Getting crafty!

How does someone who's never "crafted" before in her life spend $100 at a craft store in one stop?
I think that trip single handedly led to my self-diagnosis of ADD. "Ooohhh scrapbook paper, OMG a whole book of EUROPE! $20 for paper? Sure! And there's a hatbox with a European map. I'll totally have a craftbox now! Ooohhh glass bowls! And ill buy those clear stones and fill them up..." This continued for about an hour and looked something like this...

So afterwards I tried FIVE stores for mason jars. BTW-Super Center walmart in the 'burbs. Don't try the one in a downtown city. When you ask them if they have mason jars they'll look at you like you have six heads.

So here's what I did this afternoon...

DIY decoupage map letter

I plan on visiting Cali this summer. So I found a wooden letter, traced it over a map with the places I'll be visiting. A little mod podge and voila! Its now hanging on my bedroom wall.

My inspiration for this came from here

This picture is before I smoothed it out more. I found out you really need to give it time to dry and push all the little bubbles out. But totally worth it! I might go buy more and do my whole name in places I want to visit, or have visited.

My second project was my own idea. The craft store sold sheets of corkboard. I thought hmmm Proby could use some coasters. Especially since the boy constantly spills beer. So a little corkboard, some London themed scrapbook paper, the all mighty mod podge and voila!

Here is a step by step guide if you want to make some. These also used tiles whereas mine were just corkboard. If I hadn't been driving like a maniac searching for mason jars I probably would've also stopped for tile. Which looked something like this....

3 Day weekend!

Woo!
So on my unit we self schedule. As long as you do your required weekends you can choose whatever youd like. So whenever its my off weekend, I try to have a 3 day weekend.
This weekend I'm getting crafty! My apartment could use some spicing up and its rainy/snowy here, and everyone else I know is working!

Project 1--Wall art

Project 2-Painted mason jars/wine bottles

Project 3-Decoupage mason jars

Since graduating college I've been needing to find a hobby to pursue outside of work. I hate working out and don't like the clean up after cooking. So, crafts it is! I'm heading to the store tomorrow. We'll see how much I can finish before my mon night shift ughhh.

Night Shift

So somewhere along the line, nurses on my unit were made to work 50/50 day/night rotation. I've heard its so that we can keep our skills up, whatever that means.
Bottom line: It sucks. I mean, the money is nice. But the toll on my body/sanity/social life is not.
The following is the Proby RN "Guide to Staying Awake through a Night Shift, while Simultaneously Keeping your Patient Alive and Not Pissing off Everyone in your Social Circle."

1) Stay up a little later than usual the night before your scheduled night shift. Wake up early-ish, say 9am. Do some stuff, laundry, cook, shower etc. Then sleep a few more hours, say until 5ish.
2)On way to work stop at gas station, buy snacks, preferably of the sugary variety. Forget about everything you learned in nursing school about dia-beet-us. Also buy those yummy Starbucks espresso drinks.
3) Get to work, scope out a busy/interesting patient assignment. This will help keep you moving, keep you awake til 7am.
4) Start snacking! Drink a coffee/soda early on in shift, and pretty much continue to do so until you have heart palpitations. Hook yourself up to the monitors and see that you are in bigeminy PVC's. No big.
5) Take a walk outside around 3/4 am when you are hitting a wall. This works especially well if its sub-freezing or blizzarding outside.
6) Turn on VH1's music countdown starting at 5am. Dance around while doing morning patient care stuff. Gotta keep that blood flowing!
7) Try to give a coherent report to day RN. Peace out ASAP. Wear sunglasses on the ride home and go to bed right away. Usually by 8am for me.
8)Do this a few nights in a row.
9)When switching back to days, go to bed around 8am. Wake up around 12/1pm. Try to be moving-chores, cooking, go for a run. Lying in bed will keep you sleepy. Go to bed your normal time.
10)Wake up the next day for a day shift starting at 7am!

See why this kind of schedule is so unhealthy?

Its been awhile...

Oops. Life got real busy over the holiday season and work all the time, next thing I knew months had gone by.
So I've been off orientation a few months now. I am just now starting to feel competent. Things still happen where I make an oopsie and remember how new I am at this. But I am no longer scared to go to work.
Here's a couple things that have happened since Oct. A few deserve their own posts, to come later.

1)Presented my patient during multidisciplinary rounds to a CT surgeon and the entire unit.
2)Took on back to back critically ill, sometimes dying patient assignments during the week from hell.
3)Got a week off from work, including christmas! Due to an ovarian cyst that had to be removed
4) Our unit started doing LVADs and I went to training to be able to take care of them
5) Sexual harrassment by a patient and a doc.
6) Floated for a night to our sister unit
7) Started taking on nursing students already!

Now to start posting the funny things that happen at work!