Category Archives: vampira

morning has broken

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Mornings mean a lot of different things to different people. Me, I’m not much of a morning person.

Neither are some other people…at least until after he has his breakfast. He might look like he could use a cup of coffee but he swears he doesn’t need it. He’s a kid and kids don’t drink coffee, he chides me. It is then that I tell him as a micropreemie in the NICU for four and a half months he was a total pain in the butt until he had his morning dose of caffeine. He thinks that it is absolutely crazy that he was given caffeine when he was so tiny…CRAZY!

But after breakfast is eaten, my happy boy is there to warm my heart with sunshine…er, son-shine.

Still I am not a morning person. Not at all. Which explains why, with the exception of three years, I have always worked the night shift as a NICU nurse…working nights for over twenty years now. So while the world is slumbering I am here, in the NICU.

Yes, most nights sitting here, or running around but always working very hard in the dark. We vampire nurses like it that way as do our patients. And when y’all are getting up, having coffee, eating breakfast, heading out the door to work or school and your busy, busy days, I am here…

Here unwinding and powering down before I try to sleep. Y’all need to please keep it down while you are living your lives (so loudly) during my sleep time…your daytime.

Today is Nurses Day, which is the beginning of Nurses Week, and ends with the remembrance of Florence Nightingale’s birthday. If I was queen of the world we would be celebrating nurses all month long…and nurses would be celebrated all month long…not sharing it with anyone else. Alas, I am not queen of the world. I am just a lowly bedside, per-diem registered nurse which is the best place to be for me and for my patients. Tell a nurse that they are awesome and you appreciate them. It makes the missed meals, the missed bathroom breaks, the dehydration, the achy feet, backs and legs and all the stress and headaches worth it. And again, keep it down just a little. I’m trying to sleep.

This week’s Focus 52 assignment was morning. Be sure to check out other people’s view of the morning and compare it yours.

Good night, er, morning!

breakfast with Bob

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…probably wouldn’t include this.

and DEFINITELY would not have been this!

I may or may not have indulged in such things recently.

Don’t tell Bob!

During a recent opportunity (yes, I’m still talking about BlogHer three weeks later!) to have breakfast with Bob Harper, of The Biggest Loser, I did indeed sit this close to Bob. Although he seemed to be as warm, open, honest and funny as he is on the NBC reality show, I chose to not share the indulgences that I may or may not have enjoyed with him. Instead I remembered to say hello to him from Shredheads‘ Kristen and Bill. I also made him laugh because I used the word “dude” in a sentence. I then asked him to share some advice and wisdom for those of us who work all night and sleep all day as to how to maintain our health and fitness.  He laughed again when I referred to myself as Vampira, the Night Shift Nurse. Obviously the dude has never worked all night and then found himself blinded by the early morning sun as his day, er, night of work has ended…it burns!

Bob’s advice to me, and other Vampiras and Vampires who work the o’dark-thirty shift is this:

  • nutrition is #1
  • nutrition is #2
  • exercise is #3
  • sleep is in there…somewhere…ideally 6-8 hours…anyone who works 12 hour shifts like I do is now laughing hysterically right now.

But I think Bob kind of got that part since I emphasized that I work twelve hour shifts overnight. What he offered to me is something I already know: eat 30 minutes after waking up (regardless of the time of day or night), eat small meals containing protein and complex carbs every four hours and that last meal before bedtime (day or night) should contain little or no carbs. I know this as do anyone else in healthcare. But a lot of us in the healthcare industry don’t always walk the talk that we advise patients. No we don’t.

Bob also emphasized something that I have come to realize over the last few years of shredding and running and just moving: exercise, moving your body is so crucial to feel healthy and keep going and stay young.

Following his advice and wisdom focusing on good nutrition, moving my body and getting enough sleep…okay, trying to get enough sleep makes occasional indulgences like these that I may have or may have not recently consumed okay….OCCASIONALLY! But for now, today I need to get off the couch and move. Perhaps I might get moving with one of Bob’s dvds thinking how I sat that close to Bob one day and made him laugh…or perhaps I will just get out and run.

But I will definitely get moving.

What about you?

the last 30 days…

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…I ran.

Well, give or take a few days. But I did run pretty much everyday this last month. With the moving of the Big Top at the beginning of last month, there was nothing else but running for me because my Bob and Jillian dvd’s, weights and yoga mat were all packed away. I had to focus on un-packing the essentials like the dishes, the cookware, the linens the books. Plus every time I walk into my closet and see those boxes containing shoes, boots and fitness related items I manage to find something else that needs to be done.

Okay, fine.

I’m too freakin’ lazy to un-pack my closet and I can be a bit of a procrastinator. There has been always something else I needed to do I would tell myself as I shut my closet door…like work or laundry or running.

Thankfully, my darling husband set up that treadmill of mine right away. He knows me too well. I need to run. According to my Daily Mile log, I have ran over 2000 miles in the last two years. That is crazy-amazing to me. But I have and I am damn proud of that feat.

So yeah, the last 30 days or so I have been running. No, I am not training for any race right now. You need the monies to run races and, well, there is no money for what falls under the wants column of the Big Top’s wants/needs list. It’s okay. Surprisingly, there has been something freeing about running just because I feel like running this last month. There is no training plan…none at all. If I feel like running a mile and nothing more then I run a mile and if I feel like running six or more then I do…if I can. Funny thing is I can and I have, run six miles or more at a time…and I have run only about a mile.

Thank goodness my darling husband set up the treadmill especially with the hot summer days we have had lately and especially because of the crazy day versus night schedule I keep as Vampira, the night shift nurse. I don’t think I could have run as little or as much as I have were it not for that dear old ‘mill.

What can I say…

because…

  1. It challenges me to go farther, faster, harder.
  2. It is for me, just me…not my husband, not my circus clowns, not for anyone but me.
  3. When I run I don’t have anyone to argue with.
  4. It gives me the energy to tackle the day…especially when my day is overnight.
  5. I have some pretty awesome bling…seven medals and I hope for more to come someday soon.
  6. It’s fun. No, really. It is fun!
  7. Sometimes running is my only quiet time and my only alone time.
  8. It pulled me out of my depressing, anxiety-filled mid-life slump that I was sinking into over two years ago.
  9. I can do it alone, with friends or with thousands of strangers.
  10. It clears my head of all the stress and worry that fills it up sometimes. Focusing on pace and breathing I can’t dwell on all that garbage.
  11. The way I feel when I finish, no matter how hot, sweat-soaked and exhausted I am, is amazing.
  12. More than two years ago it was something I never would have imagined that I would do…ever.
  13. It makes me smile.
  14. I like to eat delicious food.
  15. I like to drink delicious wine.
  16. I like the idea that my circus clowns can tell people that I run half marathons.
  17. I solve so many problems when I run.
  18. I release so much…resentments, anger, everything toxic.
  19. I like how my ass looks.
  20. I like how my legs look.
  21. I like how I look in my clothes.
  22. I like how I look naked.
  23. It daily reminds that I am a super human being.
  24. It is the part of my day that I absolutely look forward too.
  25. I like the sound of my feet striking the ground.
  26. I like the sound of the music that is my running playlist (a long, varied list) and the beat that drives me onward.
  27. It makes me powerful and in control of my body and mind.
  28. I am addicted to endorphins
  29. I am inspired that so many friends of mine started running because I started running.
  30. I CAN run

Thirty reasons why to represent the last thirty days (give or take a day here and there) of running. I can’t wait to see what the next thirty days and the days that follow thereafter reveal to me.

0330 conversations

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  • BABIES!
  • The Kardashians and the letter “K”
  • politics
  • my awkward, intense fear and loathing of ketchup
  • cute babies
  • Jillian Michael’s Ripped in 30 workout
  • more politics
  • what we are all doing after May 21st
  • the husbands we love and how they love to drive us crazy
  • playdates
  • politics in Canada
  • damnation
  • our children
  • Facebook
  • Kate Middleton’s hair
  • Prince William’s hair
  • the Wharf to Wharf
  • if we did our job the way politicians do theirs
  • where are all the pens?
  • laughter, lots of laughter
  • tattoos
  • childbirth
  • pregnancy
  • life
  • death
  • taxes
  • string cheese- are you a peeler or a biter?

These are the nights that remind me all the more how I just love my job and the people I work with.

everybody’s working for the weekend

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I’m usually working them, weekends that is. At least I am usually working part of the elusive, awesome weekend that “normal” working folk look forward to. Such is the life of a juggling mom/Vampira the Night Shift Nurse. But surprisingly, I find myself with THREE WEEKENDS OFF IN A ROW!!!

Crazy for me!

I need three weekends off in a row. It’s been a rough start for the year…a tough month…a mind sucking, emotionally draining week. I am so freakin’ ready for a weekend off. A weekend off to perhaps run and find some sunshine. Rumor has it that it is out there somewhere past the fog and gloom of the Central Valley. I need a weekend off to catch up around the Big Top and tackle the clutter…or perhaps ignore it a few days more. I need a weekend to get out and accomplish a long run. I desperately need a weekend to relax!

I came home from work early Friday morning and entered the Big Top doing the “Happy TGIF” dance.

“TGIF, TGIF!“, I exclaim as I walk in the door.

Daniel asks me what is TGIF?

“Thank goodness it’s Friday.”, I tell him. “Aren’t you glad it’s Friday, Daniel?“

His reply:

Of course this means that the weekend starts that much earlier for him so hurray for minimum days! Hurray for weekends…even if the weather forecast promises more gloom and rain and I am desperately fighting the feeling that I am coming down with a cold. Hurray for weekends!

You’re welcome for the awesome 80′s flashback/weekend ear worm!