::disney September 2018::

I have so been looking forward to this trip.  I give it my all at work and I sure try not to hold back at home.  Our Disney trips are often, I get it.  How can they afford to do this?  Well, we are lucky.  We have no hotel fees.  My parents join the vacation club in 1997, I'll post in more detail on that another day.  We also try to be modest in most other aspects of our life to pay for our Disney obsession.  We don't drive fancy cars, I'm crazy cheap (buy mostly used) with all of my clothing, etc.  We cut lots of corners in most of our life because we have learned that a huge part of our mental health happiness is Disney time.  This particular trip was unique.  I was hired to come give a speech in Disney and Josh and Quinn came along as my entourage.  We didn't bring the whole crew because last time we pulled them out of school their grades did not recovery.  Lucky Quinn, got to be the only child.   

A tradition  on the airport tram.  

We had one night at freshly renovated Coranado Springs as part of my gig.  It was really nice.  I was impressed.  Nice sized room, and Quinn loved the bathroom.  

Disney magic was everywhere.  

We got there early the first day and headed straight to Animal Kingdom.   This kid took his chances to chill whenever he could.  

Quinn was shy and freaked out when he got asked to be in a little parade at the Pandora gift shop.  But he did it.  

We where exhausted after getting 20K steps at AK.  Quinny and I had to sit and chill while waiting for the bus.  

The next morning it was time for my speech.  My topic was "Making Emotional Connections with Opioid Addicts".  It was awesome, but a little intimidating.  I didn't speak till 10:15 but of course I arrive two hours early to make sure I knew how to use all the IT stuff and go over it all in my head.  

Right before the peeps started rolling in I was ready to go.  And maybe puke.  

I got this dress and shoes just for this event.  I wanted to feel confident.  It helps that I have lost 50 pounds over the last 6 months.  Josh took this picture to send to my weight loss doctor.  No meds and no surgery, just good advice and lots of accountability.  I will post more on this at some point in the future.    

While I was at my meeting I got this picture from the amazing nurse Kathy that helps me in the office.  I got nominated for a nursing excellence award at work.  For the record - I get that I am on a high note at work right now.  Things are going really well.  I adore what I do and I am so excited to get to do what I love at the level I want to do it.  This award nomination was a cherry on top.  

After my speech was over we checked out of our hotel and checked in to Saratoga Springs.  I got changed into my Mary Poppins dress and ears and we went to Disney Springs to have a celebration lunch.  

I had three beverages, my favorite way to be.  

Then I talked the boys into letting me try on dresses at the Dress Shop.  I limit it to three try on dresses, you can only push Quinny so far.  I ended up buying the Small World dress, they have changed the style of it but are still using the same fabric.  Love it.  

We had to go to Goofy's Candy Co.  I love it here.  It took Quinn forever to even decide what he wanted.  

I wanted everything, but please remember I just lost 50 pounds.  I held off.  

Quinny ended up with a slushy.  God bless the lady at the counter.  She let him try 6 different flavors.  Once he finally picked she told him to hold on and she answered the phone.  It was Goofy on the phone and he said that Quinn needed this slushy for free.  Quinn was pumped to get some Disney Magic.  I thought it was so sweet.  

It took Quinn some time but he talked me into getting Buzz Lightyear.  

He had to tuck him in bed that night.  

The next day I went to some meetings half day and then we headed off to Magic Kingdom.  

In my new dress.    

Quinn made me ride the Magic Carpets, but would not sit by me.  

He pretty much demanded to sit by Josh on all rides.  

We rode Space Mountain and he was pumped to be in the front row.  

People Mover!  Favorite ride.  

I rode Astro Orbiter for the first time since I was little.  

Quinn did agree to riding with me.  

Dumbo.  

Barn Stormer.  

We squeezed in together to Splash Mountain. 

Thunder Mountain.  

Photo bomb baby.  

Mine Train.  

Small World!

Through super small crowds and good fast passes we walked on everything we wanted to ride.  We got really lucky.  

The next day we headed off to Epcot.  

We had to go visit Figment.  

Then chilled for awhile in the DVC club and made plans for Food and Wine.  

We had a splurge and ate Hibachi in Japan. 

Then off to see Nemo.  

Space Ship Earth.  

Test Track was super fun.  

We bribed Quinn into letting us try out a few Food and Wine kiosks by getting him a huge Dole Whip.  

Home!  

We had such a good time.  It was an action packed trip.  It brought me home ready to get right back into the thick of things.  I love these Disney resets.  

::why my job is a blessing::

In 2011 I was working as an NICU nurse at St. Vincent and thought I would work there till I retired a little old great grandma.  I was pregnant with my third baby and thought I had everything all lined up.  Then my life took a different turn.  Our baby died at 18 weeks gestation and I lost my damn mind.  I couldn't get out of the fuzzy cloud I was living in so I decided to make some changes.  I was pregnant again and I wanted to be distracted so I decided to take a job that was exactly opposite of what I was already doing.  I took a job on the Resource Team at Community Hospital.  I took the job with the promise that they would cross train me to work in the Emergency Room.  Which they did.  It was very challenging.  The Resource department was chaos, and I was used to really clear and able managers.  The ER was SOSOSOSO different than anything I had ever done.  But pushing myself professionally had the results I wanted, I spent my pregnancy with Quinn so distracted by all the new learning that I hardly noticed I was pregnant.  

Studying

I had my sweet little Quinny and my plan was for me to go back to St. Vincent.  The money was too good and the job was growing on me.  I was falling in love with taking care of grownups and babies.  I was then trained to work postpartum and peds, in addition to ED and NICU.  I was enjoying all the growth and new experiences.  I was getting addicted to not being bored.   I just kept feeling pulled to go back to gradschool and become a practitioner, and at that point I knew Family Practitioner was the fit for me.  When my nursing peers were talking about selling lipstick, face lotion, and what ever bullshit product of the week, I was out working my ass off to get a master degree so I could live up to my potential of helping people.  

Part way through gradschool I saw an opportunity to go back to St Vincent and work with them again.  Let's just say it went really freaking bad, super bad.  Some of it was my fault and some of it was not.  After a few very stressful weeks I shut the door on St Vincent.  It was a good experience in the way that it made me really commit my heart to Community.  I came back from that and I no longer thought of Community as a stopping point but as the destination. 

One day when the pressures of four kids, renovating a house, working, and gradschool started to seem like too much I got on our hospital website and did some job searches.  The most perfect job that could every occur in the word came across.  A nurse practitioner that does women's care and addiction care.  BOTH!!!  Two things that I knew for sure I hoped to do when I got out of school.  It was November and I didn't even graduate till May.  The job required two years of experience, I had negative 6 months.  I had no real women's health experience.  I had some serious negatives in my corner.  BUT - I was meant for this JOB!!!!!!!!!!!!!!   I stood up and walked right into the managers office and started the process of begging for the job. 

Part of school was that our last semester we had to find a preceptor to spend a ton a time with to learn as much as possible.  I did everything that I could to make sure I used that time to be part of the practice that I was hoping to join.  I didn't lie and I didn't kiss ass, but did make sure that there were no secrets about how much I wanted that job.  Lucky for me no one else was crazy enough to take it while I was trying to get it.  When they interviewed me they said that they didn't know exactly what the job was going to be.  They said I was going to have to be flexible and creative, I took that very seriously.

My work picture 

The job started off with a bang.  I needed to learn to be a women's health practitioner and figure out what an addiction practitioner was going to be able to do.  I had others to train me to being a women's health NP, but no one else had done my job before and I was going to have to pave my own way.    All I knew what to do was be me and try to do this job the very best that I could.  I took it really seriously and was given all the resources that I needed to make it happen.  

My family says this looks like an Azkaban mugshot

I had the HUGE blessing of being paired with the very talent LPN, Kathy.  She takes such good care of me and she makes sure to cross any of the T's that I miss.  I have never worked in an office before but it didn't take long to figure out that as a provider, you are totally screwed if you get paired with the wrong nurse to run you.  Kathy and I are exactly the right match.  

My time at my job is about  40% taking care of pregnant opioid addicts in some way and the rest taking care of regular OB/GYN patients.  With that said, my patients take about 2-3X longer than a regular OB/GYN patient.  They have some pretty huge needs sometimes and my job is to take care of those needs.  Anything from housing, safety, and regular old mom worries.  

I have had so many unexpected good things happen since I started this job.  I use to hate meetings.  I did everything besides fake a seizure to get out of them.  Now I have grown to like them.  I get pulled to lots of meetings and get brought in on lots of different things.  For example, growing the program to other regions, presenting our successes to other hospitals, communicating with support programs throughout the city, etc.  It's a bit never ending, but it is an amazing way to keep improving our program every since day.  

Another unexpected bonus is that I got hired to come do a presentation on making emotional connections with opioid addicts at a nursing managers conference.  I had friend recommend me and the company called me to work out all the details.  Just because my life is on a roll right now the conference happens to be in Disney World.  The most ideal place it could possibly be!  The conference pays enough for me to sneak Josh and Quinn along with me.  We didn't take the entire crew because last year the older kids missed school for Disney and their grades didn't recover well.  Since Q is only in first grade he can miss a few days of school and recovery. We have a family trip planned in June 2019 so the rest of the crew will have to wait till then for some Disney magic.  

My last bonus was that I get to work with my sister inlaw!  She is an OB/GYN in the same clinic and we actually spend 2-3 days a week sitting about 4 feet apart.  I love her so much that being so close together emotionally and literally is wonderful for me.  (I think she would agree.)

My name on the door.  

The part I truly love the very most about this job, is the care of the women in the program.  I LOVE helping them.  I love helping them find hope and solutions.  I love building them up and getting them ready to parent.  They try so very hard.  These women want so desperately to be good mothers and I love giving them tools to make that happen.  When they first come in and they are so sick, their souls are not really present, and they look rough.  Then very quickly you see a major change.  Their eyes start to light up and they start to shine.  It makes me so proud of them.  I love being their advocate to navigate recovery.  

Teared up with my first personalized labcoat

I am so blessed to get to do this job and that I get the support that I need to be successful.  I feel like this job, more than any other I have ever had, takes my strengths and utilizes them.  I am surrounded by people that balance my weaknesses, such as other practitioners that have stronger clinical skills and more experience than me.  Our office is full of MD's that are kind and supportive.  Our support staff is the very greatest in the entire city.  I have Kathy to keep me sane and on task.  Considering that I didn't even have the minimum requirements to get past HR when I applied, I think this is working out pretty well.  




















 

::art studio - take two::

My art studio started out rough when we bought this place.  It has been well built and was screaming for me to love it right.  

This awesome metal shelving unit was on our property when we moved in.  It's been over a year now and I have been just storing this, waiting till it stood up and demanded to be used.  Today was that day.  

My first set up had been wonderful.  I love the desk with good storage under the window.  This desk used to be in my fathers old school photo darkroom when I was a kid.   

The red lockers look awesome, but they actually are not good storage.  And the make due board on top was useful work space but needed some adjustments.  

I love this little white bookcase.  It's been a perfect pretty and sturdy display area for me and I knew it needed to stay.  

Today I (actually Josh) dragged the metal storage shelves and a very old green drafting table out of one of our milking rooms and I cleaned them up.  Poor Josh had to work his ass off all day dragging furniture around.  I'm so lucky that he humors me.  

I was on the edge of listing the metal cabinet on Craigslist today.  It seemed too big and maybe too difficult to deal with.  But once we got it in the studio I knew it was perfect.  TONS of good storage with it all open and easy to see and use.  

The vintage drafting table had one missing drawer, but it's just so cool I had to use it anyway.  It now gives a second work area so I can have company while I work.  

Look at that table!!!!  I just love it.  The top is so solid.   

The missing drawer it now open marker storage.