THIS WEEK IN REFLECTION
Throughout the week, I typically type a few notes here to remind myself what all happened. When I sit down to actually write the Sunday Lowdown, it’s easier thanks to those notes. This time, I wrote things like “saved toad (mentioned in previous post) from certain death twice” and “opened new cabinet door, which fell off in my hand” and “random scary holes in yard (not moles) and I twisted my ankle in one and fell” and “that’s not rust on the stove, it’s baked on blackish/brownish food!” Okay, so that stuff isn’t really important. But I’m hoping you picked up on a theme: Nick and I are living in our new house!
Last weekend, Biscuit and my dad came down from central Michigan with their motorcycle/snowmobile trailer to help us move big items out of the apartment. Nick and Dad also installed a garage door opener (for some reason, only one stall had an opener). Eventually, I was painting Biscuit’s nails and arguing about whether my dad had peed inside or outside after he and Nick drank beers all afternoon while garage door-ing (I still don’t know the answer).
It’s been surprisingly easy getting used to the house, despite having lived in our apartment for nine years, and despite our stuff being all over the place in the house. Easy, because it’s home. The only thing we were worried about was moving Kitty because she’s so territorial. But, she’s in the “Kitty apartment” and almost seems happier to have a much smaller environment. Perhaps less territory to keep track of? Now she’s on the ground floor? The three windows she looks out? I’m not sure.
Even though house stuff is time consuming right now, Nick still has to go to work during the week. While he’s gone, I’ve been getting into my groove with volunteering. For three Fridays in a row I’ve helped at the Friends of the Library book sale, and this week I even taught some folks how to use the Libby and Hoopla apps while they were there.
I just now started volunteering at the hospice place after all the background checks, tests, fingerprinting, etc., which is less than a mile from my house. I walk there, but I also just found a practically-new bicycle for $7 at a garage sale on Saturday. (BTW, lady who sold me the bike, you ripped yourself off. New bicycles are about $200 these days). In the hospice office, I’ve done inventory on PPE and filed a bunch of paperwork (and completely forgot to hole punch it because I was so focused on not misfiling medical papers). Then, on Thursday, I made my first visit to a patient. I can’t talk about any aspect of that due to privacy/ethical issues, but I felt glad to be part of a family’s life.
THIS WEEK’S BLOG POST
I want to say my review of A Mother’s Reckoning by Sue Klebold was timely, but in the U.S. it’s always mass shooting time. That’s not a flippant comment; that’s a fact. Thank you for all the heartfelt comments about your own experiences with gun scares and your feelings about your children in the context of school shootings.
NEXT WEEK’S BLOG POST
One of my favorite parts about blogging is watching other bloggers grow. Next week, you’re going to meet IgnitedMoth, a blogger I follow who shares her art, opinions on horror movies and books, and has been writing a novel. Please make her feel welcome and feel free to ask her questions in the comments section of her Meet the Writer post.
BOOKS ADDED TO THE TBR PILE
Owned Books on TBR at Beginning of Year: 202
Owned Books on TBR Last Week: 178
Owned Books on TBR Today: 179
Grab the Lapels 
I love hearing about your new home, so it’s great to hear that you have settled in, and settled in so quickly – even Kitty. Well done. I also enjoyed hearing about your volunteering, too. So glad you are feeling engaged in what you are doing, not that I expected otherwise.
I will read your review of the Klebold book … last week was busy as we had lots on and much to do, before we left for Melbourne. We are now in Melbourne.
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I remember you saying you were headed for Melbourne! What are you doing there?
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Our grandson turns 4 next week so we always come down in June.
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Should you ever write a book, you should use those notes at chapter titles. So random and so fun. 😛
Kitty’s apartment sounds pretty rad! It does make sense that a smaller space if she’s territorial would make her feel calmer. It can be Kitty Zen Room. Please bring calm and snacks.
$10 says the boys peed outside.
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You’re down at least $5. I prefer to keep the lawn nice and alive even behind the garage. 😎
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Haha, you boys and your lawns. 😉
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I drink my coffee with her, and she sits on me in the most inconvenient ways she can think of. It’s air conditioned, too. Also, I ended up saving the toad for a 3rd time today. I really am a bog witch, like that meme you sent me 😀
I hope they didn’t pee outside because the old lady is directly next door, and a young family is on the other side. No matter where a person stands, someone’s going to see them. Also, my grass!
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Cats never do anything conveniently.
At this point, if the toad dies, you’re going to have to give him a funeral. You’re BFFs now.
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Seriously, I shall put it in the anaconda hole and send some of Nick’s beer down after it. And I’ll cry, though I know you would not judge me for doing so.
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Not at all! A friend is a friend. ❤
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I’m glad you’re in your new place and beginning to get settled in – and more glad that you are starting to get some patient contact! That’s definitely the part of ward nursing that I miss the most.
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Lou, do you think you will ever go back to being on the ward again, or is it teaching for the foreseeable future?
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If I go back to clinical work, it will be to specialist practice either as a tissue viability and wound care nurse, or as a serious incident investigator. I do miss it, but I couldn’t work on wards again – nurses are so awful to each other and I don’t want to work in that kind of environment again!
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I hope I’m not badgering you with questions, but in what way are nurses on a ward awful? The only thing I can think of is an example from a case study I looked at this past semester about an interpreting, which had nurses who disagreed with each other about hospital policy and tried to make the interpreter disregard the rule to stay out of the patient’s room unless interpreting.
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Sorry for the long delay (and you aren’t badgering me with questions, I’m happy to answer)! There are generally cliques, jostling for soft power, and other unpleasant small-p politics happening on a ward. I think this is because you are putting so much energy into being kind to your patients, who are often not very kind back, and then you end up taking it out on your colleagues (because you can’t on patients). The common phrase for describing how nurses treat new grads is “nurses eat their young”, which is absolutely true, but should probably be rephrased as “nurses eat their young and other vulnerable members of the pack”, because older nurses going through a hard time also tend to get picked on. I’ve had lots of lovely individual colleagues, but the bullying culture on wards is not something I’m keen to experience again!
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Oooohhhhh, one of those cultures. In other jobs I know that sometimes stems from a self-conscious feeling of perhaps being phased out when you’re older in favor of the “new, young thing.” In other jobs, I think people becomes so grizzled from how hard their job is that they want to send their new colleagues through a crash course of suffering as soon as possible.
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I love your cat shirt! Glad Kitty is doing okay with the move. Hooray for library and other volunteering. And you’ve got Dave Grohl on the TBR! Woohoo!
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Pusheen (the cat on my shirt) is great, and even better as a GIF. I recently saw Studio 666 with the Foo Fighters, and I canNOT believe they kept that a secret!
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You look as comfortable in the cat room as the cat does.
Where do you think truck drivers pee? Not in smelly public conveniences that’s for sure.
Love the look of Dark Matter. I checked it out, some great authors – right now I’d buy it just for Nalo Hopkinson. Will be a great book to dip in and out of I think.
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Our barn is visible from all sides by either A) the children’s party to the north and west or B) the elderly neighbor to the south and east. Plus, I don’t want dead grass patches! We just bought that grass!
For the life of me I can’t remember where I heard about Dark Matter. I think it was after I attended an online book even with author Jewelle Gomez?
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Congratulations on officially moving into your house! Have fun figuring out where all the things go and then remembering where you put them! I’m glad Kitty is adjusting to the move. Also, $7 for a almost new bike? Wow! If you don’t already have a helmet, your helmet will cost a lot more than the bike! You know I love bikes so highly endorse this purchase, and I hope you have lots of fun rides on it!
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I’ve never worn a bicycle helmet in my life, but everything tells me I should. I think I have an old motorcycle helmet somewhere, so maybe I can find that.
As for putting things away and then finding them, so far so good. We’re pretty minimalist with our stuff. I’ve tried to live by that lifestyle my entire adulthood. Pulling the spouse along has been a little more challenging, but worth it.
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Yay! I’m so excited to be featured in your blog soon. Thanks again for the opportunity! ❤
I'm glad your new house is already feeling like home, to you guys AND to Kitty. ^_^ And apparently to toads with a death wish too! lol
That's great that your volunteering is going so well. 🙂
Just went and added The Storyteller to my TBR List. I've been a Dave Grohl fan for a long time. Did you see his episode of Hot Ones on youtube? It was so good. He's such a talented musician and just seems like such a good dude.
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I’m exciting you agreed to be on GTL!
That dang toad. Nick found it in the garage again today, so there I was with rescue #3. I’m not sure what to do. I’d feel so awful if I backed over it. Other than that, it would be welcome to stay in the garage, but it wants to chill by my back tire!
I added the audiobook of The Storyteller because it’s read by Grohl. That seems only appropriate. I haven’t seen him on YouTube but have you seen Studio 666? I cannot believe that was a secret movie for so long. And then shortly after the film came out, the drummer died.
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I think that toad wants to be your little witchy familiar so that’s why he keeps popping up like this. 😛
And yesss! I’ve heard the audiobook version is definitely the way to go with that book. I haven’t gotten to see Studio 666 yet but I really want to. It was such sad news about their drummer. 😥
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Studio 666 was pretty funny in places, though you never forget that everyone in that movie is “acting.” Also, how did I not know there are so many fricken’ people in Foo Fighters? I mean, they aren’t Slipknot for pete’s sake.
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Yay for being in the new house! And I’m glad you’ve been able to start volunteering and are feeling good about the work you’re doing.
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I feel like the house adventure has been going on forever because there were so many hiccups in the buying process (they had to separate the houses into two plats) and then we didn’t move in for a while (we closed on St. Patrick’s Day) because of school.
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I love hearing about your volunteering! It’s so fascinating and uplifting to learn more about it, in fact it motivates me to get out and volunteer more too.
House stuff is crazy! I love your little kitty apartment too, so adorable. My cat is snoring away while I type this – they make wonderful blogging buddies don’t they?
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I thought you already volunteer quite a bit! I think, maybe, your volunteering has led to employment? Or vice versa? Maybe that’s why I’m remembering things a certain way?
We got a nice bench at a garage sale for taking shoes on and off, but if someone is headed to work, they can’t sit on a bench with cat hair on it. Thus, we got these huge floofy pillows to put down when not putting on shoes, and guess whose cat, it turns out, looooves huge floofy pillows?
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cats love a floofy pillow! We cover some of our furniture with blankets if it’s really nice because Makita sneezes and gets her boogers everywhere, it’s pretty gross LOL
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OMG, that poor kitty. What the heck did the vet say about her boogs? Does she have her own allergies?
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apparently she was born that way? Some cats have it, and there’s no getting rid of it. She gets a probiotic each day to prevent it from getting infected, but it is quite miserable
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Poor baby 🤧
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This is all so positive, lovely! And I’m so glad Kitty is doing well in her new area – phew! Ours have settled down again a bit OR we have both signed up for this counselling (I have got mine assigned, I’m getting a guided CBT course online but with oversight from a therapist, which should come through in the next few weeks). They didn’t hate the cattery quite as much when they went last week and although Willa came back with an upset stomach I was quite chilled about it (she was clean with it all and we know to instruct them not to feed our cats anything except what we bring with them!). I have the Dave Grohl book, in fact it’s central to a challenge I have to read it within a year of getting it but read all the stuff before it by then too (won’t happen).
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I plan to do The Storyteller on audio because Grohl reads it himself, which is exciting.
Cats and upset stomachs are so confusing. Is it a hairball? Are they stressed? Are they being dramatic? Did they lick poison? Who knows?! I will say that Kitty has been in her space for two weeks now and only threw up one small hairball, which is a lot less than she was doing at the apartment, so I’m leaning toward stress/and not feeling safe in a bigger space (the apt. vs her new modestly-sized area).
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That sounds plausible. Husband is doing Storyteller on audio so we will be reading it a bit at a time as he listens on his weekday walks, which will be nice as otherwise I might rush through it.
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