Catching Up

SUNDAY – HAPPY NEW YEAR

Oh where to begin! New Years Day….New Years morning we woke up and got ready to go to church. So in we plugged to the GPS “Ward Street Church of Christ.” We go to this small quaint little town and pull up to a church building and walk in. We were welcomed into this little church with such welcome arms I can’t even tell you how much. We were met by the preacher’s wife and another woman who was just as friendly and outgoing as they come. We were told that they were having a New Years breakfast instead of class. Perfect! We church goers love potlucks!! So we met several of the members, all of whom were so nice and welcoming and ate breakfast with them! Worship was great, though the heat was not regulated so I froze most of the time (shocker right?).

We weren’t very hungry for lunch after eating a breakfast feast so we went (bet you can’t guess where!) to Target and the shops that surrounded Target just to run some more errands and pick up the remaining items on our ever changing list. Our first stop was Home Depot to look for a door stopper for the patio door. That was unsuccessful to a degree, but we did meet a guy that told us to get a piece of some kind of molding or something (very savvy with the lingo obviously) and saw it off just to fit in the bottom of the sliding door to block it off so no one could open it. Genius right!?!?!

We finally ended up at Chili’s that afternoon for lunch once we got hungry. Oh the greatness that is Chili’s….love that place!! Then we went back to the room after a couple more errands and waited until 6:30 to go see War Horse. It was SUCH a great movie!! The story, cinematography, music…it was all beautiful! I loved it. I’m sure we came back to the room and played a game of Canasta or rummy and went to bed. We were pretty tired.

MONDAY

Monday we slept in, or I should say I slept in. I tried on my new scrub bottoms Sunday night to find out that they were (shockingly) about 6 inches too long and encased almost my entire foot. So I started calling places to hem pants in a fury. I was under the impression at that point that I would need the pants for orientation on Wednesday. It turned out that I wore business-casual clothing all week. So I  called all down the list, one place couldn’t have pants hemmed for 2 weeks, several places weren’t open on Monday’s at all, so the last number on my list was my saving grace! She said that if I could get the pants to her in the next half hour she could have them done for me by the next day. Thank you! So I threw on different bottoms (didn’t think the jingle jammies would make a good impression) and took my pants and the GPS and ran out the door. I came across the address the GPS took me to and it was a home….I was kind of expecting a business. So I called the number back and asked if she was located in a home, turned out she was! I decided that it would be safe enough and went into this home I didn’t know to take off my pants and get them hemmed. The lady was so incredibly nice. She had my pants ready the next day.

After that Mom and I ventured out to find where I would need to go for orientation. Not that I’m directionally challenged or anything (yeah right!) but we thought it would be a good idea if I had any idea where I was going. So we found the building that orientation would be in then we drove around and found where the Emergency Room was located. Yay! So then I told mom that I wanted her to see Yale while she was here. She didn’t want to get out and walk around because it was too cold so all the pictures are taken from the car and half of them have the car in them! But she got to see Yale, we also saw Occupy New Haven, lots of blue tents pitched in a park. Freaking cold here people!

After that it was off to Sam’s for the purpose of fish and chicken. Turns out I got a Sam’s card which I think will be a great gift and we around to some of the surrounding shops by Sam’s to just explore the area. I wanted some black flat boots so we went into DSW and guess who didn’t walk out with black flat boots but black snake skin heels instead? THIS GIRL! Oy, since when have I been able to walk in heels? They were pretty comfortable for heels though and far more practical for the things I needed unfortunately.

Dinner for the evening was Texas Roadhouse. Always a good choice! We walked in just in time because by the time we were leaving they were absolutely packed!! When we were waiting for our table this guy walked in and I saw that he was wearing an “MLB” hat and I figured it was for a local team. Later when I saw him I saw that he was wearing a “SF” Giants hat! I was so overcome with joy it was almost to the point of ridiculous. Turned out he was our waiter. I decided not to embarrass myself by complimenting his choice of team.

TUESDAY

Okay, so I’m a person that likes to know what’s going on and I had absolutely NO idea what to expect for orientation on Tuesday. I was a bundle of nerves. I left an hour and a half early to get what I knew would only take approximately 20 minutes, but you never know about early morning traffic, and where you’ll have to park so I decided to ere on the side of serious precaution.

I got to the orientation facility at about 7:35, it didn’t start until 8:30 but they got us started on some paperwork (that you didn’t need to fill out if you were a traveler – fail). Got my decaf coffee, made a couple trips to the bathroom, the usual you know? As orientation got started I was feeling much more at ease, there was a schedule for the day, and it was nice to hear about the facility. They made us do a “meet and greet” and I met a girl from the area who was really nice and told me if I needed anything to let her know. How kind! Then we were set into groups and I met two other travelers. After our group time I talked with those two girls and mentioned that I really want to go to NYC sometime and they said “yeah definitely! Let’s go sometime!” How awesome! What a blessing to already be making friends to go do things with! I met several more travelers that day, one that is working in the ER with me. There are 7 of us here in the same complex so we carpooled the second day. How blessed am I!!?!?! I feel so blessed to have already made friends and kind of have a little support group here. Not only do I have the people at the church who have already invited me to things and into their homes but I have people in the complex that I share a lot of things in common with who have been really amazing.

Tuesday night I got a package in the mail that was great, for dinner mom and I tried this local Mexican Restaurant that was amazing! We were so incredibly stuffed that I said I needed to be rolled out of there.

WEDNESDAY

Wednesday morning four of us carpooled to the hospital since we couldn’t all fit in one car and sat through another day of talks. The second day was a little harder to sit through, I think because my adrenaline and nerves weren’t quite as high. It was kind of funny because as we’re sitting through orientation so much of the stuff they went through “this doesn’t apply to travelers…” Really? Ummmm, then why are we listening to this? Oh well! Getting paid anyways I suppose!

I came back from orientation, called maintenance on the way home about the patio door and the outlet that was sticking out and the draft through the front door and picked up two more packages in addition to the three that had been delivered to the door. Oh my! So many packages! Then we went to Panera and in search of an iron. Mom was adamant about me getting a Rowenta iron. Apparently they’re the best, and as she told me today “It irons like a dream.” I wish I could say I would just take her word for it but I’m afraid I’ll be finding out far too soon for my taste just how much of a dream it irons like.

We went to church at 6:30 and wow, what an uplifting singing service they had. There weren’t a ton of people (their Sunday mornings are about 117 people) but what an amazing group of people to be with. I’m really excited to spend the time with them that I can when I’m not working. We got Starbucks on the way home and the GPS pronounced it “Starbocks”. FAIL!

THURSDAY

Today started out (early again of course) with carpooling and getting to computer orientation at 8:30. The only problem was that they had us down for orientation tomorrow! That was no bueno! So finally after a couple go-arounds we found a computer room, someone to teach us, and got done what we needed to. Then it was off to scheduling. One of the clinical leads came and got the two of us that are going to be in the ED after we got our packets and everything and she took us down to the ED, showed us around a bit, and explained how things work briefly. It was overwhelming. I’m not going to lie. It’s hard to see the layout really well and how things flow but I’m sure once I’m with someone and see how they do things it’ll obviously make sense.

We got our schedules and we’re off until next Thursday! We get 36 hours of orientation which is WONDERFUL! It’s a level one trauma center, we won’t get to go into any of the trauma most likely but it’s a big ER and they’ve had to move some of it to a different floor even. So we’ll definitely have our work cut out for us. Then we went and got a few more codes, and off we went to find our other travelers. By this point it was almost 1 pm and we were starving.

I came home this afternoon and crashed on my blow up bed. These early mornings are catching up to me! I’m not use to early mornings! Whew! So I think I’m caught up on blogging. I’m sure I forgot the quirky funny day-to-day stuff that happens but that’s the overview. I’m looking forward to the six days off coming up. Mom has to go back home on Saturday. It’s been such a blessing having her here while I go through the unknown craziness of this week. Glad this week is done, I like knowing at least what’s going on and what I’m doing and what’s expected. So until tomorrow!