Awesomesauce

We are trucking along in our own routine. Things have certainly slowed down from summer, and the pace is nice. When things slow down the ordinary seem to become more appreciated, and I think it's nice to remember that. 

Here are some of the details we are loving over here:

Urban walks

Old pianos

Street Vendors

Neighborhood coffee shops

Pumpkins

Cruisin around the hood

The slanted light rays

Sudden snow storms

When two seasons combine

Christmas legends

Goofing around with friends

Adult play at the playground

Instagram!

Going for walks

Seeing Leonard Cohen with a girlfriend

Sweet little sunshine

Nature and sky together

The allure of black and white

A victorious election!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Starbucks during a snowstorm

Holiday shopping

Making miniature Christmas worlds

Putting Christmas decorations up too early 

Good food with friends

Ginger root and hot water

Christmas magic at the mall

Baking cookies with dad

And her. My sweet little love.

And there's another thing. But I don't have a picture and it's a bit too early. 

Alas, there is MUCH to be grateful for!

Fashion Friday...and a giveaway!!!

Oh Fashion Friday. I miss you. I miss all of those cute little toddler outfits, the ones that little miss Ellie  allowed her mama to dress her in. You've had to go away, not because I or others don't love you, but because Ellie has her say now, and those toddler clothes are shrinking at exponential speeds anyway. I'm glad you're still here, because every now and then we have a really cute outfit that, like this one, will almost definitely not be worn again.

Dress: LaFaute Voltaire
Shirt: Target
Tights: Gymboree
Shoes: Circo

In other news, I am offering a FREE 8x10 canvas print from Printocopia! This is a GREAT DEAL! If you are anything like me then you have hundreds if not thousands of cute little pictures that get sadly buried in the hard drive of your computer, lost or forgotten with time or other fabulous pictures. This is sad! Remember when we used to actually develop our film (gasp!)! This year you can deck your holiday walls with a gorgeous canvas print made from a photo of your choice. Here's what you need to do.

1) Leave a comment on this page (no, not facebook) with your favorite quote. (I love quotes). 

2) If you "like" my facebook page (linky is on the right) then you get entered twice. (If you have already liked my page just mention so in your comment)

2) Check back in on Wednesday, November 14 for the winner.

Good luck! 

One love.

This morning when I woke up the air felt lighter, my chest felt free of dread, fear. These feelings started happening last night when President Obama won the election...that bitter, bitter election. I felt the release when we saw that Ohio was blue, and the words flashed on the tv screen declaring the winner, and I whooped and hollered and actually kind of cried.

I had gotten wayyyyyy too wrapped up in that election.

It's true that I'm glad Obama won. I appreciate his ideals, and the majority of my friends seem to as well. But there are some that don't. There are some that felt today the exact way I would have felt if he hadn't won. And I felt sad for that. I felt sad to see Mitt Romney giving his concession speech knowing he put so much of his life and soul into that campaign. I didn't want him for president, but I'm still sad that he had to feel such a bitter LOSS.

And now the commercials are gone. The attack photos are not being posted on facebook. I was so sick of the name calling. Of the lying. The manipulation. I felt sick to my core, and though I know it's a game they play to get the win, I wasn't impressed with either candidate's thick and prevalent negative ads. I think it was destructive to our own collective consciousness, I really do. With so much that is wrong in the world, all of the heinous crimes that have been committed, with the natural disasters humbling us and striking with such greater consistency, this negative campaign seemed like sweet fuel to a burning fire. We needed none of it, and no one is better for it.

Except that our man won. Somehow, after the euphoria of the win, it all feels bittersweet. I feel like we all felt a loss, whether it be your candidate or your ability to go about the world free of such negativity. I feel like I want to see all of my Republican friends in the same room and have one big group hug because I want to not feel so segregated. We are one, right? One country. One collective consciousness.

One love?

YES.

Love.

I have my own patients, 11 of them, and I see them all every week in the comfort of their homes. They have allowed me to be privy to their inner circles, their families, their raw and very intense emotions. A former pro football player laying in a hospital bed unable to walk on his own. Another sweet and gentle soul, young, losing a quick and fierce battle to cancer, riddled with bone metastases. Another kind mother, starting to unravel, becoming incontinent, unable to take care of her own basic needs. This is US. These people are US. They will be. And these people, they are all alike...they are all dying. They are all acutely aware of what is important in this world at the end of the day...the love. Politics is pushed aside and the priorities become family, pain management, learning to find GRACE when your body starts shutting down.

Sometimes I need to remind myself of this. Death is sad, and it's a loss, but it's one of the things that unites all of us. No one will escape it. And as someone who sees so very much death, it's a damn good reminder that I am not dying. That this is living. And that living should be filled with all the things that mean the most to you. The things that really, YOU ALREADY HAVE.

It's one perfect, golden love. And I'm positive we share it, when we can dig ourselves out of our own minds.

The Wrath of the Bulbous Pumpkin Head

As the mom to a now 3 year old it's easy to see how much Halloween has evolved. My ONE year old daughter had no clue why her mom and dad were dressed as Middle Earth characters and she was stuck in the ridiculous (ok absolutely freaking adorable) Frodo costume. This was the year we went to two houses trick or treating, mostly for my own personal excitement...and definitely the year I ate ALL of my kid's Halloween candy. Year TWO we have a plushy care bear and her 2 friends of the same year, looking like a pinball machine as we launched them onto each neighborhood porch, each one going in a different direction. They eventually got the hang of it, and the beauty of 2 is that they really had no memory of the candy the next day, or at least, the memory dwindled quickly.

But this year was different. This year we still had a care bear, a pink one not a yellow one this time, and our crew was a bit larger. But this year the kids knew exactly what they were doing. THEY WERE GOING TRICK OR TREATING! They walked with precision and ease to each new porch, appropriately yelling "trick or treat" and the parents' almost in unison yelling from the sidewalk after each child collected their goods "WHAT DO YOU SAY?"

We hosted a Halloween get-together at our house this year. Last year we had such fond memories of neighborhood camaraderie at the home of our friends Candice and Brian status post Halloween trick or treating, but sadly they moved away. (WE MISS YOU!!!!!!!!!). So we offered up our place with the vision of children merrily playing while the adults talked about all sorts of non-kid related things (ah, beautiful rose-colored memories). But again, this year felt different. This year my house was not full of adorable little plushies who were so eagerly redirected, but instead my [very small] house contained several very SUGAR FILLED  2-5 year olds on a school night. As the parents and kids began pouring in from their successful night of sugar seeking, the chaos began. We did get some great adult convo, and lord knows those kids were having some fun, but THIS year I found myself acutely mourning the moment where I stood in my house BEFORE the party and basked in its cleanliness...I EVEN CLEANED THE DUST OFF THE CEILING FAN.  Unable to get past the sweet evergreen scent I purposely wafted through the house and the memory of NO LAUNDRY on any parts of the communal floor, I found myself trying to pick up the small tornado messes after the kids while trying to be inconspicuous about the whole thing to the grownups (of which if you're reading this I LOVE YOU AND YOUR KIDS I PROMISE!). Meanwhile my own daughter is on the fringe of a sleep-deprived sugar-laden FREAK OUT and requires soothing and mitigation throughout the party, until eventually I said (out loud) "OK it's time for everyone to go now" in my sweet high pitched mama voice.

And this year, AH THIS YEAR, the candy was not forgotten, but instead remembered first thing in the morning, and that bulbous pumpkin head filled with candy became a beacon for remembering to have a temper tantrum from dire WANTING of sugar. Ohhhhhhhhh fuckkkkkkkkkkkkkk.

Google google facebook google. After I managed to get my daughter to preschool I high-tailed it to the Dollar Tree where I bought a plethora of silly little trinkets. When my daughter came home I informed her that there was a Toy Store in the playroom and that her candy was the money. That's where she so innocently transferred over her ginormous loot of sugary snacks for a few Toy Story miniatures (which are in bed with her now...whatevah!), some playdough and other crafty fun and guys the candy was nary an afterthought! Turns out Woody and Jessie dolls ARE cooler than candy.

At least they are this year. Next year...Mexican holiday?

SUGAR!!!!!

The Power of a Hug

Last Tuesday at one of our team meetings at work, a social worker colleague led a group of us in a meditation, a death meditation. In this meditation, we visualize and attempt to experience the death of our bodies, feeling the inert energy of dying, being the observer to the process. It was profound. When I let the feeling come back into my body, when I felt the pulse of my own beating heart, I realized how sad the experience was for me. This whole exercise was of course wonderful in a sense of cuing in on a dying person's experience, something that as caregivers who have seen so much death, we can occasionally lose sight of.

But as I got up and as the meeting adjourned there was one thing that I craved more than anything else at that moment. A hug. My God did I want someone to just wrap me in their own presence and JUST HUG ME.  I wanted to feel the shared energy between myself and someone, anyone. But I didn't make that need known, (I'm sure I could have found a hug if I had actually stated that i wanted one) and so I continued on in the details of my working day, realizing that as I left my team meeting and got in my car that I was flying solo for the rest of the day. No hug.

I did end up getting a hug later that day, but it was one that I offered and it was with one of my patients, someone that I felt needed to feel the unconditional love that a really good hug offers. So there it was. With a sick and truly emotional broken man, and me, a healthy but occasionally emotionally broken nurse.

Sometimes the world feels difficult to navigate through. It seems there is one massive tragedy after another that presents itself, from wildfires, the Aurora shooting, the sweet Jessica Ridgeway case. Now we have all of the negativity associated with this election. I will tell you that honestly, sometimes my heart HURTS. I have to actively steer my thoughts away from the negativity. I can't let myself think about Jessica Ridgeway, but you know what...I want to. I feel like she should be remembered but it creates so much visceral grief; I just don't know what to do with it.

This world scares me sometimes. For as much beauty it can contain, and MY GOD it can be beautiful, its shadow side is frightening. I know that I have created personal defenses to protect myself from pain. Unhealthy ones. I know that when I'm sitting with a patient and I DON'T feel a sense of compassion, it DOES happen, that I get scared for where I'm at, spiritually. My social worker friend called it compassion fatigue. Whatever it is it is evident that it exists because sometimes my heart feels like someone is actually sitting on it.

I know it's good to remember that I get to control what I concentrate on. Thoughts come pummeling through constantly, but I get to cherry pick the ones in which I want to place my attention. I get to choose the positive experiences, the love, the GRATITUDE. I'm reminding myself of this (because sometimes I forget).

If you are reading this, please remember to be nice to each other. Social media is such a powerful phenomena and everyone out there with their opinions, shielded from actual human interaction by a screen, it is here that I think people can be the most mean. This election seems to be bringing out real raw feelings with people, and what we are seeing on things such as Facebook and Twitter can really just be straight up mean. I, too, have been caught up in the drama of it all; it's hard to avoid. But more than the energy directed at getting one man into office, I want to see the healthy energy of love and solidarity that we have with each other as humans. We need each other.

And maybe while you're at it, give someone a hug. Sometimes they need it more than you might know.

Only a man

This past month I have turned into a political junkie, following the campaigns of both Romney and Obama with fervent interest. I would never go around saying that I'm a "political person" and in truth I have learned a LOT about politics and about major issues in the past month than I ever paid attention to in the last four years of office. Why? Because I want to do what I can with regards to voting for the next president. And what can I do? I can be informed.

Apparently I can also sit gluttonously in front of the television during each of the three debates and become engaged in every word that I'm hearing. Twitter feed. Facebook comments. Pleas to my husband to please start reading Ellie books in bed so I could concentrate.

In the end I'm none the better for it. It's true that I believe in Obama, most specifically I believe in his ballsy stance to tackle healthcare and bring some semblance of subsistence to it. I become outraged when I hear Mitt saying the "the first thing I'll do is dismantle Obamacare". Ugh that just chokes my chain, especially when he adopted a VERY SIMILAR strategy in Massachusetts.

“No matter who you vote for, you are entitled to your position,” said Deborah Nickitas, PhD, RN, editor of the journal Nursing Economic$ and a professor of nursing at Hunter-Bellevue School of Nursing with Hunter College and City University of New York. “But for nurses, who are on the front lines of health care, if this Affordable Care Act goes away, it’s going to impact greatly the delivery system in, I think, very negative ways. For children, for young mothers and for our elders--the most vulnerable populations will suffer if this is repealed.”

But to note, I also fear Mitt's stance on women's rights, on gay rights, on abortion. I think Obama is the better man for foreign policy and I appreciate and respect his likeability around the globe. I'll never forget sitting in a cab in Peru during the W administration and listening to the fervent rants of hatred against George W Bush, wishing I had told him I was from Canada, scared that America was viewed as the enemy.

I don't ever want to feel apathetic about something as big as voting for our president, but I will say that there is no need for me to get all riled up about any of it. I know it accomplishes nothing, and the beauty of the Universe is that there are always two sides to a coin. I do not want to be one of those political zealots that believes that my way is THE WAY. I'm cautiously open-minded, and occasionally  overly attached.

Soon November 6 will roll around and we will all have to deal with what the majority of America votes as so. It's safe to say it could go either way. It feels different this time around. No democrats knocking on my door asking for my vote. Very few political signs on the yards in my neighborhood, for either candidate. It's a stark contrast from 4 years ago when we were all filled with so much HOPE for CHANGE. I still believe Obama is our man, and in watching these debates I continue to respect his stance, his history and his direction. So I stated that on this blog. I'll vote on election day.

Either way, he's only a man. We still have the POWER OF THE PEOPLE!

Michelle Obama and beautiful people everywhere

Last night one of my facebook "friends" stated in their status change some comment about Mooochelle Obama needing to quit worrying about obese kids and get off of her fat ass.

It was appalling. On so many levels. 

So I said something. I said it was rude, and that's when this person's Republican friends JUMPED to his defense, like flies on poop. I was called some names, and obviously the whole incident ended in my unfriending this person. Though I'm sure he couldn't care less. 

The whole situation was so unsettling. First of all, to attack Michelle Obama's weight is a very low blow. Michelle Obama is a beautiful, healthy and strong woman and mother. She is not fat and frankly reading that made me so mad, that someone would criticize a WOMAN and her ASS, and put it in the context of politics? It puts us in the dark ages of feminism and is one of the most un-compassionate remarks I have read in a long time. Second of all, the way this person's Republican friends jumped to his side, even his WOMAN friends, made me the saddest of all. There was so much defending of what really was a rude and tactless comment. It made me acutely aware that there is no middle ground here. There is no path where two different sides can meet in the middle and try to resolve differences. There are Republicans and Democrats. And both sides seem hell bent on seeing that their agenda is THE WAY. 

So I closed my computer, that damned computer, and I let myself explore why the whole incident bothered me so much. It feels frustrating to live in a world where politics are so bipolar, where the idea of having an honest dialogue with one another is so far out in left field. It feels frustrating to live in a world where men, AND WOMEN, criticize the bodies of women. Frustrating that they do not accept that women come in all shapes and sizes, that this is in their DNA, that some are not bone thin. And regarding obesity , it IS an epidemic, and IS deadly, and there are SO MANY children and parents who don't have the basic education about what is good to put in your body, what is bad, what is a good portion size, etc. So many people don't know what the devastating effects of obesity are, the diabetes, the cardiovascular issues, not to mention the SELF ESTEEM issues that so, so, so many people face. So many people truly don't have this basic education. Michelle Obama's plight to bring awareness and attention to the incredibly challenging issue of obesity is one to be admired. Maybe you don't like her policies or see fault in the way she is approaching this, but maybe instead of adding to the problem by criticizing her ass, start being a responsible citizen and learn how to dialogue about BETTER ways to move forward.

Strong and beautiful

Have a holly jolly...October!

So it's early October and I am proudly stating that I have already busted out the Christmas movies.
See here's the thing about me: I'm a Christmas junkie. I love any and all things Christmas and moreso, it's the Christmas PREP that I find most intoxicating. It's the gift buying, tree adorning, ornament making, coffee drinking pepperminty goodness about Christmas that I love so. Which is why I opted for the week BEFORE Christmas off.

This is the thing with getting all horse-out-of-the-gate on Christmas when you live in Colorado: it gives you reason.

Now I know this first snow will soon melt into the soon to come 70 degree autumn days. But it doesn't kill the little light of Christmas love that burns in MA BELLAY! Or the look of wonderment on my daughter's face as she looks at the first snow, insisting "I want to make snowballs!".

I will admit that we are watching Frosty the Snowman at this very moment. And tonight there will certainly be a fire in the old, forgotten fireplace.

Frankly I don't see why things that make you so darn happy have to wait.

Today is a beautiful day.

There's a few things I've learned about myself in these 35 years.

1. It is impossible to do more than one thing at a time, and to do it well.
Most of my stress comes in the morning, when Ellie is whiny and needs me to do a multitude of things, when I need to get ready for a day of work, when I start getting emails of things I need to attend to. This makes me feel impossibly frazzled as I try to juggle all of these tasks at once. And yet when I stop and watch myself in action, when I have awareness, I see that I'm actually only doing one thing at a time. Yet the stress lingers on as I feel like I need to be doing more than I already am in the present moment.

2. Whatever I'm doing now, do it fully.
If I'm getting Ellie her breakfast, concentrate on getting her breakfast, on putting love into the food, and on communicating with her with full attention. She sees when I'm divided in my present moment, and it never works out well.

3. It will all get done.
This concept amazes me. As I'm living in my present moment I start thinking about all of the things I need to do, my deadlines, my bills, people I need to call. STRESS. And yet...at the end of the day, these things were all done. And they were not done due in part for the stress.

4. I get to choose how I feel.
I can wander around feeling stressed, or angry at a situation. I can feel sad when I visit my patients, or frustrated by the mundane tasky part of my job. But these events come and go. They do not MAKE me feel sad, angry, stressed, bored, frustrated. I choose to feel that way. Why would I choose so much negativity?

5. Living with awareness makes life a whole easier (and more joyous).
Being sad and angry and frustrated and bored, these emotions happen. But I can let them happen and them let them go. I can have the awareness to REMEMBER that I have a choice in the matter. Life is not forcing me to feel any certain way. Life is not some random turn of events that HAPPENS to me. Life is going on in the present moment. Really, all we have is the present moment. And yet I find that my present moment is thinking ahead in the future or floundering in the past. That is not awareness. That causes pain and suffering because the true joy of the moment is in the present. And I miss it if I'm elsewhere.

6. I'm okay just as I am.
There is no future me that will be better. The past me is come and gone. The me that is ME is the me that is NOW. And THAT me is much happier when I'm truly living in my present now. THAT me, or I should say THIS me, feels joy when I accept myself for all that I am, warts and all.

7. There is no other me anywhere at any time.
Wasting energy comparing lives, businesses, practices, what do they accomplish? They accomplish pain, suffering, a feeling that what I am NOW is not enough. And yet, I am enough. I'm me! I'm exactly what I'm supposed to be. I'm doing what I'm supposed to do. And I have a choice, always a choice.

8. Each moment is full of so much.
Even as I'm typing on this computer I notice the sounds around me, the birds starting to wake up, the smell of my coffee. There is nothing dull about this moment, about this time of the day when the world starts teeming with life as it awakens. It's not dull because that's not how I choose to see it.

9. There is so much to feel grateful for.
When I reflect on my gratitude the small stuff becomes even smaller. There is so much to be grateful for.

10. Today is a beautiful day.

Sweater Weather

As we settle into a new season our crazy summer living has come to a halt. Weekends with no plans (wha?!), deep cleaning the house, knitting, reading books, THIS is my preview to winter, and it's only fall, and it's still beautiful and we are still going out into the world to explore it, but the pace is certainly changed. I like it. Today the sky is dark with the promise of rain and I even get to wear a SWEATER. Oh my things are changing.

I decided to kill my Month in Review because a) it wasn't very interesting and b) it was a bit of a pain going through all the pictures. So anyway, for future me, Ellie or anyone else that may give a hoot, here's what we've been up to lately.

In search of the goldiest spot in Colorado we could find.

She's pretty gold-y too. 

This is my secret hike that we will do every year.
This was our 5th annual Super  Pretty Fall Foliage Day!

I temporarily suspended my life and all duties in it while I powered through these three books.
And then I went into mourning when they were all through. Ah, Katniss.

Ok, back to the living, I knit this hat for Ellie.
It was the first time I had cast onto my needles in a year!
Pattern here. 

Ah, St Mary's Glacier. A big block of ice sitting in a while lot of pretty.

Hoo boy was that Ergo a good investment.I wonder how much longer we can milk it for. Would it be strange to have a 5 year old on my back? (Don't answer that)

Oops, this little leaf one crept back in here. (Has anyone noticed how annoying it is
to rearrange pictures on blogger?) Oh well, I'll keep it. It makes me happy. 

My favorite photo ever.

There's so much I love about this photo. The light, the unassumed position of my daughter reading, and the saying above her head which captures my love perfectly. We were in the library and I quickly reached for my iphone to snap this picture. A mere 2 seconds after I snapped it she was up and on to me that I wanted a picture (and therefore totally opposed to posing). I love it more than I could ever say.

Five more minutes

Ellie's verbal capacity is taking me off guard. The way she stands with her head cocked and her eyes squinty and says "Mommy I don't understand" and then poses some serious question like "You said I could play with the ipad for 5 more minutes". And she means it as a real serious questions but you guys, this cute little baby of mine, and this conversation, I am NOT TRYING to be condescending by laughing but sometimes, SOMETIMES it's just too cute. So today she said "Mommy stop laughing at me". And I did. I don't want her to feel bad. She does not understand the cuteness yet.

Laughter curbed. (Cuteness remains.)

She does this thing now where everything is 5 more minutes. Get your shoes on Ellie. "Five more minutes, mama!". It's time to go. "Five more minutes, mama!".
This is coupled with her desire for "just a little bit more". Everything needs to be "just a little bit more". More juice. More volume. More more more.
"We're going to end the book here Ellie".
"Just a little bit more!".
And if that doesn't work "Five more minutes".

Mama doesn't laugh at that. It's not as cute the 500 timth around.

We are really blessed to be a very short walk to the Denver Zoo, the Botanical Gardens, and pertaining to today, the Museum of Nature and Science.

I still can not believe that there were dinosaurs roaming about the Denver area some millions of years ago. I stood wide mouthed at a full blown Stegasaurus that was oh you know, just wondering about metro Denver. Ellie was not nearly impressed. She had had enough by the time we got to the dinosaurs at the end of the day. So I pulled this one on her:

"Ellie, five more minutes".

She wasn't enthused and somehow I think the joke was lost on her. So we headed home, her with a new dinosaur bracelet and me with dinosaurs on the brain.

I mean, they're really pretty cool.

Oh, In case you were interested, THIS is what Denver looked like 100 million years ago. According the museum...

I saw this idea on Pinterest to turn your instagram pictures into photostrips. I really kind of like it.

Yes.

q-tips, dropping trow, and being the new kid on the block

One time I went in for a check up and the NP noted, upon using her otoscope, that I had a perfect ring of scar tissue in each ear. She was so perplexed.

I wasn't.

You don't have to be a nurse to know that using 1-3 qtips every single day of your life since you were, oh maybe TWELVE, might create a touch of scar tissue. Eventually that scar tissue or the lack of any sort of wax at ALL might disrupt the natural processes that need to take please for the oh, you know minor things like HEARING.

(Dear God please don't let me go deaf because I'm grossly addicted to qtips.)
(and why do they have to feel so good!?)

*******
I recently dropped my phone in the toilet. My iphone. My you-better-hope-to-God-you-are-getting-new-contract-rates phone. So what they don't tell you when you pay that $10/month insurance charge is that when you need a new phone it's a $169 deposit! Well I paid the darn thing and got my phone last night. Everything looks like the old one. Same old apps and contacts. Same useless Suri. Except now? Now I can't hear a damn thing!

So naturally I eased my frustration with a little qtip sesh.

These are definitely NOT the kinds of things I like to focus my attention on.

(Please let this be a lesson to you to not put your phone in your back pocket before dropping trow.)
(Also don't start digging the qtip so far down your ear and with such frequency that you permanently scar it. Trust me on both these issues)

******
I have a new website now. It's www.summersolsticephotography.com. And I made a facebook fan page, WHICH by the way, is beyond awkward asking people to "like" me. There was a lot of buildup and thought in approaching these two major cyber introductions and now that I'm here? Well now I'm kind of scared shitless, for a MULTITUDE of reasons. I just opened the door to a very cool room which I liken to a jazz club where all the people are hip and cool and they wear berets and smoke cigarettes and clap by snapping their fingers. And I just walked in with some boob high pants and taped glasses saying "hey guys, wanna hang out?"

(snort)

It's nerve wracking, yo. There is some serious out-of-my-comfort-zone stuff going on here.

The thing is, I do pretty well in my comfort zone. In fact, I haven't really left it in a while.

I know I can do this! I'm scared and nervous, but I'm also passionate. There's a dream here, an honest to God dream of doing something CREATIVE with my life. There's just a lot to think about and to do, a lot more than I ever realized before I actually started doing it.

Oh comfort zone, I can leave you for a little while I guess.

But I'm taking my qtips with me.

When even sweat and fatigue doesn't wipe the smile off your face

My weekend (sort of) went like this.

I went to the mountains. I got in a van with mostly strangers. I went for a run. I got back in the van. I waited at various locations for other runners to finish. It got dark. I went for a run. I waited at various locations for other runners to finish.  I had a spaghetti dinner at 2 in the morning. I slept on a gymnasium floor for about an hour. I went for a run. I waited at various locations for other runners to finish. I gave a lot of high fives. At the end of it all I gave a lot of hugs. They weren't strangers anymore, and I was giddy with fitness, fun and extreme fatigue.

This weekend was the Ragnar Relay, a 12 per team race from Breckenridge to Aspen, 188 miles. We didn't win but we did pretty well. This is positively from the several Ironman folks that were traveling with us and their badass running examples. It was pretty hard in the sense of being so sleep deprived. But it was gorgeous, and as I told my running mates the scenery alone was like a big cup of coffee, inspiring and uplifting. Especially on my last 6.4 mile leg through Glenwood Springs as the sun started rising. It was hard and uphill but I knew I was happy. It was too pretty not to be.

This weekend was special not just because I ran a cool race or I met all kinds of cool people. It was special because I felt like ME again. Not MOM me. Not NURSE me. Just ME. Fun me. Fun me that's not preoccupied with my kid or my job. NOT THAT I DON'T LOVE AND ADORE MY CHILD but it was....neat....to have a couple of days where I was "just me". And because I dropped my phone in the toilet (YES I DID THIS! AND NO IT WASN'T THE PORTAPOTTY!!!) it was really "just me". Unreachable, grinning, sleepy me.

Man it was fun.

All of the Ironman around me was inspiring. Now I just wanna run!

The Ghost of Grandpa Dick

Yesterday day I watched a big, bearded, formerly burly trucker, who also happened to be my patient, lay on his deathbed. He looked small in the queen-sized bed, always adamant about no hospital bed. He had a lot of pain that we were managing with morphine and he was chronically hypoxic (lacking oxygen). But he was alert. He was oriented. He wanted to know what we were talking about.

He had a big family of brothers, most of them unable, emotionally and/or physically to make the trek to Colorado. But one brother did. One older, balding man who told this nurse many stories of loss. This brother was vigilant by this patient's bedside.  I could see that his heart was breaking.

When all the nursing stuff was done I just sat back against the wall and I watched. I watched this formerly burly trucker hold hands with his older brother. I watched him look him in the eye and say "I'm not scared. I love you". I watched the tears that fell from his family. I watched the looks of love in the room, the ginger touches, the pain in their eyes. I sat against my wall and thought how did I get here? How did I get to be in this man's room, privy to his dying scene, privy to the love and deep pain that permeated the space?

As he lay dying it became clear that this man was in two different worlds: the world of the living and the world of the dead. He was talking about his Grandpa Dick, a man that I later learned he had never met. His brother knew him before he died. This patient described Grandpa Dick and said he was at the front of "the people", waiting for him.

Grandpa Dick. This happens a lot, where people see other people that have passed. This phenomena blows me away more than I could ever articulate. It is consistent. The dead appear. The dead are present in the dying space. They often visit with the dying hours and even days before the person dies. I have another patient who just last week started getting visits from her mother and sister, both passed. This happens with such strong regularity. If you didn't have a faith in afterlife it makes you question it, it does. How does Grandpa Dick appear when he doesn't even have a memory formed of him? How can he describe him without knowing him?

The man died in the early morning hours. He was a good man and I miss him.

My hunch is that now he's with Grandpa Dick.

Three girls, one weekend

Three girls being myself, my daughter and my mom.

I love those girls.