Running..and other things

This last weekend marked the culmination of 16+ weeks of me running...a lot. I decided when I got to my new home that I was going to run this half marathon that they put on every year. Why? Honestly? Cause I'm stupid, ha. But mainly because I wanted to see if I could do it. My friend Tim from Phoenix decided he was going to be dumb as well and run this thing as well. AND travel to this city to do it. When he could have run this craziness in Phoenix. Much appreciated to say the least. You'll all be happy to hear I made it (obviously) and not too worse for the wear. My time wasn't the GREATEST... but I ran 13 miles. On a cold cloudy Sunday morning. For no reason other than to say that I was able to. Don't have one picture of myself during that day but...I do have one of my finishers medal.




And that's pretty dang cool. And speaking of accomplishments....I managed to do 2 things that I had been looking forward to doing and I did them all on my own. 1) I shopped for my very first grown up Christmas tree. Its not real, but its good enough. Add my own decorations that I picked out and its everything I'd want it to be. 2) I bought myself a dining room set. A small table and 4 chairs and I put it together myself. All by myself with my own tools. Now you may say those are some really minor accomplishments but to me, they meant a lot. Mostly reinforcing something I've known for a really long time, and that is that I am capable of doing pretty much anything if I make up my mind to do it. Now if I could apply it to some other things in my life I'd be all set but all in good time right? The lesson for today is a) running is good, but running for a reason is even better and b) know what you are capable, push yourself past your comfort zone, and if you can't, leave it for another day, it'll still be there tomorrow.

Oh and here's that dining room set...in case you're wondering :)

Forgiveness...and some other stuff

This is something that has come up recently in my life. Its not my forte but after some conversation with some rather wise people, I realize that forgiveness is a double sided situation. Its not something you HAVE to do for others, but you should be able to forgive yourself. For the actions you have taken or the decisions you've made that have just not panned out the way you thought. For the things you thought would turn out better.

I think I'm too easy to forgive some people. There are a few key people that won't necessarily earn that right away, if ever. I'm not proud of that but its me being honest. And I'm on the receiving end of that too. I get it. I can definitely understand that in some cases. Now cause I did something to you like 5 years ago that I never even realized I did...that's different. So that being said...if I hurt you in any way, I'm sorry...I sincerely mean it. And that's all you get.

Now, as far as life in general goes, I'm training for a half marathon here in November. DUMB IDEA. But I've committed (read this as, I've paid the entry fee...all 96 bucks of it) and I've been sticking to my training plan now for a little bit. My feet and knees are killing me. My body is not happy about this plan. And yet here we are. Today was five miles. The most I've ever run at one time was 6 miles back in January. Its been a long time since January folks.

Nursing stuff...well, my job is actually pretty darn cool. I get to work with the most awesome patients, and I feel like I'm starting to get the hang of it. The people I work with are great. I figured I'd share some helpful hints here to support my fellow health professionals (or anyone else who might be reading this). Today's hint: Don't let your patients walk off the floor with just their socks on. Especially if they are returning to said floor. Who knows what the hell they are picking up from wherever they're going. And they're just bringing it back to share with others. There you have it kids. After my first 3 day run of shifts for this week THAT's what I've managed to pick up. Hahaha.

Ch-ch-ch-ch-chaaaaannngggeesss

Its amazing how just when you need something to happen in your life....poof....it does. From the last time I wrote, things have completely changed in my life.

1) The big blue finally called and I started my training program (yipee!!) in early May. The call couldn't have come any sooner to be honest with ya. For the last two months, I've been working as a "new grad" nurse at one of the best hospitals in AZ. Between juggling 12 hour shifts, I managed to somehow get all the assignments I needed to get done completed. Yay.

2) I am newly single...shocker right? Me too.

3) I'm moving!! Yup, along with the new job I've earned myself a new home. Soon enough I'll be blogging from the big bad city of San Antonio. Which means I've had to deal with a few things the last few days. The first is packing. I hate packing. Packing is the devil. My new "bosses" make sure that I don't have to pack but it still sucks. Its even weirder having a complete and total stranger pack all your crap for you. While you watch. Second is definitely saying goodbye. That sucks too but I've managed to do it before, so I think I can manage again. And third...the act of the actual move. Don't get me wrong, I like taking trips, primarily in my car. It zens me out and its fun. But...there's that pressure of moving to a whole new city that keeps me from getting too excited about the journey. I'll probably be posting my progress on here and/or on Facebook so you can see how its going.

Meanwhile, now it is time for sleep. I'm sure I'll have more updates as the road trip date gets closer. For now, my stuff is safely packed and will be on its way to SA soon. Mission accomplished. TTFN!

Good ways to get out aggression

If you're like me and get pissed on occasion (or more often than not as is the case lately), I'm sure you'd like to find ways to let out some aggression without a) killing someone (I mean we probably do want to given the situation at hand but really...we can't...no, we can't...seriously) or b) killing ourselves (and by this I mean like hurting yourself so badly in the process of letting out this aggression that you don't recover...not like really killing yourself) so I figured I'd explore the topic and see if I could find ways new ways to help me get the anger out.

So far today I have tried...

1) grocery shopping...doesn't help when the store is crowded therefore making you more upset. That and you forget things...which I did, and subsequently made me angrier.

2) washing dishes...kind of okay until the soap or water splashes up...not pleasant and now I'm wet.

3) peeling an orange...surprisingly effective. I channeled all my energy at this and although it didn't work out perfectly, did make me feel better.

Still left to try...

1) writing in my journal
2) working out
3) trying to relax

Now I wanna know....how do you deal with your anger? Maybe we can help each other out :)

Speaking of running

I registered for Pat's Run...a 4.2 mile run to raise money for the Pat Tillman Foundation. If you don't know who Pat Tillman is 1) shame on you and 2) look him up. And then we can talk, LOL. I'm not quite sure I'll be in full running readiness for this but its a good cause. That and it'll keep me motivated to actually keep running instead of complaining about it like I always do. I mean I still do it. I just b*tch a lot. Still no word on the job, although some promising part time leads have come up. We will see how amped people are when I tell them I can only take the job for a set amount of time. If only I knew how long that time frame was...that would make life soooooo much easier.

The key word in healthcare....

Here's a question. Why are people who dedicate their time and efforts into helping others with their health so bad at taking care of themselves? Its like respiratory therapists who smoke. Umm....riiiiight. And no offense if you are a respiratory therapist who smokes...I guess you are making an informed decision and I totally respect that. I have been noticing this more and more as I explore my ideas of health and how to maintain a "healthy" way of life. For example...working out. How many of us bitch at the idea of going to the gym. All of a sudden, the idea of getting up from what we are doing...inevitably nothing...and getting dressed, picking up our keys, and driving (yes I said driving) to the gym seems like the one thing we DO NOT want to do. I HAVE BEEN THERE. I speak from experience. I'm tired. I have other way more important things to do...like maybe sleep a little later. Etc, etc, etc. A friend of mine explained this in a way that I can only describe as enlightening. She says to me, "Of course we don't want to...because we're naturally lazy...only crazy people like you combat the laziness and actually get up to go for a run. There's something wrong with you". I don't know how I feel about that part of the statement although I do agree that getting up at around 5 am at least 3 days a week for 3 years to do PT in the morning is something that made my sanity a bit questionable.

I'm realizing that now that I'm not in school anymore in theory I have more time to work out. Then I'm realizing I have more time to do all the other crap I haven't done in months. See my dilemma? That and the fact that I have to kind of keep up with my working out for my job just makes life difficult. So I decided to go to a bootcamp this entire week...Saturday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. Thanks to my friends at Profitness in Phoenix, I have never been more sore in my life. Day 1 was okay...day 2...I thought I was going to die. My calves hurt, my hips hurt, my abs hurt....my soul hurt. Which made me think 1 of 2 things....1) THIS SUCKS HARD...why am I putting myself through this...and then 2) If I had kept up working out, this wouldn't be kicking my tail so hard (which made me mad at myself). It is now Thursday (day 5) and I'm finally starting to feel normal again. At least walking normal which is a relief because my daily dog walks were really killing me in this condition. I felt good after this crazy week. I finally felt like I was getting back on track. I was accountable to the trainers there and it made me get off my behind. And when I was done, I felt great. So the score is...working out-1, laziness-0.5. I'm not saying that I wouldn't prefer to be lazy, but I think if it means I have to go through being this sore again...I'd rather keep up with it.

In the beginning...there was nursing school

I know there have to be plenty of nursing blogs out there, but I figured I would start one of my own. Why? Because I've figured out that there are a lot of things that happen in life that nurse's look at differently. We (and I use that lightly) have a different perspective of certain things, events, occurrences because of how we are taught to think and what we have to do on a daily basis. I want to talk about everything...nursing school, boards, nursing in general. And I want your feedback, comments, etc. I want this to be a forum for discussion and questions.

I guess I should introduce myself first. My name is Mel...I'm 27 and I have just graduated from nursing school. Well about two months ago give or take. I just passed boards about 3 weeks ago and am officially a BSN, RN. I have a prior degree in exercise physiology from the same university I attended nursing school at but was really unable to do much with it because I discovered that that was not the career field for me. I worked as an EMT for a year, primarily with nurses, which is what made me want to be a nurse.

So I have a job but...I haven't started yet. So here I am, with those really cool letters behind my name and I can't even do anything with them for now. So how does a nurse with a lot of time on her hands kill time...by catching up on all the stuff I didn't get to do while I was in school. Like Lost...I am JUST NOW starting to get into that show thanks to instant view Netflix...do not, I repeat, do not start watching that show unless you have plenty of time on your hands. Also, reading. I have subscriptions to about 4 different magazines. And all that would happen is that they would pile up until I had time to read them. Now I actually can read them when I receive them. Go figure. I can stay up late (without studying) and I can get up even later (if it wasn't for my dog...who is up every day at 8am on the dot). But inevitably I'm bored...so give me topics of discussion and we can talk about whatever you like :).