I stayed home from work today. The snow was too much to deal with even with my inlaws’ Subaru. It was having a rough time on these hills. I had to walk up the hill to get the car. And when I got home, my husband was back home. He tried to go to work and turned around. He told me that he didn’t want me to go. I called work and talked it over with the nurse who would have to cover my shift and she said she was already planning to stay. She said she was going to call me to tell me to stay put. So… I did! She will be relieved by the midnight nurse whose husband brought her in to town to stay with their daughter. I get to spend unexpected time with my hubby!
I know that these pics I’m gonna show you are nothing different than anybody else in Ohio has to show, but they help illustrate what I had to deal with.
The first one is looking towards the inlaws’ house. This road is looking up the first part of the hill I climbed to get the car.

This next pic is looking the other way, toward my way to work. It looks up the other hill. You really can’t see the hill for the snow, but you get the hint, I think.

Now, I’m going to go enjoy the chili my husband made, along with a peanut butter ‘sammich’.

This is my second intallment in this month’s Kween_of_the _Queens’ Challenge:

The times I feel that I deserve a well earned pat on the back deals mostly with my profession, nursing. It’s usually the little things that get my ego boosted.
I work in what is termed an assisted living facility. Most people come to live there knowing that they will not be going home.
Someone may come to me and tell me they just don’t feel right and I do all the basics- vital signs, list of symptoms, blood sugar, SpO2, etc. My findings may be normal, but a gut instinct will tell me there is something going on. I have been known to page the doctor and discuss this “feeling’ with him. Luckily, the doctor at our facility relies on us to be his eyes and ears. Most often, he will order a test that comes up with an underlying condition. I feel better knowing that there is a reason for their feeling.
Yes, sometimes the reason will result in death, but I find that the people I care for are able to deal with that. Not knowing the reason for their awful feeling is often more scary to them than the reality. More often the cause of their malady is something that will respond to medication or therapy.
Another ego booster is when my boss takes my suggestions and puts them into action. She and the other nurses sometimes even ask my opinion on differing matters, such as staffing and procedures. This makes me feel as if they might respect my knowledge in these areas. Believe me, there are some nurses they will not go with in a crunch situation.
The aides I have to supervise seem to respect my position. They sometimes may not exactly like me, but they don’t seem to give me the amount of crap as others get from them. Yes, they talk about me, as I would expect but I also know they stand up for me with aides from other shifts because I stand up for them. They will often ask me “Why do we have to do this?” I will explain the medical reasoning behind it and they understand that it is not because I like ordering them around but because I have the welfare of the residents in mind.
The most recent Atta Girl moment happened just yesterday. We had a winter storm here in Ohio. My car ended up in a ditch and it took me an hour and a half to get to my house from half a mile away. (My husband and brother-in-law pulled the car out with the skid loader. But it took a while and a lot of pushing.)
I called work and told them I would be in for my scheduled shift but would probably be late. I was not about to try driving in that weather. The sheriff’s office will transport all necessary staff to the facility. I called work and told them I would be in, but would have to wait for the Sheriff’s office to transport me. The nurse that was scheduled to work with me, however, reported off because her car was stuck in a ditch. I feel a slight bit superior because someone had to take care of those people and day shift needed a break. One shift is enough to work, especially when the whole place is closed to “at risk” visitors due to respiratory infections. I wish I had stock in Robitussin and Tylenol. : )

Here are a few of my pics that I feel show both art and nature.
This first one is of the indian head my brother carved from a tree trunk:

I love the colors in this next pic:

This is one I took out in Arizona a few years ago:

This was taken one winter’s night:

This was taken on one of my morning walks, I felt blessed to get it:

This was taken the same morning:

This was taken in my backyard one morning:

These chickadees were in a bush at my brother’s a couple years ago:

And last this was the sunset from my porch, one of my favorites:

I had and have the best mentor I can think of – my mom. She taught me from an early age what it means to be a woman in today’s world. And she continues to show me how to age gracefully. I just hope I can be half as good as she is.

I just answered this Featured Question, you can answer it too!

I was watching a tv show this morning and one of the characters said, “You were as drunk as a skunk.” Now this got me thinking. So I asked my husband, who knows everything, “How drunk do skunks get? Is alcoholism a big problem in the skunk community?” To which he replied, “I’ve never noticed any of the little critters walking an especially erratic path. This brings to mind another great mystery of life. Just how happy can a clam be? They’re stuck in a shell. They’re basically mucous. They live in the bottom of the ocean. How damn happy do you think they can be?”
Yep, this is exactly what the tater household is worried about. : )

My younger sister and brother-in-law had a rude awakening this morning. They woke up at 5:30 because their bedroom was filled with smoke! My brother-in-law found the source. A power bar overheated and melted the plug to a heater. It also melted the plug to my sister’s bi-pap machine. She has asthma and sleep apnea. When my BIL told her what happened, she unthinkingly reached over to the power bar and pulled on the cord to the heater and unplugged it. Then she unplugged the power bar itself. My BIL in the meantime had went to throw the circuit breaker. Luckily nothing happened to my sister, and the smoke was limited to their bedroom. My sister had to do a breathing treatment right away but everything was good. The house is old and the wiring is probably twenty years old. I think my uncle replaced it when he re-wired the farmhouse my parents live in, back in the 80′s. They have only one outlet in the bedroom and it was not convenient to their current furniture layout so they used a power bar that was supposed to shut off if it overheated. It didn’t. The heater wasn’t even turned on and it also had a safety switch.
Luckily, they woke up. It could have been so tragic.
My sister didn’t let it get her down, though. She called the bi-pap supplier and she will have a new one tonight. They are sleeping in their living room tonight and until their bedroom airs out. They went out with our parents and one of my brothers and myself to celebrate their 18th wedding anniversary which is tomorrow. Then my sister and myself went to Wally World where I bought her another smoke and fire alarm for their bedroom. They have two others, but they weren’t in that part of the house.
The house belongs to my parents. I can’t imagine how they would have felt if this had turned out differently.

I was in the midst of a depression. I was a stay at home mom and my son was four and had been a holy terror for about a year. He would be the sweetest little boy and then all of a sudden turn into a demon- screaming at the least little provocation. Since I was the one who spent the most time with him, all his anger was directed at me.
My husband and I were married for three years at this point. I was still adapting to the married life.
We had a dog and two stray outside cats. All male. Therein lay the problem. I was the only female in a house filled with males. I was so busy trying to find out what was wrong with the boy (turns out it was allergies) that I had no time or money for girlie things.
One day in November, my mom was watching my son because I needed a break. I had an epiphany. I would get me a female dog. I went to the local dog pound. The day I went, of course, all they had were two hound dogs, both male. I wanted a dog that was all girl. I did not want a family dog. I wanted MY dog.
We had a pet shop in my town called One Stop Pet Shop. It was not the best kept place, but I felt the pets were cared for with devotion. Cages were clean and food and water were always available.
That fateful day, when I walked in, I had a small breed in mind. I had a pekingese when I was growing up and she was adorable. I was looking for something like her. Once in the pet shop, however, that thought perished as I set eyes on MY dog. She was a little ball of fluff. She was in a pen with her six siblings. I was so drawn to her that I dropped my purse on the floor and took her out of the pen. When I held her I noticed one of her eyes was milky. The owner came over and explained she was a chow-samoyed mix. Both her parents were registered and were owned by the store owner. She said the mother, the chow, had “nipped” at this little ball of fluff one day and had injured her eye. The vet said it would eventually recover. They had all their shots. The other pups were selling for $200.00! I could have this one for $100.00.
Now, I wasn’t born yesterday. This was just at the beginning of the time when you could sell a crossbred dog for large prices. I felt like this lady was out to make a large profit on her dogs’ indiscretions. I couldn’t fathom spending that much, especially since we didn’t have it in our tight budget. But I loved this dog immediately and she wanted to go home with me! So I asked if she would take a check post dated two days. I must have looked desperate because she said, “Do you have $50.00?”
I paid in cash and took my little snowball home with me.
That afternoon, my husband came home from work to find me on the floor playing with my new puppy.
He said, “What is this?”
“This is my new puppy and girlfriend, Snowball. I needed another female. And she’s cute, too!’
He agreed to share our home with her.
She was adorable. I had her housebroken in two days. She would romp and run with my son. And she used her wily ways with my husband. He would also play with her and even fed her when I couldn’t.
At that time, I smoked nearly three packs of cigarettes per day. I was diagnosed with asthma. One morning in December, I couldn’t sleep because I couldn’t breathe. I went to the living room and lay on the floor. I looked at my arms and noticed they were purple and so were my legs. Snowball, was there beside me, and she licked my face, then yelped and ran away. She went to the bedroom and started whining. Mike woke up to let her out and she ran into the living room where Mike found me. He loaded me, Roger and Snowball into the car and took me to the emergency room where he left me so he could take Rog and Snowball to my mom’s. I had bronchial pneumonia.
I went home that evening and became a non-smoker. I would NOT have made it through that transition period without Snowball. I took her for walks and romped with her to keep my mind off smoking. She was also an excellent babysitter. She would follow Roger into the woods and get in front of him and turn him back toward home when he had wandered far enough.
One of her bad habits was chasing cars. We live on a country road and the vehicles she mainly chased were my inlaws’ who are also our neighbors. One day, I was working in the kitchen and heard her barking at a passerby. Before I could get to the door to yell at her to stop, I heard her howl. My brotherliness had run her over. He stopped and apologized. But, really, it was Snowball’s fault and I could not blame him. Mike carried her limp body into the garage. She whimpered and I saw that her hind end had been completely ran over. One of the moms in my son’s preschool class was a vet and they lived in the neighborhood. I called her and she came over and said we were doing all we could for her and time would tell. She suspected a broken pelvis but said there was not a lot they would do for that at her office. By this time, Snowball was pretty big. Mike would go out and help her out of the garage so she could potty and he would beat me to giving her food and water.
She started walking three days after the accident and eventually didn’t even limp. She did however suffer from that dog social disease, indiscretion. She became a mother the following December.
Her first litter of puppies was 9 puppies. They, of course, were named after the reindeer. Rudd was a girl, my son’s favorite. They were all very cute. We couldn’t keep them. They went fast. Comet, Dasher and Rudd were all that were left. A friend of my son’s wanted a dog but his mom said he could only have a female. She came over to our house and begged us to give them Rudd. We figured this left us with two and that should satisfy our son. So we gave them Rudy. I wish we hadn’t, but that’s hindsight for ya.
Snowball, Dasher and Comet roamed all over the area. They were great groundhog hunters. Snowball became preggers again, but we didn’t know until one day I ventured outside and Snowball came from around the corner. She was all excited about something and she acted like she wanted me to follow. So I did. She led me to the woods and there, under a fallen oak tree, was a litter of 18 puppies. This was early January. I wanted to move them to the garage, but Snowball carried them back to the woods. All died from exposure except one. It looked like a baby panda and that name stuck. Panda had to share Snowball’s milk with the other two dogs. They never weaned. Snowball was getting so thin I was afraid she’d die of exhaustion. Mike found a farmer that wanted Dasher and Comet and they moved out. Evidently, Snowball had enough of motherhood because one evening she led Panda on what we thought was a hunt and came back alone. She had led him to a neighbor’s barn and left him there! That farmer found him that evening and took him in and kept him. (He still doesn’t know for sure the puppy came from us. Snowball would go visit nearly everyday! One day he said, “Your dog sure has taken to my puppy. She cleans him and plays with him and then goes home. If he tries to follow, she makes him come back!”)
Considering her proliferation at reproduction, I had her fixed before she could have two dozen puppies. About a year or two later, another dog came into our life that stayed only long enough to have a litter of puppies then run away. She left us with 8 puppies to care for. They weren’t weaned yet and I wasn’t sure what to do. We had a pen they were in and Snowball wanted in very badly. I let her in and she lay down amongst the brood and they began to nurse. My vet said she probably began lactating when the other dog had them and she could hear them. She weaned them at two months, evidently having learned her lesson about too much mothering.
She loved the winter best of all. She would frolic in the snow. She was covered with very dense fur and she was a big dog. She would run down the hill beside Roger’s sled just so she could haul it back up the hill for him. He never seemed to mind. She also would enjoy snowball fights-trying to bite them out of the air. In the summers, she could be found mellowing in the cool waters of the creek.
Snowball gave us many years of pleasure and devotion. She enjoyed hunting and eating roadkill. One cold evening in 2004 I had fed her and put her outside where she preferred to sleep because the house was too hot . We heard a noise in the shed that sounded like howling but it quieted. Then we heard what we thought was a strong wind whining outside. Roger went to investigate to be sure and found Snowball right outside the door. She was laying there doing a very moanful whine and her belly was blown up like a balloon. Mike carried her inside. I listened to her belly and called the vet. She came over five minutes later and said Snowball needed emergency surgery. Mike and I loaded her in the car and took her to the vet’s office. I assisted Judy with the surgery. Judy explained that due to Snowball’s appetite for deer and other varmints there was a lot of hair in her intestine, causing it to twist on itself. She cleaned it all out. When I left, I kissed the sleeping Snowball and told her I loved her. Judy went back and checked on her in the middle of the night and she was doing well.
The next morning I was at work in the group home and Judy called to say Snowball died that morning, probably of a blood clot. I am crying as I type this.
MY dog was a good, beautiful, and kind dog. : )
When I made an iPhoto slideshow about her the next week, I had trouble choosing a song to go with the pictures. I had chosen something like “Seasons in the Sun.” Every time I tried to watch it, I’d end up crying. Mike said, “Let me pick it.” He came up with “Kill the Wabbit” by Ozzie Fudd. It made me laugh. I still to this day watch it and smile, remembering my girl.

Warning: Unless you want to read about my lifetime ongoing struggle with my weight,  Turn Away! 

I was born a fat kid.  I weighed 10 lbs. 8 oz. at birth.  I was always fat growing up.  My lowest adult weight was 190 lbs.  It got as high as 320.  I was miserable.  I had high blood pressure, an enlarged heart and shortness of breath on even the slightest of exertion.  I had tried many diets over the years but kept gaining more and more weight.  My doctor had overseen quite a few of my attempts and told me that some of the problem was my hard to control thyroid.  This only made me feel slightly less awful. 
Then one night while watching the news, I saw a report  on bariatric surgery.  The report said the procedures had changed greatly from in the early eighties.  I am a nurse and had taken care of some of those earlier patients (who died) and told my mom, “If I ever say I want to get that surgery, commit me to the mental ward.” 
Thankfully she didn’t listen. 
I had Roux-N-Y open agastric bypass surgery on June 7, 2001.   In the ensuing year, I lost 160 lbs.  That was half of me.  I did pretty well following the post surgery guidelines about food and exercise until this past year or so.  I quit walking my three miles 3-4 times a week when I injured my back on Thanksgiving Day, 2006.  After Physical Therapy that lasted six weeks, I found out I had cysts on my ovaries as a result of an MRI for back/hip pain.  Off to the gynie I went and after months of observation and pain, I had them removed in June of ’07.  It  took a full 12 weeks to recover from that experience.  The walking I do at work was tough enough for the first few weeks.  By then I was out of the regimen and the holidays came and went with my discovering that sugar didn’t bother me near as much as previously. 
I have been trying to get back on track for the past few weeks.  I went to a support meeting, which I have never done before.  They gave me some great ideas which I have been trying to incorporate back into my lifestyle.  It seems to be working and so far I have lost 4 of the 20 lbs I gained back over the past year. 
I cleaned the cupboards of all the food that is bad for me yesterday.  I have a food hording problem.  I buy it, and usually don’t end up eating it. 
It seems wrong somehow that I had the surgery and all I think about is food.  But i have to be sure that I am getting enough protein and often enough to keep my blood sugar from plummeting.  Yet I don’t want to graze.  Then there is the water issue.  I can’t drink a half hour before or after eating because liquids create a slurry in the small stomach that goes into the small intestine that much faster which can lead to  more weight gain. 
If any of you fellow GBers are having difficulty, you might want to read the book above.  It really helps and I keep referring to it daily.  It’s like a pep talk.
I have a goal to RUN in a 5K race this summer.  I started to train this morning and my husband thinks I can do it, even though I have never been a runner before.  But this is my goal for both weight loss and turning 50 this year. 
Okay, enough whining about my weight.

I like rural. Don’t like neighbors so much, (Although I like all of mine). Like to be able to go outside naked, if I wanted to. Not that I ever had or would, but I like to know I could if I so desired. I like days when wild turkeys look in my window. I like the fact there are no neighborhood associations to please. I like clean air and cows. I lived in a couple of small cities and missed my farmland. I expect to live in a rural area all my life. I even plan to spend my old age at the county home I work at because it is on a working farm. Of course, maybe by that time the area will be developed.

I just answered this Featured Question, you can answer it too!