Good morning, everyone! I'm contemplating what to tell you about the last few days of my life and the theme that comes to mind is a whole lot of driving! Allow me to explain...
This weekend was quite adventurous. I had two good friends who were celebrating birthdays and so a multitude of other friends also present in Yankton for the festivities. I also had the pleasure of spending some time with a friend who was home from Minnesota. So, if all of these wonderful people were in Yankton, why the heck was I driving? Very good question. You see, in addition to wanting to celebrate the homecoming and birthdays of all of my good friends, a close family friend from home got married on Saturday. This is a girl who I grew up with and I couldn't find it in me to skip witnessing her big day. SO, I stayed in Yankton on Friday night to spend some quality time with friends, that time lasting until approximately 3:30 a.m. Beings I had whittled nearly the entire night away without any sleep, my mind thought it would be wise to keep me awake for another hour or so after returning home and crawling up in my loft. I finally fell asleep only to awake at 8:00 (I slept approximately 3 hours in case you were wondering) and frantically pack a bag for the wedding and home. I then proceeded to drive the nearly 2 hours home in a state of exhausted delirium. After attending the wedding ceremony, I deemed that it would be unwise to drive the extra 30 minutes to the reception locale, so instead I hopped in my brother's car (I left my malfunctiong one home for my parents to fix) and headed right on back to Yankton (a mere 6 hours after returning home). I once again had a great evening with friends, this one lasting until approximately 4:20 a.m.
Now, let's take a breath and think about this. A normal person probably would have spent much of Sunday sleeping to make up for those lost hours over the weekend. I, on the other hand, got up at about 8:00 a.m., went to church, and then hopped in my brother's sweet car to drive one and a half hours to Humphrey, NE for a TEC meeting. After 3 hours of planning and bonding with wonderful people, I drove back to Yankton once again. Now, I shamefully admit that the ride back was quite a few shades less than enjoyable. I found that I had to fidget something fierce, turn the air to uncomfortable settings, and sing loudly to songs I wasn't even feeling just to stay awake. I am gratefully sitting here now though to tell you that despite the danger, I made it back to my apartment safely - with every intention of cleaning and going for a loooooong run. I had a lot of things pressing on my mind and a run would have been ever so calming - yeah, umm, that never happened. I somehow managed to find my way to our unfashionable, though wonderfully comfortable, yellow couch where I fell into a deep sleep somewhere around the time of 7:30 p.m. I did not awake for either of 2 missed calls and 2 text messages on my phone. I did not even awake to the noise of my roommate opening our squeaky apartment door and returning from a long day of work. No, I finally awoke at 10:39 p.m. to some clatter in the kitchen. No wait, I flew up off the couch is a better visual. I found that I was completely disoriented, had a pounding headache, and felt depressed. I got up and ate 2 pieces of ice cream cake with Briana before crawling into bed fully clothed and passing out for the evening - and to think my original plan was to clean and run.... good grief.
And then Monday rolled around. I worked for 2 hours in the morning on the tobacco awareness projects - still tired and frantic and stressed - before Lindsay, another of my very good friends here in Yankton, called to ask if I wanted to go to Sioux Falls to see the movie, My Sister's Keeper, and have dinner with another friend. Feeling wild at hear, I opted that despite my weekend travels, I needed to get away. I joined her and her sister on the journey to Sioux Falls, this time from a back seat rather than a driver's seat position and proceeded to cry (sob might be a more fitting word...) for the entire two hours of the movie. It was a great movie, but incredibly sad. I was however mildly upset that a major part of the book was altered in the movie. The nerve of those producers! :P
Today looks to hold a few more hours of work, working out, and some business at the Yankton Medical Clinic Pharmacy to prepare myself for my new job there, starting next Monday.
Until next time, drive wherever your heart desires and Enjoy this last day of June!
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Utilize the SUN!!
I woke up this morning and looked at my phone and discovered something truly frightening. It is JUNE 25th already, people!! Can you believe it? That's like an entire month of summer nearly gone. So, I was thinking that July really needs to pass by a bit more slowly than it's friend June. But, then I was thinking that my thinking was completely unrealistic, so I did some feasible thinking and decided that I need to utilize every available sun and active outdoors minute left in this beautiful summer! :)
I'm working on accomplishing that utilization beginning with those muddy horse trails I mentioned in my last post. A couple of days after my exciting bike ride, I took Briana back out to the beginning of my newly discovered horse trails and we opted to hike them before busting out our bikes. Thank heavens we had sense enough to do that. There are some of the steepest hills I have ever hiked on buried inside those woods. I absolutely LOVE the trails out there. I have this cheesy desire to go on a real hike someday - I'm talking like fallen trees and logs in the path that I have to climb over and under and tree branches I have to shove out of the way - the whole shenanigans. These trails are offering me bits and pieces of my dream come true. :P We definitely found a couple of the best fallen tree logs ever the other day and proceeded to climb across one such tree that stretched across a little stream 10 feet or so below. To pass over the stream, we even had to climb in an upwards direction on this fallen tree. It was the coolest thing ever - like straight out of an adventure movie (well close anyway....). AND, on the way back, we even half scooted for fear of falling to our deaths (or maybe just a couple of broken bones). The climb back was the epitomy of the whole forest scene, including rotten bark sliding off of the tree and landing with the crashes of a fear foreshadowing what would happen if we were to lose our balance. We've been on the trail twice thus far, both times nearly suffocating in the humidity, but it was more than worth it. We have multiple side trails and logs and climbing adventures left to explore on that particular trail.
What else, what else?? Well, I worked 34 hours in 3 days this past weekend and of course felt somewhat comatose after the experience. It's weird to be cooped up inside a building for 12 hours in a day and leaving only to return 12 hours later for round number two. Despite the exhaustion that followed that experience, I had a lot of great moments with the residents at Pine Lane. I brightened one lady's day by offering to fill her bird feeder for her (apparently no one has ever done that before) and then sitting and chatting for a good 20 minutes. I now have a Kentucky Fried Chicken and life discernment date with her on an evening sometime soon. I also continue to receive pick-up lines from a 93-year-old man and have officially memorized coffee and hot water requests for each of the residents for all 3 meals of the day. :)
After emerging from my coma, I headed home to spend a couple of days with my family and especially my sister and her husband, home briefly from Michigan. My mom of course decided to set up a professional family picture which was met with a barrage of groans and disgruntled words and actions most notably from the men in the family. I'm sure it will turn out to be a darling picture, though, beings we were all color-coordinated and everything.
I need to get back to my tobacco awareness project set-ups. I suppose it is necessary to work some before I run outside frolicking in the sun all afternoon. :) Have a great weekend!!
I'm working on accomplishing that utilization beginning with those muddy horse trails I mentioned in my last post. A couple of days after my exciting bike ride, I took Briana back out to the beginning of my newly discovered horse trails and we opted to hike them before busting out our bikes. Thank heavens we had sense enough to do that. There are some of the steepest hills I have ever hiked on buried inside those woods. I absolutely LOVE the trails out there. I have this cheesy desire to go on a real hike someday - I'm talking like fallen trees and logs in the path that I have to climb over and under and tree branches I have to shove out of the way - the whole shenanigans. These trails are offering me bits and pieces of my dream come true. :P We definitely found a couple of the best fallen tree logs ever the other day and proceeded to climb across one such tree that stretched across a little stream 10 feet or so below. To pass over the stream, we even had to climb in an upwards direction on this fallen tree. It was the coolest thing ever - like straight out of an adventure movie (well close anyway....). AND, on the way back, we even half scooted for fear of falling to our deaths (or maybe just a couple of broken bones). The climb back was the epitomy of the whole forest scene, including rotten bark sliding off of the tree and landing with the crashes of a fear foreshadowing what would happen if we were to lose our balance. We've been on the trail twice thus far, both times nearly suffocating in the humidity, but it was more than worth it. We have multiple side trails and logs and climbing adventures left to explore on that particular trail.
What else, what else?? Well, I worked 34 hours in 3 days this past weekend and of course felt somewhat comatose after the experience. It's weird to be cooped up inside a building for 12 hours in a day and leaving only to return 12 hours later for round number two. Despite the exhaustion that followed that experience, I had a lot of great moments with the residents at Pine Lane. I brightened one lady's day by offering to fill her bird feeder for her (apparently no one has ever done that before) and then sitting and chatting for a good 20 minutes. I now have a Kentucky Fried Chicken and life discernment date with her on an evening sometime soon. I also continue to receive pick-up lines from a 93-year-old man and have officially memorized coffee and hot water requests for each of the residents for all 3 meals of the day. :)
After emerging from my coma, I headed home to spend a couple of days with my family and especially my sister and her husband, home briefly from Michigan. My mom of course decided to set up a professional family picture which was met with a barrage of groans and disgruntled words and actions most notably from the men in the family. I'm sure it will turn out to be a darling picture, though, beings we were all color-coordinated and everything.
I need to get back to my tobacco awareness project set-ups. I suppose it is necessary to work some before I run outside frolicking in the sun all afternoon. :) Have a great weekend!!
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Nature, Friends, and Fellowship
It's been over a week since I have last talked to all of you blog fans. Must have been some serious excitement in my life to keep me all from you, huh? .... well.... um.... not exactly. :S Let me enlighten you. :)
For starters, I awoke this morning to clouds, clouds, and more clouds. I think the sun is having a monstrous anxiety attack and has sadly barely shown its face for at least a solid week now. Though the rain is lovely and a blessing, my spirits need the sun! I did have a beautiful afternoon at the beach on Saturday with Briana, my roommate, and a whole plethora of Yankton-staying friends and visiting Mount Marty friends. Amazing how the sun can refuse to shine for over a week and yet provide us with a gorgeous afternoon for a reunion with friends.
Through all the clouds and rain, I've decided to adopt a new temporary motto: If the sun won't shine for you, take the opportunity to run in the rain. I've done that, literally, a couple of times in the past week. If you've never gone for a long jog in the rain, I'm telling you, your missing out. There's something calming and refreshing about pounding out countless steps while watching, and definitely feeling, the steady stream of rain come down.
Oh dear, this is shaping up to sound like a sentimental post. But since I've adopted that theme, I may as well go with if for at least one more paragraph. Because the beach was out yesterday, I decided to go for a long bike ride down to the trails at Midway beach in the afternoon. I have done it before and I believe the round trip is somewhere around 10-15 miles (I could be completely wrong...). Anyway, yesterday with the wind at my back and the cool breeze working in my favor, I decided that when I reached the end of the bike trail I would venture on and see if it picked back up farther down the road. I took a left and followed these cute signs with pictures of bikes on them. Low and behold I end up in a forest on some muddy horse trails. Ummm...I walked my bike up the first muddy hill to scout it out and decided if I continued on that path I would either a) get lost in the forest and never return, b) return splattered in mud from head to foot and thus find myself fending off concerned questions and looks all the way back into Yankton, c) get eaten by a bear, d) swerve around out of control in the mud and either get stuck or fly out of control over my handlebars and die. Sooo, after weighing my options, I turned around and headed down a neighboring gravel road assuming that it would lead me back to the highway and the resuming of the bike trails. I wound around, pedaled incredibly slowly up a couple of muddy hills, found myself surrounded by trees....I kept going, enjoying the quiet and the adventure until I came to a plethora of signs screaming, "NO TRESPASSING. PRIVATE PROPERTY." Painted in bright red, and plastered all around, they were rather intimidating, so I decided I should turn around yet again before I got shot.
Once back to the end of the bike trail for the second time, I ran into a middle-aged man on a BIG bike with 3 bright yellow duffel bags and a cooler strapped to various points on the machine and another of the yellow bags on the man's back. I was a little leery as to why he would be perched there loaded down with so many bags and blocking my path, but curiosity fought my fear and I skidded to a stop. The man, Jimmy was his name, simply wanted to know the answer to the question that I had spent the last fifteen minutes or so seeking myself. Where did the trail resume? Rule of thumb: never ask Kelly Starman for directions! I am direction stupid, and don't even trust my own judgment much of the time. I was able to offer suggestions as to where not to go unless he was seeking a mud shower. Turns out Jimmy had come all the way from New Mexico with his bags. He took a train to Illinois and then proceeded to hop on the beginnings of the Lewis and Clark trail out there. He had been riding since May 24 and had trekked all the way across Illinois and up the Nebraska border and was headed all the way to the west coast and the end of the trail at the Ocean in Washington. I was in complete awe. I had no idea the Lewis and Clark trail even existed outside of Yankton. It was utterly fascinating to hear the man's story and we had a nice little chat before I bid him good luck and farewell and tried one final divergence in the road, this time finding the highway I had been seeking, but then turning around and heading home for time's sake. I was a bit upset to discover that the entire ride home was directly into the wind. By the time I finally reached home, I had let out a couple of angry words, screamed a song or two in an attempt to motivate myself (no one could hear it over the wind anyway), and was completely exhausted, muddy, and REFRESHED. :)
Other than bike rides and beach experiences, what's there to tell. Those are, after all, the essentials of summer. :) Ok, well friends are way up there too!! It's been a great week of socializing. I've received two random phone calls from friends I rarely get to talk to but always find I have missed more than I ever dreamed. I watched three movies in one week, all with different people, and all opportunities for catching up. I couldn't help but smile all afternoon on Sunday in the presence of 30 of my TEC friends (I am working another of these retreats in July and am thus attending meetings). I made a random trip to Sioux Falls, not arriving until 9:00 p.m and needing to leave by 11:00 the following morning just to have some real conversation with Ms. Brittany, my dear friend and go-to girl. We passed the time simply talking and questioning life and we parted only after attending church on Sunday morning in a school gym. Who would have guessed that the Sioux Falls Cathedral was closed for renovations? And now I hear a rumor it may be closed for two years?!? And, last but not least, Briana and I made a real meal last night, and our good friend Jordan came over for the festivities. We shared some fine salad with vegetables and fancy dressing, spaghetti with whole grain noodles (a special gift from Jordan's cupboards of fine foods), garlic bread, and chocolate pudding with bananas for desert. We even sat at the kitchen table to share our food and fellowship. It was in fact, the first time all summer that table has been used for actual dining and not just junk collection.
Oh, and in the meantime, I've been working in the mornings and have twelve hour day shifts again this weekend. But who wants to hear about monotony such as that?
Happy Father's Day (a few days early) to all of you fathers out there. Kids, don't forget your fathers. Breakfast in bed?? hmmm....my poor dad is going to have to wait for the gift of my presence until approximately 8:00 p.m. (after work and two hours to drive home) on Sunday night :(. But, I'll be spending next Monday and Tuesday at home as well because my sister and her husband are going to be home from Michigan!!! :) That means a professional family picture is in the works...
For starters, I awoke this morning to clouds, clouds, and more clouds. I think the sun is having a monstrous anxiety attack and has sadly barely shown its face for at least a solid week now. Though the rain is lovely and a blessing, my spirits need the sun! I did have a beautiful afternoon at the beach on Saturday with Briana, my roommate, and a whole plethora of Yankton-staying friends and visiting Mount Marty friends. Amazing how the sun can refuse to shine for over a week and yet provide us with a gorgeous afternoon for a reunion with friends.
Through all the clouds and rain, I've decided to adopt a new temporary motto: If the sun won't shine for you, take the opportunity to run in the rain. I've done that, literally, a couple of times in the past week. If you've never gone for a long jog in the rain, I'm telling you, your missing out. There's something calming and refreshing about pounding out countless steps while watching, and definitely feeling, the steady stream of rain come down.
Oh dear, this is shaping up to sound like a sentimental post. But since I've adopted that theme, I may as well go with if for at least one more paragraph. Because the beach was out yesterday, I decided to go for a long bike ride down to the trails at Midway beach in the afternoon. I have done it before and I believe the round trip is somewhere around 10-15 miles (I could be completely wrong...). Anyway, yesterday with the wind at my back and the cool breeze working in my favor, I decided that when I reached the end of the bike trail I would venture on and see if it picked back up farther down the road. I took a left and followed these cute signs with pictures of bikes on them. Low and behold I end up in a forest on some muddy horse trails. Ummm...I walked my bike up the first muddy hill to scout it out and decided if I continued on that path I would either a) get lost in the forest and never return, b) return splattered in mud from head to foot and thus find myself fending off concerned questions and looks all the way back into Yankton, c) get eaten by a bear, d) swerve around out of control in the mud and either get stuck or fly out of control over my handlebars and die. Sooo, after weighing my options, I turned around and headed down a neighboring gravel road assuming that it would lead me back to the highway and the resuming of the bike trails. I wound around, pedaled incredibly slowly up a couple of muddy hills, found myself surrounded by trees....I kept going, enjoying the quiet and the adventure until I came to a plethora of signs screaming, "NO TRESPASSING. PRIVATE PROPERTY." Painted in bright red, and plastered all around, they were rather intimidating, so I decided I should turn around yet again before I got shot.
Once back to the end of the bike trail for the second time, I ran into a middle-aged man on a BIG bike with 3 bright yellow duffel bags and a cooler strapped to various points on the machine and another of the yellow bags on the man's back. I was a little leery as to why he would be perched there loaded down with so many bags and blocking my path, but curiosity fought my fear and I skidded to a stop. The man, Jimmy was his name, simply wanted to know the answer to the question that I had spent the last fifteen minutes or so seeking myself. Where did the trail resume? Rule of thumb: never ask Kelly Starman for directions! I am direction stupid, and don't even trust my own judgment much of the time. I was able to offer suggestions as to where not to go unless he was seeking a mud shower. Turns out Jimmy had come all the way from New Mexico with his bags. He took a train to Illinois and then proceeded to hop on the beginnings of the Lewis and Clark trail out there. He had been riding since May 24 and had trekked all the way across Illinois and up the Nebraska border and was headed all the way to the west coast and the end of the trail at the Ocean in Washington. I was in complete awe. I had no idea the Lewis and Clark trail even existed outside of Yankton. It was utterly fascinating to hear the man's story and we had a nice little chat before I bid him good luck and farewell and tried one final divergence in the road, this time finding the highway I had been seeking, but then turning around and heading home for time's sake. I was a bit upset to discover that the entire ride home was directly into the wind. By the time I finally reached home, I had let out a couple of angry words, screamed a song or two in an attempt to motivate myself (no one could hear it over the wind anyway), and was completely exhausted, muddy, and REFRESHED. :)
Other than bike rides and beach experiences, what's there to tell. Those are, after all, the essentials of summer. :) Ok, well friends are way up there too!! It's been a great week of socializing. I've received two random phone calls from friends I rarely get to talk to but always find I have missed more than I ever dreamed. I watched three movies in one week, all with different people, and all opportunities for catching up. I couldn't help but smile all afternoon on Sunday in the presence of 30 of my TEC friends (I am working another of these retreats in July and am thus attending meetings). I made a random trip to Sioux Falls, not arriving until 9:00 p.m and needing to leave by 11:00 the following morning just to have some real conversation with Ms. Brittany, my dear friend and go-to girl. We passed the time simply talking and questioning life and we parted only after attending church on Sunday morning in a school gym. Who would have guessed that the Sioux Falls Cathedral was closed for renovations? And now I hear a rumor it may be closed for two years?!? And, last but not least, Briana and I made a real meal last night, and our good friend Jordan came over for the festivities. We shared some fine salad with vegetables and fancy dressing, spaghetti with whole grain noodles (a special gift from Jordan's cupboards of fine foods), garlic bread, and chocolate pudding with bananas for desert. We even sat at the kitchen table to share our food and fellowship. It was in fact, the first time all summer that table has been used for actual dining and not just junk collection.
Oh, and in the meantime, I've been working in the mornings and have twelve hour day shifts again this weekend. But who wants to hear about monotony such as that?
Happy Father's Day (a few days early) to all of you fathers out there. Kids, don't forget your fathers. Breakfast in bed?? hmmm....my poor dad is going to have to wait for the gift of my presence until approximately 8:00 p.m. (after work and two hours to drive home) on Sunday night :(. But, I'll be spending next Monday and Tuesday at home as well because my sister and her husband are going to be home from Michigan!!! :) That means a professional family picture is in the works...
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
ATP, where art thou?
Hmmm...I open up a new blank page to write to you about the trivial adventures of my life, and I've decided that it doesn't matter what I've done recently. Currently, I want only to take a nice loooooong nap curled up in a blanket with the fans in our apartment turned off. That's right, it's actually kind of chilly outside today, so no beach for me. :(
I tackled those double night shifts what seems like a century ago. The happenings of those odd hours are all simply kind of a blur. With a bit of a push, the busy work of the job is completed at about 11 p.m., so the remaining 7 hours of the shift are spent doing minor cleaning things and quick bed checks, but mostly just sitting there, attempting to stay awake. I decided I would make use of the forced awake and quiet time by getting in some quality MCAT study time....yeah right! Are you kidding me? Do you think I was actually alert enough to read such dry information at 2:00 in the morning? Not so much. So what to do? Make use of my first ever five hour energy shot of course. I waited a couple of minutes like the bottle said was needed for the chemicals to take effect and felt as though nothing happened. I angrily shut my book thinking, what a waste, and traipsed off to check on some sleeping residents. Low and behold, I returned to my table a mere 15 minutes later and without hardly realizing it, was alert and focused for the next four hours. Six a.m. rolled around and though disoriented and in a frenzy to go home, I was feeling quite accomplished. I even stopped at walmart and did some early morning grocery shopping on the way. Once home, I crawled into bed, though it was already bright outside, and attempted to do the whole sleep during the day thing. I was largely unsuccessful. It was simply too bright and it was a restless/agitated sleep. I got up a mere five hours later to head to the beach with my roommates, but as luck would have it, I found that I felt sick to my stomach and was incredibly shaky....left over energy shot fragments? I ate some food and dragged myself out of the house anyway. Then, rather than taking a nap before round number two, I freshened up and headed to church right before...
Round two: I assisted a few residents with showers, went around with the juice and snack cart, did some cleaning, threw in some laundry....things were running smoothly. I decided another energy shot would not be the best thing for my body, so I tackled the night on my own dwindled supply of ATP. The hours of 4 and 5 a.m. were COMPLETELY MISERABLE! I actually got up and paced around the halls. I drank an excessive amount of water. I attempted to make a mental to-do list for that day, but my eyes mechanically fell shut and I nearly fell off my chair. I got back up for some more pacing. I went outside to sweep the porch. I sat down and fidgeted painfully because every thirty seconds my eyes would flutter uncontrollably shut. How I made it through, I have not the slightest idea. I just know that I nearly cried tears of elation when I was finally back in my apartment curled up in my bed - 6:30 a.m. My messed up time schedules were the death of me though. I got up at 12:30 and snapped on the phone to my poor innocent mother. I was crabby and restless and so proceeded to clean the entire apartment to divert my frustrations and exhaustion.
I spent yesterday and this morning at a "job skills readiness class" for my job at Avera. I think the night shifts and resultant sleep debt are catching up. It was a miserable day and a half. As if the class was not boring enough the way it was, I once again found myself fidgeting uncontrollably in a vain attempt to keep my eyes open. I mean seriously, we had to watch cheesy videos about proper grooming and stress management and communication. BLAH, BLAH, BLAH. Oh well, class mastered, I now finally meet with my supervisor at the hospital this afternoon to set up a work schedule. I don't know what I'll do with myself once I have an actual set schedule again...
Oh, and Pine Lake Estates? It's day shifts for me this weekend! Perhaps my brain and body will be a bit less angry with me for a 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. adventure.
Until next time, tackle those shifts, have fun, fun, fun, exercise, clean, and SLEEP in the spare moments!
I tackled those double night shifts what seems like a century ago. The happenings of those odd hours are all simply kind of a blur. With a bit of a push, the busy work of the job is completed at about 11 p.m., so the remaining 7 hours of the shift are spent doing minor cleaning things and quick bed checks, but mostly just sitting there, attempting to stay awake. I decided I would make use of the forced awake and quiet time by getting in some quality MCAT study time....yeah right! Are you kidding me? Do you think I was actually alert enough to read such dry information at 2:00 in the morning? Not so much. So what to do? Make use of my first ever five hour energy shot of course. I waited a couple of minutes like the bottle said was needed for the chemicals to take effect and felt as though nothing happened. I angrily shut my book thinking, what a waste, and traipsed off to check on some sleeping residents. Low and behold, I returned to my table a mere 15 minutes later and without hardly realizing it, was alert and focused for the next four hours. Six a.m. rolled around and though disoriented and in a frenzy to go home, I was feeling quite accomplished. I even stopped at walmart and did some early morning grocery shopping on the way. Once home, I crawled into bed, though it was already bright outside, and attempted to do the whole sleep during the day thing. I was largely unsuccessful. It was simply too bright and it was a restless/agitated sleep. I got up a mere five hours later to head to the beach with my roommates, but as luck would have it, I found that I felt sick to my stomach and was incredibly shaky....left over energy shot fragments? I ate some food and dragged myself out of the house anyway. Then, rather than taking a nap before round number two, I freshened up and headed to church right before...
Round two: I assisted a few residents with showers, went around with the juice and snack cart, did some cleaning, threw in some laundry....things were running smoothly. I decided another energy shot would not be the best thing for my body, so I tackled the night on my own dwindled supply of ATP. The hours of 4 and 5 a.m. were COMPLETELY MISERABLE! I actually got up and paced around the halls. I drank an excessive amount of water. I attempted to make a mental to-do list for that day, but my eyes mechanically fell shut and I nearly fell off my chair. I got back up for some more pacing. I went outside to sweep the porch. I sat down and fidgeted painfully because every thirty seconds my eyes would flutter uncontrollably shut. How I made it through, I have not the slightest idea. I just know that I nearly cried tears of elation when I was finally back in my apartment curled up in my bed - 6:30 a.m. My messed up time schedules were the death of me though. I got up at 12:30 and snapped on the phone to my poor innocent mother. I was crabby and restless and so proceeded to clean the entire apartment to divert my frustrations and exhaustion.
I spent yesterday and this morning at a "job skills readiness class" for my job at Avera. I think the night shifts and resultant sleep debt are catching up. It was a miserable day and a half. As if the class was not boring enough the way it was, I once again found myself fidgeting uncontrollably in a vain attempt to keep my eyes open. I mean seriously, we had to watch cheesy videos about proper grooming and stress management and communication. BLAH, BLAH, BLAH. Oh well, class mastered, I now finally meet with my supervisor at the hospital this afternoon to set up a work schedule. I don't know what I'll do with myself once I have an actual set schedule again...
Oh, and Pine Lake Estates? It's day shifts for me this weekend! Perhaps my brain and body will be a bit less angry with me for a 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. adventure.
Until next time, tackle those shifts, have fun, fun, fun, exercise, clean, and SLEEP in the spare moments!
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