Tuesday, February 23, 2010

PMC Is Killing Me!!!

OK, I'm exaggerating... but only slightly!  I have really been stressed out at work lately... :(  I have been working long hours, busting my butt, and still catching all kinds of flak from upper-management.  Today I found out that I have to start attending the Manager Meetings again.  When I first started working here, I had to attend those meetings.  But after a while the CFO started taking over for IT.  Those were the good old days.  I hate those meetings more than any of the others I have to attend.  Maybe I can call in sick on the first and third Wednesdays of the month...  I'm not a manager, and I don't want to be one.  On top of that, the CEO has been piling 'special' projects on my plate.  I can't get anything accomplished.  Brandi is smart and she is picking things up quickly, but there is SO MUCH to learn... I have to do a lot of training to help her learn the ropes.  I have never been this far behind at any job. :(  It's 10:00pm and I just barely walked in the door.  I would like to sleep in, but I have an 8:00am meeting and I want to go to Mass at 7:00am.

Sigh... It's only been 4 months, but I really NEED a vacation.  Hopefully things get better soon...

Monday, February 22, 2010

18 Weeks!

So, technically, the kumquat isn't the size of a kumquat anymore, but it just fits the new baby Spano! :) The baby is about 5 1/2 oz and the length of a bell pepper. I'm really feeling him/her moving but it's inconsistent, usually when I'm leaning forward a lot or really, REALLY relaxed! We had our 3rd OB appointment today and got to hear the baby's heart beat which is definitely my new favorite sound! :-D The heartrate was around 148bpm, and sounded good and strong. I asked the doc if another baby was hiding in there and he said he hoped not and that if there was then Jessica had some 'splainin' to do! (That's the ultrasound tech) Speaking of ultrasounds, today was the day we could have had our 2nd "included" ultrasound and found out the sex of the baby. We chose to decline that because we aren't finding out the sex of the baby so there's no other reason to have the ultrasound since everything seems pretty good. We also declined the Triple Marker Test that tests for Down's Syndrome, some extra chromosome, and spina bifida I think. They're not super accurate blood tests so there's a possibility it would say you have a chance for one of those things and you prepare and you have a perfectly healthy baby, or vice versa. We just decided it wasn't something we wanted to do. I have been swelling quite a bit lately, and getting headaches, though my blood pressure has been pretty good so the doc wasn't super worried. But wants to keep an eye on me so I have to go back in two weeks instead of four. :( Jason and I are sure everything is OK since my blood pressure is fine and the doc just wants some extra dough ;-) but I'll follow the docs orders just in case and I would want to know if I was preeclampsic (sp?!).

We also got a chance to ask the doctor about some of his procedures at delivery; such as liklihood of getting desires/wishes during delivery (walking/moving during contractions), chances of induction and c-sections, and his use of episiotomies. I think he seems pretty laid back, but we were in the office not the heat of delivery. Though, I'm totally impressed with my husband and have complete faith in him that he will stand up for me during delivery and not allow the doc to do any unnecessary medical interventions. :-D It's awesome to be married to someone who will stand up for you!

After the appointment we had dinner at my favorite GC restaurant...El Camino's a yummy Mexican joint! Then we went to Target and ended with some ice cream from Baskin and Robbins. I got orange sherbert and Jason got some wild and crazy sherbert and then traded with me when I liked his better! :-D He's amazing! And so good to me! <3 I love when he comes to visit me in GC, but I hate saying goodbye. :( I am very ready for the baby to get here so that we can be together as a family all the time!

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Lots Of Random Stuff!

I haven't posted for a while, so I thought I would just throw out some random stuff here.

Where to begin?

Monday night I was almost run over while I was on my bicycle. I was on my way home from the American Cancer Society's Relay for Life meeting. I even had my high-dollar / high-output headlight on.  The guy must not have seen me. I can tell you that Guardian Angels DO exist... he turned and hit my front tire with his fender, but didn't knock me over or hurt the bike.  I should have at least been knocked off my bike.  It was so weird... he hit the tire, pushed me backwards, while I was traveling around 20 MPH.  I said several prayers of thanksgiving on the rest of the ride home.

I finally got my old G5 Kirby refurbished from the Kirby dealer.  It looks brand new, and the new beater-brush is awesome.  They changed the gaskets and a few other parts, and it sucks better then it used to.  I'm donating that to the Church in Las Animas, I just need to get it down there...

Jeanine and I are going up to Woodland Park this Saturday to visit with a friend/ex-coworker from PMC.  She has been bugging me to come check out the hospital she works out.  They desperately need an IT guy and have basically told me to "name my price".  I figure it can't hurt to go look at the place, see the area, etc.  It will be fun to go up to such a pretty area anyway.

I am leaving in the morning (Ash Wednesday) to head to Plainsville, KS to look at a hospital that uses eMDs software.  That is one of the software packages we are considering for the Rural Health Clinic.  Plainsville is anywhere from 4 - 6 hours away depending on who you talk to.  I will be traveling with one of the receptionists from the clinic and we will hopefully be there around 1:00pm Central Time and check things out there.  I'm not looking forward to the 8 - 12 hours of driving I'm going to do... that will be another long day... I hope that I will have time to go to Mass first.

That's all for now!

Thursday, February 11, 2010

New Employees, Stressful Days, and Swelling Cankles...Oh My!

Well, I've been training a new PTA at work to take over inpatient. Then I will be doing outpatient. This is for a couple of reasons, number one inpatient is totally kicking my behind! And number two, when I have the baby and don't return to work, someone needs to be able to handle inpatients. So that part of it is a good thing. But, wow the stress of training. It's difficult to train someone that has more experience than I do, clearly she doesn't know St. Catherine specific things, but she has been working as a PTA for 30+ years. Anyway, it is hard to correct someone when they're doing something the way they've done it for that long. Whew...talk about stress! We've also still had the stress of low census, but it's been in spurts, with some days having a lot of patients and the next day just a few. It seems like it's really going to pick up next week though and that's good. We also hired a new PT that will be starting a week from Monday and she's really going to be awesome! She's from Brazil and is also a certified Manual Therapist, so it will be really cool to get to work with her!

This has been a really long week, with the stress of training, the fatigue and the swelling. I'm soooo ready for it to be Friday and to see Jason! Being away from each other for a week is really, really hard! I know I should be thankful for a job, and that I didn't have to stay at my last job where I was going to New Mexico or wherever else, but still...it's really hard on me. :(

Well, in the past two days I have had 3 people ask me if I'm sure I'm not pregnant with twins! I really am starting to show quite a bit, and only being 16 weeks along and with starting this pregnancy being chunky, it's pretty rare to be showing this much. I just keep saying "I hope there's an extra one or two hiding in there!" :-D I'm already swelling quite a bit, trying to keep my feet up when I can to help keep it down. I was lectured on the floor yesterday and by my boss today that I need to get some type of support hose so that I can try to keep the swelling down. I think I also will have to start wearing tennis shoes. When the swelling gets bad, it really hurts my cankles because there is so little support. So, look for me...I'll be the pregnant girl in a skirt with tennis shoes on! ;-)

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Will You Sing Me A Lullaby Before I Go?

Here is a poem that I saw on Patrick Madrid's blog.  Warning, do not read without tissues...

http://patrickmadrid.blogspot.com/2010/02/will-you-sing-me-lullaby-before-i-go.html

New Kirby!

This Saturday Jeanine and I had the Jeff Hernandez come over and demo the new Kirby for us.  It is the Sentria.  My old Kirby is in pretty good condition, but it is 13 years old.  After watching the demo, I was amazed at how much more power this new unit has over the old one.  The brush is much stiffer, and the entire unit weighs a lot less.  They were going to give me $200.00 as trade-in for the old one, but I told Jeff that I would just keep it and donate it to the Church.  He was so impressed that he decided to give me a $200.00 "work-over" on the old Kirby.  He is going to replace the rolling brush, gaskets, service the motor and clean it.

Jeff is the salesman that sold me my first Kirby.  That time I was able to trade in my Remington 870 Express Magnum 12 Gauge shotgun.  This time he was willing to trade me for some computer work, but I told him I was getting out of the business.  These are expensive units, but they last a LONG time, so I think it's a good investment.

I am so excited to shampoo the baby's room! I have been so busy working like a dog, but I'm hoping to get to spend some quality time with the Kirby this week!

Thursday, February 4, 2010

Meetings, meetings, and more meetings...

Like I posted yesterday, I surprised Jeanine by leaving work early, driving to Garden City to take her out to dinner, then rented a hotel room for the evening.  After driving her to work and walking her to her office, I braved the long drive back to Lamar.  I barely made it to work on time.  Shortly after that was my first meeting.  This was literally a meeting to plan a time for another meeting.  nothing more really got accomplished, and should have only taken 15 minutes.  Unfortunately, it lasted an hour.  Long story short, I had three other meetings today, all of them over an hour long.  I am so sick of meetings...

The last thing I was working on tonight was a Visual Basic Script that utilizes and ODBC call to our hospital's information system to generate a report for out Medical Records department.  As I was doing that, I got a call from one of my friends who wanted me to help her work on a PowerPoint that was going to be used at another friend's funeral. :(  That was a very depressing job...  She was only 17.  I can't imagine how her parents must feel.

All in all, this was a very long, trying and tiring day.  I am SO glad it's over.  I'm going to eat lots of ice cream and then go to bed.  Looking forward to seeing my wife tomorrow!! :-D

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Surprise!

I surprised my wife by showing up early in Kansas to hang out with her.  We are going to try to rent a Hotel room to have a decent night's sleep instead of trying to make a small/uncomfortable twin bed work.  But first... FOOD!!!

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Another Long Day

Today started out good, I was able to make it to Mass and say all my morning prayers before heading off to the 'grind'.  My coworker called in sick again which made for a very hectic/stress-filled day.  We had WelchAllyn down installing the last of the new patient monitoring system, and I had to setup two new computer systems for the clinic.  On top of that, I was volunteered by one of the deacons at Church to fix a desktop and a laptop at the Church office.  I did this over my lunch hour and was STARVING all day long!  I did some shopping at Safeway and remembered to get my uncle a birthday card.  I stopped at Little Caesars and got pepperoni pizza.  I ate the whole thing and almost finished off my bottle of El Yucateco Habanero sauce.  I am now cleaning the basement some more.  Hopefully I'll be done with that little project soon.  I am so ready for ice cream...

Monday, February 1, 2010

Very Sucky Day :(

Today was a very bad day for me.  It started out really well... I got to spend some time with my wife praying and chatting together on the way to Garden City.  I decided to give her a ride to work this morning, so we could spend some quality time together.  Normally she has to leave in the early afternoon on Sunday so she can make the 2 hour drive without falling asleep.  So that much was good.  Now on to the sucky parts.  The worst part of today came as I was driving back to Lamar.  A friend of mine at work sent me an early morning text telling me that one of my Facebook friends had died this morning.  She was a young teenager.  I knew her mom from a previous job, and had done lots of computer work for the entire family.  That really bummed me out... I said a lot of prayers for her and the whole family, and ask anyone reading this to please do the same.  I can't imagine how terrible the family must feel now...

After I made it to work, I had to do a manual backup on the Unix server.  I had neglected to change the tape on Sunday because I was busy working on the stupid sewer issue.  Now I'm wondering if I put the Monday tape in...  Frontier Telephone finally had some time to program the PBX for Las Animas today, so I went down with them so I could finish the VPN issue that has been kicking my butt.  I really didn't have time today, but I have been having a hard time scheduling a day/time that worked for both of us.  I was under the building running some cable, and I slid a brick out of my way.  Unfortunately, the brick slammed into a pillar with my finger in between!  It actually swelled up a good 1-1/2 to 2 times normal size.  It's still swollen as I type this over 9 hours later...  I had a conference call with CareFusion (formerly Pyxis) that drug on forever killing my productivity.  After the call I continued working on the VPN issue, and after several hours (not counting the multiple hours from earlier days) I found out that CenturyLink (formerly CenturyTel) forgot to provision our static IP address.  So the firewall appliance had a different IP address than my remote VPN appliance. I had been spinning my wheels for nothing!  Needless to say, I finally got everything working smoothly with the VPN.  Unfortunately, that was around 4:50pm

After all that, I went out to my parents' house and watched the last 1/2 of the movie 1408.  Jeanine had seen it in the theater when it came out.

I went home and talked with Jeanine a little, then said good night to the girl who goes to bed with the chickens, and started cleaning the nasty basement.  That little project is going to take a while.

I'm now doing laundry and getting ready to say Night Prayers from the liturgy of the hours.

Good night all!

Life and Unexpected Surprises

Well, we had some excitement this weekend with the sewer line backing up. After waiting for the second load of laundry and while reading on my new Kindle (my early birthday present and it's SOOO awesome! :)) I heard a dripping water noise. After investigating, I found it was coming from the basement which is always scary. Further investigation found the utility sink overflowing and and water pouring out of it onto the carpeted laundry room floor. So, I shut the washer off (it was almost done anyway) and got all but two of our towels to sop up the water then turned on 2 fans to try and dry it out. Jason was of course already at his class because this happened at 8:57am and I didn't want to stress him out so I didn't send him a txt that this had happened, just waited for him to get home. I have to say that I am married to the most amazing man in the world! He handled all of the gross stuff so that I (being pregnant and too gaggy) wouldn't have to deal with it. My dad and mom came to help too, well my mom mostly kept me company! ;-) So, finally after two days they got it taken care of (the details of the clean out are NOT mine to give! ;-))

Then my wonderful husband decided to bring me back to Garden City this morning so that we could have some time to spend together that wasn't devoted to cleaning out sewers! So, we got up at 4:00AM to head to GC and he even stopped in Syracuse for donuts! :-D Then today, I got to train our new PTA though it's not a lot of training since she has more experience than I've been alive! :-O It's just teaching her how to use the St. Catherine's system! It was a full day of training and that was nice, and will be nice for the paycheck! :)