adventure

Annalie and I, by some luck, were able to fix our schedules to get four days off in a row at the same time. We decided we needed to get the heck out of Utah and hit the road. So we went to the redwood forest!

We researched it all for a while and planned to go halfway every day. It sounded better on paper than in real life. I'm not sure we thought about just how much driving we would have to do. But we did it anyway.

We took my car pretty little car and I drove the entire time. I love my car and like driving it. Plus, Annalie is a scary driver. 

We left our house around ten or so and drove on through the boring nothingness that is Nevada. Seriously boring. Actually, the moment we hit the Oregon state line, the outdoors were a lot more beautiful and nice to look at. 

Oregon was so pretty and nice. The only two things I didn't like were the slow speed limits (max was never above 55) and how you can't pump your own gas. Weirded me out. Other than that, I think I want to live there some day. The first two interactions we had with strangers from Lakeview, Oregon were very pleasant. A lady was welcoming to us at her nursing home turned hotel (true story) and a couple people at the local Safeway let us use their Safeway card to get hefty discounts. We walked around the town for a while and decided to buy groceries for dinner so we could eat our veggies. We brought it to the hotel and microwaved it. It was yummy.

We woke up at 5:30 and got ready, ate the continental breakfast, and tried to be on the road as close to 6 as possible. Another long day of driving was in store for us. But the drive was gorgeous and we loved it. We made it to the forest around 2 or so. I was so sick of driving and needed to get out of the car, so we drove down a little road, got out, and did an easy 3 mile hike. 

Now, for those that haven't heard, about four weeks ago or so I started getting severe pain in my right leg after running. It kept getting worse and I recently found out that it's a stress fracture. So, I did this hike on a broken leg. It was too pretty to care. 

We got a little turned around when we came out of the trail not back at the parking lot we were parked at. We got turned around and I was totally going to ask someone which way was north but then we remembered that I had a compass on my phone! Wahoo! So I used that nifty gadget and we walked back to the car, single file line, along the road. 

We went for another little walk up a hill to look at the beach trail. So pretty. 

We drove through a tree! It's some privately owned place. We paid $5 to go through and take pics. The attendant at the pay station was funny. She was an old lady who obviously loved to talk and didn't get a lot of people to talk to. She told us a story of how a whale got caught in the river last year and they never did get her out. I love talking to old people. Call it a gift. 

We deciding to really find the ocean and walked along the shore. We got brave enough to dip our feet in. We kept inching closer to the water until a large wave creeped up on us and got us all wet. It was freezing cold!! But so peaceful and lovely. I love the waves and the smell and the subtle humidity in the air. We could have stayed forever were it not for the cold. 

We checked into a hotel and then I got cranky and hungry so I made Annalie go to dinner with me. We went to a nicer place and ordered almond crusted halibut with raspberry sauce. It was incredible! So amazing. We left satisfied and went to sleep that night after watching 19 kids and counting on tv.

We woke up the next morning and talked about the day. We felt like we did everything we could in the redwood forest while I had a broken leg. We wanted to go to crater lake but then discovered it was snow covered and would require chains and 4 wheel drive. So we googled a bunch of stuff and decided to go to Lava Beds National Memorial. It had a bunch of caves and was only a half hour out of the way of going home.

So I drove. And drove. And drove. We got there about 3:30 and borrowed flashlights from the ranger stations and went into two caves. The first was lit and easy. The second, called Valentine Cave, was also "easy" but had no light and got pretty low in some places. My flashlight ran out of batteries so I used my phone's flash for light. It worked out pretty great. 

I ended up really hurting my leg. The unevenness of the ground and the darkness and almost crawling we had to do was really not good for my leg. We turned back and made it out with a minute to spare before we had to turn our flashlights back in. I popped some ibuprofen.

There were so many other caves to go into but without light it would be impossible so we drove back to Lakeview for the night. 

We ate at a Mexican Place with the spiciest salsa I've ever had. It was good. I iced my leg and went to sleep.

In the morning we ate and packed and headed on the road again, this time to home. The drive was long and boring as we headed into Nevada yet again. We ended up playing cards for a while. (I'm a great knee driver.) We stopped in Wendover for lunch/dinner and made it home by 6. I was exhausted and worked the next two days. 

It was a fun trip. We spent most of it in Oregon, most of it in the car, and but mostly had fun. 

We hardly fought, which is good, and talked about everything. We love my Sirius radio. Most heard song was "Thrift Shop" by Macklemore and Ryan Lewis and also "Carry On" by Fun.. 

I'm glad we went even though it was too fast and was way too much driving. It was great to just leave for a while, not think about work or anything, eat good food, and get out of utah. I hope to go on a bunch of trips this summer. I've got a lot of plans!


p.s. I've been trying to add photos to this post for days but it's not working.... maybe later!

to those who care

It's now been a whole month since I've started working at my new job. I get asked all the time how my job is going, so I thought I'd just write down a little update.

All in all, I'm LOVING my new job.

The hospital is so nice. It's a brand new facility. I don't have to worry about the water heater going out every morning, there is temperature controls for each room, the call lights work, we have these cool little Vocera phone things we carry on us so everyone can get ahold of us, and all the supplies are pretty well stocked. It's a great building. (Not to say that my old place was terrible. I loved Heritage, but I can't deny that it was an old building.)

My co-workers are all really nice so far. It's different working with a lot of nurses on the floor with me. At my previous job I was the only nurse on my floor. I got really close with my CNA's. But this job is great because I always have an army of nurses to ask for advice or help. The CNA's are good too, though I think my Heritage aides could work circles around the hospital aides. I miss them. The doctors I work with are really nice too. I love having the Hospitalist on the floor all day. I love having a pharmacist on the floor all day. It's a nice change to have all these people there all the time to ask questions.

The work is great, just like always. Most of the time I love being a nurse. It's a great job that really is very selfless in nature. I'm glad I picked a career that is so service oriented. I'm so happy to be where I am now. I am even more grateful for starting my career at Heritage. The knowledge I have from everything I did there has helped me so much.

I finished my training last week and I've now been on my own for 4 shifts. I really like being let loose on my own. It's great to train with my awesome coworkers and see how they do everything, but really there is nothing better than being able to do your own things on your own time and organize it your own way. It's been great.

Oh, and did I mention the best and worst parts? The best part: the shift starts at 7:00am instead of 6:00, and I don't have to wake up in the 4 o'clock hour anymore. I can sleep in until 5:45, take a shower, and drive to work with ample time to spare. The worst part: I get out of work at 7:30pm and sometimes later. So It's kind of a good and bad thing. I think the good outweighs the bad though. I'm loving sleeping later.

And that's that.

run!

Running Update:

Well, I still love running. Its great.

I finished the winter running series that I started in January. It was hard but it really motivated me. I have now completed a 5K, a 10K, and a 15K race! Pretty neat.

The 10K was my favorite by far. The weather was cold, slightly windy, and foggy. I'm not really sure why, but I was super motivated that day. I ended up running the entire thing without stopping! Yeah, I'm sure some people could walk faster than I ran parts of it, but I never stopped jogging along. It was great and it really made me love running more.

The 15K was miserable. We started the race with clear weather, and then 3 minutes into running, the wind and snow started. It was freezing cold, dark, foggy, and snowy. It snowed about 3 inches or so on the road while we were running. I was so cold for parts of it. I also stopped running the second half. I walked very fast, but I couldn't run. It was so hard and terrible. Every time I started to run again, the snow would blast me in the eyes and I would be blinded by the snow and by my pure hate for Utah. It really was miserable. I think that I will never want to run in the snow again. 

But I got my medal! It was great. It was worth it. If anything, this race series was worth it just so I could finish the races and figure out that I can finish them, even if I don't run really fast. 

What's planned for the future of Mindy's running? I'm hoping to find a half marathon pretty soon to do. I'll have to really train harder. It's been hard to keep up the running during the week. I want to find a marathon to do this summer. And then the 50 in October is still calling my name. Wish me luck and super human abilities.

I sure love running.

Dear Eligible Males,

Dear Eligible Males,

I'm here to talk to you about my roommate. You should marry her. Here are some reasons why.

She's a nurse. That's right! She's finished her four year degree. She has a full time, well paid position at a hospital that she loves. Benefits, YES! Health, dental, 401K. She's got that all taken care of. She's well off in the money department. She's got a pretty new car too, fellas. Marry her, and all this can be yours too.

Remember that four year degree? That means she's smart. But not just any degree. She's a Registered Nurse. She has a license to give drugs and stab people with needles. She went through the torture of nursing school and testing and she came out victorious. She's intelligent, can carry on a real conversation, and has a brain. All things lacking in most unmarried gals. 

Oh, and did I mention that she's trilingual?? Yeah, yeah, you went on a mission and learned Spanish? She can freaking speak English, Ukrainian, and Russian. 

She's pretty amazing when it comes to church things too. She's had 5 callings at once before. She's served a real mission, she is knowledgable in the scriptures and gospel, and actually likes going to church. She'll make intelligent comments in Sunday School. 

She's talented, oh man, is she talented! She plays the piano, mostly self taught, and can sing like an angel. She can cook amazingly difficult recipes and makes frozen yogurt. She MAKES it. She crochets, bead-works, and quilts. She was an interior design major for a while, so she's got an eye for making things beautiful.

She's funny. She's got an amazing laugh, she likes cheesy movies, her favorite color is purple, and she listens to mostly good music.  She even likes video games. The whole package, fellas.

She's beautiful too. She's addicted to chap stick, so you know she's got some great kissing lips!

Downside: she doesn't like chocolate or cheese. She's not into ice cream all that much either. But give her a frozen yogurt or something fruit flavored, and she's yours.

Seriously, dudes. How could you not be drooling right now?? 

So, get your acts together. She's the real deal.

5K

A few weeks ago my dad, the legendary ultra runner Davy Crockett, told me about a racing series this month that he was going to do. It started out with a 5K today, a 10K in two weeks, and in four weeks it'll be a 15K. Now, all these races are pretty optimistic for my actual ability, but after thinking about it, I decided to sign up and convinced my roommate Annalie to sign up with me.

Our reasoning behind this is that we need races to keep us going and to keep us motivated to improve. Like I said in my other post, if I quit now it will be so hard to start again, so I'm just never going to stop. I have to keep it up.

Today was our 5K. I was EXCITED all week for this. I knew I could do it, even if I had to stop to walk here and there, and I knew it would be exciting to run with other people. 

We ran at the Salt Palace in Salt Lake City. It was a warm 31 degrees this morning. (Warm for me! We have been running in 19 degree weather some days outdoors. I was happy it was so warm.)

Running was good. For the most part. It was a foggy foggy day and I was breathing a lot harder than normal. I ran pretty well! I stopped a few times for about 30 seconds or so, and then kept going. I ended up finishing about 38 minutes or so. Not too bad. I'll try harder next time.

It was fun. I'm excited for the next race in two weeks! Wahoo!

 

 

Bittersweet and Big

I am so excited to announce that I have accepted a position at Riverton Hospital on the Med/Surg unit. I probably literally danced around a whole bunch the day I found out. I'm so excited to continue in my career and learn more of what being a nurse is about.

I have loved my job at Heritage. Really and truly, most days I would come home and I would think about my patients and really care about my job. At first my job was so stressful and I would come home and just dissolve into tears, wondering if it was worth it. Then it became worth it once I knew what to do and how to do most things.

We had a nursing class reunion a few months after I started my job and I was able to talk with a bunch of people in my class about our jobs. I was THE ONLY ONE who could honestly say that I loved my job. I was so nervous about telling people I worked at a Care Center while they all worked at fancy hospitals. But guess what? I actually loved what I did. I felt so lucky.

Of course I didn't love every day. Some days were too stressful to remember and others were boring. There are things I wish I didn't have to worry about (like water heaters, supply deliveries, putting admits in the computer, answering phones, etc.) but I have learned to figure things out very quickly.

I always thought it would be the end of the world to work at a care center when I was in nursing school. But now I couldn't imagine a better start for my career. I have learned so much, used almost every single skill I've ever learned in school, and I've learned to rely on my team, my knowledge, and really care for patients. I've also learned to handle stress better than I ever have in my life.

What I'll miss most of all are my co-workers. I had the best managers, the most amazing CNAs, and some of the funnest conversations ever. I hope we'll all see each other here and there and I hope we'll work together one day. I met the best people ever. Like LaChelle, Sarah, Rebecca, Valeriia, Andrea, Chad, Jennifer, Greg, Nate, Aubrey, Brandy, Mandy, Lacey, Q, Val, Amy, and so many more that I know I'm forgetting. Amazing people. I can only hope that my new co-workers are half as awesome as these ones were.

I'm sad to leave. But I'm happy also. It's bringing a lot of thoughts and emotions. But all in all, I'm excited for my life. This is a huge change. Huge.

:D And I'm happy.

 

Obsessed

I found an obsession. 

In a million years I didn't think I would ever get obsessed with running. Wait, a billion years. 

Running and I have never been friends. We've been enemies since I can remember. Those mile runs in elementary school around the playground, playing soccer and the coach making us run a few laps around the field, running drills in basketball. "Fun runs" in jr high. So I picked swimming, a sport that didn't require any running. Until high school, when our team captains loved to torture us with runs. 

I think the farthest I ever ran and pushed myself in high school was a quarter mile. It was an "Indian run" that nearly made me throw up. 

I had knee problems in high school with swimming and so I didn't have to run anymore my senior year. I still worked hard at swimming and swam at state. But I was always so sad that I could never run.

My dad became obsessed with running in 2002 or so. His midlife crisis. Suddenly he was a trail runner and ran crazy distances. I thought he was crazy. I would mention it to friends and people I knew and they were amazed. Sometimes I even met people who read his blog and treated him like some sort of running celebrity.

In college I wanted to try running again. I signed up for the ROTC class and quickly learned that is was possible to throw up while you run. It was hard. I was embarrassed. So I bought a gym pass and tried to work out a couple more times a week in preparation for the Friday runs. I still couldn't do it and I knew I would fail the class, so I dropped out. I failed. It was depressing.

During nursing school, Annalie and I took up running for a bit but started out doing too much too soon and so I hurt my knees and stopped running. I had gotten to the point where I could say that I actually liked to run. But then it was too hard to start up again.

This last October, Annalie and I went to the Pony Express Trail 50 and 100 that my dad puts on. It was fun times camping and cheering. But we were sitting at the finish while people older than us were finishing 50 mile runs. It was inspiring to see how accomplished they felt afterwards and to see their determination. 

Annalie and I joked about running 50 next year. And in the middle of our joking it became a reality and the next week we laced up our shoes and headed out the door, running 45 second intervals to get us up to 10 minutes only four weeks later. 

Now that I have some specific goals and races in mind, like a 5K in a week and a half marathon in June. And of course, the 50 in October. I am obsessed with motivation for racing.

I live and breathe motivation. I'm not sure if its because I'm terrified of not accomplishing my goals. I really want this more than I've wanted anything in a long time. And failing is just not an option. I am not going to get this excited about something and start out with this much momentum and then quit or get set back or fail. I cannot do that. It would be the worst thing. 

I want to run. I want to keep running. I want to be a runner for good. This could be the best thing that has ever happened to me. It feels amazing.

So I'm obsessed. I have to be. I'm so happy at my progress and can't wait to keep going.