What ever happened to Fashion Friday?

Three words: Mommy got lazy.

But we're back and mommy's not feeling so lazy. In fact, mommy is feeling pretty good. In pondering upon my feeling-good-ness I started thinking of all the very ordinary and extraordinary things that life is sending us these days.

A new (old) job on Monday where I'm returning to a team of people that I have so much respect and admiration for.
Some really swell friends, both my size and Ellie's size
Neighbors, really freaking awesome neighbors/friends
Blue Moons
Weekly trips to the library
Our 6pm ritual of playing Jeopardy
Some quiet moments
Friday night Thai takeout
Ellie's first "job": to bring in the paper every day
A husband that I can always count on
And the topper to every list is my sweet little bundle of 2 year old love. She is funny, empathetic, playful, smart and more and more creative. I do love that sweet child of mine.

Happy weekend to you!

Leggings and shirt: Gymboree
Dress: Gap (acquired from thrift store)
Shoes: Osh Kosh
Glasses: Dollar store
Necklace: gift from one of Ellie's friends

It's thursday night, time for mommy's special time!

Today was one of those days that I just wanted soooooo baddddddly to have a moment to myself. Ellie was sick, and the snot was running big time, and we were up at 2am making hot tea and forced sinus rinses wide eyed, me trying to convince Ellie that the world is sleeping at 3am and she should be too. And she still is up at 645 with "Mommy, it's light out now. Time to wake up! Can I have a cough drop now?" (Yes I introduced cough drops last night as I was freaking desperate and now the furniture is all sticky with toddler hand to mouth cough drop usage because she can't wrap her head around the fact that you JUST SUCK IT. It's not a toy to rub all over your hands.)

Poor kid was covered in runny snot all day, eyes puffy, and to make the scene more let's-stay-indoors-all-day-guilt-free was the fresh blanket of 6 inches of snow that I had no idea was coming. Today I was hoping for quiet book reading and Disney movies but a little snot does not stop a 2 year old from her awesome magnitude for fun making, in fact, it makes it worse as each idea that enters her thoughts must be executed right then and there in the exact form and function in which she has pictured it in her little 2 year old brain. If she wants her tent she wants it NOW and with perfect pillow placement and if the pillows somehow get involved with the door hatch and it doesn't close all the way then mommy can and will sit through the ensuing tantrum and abandon all efforts of reasoning. You pick your battles in life, and today I didn't have it in me to patiently explain the reason that lemonade poured in one glass tastes exactly the same if it's in another glass, among other reason-free arguments that were avoided systematically throughout the course of this very long day.

Today we never made it outside. When Mike came home I felt like a zombie stepford robot wife with a monotone "How-was-your-day-supper-will-be-ready-soon" robot voice. Grateful that Ellie had another being to beg the attention of. "Daddy watch me!" as she does some ridiculously simple thing like put her arm over her head. "Mommy watch me!", she drinks from her cup. "Daddy watch me", she twirls. "Mommy watch me", she puts her finger on her nose. Or wait, her newest one is she'll moon me. Which I admit does crack me up but I don't want to encourage that behavior; I do my best to stifle my laughter and educate her on how that's inappropriate; I really don't want to get THAT call from her preschool. But she knows I think it's funny. She ain't no fool.

But it's Thursday night now and as any friend of mine knows Thursday is when Mike plays trivia and I get to enjoy the sweet, sweet, SA-WEET sound of silence. I get to read a book, write a blog post, watch adult programming like Parks and Rec and let the loud whiny sounds of Caillou and his fake 4 year old laughter fade away into the night. If I was a drinker I'd probably have a glass or 4 of wine. But lately one poured glass of wine for me turns into vinegar, abandoned in the reckless joy of all of the things that I am able to do without a child trying to sit on my lap or beg for my attention.

Ah Thursday night, you sweet little carrot. I just love you so.

(Which is ironic because [major side note] I have a huge pet peeve about people professing love or writing letters to inanimate objects. Dear snow, I didn't know you were coming today. Dear traffic, please don't be too bad. Dear week, TGIF. Ah, it kills me! And yet, I romanticized sweet little nothings to my dear little Thursday night. )

I'm such a hypocrite. Dear Thursday, don't hate.

I never saw a mountain that did not give me pause

I never saw a mountain that did not give me pause.

I'm a humble servant bowing to a king.

Delicate mountain flower, climbing through the rocks,
growing to become beautiful. Inspiring others,
the flowers around him, the animals that pass by.

Small, unique life,

a piece of a mountain, 

a piece of a landscape, 

a piece of a heartsong.

Earth, its dynamic life force,

only moving forward through each wise cycle.

Summer, the tall, firey beauty

Fall, the elegant elder

Winter, the strong dark giving way to fallen petals and seed.

Spring, the young ones

the young ones who make their way up to the sun,

to shine their glorious faces,

to experience their own life.

Sunandrainandwindandpeopleandandstruggle

They live. They die.

And the rain, it comes, and it cleanses our hearts

And it pours from our eyes

And it enters our bodies.

and we touch each other

sharing in the heartsong of each glorious flower,

grieving when the beautiful songs we are used to hearing

succumb to winter.

And when the strong hand of grief

let's loose its grip on our heart

we are free to keep listening, 

free to sing from our own hearts the heartsongs we remember so well.

Mountains are songs,

waiting to be sung

born from songs we never forget.

--Summer Nicklasson 2/20/12

What is my life's purpose?

I just googled that.

One of my findings was to do an exercise where you write all of your ideas for what your life's purpose is. Just free write. When you get to the one that makes you cry then you found it.

To be a mom.
To be a hospice nurse.
To help people die.
To educate people
To be a nurse educator
To care for dying people.
To help people feel better.
To be an oncology nurse.
To master finance (?)
To be a mom.
To be an awesome mom.
To be a writer.

To be a writer.

To be a writer.

*sniff*
Ok, I didn't cry. But everything sort of slowed down and morphed into this weird feeling of clarity.

I wrote it again: To be a writer.

I liked the way it sounded. I liked the way my fingers felt as I typed it.

So there it is, right? I found my life's purpose!!! Hahahaha, I wish it were so simple. I wish I had a novel in me that I could just tuck away into a cabin and emerge one month later victoriously with my completed, highly accoladed novel.

Instead I re-contemplated going back for my nurse practitioner degree.
Oh, and I got a job today, well, I was re-hired by the hospice that I first started with (and left it fo da money yo).

I'm excited about my job. About the people I'll be working with (love them so), about my territory. Still a hospice nurse, but with a much better company. It ain't about the money, I just learned this lesson the hard, punch-you-in-the-face kind of way.

So that's good. New job, only four days a week. I don't start until the 27th so I'm kind a just kickin it.

Kinda trying to figure some stuff out.

Trying to figure out where I want to grow as a person. What I want to be in the world. What makes me happy. My God, WHAT MAKES ME HAPPY?

Obviously Ellie. Duh.
Being a part of that very poignant experience of someone's last days makes me happy. But it's not joy.

What gives me joy?
This blog. Letting words spill from my mouth onto this blank slate. Creating. Discovering. Trying to be better. A better person, a better writer.

This blog has kept me from going off the deep end. It helps neutralize sticky situations. And see, IT JUST MAKES ME HAPPY.

What is my life's purpose?
Well, being a good mom is numero uno.
But one level down from that?
Words. Maybe my life's purpose is words. Maybe it isn't.

But that's the closest I came to crying.

Now I need a cabin.

Getting my knit on

Ok so after a full year hiatus of picking up my knitting needles, I. AM. BACK. Honestly I was doubting if I'd even remember how to cast on. Turns out, it's like riding a bike. 

I just finished this little sweater/dress for Ellie. It's a size too big but at the rate she's growing I don't reckon that will be a problem soon. Pattern here.

See this flashlight? Goes with her EVERYWHERE! Especially the bathroom where she insists on sitting on the toilet with no lights on. And at night. And all day long. 

What is love on this Valentine's Day (and every day)? *** with an epilogue

It's Valentines Day. A hallmark day created for love. So what is love?

For me, It's a fullness in my heart. A smile that forms on the inside.
It's a feeling of wanting to take care of someone, or help them take care of them self.
Compassion.
True love is selfless, it's an aura that envelopes your being
I believe that love is a place where you transcend.
It's where you become the world, feeling the world, loving the world.
outside of your box of "this is me". Outside of jealousy and pain.
Outside of wanting to contain it, outside of wanting to run from it.
In stillness, in compassion, in random acts of kindness you see it,
this ethereal love,
this love that knows no name other than love.
And when you feel it, when you really feel it,
your heart will swell, and peace will overcome you.

My God, it's so beautiful.

I've learned a lot about love in this life. I've learned about the pain from attachment to people,
the pain from jealousy, the pain from expectations, the pain from trying to contain something that is already free and floating all around us. This is what we do and I wouldn't say that it's bad. We want to feel good, trying to hold on, trying to make sense of things that sometimes are just so simple we can't understand them.

I try to remember that love is pure, easily accessed, and when I stop trying to control it, it lifts me up to the top of gorgeousness.

I do my best, anyway. I've no where near mastered it.

Happy Valentine's Day everyone. Peace to all.


****Right after posting this I discovered that a very kind and beautiful man that I have met several times in Telluride has died in an avalanche. I looked at this picture that I had taken of him and his son and I sobbed. Deeply, truly sobbed. And I thought, how cruel life can be to take this father away from his son, away from his wife.

I find it ironic that I just wrote this post on love. How I let myself feel it, that transcendent love.

And I realize, so poignantly, that to love, as a human, is to suffer.
We love and we are vulnerable. Pieces of our hearts connected to others. How do you not form attachment to the people that you love? Maybe the most evolved Buddhists can do this. But I can not. Nor do I want to live in a state of non-attachment. So love, this beautiful, grand gesture, this gorgeous light that fills your being, it has a shadow side, too. People that we love leave us. And we suffer. To know love is to know suffering.

But still we do it. We love. We put our hearts outside of our bodies, connect them to people, to the world, to the pain of the world.

I'll miss this very kind man. I mourn that his son will not grow up with his very cool dad, Nate. Please say prayers for his wife and son.

And send love.

This is true love.

When the Universe listens

I experienced something at work recently, something that I don't care to elaborate on, but I will just tell you that I am not working there anymore. I'm home. I'm job hunting. I'm doing yoga. I'm knitting sweaters. I'm cross country skiing, I'm playing so much guitar. I'm playing with my daughter. I made arrangements with her school for her to only go 3 days a week now. We go to the library. We make valentines. We make huge awful messes. I clean the house. I still don't cook, well anyway.

Sometimes things come your way, maybe not in the way that you intended, but they come because there was a part of you that was asking for it to come. It's no secret that I was unhappy in my job and that I was not balanced,. Right now I'm getting that balance back. I feel like me. I feel....happy. I really do.

I'm job hunting right now and I've gone on several interviews. It is likely that I will stay in hospice because well, it's what I know, it's what I'm good at, and I have experience and my hospice and palliative care certification. BUT, I will not work with a company that will not work with me. I can't handle 5 long brutal days a week, not in this line of work, and I've found that there are companies out there that are willing to be creative in schedules. Companies that actually value you as a person and not just an employee.

That said, today is Wednesday. I dropped off my daughter, I went to yoga, I came home and fell asleep on the couch for 2 hours and then I got up, picked up, made a new playlist on spotify, sent out a resume, did a load of laundry. And MAN is that not awesome or what?

Anyway, here's to changes. Here's to your heart asking for things to happen and the Universe listening. I have faith in this Universe. I have faith in abundance. And I am so filled with gratitude for my beautiful life.

The light inside.

I am reminded on an almost daily basis in as a hospice nurse that these "things" that make us who we are, well they can go away. Life is unpredictable, and "who we are" is probably not the things that we do. I've learned that it's a kernal of something much greater. It's the light that we put in to the world. We can make that light as bright and shiny as we can, but I'm also aware that one day the light will dim. I watch people struggle so much with the dimming of their light, with the loss to do and be all that they once were.

I hike, because it makes me feel strong. It brings me to places that fill me up with beauty. It makes me feel at home when my heart and brain start feeling lost.

I knit and craft and write, because it puts a piece of me out in to the world, something of myself that even I knew not existed before it was created. 

I am a hospice nurse, because as hard as it can be sometimes, I get to a part of the most poignant moments in a family's life. I get to give love and instruction in a time when life is filled with grief. 
I took this picture last Thursday when a lovely patient of mine lost her battle to brain cancer. I was touched by what it's going to mean for her husband to walk by this sign every day.

I run, because it takes all of the hard, emotional stuff that is stored in my body and it releases it into the universe.

I love, because I can, because I've been blessed, and because it is the truest direction for my heart to follow. I love because it envelopes me in the most gorgeous , heart wrenching sweetness. I love, because as scary as it can be to feel so vulnerable, I'm stronger, and more beautiful in that place.

This is what I have come to believe. I believe that light will never go away. I believe there is something unique and beautiful in each of us, something that will shine, some way, some how, far into eternity. Maybe it's in the way we touch each other's lives. Maybe it's in the tangible things we create. Or maybe it just is. Sometimes you just can't explain it. You just feel it. 

Why I will never be on Iron Chef.

Greek yogurt you creamy little bitch. I don't trust you. You're too tasty to be good for me. I can scoop you out like ice cream and see I don't think things that are that good for you should suspended from my spoon midair like a Dairy Queen blizzard, all thick and rich. But see I do eat you, a lot of you, and see if it were ME, and me ONLY, I would probably consist of you and granola for 3 meals a day.

You guys, I am soooo culinarily challenged.

I do not like to cook. I don't follow recipes well and the tweaks that I make are almost never for the good. I make a few standard items. Macaroni and cheese. Ravioli. Spaghetti. Oh and I do make a mean overnight steel cut oatmeal crockpot dish that my husband hates but that I adore.

Fortunately for me, Mike likes to cook. And he does a pretty good job I must say. But Mike gets home around 530pm. By that time I've picked up Ellie and need to get something started. Mike is a good cook but he is not a quick cook. And me, well, granola and yogurt, right?

I love my husband but one thing that this marriage of ours lacks is menu planning. Mike finds it incredibly frustrating, mostly b/c he likes to put a LOT of time and thought into what he wants to make. I just want to whip something up. So now we do things like pizza (homemade,..ok boboli crust but homeade enough for me!), veggie quesadillas, burritos, and breakfast for dinner. Those are our staples. Then we have our little aforementioned pasta dishes to fill in the spaces, but are they anything to write home about? Uh, no.

Today I went to the grocery store and said screw it. I bought some of those little stirfry family meal packs, a frozen veggie lasagna, a frozen pizza. I felt shameful buying these things when really, I want and try to eat fresh and good. But I just can't stand the stress of getting home from work and standing in the middle of my kitchen like some doe eyed teenager learning to boil water. I need some SIMPLE recipes. Things that don't have 20 ingredients. Things that use staple ingredients. And oh yeah, things that are good for you. Any suggestions?

The details make the goodness.

A weekend at home in Denver, with no agenda

and chocked full of gorgeous little moments.

Sweet little girl, full of a million hugs and squeezes

who finds such joy being with her mommy and her daddy. 

Please God, let this never end.

This photo by husband

Screw you, cancer

I have a large amount of sadness in my heart right now.

This job of mine, it can be so damn intense. Of course I knew it when I chose to be a hospice nurse, and my skin has been relatively thick for most of patients' passings. But today I feel depleted and tired.

I've been very close to this one patient. She was only 44 and she had ovarian cancer. With her, there were tons of nursing tasks that needed to be done, like continuous infusions pumps and home paracentesis and an absolute ton of medicine management. So my point is, we've spent a LOT of time together. She was really just so loveable, and I know she loved me. She called me Summer Wummer whenever I came over. She bought me my own chest of drawers so I could organize all of my medical equipment. She was so kind. I became really close with her and her entire family.

She had tumors that literally looked like fists protruding out of her abdomen. Literally. It often reminded me of "Spaceballs", the scene at the end when the alien climbed out of that guy's stomach (I never told her that). She had intense pain that just got worse and worse. Yet she was such a fighter. She never wanted to admit that she was dying...never. When I told her last week that she was going into kidney failure I felt like I burst her hope. That look on her face, the way her lower lip trembled; it was a terrible conversation but when I look back, one that needed to happen and I said it as kindly and gently as I could. She was in kidney failure. (Those conversations are one of the more challenging aspects of this job.)

When I arrived on Monday morning something had shifted. She was in agonizing pain. She was crying and had a sheet over her eyes because the pain was so bad. As a hospice nurse this is exactly what I NEVER want to see. We have tools for that! How had it gotten so bad? So I worked my butt off in there. We had her on medications that would have killed 10 elephants. We got it relatively controlled, but on this day she knew she was dying. Here was a woman that never would never before admit that she was dying, yet on this day, as I stood above her bed, she leaned into me, so sweetly, so tenderly, and said "Summer, I can't fight anymore."

I literally sat at her bedside for 8 hours on Monday and 11 hours yesterday, keeping her medicated, doing everything in my power to manage her symptoms. It was shocking the amount of medicines that she required, and any ICU or ER nurse would be surprised that I was administering them in the home setting. And that her pain was still not fully managed!

This patient had terminal agitation, and I knew she was going to get it all along and really geared up her family for what that would look like. But still, you're never really ready for terminal agitation (when the patient is restless and agitated and appears so uncomfortable). As a nurse it broke my heart. I loved this patient and no amount of medicine that I gave her seemed to do the trick. Last night she was finally sedated enough to be calm, but at 5 this morning the agitation started again. I got there at 9am and tried everything I could think of to keep her comfortable, and I was working with some big guns. Oh how she struggled. Her breathing became gurgle-y (death rattle), her legs were mottled and cold, and she would flail her arms around like she was trying to get out of bed. And then, around 1045am today the room changed. She became calm. Her breathing sounded better. Myself, her mother and her sister were all at her bedside. At 11am she took her last breath. When I said "I'm so sorry, she's gone now" her mother looked at me with the most frightful eyes and starting bawling hysterically. The world lost this really wonderful woman. 

As the nurse I had to be as professional as I could. But I couldn't contain the tears that fell from eyes this morning. This patient had become such a part of my weekly routine, of my life. So I let them flow, briefly, and behind bathroom doors. Then I had to get to work: calling the coroner, mortuary, cleaning her body, all that stuff. It was hard, because what I really wanted to do was curl up on the couch and cry. She really got past that clinical boundary of mine, big time. Man I miss her so much.

Cancer is a terrible, horrible, good for nothing asshole of a disease. 

Scenes from a stock show

I'm at a loss for words these days. Life feels full and busy and simply doesn't enough hours in it.

But that said,  we always have time for some National Western Stock Show! Yeeeee hawwww!!!!

Alpaca!

Not quite sure. 

Ellie would have been more than content if she just sat on tractors for the whole event. She was obsessed with them, and there were a LOT.

Cousins!

You guys, bees are SO COOL. I learned so much about bees and was completely fascinated. I had no idea!

Maya spinning her first yarn.

Maya and Ellie feeling a big basket of wool.

I thought this guy was so cute!

Cowboy culture is so cool. To me it seems so simple, and efficient, and so appreciative of the laws of nature and the beauty of the earth. I gotta say, I'm darn proud to live in Colorado. This is a special place.

It was a gorgeous year.

Ah, the NEW YEAR. 

I will admit that sometimes I wish I could make time stand still, for there have been some delicious moments in this gorgeous year that I would like to savor forever, from trips and adventures, beautiful nights on the porch, personal goals and accomplishments. I want to savor forever my beautiful daughter's youth and the true, soul-felt JOY of watching her personality form and ignite. This year our family has really gotten to know what it's like to be "our family". And though not every day is something to savor, they have always been filled with love. 

Indeed I am blessed. 

Life is always changing. A perfect sunset will only last for a few sweet moments. A child will only be young once. This time that we have together is right now. 

I believe we all have the power to make every moment magic.

If you want to. 

(I definitely want to.)

Here's to a magical 2012.

2011, captured via cell phone

There, I said it.

I'm going to write something that I've been thinking for awhile. It's addressing this rather large knot of stress that I seem to carry with me in my heart nowadays, and I guess I'm hoping that by writing it I can some how release it. I'm a little nervous to write it, because then when I write it I might actually need to take action. But I might not. At least by writing it releases it from my body so I can look at it with a more objective perspective, do ya know what I mean? Anyway, here is the thing:

I don't think I want to be a hospice nurse anymore. Or at least, not right now.

I'm tired. Being a hospice nurse is not like "normal" nursing where you are assigned a patient, you go home, and then the next nurse comes in to relieve you. When you are a hospice nurse you form a very strong bond with a patient and a family. You will often be called an angel, and let me tell you, that makes you pretty proud of your career choice; you feel so appreciated. You want to be all that you can for these people. You want to make sure that your patients can die in the best way possible. You manage symptoms, family dynamics, medications, equipment, schedules, and you do all of this with a loving heart (crucial) and solid professionalism. I think I'm a good nurse because I am very compassionate with a patient that is dying. But more and more when I leave that space, I feel depleted.

Being a hospice nurse became infinitely more challenging when I became a mother. Now, at the end of the day when I have exerted so much emotional energy into the homes of these people that need me to be nothing but present and attentive, it takes away from energy that I want to give to my daughter. I feel void and often sad these days. Right now I have a patient that is young that I'm particularly fond of and I see her a LOT throughout the week. Our visits are a solid 2 hours each with all of her family members present and they are intense. Throughout my visits my cell phone will ring several times with needs that I must attend to. Then I jump into my car to see the next patient, catch up on my phone calls, and give myself just a minute or two to decompress from the last visit so I can give all of my energy into the next one. I do that several times a day. Then I pick up my daughter, go home, and try to be the kind of mom I want to be, often between the charting I need to accomplish and the "tidying up" of patient needs before the next day begins.

I like being a hospice nurse, but lately I feel like maybe this just isn't the right time in my life for this. As a young mom who wears my heart on my sleeve, sometimes, just sometimes, I want my patients to actually get better. I want to leave a visit with a patient and really leave it.

I am not the type of nurse who will ever slack on a job that is as important as making someone's last days comfortable, so I give it a LOT of energy because that's what it requires. And I'm not the type of mom that will slack on these precious days of being my daughter's mommy, so I give it a LOT of energy because that what it requires. But somewhere, between the push and pull, I'm being stretched too thin. Sometimes I feel like I'm being stretched so thin I could snap. Sometimes I worry that if I don't do something soon then I will. Does that sound dramatic? Sometimes it feels that way.

Christmas. Life. Magic.

Christmas is here tomorrow and I have not blogged once in December! This year there was just too much to do.  Between work, motherhood and my inner Christmas elf that wants to maximize and savor everything Christmas, I decided to take a break from the blog. Instead I dove in to life. This was an extremely demanding month at work and when the working day was done I made it my job to introduce Ellie to the magic. What tender and sweet moments we have had as a family. I will cherish forever the sweet innocence of my daughter's curiosity. And I will cherish forever these magical days of Christmas as a young family.

Carols by the tree. The girls had so much fun dancing!

Ellie with her cousins at the kids table.

My most precious blessings.

Hot chocolate!

I know I'm biased, but she is such a light!

We made snowglobes.

Under the mistletoe.

MERRY CHRISTMAS, EVERYONE!!!!!!!!