Kirsten

Request for Donations

2009-10-23T23:06:00.005-06:00

My time at the Ruel Foundation is drawing to a close (faster than I'd like to admit ;) I've had a really great time here learning about how to catch babies, but I've also learned a lot about how a maternity clinic and orphanage is run. This experience has made me very grateful to those who've dedicated their lives to making sure these facilities continue to run smoothly in order to meet a very real need here in the Philippines. God is doing good things here!

I've been thinking and praying a lot lately about how I could continue to help this organization even after I leave and decided that I'd like to send a box of supplies back here shortly after I get home. So, I thought it would be great to start a collection of donations. If you feel so inclined, The Ruel Foundation could use your donations! I'm including a list of donations of the clinic's and orphanage's needs. I'd also like to ask that if you were considering getting me a Christmas present, that you'd consider donating something on the list instead. Of course, money is also always welcomed ; )

www.ruelfoundation.com

List of Birthing Clinic Needs:

-latex and non/latex exam gloves (small or medium)
-sterile gloves (sizes 6-7.5)
-lubricating jelly (i.e. KY Jelly)
-fitted single bed sheets and standard pillow cases (white is the preferred color as they bleach everything, but any color works) Gently used is ok.
-standard digital thermometer (in Fahrenheit)
-vitamins (pre-natal and iron)
-baby blankets
-baby hats
-baby clothes
-cord clamps
-sutures (absorbable)
-adult diapers
-chux pads
-large towels (preferably white)
-small towels (preferably white)
-face clothes (preferably white)

List of Orphanage Needs:

-baby/kid clothes (the orphanage takes children from birth up until 6 years)
-disposable diapers
-wet wipes
-plastic baby bottles

Here's baby Santino! At only 3 months, he's the youngest orphan in the orphanage! We all love cuddling and playing with him.

Here's a family we visited on a postpartum visit!

2009-10-21T00:13:00.005-06:00

I would be amiss if I didn't include at least one blog proclaiming how awesome midwifery and natural birth is! So, here it goes, my attempt (with some fun quotes from Ina May Gaskin) to scream from the roof top the benefits of midwifery, natural and woman-centered birth.

A question I often get when others find out I'm considering becoming a midwife is "what are the benefits of using a midwife?" and "why would one want a natural child birth especially when you could feel no pain with an epidural?"

A midwife literally means "with-woman" and approaches the labor process and child birth itself very differently from an obstetrician. Midwives view childbirth as a natural process that has been around since the beginning of time (yes, that means before epidurals, iv's, and hospitals!). They view a woman's body as perfectly capable and especially made, in fact, to successfully carry and birth a baby. This means that medical intervention is considered inappropriate unless a true emergency warrants it.

"Your body is not a lemon. You are not a machine. The Creator is not a careless mechanic. Human female bodies have the same potential to give birth well as aardvarks, lions, rhinoceros, elephants, moose, and water buffalo. Even if it has not been your habit throughout your life so far, I recommend that you learn to think positively about your body." pg. 141-142*

Thus, when women assume a pain-free, hospital birth is the best way, as most women I know do, it leads me to ask 2 questions: Is pain bad and does each woman not view her own body as capable of storing and birthing a baby without another's intervention? Of course no one enjoys pain, but we all too often underestimate a woman's ability to deal with pain during one of the most natural processes.

Then there's the issue of high induction of labor rates in the hospitals in the U.S.

"With so many inductions taking place, a common misconception has arisen that obstetricians are now able to start labor at will, with no disadvantages from the procedures used." pg. 207

Potential harms to mother from induction

"Women tend to have harsher, stronger, significantly more painful contractions with chemically induced labors, so one who can cope with a spontaneous labor often finds that she needs pain medication to bear the more-insistent contractions of an induced one." pg. 208

-woman's mobility is impaired because induction requires drugs given through an IV, which means IV tubing and stand to lug around

-increased postpartum blood loss

Potential harms to baby from induction

-the longer, stronger contractions mentioned above contract the umbilical cord thus decreasing oxygen-rich blood to the fetus

-"A cesarean is more likely to take place in an induced labor than in one that begins naturally." pg. 209

-doctor-caused prematurity is more often likely to take place as doctors induce labor prematurely based on a woman's due date (which is often not exact or all together wrong)

-an induced labor more often leads to a vacuum-extractor or forceps delivery of a baby than a non-induced labor

I know this is a lot, so I'm gonna stop for now!

Here's a funny quote to leave you with:

"There is no other organ quite like the uterus. If men had such an organ, they would brag about it. So should we." Ina May Gaskin in Ina May's Guide to Childbirth.

*all quotes by Ina May Gaskin taken from Ina May's Guide to Childbrith

Here are some pics of me with the first baby I caught all by myself without hands on assistance from a midwife! It was the middle of the night, so I definitely look like I've been up for a long time, but the baby is so cute!

Kickin it in the 'pines!

2009-10-09T20:31:00.018-06:00

Here are some pictures of life as I've experienced it in the Philippines thus far. Enjoy!

Rice! It's what's for lunch and dinner. It's what's in every field and continually harvested. It is the life blood of the Philippines.

Here is a rice field. After harvest, the farmers burn the remaining stalks/plants.

View of in front of the staff house I am staying in.

Beauty.

Typical street view on way into the city.

A house on one of the postpartum visits. It was raining a lot. Notice all of the water!!

Bridge we had to cross to get to one of the houses on a postpartum visit.

Walking to a postpartum

Me and Jokes, our fearless driver to the postpartums : )

Many families own pigs here. Yay for breastfeeding ;)

This animal is called a Caribou, or also known as a water buffalo. They help the farmers plant and harvest the rice. They're everywhere!

One of the families we visited had a baby kitten! It was pretty scraggly and thin, but oh so cute and playful.

Karina, Jenn and I took Aira to the only air-conditioned coffee shop in town, Starmaxx! It was to celebrate Aira's 7th birthday!

2009-10-09T20:29:00.003-06:00

Here is something I should have posted a while back....a map of where I am : ) (Courtesy of Todd. Thanks Todd!)

View Larger Map

I'm on a Boat

2009-10-03T21:24:00.014-06:00

Hi All, Lest you think ALL I do is catch babies, here are some pics from a recent excursion to White Beach in Puerto Galera. It is a 2 hour journey north along the coast. We visited a waterfall, called Tamaraw Falls on our way. We went with the New Zealand short term missions team who is here for 10 days. Fun times!!

White Beach and our boat.

The Captain. I really wanted to sit there!!

Super attractive, I know ; )

One of the guys from the New Zealand team brought an underwater camera.

After our swim some of us ate fresh coconut! Delish : )

Everyday's a beautiful day for a birth

2009-09-28T02:30:00.020-06:00

This is how I am awaken sometimes in the middle of the night: by a text from the birth phone at the birthing clinic stating:

"Gud am, we have labor now, g2p1, 6cm, 80effaced,+1, membrane intact, vital's normal" Text sent at 3:29am. Could there be a better reason to get up at 3am than to help participate in the miracle of a birth?! I'm pretty thrilled to be so fortunate to receive such texts and participate in these life giving events.

I've finally, officially caught my first baby! He was born September 23rd at 11:13pm and he is beautiful! Of course, Sherina, our head midwife helped me catch him, but it still felt wonderful to actually have this hands-on experience.

Meet King Adrian! Yes, that's his real name!! Isn't he beautiful?

Here I am doing the baby check on him. After every birth, the baby is immediately placed on the mother's belly until the cord is clamped (the cord is clamped after it stops pulsating, usually about 5-10 minutes after birth). Once the cord is clamped, the baby is placed at the mother's breast to breastfeed. It is only after the baby has breastfed and bonded with the mom for about 1 hour that we do our routine baby check.

After the baby check, which includes obtaining the baby's length, weight, head circumference, etc, we dress the baby in clothes provided by the family. Every baby here wears mittens and booties and gets wrapped like a little burrito! Here is me and the little cutie pre-wrap!

Here I am with 2 of the midwives that assisted in this delivery. Rose is on the left and Grace on the right. The clinic has 5 Filipino midwifes and 2 western midwives.

And here's the little bundle, all wrapped up, snuggling next to mom, and ready to sleep after such a hard day's work : )

Here I am at the first post-partum visit doing our mom and baby check-ups! Both him and his mom are going really well!

2009-09-23T02:02:00.013-06:00

And the pictures continue...I eat fist usually once a day!

And here are some pictures of the children in the orphanage.

This little girl came to the orphanage severely malnourished about 1 month ago. She was very depressed and with a very flat affect. It's only within the last week that she started to smile and cry. The Ruel Foundation really does a nice job of
making the kids healthy.

I haven't had a chance to take too many photos of me helping at the birthing clinic. For obvious reasons, the birthing process is of a sensitive nature and I've also been pretty busy helping out. But, here are some pictures from some postpartum visits that I've been on. The midwives visit each baby on day 1 and day 3 after a birth at the baby's house. I really love going on these as I get to see where and how people live here.

I get to meet the families of the birthing mother and they often offer us snacks, called meryenda. This baby in the picture on the left is the first birth I helped/assisted in here. I held the mothers legs during labor!

2009-09-23T01:16:00.014-06:00

Hi there from Calapan. Thought I'd post some pics from my first 2 weeks here. This first one is a picture of the rooster that wakes me up VERY early. Who knew roosters started roosting at 2:30 am! Almost everyone around here owns roosters that they keep tied/chained up. At first I was like, why would someone want a "pet" rooster? I've come to find out that cock fighting is big around here and that people raise roosters for that purpose.

I love going to the grocery store in foreign countries. Calapan has 1 grocery store called Citimart and it is super crowded with narrow aisles. Everything comes in small, individually packaged quantities. I found it amusing that the alcohol is out on display and very cheap...I think in this picture the Gilbey's Gin is 125 pesos. $1 = about 48 pesos, so this "expensive" Gin is less than $3!

But, the chocolate, like the Hershey's bars shown here are locked up behind glass and cost 244 pesos right across from all of the alcohol! I couldn't stop laughing!

Here is a picture of a jeepney. Most people either travel by jeepney or tricycle, aka "tricee." Jeepneys are more expensive and usually for
longer journeys.

And here's a pic of a tricee.

The Ruel Foundation has a cook that cooks for me and some of the other staff and volunteers here. His food presentation is always AMAZING! And, the food is pretty tasty too!

Official Leg Holder

2009-09-15T01:51:00.002-06:00

I'm very excited to announce that I have officially assisted in my first birth here, well, really ever (in nursing school I only observed)! As of 3 days ago, I let the midwives know to text me whenever a labor arrives. There is always a midwife at the clinic (their shifts are 6am-2pm, 2pm-10pm, and 10pm-6am) and prior to 3 days ago, I hadn't been notified of any births as I was taking some time to acclimate to a new schedule and environment.

So, you may be wondering, what did I do? Well, I was the official leg holder! Many of the women here, especially first pregnancies, called "primi's" deliver lying on their side. This position is the best to help prevent any vaginal tearing, which is common in the hospitals here (this is due to a variety of reasons that I will most likely talk about in a later blog). During a contraction I was able to place 1 knee on top of her bottom leg and use both of my arms to hold open her top leg to allow the pelvis to open for the passage of the baby and also to allow for better visualization. Man, was this tiny little Filipino woman strong! I definitely got a work out that day, which is good, as I'm not doing much of anything else. It is way too hot and humid to go running.

I thought I'd talk a bit about why I am interested in midwifery and why the Philippines. As a registered nurse in the United States, I've seen a lot of what goes on medically according to western beliefs and practices and how they have evolved to their current state. Simultaneously, I've also become (although I've always kind of had tendencies to be) more holistic in my approach to life and health in general. After working as a RN for 2 years, I've come to realize that there is a strong disconnect between what is practiced in the hospital and the evolution of my holistic health care beliefs. So, I started to think about what line of work I could go into, in the medical field, that could work for me. Midwifery is just that! Midwifery allows for pregnant women to take control of their own bodies during one of the most natural processes while providing reassuring guidance and assistance.

I heard about Mercy in Action from a friend of a friend 2 years ago and have wanted to come here ever since, but the timing just wasn't right. I could never do anything like this in the States without some sort of certification of midwifery student status and felt comfortable participating in a program that someone I could talk to had done. I really appreciate that this organization in Christian and very grass roots. I feel blessed to be here, learning a ton, but also helping to meet a need.

There is so much more to say….good thing I'll be here for 2 months to fill you all in!

I've forgotten my cord to upload photos, so I will have to do that later, but I will soon.

Funny quote from when I arrived and talking to the head midwife Theresa:

Me: "So, I now you told me that this is the busy season for the birthing clinic. Why exactly is that?"

Theresa: "Well, it was Christmas 9 months ago and it is was cooler weather."

I had never thought about it like that.

I've arrived

2009-09-10T01:06:00.009-06:00

I've arrived in Calapan, Oriental Mindoro, Philippines! It feels good to finally be here and start adjusting to a new time zone, a new pace of life, and just a new overall way of thinking about life. My flights were mostly seamless. Theresa, from Mercy In Action/Ruel Foundation (the organization I will be working with www.mercyinaction.com/www.ruelfoundation.com) met me in Manila and then navigated us back to a friend's house to spend the night. We journeyed another 4 hours to get to Calapan on Wednesday. I've been in Calapan just about 24 hours as I write this and am trying to take everything in.

It turns out that Mercy in Action and the Ruel Foundation have joined forces and as of recently, are considered one organization. The Ruel Foundation has been here for several years operating an orphanage, but this past January, the Ruel Foundation teamed up with Mercy in Action to open a birthing center. Good things are happening here. Yesterday I spent about 45 minutes with the children in the orphanage and am in love with every single one of them. There are 13 children 6 years old and younger. They are so desperate for love and affection.

Today I spent my morning at the birthing center observing pre-natal checkups and currently I am sitting in the waiting room of the birthing center waiting for any laboring women to walk through the door! I'm very much looking forward to experiencing my first birth here. There is so much more to tell you all about, but I am getting sleepy and my computer is running out of juice, so I will leave you with a few pictures.

Here is the house I'm staying at! I'm one of the first interns to stay here.

And here's the kitchen. Thankfully, I'll just be needing the refrigerator as my meals are provided by The Ruel Foundation.

You'll notice the bunk beds with the mosquito netting. I'm on the bottom bunk. Surprisingly, the bed is pretty comfortable.

Here is the orphanage. It is caddy-corner from the house I'm staying in.

And finally, here's me and Theresa in front of the birthing clinic. The birthing clinic is located next to the orphanage (it's on the other side of the orphanage in the above picture). Theresa and her family are leaving for 3 months to go back to Canada (her and her husband's home base). Although I've only known her for a few days, I'm sad she, her husband and 3 daughters are leaving. They have been so kind and welcoming. Theresa is the head midwife at this clinic. For updates on her and her family's ministry, visit theehelers.blogspot.com. Their blog could also bring you up to speed on the happenings here in Calapan.

Well, that's it folks. More to come soon!

Quote on poster in birthing clinic waiting room: "Poverty isn't the opposite of abundance; it's the opposite of adequacy." ~unknown author

Since I'm not so good with keeping up in words...

2009-06-08T14:27:00.013-06:00

...here are some pictures of me keeping up in pictures. You know what they say about a picture being worth a thousand words : ) A good friend suggested I may post more if I just start with putting up pics. I'll give it a whirl.

I went Candy Apple red in May :-p Unfortunately it's only lasted about 3 weeks and now my hair has faded to a coppery-brown color, but looks pretty cool because it has like 3 different colors in it.

Me, Mom, sister Kaiti and Grandma had a fabulous mother's day brunch. My 8-year old nephew took this picture...pretty darn good for an 8-year old. He's always had a knack for taking good photos...maybe he has a career ahead of him?!

And here are my beloved group of friends that I most frequently hang out with. I love our little group and am thankful daily for such good friendship! We always have fun and I feel I can be myself: goofy, slap happy and all : )

Meanwhile, I'm trying to keep up with old friends. Here's a pic of my college roommates. We always have blast when we get together!

Here is my roomie Aimee! We are having fun in Millennium Park downtown last summer. I hope we can have more fun times this summer before she moves away for school. I will miss her as a roommate.

Well, that's all I have for now. Perhaps I'll post some more pics soon.

Peace and love,

Quote of the post:

"Later that day I got to thinking about relationships. There are those that open you up to something new and exotic, those that are old and familiar, those that bring up lots of questions, those that bring you somewhere unexpected, those that bring you far from where you started, and those that bring you back. But the most exciting, challenging and significant relationship of all is the one you have with yourself. And if you find someone to love the you you love, well, that's just fabulous." ~Carrie Bradshaw, from Sex and the City

Eating with the seasons

2009-02-28T09:26:00.006-06:00

It started last year, my interest in eating locally and seasonally. A dear friend gave me Simply in Season and ever since my interest has grown. Last summer I read Wendell Berry's The Unsettling of America and am currently listening to Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver on CD. My impulsive nature wants to up and move to a farm! Seriously. Seriously. Every part of my soul wants to pa-rouse heritage seed catalogs, buy and plant them, learn organic ways of farming, work the land, till the soil, raise heritage poultry and sheep, and collect the bountiful harvest. Barbara Kingsolver makes it sound like just another day in paradise and though I realize farming has its difficulties and requires a supreme dedication of time and money it DOES sound like my paradise in my ideal world. To know where all of your food comes from and to be part of the growing process from seed to dinner table is just so natural and sexy, wouldn't you agree?!

Nothing tastes better than a tomato fresh off the vine or warm cucumbers just picked with a pinch of salt, un-peeled of course. So although I am obviously in no position currently to start a farm, I have been devoting much of my thought life to how does this midwest suburbanite gal eat as locally and as seasonally as possible. Local farmers markets are a good place to start and I am grateful to have one in the town I live in, albeit the produce venders are only available April through October. Community Supported Agriculture (CSA's) are also something interesting to explore. When I started reading Kingsolver's book my first question was what does one do in December through March in this midwest region where there aint no fresh local produce growing within a several hundred mile radius. Kingsolver eventually solves this issue by suggesting canning and freezing the local produce you've grown or bought locally in the fall so that local vegetables and some fruit as well as meat are available during the winter months.I have never canned anything and it is something I will be looking in to this fall. Any advice on how to can would be appreciated. She continues to emphasize that there will be certain foods that will simply not be available 24/7 365 days a year. That means my taste buds will have to wait for fresh tomatoes, salad greens, asparagus, and strawberries for example until the months I would pluck them fresh from the ground. Scandal! However, this doesn't seem like such a horrible idea after you've tried a tomato from Jewel in January that tastes little better than cardboard.

Some may view eating in season as deprivation for middle class people such as myself who do have the means to buy whatever produce whenever they want. Yet others may be thinking, but aren't we supposed to be eating 3-5 servings of fresh fruits and vegetables per day and how would one do that by sticking to an eating in seasons diet. These are all good questions and will be addressed in future posts.

Until then, here's a quote from Kingsolver's book to ponder:

If every U.S. citizen ate just one meal a week (any meal) composed of locally and organically raised meats and produce, we would reduce our country’s oil consumption by over 1.1 million barrels of oil every week. That’s not gallons, but barrels. Small changes in buying habits can make big differences. Becoming a less energy-dependent nation may just need to start with a good breakfast.”

(The quote is actually by Stephen Hopf, Kingsolver's husband who has written short essays that are intermingled with Kingsolver's writing throughout the book)

Take 213.5

2009-02-17T10:59:00.005-06:00

Greetings beautiful people! Not sure why, but am feeling in the mood to blog again, and will give it a good try this time around ; ) Hope everyone has had a good Valentine's Day, or Singles Awareness Day as one friend has affectionately termed it (I nearly fell over with laughter when I heard that!). I had a pleasant V-Day with friends in downtown Naperville at a chocolate eatery called Le Chocolat Bar. For anyone of you who shares my affection for chocolate, I highly recommend this shop: They have all sorts of chocolate delicacies from chocolate cake to chocolate bars to chocolate drinks to chocolate fondue. The environment is everything you would expect from downtown Naperville: posh, ritzy, elegant, beautiful presentation of the desserts and exactly why I enjoyed myself! The prices aren't bad either ($5-10 range).

Wow, so my last post dated from fall of 2007 when I was just a newborn nurse, so I feel I owe an explanation of how my nursing life/career has progressed. My orthopedics floor closed down in December of 2008 and now I'm on a general surgery floor. This unit is a little bit bigger than my ortho floor with about double the number of total patients. Thankfully my new co-workers, manager and assistant manager are fabulous! I'm learning a lot as I expand my nursing knowledge from orthopedics, which was fairly specific, to more generalized surgical nursing techniques and skill. I've also switched to 3 12-hour work days per week from 5 8-hour work days. This has been one the more stressful parts of the job for me. Don't get my wrong, I love having 4 days off every week, but when I have to work 2 or 3 12-hour days in a row, I feel like I'm going to die from exhaustion by the end of that 2nd or 3rd day. It's feast or famine as I like to call it! But, I'm grateful to have a job and thankful I don't have children or a husband and therefore able to keep up such a schedule.

That's it for now. I'm looking forward to keeping up with this blog. I have lots more to blog about, so keep posted at a computer near you ; )

Peace to you all!

Bushed

2007-10-11T11:43:00.000-06:00

Hi. It's Kirsten here once again. Trying to start my day. Yes, it's already 12:45, and yes I'm still in my pajamas, and yes my bed is begging me to go come back to bed, and yes I have a list of things to do on my day off. Ever since I started my nursing job about a month ago I've been exhausted in every sense of the word: physically, spiritually, mentally, emotionally. Nursing is going ok for the most part...I still feel slow and inexperienced, but I'm making small, ok teeney baby steps towards becoming an efficient, safe nurse. I haven't wanted to cry during or after work in about a week, so there's improvement right there! Thankfully God's made me an optimistic person, a person full of faith in reliance on Him to carry me through my day. Eventually I'm sure I'll actually look forward to going to work, but until that day arrives I'm just trying to tackle each moment of each day one baby step at a time.

2007-05-08T22:14:00.000-06:00

Thanks to Kelly's blog for promting this post after many months of no productivity here. I'd be surprised if anyone still checks my site (kudos to you if you do; ) First things first:

List of 7 things I've learned from my relationships with men:

1) How to "just be"
2) How to be lazy and not feel guilty about it
3) Sarcasm
4) The brain of a man really IS different than the one of a woman
5) The true love of Christ
6) Inhibition
7) How to just be myself and still feel loved

List of 7 things I've learned from my relationships with women:

1) True friendship
2) True acceptance as a human being, goofiness and all
3) How to pluck my eyebrows, use a curling iron and apply makeup
4) How to flirt (still not quite there ;)
5) The definition of myself as a woman in Christ
6) How to give unselfishly
7) How to be true to myself

Hopefully this will help to jump start more regular postings. I have a lot to say...so stay tuned.

"You have been my friend. That in itself is a tremendous thing. I wove my webs for you because I liked you. After all, what's a life, anyway? We're born, we live a little while, we die. A spider's life can't help being something of a mess, with all this trapping and eating flies. By helping you, perhaps I was trying to lift up my life a trifle. Heaven knows anyone's life can stand a little of that."
~Charlotte, "Charlotte's Web"

Merry Christmas

2006-12-25T21:07:00.000-06:00

I sincerely hope everyone had (or is still having) an enjoyable Christmas. I definitely did. I even ushered at my church this morning at the Christmas service. Apparently this is the first year my church has ever held a Christmas day service (in addition to their 2 Christmas Eve services of course). To me, it makes sense to have a service on Christmas in celebration of Christ's birth, but it was a novel idea for many people that attended this morning. Here is the clip from the bulletin:

"Though it's hard to remember after so many times watching "It's a Wonderful Life" and going to the mall, Christmas is the birthday of Jesus of Nazareth, a poor Palestinian peasant and carpenter who taught people to love and forgive. If that's all you know about Jesus, Christmas will have only about as much meaning as the birthday of Abraham Lincoln or of Martin Luther King, Jr.

If you come to accept what the Bible teaches-that Jesus is not only a remarkable human being but also the Son of God who came to earth-then Christmas changes everything. It then answers some of the most profound cries of the human heart:

"Does God understand what I deal with?" Yes. God shared our human nature, and so, in the words of the author Chuck Swindoll, "He breathed our air, felt our pain, knew our sorrows, and died for our sins. He didn't come to frighten us, but to show us the way to warmth and safety."

"Does God care about me?" Yes. As Joe Stowell put it, "The stunning point of Christmas is that God considered my needs adn the worth of my relationship to Him to be sufficient cause to go through the truama of changing places."

Suddenly, life has meaning, because God lived it. Our body has value becuase God took on a human body. Our death is no longer the final word, because God has overcome it. This baby lying in an animal's feeding trough is everything we've hoped for and everything we need."

I've been enjoying time with my cousin and his eldest daughter from Singapore, my Uncle from Ohio and the rest of my family. I even played some card games a few nights ago that I'd never played before...I must have "missed" these types of games during my college years ; )

If anyone would like to go to Holiday Magic at Brookfield Zoo this weekend or ice skating with me, that'd be fun cause I really want to go.

One sees clearly only with the heart. Anything essential is invisible to the eyes. ~ From "The Little Prince" by Antoine de Saint Exupéry

2006-12-20T13:22:00.000-06:00

So here I find myself in the first week of my four week vacation from nursing school and I'm thoroughly enjoying every minute of it. I'm still amazed at how much I can sleep at night...thus far I'm averaging approximately 10 hours of sleep/night. Hehe. Amidst the business of my Christmas preparations (shopping, gift wrapping, planning get togethers, mailing Christmas cards) I've been thinking about what Christmas ought to mean to me. I see many people at the stores and post office that are super stressed out and make comments like "I can't wait until Christmas is over" and "only 5 days till Christmas, how will I ever get everything done that needs to get done?!" Fortunately I've never felt quite that stressed, even if I've been behind on Christmas preparations. Here's a description of Advent as posted in the bulletin at my church (Church of the Resurrection) that I appreciate:

"To get ready for Christmas, you speed up: you shop, bake, decorate, send invitations, negotiate with extended family, buy plane tickets, write letters, scan photos, take boxes to UPS.

To get ready to worship Christ at Christmas, you slow down: you try to get quiet, give to the poor, read portions of the Bible, wait, fast, feel how deeply you and the world need deliverance, and long for that.

For roughly the last 1,500 years, Christians have taken the four Sundays before Christmas to get themselves spiritually ready for it. We call this season "Advent," which means "Coming," and during Advent, we get ready for two comings of Christ: his first, when he came to deliver the world from sin; and his second coming, when he will come to create a new world. You might pray, "Come, Lord, and deliver me and all your people from our sin and from the broken, wrecked world we live in."

The color of Advent is purple, which the church chose because it's the color for our repentance and for Christ's royalty."

Although I admit that I've not fully learned to embrace this mentality and still find myself caught up in gift giving, etc., I really appreciate the philosophy of quieting myself and celebrating Christ's first coming and what that means for me and the world today, and waiting for his second coming. It's strange that this way of thinking goes against what our culture tells us is acceptable during this time of year and how people skirt the fact that they are celebrating a very Christian event.

You don't know this yet, but life isn’t supposed to be like this. *Meredith Grey

2006-12-12T21:16:00.000-06:00

Oh why do I do this to myself...my stomach and intestines feel as if they are being twisted and getting progressivle tighter by the hour. I try not to worry about exams...must my perfectionist side always show itself during finals week. I'm having difficulty sleeping and nothing I eat seems to want to stay in me for very long. My dad just suggested yoga. If only I could tear my thoughts away from "normal" child growth and development, bacterial meningitis, step, cancer statistics, unintentional injuries and an array of other pediatric illnesses long enought to do so, that may not be such a bad idea. Fortuantely, I'll be done Thursday afternoon..less than 2 full days away. Sigh.

2006-12-04T11:48:00.000-06:00

It's only a thought and thoughts can be changed
Quote by Louise Hay

Take Two! Last week was my last obstetics clinical rotation for the semester and it ended on a very positive note. I spent the day working in the newborn nursery on the mother baby floor and enjoyed every moment of it. The nurse that worked with me was super friendly and knowledgable and was a good person to have to be "stuck" in the nursery with. I performed many assessments on and cuddled many of the little bundles of love that passed through the nursery. These newborns seemed rather large though in comparison to the premature baby I worked with the week before in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU).

In the NICU I worked with a male, triplet 1 of 3 that was born at 25 weeks gestation (full-term gestation is 40 weeks) so he was very premature. And get this, he weighed less than 2 pounds...can you imagine! Yes, he was extremely small and I couldn't help thinking how much he looked like a baby bird while he laid there in his isolette, naked except for his diaper with his nasogastric tube and a ventilator which helped him breath. His IV had recently been taken out. His skin was so transparent I was able to see all of his blood vessles through his skin and his eyes, although recently open (they weren't when he was delivered) mainly remained closed. He was tiny. I'm not sure the human eye is meant to see a baby this small.

It got me to thinking about how great advances in medicine have allowed for heroic acts such as saving 25 week old babies. After watching the documentary "Little Man" ( http://www.littlemanthemovie.com/) which documents the conception and birth of a baby born at 23 (if I remember correctly) weeks and the ensuing pursuit by healthcare wokers and the parents to save this baby's life, I'm not completely convinced that saving extremely premature babies is such a "heroic" act. The film is very honest in its portrayal of the struggles associated with having a baby born that premature and its fight to stay alive in the NICU. It documents the little boy's first few years of life and cleary shows his developmental delays and the toll it takes on his parents and sibling. The child in this documentary will always face developmental delays and physical challenges, not to mention the uncertianty of his expected life span. Is it really worth it? For the parents in terms of the emotional, financial and psychological costs or for the child in terms of the phsycial and developmental challenges it will most likely face? If there had been no medical intervention the babies would have died and would have been surgically removed. Yes, this also would have been a very sad situation, I'm not doubting that, I'm simply thinking outloud.

Anyhow, I signed a lease a few days ago! I'm officially moving January 1st. Very exciting.

2006-11-28T18:42:00.000-06:00

ugggg.......i just spent an hour writing a post and my internet went out and now it's gone. GRRRRRRRRRRRRR. I hate computers!

2006-11-19T16:18:00.000-06:00

Bah hum bug...

Christmas is my favortite holiday of the year, but I'm somewhat alarmed that a local radio station (93.9) is already playing Christmas music 24/7 and have been since the beginning of Novemember. Does this strike anyone else as a bit premature? I mean, Thanksgiving hasn't even passed yet.

2006-11-18T14:28:00.000-06:00

The following was forwarded to me by Nicole and I thought it was pretty interesting and funny.

> In the 1400's a law was set forth in England that a man was allowed to beat his wife with a stick no thicker than his thumb. Hence we have "the rule of t humb"

> Many years ago in Scotland, a new game was invented. It was ruled "Gentlemen Only...Ladies Forbidden"...and thus the word GOLF entered > into the English language.

The first couple to be shown in bed together on prime time TV were Fred and Wilma Flintstone.

> Every day more money is printed for Monopoly than the U.S.Treasury.

> Men can read smaller print than women can; women can hear better.

> Coca-Cola was originally green.

> It is impossible to lick your elbow.

> The State with the highest percentage of people who walk to w ork: Alaska

> The percentage of Africa that is wilderness: 28% (now get > this...) The percentage of North America that is wilderness: 38%

> The cost of raising a medium-size dog to the age of eleven: $6,400

> The average number of people airborne over the U.S. in any given > hour: 61,000

> Intelligent people have more zinc and copper in their hair.

> The first novel ever written on a typewriter: Tom Sawyer.

> The San Francisco Cable cars are the only mobile National Monuments.

Each king in a deck of playing cards represents a great king from > history: Spades - King David > Hearts - Charlemagne > Clubs -Alexander, the Great > Diamonds - Julius Caesar

> 111,111,111 x 111,111,111 = 12,345,678,987,654,321

> If a statue in the park of a person on a horse has both front legs in the air, the person died in battle. If the horse has one front leg in the air the person died as a result of wounds received in battle. If the horse has all four legs on the ground, the person died of natural causes.

> Only two people signed the Declaration of Independence on July 4th: John Hancock and Charles Thomson. Most of the rest signed on August 2, but the last signature wasn't added until 5 years later.

> Q. Half of all Americans live within 50 miles of what? A. Their birthplace

> Q. Most boat owners name their boats. What is the most popular boat name requested? A. Obsession

> Q. If you were to spell out numbers, how far would you have to go until you would find the letter "A"? A. One thousand

> Q. What do bulletproof vests, fire escapes, windshield wipers, and laser printers all have in common? A. All were invented by women.

> Q. What is the only food that doesn't spoil? A. Honey

> Q. Which day are there more collect calls than any other day of the ye ar? A. Father's Day

> In Shakespeare's time, mattresses were secured on bed frames by ropes. When you pulled on the ropes the mattress tightened, making the bed firmer to sleep on. Hence the phrase......... "goodnight, sleep tight."

> It was the accepted practice in Babylon 4,000 years ago that for a month after the wedding, the bride's father would supply his son-in-law with all the mead he could drink. Mead is a honey beer and because their calendar was lunar based, this period was called the honey month, which we know today as the honeymoon.

> In English pubs, ale is ordered by pints and quarts... So in old England, when customers got unruly, the bartender would yell at them "Mind your pints and quarts, and set tle down." It's where we get the phrase "mind your P's and Q's"

> Many years ago in England, pub frequenters had a whistle baked into the rim, or handle, of their ceramic cups. When they needed a refill, they used the whistle to get some service. "Wet your whistle" is the phrase inspired by this practice.

~~~~~~~~~~~AND FINALLY~~~~~~~~~~~~

> At least 75% of people who read this will try to lick their elbow!

> Don't delete this just because it looks weird. Believe it or not, you can read it:
I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was > rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid Aoccdrnig to rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig huh?

YOU KNOW YOU ARE LIVING IN 2006 when...
1. You accidentally enter your PIN on the microwave.
2. You haven't played solitaire with real cards in years.
3. You have a list of 15 phone numbers to reach your family of three.
4. You e-mail the person who works at the desk next to you.
5. Your reason for not staying in touch with friends and family is that they don't have e-mail addresses.
6. You pull up in your own driveway and use your cell phone to see if anyone is home to help you carry in the groceri es.
7. Every commercial on television has a web site at the bottom of the screen.
8. Leaving the house without your cell phone, which you didn't even have the first 20 or 30 (or 60) years of your life, is now a cause for panic and you turn around to go and get it.
10. You get up in the morning and go on line before getting your coffee.
11. You start tilting your head sideways to smile. : )
12. You're reading this and nodding and laughing.
13. Even worse, you know exactly to whom you are going to forward this message.
14. You are too busy to notice there was no #9 on this list.
15. You actually scrolled back up to check that there wasn't a #9 on this list.
AND NOW U R LAUGHING at yourself.

2006-11-14T20:55:00.000-06:00

List of aspirations:

1) Participate in a triathlon

2) Backpack across a foreign country

3) Become fluent in Spanish

4) Live in a Spanish speaking country

5) Be a wife

6) Be a mom

7) Get a masters degree in nursing

8) Go snow shoeing

9) To always be active in some sort of community service

10) Learn how to knit/crochet and actually make something useful ;)

11) Closer relationships with my immediate family

Things in my life I'm thankful for (thinking about the future inevitably reminds me of the past and present):

1) Being an aunt 5 times over

2) Deciding to become a nurse

3) Learning when to bite my tongue and realizing when it's better to say nothing at all, even though I am screaming on the inside

4) College (well, almost!)

5) Sky diving

6) Having close friends I don't have to be fake around

7) Finding Christianity

8) For all of the opportunities I've had to travel: Hawaii (2 times), Spain, Morocco, Portugal, England, Germany, Singapore

9) A grandmother that has showed me what it means to live unselfishly

10) Good food

The lyrics to the song "High School Never Ends" by Bowling for Soup are frighteningly true.

2006-11-12T18:36:00.000-06:00

Welcome to my new blogger blog! As some of you know, I decided to delete the myspace page I had because I was beginning to develop an unhealthy relationship with it...so what does that mean, you may wonder, well basically I was addicted/obsessed/too attached to it. Silly, I know, but the sad truth none the less. It's been about a week since it's been gone and I can honestly say I've experienced a smoother withdrawal than expected. The thing I miss the most is the blogging, so blogger is the perfect solution.

In other happenings, I've had a good weekend, part of which was spent in Madison visiting Paul and Kristy (friends from the good old U of C!). They have a super cute house and have introduced me to the T.V. show "The Office" which BTW is HILARIOUS and highly recommended. I need another T.V. show to watch like a hole in the head, but I think this one may be worth it. The rest of the weekend included a surprise party for my brother in law for his 30th and dinner at a Tapas restaurant. I'm still ambivalent on my feelings regarding tapas...they were expensive and I especially disliked the oysters...not sure I'd go back.