Monday, April 25, 2011

Easter Weekend-Rapid Post

As previously mentioned, I've been picking up lots of hours at SFMC and even some elsewhere. Two weekends ago we went up to...not sure where at this time....to some Lake and watched Jess and Meaghan do their mud run. Basically, it was a 5K with obstacles! Including a mud pit you had to army crawl through! I will need to post pictures. I want to do one someday. In fact, that may be the first MM reunion event.

A busy work week followed. I had Wednesday off, which was the first weekday off I've had in a while-and those are days I really get things done. Last Saturday I volunteered with the SFMC mobile health unit doing screenings at a big Easter event in a park in Paramount, which took about 20 minutes to get to from The Medal. Afterwards, Adrienne, Jonathan, Alli and I drove to Santa Barbara. We spent the night with Sally.

We cooked, ate and played games pretty much all day Easter Sunday. Holly, her mom and sister came up and joined us for the eating and some games before they ventured off into the many beautiful sights of Santa Barbara. We got home around 10pm-exhausted.

I worked today and spent some time going over stuff for my ACLS class tomorrow and Wednesday. I'm excited. Once that's over it is time to apply for jobs. No foolin' around.

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Visitors and Logging lots of hours!

The Monday after RE Congress my good friend from school, who moved to Chicago a few years ago, Matt Keane, visited for a few days. We went to Runyon Canyon, Santa Monica and wandered the Silverlake neighborhood semi-successfully. The weather was very hot/sunny one minute and rainy/cloudy the next. Very un-LA. Overall a great visit. At the same time, Laura's Boyfriend, Ted, and Jess' mom were visiting. A full house it was. Great times were had.

The first weekend in April was busy and wonderful. The weather was in the 80s for the most part. Friday I went to Venice beach with Jess and Meag. I lounged in the sun on the sand for a while, walked up and down the many ecclectic shops and finally got some food truck food as it was Venice's first friday. A lot of art vendors and performers come out on the 1st Friday of each month and there are hella food trucks.

We didn't stay out very late because we got up at around 4 am the next day for Cardinal Manning's (Laura's Service Site) Hike for the Homeless. It was the first time the event happen. Laura helped plan this very successful event. All of us volunteered at the event. I helped direct people to different paths, helped set up and took down signs and things of that sort. It was a great time and the hike itself was great. That night Laura's Mom and Aunt came into town. That girl has been VERY busy with work, the Hike and Visitors.

On Sunday the 3rd we went to Thai town for the Thai New Year festival. It was many blocks of food vendors, artists, performers, and more. There was Muay Thai fighting and some really awesome dance groups. We got Thai food and walked up and down the streets in the hot sun. We hoped on the redline back and I recovered from the busy, busy weekend.

I worked a busy week the next week. Mon-Thurs, all 12's. Friday I went with Adrienne to the Thai consulate and did blood pressure screenings. I do like community outreach even if the events are small. It can still have so much meaning. There were a lot of nurses who weren't going to be at SFMC so I went into work Saturday in case they were short-staffed. One of the med/surg floors closed earlier that week due to low census so we had enough staff with their nurses on our floor. I stayed for 8 to make it worthwhile. Apparently, the heat wasn't working on our floor (and the AC was on??) Either way, it was really cold the whole day.

I got a lot of errands run on Sunday-not enough though. I did spend some time finishing up my resume in the back yard and soaked up some sun. That was really great.

This week Holly and I are taking an EKG interpretation course at SFMC. It is Monday, Wednesday and Friday. It's been good. I'm familiar with EKG, but this is really taking time and breaking it all down, so I feel really good about my knowledge and look forward to being able to use it. In two weeks we're going to take the Advanced Cardiac Life Support (ACLS) class. This will make us much more appealing when we apply for jobs, which I am starting to work on.

That's what's up.

On the Horizon: Cherry Blossom Festival a couple miles down the road Saturday in Monteray Park. Jess is doing a 5K mud run on Sunday. We're going to cheer her on. I'm working M, T, Th and F next week. I am getting crazy hours in April, which is fine (I make my own schedule for the most part). By the end of the month I will only have about one more month's worth of hours to get done before mid July, which means I can take off days when Brendan, The Parents and Kenzie come out! Yeah!!

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Super Quick

So I've been meaning to really update on the recent happenings-including hike for the homeless, but I'm a workin' fool lately. I will log at least 56 hours this week. Possibly more. All right. I'm going to go to bed.

The good news is that all the hours now mean I can take off days later when friends and family visit!