it's all about feces...

If you can't tell by the title that this post is about to err on the side of gross, well, you've been warned.

Ah, yes, poop. My favorite topic of conversation. So, for the benefit of those of you who are doomed to listen to me bitch about how tough this program is (you know, the one I so desperately wanted to get into) and for the rest of you who might be interested in what goes on in a nursing program, well, it can be summed up in one word: poop. Or feces. Or excrement. You decide which word you prefer.

So much of what I'm learning is about poop. It's about other things too like liability (scary!), teaching (fun!) , administering medication (also scary!), bathing (sometimes I'll get to delegate that one), assessment and diagnosis (nursing not medical) and, yes, toileting. And, yes, the poop.

The poop tells you so many things about a person's health status but also about their level of mobility. Even a perfectly innocuous discussion about pressure ulcers ends up with some chit chat about wanting to clean up diarrhea before it gets near the wound dressings. See? Poop. (Also, exudate and other perfectly nasty stuff involving pressure ulcers). Or, narcotics for post-surgical patients slows peristalsis and frequently results in constipation. Let's talk about how we treat constipation (also, you don't even want to know about fecal impaction and digital removal). During a health assessment, auscultate, palpate and percuss the abdomen and be sure to ask about the frequency and quality of bowel movements. Truly, we talk about poop at least 3 times a day 5 days a week.

Clinical rotations are going to be assigned next week. We'll be spending 10 weeks in a post-acute setting and will be spending a lot of time helping patients ambulate and assisting with self-care, toileting, etc. and I understand that poop will play a prominent role during this assignment. I assure you there will be more to share than just poop talk so stay tuned.

I know I talk a lot about poop but please know that nursing is so much more than bodily functions. Consider this:

The unique function of the nurse is to assist the individual, sick or well, in the performance of those activities contributing to health or its recovery (or to peaceful death) that he would perform unaided if he had the necessary strength, will or knowledge. And to do this in such a way as to help him gain independence as rapidly as possible.

-Virginia Henderson, 1966

Procrastination...

I'm supposed to be editing my 3-page paper written in APA format that absolutely cannot be more than 3 pages but requires ridiculous requests of 1.5 left and right margins, paragraph headers and Times New Roman 12 pt font (which I hate, by the way) and cannot get myself motivated to do it. I wrote it on Sunday...and I think I'm just tired of looking at it but I know my professor is going to ding me if it isn't perfect (duh). I can't bring myself to care.

This has not been a good week so far and it's only Tuesday. The dog is being a pain in the ass and refusing to pee (she's also counter surfing and required a $300 visit to the emergency vet for x-rays to make sure everything she ate came back up), Michael and I are in the Land of Miscommunication, I have a ton of reading to do and I'm not getting enough sleep at night. So instead of finishing the essay, reading any of my books, calling Pam for an appointment to deal with Esme's misbehavior or sleeping, I'm surfing the internets and am in total denial about everything. Also, even tho it's not as cold as where all of you are, it's cold enough that my hands are too cold to type without making a million typos. I feel like I need something to help me clear my head and get back on track. I've tried exercise and yoga. I've baked cookies. I've had a beer. Nothing works. Maybe a bubble bath? A vacation? A million dollars? A game of Sn00d?

Ausculation, Palpation and Percussion, oh, my!

As Michael likes to point out I am 4% closer to my BSN as of last Friday. As you can see by the title of this post I am up to my eyeballs in all things health assessment related. It's exciting, fun, scary and amazing all at once.

I know it's been ages since I last posted but I've been busy, blah, blah, blah, right? Aren't we all busy? And depressed about the economy. But happy about the inauguration. And needing more sleep. But trying out yummy new recipes.

So, I'm 2 weeks into my nursing program and it is BUSY. Lots of reading, lots of time spent in class and lab, lots of time at home reading some more. It's really interesting and it's all stuff I need to know (duh) but it comes at you at such a rapid fire pace that it's hard to stay on top of it. We'll start our hospital rotations in 3 weeks. No word yet on where we'll be placed for the first one. I hope it's somewhere a little closer to home.

Michael and I are settling in to the new routine. I think the dog is just glad when we leave the house in the morning so she can go sleep on our bed all day. My scrubs arrived as have my shoes. My loan finally got processed just in time to do taxes and submit a 2009/2010 FAFSA. My stethi arrived and I've managed to avoid spilling coffee all over my white scrubs. Did I mention that they are white? As in head-to-toe white?

That's about it. If any of you lived closer I would force you to let me practice health assessments on you and ask about your bowel movements and whether or not you wear sunscreen on a regular basis. Then I would check your pulse and listen to your lungs. See what you're missing?!? That and some 68 degree weather (which is warmer than normal at this time of year but I'll take it).

Hope you're all staying warm and have your glasses raised in honor of our new president. Cheers!

Meh...

What can I say that won't sound whiny and...well, whiny? Things here are fine--just the usual, every day stuff that we do but I'm not feeling all happy and stress-free (psst. I really want to feel happy and stress-free) and, well, it's getting me down. But then the economy is in the toilet, lots of people are unemployed or soon-to-be-unemployed or under-employed (my mom, for one) and lots of things are sucky for so many people. And here I am about to quit my job and take on some more student loan debt so that when I finish nursing school in a year I might not find a good job any time soon. Or a job that doesn't involve some hellish commute. Blarg, blarg, blarg.


So, enough bitching about that. There's nothing terribly wrong but nothing feels right. The holidays were weird this year since it's the first time in 6 years that I didn't go back to Lancaster for Thanksgiving. The weather is warm here (60's or so) so it doesn't feel holiday-ish. And I miss my friends. Living here on the west coast takes some getting used to and it's nice here but we're still adjusting. And I wish it were closer to the east coast but that can't be helped. One of the good things about living here is that the produce at the farmer's markets continues to be absolutely fantastic. I can still get strawberries. In December. And they're good. Not as good as in the summer but pretty darned tasty. And now grapes are in season and they taste so, so good. Better than any grapes I've ever eaten. There are pomegranates, oranges, apples and apple cider, autumnal veg and interesting things like persimmons which I can't seem to develop a taste for. And I'm only just now wearing a pseudo-winter coat.

All I can say is that I'm really looking forward to the trip to Lanky-town this weekend! This truly will be my last trip until 2011. That sounds weird to say. 2011. Anyway, there you have it. Guess I better stock up on hugs, apple butter from Market and wehani rice from Weaver's, a sandwich from I's and leisurely morning coffee on the back porch at my dad's.

Harder than it looks...

These are the red wigglers we bought for vermicomposting from the "Worm Dude."

(not an advert for USPS)

here they come!

worms? veg scraps?

These are the worms now...

Yeah, those are shriveled up dead little worms all over our back porch. About 2/3 of them committed mass suicide about 2 weeks ago and the remaining 1/3 offed themselves earlier this week. Both times this happened it was after a day's rain. We were feeding them all kinds of yummy veggie scraps and egg shells but then we'd come outside to discover they crawled out of their worm bin and died. What the hell? Vermicomposting is supposed to be super easy and a no-brainer and yet we killed our worms. Boo. But check out this new piece of awesomeness that now graces our backyard:

you know you want one

THE BEST WEDDING ANNIVERSARY PRESENT EVER!!!!!!!!!!!

WWWWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO, OBAMA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! MUST USE ALL CAPS!!!!!! WOOOOOO!!!

Seriously, this is the BEST anniversary ever. EVER. What could top this? Now, every year we will share our anniversary with the day that the American public pulled its collective heads out of its collective asses and voted for Obama. Life is good.

On edge....

I've been anxiously checking the internets for campaign news for weeks and now we're down to the final 24 hours of this presidential election. I'm hoping the American people do the right thing and vote for Barack Obama. In the meantime I'm anxious, my eye is twitching and I'm supposed to be studying for my final exam of the semester. But I can't concentrate because I'm too busy compulsively checking CNN and Salon.