…that I have not completely FAILED in prepping myself for this Sunday’s death march mud run that I will be doing with my son in law. Yes, I can handle the running distance…bitch please…it’s the mud and the upper body strength needed obstacles not to mention it is going to be 80 degrees HOT when we start our race at 12:30 PM. I’m. Going. To. Die. I hope Ben will kindly drag my body to the finish line…for my loving circus clowns who surely will miss me when I am gone.
Let’s pretend that I have not STILL have not finished that staircase railing paint project…Y’all know I will probably finally finish it around August which would be a year after I started.
Let’s pretend that the NRP mega-code simulation test that I did today was not the hot, sweaty mess that it was because I am so nervous in testing scenarios like that (yes even if I have been doing this for over 22 years…don’t judge) and let’s pretend that I was not given the scariest delivery from hell scenario because I’m a NICU nurse and I can handle it. I know my mega-code partner, who at first was happily announcing that this was her last NRP renewal ever because she is retiring next year certainly wishes it had never happened. Don’t worry. We saved the baby mannequin patient. Oh, and we both passed.
Let’s pretend that the usual war of the worlds that is between Hazel and Daniel when he comes home from school to discover that I am babysitting his nieces never happened. I know Daniel and Hazel wish that it never happened…or at least the time-outs they received never happened.
Let’s just pretend all the annoying shit that has been bothering us all today has never happened…
But Jenny, the Bloggess‘ new book, available on sale today and on my Kindle WAITING for me to read it now…THAT we should all be so happy, so very happy that it happened. Seriously. I’m so GLAD this has happened and I have the book and wine and I will be reading it tonight while drinking a glass of wine.
Filing my Federal taxes (waiting until the eleventh hour because in spite of yet another year of unemployment/underemployment and losing our home we still freakin’ owe taxes this year…you’re welcome 1%)?…
Birth is miraculous, but it can be perilous. Years and years ago I remember my obstetrics nursing professor saying something along those lines as she emphasized how fortunate we were practicing maternal-child nursing in this day and age…which was more than twenty years ago. She described in detail how the delivery team often would collectively hold their breath until that first loud, lusty, cry of a healthy newborn baby was heard. Yet with all our advances and better understandings and technological advances we, as maternal-child caregivers, still appreciate every day the potential for peril. We still find ourselves collectively holding our breath until that newborn takes his or her first breath…and the breath after that…and the breath after that…and on and on.
Recently I was fortunate enough to be asked to read and share with you all a book titled Fragile Beginnings by Adam Wolfberg, M.D. As an obstetrician, specializing in maternal-fetal medicine, Dr. Wolfberg is more than qualified to explore with his readers the complex world of newborn intensive care. But he is even more so qualified as he is the father of Larissa, born at 26 weeks gestation and weighing just under 2 pounds. As he recounts the precarious delivery of his third daughter, I found myself literally holding my breath. From Larissa’s own fragile beginnings, Dr. Wolfberg explores and details current scientific practices and discoveries along with the profound emotional and ethical issues raised by the advancing technology that makes it possible for us to save babies born on the cusp of viability. He shares the decisions that he and his wife, Kelly, faced when it was discovered that Larissa had suffered a profound hemorrhage into her brain when she was just days old. And he explores the decisions other families in the NICU must make for their own babies…as well as the decision of a patient of his who presented with ruptured membranes at 23 weeks and 4 days…not a decision expected in a facility with highly trained professionals prepared to do everything to save the life of a severely premature baby.
Fragile Beginnings is not a how-to guide to survive and understand life in the NICU for new parents, but I believe that it is still a must read for anyone touched by premature birth or high risk pregnancy. Given that half a million babies are born prematurely in the United States every year, that is a lot of people who should take the time to sit down and read through this gripping medical narrative. I believe it offers but a glimpse into the ever changing and evolving world of neonatal care which is really only in its own frontier.
Naturally I could not put this book down for so many reasons. As a NICU nurse, who began her career during one of the more exciting moments in the history of neonatal care when artificial surfactants were first receiving approval for use in the NICU from the FDA, I found myself enjoying his tracing of the history of neonatology as well as the background of some of the great minds in neonatal medicine today. As a healthcare professional who finds one self on the other side of the incubator, I identified with Dr. Wolfberg’s difficulty with knowing “too much” of what was clinically going on with his baby girl. Even his recollection of his 23 weeks and 4 days patient and her decision hit close to home briefly knocking the wind out of me. And as a parent of a remarkable micropreemie, also born on January 11, I couldn’t help but relate to his account of the work involved after your miracle baby is big enough, strong enough, healthy enough to go home at long last.
While there still seem to be peppermint candy canes lingering around here at last Winter/Christmas Break is officially OVER today.
Oh happy day!
So early this morning, with hugs and kisses, the clowns living under the Big Top were sent off to elementary school, high school and college.
You hear that? That is the sound of quiet…at least until Hazel and Fallon come over. Oh well, it will be good as long as it lasts. Back to the juggling we go!
With the kids back in school and the post-holiday bills coming in money is definitely tight around here…as it is in any other household. It is all the more challenging with Abby in college now just as I know it is for Zoë who is putting herself through school while living away from home. So how do my circus clowns attending college save money? Anyway they can. Even with scholarships, grants and (GASP!) loans, it is still a struggle here for our girls. I try to tell them it builds character and creates memories they can bore their own children with someday…like my stories of milk crate furniture and eating nothing but popcorn for a month…
Good times!
Fun times!
In collaboration with Campus Books Rentals, here are some practical and creative ways to save money while attending college.
Get a free checking and savings account. The bank will nickel and dime you on dumb stuff like too many ATM withdrawals, too many checks written, or a funds transfer. Shop the town for banks catering to students. Make sure you can access online banking, pay bills and manage your account without attached fees.
If you have to have a credit card, make sure you get one with the lowest interest rate possible; no annual fees and with only enough of a credit limit to get you by in an emergency. Don’t carry it with you, but instead keep it in a safe place known only to you.
For one month save every receipt of everything you purchase, from a pack of gum, a tube of toothpaste to your computer. Log each expense in a notebook. When the month is up, tally up what you’ve spent and take a good look at just where most of it went. Food? Beer? Gas? Games? This sure fire technique will unabashedly expose the evils of your spending ways.
Don’t drink. Zoë and Abby are under 21 so yes, girls, don’t drink. But if an over 21 student must… buy the cheap stuff.Here is now where I better understand why their big sister, Holly, and her hipster friends like PBR (Pabst Blue Ribbon Beer) so much.
Food is one of the top priorities in a college student’s life. Eating fast, eating healthy, it can all cost money. Lucky for Abby, she lives at home so she can and does regularly empty out my pantry. Whomever suggested teenage girls don’t have appetities like teenage boys has never been a guest here under the Big Top. Zoë, on the other hand has discovered Top Ramen. Oh joy!
Zoë’s Christmas gift of a Keurig coffee maker will definitely save a huge chunk of change from her coffee habit. A daily latte, cappuccino, or mocha will run between $2.50 and $3.50 depending on the size. Seven days of that routine costs $17.50 per week, $70 per month and around $280.00 per semester! That’s over $500 a year drank in morning caffeine. Making her own special cup of coffee every day is definitely going to help save some money and perhaps stock her kitchen cupboards with something more nutritious than those Ramen noodles; like oatmeal which is fast, filling and affordable.
Kick the bottled water habit; support your local tap water and drink for free. Get a some kind of filter if you want better tasting water. Zoë invested in a Brita water filter bottle in order to save money and the environment while keeping herself hydrated with better tasting water.
Books. Every college student must buy books and yes, they are so very expensive. Good god, they are expensive! Buying used is definitely the way to go as is selling the books back, whether to the campus bookstore or to a fellow student taking the same class you took last semester. Abby is selling last semester’s Psych textbook this semester to a friend which helps them both out. Another option to consider is renting textbooks. Renting textbooks saves you money plain and simple and gets the same result in your classes as buying your books. Campus Book Rentals offers new and gently used textbooks for typically less than half the price you’ll pay in your school bookstore.
Even better, not only can a starving student save some money renting books through Campus Book Rentals but they can do some good. Campus Book Rentals has “officially teamed up with Operation Smile, an out of this world, awesome organization, that performs life changing cleft lip surgeries on children whose families could not otherwise afford it. The long term improvement in quality of life for the children that receive these surgeries is almost incomprehensible. They have committed to donating enough to cover a minimum of 1,000 life changing surgeries. They hope to beat that number, but it’s a significant commitment.
So for EVERY book rented starting now, Campus Book Rentals will donate a portion of those proceeds to Operation Smile with their sights set on meeting and exceeding the goal of 1,000 lives changed.
Saving money…changing lives…I am on board with that!
This just in: So we ordered Abby’s books for this semester. New books totaled $343. Only one title was available at a used book price so the amended total would be $282. Ordering the books through Campus Book Rentals the total was $155. We saved $188! Yes, I am totally on board with that.
I was asked by Campus Book Rentals to write a post about money saving ideas for college students and in return I will be compensated with $50 towards the cost of my girls’ textbooks this semester which will help…and every little bit helps.
I heard this word for the first time at the Snapfish sponsored Memory Keepers Roundtable where I got to hear Laurie of Laurie Writes and Amanda of Parenting by Dummies talk about women as memory keepers. Both women are professional photographers and also the memory keepers of the loved ones in their life. As Laurie said at the beginning of the session, “I have at least one camera wherever I go and whatever happens is fair game.” I liked that because that is pretty much me and my approach to recording the life that goes on around me. My kids don’t refer to me at the mamarazzi (with the appropriate eye roll and heavy sigh) for nothing.That’s just me. I have a camera and I (sort of) know how to use it and I do…all the time. I basically take a million pictures and get lucky, sometimes really lucky with maybe five shots…five shots here and there that capture how I see this circus life of mine. Lucky for me the subjects I point my camera at are so gorgeous!.
Much of what Amanda and Laurie had to say about managing the hundreds or thousands or five images we take I am already doing. Hurray for me! I’m doing something right!
delete images before you upload to your computer
it really is okay to delete a picture of your child…nothing bad will happen to the child if you do…at least nothing has ever happened to mine. The worst that has happened here under the Big Top is when I have taken pictures of boyfriends in the past…the boy seems to disappear when I “steal” their image. That is why I am not allowed to photograph boys my daughters might be dating until the daughter gives me permission. According to Holly, I am responsible for at least five boys disappearing. Obviously it worked out for her, I mean her husband is pretty awesome.
change the image file names immediately. Giving the images a name like “zoo” or “1st day of school” or “Hazel” makes it easy for you to sort through them, file them…manage them.
after you name the images put them in specifically named folders. It’s up you how you file your images. Me, I have folders named by the month and year and sometimes a special occasion. It works for me. You might find a filing system that works way better for you. Do it. file those pictures!
back them up!!! I back mine up uploading them to Flickr, Shutterfly and (because I received a coupon) Snapfish as well as using an external hard drive. I also print my images and put them into scrapbooks…although I am a few years behind on that endeavor because I seem to take too many pictures. However you choose to do it BACK UP your images. Anyone who has lost images forever in a dead computer will tell you the same thing. Back those babies up!
Include yourself. Years from now my kids and grandbabies aren’t going to care that my hair was a mess or I didn’t have makeup on or I was a few pounds too heavy when they look at pictures of me. They are going to care that I am in the photo books I make. This is hard for me. I really don’t care for how I look on camera. I am almost always the one behind the camera. But I am trying to get better at this…trying.
Relax and just shoot. Sometimes the very best pictures of your family or events in your life will come when you are doing just that.
This shot was taken on a whim. Daniel was showing off a bowtie he bought that day and I was lucky enough to get what ended up being a perfect shot. At least perfect enough to be included in the first edition of Snapfish/BlogHer Best of Blogs book.
Even more humbling and flattering was to hang out with some of these talented people and sign our books at the Snapfish booth in the BlogHer Expo.
I think I wrote my name a thousand times…not really. But it sure did feel like I did when I got done. Still, what an honor…I’m in a book…look at me, I’m in a book.
…that I have not completely FAILED in prepping myself for this Sunday’s 
Recently I was fortunate enough to be asked to read and share with you all a book titled 
While there still seem to be peppermint candy canes lingering around here at last Winter/Christmas Break is officially OVER today.
