my friends heather, alacia and gemma (matt would like me to let everyone know that) i have recently been selected by my supervisors to be "promoted" to charge nurse. this means that on some shifts, i am responsible for overseeing the flow of the department, making the assignments for the other nurses, resolving conflicts and making sure everything runs as smoothly as possible for the 12 hours i'm there. for those who aren't familiar with nursing, this doesn't mean i won't still work with patients, i simply rotate days as the "charge" nurse with my days as a "staff" nurse where i take an assignment of 3-5 patients (depending on my location in the ER). it's nice to be recognized by my supervisors, but it's also a lot more responsiblity....we'll see how it goes! :)
when we aren't celebrating, vacationing or putting in new floors, there is no lack of excitement around here. here are some pics from the last 2 weeks that show just what we end up doing between writing dissertations, working shifts in the ER and cleaning the house:
matt hangs the shelves in the living room (and pretends to be excited about it)
the finished product, a place to store our dvds!
lexi "hides" in the curtain
helping mom clean out the empty PB jar
getting ready to go play softball
matt and i ready to play for my work team (i had never played before!)
since we are always looking for a reason to celebrate in my family, matt and i decided that we would host a lunch to show off our new floors. it started out as just a grilling party for mom, dad and us. of course, as things do, it snowballed and the entire family was able to show up! we were so happy that we were able to host everyone (for once) in our little house. everyone had a great time, and we really enjoyed being able to include lexi in the festivities. and, of course, she *loved* having 4 little people run around the back yard with her for a change!
my cake - white cake with chocolate pudding filling!
me and my yumminess
sherri and scott serve up my slice
me and a "CEN" piece (only a night nurse would be this excited about cake at 7am!)
for those who don't already know, on thursday, august 21st i sat for my Certified Emergency Nurse exam (a big deal in my field) and tested for 2 hours to determine how much i really know about emergency nursing. the results printed as soon as i hit "submit" and i was thrilled to find out that i had achieved certification -- i passed. what does that mean? i have joined a fairly elite few at my hospital, only 5 other nurses currently employed there (out of over 100 ER nurses) have their CEN, and three of those people hold administrative positions. matt would be upset if i didn't brag slightly, so i will also say that it is not common for people to test for their certification until they have been a registered nurse for at least two years, in august i had been a nurse for 14 months. i appreciate everyone's prayers and support, especially as i got more stressed and had to study for the test. the pictures i included are of the "mini party" that work held for me in the weeks after i announced my new certification. yes, that is an entire sheet cake. and, yes, it was delicious!
thanks to all, Jessica King, RN, BSN, CEN
ps - in the weeks before i took my exam, i found out that they have just released a "beta" CPEN exam (Certified Pediatric Emergency Nurse), so i will be taking that, husband permitting, next year....*sigh*
my sister and my mom both share a sapphire birthstone. shari was born on september 7th and mom on the 9th. we tend to celebrate their birthdays together, especially now that there are so many schedules to coordinate. this year we grilled out at mom and dad's house and shared in singing happy birthday to 3 people. shari and mom shared a chocolate cake, while we sang to alex over a funfetti star-shaped cake that my mom had promised him she would make. as always, the fun and family time was great and we got to enjoy another exciting part of september....return of football season! happy birthday mom (51) and shari (32)!!!! and go cowboys!
after much debate, budgeting, shopping, haggling and comparing, matt and i finally decided to get new floors in our house. we knew this would be no small undertaking, considering the small size of our house and how much stuff we have in it, but we pushed forward and finally had new floors installed on september 4th and 5th. this is partly the reason my blog updates have been slow...we were without a computer for a while, and our house was in *major* disarray for even longer. on top of all that, our normal work schedules continued, meaning we had to fit in all the moving and such around our typical routines. we started preparing wednesday after i got off work from the previous night. the hardwood in the living room was scheduled to be installed first, so i had to empty the bookcase and entertainment center and move all the "little" furniture so as not to slow down the install process. the hardwood was installed thursday morning, done by that afternoon around 2pm, and we absolutely love it! even matt, who was skeptical about the big purchase has agreed that the improvement must have added some major value to the house. but our work wasn't done, i had a mandatory forensics class the next morning at work, and the installers for the upstairs carpet were to arrive shortly after my class got out. so thursday night, instead of enjoying our new, lovely floors, we packed up most of what we could from the upstairs (including all of matt's library, sheets, lamps, files from the cabinets, shoes, clothes, etc.) and covered our new hardwood with old sheets to protect it from all our boxes of "stuff." the installers arrived about 45 minutes after i returned from work and immediately started pulling up our dingy old carpet and placing the new carpet. again, we were thrilled with the results. of course, being the OCD-type person i am, i convinced my husband that there was no need to move *all* that stuff back upstairs when we could easily sort through it while it was all out in the open and get rid of some of the unneccesaries. in doing this, it took me approx. 14 straight hours of sorting, filing, purging, boxing and cleaning to get everything i wanted back upstairs -- in order -- and everything i didn't out to the garage for donation. in the end, i'm completely satisfied...and of course, i don't miss those subway paycheck stubs from 2000 one bit! lexi is probably the only one not impressed with the floors, since they have greatly decreased her traction, and greatly increased her need for nail trimmings....poor girl.
here is a video of poor lex, the first time she got to experience the new floors. notice how she dashes for the kitchen as soon as she's able to:
