family pictures

One week ago Tyler and I got family pictures taken with our pups in downtown Fort Worth

Our photographer was Ambyr Porter and she did a great job.

For more picture head over to her site and leave her a nice comment!

Here is the link: http://ambyrporterphotography.com/blog/

a night at the theater

It should be no surprise to everyone that Tyler and I just love the theater. In particular, we love musicals. Since I work nights, Tyler and I go three days of the week without seeing each other. When I leave for work, he's not home yet. When I get home from work, he's already gone to work. One morning I got home from work and Tyler had a sign on the garage door inviting me to a movie night the following night when we'd both be home. But when I walked into the house there was another sign hanging from the ceiling that read "Now for the real surprise look on your computer". And there it was... Tyler had gotten us tickets to watch Sweeney Todd at the Casa Manana theater in Fort Worth. I had mentioned it in passing that I wanted to see it, but wasn't forceful about it. We had missed it last year when it was showing in Dallas and I was bummed about that. Needless to say I was excited with my surprise!

So on Friday, the 13th we headed over to Fort Worth for a fancy theater date!

We had dinner at Sardine's Ristorante Italiano.

I got spaghetti carbonara

Tyler got a cannelloni

He wasn't crazy about the food he got. But I loved it! It was a dark restaurant, and they had live music. It was a neat atmosphere and we had great service. I'd like to go back again.

We then headed to the theater. It was so cool. It has the coolest dome to it and it is a very nice facility. It's not a huge theater, and I don't think you could get a terrible seat in the house.

The actor that played Sweeney was Norm Lewis. When we went to New York in May and watched The Little Mermaid on Broadway he was the one playing King Triton. He was amazing. But oh my was he amazing as Sweeney Todd. The singing on the entire show was just brilliant. It is such a difficult musical to sing with high notes and dialects. It was very well done.


It was fun. The more I think about it, the more I like it. We were a little lost at first with the story and missed some things, but were able to understand the whole thing during the second act. I'm excited to see more plays at casa manana!

let's get one thing straight

Wednesday night was rough.

I mean... really, really rough.

It was the first night that I looked around and I thought "Dear Lord, please help me because I am terrified right now that one of my patients might die because there's simply not enough of me to go around"

I had six patients.

One receiving a blood transfusion, one with pain management issues because he had three surgeries within one week, and one who went into rapid A-fib with a sustained heart rate of 200 - 230 for over an hour, another one that had bradycardia runs with a heart rate as low as 39 at one point, a high fall risk one, and a fairly stable one on bed rest all night until he had runs of V-Tach in the early morning.

Our computers were down all night long.

I wanted to scream.

I wanted to cry.

But I couldn't. I kept going. Nobody died. In fact everyone was safe, and managed well.

I didn't eat all night, and stayed late in the morning to finish charting, and felt bad because one of my jobs working nights is to get the charts checked and ready for day shift.

I cried in the morning when a sweet day nurse asked me how I was doing.

I was tired. I had been there for fifteen hours.

I was supposed to come back that night (Thursday) for my last and third shift of the week.

I called in.

I just couldn't do it.

I was so tired, and so overwhelmed.

I needed a mental health day.

But let's get one thing straight...

I wouldn't want to do anything else as a career. Nursing is beautiful. My tears and anxieties are not for me. They're for my patients, and the sorrow I feel when I just don't have the time to care for them like I want to, like they deserve me to. I love my patients. I love my job.

Nobody ever said nursing was an easy career, and some nights are going to be just as bad as Wednesday or even worse. But I still love it. I'll go back next week with my head held high. Everyone was safe. Everyone got taken care of. Everyone is alive. I am a wonderful nurse, and my patients love me. I know that because every single night at least one of them tell me so, and thank me for being their nurse.

I love being able to be that nurse.

{image from here}

break...

Pardon us while we go through a break here...

We're having some growing pains...

Be back in a little while.

welcome to our house

I love fall time

Normally I don't decorate until the first day of Fall

this year however I decorated two weeks before the first day of Fall

I never uploaded the pictures here, but welcome to our house during Fall time.

catching up

Last weekend Tyler and I headed to the Texas State Fair.

It was a chilly evening with some drizzling, but I was happy!

We got there fairly late in the day and the fair was busy. We walked around a bit, then stopped for a cooking demonstration by kitchen craft.

I fell in love. and then fell out of love once they told us the cost. But truth be told I have dreams about their cookware. one day... one day.

We then watched the parade.

And got some ribbon fries/Texas tater twists.

Watched the illumination sensation show next where they had this huge screen, lights, fountain, and fire show to music. It was pretty neat.

The end song was "God Bless the USA". If you know the song well you know the verses that start talking about some of the states, well... when we got to "Across the plains of Texas" you would have thought that some country superstar had appeared flying through the sky. People were cheering so hard. One of the things we do love about living in Texas is the pride that people have of being Texan, southern, their chili, their football, the barbecue, you name it... they're proud. That was fun.

Tyler and I in a fuzzy picture of Big Tex.

They had an exhibition on carved pumpkins that were pretty neat.

We rode the big ferris wheel and walked around the rides

And petted a baby goat.

We love the fair. But next year we need to get there a little bit earlier in the day so we can see some of the shows!

nursing lessons

Elderly patient

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Ambien CR

=

Confused patient hallucinating about 200 people being in his room, followed by hallucinations of people missing, and patient getting out of bed when he's high fall risk.

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crazy night on the floor