Saturday, November 27, 2010

Infatuation

This girl
Was completely infatuated with this boy
And wanted to spend all of Thanksgiving either here
or here, if we were eating.
Thanks, Carson, for being such a good sport. Your dad and Uncle Dan have taught you well.

Friday, November 19, 2010

Perpetuating the Myth

(picture courtesy of some website full of flu shot images)

I got my flu shot on Tuesday and now I'm sick. Not fully sick, just partly sick. I have a sore throat, headache, and feel like I'm walking around in another universe.

Maybe it is just the power of suggestion since the nurse told me that I might have mild flu-like symptoms.

I think next year I'll go back to just letting my own immune system do its job and take my chances.

No more flu shots for me. They make me sick.

Thursday, November 18, 2010

Snow Day?

"Is it a 'snow day' today?" was the question my son asked as I woke him up this morning to get ready for school. "No, it's not a snow day; but, there is snow outside." I replied. "Dang. I guess I'll get up and get ready for school," he said. Yep, this morning we woke up to snow. The first significant snow fall of the year. If the weather-guessers are right, we should have snow on and off for the weekend.

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

What Holiday Do We Celebrate This Month?

The other day I was reading a blog about ideas/concepts that we assume everyone knows. The blogger asked for input on what things we assume everyone knows. Well, I assumed everyone knew what holiday we celebrate in November. Then this conversation happened... 2nd grade boy in health room with stomach ache. There is only 40 minutes of school left. He has no fever, nor does he look ill. I figure they must be doing something in class that he isn't interested in. Me:"What are you doing in class right now?" Boy: "We are learning about Pilgrims." Me: "Oh. Who are they? What have you learned?" Boy: "I don't know. It's not very exciting." Me: "Well, why do you think your teacher is having you learn about Pilgrims?" Boy: "Not sure." Me: "So, what holiday are they associated with?" Absolute blank stare. Me: "What holiday do we celebrate this month?" More staring. "It usually involves turkey, mashed potatoes, stuff like that." Boy: "I have no idea." Me: "Have you heard of Thanksgiving?" Boy: "Oh yeah." Me: "Go back to class and see if you can make a connection between the Pilgrims and Thanksgiving." So my assumption is that most people in the United States know about Thanksgiving. Although, you would now be hard-pressed to find any sort of representation of it in the stores. We move right from Halloween straight to Christmas. I find that disturbing because I believe that Thanksgiving should be one of the most important holidays. Not because it revolves around a huge meal and lots of football games, but because it should give us pause to stop and reflect on the things for which we are grateful. Gratitude is one of the forgotten virtues. I'm so proud of my sister-in-law for trying her best with her sweet little kiddos to spend time this month focusing on gratitude.

Thursday, November 11, 2010

Home of the Free Because of the Brave

This is my Grandpa Bud. He fought in World War II. He didn't talk much about his time during the war. Sometimes I can get Grandma to talk about his service and I love it when she does. I have no doubt that my grandpa was proud to be an American and proud to have served his country. If my grandpa were alive today on this Veteran's Day, this is what I would tell him... Grandpa, thank you for sacrificing your time and talents to serve our country. Thank you for believing in our values, ideals, and freedoms enough to fight to protect them. Thank you for providing our family with a legacy of love of country more than self. Grandpa, because of your service and the service of so many other brave men and women, I can wake up in the morning and pray openly to my Heavenly Father without fear of reprisal. I can keep my scriptures out in the open without fear of who might see them. Because of your service, I can worship how I want to without fear that the government will step in and not only close down the church, but arrest those who are worshipping. Grandpa, because of your service we have been blessed to live in a land of relative prosperity, and when compared to some other countries, luxury. Because of your service, we have the opportunity to travel down any education or career path we see fit to pursue. Grandpa, because of your service my heart is filled with joy and gratitude on this Veteran's Day. I am grateful to all of those who still serve in the Armed Forces, who wake up every day ready to fight for and protect our country. I am grateful to those who are in foreign countries fighting against those forces who seek to totally destablize and destroy our country. I am also grateful for those in our society who recognize and honor the importance of your service and the service of other veterans and those currently serving. Grandpa, I love and miss you. I hope that we are doing enough to make you proud of us. I hope we are doing enough to honor your sacrifice and service to our country. Grandpa, I do love the United States of America. Thank you for serving Her.

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Did You Get to See Her?

The CV theatre department wrapped up their production of, Wait Until Dark last night. The show was fanatastic. I was particularly biased towards one performer and thought she did a wonderful job. Katelyn played the part of Gloria--a bratty 12-year old girl who helps the blind Suzie. I know Katelyn is a good actress because she really sold the "bratty" part of her character and if you know Katelyn, you know that this is about as far from her personality as one can get. She also got to practice knife-throwing, so if this acting thing or criminal justice (her current career choice) don't work out, maybe a knife-throwing career? Katelyn really is in her element when she is on-stage. I love that she has found something that she is so passionate about. I think it's great that we have a right-brained child even though she lives in a house with left-brained people. Although, we did decide that Carson and I were "middle-brained" since he enjoys, and is good at, writing and I enjoy much of the arts. Dave? Well, he's an engineer for a reason. The next show is Sound of Music and Katelyn is gearing up to tryout for the part of Leisel (sp?). That's the part she wants, but she says she'll take anything just to be part of the show. So, if you missed this last production, be watching for information about Sound of Music. The run dates are in March. Come and see what a great job these high school kids do.

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

The Power of Cheese: It Can Take a 14-year old Boy to His Knees

This is a picture of Carson on the day he decided that he hated cheese. He was at his Aunt Kim's wedding and his Grandpa Whiting was in charge of him because Dave and I were in the wedding party. I'm not sure exactly what happened. My dad swears he only tried to feed Carson a little piece of cheddar cheese, but since that day, Carson has hated cheese. He really does. He will sort-of tolerate it on pizza and in a grilled cheese sandwhich. He does his best to scrape it all off of the lasagna noodles. Anything else that might have cheese, he will not even consider trying. He will choose to go hungry if the main dish contains cheese. No macaroni and cheese dinner has ever been tempting enough to lure him in. So what happened last night? Well, as I was preparing dinner, he wandered in and asked what I was making. I said "scalloped potatoes and ham." He said "Mmm....sounds good." I should have stopped right there and asked if he knew what scalloped potatoes were, but I thought, don't jinx it. Maybe he is ready to give cheese another try. (I was making cheesey scalloped potatoes. I know, I really should have just stuck with the white sauce, but then I wouldn't have the rest of the story). Dinner is being served and Carson says, "What's this? It looks very cheesey." I responded that it was the scalloped potatoes. He said, "I thought you said we were having scallops and potatoes." Ding. No wonder he thought dinner sounded good. Dave and I procede to eat and Carson dishes up a small serving. He then sits and stares at it until Dave and I are finished. He then states he is full. "Full?" I say. "You can't be full. You haven't eaten anything. Just eat 3 bites and then you can be done." (Did I mention he is 14?!) He then pulls out a SLICE of potato, cuts it into 3 pieces, and stares at it again. He stares at it for 3 minutes. He says "I can't do this. Oh man, I can't do this." With some encouragement, he finally eats the 3 miniscule pieces of potato, which he has scraped all of the cheese sauce off of. He then again declares himself full and he leaves the table before we could say anything more. Fortunately, he is 14 and not 2 so there were no temper-tantrums. Instead, we got a lot of laughter. He also knew that this was going straight to my blog.

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Juggling and Delegation

1,978 students. That is how many students attend the 3 schools that I cover. I am grateful that not all 1,978 have medical problems that require my daily attention. But there are more than a few who do require a trip to the office at least once a day. This is where the juggling comes in. There is at least 1 student in each school that I should be seeing at least once a day. So my work life is scheduled to the minute. I know just how long it takes me to drive between schools. I have become very good at phone triage and troubleshooting so that I do not have to leave one school unexpectedly. (side note...I will leave one school and travel to another school if it is necessary. Unfortunately, this often requires me to reschedule and flex with the situation. Fortunately, I work with very patient and understanding staff members.) But at times the juggling just doesn't work. I physically cannot be in more than one place at one time. When that happens, I have to delegate. I have to delegate nursing tasks to the secretaries. I don't like that I have to delegate. I would much rather I be the one who is dispensing medication. I want to be the one who is helping the students with diabetes monitor their blood sugars, watch them give their insulin, teach them about counting carbs, etc. I want to be the one who is caring for the sick child in the health room. I want to be the one who helps a student suffering an asthma attack relax enough to effectively use his inhaler. I want to be in a building full-time so that I can help a child who is coming out of a seizure. I want to be there so I don't have to find out about all the scary things that happened while I was at another school. I want to be all of those things. But I can't. I'm spread too thin. I have to rely on the secretaries to do those nursing tasks that the legislature has deemed appropriate for delegation. I am blessed to work with good secretaries who take on this huge responsibility. But I hate that they have to.