sunflowery's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yet One More Thing to Tell You In checking out available jobs in the Pensacola area, I came across this: "COTTAGE PARENTS The Florida Sheriffs Boys Ranch, a private residential childcare program in North Florida, is looking for team to be full-time professional Cottage Parents. Responsibilities include the direct care and development of 10 boys, ages 8-18. We provide you with specific professional skill based training & support. Our model helps children develop social, academic, and independent living skills. Salary, housing, utilities, board, and benefits provided. High school diploma or GED required and adults only For more information on this challenging opportunity contact:Linda EOE/Drug Free Workplace." Hmmmm...that sounds like us, doesn't it? If you read back, doesn't that sound like what we wanted to do with Mary Jo Copeland and her children's home? Yes, it does. Just for the heck of it, I will send an email off and see what happens. Sounds just perfect. I can't believe I am seriously considering this. Freaky! _________________________________________________ A Year Ago Today: February 28, Gallbladders and Grocery Shopping in Hell I�m back...did you even know I was gone? Wednesday morning, I awoke at 4:00am with a dull throbbing pain in my right side, just under my rib. I thought maybe it was gas and go to use the bathroom. My husband is up because he is in pain. He can only sleep about 3 hours straight. Then he is up for about 2 hours until the pain goes away. Then back to bed for another 3 hours sleep. He hears me in the bathroom and says good morning. I grunt in response. 20 minutes and no bathroom production later, I am still in pain. I go to the living room and lay on the couch. My husband asks what is wrong...I don�t know. I writhe and fidget in ever growing agony. He suggests calling my doctor�s office. I call and get the doctor on call. She suggests going to the emergency room. I report back to my husband what she said. She thinks It�s the gallbladder. Instead of going to the emergency room, I try to go back to bed until the doctor�s office opens. No good. 20 minutes later, we are getting dressed and are on our way to the emergency room. The ER is packed. It�s 5:30am and the next shift of doctors and nurses comes in at 7. They tag and smock me and tell me to wait. I give blood (5 vials!) and we wait. Around 6:45, a doctor comes in to say he�s leaving and the next doctor will check in with me, but in the meantime, they will do an ultrasound to see if It�s gallstones or not. I call my boss at home to say I�m not coming to work today as I am in the emergency room. They have call waiting and they believe me! Around 8am, I am wheeled to the ultrasound place. It hurts when they press that thing into your ribs! But I got to see my kidneys and that was cool! They wheel me back to my room and the new doctor comes in and introduces himself. Says they are waiting for the blood and ultrasound tests to come back. And we wait. And we wait. And we wait. And we wait. In the meantime, some loud guy in the hall is screaming and swearing at his police escort that he is psychotic and needs a cigarette. He sounds like he is going to haul off and start tearing the place apart ala ER. I�m just waiting for him to crash through the door on my room and start stabbing my husband and I. But thankfully, no such thing happens. The doctor pokes his head in the room to say they are still waiting for the ultrasound results, but that the blood tests all came back normal. So we wait some more. Then a nurse pokes her head in to say they are still waiting for the ultrasound results. So we wait. In the meantime, my pain goes away. The doctor comes back to say they are still waiting. I tell him my pain is gone. He says I can get dressed. Yay! We wait some more. FINALLY the doctor comes back and says they didn�t find anything wrong with my gallbladder, kidneys, stomach, or intestines. So what the heck was causing me to writhe in pain for 4 hours straight? No one knows. He said to schedule a check up with my regular physician for follow-up and if the pain comes back, here is a nice little prescription for Vicodine. Did I fail to mention my allergy to Codeine? Did the doctor fail to notice the bright red allergy alert armband on my left hand? I think he did. We leave the hospital at 10:30am! We fill the prescription, go home and collapse in bed. That was my Wednesday. Thursday was another day off due to lack of sleep and just plain exhaustion. Did you know that pain takes a lot of energy to deal with? Well it does! In order to fully enjoy my second day off, my husband and I decided to go run errands. We did all the exciting ones, like get gas ($1.69/gal!), run to the bank, grab a sandwich (Arby�s) and then to the grocery store. Good thing we weren�t hungry. We ALWAYS buy crap when we go to the grocery store on empty stomachs. SB wanted salad, so I looked at the bagged salads and realized that we can get 3 heads of lettuce for the price of one bagged salad. So I put the bagged salad back and get a head of iceberg for SB, a head of spinach and a head of Romaine for me. All for cheaper than 1 bag of iceberg lettuce! Go me! We get all our stuff and as I�m heading for the checkout, I notice that line #4 was completely empty! So as I make a beeline for #4, a woman and her brood of offspring is in my way. At first she is looking like she is just passing by on her way to the candy aisle, but NO! She cut me off and instead of letting me pass in front of her to line #4; she herself pushes her overflowing cart and offspring in line #4! Denied! No apology, not even a hint of acknowledgement! If her kids grow up and start treating her like crap, she has no complaint. Then the woman at the checkout had an attitude as well. My husband and I have a rhythm. He stays by the cash register making note of the charges while I go to the end of the line and bag all our stuff. (MN doesn�t have very many stores that bag groceries for you.) At one point SB noticed that we were paying $3.80 for something called Spring Mix and how pricey that was. The cashier ignored him, but I said we didn�t buy spring mix. We bought spinach, and 2 heads of lettuce. The cashier ignored me. SB got her attention again and asked her to double check the spring mix price, as we didn�t buy spring mix. She then got all pissy and asked me to bring the lettuce and spinach back down to her for her to double check. I did, she realized she was wrong and fixed her mistake. But the rest of our check out went badly. She skipped a couple of our coupons citing that we didn�t get those items. SB argued with her, saying we did and we had to dig them out of our bags to show her. Customer satisfaction was not a priority at Cub yesterday. We got home, I cut up the lettuce and bagged it and we are set for salads. Today was back to work and a TON of it had piled up. Thankfully, I caught up and can update my journal here. Oh�SB and I are planning our summer vacation. We are renting a cabin in the far North of MN in a city called Ely. It�s spelled ELY, but pronounced EE-LEE. Anyway, we got a cabin right on the lake and it includes a pontoon boat with motor and a canoe! It�s very affordable and we are psyched! Can�t wait to hear the loons. SB can�t wait to see the stars and light a campfire. We are taking the first week of June off. Our calendars are marked, our works duly notified, and our deposit sent in. It�s official! Woo hoo! Tonight�working on my knitting and watching the stuff I taped last night.
1:15 a.m. - Saturday, Feb. 28, 2004 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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