Nurse on the Run

Christmas never ends!  Check out the first three parts of the saga below:

Part I:  Snow and BEAR DOWN!
Part II:  To the ER
Part III:  Christmas Cheer!

wednesday – airports galore

Now, “Christmas” may be over, but the theme of the season, nothing ever goes as planned, was hanging on strong.  We spent the morning hanging out until family friends from wayyyy back when my family lived in Pennsylvania (back when I was 1-6 years old!) came over to help us eat our leftovers.  We were supposed to have our Chinese dinner with them on Monday, but we canceled due to my vomit fest.  This alternate plan worked out great instead, since I had a lot of food leftover from our Christmas feast!  Perfect…and it was nice to see people I grew up with.

After lunch, it was time for my brother and sister to head to the airport to catch a flight back to Chicago.  My dad volunteered to drive them to the airport while my mom, the Rocket Scientist, and I headed to the mall to look around (yes, even though “Christmas” was over) and the RS needed to do a little more shopping for his family.  Our plan was to shop, grab some dinner, and catch the movie Up in the Air since my cousin is in it.  (She’s one of the flower girls…she’s on the screen for all of about four seconds total, but it’s still cool!) 

Welllll, while we were eating dinner, my sister called and informed us that their flight had been cancelled!  I guess there was freezing rain in Chicago so a bunch of flights were cancelled.  They were in line to get seats for another flight, and the airlines were saying no flights were available until Christmas…not good since my sister was to work on Christmas Eve!  They finally got put on a flight for Thursday morning, so my dad headed back to the airport to pick them up while my mom, the RS, and I headed to the movie.  I was sad because my dad was really looking forward to seeing the movie, but my mom will go with him at home.  Up in the Air was pretty good…we thought the script could have been better, but the acting was good and it was fun to see a familiar face on screen, even if only for a few seconds!

thursday – christmas cookies!!

My dad geared up for his third trip to the airport in two days (“I drove 130 miles and went nowhere”) to take my brother and sister back for their 7:30am flight.  Luckily, they got out on time and arrived safe and sound back in Chicago.  My parents planned to stay through Christmas, so they were still with me.    I had made sugar cookies on Saturday in order to set up a family cooking decorating session, but that never happened (oops!), so it was our real Christmas Eve activity instead.  At home, I had a four year tradition of baking cookies and decorating them with my friends, which was always a blast and yielded some great memories and awesome cookies!  While this year wasn’t quite as extravagant as prior years, it was still fun…anything involving cookies is good in my book. 

The workspace.
  My decorating crew!

 
Cookie delights!

My dad decorated the elephant cookie. 

Battle wounds…gingerbread man lost his leg!

 
I got a new frosting tip, so now I can make hair on my cookies!  This guy got an afro. 

I wish I had taken more pictures of our creations!  Some of them were really good, but most of them are in my belly now.   I took them to work with  me on Christmas, and on Christmas Eve I took my eggnog cupcakes to work.  Work on Christmas Eve wasn’t too bad…my floor was closed since they were trying to consolidate staff, so I was pulled to another floor.  Tons of patients were discharged between Wednesday and Thursday in order to get as many people home as possible before Christmas, and it ended up being a pretty quiet night.  I actually like the floor I was pulled to…the nurses are allllll super helpful!  I wouldn’t mind working over there…

Side note:  I got a Christmas card from my manager, with my name on the envelope.  And the name of another employee on the card.  Gee, thanks.

friday – christmas day!

Like I’ve said multiple times, Christmas was such a state of mind this year!  Friday didn’t even feel like Christmas, although I did get some presents from the Rocket Scientist (Eagles tshirt, gloves, and a Princeton tiger to add to my collection!).  We spent the morning hanging out and I spent the morning crying.  I am such a five year old…I really can’t stand leaving my parents!  It’s always hard seeing them go, especially after having such a great holiday.  I know I’m lucky to have such a good family to make goodbyes so hard…but that doesn’t make them any easier.  They left and I headed off to work.  My floor was still closed, so I was back on the floor I was on for Christmas Eve.  One of the aides dressed up as Santa, which was cute!  Everyone liked my sugar cookies and the night went pretty well, although I clocked out a minute late so I hope I don’t get in trouble for that.    Back to normal work life on Monday, I suppose!  I could totally go for two day weeks more often.

That, my blog friends, is my holiday wrap-up!  Thanks to all of those who read my entire four part story…and thanks to those who skimmed them.    I hope you all had a wonderful holiday with family and friends and lots of cookies.  I am so thankful to be a part of the blog world with such support from all of you…you’ve all been so good to me this year, so I hope Santa was good to you!

Back to our regularly scheduled blogging shortly.