What if I Stumble, What if I Fall...

Okay, so this blog entry is a total rip off of Holly's "I've Fallen and Can't Get Up" blog but I thought it was such a funny idea for a blog post. Sorry to copy, Holly and Heather W. Anyway, I thought that I would share my top 5 falling moments, which will be a challenge for me to narrow down because anyone who knows me well knows that I am a total klutz all the time. It's okay, I get it from my mom. Most of our falls occur when we are wearing "stupid shoes" as my dad refers to them as; this includes sandals, flip flops, heels, basically anything other than athletic shoes or sturdy hiking boots. But, enough babbling, here is the list...

#5- I was thinking back to my falling moments and I realized that I don't have near as many as my mom (sorry, Mom, it is true), so I thought I would include one of hers and mine in my list. When I was in middle school, I decided to get roller blades. I was behind the times and had always used roller skates even though roller blades were available. When I finally decided to make the switch, I was so nervous about the brakes in the back that I bought a pair that had brakes in the front like roller skates do. I decided to go out and try them on the street, except that we lived on this giant hill and I was scared I would just go sailing down it and into a tree or something. So I convinced Mom to walk with me down the hill so I could have someone not on wheels to hold onto for balance. I inched my way down the hill sideways for the steep part and then thought that I would try to go for it. I should mention that I had on a helmet, wrist guards, elbow guards and knee guards and Mom had nothing. I turned my wheels forward and gravity did the rest. I started going too fast and fell to the ground, pulling Mom along with me. I was fine, really didn't feel a thing what with all my padding.Mom, however, had landed on hands and knees and had a badly scraped knee and torn pant leg. She may have had some rocks in her palms as well, I don't remember. I felt really bad but I still laughed. I didn't anticipate that we would both need full padding just to go out rollerblading. I think she is still a little bitter about that one.

#4- I was in elementary school, I don't remember what grade, and I had just gotten out of class at Westover. I was running down the hall, in anticipation of getting to the playground to play a while before my parents were ready to leave church. As I was running, one of the little boys who used to tease me stuck out his foot and tripped me. I went flying to the ground, just as one of the other classroom doors was opening. I ended up falling and hitting my head on the corner of the door. I had a cut on my forehead, although it must not have been too bad because I don't have any scars from it. One of the teachers picked me up and took me downstairs to see my parents. I was too young to really be embarrassed, I was more upset about the boy tripping me. Mean, mean boys.

#3- When I worked at Parkland, we used to have to change into hospital scrubs once we got to work. This was because our scrubs washed at home were not sterilized for the OR. So I used to come in every night in street clothes and I left a pair of shoes in my locker. Sometimes, in the summer I would wear flip-flops as this is my habit in the summertime. Every night when I would come in, I would walk through the ER waiting room in order to get to the elevator to L&D. One night, I was walking through and slipped on the freshly mopped floor. I fell flat on my butt in front of the whole ER waiting room, which at Parkland is enormous. I just kind of slinked upstairs and was glad that none of the same people would be there when I got off shift at 7 am. Since they mopped this floor regularly, I slipped on several other occasions, because why would I stop wearing my flip-flops with no tread to work? I got good though, I could do almost a full split when one foot would start to slide and then pop right back up to walking. It kind of looked like I was doing lunges through the ER.

#2- This incident didn't happen too long ago, it was right after we adopted Barley, our dog. I was out walking the disc golf course with Taylor and his friends, which I do sometimes because it is a nice walk. I had Barley on the leash and we were walking behind the boys off the tee. I tripped on some invisible root or stone and twisted my ankle and fell flat on my face. None of the boys noticed because they were ahead of us, but the people waiting to tee off did. One of the girls that was with them asked me if I was okay. I tried to stand up but my ankle was really hurting and I couldn't get up well. I got off my hands and knees and sat down to examine my ankle and the guy on the tee was like, "That's not going to work, you need to move". Well, excuse me for living!Sorry that I have fallen and broken my ankle in your drive line, let me just hobble over here. What a jerk. Meanwhile, Barley is just standing there staring at me like I am insane and pulling on the leash for us to catch up with the others. Taylor finally noticed that I wasn't there and came back looking for me. Of course, by this time I was embarrassed and feeling really stupid. When I get really embarrassed I tend to start crying, so that's what I did. Taylor helped me hobble off so that Mr. Marvelous was able to play through. My ankle was fine but it was definitely tender for a few days. Taylor says I need to start wearing hiking boots to come disc golfing with him because this was just one of many falls and he gets irritated when I hurt myself. He is better than my dad though, he usually just walks away or says, "What are you doing?" to my mom.

#1- This was the worst incident of me falling that I can remember. I already talked about this one a little on Holly's post, but I will elaborate. When I was in middle school, we lived in Portland, Oregon and I got a little into the way that people dressed there in the 90s. Yes, folks, I was into grunge. It was a sad time looking back now, but what can you do. So my basic wardrobe was a huge (like 2XLT) shirt tucked in just barely to short jean shorts with socks and Birkenstocks. Oh, and I can't forget my flannel shirt over my huge t-shirt. Man, I was sexy! Anyway, one day after class, I was running late so I decided to run to the car instead of walk. Of course, because I have on the stupidest outfit ever, I tripped on nothing and fell flat on my face since I was holding books and couldn't catch myself. I had a very badly scraped knee which began oozing blood down my leg and a big scrape near my elbow, also drippy. Did I mention that I fell in front of all the school buses as they were waiting to take all the other middle schoolers home? It was super. I thought I was going to be able to stick my head down and WALK swiftly to the car until one of my friends leaned out the bus window and yelled, "SAMANTHA, ARE YOU OKAY?" So embarrassing! I am sure that she was just trying to be nice, but have a little common sense, I wanted to remain anonymous in my little fall. After that, I just waved to my friend and hobbled off toward the car. Mom was sympathetic to my embarrassment, though, so that helped.

I hope you all enjoyed my falling stories, please feel free and share some of yours in the comments section (Mom, that means you!). Falling is awful and awkward, but almost always funny to someone!

Weight Loss Update

Well, this week went pretty good for Mom and I. We both got in some exercise although I didn't get in 4 times this week like I wanted. I will do it next week though. We both did pretty good on eating and I think I will be trying a new recipe for the slow cooker that our WW leader gave us in the meeting today. It is for shredded taco chicken and it sounds good. Anyway, I lost 1.8 lbs this week and Mom lost 2.4 lbs, so we did good. I am up to a grand total of 8.6 lbs and Mom is at 5.4 so she got her 5 lb sticker. I am hoping to get another 5 lb sticker next week and hit 10 lbs total.

Hungry Girl

One of my co-workers, who is also doing Weight Watchers, told me about this website where they have all kinds of healthy substitute recipes for beloved restaurant and general food items. It is at http://www.hungrygirl.com/ and it is GREAT! I haven't tried any of the recipes yet but they look awesome. There are also a lot of good tips on ways to eat healthy while you are out, besides to just ordering everything "on the side". I am really excited to have found another place to get dinner ideas and ideas for substitutes when we go out. Sometimes it is really hard to find what to order and Weight Watchers has good tips but it is nice to have some more opinions too. If you are at all interested in eating healthier and want some good recipes, check out the website. Hungry Girl also has a cookbook with a lot of her fabulous recipes in it, pictured above. I will let you know how some of the recipes go. Also, Happy Hump Day! (It's Wednesday, halfway through the week).

Samantha and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

Today has not been my favorite day to say the least. Tuesday is never a good day in the office because in the afternoon we have both doctors in the office (they usually work at opposite times of the day) and it can get a little crazy.

First, I woke up this morning at 5 am and then didn't get back to sleep until 6 am before my alarm went off at 6:05.

Then, my lunch took too long to pack so I was late getting into the shower and therefore late leaving the house.

Then, it is raining and I have to drive Taylor's truck now because I am putting too many miles on my BMW and I almost hydroplaned like 40 times. I also couldn't see out of any of the side or back windows due to the rain and humidity.

So I am late to work, which was actually okay because when I get there all the computers are down and we can't log into our computer charting system.

I couldn't even call anyone until around 11 am when the computers were back up and running which caused me to be late getting to lunch.

In the afternoon, I ended up getting stuck helping one of the docs with a colposcopy which is a procedure that I have only seen done and never helped with alone. So, of course, this time the patient starts bleeding heavily and I do not know where all the correct supplies are because I never do this procedure. Also, I was doing the procedure with the doctor in our office who doesn't do well if things are not done how she is used to them being done. She didn't really talk to me for the rest of the day.

After that I thought things would get better but I ended up having to tell a patient that we lost her pap smear and she would have to reschedule. She was not happy to say the least.

So now, I am done, I am finished, I quit for the day. It just seems that nothing can really go right, so I think I might as well go back to bed and try again tomorrow. Or maybe I will move to Australia.

This blog was inspired by the book, Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day.

Weight Loss Update

Just wanted to write a quick note about the weight loss this week. I did okay, I was able to work out 3 times this week and stayed pretty well within my points. Not as good as the first week but that's okay. I am hoping to increase my workouts this week to 4 times and try to include more fruits and vegetables than last week. Also, I lost 0.6 lbs this week. Mom wasn't able to go to the meeting this week because she and my dad went to Fredricksburg for their anniversary. Happy 28th Anniversary, Mom and Dad!!! I love ya'll!

Tribute to the 90s, Movies!

With all of the stuff going on with Mom, and us starting Weight Watchers, I am just now getting to my Tribute to the 90s. Hopefully, these films will conjure up some fun memories for some of you and make you think of days long past. Well, maybe not that long past, it was just the 90s. This list is a combination of truly great movies and movies that I just really loved, even if it is embarrassing now.

Forrest Gump- I love this movie and I think it has a lot of great elements. I laughed, I cried, and I used to have a poster in my room with all of the Mama sayings. "Life is like a box of chocolates..."

Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead - This is one of those movies that I am a little embarrassed to still like. I just love the fashion stuff and how she gets to pretend to be something she is not. Probably some of the best work that Christina Applegate did in the 90s, she is better now.

Clueless- This is a classic for now and for always. I am proud that I love it and will always love it! Jen and I used to watch this movie all the time in our freshman dorm room. Alicia Silverstone rocks! And I still really want her computer closet that picks out your outfits. Jurassic Park- Taylor and I were watching this the other day and I was talking about how scary this was the first time I saw it. I don't think I saw this one in the theaters, but Taylor and his siblings did. Taylor said that his sister hid under the seat the whole time. This is a great movie and I still enjoy it. Pulp Fiction- Okay, so I don't think that I actually saw this in the 90s but I am a HUGE Quentin Tarantino fan and I love this movie. And it was made in the 90s. If you have never seen it, rent it immediately. Dazed and Confused- I think I like this movie so much because it was filmed in Austin and I know where all the places in the movie are. Plus, it has such a good cast, Ben Affleck, Matthew McConahey, Jeremy London, Milla Jovovich, etc (probably misspelled like half those names).

Fargo- This is another one that if you haven't seen it, go out and rent it. It is a Coen Bros movie and it is great. One thing I do like about the Coen Bros is that there is always one really good character who doesn't cheat or steal or kill. Kind of an antithesis to all the other characters in the movie. Plus, this one is set in Minnesota and the accents are great. When we moved to Minnesota I told Taylor that I felt like I had moved onto the set of Fargo.

Okay, I am sure I missed some great movies but these are just my personal favorites. Please feel free to add your own in comments. Look for Tribute to the 90s, TV, coming soon!

New Blog

Hope everyone likes my new blog. I think it is pretty and fits my personality a little better than the last one!

THE BEFORE PICTURES

Okay, I better go ahead and post these pics before I chicken out and just wait until Mom and I are about 30-40 lbs thinner. I want everyone to know that this is the heaviest I have ever been so this is pretty much the worst it is going to get as far as looks. Now that we have made this new commitment, we will never look this way again. I do this much for my own benefit, because for some reason the Samantha I see in the mirror doesn't look like this. It is like my brain is permanently fixed on a thinner Sam. Funny how the mind can do that. Also, our pictures kind of look like mug shots so feel free to laugh.

Mom Before

Me Before ( in my lovely work garb)

Whew, that is over with. Hopefully, these pics will help keep us motivated at times of weakness. If not, I will have to bust out the bathing suit pictures and be really embarrassed. Plus, these pictures will make great before pictures when we get to add the after pictures.

Weight Loss Update

I just wanted to write a quick post about my first week at Weight Watchers. I think I did pretty well. I was able to get up at 5:30 am two mornings this week to go to the gym. Friday I was kind of lazy and missed my gym trip. Thankfully, when I got to work, one of my coworkers needed my help moving a large file cabinet and trying to squeeze it into her tiny car. Didn't work, but it was a nice 30 minute effort. I did feel really good about my eating this week. I stayed within my allotted points and definitely learned how bad I was eating before. Like the two breakfast tacos I used to get on the way to work. Like 10-12 points depending on what you get on them. That is a lot for breakfast and I did find that the one day I did get one breakfast taco, I was actually perfectly satisfied vs really full and it was only half the points. I am learning that I don't have to be stuffed at every meal, which had become my habit. Also, I am working on learning that I don't have to eat exactly what I am craving at every meal. It is okay to just eat something that is okay, not great! I am sure that every week will not be this good, but I am just taking this one week at a time since this is something I want to commit to for life. I really want to be healthy.

Also, just to let everyone who has been waiting all week to hear about the weight loss totals for week one, Mom lost a great 3 pounds, which adds on to the almost 20 lbs she has lost since she had the tumor removed. I told her that some of that might be cheating because that tumor was not tiny but I am proud of her. I lost a whopping 6.2 pounds and couldn't be happier! I know it is a lot for a week but I think it just proves how unhealthy I was being before. I would ideally like to lose about 2 lbs a week on average. But I am still really happy with this week's results for both myself and Mom. GO US!

Feel free to keep the encouragement coming, Mom and I both really appreciate it! Look for another update next week and I will be sure and post the before pics when my dad sends them to me.

Dumb and Dumber

For some reason this week, I have been thinking a lot about the dumb things that I do. These thoughts might have something to do with the fact that my car's lease is up soon and Taylor and I need to come up with a down payment on a new car. Plus, my poor parents are having to bail us out with the repairs that need to be done on my BMW before it can be turned in. So here is a list, please don't judge too harshly. I am not really a dumb person, I just get led astray from the path of the wise every once in a while.

#1- The Beamer- When I was just out of nursing school, I decided I wanted to move to Uptown Dallas to live with all the cool, hip singles while I started my new job at Parkland. I found a reasonable one bedroom close to Hwy 75 in Uptown. Well, once I got into this fancy neighborhood with its expensive restaurants, stores and trendy bars, I decided that my FULLY PAID FOR 2001 Ford Escape was just not posh enough to be tooling around in. My best friend, Rochelle, had just leased a Lexus and my friend Tacovia had just bought this fully tricked out Honda Accord. I wanted a new car that would fit into my neighborhood. This meant BMW, Audi, Lexus or Mercedes. So my parents helped me find a deal on a BMW 325i as a lease. I was so excited that I looked so super cool driving around my neighborhood. Several problems with this car, however. First, it was a lease so I did have lower payments but I did not own it and had to keep it in perfect shape. Did you know that when people hit a BMW they just drive away? Yep, happened to me like 400 times. Second, there are limited miles on a lease, and my boyfriend at the time lived in Abilene. I put about 20,000 miles on the sucker in the first year, a little over my allotted 15,000 a year. Third, when you turn in a lease, you have no down payment to put on another car and while leasing is cheaper, this was still a beamer. Word to the wise, don't ever get a car just to be cool.


#2- The Puppy- Another dumb thing I did during the first year I was nursing was buy a very expensive puppy. Again, a couple of my friends had recently purchased dogs, and for some reason, Dallas made me a total wannabe. I am really not like that normally but when I was in Dallas, I just wanted to do everything my friends were doing, like live in downtown, have a fancy apartment, a fancy car and a fancy dog. So I bought this cute little 8 week old American Eskimo dog and he was white and fluffy and I named him Charlie. I just didn't think about the fact that I had never owned a dog in my life and had no idea what to do with him. I also neglected to consider that I lived in a third story apartment and had to walk to 3 flights every time the puppy needed to go to the bathroom. Finally, I neglected to consult my long time love and companion Moe (my cat)about his feelings on the matter. The puppy lasted about three days. It was the worst three days of my life. The puppy was totally not potty trained and kept peeing and pooping in his kennel and then smearing it all over him and the crate. I bathed that puppy no less than 10 times in those three days. Also, Moe did not handle the whining, barking puppy well at all and refused to eat, sleep or go to the bathroom for those three days. He just sat under the bed and watched the puppy constantly. The puppy also killed Moe's most favorite toy and he was very traumatized. To make a long story short, I begged the breeder to take the puppy back siting Moe's trauma as a reason. It was sad, but we didn't really have time to bond and if it was between the puppy and Moe, Moe was going to win out. You'll be happy to know that the second dog I owned has turned out much better, but I did have Taylor to help.


#3- Travel Nursing and Texas Medicaid- Okay, these two were pretty much a tie but for different reasons. First, lets talk about my travel nursing experience. I thought that travel nursing sounded like the most logical solution when Taylor and I first got married and decided that we wanted to move out of Texas. We wanted to travel and have some fun in a new place before we had kids and travel nursing seemed like a great plan. With travel nursing, you are sent to a hospital that is needing extra temporary help for various reasons. You usually get paid more than you would as a permanent employee and the travel company gives you money to pay for housing or sets you up with a furnished apartment. The assignments vary in length. The assignment I decided on was an L&D position at a hospital in St. Paul, Minnesota. Okay, I know that Minnesota is bitter cold but it is a pretty state and it has the second highest fertility rate of any state in the US (first is Utah, go figure), so I figured I would be able to take several assignments and we wouldn't have to trek all over the country if we didn't want to. Great idea, right, travel, good money, paid housing... The one thing I didn't realize about travel nursing is that you need to get accustomed to the unit you are on in about 4 1/2 seconds. I had three days of training, of which only half a day was spent in L&D. This position also required that I occasionally float to Postpartum, Antepartum and Nursery. Second, the reason that travelers were hired was because the hospital was going to computer charting after years of paper charting. Some of the nurses didn't even really know how to work a computer. And third, I didn't realize that the nurses union in St. Paul was also considering a strike due to benefit issues when all the travelers arrived. So there I am, in a cold, brand-new state where people have horrible accents and no one really liked me because they thought that I might turn into a scab if a strike was started. This was not my best nursing job, it turned out okay but I definitely felt overwhelmed at times and we high-tailed it back to Texas as soon as we could. Plus, I am not sure that the money and fun of travel is worth the crappy benefits, long hours and the stress of having to hit the ground running.


Second in this two-parter was my job working for Texas Medicaid. I worked there for about 8 weeks. I thought again that good money might hopefully equal good job. NOPE! My job itself wasn't so bad, I did prior authorizations for patient's who had inpatient hospital stays. I won't go into too much description because it is boring but I talked on the phone all day and made sure that the inpatient stays met the criteria set by Texas Medicaid. The company was horrible! They really don't want anyone to get approved for anything ever and tell you that in orientation. Also, the full time employees (which I was not, I had a 12 week contract) were making Authorization Based Compensation. This meant that they only got paid per authorization they completed. Some of these 20+ year nurses were making like $12/hr. Ridiculous! I don't like to work for a company who truly doesn't care about their employees. So I found my current job and quit.

These are just a few of the dumb choices I have made. I shared these because they are kind of amusing looking back now and at least I realize that they were mistakes. Feel free to share some of the goofy things that you do, we all make mistakes and have our doofus moments.

My New Office and other Ramblings

I was so busy being excited about starting Weight Watchers that I completely forgot to blog about my new office. For those of you who don't know, I used to work in a hallway that had a counter top mounted on the wall. There was no privacy for me to do my phone calls except for this sad little folding door that was put in and that everyone opened and closed constantly. I know that our patients couldn't tell that I had no privacy but it was concerning to be speaking with someone about their recently diagnosed Chlamydia when the whole waiting room can hear you. Also, DJ, our biller, was stuck in this tiny corner where the copier was and which made her totally claustrophobic when someone would have to fax or copy. So, we finally bullied our boss into letting Deb (our LVN) and I move into Exam #3 and DJ to move into my old space. It is great for her because she does not make as many sensitive phone calls. So now I have a room with space to spread out and an actual desk. Also I have a real door that closes so if I am talking about sensitive things, the whole world cannot hear me. Plus, there is the added benefit that I cannot hear anyone else's radios. Before, I would have to listen to our Medical Assistant's rock or metal and then DJ's liberal political talk radio. Neither was really that bad, but DJ used to listen to this one show in the afternoon and the guy sounded exactly like Lewis Black and his voice would just grate on my nerves. Now, I am in my little office, listening to my quiet indie rock which does not disturb the patients I talk to and I don't have to listen to competing radios anymore. Yea for me!

Speaking of my job, I realized this week that I have two aspects about my job that I absolutely hate to do and put off as much as possible. First, I hate hate hate doing pre-certifications with insurance companies. They are very stingy with what they will actually let you do and they are pretty sure that no one actually needs to stay in the hospital. Last week, I had one insurance company calling me constantly to see if I wanted a hysterectomy to be an outpatient surgery with observation stay. That means that the patient cannot stay for more than 23 hours. For a freaking hysterectomy! I know that the surgery no longer leaves you with a giant scar in some cases but, seriously, kind of a major organ being removed. Soon, they will really want the patient to not even come into the hospital at all. Couldn't they perform surgery at home with a handy-dandy operation kit. Second, I hate telling people that they have STDs. This is a big part of my job and some people handle it well. What I hate is calling a girl who has just had her first pap smear and telling her that she has HPV and Chlamydia. Plus, Chlamydia and Gonorrhea have to be reported to the Texas Department of Health, so, as you can imagine, that goes over well. I actually had a girl ask me if she was going to be on some kind of STD list where people could look her up and see what she has. That would be a really long list! I deal with at least one STD everyday and I only work for two docs if it gives you an idea about how many people out there have something. These things are not things that will change but they are not my favorite parts of my job. Other parts are better, like getting to tell women who have been trying to get pregnant that they are and such.

Finally, away from the unpleasant tasks of my job, Mom and I went to our first Weight Watchers meeting on Saturday and it was good. We are both really pumped about losing weight and getting healthy and so far, things are going well. I even got up at 5:30 this morning to go to the gym. I was only able to stay and work out about 20 minutes because I was a little slow getting moving this morning, but that will get better with time. I have some nice healthy dinners planned for this week and I am going to try to avoid or at least eat less of the delicious goodies that the drug reps bring into our office. Mom and I are going to take pics this week and I will be posting those along with our first week's weight loss. Thanks to Holly and Mom for the notes of encouragement!

The Great Weight Loss Project!

Sorry to my loyal readers (Holly) for not updating in a while, work has been super busy for the last week or so and I haven't had time to do my usual blogging. Also, life has been kind of dull lately, as far as my life is concerned. We did have some birthdays and such but that is about all.

However, this weekend I will be embarking on a new quest, Weight Watchers. Ever since my mother's ovarian tumor that she didn't know was there because she didn't notice her stomach being any bigger than usual, I have been thinking about getting serious about weight loss. My mother and I are both, at this point, pretty significantly overweight and we have made the mutual decision to go to Weight Watchers. I believe I did post a note about this at the beginning of July, but now Mom is recovered enough for us to actually start. So this Saturday at 11 am, we will be in our first meeting. We have both done Weight Watchers in the past and done well, but were just never able to stick with it. Hopefully, Mom's surgery will be a constant reminder to us that we do not want to be overweight anymore. I know that I personally have started suffering the consequences of being overweight recently and it makes me a little nervous because I am experiencing problems that my mom did not have until her late 30s and I am in my mid-20s. It is time for a change and I know that losing weight will also be a big boost to my self -esteem and Mom's, as well as a major benefit to our health.

I will be, hopefully, posting weekly updates on our progress along with my normal posts. I am not going to put starting weights on this but I am sure with the amount of weight we each need to lose, it will be pretty obvious what the beginning weights were. But, after all, we are Southern women here and it is just not polite to talk about such things. So, feel free and post encouraging notes and comments to help us along our journey. I will keep everyone posted. Also, I will try to post pics in the next blog entry. I love weight loss pics, especially ones where your old clothes are like falling off.