. . .I thought it'd be the perfect time for a good ole' post about a recent J. Crew purchase! Yesterday the UPS man brought me the Dressy Grecian V-Neck Long Dress in Oasis Green. Although I typically don't purchase items meant for spring/summer wear in winter months (and vice-versa), I had just received my Spring Rewards card, and had a feeling that this dress wouldn't be around for very long. Well, I was right, because I noticed only a few days later that the dress was sold out in my size in the green color!
The color is very pretty and similar to how it looks on the website. The jersey is of a nice weight and not as unforgiving as those side-tie jersey dresses from last year. The size also runs true to what J. Crew jersey dresses usually run. Since I'm small-chested, I wear an XS, which fits perfect. Even though I'm pear-shaped, the dress is flowy enough that the XS is still a good fit. At 5'5", I'm a bit too short for the dress, but that can be easily fixed, as the dress is un-hemmed. I don't trust myself enough to cut it evenly, so I'd probably still take it to a tailor to have it done. Although I am small-chested enough where I wouldn't need to wear a bra with this dress, I like how it is not too low-cut in neither the front nor the back where I can still have the option to wear a strapless bra with it.
Overall, I am very pleased with this dress and glad I made the purchase. It will be perfect for summer brunching on the patio or for a Mexican beach vacay which I plan on taking with the girls later this year! It will look just fabulous with some gold accessories or some chunky wooden bangles or necklace.
One of my half-assed, non-specific resolutions for the new year was to spend less money. Or buy less stuff. Something like that. And if we are talking about buying less stuff for moi, I guess you could say I’ve been somewhat successful at that thus far. However, I have a new addition to my household, which has sparked a spending frenzy. Meet Stephen Patrick Morrissey, or Stephen for short:
He is my $1000 ball of fluff. A handsome little Siberian kitten. Hypo-allergenic, sweet, and very smart. And since I always have to have the very best, why shouldn’t my cat? Here are some of the products I have purchased to make Stephen the coolest, most spoiled kitty on the block:
Every cat needs a carrier, and this is definitely the best-looking, most functional one that I found. The Sleepypod doubles as a bed, with the mesh top that zips right off. Of course, Stephen doesn’t sleep in this. But he looks pretty cool when I take him to the vet.
I bought the Cat Livin’ Climber in hopes that Stephen would use it to satisfy his climbing and scratching needs, and leave my couches and countertops alone. It certainly looks a thousand times more attractive than a traditional carpeted cat tree. He does scratch on its sisal surface, but hasn’t gotten brave enough to climb on its shelves.
The Hepper Pod bed was my first purchase; I bought it even before I put the deposit down on Stephen, because it was on sale, and it just looked soooo cool. The green color matches the décor in my apartment, and reminds me of a UFO. This is another thing that Stephen doesn’t use, but I’m hoping to bribe him by putting treats in it.
One of Stephen’s favorite toys was also one of the cheapest things I bought for him. It’s the Turbo Scratcher. He never seems to get tired of chasing the plastic ball in the track.
The Peek-and-Play toy box is fun for hiding treats and toys in. It’s also entertaining to watch Stephen try to get them out.
Probably the most important thing I got for Stephen is the Litter Kwitter system. I cannot stand the litter box, and getting a kitten of my own did not change that hatred. The Litter Kwitter allows you to train your cat to use a human toilet. We are now on to the “amber” stage. I hope that within the next two months Stephen will be fully trained. He is doing an awesome job so far! It’s a pretty messy process, though, with litter being thrown everywhere every time he hops down from the throne.
Which led me to purchase the Dirt Devil Kurv. Quite possibly the most attractive hand-held vacuum ever! Has been a necessity in keeping the bathroom floor free of litter.
Speaking of litter, until Stephen has been completely toilet-trained, I have been using an all-natural, wheat-based, flushable litter called Swheat Scoop. Ha ha. Get it? Not that I have ever had any prior experience with litter, but I have been pleased so far, and the fact that it doesn’t have any chemicals in it is nice. The flushable part is a must, too, because Stephen likes to push the litter into the toilet.
A lot of the stuff I got for Stephen I found through a blog called Modern Cat. A must-read if you have a cat or are interested in getting one, if you want to find cool, non-frumpy cat stuff that fits into your lifestyle.
A final note before I conclude this blog post: While I am first and foremost a dog person, I also believe in being a responsible pet owner. As a nurse who works twelve-hour shifts, I thought it would not be right to get a dog, as it would be unfair to leave one inside for that long without a potty break, in addition to the fact that they thrive on human attention and would get lonely. I also feel badly that with the millions of homeless pets out there, I made the decision not to adopt a cat from a shelter. However, I am allergic to cats, and upon doing research, I discovered the Siberian cat, which is a hypoallergenic breed. The downside is that there is no way you are going to find one in a shelter or from a rescue group (believe me, I looked on Petfinder!). Which is why I had to shell out the cash to purchase Stephen from a breeder. It has been a worthwhile investment though. The breeder is wonderful and it shows in how intelligent and well-socialized my cat is. She also calls me every so often to check in on him and see if I have any questions or concerns. Disclaimer complete!
Happy 2009, everyone! First off, I would like to apologize to my thousands of loyal followers for my lack of posting in the last several weeks. I am very sorry to let you down. With the holidays and finishing up my critical care nursing residency program, I have been very busy. But now I am DONE! With the residency, that is. Beginning tomorrow evening, I will have my first shift without having someone hovering over me, watching my every move. I am excited, but very nervous at the same time. Now if I make a mistake, there is no one to catch it. It's all on me. Needless to say, I will only be taking care of the most stable of patients in the ICU, if I can help it!
My last shift in residency was on Sunday, and it seemed only fitting that I had my first patient death. That may sound kind of grim to some people, but it was like a natural transgression. I started off taking care of very stable patients and gradually transitioned onto sicker and sicker patients, to finally one that was so sick that there was nothing left that could be done.
He already looked like a dead man from the moment I started that shift. His skin was mottled, extremities were cold. You couldn't feel any of his pulses. Pulse oximetry monitoring wouldn't work on him since his peripheral blood circulation was non-existent.He was on three different vasoactive drips to keep his blood pressure up. He was maxed out on two of the medications, and so our only option was to gradually go up on the third until that one was maxed out. And from there, we just waited for him to go.
It was a bit tense, standing in the room with the family members, all staring at the monitor, watching his heart go into arrythmias. Brief runs of ventricular tachycardia. Blood pressure kept dropping. I had to just turn off all the alarms on the monitor because the constant blaring was just a reminder of how quickly this man was going down.
Onces the blood pressure dropped into the 30s and 40s, my preceptor and I attempted to find either a carotid or femoral pulse. Nothing. Decided to page the on-call doc to examine the patient, because at this point, he probably really was dead. On-call doc was just an intern. Idiot intern. He didn't show up for nearly 20 minutes. He couldn't feel any pulses either and decided to call it. "So, is there like a form or something I need to sign?" he asked me. "I don't know. You're the doctor," I replied.
The respiratory therapist came in and disconnected him from the ventilator, while me and my preceptor turned off the numerous IV pumps, turned off the monitor. I'm not sure why I expected the man to move or breathe or anything like that, but of course he didn't. Everything was still, quiet. He was dead.
After all the necessary paperwork was completed, I went to get the keys to the morgue and a gurney on which to put the body. By the time we zipped him into the body bag, it had been almost three hours since he was officially declared dead. I was surprised that his body was stiff. Weird.
But it got even weirder. After unlocking the door to the morgue, there was yet another door to unlock, which was the door to the cooler. Yes, it was about the size of a walk-in refrigerator at a restaurant. Not nearly as big as you would expect for a hospital as large as the one at which I work. Four or five other gurneys with adult-sized bodies were in there. To the right, there were shelves with plastic storage containers that had tiny, baby-sized body bags. And there was a big red barrel that said "Placentas Only."
The third key was to open up the box where my dead patient's chart would go. And then I had to sign him into the morgue; much like you would sign someone into a doctor's office or a meeting.
So there you have it. My job, my work as a nurse. Well, only a small part of it. A small, strange part of it.
As part of my orientation, I got paid to spend the day (a.k.a. sort of work and observe) in my hospital’s E.R. I had a really good time when I rotated through there during nursing school, and this time was no exception. There were several things that I noticed during that day:
1. As much as I enjoy working with the unconscious or intubated patients who cannot talk to me up in the ICU, I also really enjoy working with the “crazies.” At the county hospital, there is definitely no shortage of those. Take, for example, the old prostitute (so insist the ER nurses) with a walker who demanded to speak with the head of the hospital because we would not prescribe her narcotics. Or, the older African American gentleman who suffered a minor burn to his face after lighting a cigarette while on his oxygen tank. He was there so we could “get this black stuff off of his face.”
He couldn’t even tell us why he needed to be on oxygen in the first place. I must be a bit of a risk taker, because as agitated as he was getting, I still dared to put a catheter in him since he wasn’t able to “go” and we needed to get a urine sample to do a drug screen. He had initially flat out refused to get a catheter put in, but I was able to sweet-talk him into it. For that, I earned the nickname of “Angelina Jolie.”
2. I am getting better at putting in IVs. I was batting 1000 that day. Three for three, baby! I’ll be honest though; every person I stuck had veins fat enough that you’d have to be blind not to get one in. But whatever.
3. The ER nurses are a lot nicer than the SICU nurses. Don’t get me wrong, I do like (most) of the people I work with. However, as talented as they are, there is some serious attitude that gets thrown around, and it’s something I didn’t quite fully realize until I went to the ER. As much as I love my coworkers’ sick sense of humor and can relate to them on many levels, I just hope I don’t get fully sucked into their cult of superiority. I’m telling you, the nurses in my unit have a reputation around the hospital, and now I can see why!
4. Docs are around constantly. I thought we saw them a lot in the ICU, but they are literally there all the time in the ER. That is where they live. And all the hot ones are married.
5. If you are a trauma patient (car accident, fall, shooting, stabbing, etc.), expect a doctor to put his finger in your rear. The trauma hall was very busy that day, and on every admit that I saw, the same doctor was always sticking his finger up the patient’s butt. Yes, yes, there is a totally valid reason for it (to check for bleeding and rectal tone; no tone can mean a spinal cord injury), but the juvenile side of me smiled. I secretly wondered exactly how many butts had this doctor stuck his finger inside of during his tenure in the world of medicine? I was also amused by the male patient who screamed expletives while getting his special exam, as if the doctor was taking his manhood away from him . . .
6. There is nothing like getting to meet a patient up on the helipad. Okay, so I’m sure by the hundredth or even tenth time you get to do it, it would get old, but I was absolutely giddy inside when I learned that I would get to watch the CareFlite helicopter land and help wheel the patient on a gurney all the way back to the trauma hall. The warm wind, the setting sun, and the Dallas skyline in the background made for a perfectly surreal experience. You couldn’t pay me enough to be a flight nurse, but I’d love to take over once the copter lands! In a word: awesome.
I'm just going to quick hit a few deals I got and make a few comments about a few items:
Salina Iridescent Patent Leather Flats in Guava: I think I got these on sale, plus 30% off, so they were around $60. They are very pretty and the guava color is neutral enough to go with almost anything.
Large Odile Bag in Driftwood: Once again, a great neutral to go with everything. It's also the type of neutral that will work year-round. The leather is very soft. It is lined with cotton twill. I was a little disappointed that it didn't come with a dust bag, but I can live with that. It was only around $150 including shipping after 30% off the sale price. I actually ended up with two of these bags after I got an e-mail stating that my original order had been cancelled. Well, I reordered the bag since it was showing as still in-stock, and what do you know, both my original and the new one arrived at my doorstep. While returning the extra bag, a woman in the next line over loved it so much that she decided to purchase it after my return was complete. Italian Calfskin Jamie Bag in Dark Cloud: The leather on this bag is soooo soft and pretty, but it will scratch quite easily. It is quite roomy and lined with a silk grosgrain type material. Unfortunately, on my second day of using it, the tassel on one of the zipper-pulls came detached. It's hard to describe, but basically I am going to have to try to take it to a shoe repair and see if they can do anything about it. J. Crew was already sold out of the Jamie bags in this color, but they did credit 10% of the purchase price back to my card to cover the expense of getting it repaired. I got this bag on sale for around $210, which is almost half of what it originally cost.
Morgan Cozy Cardigan:
I posted about this earlier on my list of things that I wanted. I bought it, but now I am having second thoughts. It is super soft and cozy. However, it is not made entirely of alpaca wool. It also contains acrylic, which is not acceptable for a sweater that costs nearly $200. I was in my local J. Crew today, and they had the sweater on sale for $130 (plus an additional 30% off), so I might see if there is a store that has my size left and repurchase it at the lower price.
Cashmere Sweaters:
They are all only $99 in stores, plus an additional 30% off. I got an off-white cardigan and a black turtleneck. Boring, yes, but they are just some staples I needed for my wardrobe.
My local store was pretty close to clearing out all of their winter merchandise and predominantly featuring their spring/resort collection. Some of the items are very pretty, but I have barely even started to get wear out of my fall and winter stuff! I just need to hold out for as long as possible, knowing that it will eventually go on sale. While I love the J. Crew Aficionada blog, reading it all the time makes me become a bit irrational. I decide I *have* to get a certain item right as soon as it comes out, because it won't be available for long. Well, that bit me in the ass more than a few times, because practically everything I ever bought at full price ended up sticking around and getting marked down big time! This is good for J. Crew, but bad for my checking account...
Okay, so I was sitting in class/work the other week and could not help but stare at this girl who was in the row in front of me, because her pants were dipping down so low in the back that you could see her crack. Yes, her crack. I don't know how she didn't know that thing was hanging out; you would think it would get a little drafty back there, no? It got me thinking about why exactly some women choose not to wear underwear. I just do not understand. I find it disgusting, and with all of the new undergarment technology out there, there is really no good excuse not to. Are you wearing low-rise pants? They do make low-rise underwear, you know. My personal favorite is Hanky Panky's low-rise lace thong. It is made of super-stretchy, super comfortable lace, and one size fits almost all.
You say you don't want VPL (other wise known as "visible panty line")? Try Commando brand underwear. These things are totally thin and seamless. If they show underneath your clothing, do you think, perhaps, it's not a good idea that you wear something that tight??
What I really don't understand is when some women don't wear underwear when they are wearing short skirts. Really? You want to rub your vag all over dirty public surfaces and flash it to strangers? Worse yet for the rest of us, we have to sit on the juices that have rubbed off from your bare cooch. Yes, I know that sounded gross, but I'm trying to make a point! And the point is, in case you haven't gotten by now, please, for the love of sweet Jesus (and the rest of your fellow human beings), wear underwear! Me and your grandmother will thank you.
Posts
