3 Things

List 3 joys, 3 fears, 3 goals, 3 current obsessions/collections, 3 random surprising facts about yourself. Tag 3 people at the end of your post by leaving their names.



3 Joys


1. Cuddling. I love to cuddle. This mostly refers to cuddling my husband, Spencer. But I also love to cuddle dogs, especially mine. I also love to cuddle with my family. My brother-in-laws refer to me and my sisters as cats. When we lived together when we were younger, we often would all cuddle together on the couch. Yep. All of us. It was like a pile of kittens. You know, when they all lay together and are all tangled up. That was my favorite. Cuddling is especially nice when you are sick, tired, sad, cold, or high from drugs after surgery. It is especially nice on a Sunday afternoon.












2. Riding horses. There is nothing in the whole world like it. It is truly something that I was meant to do. I especially love it when I am outside alone. There is something magical about you and a horse moving together as one in beautiful fluid motion. It is a spiritual experience. Something like man bonding with nature...






3. Comfort foods. This includes things like bean burritos, tuna noodle casserole, chicken divan, and of course, Coke. These things are especially nice when I am not the one making them. They are best when they are made by my mom and at my parent's house. I can't explain it, but you all know what I am talking about. And the food is even better when you are sad or sick or something like that.


3 Fears

1. Suffocation/Drowning. I am afraid of gasping for air. If you have ever tried to hold your breath for a long time, you have experienced the body's strong will to live. You will take a breath even when you tell yourself not to. There are receptors in your body that know when you are short in oxygen and high in carbon dioxide and it tells you to breathe. When people are drowning they attempt to breathe under water and breathe in water. How scary would that be. This is why am I also scared of the open ocean. Imagine flying over the ocean in a plane and crashing. You miraculously survive the crash, but now you are out in the middle of the ocean. You can only swim so long. And then you will wear out and then drown. People think of sharks and stuff in the open ocean. Usually they are not an issue because they aren't out that far in the ocean. I'm talking about the experience of knowing that you are going to die and not being able to do anything about it. I read a statistic that something like 62% of deaths are some sort of suffocation. When it be strangling or drowning or carbon monoxide poisoning, etc. I bet that it is even higher than that. In nursing, we have a set of priorities in life threatening events. It is called the ABC's. Airway, Breathing, Circulation. This represents what you need to do first. Airway is the most important thing and then breathing. A lot of people think that it is most important to do chest compressions and get the heart pumping first. This is false. Without oxygen there is no point. That is why the heart and blood are so important. They transport oxygen. If you don't have oxygen, you die. I have seen many people die. When we withdraw support, they usually die because we took out the tube that was breathing for them. I watch them gasp for air. And they literally drown in their own sputum. Oxygen hunger is very disturbing to watch. So I think that most people die of some sort of suffocation. And I am scared of it. I'm not really scared of dying, but I am scared of that feeling of the absolute need for oxygen. I cannot even imagine how horrifying that feeling would be. And the fear is not even created by your thoughts, it is actually a fear that your body has.

2. Being in an accident and having my family keep me alive even though I have major brain injury. I'm afraid of being completely non-functional and mentally disabled and not even knowing it. I am afraid of being in a nursing home, all curled up in a ball from posturing, and getting nasty pressure ulcers. Then I get all septic and go in and out of the hospital forever. The nurses all feel so bad for me and know that I would be better off dead. My family not even visiting me because I wouldn't know if they were there or not anyways. Costing my family all of this money to keep me alive when I would so much rather be dead. And wasting time and resources and being in so much pain. Please don't keep me alive to a life like that. Let me go on to the next life. (I am also afraid of waking up in my old trauma ICU. I used to have nightmares about it. I would dream about my co-workers making fun of my anatomy. Of my co-workers putting things in my bum and cleaning up my stinky poo, because all trauma patients get super stinky poo and BO. It was horrible! I haven't had those nightmares about my new unit yet. And actually, there aren't as many males in this unit, so I think that it would be less embarrassing somehow.) I am also scared of liver failure. Seriously, just let me die if I get bad liver failure. I do NOT want to try to live through a transplant.

3. Mirrors in the dark freak me out, too. I copied my sister Nat on this one. Although, I think that it was her that made me scared of them. When we were little, we used to watch Unsolved Mysteries and tell ghost stories to get scared. I guess that being scared was somehow fun. I remember her or one of her friends telling scary stories about mirrors. Something about devil worshipping and freaking things that happened to people that they actually knew. I have been kinda scared of them ever since. Especially if there is a light reflecting in it at night. Freaky!


3 Goals

1. To make lots of new good friends here in Buffalo, New York.

2. To find an outdoor adult soccer league and lacrosse league.

3. To blog more


3 Current obsessions/collections



1. Dog hair. We have samoyeds. They have a lot of hair. Ergo we collect white hair. It collects on everything. It is amazing to me the places that I find it. Right now, Mia is shedding and there is huge chunks of hair all over. You can tell where we have been outside because she leaves a little trail of hair.

2. Sudoku. I love it. And I get obsessed with finishing a puzzle once I have started it.

3. Shaving. When I shave my legs or my patient's face, I am completely OCD about getting every single last hair. It drives me nuts. I sometimes nick my patient's face or give them razor burn because I HAVE to get that one, last hair.


3 Random Surprising Things

1. I will miss working nights a little bit. It isn't as busy. Families and doctors don't get in your way. You have more time to sit and talk with your co-workers. You get more fresh traumas at night. There is nothing like working a Saturday night. Night workers aren't as mean or nasty. There seems to be a better bond with night workers.

2. I was really picky about food when I was little. Things that I hated as a kid, I now love. I never thought that that would happen.

3. I sometimes wish that I had chosen a different profession. I would love to do something outside, I think. I would really love to be a photographer. How cool would it be to take pictures of animals all over the world?! I also used to want to be a lightning photographer. I saw a special on it once and I was completely interested.


Tag 3 people

1. Ashley

2. Lexi Poo

3. Liz

I hate tagging, so you don't have to feel obligated to do it. And some of you may have already done it and I just don't remember.

Preseason: Bills vs. Colts

Camp is over now and things are starting to get back to normal. We packed everything up from Rochester and moved it back to Orchard Park. I was only home two days before work took me away from home again, but this time it was only for a couple of days.

We flew out on Saturday to Indianapolis to play the Colts in a preseason game. It was really exciting because it was the first game played in their new Stadium, Lucas Oil Stadium.

Saturday night we went to a really nice steak house called St. Elmo's. They have really good steak and shrimp cocktail.

Sunday night was the game. Here are some pictures that I took:

Here are some pictures from the Bills' website:

The game was really fun and the stadium was packed. The roof is retractable, so for the first half they had it open and then for the second half they shut it.

We didn't get back to Buffalo until 3:30 AM, so I was really tired the next day. It was worth it though, because I saw Peyton Manning in person. He was injured, so he didn't play. I think he was just chicken.

We ended up winning 20-7.

Dusk in Orchard Park

We live in a really beautiful area. I am grateful for it every single day. I was scared that we were going to move into a big city and live in an apartment right in the middle of it. But we are away from all of the hustle and bustle. Orchard Park is a small, quiet town. In fact, everything closes by 9 pm. Where we live specifically is really pretty and just perfect for us.

Every night I walk the dogs around the lake. There is something so peaceful and serene about water at dusk. I don't know what it is, but it is almost like the whole world stops. It makes problems seem trivial and makes me very calm. It is my favorite part of the day. I like it best when Spencer is home and we walk together.

While he was home this weekend, I finally took some pictures. They don't do it justice, but I tried. They came out a lot darker than it actually was.

Here's the lake.



Here are some ducks.



This is a dock. People fish here a lot. When there aren't people here, I sometimes dangle my feet in the water.



This is looking across to the other side of the lake.



And this is an area that I like to talk on the phone with Spencer or my family. There are a few rabbits that live here. They hang out with me sometimes.




There are also benches around the lake. I like to go there and read. The area is nostalgic to me. It reminds me of Palasades Lake when I was little. It has brought me a lot of comfort while I have been in this new place alone.

We really got lucky with this place that we chose to live. It is really beautiful. And we have found some friends in some of our neighbors. We barbecue and watch football and the Olympics. We move into our final place in about two weeks and I think that things are going to be alright here.

Our Date

Spencer has been in Rochester and I have been in Buffalo. So we have been apart for about a month now. It has been really hard. It is a lot like when we were dating because we dated long distance for over two years. Plus the two years while he was on his mission. We have been fortunate to see each other about once a week, though. So we have been doing alright.

He was here this weekend because the Bills had the weekend off. So we had a date. We ate grilled cheese and Ramen noodles (because we're poor after moving across the whole flippin' country). And then we went to the park next to our house and played Bocce Ball. There are actual courts in the park. Here is the sign with the courts behind it.




Here I am playing.



And Spence playing.



It even has a score-keeper. We found some twigs to use to keep track.



Here is the final play. I won!



And here is the final score, 22-13. It is nice to actually beat Spencer at something.




Being apart has made actual dates a little bit more important. It's nice to go on real dates.

We also bought Madden Football 2009 at the most random place. 7-Eleven! Yeah, it's so weird that they even have it there. And they had it really cheap if you bought a Snickers bar. So we broke down and bought it. We love to play Madden. I especially love it because I kick Spencer's butt at it. It's really funny because he is Mr. Football, and I almost always win. But he is better at Dance Dance Revolution...so it all equals out.

We have both been really busy with our new jobs and settling into the area. We will try to blog more, especially me. I need to back-blog a lot, too. So don't give up on us yet...

I am really grateful for all of the wonderful opportunities that we have had. It has been really hard, especially to be away from my sweetheart for such a long time. But it has also been an awesome experience. What a great chance to really learn and grow. We have grown even closer and we appreciate each other even more than we did before. I think that we are a special couple because of all of the things that we have had to overcome. I know that together we can handle anything that comes our way. Knowing this brings me a lot of peace. I love Spencer more than anything and I am so grateful to be going through life with him. I can't imagine it any other way. We truly were meant to be. And these challenges have made that even more clear.

Papa Bush

Bush and Kerrie had their baby yesterday just after 4:00 PM. Her name is Brylee Chase Scott. She weighed about 7 lbs. 4 oz. When I talked to Bush yesterday he said everything was going well.







Congratulations Bush and Kerrie! We wish we could be there.