Not All Sunsets and Fine Wine

My house plants are wilted and begging for water, laundry is piled waist high, clutter has overtaken every flat surface available, the refrigerator is home to new species of funk never meant to be edible and if I don't remember to order contacts tomorrow, I will soon be walking around without the gift of sight.  

My immune system is fighting valiantly to overcome the last viral assault launched my direction by a patient that actually PULLED DOWN HER MASK, turned towards me and coughed.  (Yep. Turns out "mask wearing" is a special skill not all are qualified for).  My body knows when to call uncle and retreat into a mini coma, which is how I've spent the last few days. You know I'm sick when my husband seeks refuge in the guest room and sends the dog in to sleep next to me.  It's the equivalent of sending a parakeet in with the miners down the mine shaft.  "If the dog's okay, she's okay."

I picked up too many shifts this month and these are the consequences. Everything is dirty, undone, dying or neglected.  Life has been shrunk down to a world that can be summed up in 3 words: work, sleep, repeat. Every minute is accounted for, every moment assigned.

Yet -- in the midst of the chaos, there is a level of validation that helps me find my smile.  There's a certain satisfaction in knowing that I can still keep up with the big dogs at work.  I may not eat, sleep and dream emergency nursing like I once did - but I haven't lost my touch, either.

And in an odd way, it's nice to know that things fall apart at home without me.  The dogs forget their manners, the goats lose their ever livin' minds, the chickens nearly starve to death (they won't come out of hiding even to eat for fear of running into a half-crazed goat) and my husband is counting down the days until he gets his wife (and clean laundry) back.  It's proof that, in some small way, my existence really does make a difference -- and that's enough for me.

To the rest of you nightshift working, family raising, full time nurses out there: You are ahhhh - mazing!!!  I promise to never judge your messy house, empty frig, the fact you fell asleep during your child's last dance recital or that time you wore two different shoes to work.

In all honesty, I hide from the goats, too.  If they see me, they start screaming at me to come play with them and don't stop until I do.  Goats are acutely alert and freakishly smart.  They know I put my eye contacts in every day and keep an eye through the window so they know when to start yelling for attention -- yes, EVERY single day.

A New Roost

The best things in life rarely come easy.  There is something about the struggle that embeds meaning, grips our soul and connects us to the parts of life we value most.  Marriage.  Children.  Careers.  None of it is easy but most of us can't imagine our lives without them.

Life has taught me to surround myself with goodness and beauty.  It keeps me alive and feeds my spirit.  I anchor it with truth.  Without the truth, nothing is real, so I cling to it as if it just might be the single thread holding us all together.  These are the goals I aspire to. This is how I want my life to be carved.  Simple.  Real.  Beautiful.  Full of goodness.  Full of love.

I'm not petitioning for sainthood and I don't always live up to my own expectations.  I don't claim to be perfect.  There are days that I don't even feel 'good enough.' We all fall down.  We all have bad days, myself included.  I make mistakes, too.  It happens.  It just means that we can be better or do better next time.  Most of us are able to rise above, endure and find ways to recenter ourselves.  We recalibrate.  We start over.  We pull each other towards goodness. We move on.  We grow into better humans.

I haven't been writing as much lately because I have been very busy with a new job.  I transferred from the first hospital that launched my nursing career to one that is a lot bigger and a little closer.  The truth is, leaving my old job was heartbreaking.  Things had changed to the point that I had begun questioning why I had ever become a nurse in the first place.  I know.  The enormity of that statement is not lost on me.  It was a very big deal.  I needed to recenter myself.  I needed to seek out goodness and a place that supported the ideals that I believe in.  I needed to let go of what once was so I could reach out and find what I needed.

I'm not going to lie, it was terrifying.  I'd been in one place for 7 years and they were the hardest but best 7 years of my adult life.  All established nurses know that nursing school teaches you to pass the boards - all real nursing skills come from "Boots (ah, Danskos rather) on the Ground" action.  Understanding the pathophysiology of multiple disease processes is swell but it doesn't really teach you what you need to do when a doc orders a STAT dose of lasix at midnight on a demented patient with Sundowner's who is suppose to be on full bed rest.

Nursing school doesn't prep you for specialty areas, like emergency nursing.  You learn all of that from your endearing coworkers and supervisors who build your skills and support you like you have your own personal education and cheerleading squad.  Leaving meant letting go, jumping the nest, flying the coop.  Walking away from all of those genuinely wonderful people and that amazing team was one of the hardest, scariest things I've done.  I still can't talk about it without my eyes filling up with tears.  (Crap, tear wipe. Sniff.)

Ok.  Deep breath.  The point of my story is that I did it and it was a great decision.  I love my job again.  I love showing up.  I love being a nurse.  I love working around ER medicine and ER patients.  I love my new coworkers and manager.  It's still a hard job.  It's still scary sometimes.  It's suppose to be.  It's often what we do or don't do that means the difference between someone living and someone dying.  We all take that very seriously and it's that purposeful teamwork that I love most.  I enjoy learning new skills from other nurses that do things a different way.  It feels good to dust off these Danskos and spread my wings a little.  It feels so good and I love it so much, in fact, that I'm picking up many more shifts than usual.  I've been working just shy of what a full time position would be which is why I've been so busy.  I believe those hours will decrease as open shifts become less available in the next few weeks but for now, I'm a little worker bee.

This also means I have a pile of unfinished projects, my house is a wreck, laundry is backed up and all of the hilarious stories I have to share are protected by HIPPA laws and will never get to leave my own head.  Bummer.  There are some good ones!  Did I mention I love my job?!

A Fine Tuning

I grew up writing every day.  Not until a thought travels down a neuropathic network into the fingertips and out does it truly find fruition.  It's my catch and release.  If I don't get thoughts or ideas out; they ruminate, grow, expand and take over until there is gridlock.  Wine is pretty good at erasing most of them but too much wine is rarely a good thing.  (Take note:  I said RARELY.  Not never.)

I cut back my hours at work to invest in the things that matter most to me last year - my family, my dogs, my friends, my home and even myself.  Don't get me wrong.  I love what I do.  I find great peace and joy in being a nurse, especially an emergency room nurse.  I love helping patients.  It's important we all recognize our strengths and nursing is mine.  It keeps me thinking; it connects all the dots for me.  It gives me strength and reminds me of all the little things we tend to overlook -- like what a miracle life is in the first place and how everything can change so quickly that we don't even see it coming.  I enjoy making people feel better and if we can't get them better, at least we can bring them comfort. 

BUT...

It's a demanding job.  I don't half-ass things.  When I am at work, I am giving 100%.  There is no autopilot.  There is no "taking it easy" for the day.  I work with amazing people and we all care about our patients.  We may beat our head against the wall after caring for a few but it's because we care that we are so frustrated.  If we didn't care, they wouldn't matter.  They do.  A strong team is self-supportive.  We feed off of each other's energy and we give it back.  It's a reciprocal collaboration.

When the team is broken and there is no energy left to give, it's time to seek another source for replenishment.  We lost a significant part of our team and we lost them all at once.  We lost the cornerstones and cheerleaders.  We lost the people we count on most to hold us up when we are too tired to stand on our own.  We lost our strongest leaders.  With each exit, the void grew.  It's not that the replacements aren't good nurses themselves, it's that it takes a little bit of time to build a connection like that and we were pummeled.

So I cut back.  I rebalanced my equation.  I invested in the parts of my life that have a guaranteed return.  It was an odd transition and not always joyful.  Letting go of something that has always been such a giant part of me was a little bit alienating.  I realized that I didn't really know how to be myself without it and there were moments of, "Oh my God.  Who AM I?"  (Thank goodness I still work often enough to circumvent most of those moments.)

It's also come with moments so full of pure joy and happiness that I can't believe I didn't do this a very long time ago.  The other side of my brain is waking up.  I want to create.  I want to write.  I want to grow things.  I want to be alive.  I want to taste new foods and see new places.  I remember why I married that cute boy I met 20 years ago.  I want to gaze at the stars and watch every beautiful sunset from beginning to end.  I want to wonder about things and then go explore them.  I want to feel connected to that energy we all call by different names.  And it's happening.  Each day has new purpose.  I'm waking up.  I'm remembering how to be me.  I feel present for conversations that were taking place all around me that I never noticed before.  I watched my mostly non-verbal 3 year old nephew with Down's Syndrome communicate all day with a dog that would usually rather hang out with other dogs than humans.  They have their own language and it was amazing to watch.  It gave me goosebumps and I'm so glad I didn't miss it.

So I'm tuning up my blog in hopes to stretch a little more of that goodness out of myself.  The more I write, the less stagnated my mind feels and the more alive I feel.  It takes practice to sustain a good flow of thoughts and I am not a bestselling author to be sure.  I am rusty.  So bear with me while I practice, practice and practice.  I think there are some pretty amazing ideas stuck in this head.  It's just a matter of bringing them to life.

Too Much Truth, Not Enough Fiction

(This event occurred a significant time ago and has been waiting in the "draft" folder until details of the event have become obsolete in context to protect the privacy of those involved.)

A paramedic may have saved my life.  I wasn't sick.   I didn't call 911.  I'm a nurse in a rural hospital who was working an ER shift in the wrong place at the wrong time.  A voluntary psych patient walked into our doors with police escort.  The patient wasn't under arrest and didn't want to be seen. Legally, that patient has a right to walk out that door.  A quick assessment of the situation told me that the patient was both a threat to self and others.  Threatening statements, aggressive stance, diaphoresis, verbalizing ideas incongruent with reality; I needed to get this patient out of our packed lobby and away from the other patients.  So I did my job.  I used my limited psych nursing skills to lure and coax the patient back into our pseudo psych room.

I say pseudo because I work in a tiny emergency room and we don't have the space for an official psychiatric ER room.  This room is our back up gyno room for pelvic exams, sutures and general emergency department patients as well.  There are scalpels, stitch cutters, razors, wires, tubing, monitors, metal tray tables, IV and oxygen supplies, suction tubing, IV poles and other supplies that can all be used as weapons against us.  Even the wire shelving can be ripped from the wall and used to hurt us.  But like I said, the patient arrived in the waiting room without warning, so the room wasn't emptied prior to arrival.
 
The officer had no back up.  He was a friend of the patient's family and really just wanted to get this patient some help.  Let no good deed go unpunished.  The situation escalated quickly to the point of out of control.  An ambulance, by chance, had just dropped off a different patient.  In 3 seconds time, all of the cording in the wall had been ripped out, an ER stretcher thrown, a cop and RN locked behind a glass door with the unstable patient loose in the middle of the ER.  That fast.  In a millisecond, I realized this psychotic patient was in control and the gravity of the situation took hold.

I'm not going to lie.  It was the most terrifying moment of my nursing career.  I never saw it coming, I thought I was following all of the safety guidelines.  I was keeping the officer between me and the patient, I was aware of my space and exits, I was thinking ahead of what needed to be removed from the room.  But it was THAT fast.  The patient could have killed me.  That patient could have killed everyone in that ER.  All of the could haves, would haves and should haves went through my mind in an instant.  I don't know who unlocked the door.  I don't remember getting out.  I remember calling the front desk and asking for police backup "NOW" and the paramedic grabbing his radio and saying, "I've got it," some arguing, a taser sound and the same paramedic lunging across the ER to help the officer take this patient down.  Police back up walked through the door and it took 6 strong men to hold this patient down until the medications began to take effect 40 minutes later.

Yes, people.  That is your mental healthcare system.  FYI:  there really isn't one.  The system is overloaded.  When we called facilities for a psych bed, we got put on a waiting list 48 hours out - which means this patient was going to be staying in the ER for 2 more days with 1:1 nursing at the bedside.  It means the 7 bed ER is now down to 1 nurse and 6 beds with a very valid threat looming near.  It means that the patient experiencing the first real psychotic break in their lifetime isn't receiving the ideal psych care or medical treatment.  It means that everyone who walks into that ER is walking into harms way; patients, nurses, doctors, lab, radiology techs, respiratory therapists, visitors, housekeeping, kitchen staff, paramedics, etc.

This wasn't a drug induced psychosis that would wear off like with the "bath salts" being laced into meth.  This was a real, textbook, schizophrenic psychotic break.  Alert and oriented to some extent with grandiosity, delusions and violent threats escalating to violent behavior.  There is no reasoning, bargaining or placating.  This person is the most dangerous patient we see in the ER because they are unpredictable and have no limitations to the acts they are willing to commit for unknown reasons. Bargaining and rationalizing go out the window quickly when attempted with someone with limited comprehension of reality.  They can be easy going and cracking jokes while strangling you with electrical cords.

But it's the ER.  There's no time to stop.  There's not time to think.  We all stuff it into that bottomless pit of a place that allows us to keep going and we move on.  There's no time to think about anything but your next patient, your next order.  We were busy resetting a hip, orthoglassing a fracture, oxygenating an overdose, transferring a hemorrhage, ruling out a pulmonary embolism and triaging every patient that walked through our doors in 3-5 minutes or less while attending our psych patient and doing our best because each of us can imagine ourselves in the place of our patients, or their families, and we just want to do our best for them.

I'm writing this knowing very well that I won't be able to share it until the specifics of the event are blurred to protect the privacy of the patients.  We aren't allowed to discuss events like this, even with fellow coworkers that weren't involved in the case.  We can't tell our spouses.  We can't discuss particulars or specifics.  The patient that threatened to kill me, attacked a cop he knew on a friendly basis and destroyed an ER room has more rights than I do and I can't share any information about anything without a subpoena and even then, a lawyer needs to review with me what I can and can't say. So I mixed a few facts up here just to keep it legal.

I feel for the psych patient.  I feel for the family.  I can't even imagine how frightening an event like this must be.  But mostly, I am grateful.  I am grateful for the paramedic that literally jumped across the ER to save my ass before a cop could even unholster his weapon.  I know how much worse it could have been.  I can't tell you how many times the scene has played out in my mind with different endings and bigger headlines.

I'm hoping our psych patient gets the appropriate care.  I'm hoping our administration understands the need for more security and a better intake system for these patients.  I'm hoping that law enforcement takes a closer look at their "voluntary" transport and drop off protocols.  I'm hoping to educate the general public about how messed up our system is and that some of you will get involved and make changes.  Just because we aren't allowed to discuss these issues doesn't mean it isn't a huge problem. It is.  HIPPA and privacy protection laws just prevent anyone from knowing about it.

I'm so thankful for our EMS crews that keep us safe.  It could have been so much worse.  If you want shorter wait times and an ER that has room to actually care for people with REAL emergencies, help us reform the mental health care system.  Help us get drug users, dealers and meth heads out of our ER.  Help us educate the public that an ER is not a place to get free bandaids, Tylenol, Sierra Mist or a note to get out of work.  Help keep us healthcare workers safe so we can do our jobs because you or a loved one might just need us someday.  

New Beginnings

 

We have a new addition -- Ruger, the latest little Corgi to join the pack.  He's sweet, stubborn and has already made a playmate of his sister, Josie Wales, who is just one year older.  He's been home for 3 nights now and has settled in well.  We are in the process of crate training and I swear I don't remember it kicking my butt like this in the past -- but that may have been due to sleep deprivation and memory loss.  It is the first time I have entrusted the dogs to dog sit for me while I took a much needed nap.  All is well that ends well and we sure love the little guy.

I am back on night shift at the hospital and will be spending more time back in the ER.  It's where I do the most good and feel like I'm in my element.  The old saying that if you make a job out of something you love, you'll never work a day in your life seems to fit my situation well.  I feel a bit rusty and out of sync but I'm sure it won't be long before the flow returns.  I love my job most of the time and I know enough to realize how lucky I am for that.  It's where I belong and I'm doing what I was always meant to do.  That is a satisfaction that I do not question.

It's been a tough year.  I thought the year my parents and my husband's dad got divorced was tough but it seems like just as the dust was settling from that is when my Dad died and everything that had been "unsettled" just came apart.  It's hard to lose a parent.  It's harder to watch your siblings experience that grief and know that there's nothing to be done to fix it.  I think I thought moving to day shift would make me more available to them to help fill some of the void my Dad left behind but I was wrong.  That void is too vast and nothing within my power will make any of this easier on them.  We all have to find our own way through it.  That being said, I sure miss him.  Every day I miss him.

I have a lot to be thankful for and even more still yet to do.  Crate train the puppy, clean the hot tub, fill the pantry, play in the dirt, save a few lives, laugh some good laughs and live the dream that we all call life.  I think that is the best way to honor everything my Dad made certain to ingrain in my existence -- to simply live it to the fullest and do the best that I can do.

The Harsh Reality

The harsh reality is that my adult coping mechanisms do not engage until noon.  I have given this 4 in the morning crap my best shot and I am not winning the battle.  I might be able to fake my way through a 6AM wake up call a few days a week and manage it but roll-call comes much earlier than that.  I can wake up on Island time and enjoy the day but intricate elements of my survival plan include umbrella drinks and beach-side siestas - and management refuses to sign off on either.  So...  I am left with the facts.  I will never thrive on day shift and oh - how I ever enjoy thriving!

My life is about smiling from the inside out.  It's about happy, goofy dogs playing in the sun.  It's about truly "being present" for the moment.  It's about sharing that energy with friends and family.  It's about resolving any possible problems before they happen.  I like having a plan.  I like to eliminate worries before they hit the horizon.  As my nephew Grady told his mom one morning, "Mom, it's Auntie A.  She takes care of everything.  There are NO worries..."

I can't do that at 4AM.  At that hour, I am grumpy.  I obsess about coffee.  I am resentful of my husband, still asleep in our nice, warm bed.  And I worry.  I worry about my patients.  I worry about my skills.  I worry about my charting.  I do things two, three, four different times because I don't remember actually doing it.  My brain is asleep, people.  I can't wake it up.  I don't enjoy chatter.  I am not present.  I am in survival mode.  Non-critical chit-chat pisses me off -- don't those people have more important things to do?  And where the hell is the coffee?!  There is no smiling on the inside, there is merely gritting my teeth on the outside.  I can't troubleshoot, I can't problem-solve and I certainly can not formulate a plan.  These are higher level thinking skills and non-existent in the brain that is simply fighting to survive.

And daylight savings time? It simply put me over the edge. This morning crap is crazy and to do it all one hour earlier than the week before - that's just plumb freaking nuts!

So I have begged my bosses to help me find a way back to night shift.  It's where I belong.  It's where "my people" thrive.  It's where all of the "told-you-so" friends are sitting back with a big ear to ear and all-too-knowing smile.

I am again smiling from the inside and happy to know that someday I will be back to my normal self.  Until then, just a suggestion; approach me cautiously before noon and perhaps even arm yourself with an extra cup of coffee - just in case.





The "make it all better" coffee mug.

Identity Crisis?

I'm just not a morning person.  I never have been.  My mom bought an alarm clock for my little sister and I when we were in preschool and kindergarten because she didn't want to be the one to wake us grumpy girls up in the morning.  My sister adjusted.  I did not.  I like to stay up late.  I like quiet.  I like to gently let go of my dreams and ease into my day.  Being thrown into wakefulness with the annoying shrill of a clock leaves me feeling unbalanced and unsettled for the first few hours of each day.

I've tried to be positive about my move to day shift but honesty tends to win out with me.  It's hard.  It's like the beginning of a new fitness routine.  Do I like it?  Um... Yes?  Maybe?  It will get better, I think.  I still find myself sleeping in until 10 every morning the alarm is not set.  Sometimes it's closer to noon that I crawl out from the covers in a blind fog in search for coffee, like today.  Eh, it is what it is.  I am who I am.  I think maybe that my internal clock is Australian.

And then there's the cows...  Our neighbor is using our corral for his herd and I have to admit, it's something I really miss.  I found a calf out of the pen late last night.  I wasn't quite sure how I was going to get her back where she belonged but we've had some close encounters with coyotes (and maybe even a cougar) so I knew this wasn't something that could wait until daylight.  Unbelievably, she let me pick her up and set her back in the pen through the fence rails - which was great news because the gate was on the opposite end of the corral.  There's something sweet about that warm, soft fur and blind trust that just has a way of making everything in this world seem so simple.  I miss that.

So now I'm a night person working days who lives on a farm without cows and an ER nurse in the part of the hospital that doesn't really have emergencies and I'm not really too sure how this life is suppose to fit into my psyche.  It's all a bit foreign to me. 

For now I think I will go get my poop boots on, trek through the mud and go check on the cows that aren't ours and scan the highway for any possible traumas on my way.

Live More

Fall has always felt like the right time for change and this year we are making quite a few.  We are simplifying, downsizing, making room for opportunity. 

The cows went to the auction block, every last one of them.  I'll miss Tinkerbell but she has spent the past 5 years becoming less of "my cow" and more a part of the herd.  We had several events this past year that made me realize we either needed a few more closed gates down our driveway or it was time for her to go to the sale.  The rest of the herd had a date with the auction block and it just felt like the right time for her to go with them.  I will miss her, I will miss the unique bond between human and animal but I have faith that she made it to another field and will bring someone a beautiful calf next spring.

I am giving up the nightlife of the ER for a more bland, less dramatic dayshift working with patients admitted to the hospital.  Less trauma, less adrenaline balanced with more family, more time with friends.  I admit I will miss the thrill of saving a life from the brink of death and there are those that have just giggled at my plans with an all knowing, "Oh, you'll be back..." but I believe this is the right choice to make right now. 

I vacillate between excitement and regret.  I love my job.  I love the people I work with and for.  It takes a lot out of me but I love it.  I will miss it.  I will NOT miss the exaustion of maintaining a nightshift life in a dayshift world.  I will not miss the choice of missing sleep or missing family, missing sleep or missing friends, missing sleep or missing fun.  I will not miss being too tired to remember anything.  I will not miss feeling left out of my own life.

Dayshift will be a big change for me.  I will need to be up by 4:30 on the mornings I work but I am excited to try something new.  It won't be as action packed as the ER but it will still be something I love.  I will continue to be the best nurse that I know how to be.  And who knows, maybe on those rare days that someone calls in sick, the powers that be will decide to float me back down to the ER to cover a shift or two.  It might be enough adrenaline to float me through -- and if it's not, I might just go skiing.

Eggs for Sale...

So today I made my first official egg sale.  I met a gentleman in Bend and sold him a carton of 18 eggs for $4.  Of course - I threw in an extra carton for good measure...  Why not - I have so many right now that we are out of space in both refrigerators and there is no way I'm going to buy an extra frig just to store eggs!  I mean - for that kind of money I could get another fancy little chicken coop and another 50 chickens or so...  And yes, friends, that is truly how my brain works these days.

I still need to make about 20 more chicken coats.  They wear them on their backs to prevent them and their coop-mates from eating/picking all of their feathers off.  For a few, I'm a little late.  Poor Big Mama looks like a nearly bald chicken.  It's not pretty.  It's on the edge of frightening when you stare at her long enough.  I thought about isolating her in the brooder in the garage until she fills back out but chickens just hate to be alone and they already pick on her so much - I'm afraid I'll never be able to get her integrated back into the flock.

She's one of my favorites.  Big Mama, The-Little-White-Hen, Blackie, Blondie and Zoey's Rooster are my only chickens with names and they are my favorites.  They are also some of the rougher looking birds right now - I think maybe because they are the most gentle and get picked on the most.  Maybe when it gets a little cooler I'll move a couple of them inside the garage together to regrow their feathers and fatten them up a bit.  There's an idea...

I'm not looking forward to my return to work tomorrow.  Yes, I love my job but sometimes work really feels like work and I don't feel caught up with anything around the house.  I signed up for a bunch of extra shifts in the next couple weeks, too.  I guess that is what I'm really dreading.  It's not really the extra hours - it's the lack of rest in between regular shifts and extra shifts that kills me.  I mean - I see most of the people on one of the worst days of their lives.  You get enough of those in a row and the mind begins to crave Farmville.  Point - click - point - click...  You get the idea. 

Ironically, I do get more regular sleep while I am working, though - so that's a plus.  I don't think I've had more than 2-3 hours of sleep in a row for the past 4 days - except for Monday.  I fell asleep around 6 am and Jeff woke me up around 8-9 that night.  I probably could have slept nearly 24 hours straight.  That's the way it works...  Someday I might change things but for now it's a necessary evil. 

Balancing Act

As time disappears into nothing more than brief flashbacks, I find myself wondering where the heck this summer has gone - and then it comes to me...  I've spent most of my summer trying either to be asleep or awake, neither of which has been much of a success.  Nightshift.  Extra shifts.  It's not that I'm ALWAYS at work - it's that the futile attempt of fitting a nightshift life into a dayshift world has left me hopelessly unbalanced.  So why do I do it?  Good question.

The easiest answer is the extra money.  (You didn't think we all sacrificed our sleep for free, did you?)  The less politically appropriate answer is bureaucracy, by definition "the organizational structure, procedures, protocols, and set of regulations in place to manage activity in large organizations."  At night, all of the people responsible for this go home and it is amazing how much more efficient the workplace becomes.  We still follow rules, protocols and regulations but it's without the chaos and banter of policy writers around.  It's quiet.  It's peaceful.  It's actually enjoyable.

It takes me a solid two nights off to begin pretending I'm the least bit awake before noon.  In truth, it takes a full 3-4 nights off to actually wake up before noon without an alarm clock.  We've all experienced Jet Lag a time or two in our lives switching time zones on vacation - well, offset your life by 12 hours and that is my time zone.  I am hungry at midnight, I am sleepy at sunrise and I am mentally just waking up around 6 pm.  I usually go to sleep by 8 am and my alarm is set between 3:30 pm and 4:30 pm - which still usually feels two hours too early for me.  I crave coffee between 7 pm and midnight and I don't really feel chatty until after 9 pm. 

For now, this is the way life is and instead of asking everyone else to change their lives for me, I do my best to accommodate them by sacrificing precious sleep.  This is not without consequence, though.  My mood, my memory and my ability to think clearly pay the price.  I spend those rare daylight hours I'm off and awake trying to cram in as many tasks and events as I possibly can - and on those nights I can't sleep (most of them) I try to keep in touch with friends and family via Facebook. 

I don't think it will be like this forever.  I look forward to the day that my eyes are not stinging, my ears are not ringing and my digestive tract knows what to expect.  It would be nice to get at least 8 hours of sleep within a 24 hour period more than 2 days in a row without neglecting resposibilities or letting friends and family down.  Right now, it's just not a possibility -- so I hold on to the dream of balance and just do the best that I can. 

You Might Train your Dragon but ....

How do you bathe a chicken?  I'm afraid this is my next adventure and I'm not looking forward to it.  And why is it that the roosters that fit within the breed definition are a bit mean and too rough on the hens but the ones with all the wrong colors are the gentle, nice guys?  I think Darwin is off the hook on this but Murphy and his annoying law come to mind...  Not sure what to do about it all, either. 

I'm averaging between 15-20 eggs a day and the best news is that my little Black Copper Maran has started laying those infamous "chocolate" colored eggs made famous by James Bond.  I'm still hoping to "bump" into someone willing to bring my eggs with them to a local Farmer's Market to sell this summer but it all usually sounds easier than it winds up actually being.  I've taken the "wait and see" approach.

Working night shift has been kicking my hiney and zapping me of energy these past few weeks so all of my great intentions have gone to the wayside.  Landscaping feels futile at this point.  Oh well, at least the house is clean and the hot tub has been refilled.  It's a start.  I keep expecting to tire of the chickens but they continue to entertain me.  I decided that it is because it's like an Easter Egg hunt every day.  I never know how many or what colors or what size will be next to fill my basket and every day it's a little bit exciting to find out. 

Today Scout snuck into the hen house while I wasn't paying attention - then she wouldn't come out!  She mostly herds them with a random good chase or two thrown in for good measure.  Hasn't hurt one yet but I keep a close eye on her.  Bitsy is more of a control freak.  She will bite them - not to kill but to hold.  The other day I picked one up and about the time I realized it was too heavy to be just a chicken, I saw Bitsy with her jaw locked on it's tail-feathers!  She let go but the trust is gone.

I'm still battling feather loss and mites.  I thought I had everything under control but I think it's going to take a few weeks to get ahead of the problem -- hence the chicken baths.  That should be interesting!