Life's Little Stresses

The baby powder person attacked the hospital bathroom again the very next day. It gave me a good laugh. Just thought you'd like to know.

Anyways, with the economy the way it is, I've been a little worried about my job. We obviously need it, with Graham in school and out of work at the moment.. And with talk of budget cuts... it was scary.

Then, our manager had a meeting with our union rep.. scary and suspicious. I thought I was losing my job.

But the next day, we all had meetings with our manager and department director. They wanted to change our schedule... to increase the dietitian weekend coverage... to 3 weekends a month per person!!!

WTF?! I didn't sign up for that? The other dietitians were freaking out more than me, but I started thinking about it more when I got home. That sucks! We have so many plans for the summer, with weddings, family, etc...

Plus, the schedule they planned was NUTS. In a month, my schedule would go like this: 3 days on, 1 day off, 4 days on, 1 day off, 2 days on, 2 days off, 5 days on, 1 day off.... etc.

Isn't that the worst thing possible? I went to college and grad school so I wouldn't have to work such an awful schedule! I'm a professional who deserves a professional schedule. Yes, hospital work doesn't stop on the weekends for the employees to take time off, but most people get at least 2 weekends off in a month.

So yeah, I still have a job, but a sucky one nonetheless. We're trying to work on it to fit our needs and the hospital's needs. We have until May 1st to figure it out.. Argh.

Life sucks sometimes.

Strange Happenings

Ok, so there's a private bathroom I like to use on the 2nd floor of the hospital because it's private.. duh. Meaning I usually don't have to deal with the stench of other people.

I'm going to get a little graphic here, but it's still PG.

There is nothing worse to me than the stench of other people's fresh cracked poop. Seriously. When I hear someone else poop or try to poop, I get sick... especially when I hear the poop escape their body and splash into the water. Sick. And the smell.... For some reason, other people's poop smells a lot worse than mine. Maybe I'm biased?

So, I frequent private bathrooms for that very reason.

But today, someone broke the rules.

Not only did they leave the bathroom so smelly that I couldn't breathe, but they also BABY POWDERED around the toilet.

Baby powder? Wtf? What is that going to do?

It was all around the floor around the toilet and some on the seat. I tried to wipe it up as much as I could with a wet paper towel (I didn't want the person coming in after me think that I was the baby powder weirdo), but some remained on the ground. Enough baby powder remained to dirty my clean black pants (my pants are always too long).

The last straw was the baby powder footprints left behind on the hall carpet by the perpretator.. leading to a patient's room.

Update

This maybe a letdown for all of you that were excited about Graham's invention.. But, it has to do with pipes and showers. Not too glamorous eh?

Anyways, this is the end of my 4-day weekend.. and I am bored out of my mind. Graham is finishing a final at school, and I'm watching "10 things I hate about you". Funny thing is, the movie is set in Seattle, yet it never rains once in the movie. Strange.

I am going to California next weekend to visit my family. I am so excited to have some time away from here, and hopefully some warmer weather--it snowed like 4 inches on Sunday! Wtf?

Graham and I have been watching "Lost" on Netflix and abc.com.. And we're hooked, embarrassingly enough. I even dreamed about it last night.

Work sucks. There's talk of even more budget cuts, and with me being the least senior dietitian, my hours are at stake. Hopefully it won't come to that--my manager likes me and the supposed plan is not to let go of anyone. So, it's a little stressful. I even updated my resume on Friday just in case. I'm also still getting used to working full-time. I'm kind of lazy and would much rather be at home, working out, reading, and cooking awesome dinners.

Anyways, we're living and loving here in good ol Brem Brem. See you all later.

Unwanted compliments

Nobody wants to hear these:

*You look just like that celebrity Roseann Barr.
*You look so pretty.... today.
*Wow, I love your look.. It's so.... different.
*You remind me of my mom.

*"I thought you were the handicapped girl that is our helper here."

I got that one today at work.

Oh yes, apparently her and I look alike--similar hair color and facial profile.

I might also add, quite chubby.

Thanks ladies.. thanks for making my day.

Seriously, I wear a size 8 (and 6 sometimes on my non "fat days"). Since when does that make me FAT?!

With the good..

Comes the bad.

Ok, so with our luck, it feels like we never just have anything good happen to us (i.e. winning the lottery). Something good happens, but something bad always comes along with it.

In this case, something bad happened first. Graham was somewhat voluntarily laid off from his job as a job coach for handicapped people. The state cut back funding for disable people's training, so Graham's boss needed to lay off a job coach. Graham volunteered to be laid off since he couldn't continue his current work schedule with his school schedule next term. So, Friday was his last day with a job. The good news with this if that Graham's boss still owes us several thousand dollars from previous months of work. So, we'll be fine for a bit.. as long as he still gets paid.

But, in the next two days, Graham called me from school all excited. As it turns out, Graham's invention (which I can't really talk about in specific terms) is going to be pre-patented by his engineering school. So, they're hooking him up with their business people there to get al the legal papers written and to possibly start a business sometime in the future for his invention. It's funny because I've told people about this, and they all say "you're going to be rich", which is exatly what Graham has been telling me since he's been designing this thing.

So, everything evens out in the end right?

My Bad

Ok guys, so I found this blog about a woman who vowed to use her crockpot 365 days in a row. Check it out: http://crockpot365.blogspot.com/

I'm a fan.

BUT, I decided to try something new from this website.. and kind of expensive. We don't eat fish in this house. I'm very picky--the fish absolutely CANNOT smell like fish. It should be very neutral and inoffensive. So, I bought some frozen fish and shrimp for a fish chowder recipe. Graham was excited to try it, so I was like, ok this better be worth the big bucks I just put down on the fish and shrimp.

I had to work yesterday, so Graham had to put it all together in the crockpot. He accidentally sliced his finger open (we have very sharp knives) cubing the frozen fish. So, he had really invested his effort--his blood AND tears--in this soup too.

When I got home at 6 last night, the house REEKED of fish. Not good fish. Stinky fish. Stinky stinky stinky fish. I could barely kiss Graham because he smelled like the stinky fish.

When I looked at the soup, it looked pretty gross. The potatoes were brown, I don't know how, the soup looked oily and separated, and the shrimp were chewy. It smelled SO BAD, we both only took a bite, and tossed the rest down the drain. We ended up eating PB&J's and an old batch of beef and barley soup I'd frozen a month before... which tasted about 10 times better than the fish chowder.

Lesson learned: Don't spend a large amount of money on food you're not sure you're going to like.

I'm deodorizing the house today because I couldn't sleep with the fish smell. It kept waking me up.