Thankful Thursday | temporarily crazy

Before I make my list, I just wanted to say thank you to you all for being understanding about my absence in the comments on work days!

I heard from several of you who said comment-responding is not nearly as important to you as regular posts are, so I will just remind myself of that. I might not be able to always be in the comments, but I can keep publishing posts.

(That’s possible because I can write them ahead of time and schedule them to publish on work days. So convenient.)

As I keep reminding myself, my life will not always be this busy. I will eventually finish my BSN program, and I will also be able to cut back my work hours once my residency year is done.

Life is crazy right now, but it’s a temporary crazy!

This week, I am thankful:

that someone finally cut up the fallen tree

These trees have been blocking the trail by my gym for months now; there wasn’t really a way around, so I had to squeeze myself between the two trunks to make my way through.

But the other day, I rounded the corner and was like, “Ooh! Someone with a chainsaw has been here!”

What a nice little surprise.

for mosses and lichens

I’m always out here feeling appreciative of these interesting little plants.

When I was in California at Lake Tahoe, I was fascinated to see how bright green some of the lichens were.

Here, they are usually just shades of a sage green.

for the Nutter Butters in the tele room

I told you before how the tele room has a little basket of snacks available when we bring back a tele pack (the telemetry packs are our mobile heart-monitoring devices).

Sometimes the selection is rather meh, but recently, I found a pack of mini Nutter Butters, and those are very not-meh to me. 😉

that I work on a unit with windows

I appreciate that I can see sunrises and sunsets and everything in between from my hospital unit.

I would be sad if I worked somewhere windowless!

that I am honestly unbothered by many insults

Most of the time, my patients are sweet and wonderful and appreciative. Sometimes they cry when they tell me that I have made a difference in how their hospital stay has gone, and I am always so so happy to hear that I’ve been able to soften a hard path.

But of course, sometimes things don’t go quite as smoothly. However, in 99% of these cases, the insults bounce right off of me because I know they are not true.

For instance, when I get called a witch-that-starts-with-a-b, I am not faintly insulted because I know deep in my soul that I am absolutely the opposite of that.

When a patient told me I have an annoying grin, I also was not insulted because for my whole life, my smile has been my most popular feature. It’s basically impossible to make me feel bad about my smile. 😉

Kristen smiling. — Me and my annoying grin. Hehe.

Truly, I found the situation rather hilarious. 😉

Of course, this is not appropriate behavior from patients, and we do work to set boundaries and expectations. But doing so would be much harder if I were feeling dysregulated, and I am grateful that this is not a big struggle for me.

for my fun little Peeps badge holders

Since Easter is coming up (and I do actually work on Easter Sunday), I ordered a multi-pack, kept the pink and purple ones, and gave the others to some of my coworkers.