What is really important

I have been going up and down 5 flights of stairs a couple times per week for 1 1/2 months now, and I've only lost 1 lb.

Yesterday I got recertified in ACLS. That's Advanced Cardiac Life Support. That is what you have to know to run a code in a hospital, and all of us lucky nurses who get to be on the code team have to be certified. It is required of those who work on the more critical cardiac floors. It used to be you went around to stations with a real live person and simulated running a code. Now that we have computers - wonderful things that they are - the people who came up with ACLS have developed a computer simulation instead. You have to click on the buttons of what to do in the correct sequence in order to pass each scenario. There are about 10 scenarios. Joe comes into the ER with dizziness for a week, and he's passed out twice. You put him on the monitor, see that he has bradycardia, take his vitals, put oxygen on, call for help, and then pull down the list of medications you might give him. If you give him the wrong one, the computer kills him. It took me 7 hours.

Today I hung out with the baby and read a book. I didn't feel like doing anything else after yesterday. I nursed the baby for hours and hours. I read Zane Grey's book, "The Last Trail." It is the third of the trilogy about the settlement of Fort Henry and Wheeling, WV. I am really into Ohio River history in this area right now. After I finished the book, I started another, called, "That Dark and Bloody River," by Eckert. Around 4 in the afternoon, I needed to take a walk.

My husband went with me. He helped me put the baby on my back. The farm is in such a state of disrepair with me working full time that I'm not sure what I'm doing here sometimes. But I keep plugging away. He showed me where he dragged my alpha doe a few weeks ago when we found her dead behind the barn. She wasn't there. The coyotes probably drug her off. Someone on a geneology site I belong to posted about cougars being back in the area, and I thought it would be a novel idea if it were really a cougar, but I feel more comfortable with the idea of a coyote.

Then I came in and cleaned the meat off a turkey that has been sitting cooked in the fridge for a week that the kids have been picking the meat off of here and there when they're hungry. I made some broth, and cooked some stewish meat for supper. Then I read some more. It was a lazy thing to do.

I have been working full time since October. I feel as though my body is beginning to shut down at times - pumping, washing pump parts, nursing the baby, running to work, taking care of people with very sick hearts. The snow is melting, and it is almost spring. I wanted to take the loppers with me, but there was a baby on my back. I picked up some old high tensile wire that is all over the pasture and started winding it up. Some past boyfriend of mine had it put up so I could keep some of his horses. Even though I told the guys where to put the fence, they disregarded what I said, and the places that the posts are render their position unuseable. Bruce didn't want to pick up fence tonight. I could have stayed out there and picked it all up, even with a baby on my back. Maybe I should have. The baby didn't mind. She was talking to the goats.

I start another 6 day stretch in the morning - or rather the afternoon. The nurse manager said I could cut down to part time again on the next schedule or the one after. Financially it will hurt. But there is a trade off here. There is a whole lot more to it, but I'm not going into it here. I'm just so glad it is almost spring.

We traded my alpha doe's twin orphans with my brother and his wife for 4 colorful Indian Runner ducks. Yesterday, they and the white pekins finally found a spring in the pasture. Heretofore, they have lived in my garden. I've wondered if was any use starting seeds this year. They really like the pasture, and I'm hoping they spend more and more time there. We have 7 ducks total, and can they ever make a racket!

Baby is asleep on my lap. Is there anything more I really need in life?