Beef, Barley and Leek Soup

I made this amazing soup today. Super easy.









3 leeks
2 onions
2 short ribs
some garlic
1/2 cup barley
oh and i added two jalapenos.... (you dont' have to)

i put a bit of grated pecorino romano at the end.

yummy hearty deliciousness!

put it in the pot on the stove and let it cook...

exhausted

i am so tired. i am so tired that i'm not tired does that make sense?

it's been an incredibly long week. one spent running from work to study, to class, to events, etc... i left my house by 645 every morning and didn't get home until after dark and i think today my body is catching up with me.

it's been an exciting week though. i had my first day in the ICU and I LOVED it. I cannot tell you how excited I am to go back. It's so neat up there and I think I may have found my calling.

i also know i have my calling in taking care of kids, hopefully just my own at some point. i took jonas and maisie to the park today and as after jonas and i had a serious talk about some questionable behavior and i was hugging him like no other, i realized just how much i want to have that chance with my own. to be as good to my children as i am to other people's. i can't believe how much patience i have garnered over the years and how much better i am at taking care of them then i was ten years ago. i would hope my bambinos would benefit from it.

in other slightly boring news...
I put these lovely dark brown sheets on my bed today after an exhaustive search of just the right color, I actually found some at Target I am quite fond of.

As for tonight, I was hoping to go bowling with some friends, but I think I'm going to stay in and go to bed early, so I can get up and get the mounds of school work that is on my plate started.

i realized in the past few days i cannot wait to relax, just a little. i love school, i love nursing, but i can't wait to not have to worry about taking tests and such...

when i die (i'm serious)

we were given the ability to create our advanced directives in class the other day. i loved it. i guess because i am okay with my death, i figure i won't have to deal with it. :)

but i had to think of what i wanted done once i actually died. i knew i wanted to be cremated, but what to do with the ashes?

i knew almost instantly.

i want them spread in elliot bay. I love Seattle with everything in me, it breathes life into me when I am there. It feels like home, it feels like me. I see the Seattle skyline and I am breathless. I love going home and hoping on a ferry ride by myself, a lot of the time I'll take the ferry to Bremerton just for the ride and then I turn around and head back. There is something so divine and heavenly being surrounded by mountains and water and polar fleece. I LOVE the pacific northwest. oh how i love you with every part of my soul.

so please take my remains on a ferry and dump them once you get a good view of seattle. let my body rest in my favorite perch in the world and then get scattered wherever the ocean may take me.

And if you can. If i have that kind of cashola... add a mermaid fountain to children's hospital and dedicate it to me. but make it a quiet area... with room to breathe and just be... to be quite amidst all of the medical and emotional storms that take over people's lives...

An Evening with John Williams

check out all the light sabers! as soon as they started playing star wars, these popped up all over the audience!

i can't remember what song this was... karen?

so last night i was lucky enough to attend "An Evening with John Williams" at the Hollywood Bowl. John Williams is the famed conductor of every movie ever.. .okay, that's a bit drastic, but even if you don't know who he is, you've heard his work. He composed the Olympics theme, Jaws, Star Wars, Superman, Harry Potter, and Indiana Jones to name a few.

The famed director and choreographer, Stanley Donen of "Singing in the Rain" also came out and spoke about some of the movies he has choreographed and directed. Again, amazing, he also did a bit of a dance for us, as requested by Warren Beatty. This guy is old, my first thought was "please don't have a heart attack. that would really bring down the whole evening."

All in all, it was a great event last night, the LA phil did an amazing job of playing to the cued up movie images, I was impressed.

Thank you John Williams. Movies would not be the same with out you...

what i've spent the majority of my break doing...

guitar hero. it is so addictive. i cannot explain how addictive it is.

check out this kid, he's amazing. i'm barely working on hard, but once i get those hammer and pull-offs... downs, something like that... i'll be much better!

awesome guitar hero kid on ellen

domesticity

the red fabric was the most expensive of the bunch, but you know you have a good eye, when i literally bought all they had left...and it was only 3/4 of a yard.

the blue bird yard speaks karen to me every time i look at it. hmm. maybe she'll get a gift.

i also discovered when grouping my yarn by colors... i have a LOT of pink yarn. i also have a lot of alpaca, which i love, cause it doesn't make me itch when I knit it. I also like how intricate and strong alpaca is. I made a few alpaca hats for Jason a few years ago, he still wears them and they still keep his big ol' brain warm.


i am such a sucker for all things domestic. i see a bin of yarn and i want to dive in and create. i see fabric and i just want to make pretty things with it. there is a bit of a miser in me, that is like, you are not good enough at any of these things yet, do not waste that fabric on a project that may not work out!... . but i'm trying to get over that.

i went to this awesome fabric store in downtown LA, Michael Levine the other day, pre-illneess and spent way too much money on fabric I'm not so sure if I'm going to sew. However, the picks were awesome and I had a hard time not buying everything, especially the adorable and very expensive designs from the japanese designers.

i had already been prompted to change the storage under my bed to long boxes rather than deep bins, so I got started, I was rather excited to see all my other fabrics and my yarn. (ha... not like I'll use them anytime soon!) the photos above tell the tale...

i'm actually headed to joann today to buy some extra zippers and such. i have a bunch of birthdays coming up and i'm wondering if i can fit in a few little purses here and there. def want to practice piecing those things together.

this is the bag i eventually want to make. amy butler nappy bag

two semesters down, four more to go

my favorite girls


our clinical group

i've learned a lot in the past two semesters of nursing school. so much.

i've learned that i'm rather freaked out about my own body. it's something they call intern's syndrome... as soon as you start learning and diagnosing everything that can go wrong with you, you feel like you have it. i've absolutely been feeling this and it's not so much fun. it's manifested in my by feeling my pulse. so kinda every time i feel my pulse, i freak out. and since pulses are let's say, vital to living... it's become quite interesting at times. it mostly happens when i get still. when i lay in bed at night or when i'm really concentrating. i'm working on moving through it. i've talked to other nurses who feel the same way and one that has the same pulse issue as i do. it hasn't gone away and i've learned to just go with the anxious feeling it gives, to stop and be grateful that i have a heart that is pumping correctly and it's pumping well enough that i can feel it where i should be feeling it. and i'm learning to breathe into it. i've by no means mastered it, but i'm working on it, day by day.

today as i was taking care of two of my patients on the oncology wing, i realized a few things. 1. life is not promised. 2. you just never know what is going to happen and so you just have to be happy and do things for now.

a few things that bring it to light.

- my patient who had end stage renal failure. they went into do dialysis and her blood pressure kept dropping dangerously low. we had to call in a team of people to help her bp go back up, mind you this was a woman, i just gave a foot massage to a 1/2 hour earlier. you never know.
- my other patient is dying of luekemia that has metastasized all over her body. She had comfort measures only, meaning we help her to be comfortable as her body moves towards death. She is 71, comes from a family of nurses and loved ones. I was talking to her best friend who was at her bedside today. They've been best friends since they were 11, 60 years.... She is fine and healthy, though they have basically lived the same lives... you just never know.
-another patient on the floor is 26. she has cancer and isn't doing so well either, she had to come back from a country in asia where she had just moved to get treatment.... you just never know...

i'm not trying to be depressing. i actually find it optimistic. we are given this life, we have to make the most of it at every step. we can do everything to insure our lives are healthy and get hit by a bus or we can do nothing and live to watch our friends pass away in old age. we don't get to choose. we can make the most out of our time. we can love each other. love our families. take care of our bodies. but we just have to take it one step at a time. (ha.. i wish i remembered this when i am freaking about everything we have to do in school.)

all of that said, nursing school has also brought up how important friends are. i have so many amazing friends. i am always so thankful for them. and the cool thing is, i've made more! this summer, way more so than the spring has brought an amazing group of friends i don't know what i'd so without! the keep me sane, in this insane world, especially our summer program. i am thankful we can study, go to the beach, play rock band, and help each other with our work.

so i guess i'm just thankful. i'm thankful that summer school is over and that i have 10 days off. i am excited to relax and just be and i'm glad i'm here on this little patch of earth. i hope that i can give back as much as i've been given.