And my next stop is....

I realized the other day I haven't told anyone but my family where I am going next.  After many phone calls back and forth with my recruiter and a little bit of stress, I have decided to stay in Portland for another 13 weeks!! I am going to a different hospital, Providence Milwaukie (yes it is spelled this way), it is a super small hospital, only like 77 beds total and the ER only has 20 beds.  They are implementing the computer charting system my current hospital just went "live" with, so many of the travelers I currently work with will be heading to this hospital too.  I am glad the girls I have been getting to know here are staying, especially since we are heading into Spring and Summer and the weather will be much nicer to get out sightsee, camp, and hike (well I won't be hiking).  Since my last post nothing exciting has been happening. My days off have been random and I haven't been able to do do much other than some day activities.  The weather is finally turning a corner.  I never realized how much I needed a little bit of sun, until I didn't have any sun for about 10 weeks straight!! This week, it has been 60s and 70s and sun nonstop, it has been wonderful, considering my friends and family were just hit with a late winter/early spring blizzard.  I can say, I'm not sad I missed the blizzard this year!!

In 2 weeks I will be home for just a few days for my cousin's wedding.  To say I am excited to be home is an understatement!! I can't wait to see my family, especially my little nieces! Even though we utilize facetime as much as possible, it is not the same as seeing them in person. I love that they are excited to see me too, I was a little worried they would forget about their awesome Aunt Apple :)

For all of my photography savvy friends I am wanting to upgrade my camera, do any of you have any suggestions on what to purchase?  Also, do any of you photoshop your pictures?  Since I have been out here I have noticed that my camera doesn't quite capture all of the beautiful scenery, I have done a little bit of editing on iphoto, but it is still is not quite capturing the essence of Oregon.  I would take any suggestions!!

Happy Easter to everyone!!

Camping 101

This past weekend I went camping for 3 nights.  First rule of camping: look at the weather forecast prior to packing!  I packed clothes for a cool summer night, not a freezing spring night.  We arrived to the campground on Thursday afternoon, set up camp and then went to the beach.  By dusk, it was starting to cool off considerably and I was adding the layers.  Since camping is not my first love and fashion is, I had packed enough clothes that I could layer everything up and stay warm enough...so I thought!!  Since I had worked on Wednesday night and went straight to the campground I was going on no sleep, I went to bed early.  I took a double air mattress to sleep on because there was no way I was sleeping on the ground, did I mention this is also princess camping, I certainly thought I would be warm with a blanket, sleeping bag and an air mattress...WRONG!!  I woke up several times during the night so cold I could hardly move, after some minor adjustments to the position of my sleeping bag, I finally found warmth and was able to get some sleep.  When I woke up on Friday morning there was ice on my tent.  I never looked at the temp but I am guessing it dipped down into the low 30s upper 20s on Thursday night.  I think that some of the girls were expecting me to pack it up and go home on Friday, but I stayed and camped through till Sunday!! It was a lot of fun and can't wait to go back, I will definitely be packing a little different next time!! I loved that you could hear the waves hitting the shore from our campsite and it was so peaceful at night.  I am not going to lie, on several occasions I did have fleeting thoughts that I was going to be murdered in my sleep, I guess that is what watching Criminal Minds does to your psyche :-), all in all I felt safe the whole time.  We also weren't the only ones camping, there were actually a lot of people there this weekend so that also made me feel safe!!
The Beach at Cape Lookout State Park

 My tent and bed

 Our campfire

 Lots of yummy food

 Sunset over the mountains

Sunset over the ocean

 One of the girls brought glow sticks to decorate our campsite

 me waking up on Friday morning with ice on the tent...sooooo cold

 Our campsite at night with the glow stick chain

twenty-five things...

Life in Portland has been pretty quiet these past few weeks.  The hospital went "live" with their computer charting (which is the reason why I am here). I must say it went fairly flawless, they were very diligent about getting their staff educated and experienced with the new computer system and it made a huge difference.  I can also tell a difference in the staff's attitudes, the must have been really stressed about EPIC because they are so much nicer now that the "go live" has commenced!  I had a nice stretch of days off, unfortunately I came down with norovirus, so I spent all my time off on my couch and in my bed. It was not pleasant, but not nearly as bad as my patients act when they come to the emergency room.  Since I do not have any pictures or sightseeing adventures to post about, I thought I would do a "get to know me" blog.  Here is a list of 25 things you might not know about me!!

1. I hate to sweat
2. I am tone deaf
3. I spent 4 years in marching band never once playing my instrument while marching because I had to focus on keeping the pace marching ( I couldn't do both).
4. I am an online shopping junkie, I hate going to malls
5. My favorite color is pink
6. I love sequins, sparkles, and glitter
7. I absolutely have no desire to have kids and I don't feel bad about it
8. I love to watch tv
9. Sleeping is in my top 5 favorite things to do
10. If people talk to me for to long and its not a topic I am interested in, my mind turns to a screensaver
11. I have 5 tattoos and would like more
12. I love gay guys but lesbians intimidate me
13. I don't understand the mullet hairstyle and who are they going to that is recommending they keep that hair style
14. If I wasn't a nurse I would be a make-up artist
15. I loved living at my parents house the past two years
16. I think the book "The Catcher and the Rye" is one of the worst books I have ever read
17. I totally judge a book by the cover, if it has a cute cover, I am going to read it
18. I currently do not have a tv, I am watching all of my shows on the internet and I love it
19. I love all the "die hard" movies and can't wait to see the new one
20. As a nurse, I have decided that the general population is truly stupid
21. I went camping one time and liked it and have been wanting to do it again, which is amazing since I hate the outdoors
22. I think having an iphone is the closest I will get to having a personal assistant, I would be lost with out it
23. I spend way to much time on facebook and should be embarrassed by how much time I spend on facebook, but I'm not
24. I attempted to go hiking a few weeks ago, made it 5 minutes on the trail and turned around, went back to my car and read a book while my friends finished the trail
25. The older I get the easier it is for me to be honest with people and to speak my mind

This was way harder that I thought it would be!! Thursday and Friday of this week I am going camping with some of the other travelers down in Tillamook, OR.  The campground in on the beach, I am really excited, and the weather is suppose to be great!!

Picture day

No worries, this isn't like when we were in school and had to look our best for picture day.  I have more pics of my Oregon adventures to post.  These are just  a few...enjoy

Another one of Multnomah Falls.  It is one of the most beautiful places I have been.  There are actually trails around the falls you can hike.  I made about 30ft on the trail and turned around, hiking is not for me!

 This is Mt. St. Helen's.  I wish my pictures were better.  It was a cloudy and rainy day and this was as close as I could get up the mountain.  In Oregon and Washington you have to have chains on your tires to get to certain places and this is one of them.  I do not have chains for my tires so I was unable to get up the mountain.  Both Mt St Helen's and Mt Rainier are on my list of places to return before I leave.

 This is downtown Portland

 I have yet to actually visualize Mt Rainier, this is the national park that surrounds it.  I went to St Helens and Mt Rainier in the same day. By the time I made it to Rainier it was dark and I wasn't comfortable driving through the national park by myself!! This was as far as I went!!

 For anyone who read "50 Shades of Grey" this is the Heathman Hotel where the two love birds had romantic moments.  I thought if I stood outside for awhile I would find my own Christian Grey, unfortunately, one never came along ;-)

 This is on the Oregon Coast at Hug Point. I highly recommend the Oregon Coast as a vacation destination in the Summer, especially Cannon Beach, it truly is a beautiful place

 A cave in the coast line

I went to the coast on Monday with some of the other travelers.  While I was at Cannon Beach a sneaker wave came up and almost whisked me away.  Thankfully, I held my ground, however my flip flop was not so lucky, or so I thought.  After I had walked back to the car to get some other shoes, one of the girls I was with found my flip flop up on some rocks!! It was a great day on the coast, we ate lunch seaside and drove through a national forrest.  The scenery out here is great, I'm just not an outdoorsy kind of girl.

Portland...Whoa!!!

I have always considered myself a cultured country girl.  I have lived in big cities and never really thought that I could be shocked by my surroundings, boy was I wrong!  I have been in Portland for a month now (my apologies to my 3 readers for just getting around to updating :-) ) and I have decided that the people here march to their own beat!!  To say that Portland is laid back is an understatement, the people here care about the environment but don't care that people are walking around half dressed.  This is the land of the hippies and I understand why.  My poor conservative background wants to run from this city screaming!

My work schedule is fantastic.  I usually work several days on, then have a block of days off, which I use to sightsee.  So far, I have been to the Oregon coast, Mt St. Helen's, Mt Rainier, Multnomah Falls.  I have also been learning my way around Portland via public transportation, which I love.  The hospital I work at is very similar to Carle in size and patient population.  The ER has fewer patients and the patients are not nearly as sick as I would see at Carle.  I am grateful for this on my first assignment because it has given me the chance to adjust to being so far from home without the stress of work.  The staff have also been incredibly kind, welcoming and helpful to the travelers.  Most of the Oregon hospitals are switching over to a computer charting system through August, I have yet to decide if I want to stay through August.  I have a couple of weeks.

My mom and I had a great time on our road trip out here!! She was a great navigator and kept me calm through the mountains and I kept her calm going over the bridges throughout the city.  The bridges in Portland are like none I have ever seen, but I have never been to New York or San Francisco.  Even I had anxiety the first few times going over them!!  There are many reasons I think my mom is the greatest, but spending the week with her, made realize how special and rare it is to have a great mom and a best friend all in one.  I have really missed her being so far away, but we get to facetime via our iphones and it makes the distance short when we can see each other.  My nieces love to facetime too, and I love seeing their cute little faces!!

Portland is famous for its beer and microbreweries, and I am not ashamed to say that I have been indulging in the different flavors.  IPA is big out here and it is my least favorite type of beer.  In fact, I would say that I really don't like an IPA at all.  IPAs are a very hoppy beer and in Portland, they love their Hops.  They love to shove as much hops and possible into the beer and just when they have enough, they shove more in.  Being a wheat beer girl, I am having a hard swallowing all the hops, literally.  It is like freshman year in college when I was acquiring a taste for beer, now I have to acquire a taste for hops.  As a beer lover, it is distressing to me that I am not adjusting well to all the hops!!  I have 9 more weeks to get it together!!!

Here are some pictures I have taken since arriving

For movie lovers, this is the Haystack, it can be seen in the movie Goonies.  It is in Cannon Beach!!

 Multnomah Falls, my pictures do not do it justice!! It is beautiful there.

Voodoo doughnut is an Institution in Portland, a must see and eat!!

 Classic Portland, they are everywhere!

2 days and counting...

I can't believe I am a mere 48 hours away from hitting the road.  I still have so much to do.  The anxiety has not set in yet. I am sure that will come on Saturday when I am peeling out of Hoopeston.  My co-workers made my last shifts at Carle amazing.  There were lots of hugs and good byes.  I love my Carle co-workers and will miss them dearly.  They taught me so much about emergency nursing and I will cherish all the education that was given to me by them.  I have also been blessed to be able to have some really goodbye dinners with all of my loved ones.  No matter what happens on this journey it is so good to know that I am loved and that there are people at home thinking and praying for me to have a successful adventure over the next weeks, months and years!!  Off to more laundry and packing...

Moments that change your life

There are moments in everyone's life that change the way you think, feel, behave and how you view the world.  I wouldn't be getting ready to start this new adventure if I hadn't been on vacation this past fall.  I am just a short 10 days away from hitting the road and I can honestly say that if I had not vacationed in Grand Cayman this past October, I might not be taking this chance in life.  I am posting a verse from a healing healthcare class I took several years ago, that was also a life changing moment.  I still have my starfish and I carry it with me most days...

HE STARFISH STORY

Once there was a wise man who used to go to the ocean to do his writing. He had a habit of walking on the beach before he began his work. One day, as he was walking along the shore, he looked down the beach and saw a human figure moving like a dancer. He smiled to himself at the thought of someone who would dance to the day, and so, he walked faster to catch up. As he got closer, he noticed that the figure was that of a young man, and that what he was doing was not dancing at all. The young man was reaching down to the shore, picking up small objects, and throwing them into the ocean. He came closer still and called out "Good morning! May I ask what it is that you are doing? "The young man paused, looked up, and replied "Throwing starfish into the ocean." "I must ask, then, why are you throwing starfish into the ocean?" asked the somewhat startled wise man. To this, the young man replied, "The sun is up and the tide is going out. If I don't throw them in, they'll die." Upon hearing this, the wise man commented, "But, young man, do you not realize that there are miles and miles of beach and there are starfish all along every mile? You can't possibly make a difference!" At this, the young man bent down, picked up yet another starfish, and threw it into the ocean. As it met the water, he said, "It made a difference for that one."

Adapted from The Star Thrower
by Loren Eiseley