smart guy that Maslow

Having a bad day?

this will melt your heart

http://www.q102.com/onair/mike-adam-50119/little-boy-gets-scared-going-through-12394244

sugar cookie

graduation speaker that nailed it.

http://www.lifebuzz.com/10-lessons-from-navy-seal/#!REuky

Well if this isn't the cutest/ coolest video ever....

http://www.vevo.com/watch/sara-bareilles/love-song/USSM20702702

Beautiful 

thankful.

This week has been a whirlwind at work and all in all way more stressful than it should have been.

However, through it all there were those 'moments' that reminded me why I got into this in the first place. And even though I feel like I got run over by a truck- I cant help but to be thankful for this job and that these people let me into their lives everyday.

 They allow me to be a part of their crazy, dramatic, babydaddy life. They let me go through each fear, anxiety, and heart break right along with them as well as those moments of bliss, excitement and pure joy.

Its actually an emotional roller coaster with this crew.... and I am slowing realizing that I don't think I would have it any other way.

mixed emotions

Growing up is hard. Its like we are stuck in this weird in between space right now.

I look ahead and I get giddy with excitement and hope for the future. At the same time though I look behind me and see myself loosing grasp of the younger version of myself and that stings.  I feel torn between joy and sadness.  Between newness and comfort.  Between adventure and home.  Between west and east. It is just a weird spot to be in and even as I write this I really do not know how I feel about everything. My own thoughts contradict each other leaving my mind and heart to battle it out.

 I know change is good and new starts are good and sometimes they feel exactly that- good. But then other times the good is tainted with memories and smells and words from a younger life... and leaving that behind is what is hard.

 But that's what people say life is. I just wish I was better at dealing with it and trusting in the process and in His plan.  

How is your day going?

One of the things that bug me about people and about life is that stupid question, " How is your day going?"

For the most part when people ask that question they are trying to be nice or make conversation or they feel that it is what they are "supposed to ask".  This might be true. I know I have asked that question as much as the next person.

But the question isn't what bugs me. What bugs me is that there is this expectation that no matter how your day is going you are going to answer with a smile and state that it is going great. No one wants to hear anything but that. They don't have time for anything but that.  No one wants to hear that today sucks and you just wish you were home, and you are having a mini panic attack about 4 different things and really the only thing you want in the whole world right now is a hug. No one wants to hear that. And even if you were to spill that more dark side of your day no one ever knows how to react. It just leaves that other person feeling awkward and you feeling no better than before except now you are annoyed with yourself for breaking the social norm and telling the truth.  So we don't do that.

We go throughout our day politely making small talk and when somebody asks how your day is going you look them in the eyes, smile and respond, " Great."

Sometimes its just easier that way....

.... and other sounds from the night.

It is 3am and I am at work trying everything in me to stay awake. You see, I am not a night shift person but there is something about being awake when everyone else you know is asleep that really intrigues me . The best way I can describe these nights is with the word quiet. Quiet compared to how loud and chaotic the same hallways are during the day. Quiet because there are no visitors, no overhead announcements, no managers, and no attendings. Even the night nurses speak at volumes so soft that they would be lost in the swirl of voices, beeps, and cries in the daylight. It is nights like these where I realize how quiet my life is not. Nights like these force me to sit in stillness and absorb the silence- in fact they even pay me to do it. When I am home there is really never quiet. There is always something. I always have to be doing something. Even running fills my ears with "The top 100 songs in the Country". There really is something so sacred and under appreciated about the quiet. I start dreading these night shifts from the moment I see them on my calendar but there is a small part of me that looks forward to the silence. Even as I sit here to type this I find comfort in the breaks between my thoughts for the clicking of the keys are the only thing that fills these quiet halls. Next to me there is a nurse deep in a Nora Roberts novel and another working away on her ipad. Everyone is just coexisting in the overwhelming silence. During the day there would be these social expectations to engage these women in a friendly conversation... ask about that vacation last week... or complain about all these classes our manager is making us take. However, at night, for whatever reason, there are none of these social norms. We can all just sit here in a tiny room, in silence, and be completely ok with it. I like that. The quiet is refreshing. I feel like I can hear myself think clearly, without any white noise... which can be unsettling as well. All those thoughts and ideas that I push out of my head come to the surface on nights like these, knocking and demanding to be addressed. However there is something productive feeling about solving problems and creating plans when everyone you know is in REM sleep.... dreaming of irrelevance. Well I think my blood is out of caffeine because my eyes are starting to glaze over and my thoughts are becoming harder to pack into nice little neat sentences. So i am going to end it here and go read a book and listen to....nothing.

One of the best things in the whole world....

Is starting the morning off   S  L  O  W....

Just 5 minutes

Its crazy how much a 5 minute conversation with someone who cares can change your whole day around.  Today all the anxiety about so many different things hit me flat in the face at the same time and the worst part was there was no one around to talk it out with.  For whatever reason a shoe triggered something in me to call a good friend who I haven't talked to since I was last home. We didn't really talk about anything too intense but she made me laugh and just the sound of a familiar voice eased my nerves. Sometimes you just need to not be by yourself. Even if it is just for 5 minutes. :-)

How many times

Can I have the same dream before it comes true? My goodness! I have had some variation of this same dream on and off for the past few weeks. 

Is my brain trying to tell me something?  

Clarity

I feel that my mind is the clearest when I run. Even writing that makes me laugh. Growing up running was something I did strictly to adhere to the high school girl standards but never really enjoyed it- in fact I dreaded it.

Now, running is where life makes the most sense. Maybe it is because I can't get too deep into something. My heavy breathing and pounding heart only allows me to look at things from the surface. I can't psycho-analyze life and pick apart each little detail.

 Everything is more simple. I like it that way.

one of those nights

Tonight....My head hurts from thinking too much.

I need to learn to let things go and they will happen how they are supposed to.



In the end its not even up to me....


Good night.

Sometimes life surprises you

As part of lent I am actively trying to do at least one out of my way "good" thing a day that goes beyond holding the door for someone. You know, something that takes a little effort.

Well for today's thing I called an old friend who I knew has been going through some tough times but his load was getting too heavy for me to carry so I have kinda been blowing him off these past few weeks.  After prepping myself with some inspirational advice to pass on, I called him.... but as I hung up the phone I found myself to be the one that was inspired. 

As I sit here I am realizing that maybe the purpose of that call wasn't really what I thought....

well if this doesn't melt your heart

Luke Bryan

This is hilarious

Phones

Updated Bucket List

A few years ago I posted this bucket list. Since then I have checked a good amount off and added some new goals.  Check it out...

• swim in all the oceans 
• Atlantic 
• Pacific
• Indian
• Arctic
• hike the Appalachian trail
• Run a marathon
• Run the Goofy and /orDopey Challenge
• visit the 7 wonders of the world 
• Grand Canyon
• Great Barrier reef
• Harbor of Rio de Janeiro
•  Mount Everest 
• Aurora/ Northern lights
• Parícutin volcano
• Victoria Falls
• Visit as many places as possible ( too many to list)
• swim with dolphins
• ride in a hot air balloon
• go sky diving
• become fluent in a language
• Meet a Panda
• Send a message in a bottle
• Learn how to Ball room dance
• Learn how to Salsa dance
• Drive across the United States
• Learn to juggle
• Learn to shuffle properly
• Drop everything and get on a plane with no plans in mind
• steal a sign
• Go scuba Diving
• Tell someone my entire life story
• Hear someone's entire life story
• ride an Elephant
• Order dessert then an entree and then appetizers at a restaurant
• Learn how to Horse back ride
• Go skinny dipping at midnight
• Name a road
• Design a house
• Go on a boating trip
• Ride a zip line through a jungle
• Learn to surf
• Learn to Hula hoop
• Have a party and invite everyone i know
• Go dog sledding
• live in the city
• live in the country
• save a life
• travel for a year
• Cook an amazing meal for my friends
• Get a pizza delivered to a random address
• Be a vegetarian
• Learn sign language 
• See a heart transplant
• Roll in mud
• work in a burn unit
• steal a french fry off someones plate
• design a cake boss worthy cake 
• volunteer as a nurse in Africa
• become a PA/APN/ Midwife
• Have a Christmas in July party
• Be a mother 
• Get married
• write a letter to everyone that I love
• Name a star
• Dance in the rain
• Go to one of the top 10 ski resorts in the world
• Meet Keith Urban
• Meet Megan and Liz
• Meet Dia Frampton
• Meet Ingrid Michaelson 
• be in New Orleans for Mardi Gras
• Sleep in a castle
• See penguins in their natural habitat.
• have a garden
• Meet the pope
• Meet the Dalai lama
• Have tea in London
• Have lunch with one of my Elementary school teachers

Wise Words

http://www.businessinsider.com.au/nate-bagleys-best-relationship-advice-2014-2

OBSESSED.

beauty in the beast

Now before I start let me just put this out there...

I hate being cold. Like really really dislike with a burning passion.

But....

Since I have moved to this freezing ice city my perspective on cold has changed slightly. I really do feel like there is something to be said about cold winters and hot summers.  I am not exactly sure what it is but I do know that people that miss out on one of these two seasons are missing out on something bigger.

Again, let me reiterate how much I hate the cold but every time I wake up 20 minutes earlier to dig my car out I cant help to be totally captivated by the sparkling trees that have been kissed with ice over the night or the fresh puppy prints in the snow. It is beautiful and I hate it all at the same time. Here I am up before the sun, knee deep in snow, frozen fingers, and numb toes and my eyes catch sight of some of that sparkle or I notice just how peaceful it is that early and how perfectly silent it is. not just quiet but silent. Honestly, it pisses me off. I dont want to be all-amazed-by-gods-beauty at 5:30AM. I want to be pissed off. But yet, I am not.

And as I get in my car and try to defrost my appendages I cannot help but notice all of the tiny snowflakes that have formed so intricately and beautifully on my windshield.  Again, reminding myself that I should be less than thrilled. I mean it is below freezing on a Monday morning and I am about to hit some serious snow rush hour just in time to get to work where I will be running around for the next 13 hours. thrilling.  But again, I cant be mad- I can only be amazed and quite frankly it amazes me that I feel that way. When it comes to the mornings I am a routine person- not a stop and smell the roses person. Alarm. snooze. alarm. get up. brush teeth. wash face. start coffee. get dressed. throw up hair. fill water. fill coffee. drink 1 sip of each. grab lunch. grab coat. PEACE.

But something about the these painfully winter days makes me slow down, maybe it is my blood freezing, or maybe its just something in me realizes that there is more to life than routines.

Maybe we create some kind of defense mechanism for ourselves during winter in order to survive.  I don't know, all I know is I hate being cold and I have cursed this winter as much as the next person but at the same time I think there is a lot to learn from the winter and a lot of beauty that is overlooked.


And as I sit here and write this I just checked the forecast for the week and what do you know.... snow this weekend. Here is the silly part though... before the wave of stress sits in, and the flash backs to the past 100 weekends I have spent slipping all the way to work in the morning, before I remember  the cold feet and drippy nose and before I start to agonize where the best place to park in order to not get stuck... a small part of me, the little kid part of me, sees that snowflake under the word Saturday and gets giddy.....

high school sounds

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BB8Go5JKNeY

I was friends with this Devin in high school but we have lost touch since granduation. I was flipping through facebook the other day and came across this video of her and I cannot get this song out of my head!! She was always more into theater music when we were in school... its really cool seeing how people change.

Hope you enjoy this song as much as I have.

not wanting to grow up

"I’ve heard that it’s possible to grow up - I’ve just never met anyone who’s actually done it. Without parents to defy, we break the rules we make for ourselves. We throw tantrums when things don’t go our way, we whisper secrets with our best friends in the dark, we look for comfort where we can find it, and we hope - against all logic, against all experience. Like children, we never give up hope…"

-Meredith Grey

Today was a good day

Today I woke up with the sun in my face and a song in my head.

I went to Mass with all the 2nd graders and got to live in their world for a little bit.  

I drank some perfectly strong coffee while eating a grapefruit and reading a book by the window. 

As I sat there with the sun shinning in reflecting off of the fresh snow I couldn't help but smile and thank God for this simple but perfect day.

Grey's

"A couple of hundred years ago, Benjamin Franklin shared with the world the secret of his success. Never leave that till tomorrow, he said, which you can do today. This is the man who discovered electricity. You think more people would listen to what he had to say. I don’t know why we put things off, but if I had to guess, I’d have to say it has a lot to do with fear. Fear of failure, fear of rejection, sometimes the fear is just of making a decision, because what if you’re wrong? What if you’re making a mistake you can’t undo? The early bird catches the worm. A stitch in time saves nine. He who hesitates is lost. We can’t pretend we hadn’t been told. We’ve all heard the proverbs, heard the philosophers, heard our grandparents warning us about wasted time, heard the damn poets urging us to seize the day. Still sometimes we have to see for ourselves. We have to make our own mistakes. We have to learn our own lessons. We have to sweep today’s possibility under tomorrow’s rug until we can’t anymore. Until we finally understand for ourselves what Benjamin Franklin really meant. That knowing is better than wondering, that waking is better than sleeping, and even the biggest failure, even the worst, beat the hell out of never trying."          

"you are the content of your character. you are the ambitions that drive you. you are the goals that you set. you are the things that you laugh at and the words that you say. you are the thought you think and the things you wonder. you are beautiful and desirable not for the clique you attend, but for the spark of life within you that compels you to make your life a full and meaningful one. you are beautiful not for the shape of the vessel, but for the volume of the soul it carries."          

Live each season as it passes;

breathe the air, drink the drink,

taste the fruit,

and resign yourself to the influences of each.

-Henry David Thoreau

I need an off switch

For my brain.


My pillow is magic. The minute my head hits the pillow I suddenly remember everything I have been pushing out of my head all day long.  Perfect timing. So my peaceful bedtime turns into a twisted mess of anxiety and worries.  Just so much unknown and they are all somehow all connected. So just when I think I have one thing figured out I look how it changes something else and then I change my mind about what I just decided and the whole process starts all over again.


Ah but this isn't supposed to be a blog about ranting and all that glass half empty stuff. So let me try this again...

These next 6 months hold a lot of possibilities and though they scare the crap out of me I am delighted with the idea of another adventure.  I am also thrilled and very blessed to have Eric as my constant in this.  Even though everything seems to be a huge question mark for the next few years I can comfortably say that as long as I have my partner in crime things will work themselves out.

Hows that for a glass half full?

"We spend our whole lives worrying about the future, planning for the future, trying to predict the future, as if figuring it out will cushion the blow. But the future is always changing. The future is the home of our deepest fears and wildest hopes. But one thing is certain when it finally reveals itself. The future is never the way we imagined it."

Meredith Grey

A surprise morning

Normally I would be totally bummed out about a rainy day like today. The pouring buckets kind of rain. But today started out with a phone call at 5am from work asking me if I would like to stay home because they had too many nurses. I don't even think I let her finish her sentence before answering with a firm and excited, " yes."


As I hung up the phone I heard a crash of thunder and pulled those blankets over me for a few more hours...

to begin again

So I came across this old thing a few months back and then again recently. I love how much clarity I seemed to have back when I was a more frequent blogger. Maybe it was the blogging that was the root of that clarity or maybe it was just where I was in my life at that time. Regardless, I figured it doesn't hurt to give this another go and once again use the internet as an outlet and an insight into my life.

A lot has happened since my last post of Feb 2011. I graduated and finally am practicing as a nurse.  The journey to get here was long, slightly twisted and a story for another time. The brief version: I am now starting my second year as a OB nurse in Chicago.  yes, Chicago. Who the hell would have guessed that.  Never saw this one coming. This past year has probably been one of the hardest but most beautiful year of my life. I do realize that sounds slightly odd but if I have learned anything this past year it is that sometimes you have to get to the end of your rope to realize how beautiful life really is.  It always comes back to that Paschal mystery;-). I have learned exactly what I am capable of and those boundaries that I have been so loyal too have been adjusted. As I sit here and write this I cannot help but crack up.  I grew up saying I wanted to be a librarian who lived next door to my parents. see, aren't you laughing too now?

Eric may have been the one who brought me here to this crazy city but it is this crazy job that is keeping me.  All through college I was told by so many professors that I would never land a job in OB right out of school so when I did I was shocked, confused, scared to death but above all so incredibly thankful.

My job and I have a love hate relationship but the word thankful seems appropriate.  I am thankful for that sacred moment where I hand a mother her infant for the first time and the tears that roll down the father's eyes. I am thankful for every terrified but trusting look I get from a woman right before she gives it one last push.  I am thankful for all those tiny toes I get to wash and the tiny fingers I get to hold.  I am thankful each time I get to show that clumsy, scared father how to hold his new baby and I am oh so thankful for that new baby smell.


At the end of the day it is still a job and like all jobs it comes with its own bag of stress and anxieties, there are the days where the tears that pour out the minute I get in my car to drive home, and the mornings where I cannot bring myself to get out of bed but underneath all of that is something truly beautiful for that-I am incredibly thankful.