Buddy Acres

It's been awhile since I have posted on here. With being a little sick (just normal colds and stuff) and having to work, I just haven't found the time. I am still on Medical Oncology. Human Resources called me in to a meeting and told me I was "on hold" to move and that I was still going to move. Our manager, Lori, said that I might not have to because now we are short-staffed. We have two people coming from days and we still have people floating to us. It is weird. The last few weeks have been crazy in the hospital. We have been testing everyone for the flu and it is insane. Even people without flu symptoms, we have been testing. This wouldn't be a problem except for the fact that we have to put them in isolation until the flu is ruled out.

The weather here has been okay. Not too cold, in the 40s-50s mostly. I love the colors of fall in Michigan. They are so pretty. This is a picture I took from my car while coming back from the store. (Yes, I stopped the car. I don't take pictures and drive.) This picture is all yellow, but we have oranges and reds. Just beautiful. :)

I changed the layout of my blog. Most people would say that it is too early for snow. But I love snowmen. I don't like the snow, but they are one of my favorite things!

This past month or so, I have been to so many classes for work it is not funny. We got new IV pumps, so there was a class for that. We are getting electronic medication records, so another class. I took basic dysrhythmia, which is a total of ten classes. Then I had a TB class and had to renew my Basic Life Support. Whew! It's been a busy month and a half! I have until December for my next round of classes, so I am glad for that!

I have some time off this next week and I am grateful for that! I definitely need some time to relax. When you work overnight, you rarely get time to relax because it takes two days to do anything. I think I'm going to try and get my father's birth certificate, which would involve a trip up north. It would be a pretty drive though. This time of year is the best for Northern Michigan. We don't have to go to the Upper Peninsula, but it is a ways away. Genealogy trips are always fun and exciting!

Yesterday we had a meeting on our unit (Medical Oncology) about future staffing needs. We knew that this would be coming sometime because when we moved to the new tower, we had around 14 less beds than we did on our old floor. Since we moved, we have been floating to various floors to staff them. I would say that I floated about one of my three shifts per week. This was good because we still got to work.

Well, yesterday they told us that they are moving staff. Since our unit was the largest unit, we had the most staff and they are pulling 13 of us. 8 nurses and 5 aides. The other units are post-surgical, cardiac telemetry (CTU) and ortho/neuro. They have attempted in the past to post voluntary moves but no one accepted it because our unit is awesome and we don't want to leave it.

They told us that they will be taking volunteers until Friday at noon and then if there aren't enough volunteers, they will start filling positions starting by lowest seniority. Well, I'm number 2 or 3 from the bottom. One of the last people hired on our unit before the move. (I say 2 or 3 because another nurse started on the same day and I don't know how they would rank us.) So, it is inevitable that I would have to move, so I signed up for 12 hour night shift position on ortho/neuro.

The problem is that if anyone signs up for the same position with more seniority (which is practically everyone!) then I get bumped. I'm guessing I will get bumped to CTU which are part-time positions and 8 hour shifts. I do 12 hour shifts right now and it is nice because I only have to work 3 days a week. This is really nice considering it is a 40 minute drive to work. We should know by next week, what positions we have and they wanted us to start on those units by October 1st.

I feel really bad for the aides because all the positions are part time and two of the aides were really upset that they would have less hours. They kept reiterating that "at least there were no layoffs" like that would make us feel any better about the whole situation.

One of the nurses and I were talking yesterday and we were saying imagine what the other floors will be like with our staff. We say that because Med/Onc staff is like a family. We help each other. Rarely do you hear someone on our floor say "that isn't my job" like you do on other floors. We are a team and we act like it. It will be interesting to see how that attitude will be meshed with the other units.

So, yes, I am a little discouraged this morning. I know that what will happen is supposed to happen even though I may not understand the reasoning yet. It is still a little disheartening not to know your fate.

Last week, we went to Columbus, OH to see the Jonas Brothers in concert. We meaning, my sister Jamie, my nephew Alex, and my nieces Ilana and Isabel. This is one of the pictures that I took while we were at the concert. Our seats were really high, but they were good because of the way the stage was laid out. It was a lot of fun, but tiring at the same time.

Honor Society opened up for them and they were pretty good. Jordin Sparks was supposed to be next, but since she joined Britney's Circus tour, she couldn't make it. That was a little sad, but ok. The traffic was horrible trying to get out of there. If we go to that arena again, we said we're paying to stay across the street so we can walk!

The hotel that we stayed at upgraded our room to a penthouse and that was exciting for the kids because they have never stayed in a room like that before. The concert came at a time when funding was low, so it was nice that our hotel had a kitchenette in it, so we could make our own food instead of paying to eat out all the time. That was nice.

It was about a six hour drive to Columbus, so it wasn't that bad. We ended up getting there around one and called for an early check in, but couldn't check in to the hotel until two p.m. This is the kids waiting at the hotel to check in. We let them out of the car and they were excited we did. Our room was upstairs and it was really nice.

Not bad for a quick trip before school starts! (Which is Tuesday in Michigan, btw.) When we were leaving all the school kids in Columbus had school the next day. We were like "good thing we're from Michigan!" Hehe. (In an effort, to save on funding, Governor Granholm made it a law or something that all schools start after Labor Day in Michigan.)

Yesterday, mom and I spent the day canning. We got some apples and peaches from our local farm market that we love and made caramel apple butter, apple pie filling, canned peaches and homemade vegetable beef soup. We had some tomatoes to can too, but we just didn't get that far. It was 9 p.m. before we were done and we were tired!

The caramel apple butter turned out really good, but I wouldn't put the cloves in it next time. We made apple pie filling before and it is just great! You just open the jar, stick it in a pie crust or use it for apple crisp and bake it. Wonderful thing and tastes great! I cannot wait for our apple trees to mature so we can get apples from them instead of buying them.

All the while, our soup (or sloup) was cooking. We always can that and chili for the winter. It was really good because most of the vegetables we either canned or froze ourselves. With the exception of the carrots and potatoes. Our carrots and potatoes just didn't do good this year, so we had to buy those. The Dragon Tongue Beans tasted really good in the soup! Yummy! At one point, we had both canners going. We were saying that we needed more stove space. :)

I hope that everyone has a safe and wonderful labor day weekend. I'm not sure what I'll be doing. Mom wants to go to the flea market. I want to go to the craft fair and the drive-in. We'll see what happens. Neither I nor Jamie has to work. If it's nice, maybe we'll grill out.