HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!!

This past weekend my friend had a halloween party at her house and everyone got to dress up. She has done this now for 3 years in a row and it's really quite fun to get to dress up again like when we were kids. This year I really struggled with what I was going to dress up as. The costumes at the halloween store are all short and tight, none of which compliment a pregnant belly. I considered painting my stomach as a pumpkin, but between my sister Natalie telling me people might be grossed out by my bare stomach and the fact that it was going to be cold, I decided against it. I had found this picture off the internet that I was going to try and copy. Anyway the egg idea I got from my sister Francie, she said it as a joke but I rather liked the idea. She also suggested I wear devil ears and be a deviled egg, but I couldn't find any devil ears so I just went as a plain ol egg. The best part is, the whole costume only cost me $5 (for the yellow t-shirt). If you think Todd is not dressed up in the picture your partially wrong. He went as a blue collar worker and wore his work uniform. So he claims he was in costume but really he just went as himself.

Seen at work!

WARNING: WORK TALK: NOT FOR THOSE WITH A WEAK STOMACH
The other day Kathy, who is also a nurse posted about something she overheard at work. Which leads me to my post today of something I saw at work.
Bilateral leg sores from knees to ankles, swollen and fluid filled macerated skin that was flaking away in layers with raw flesh exposed. The gauze bandages on these wounds were soaked with drainage from the sores and the drainage had dripped down into the slipper like shoes that were now soaked like a wet sponge that could be wrung out with wound broth. The feet were water logged from being in wet shoes for so long.
Another nurse had removed the bandages to examine the wounds, but it was shift change so the cleaning and redressing part was all mine. When she removed the old bandages she found maggots crawling in the sores. Yes I said maggots.
My first plan of action was to put some Vicks up my nose (great for avoiding bad smells), put on a mask and gown and tackle the job of cleaning up these legs. As I was scrubbing them with betadine and saline I removed several more maggots from the wounds and between the toes. It was so disgusting!
I know some nurses have seen this many of times, but it was a first for me and I just thought I'd share. Aren't you glad you read my blog today??

Baby Shower

UPDATED PICTURES ADDED TO THIS POST COURTESY OF MY SISTER FRANCIE, SHE BASICALLY HAD THE SAME PICTURES AS I DID ONLY HERS WERE BETTER SO I REPLACED THEM ALL. SCROLL DOWN AND HAVE A LOOKY-LOO!

My niece Kristen and me!

Yesterday I had my first baby shower! It was sooo nice. Put on by my good friends Amy and Michelle, and my sister Rachael. There were about 20 of my family and friends there. I got tons of very cute baby clothes and blankets as well as many necessary baby things like diapers, towels, burp cloths, a baby Bjorn, a swing/bouncer, toys, and a diaper bag filled with all kinds of baby necessities. Everyone was so kind and generous with the gifts they got for baby Lucio/Luke/Leo. (we really need to settle on a name)

There was so much good food, mostly appetizers, and sweets. It was delicious and all vegetarian, just for me.


The cake was so cute it deserves a close up picture of its own!
Chocolate with raspberry filling and butter cream frosting. Yum!

Here's a few pics of the gift opening.

A Notre Dame outfit for ND's newest fan!

A very cute sock monkey hand made by my sister Natalie.

This outfit says "I like trucks and dirt" very cute! (I'm hoping he likes trucks better than dirt.)

At the shower I was rushing through opening all the gifts, to not drag it out all afternoon. Although once I got home I was able to open all the gifts up again, spread them out all over the dining room table and inspect them a bit closer. I really got some nice gifts. I'm so thankful to everyone who came. It's making everything seem more real now. Which means I really need to finish up the baby room. He'll be here soon. I can't wait!

Of course now I need to figure out where I'm going to put all of this stuff. Last night I ordered some toy bins from Land of Nod and a book rack to go next to the rocking chair! That should help for a while.

Then and Now pregnant pictures

We had another great October weekend with temperatures in the 70's. I'm loving the warm weather while it lasts. Sunday Todd and I drove down by the beach, we haven't been there in quite a while. The water was rough, and I imagine cold, and it was also quite windy, so I was a bit surprised to see 2 girls in bikini's trying to catch some late season sun. I doubt they got much more than sand blasted with the wind blowing so hard.

But it did make me happy that I timed my pregnancy pretty good. I wanted to time it so that we would have the baby during Todd's off season and I guess it just worked out to my benefit to also time the end of my pregnancy when swimsuit season is well over.

I know these pictures are over due, I promised them to a few people a couple weeks ago, but I've been stalling just a bit because.... well I think you can see why.

This was me then... at 20 weeks.

I remember thinking I was really showing then.

This is me now.... at 34 weeks.

I guess you could say I've grown a lot in 14 weeks.

I've been a bit of a blogger slacker lately, so I hope this will suffice everyone for now.

On the phone with Maddie Paige

Today I called my sister Shannon to wish her a happy birthday, and her daughter Madeline who is 7 answered the phone. She loves to talk on the phone, just like her mom. Here is a snippet from our conversation today that made me laugh.

Madeline My mommy's going to be a nurse.

Me really?

Madeline Yes, but she isn't going to take care of sick people or bloody people.

Me Are you sure about that?

Madeline Yes! because that's gross.

Me I'm pretty sure she will have to take care of sick and bloody people, that's what nurses do.

Madeline Well if she does take care of bloody people she will wear eye goggles.

Pretty smart for a 7 year old, don't you think? She's already learning about Universal Precautions.

PS Finally someone decided to take my friend quiz I posted about a few days ago. Click HERE to see Shannon's answers. And thanks for playing along Shannon.

Night shift dilemma

Working night shift definitely has drawbacks, This week I get to experience one of them, which is trying to sleep while the rest of the world is working.

Yesterday while trying to sleep in the middle of the day I was distracted by the construction work going on outside my window. Yes, I know it's for a good cause, I did ask for the garage, but the constant clicking of the nail gun makes it somewhat difficult to sleep. I couldn't help but be a little bit happy about the weather this morning when I got off work. It was raining so that meant they probably wouldn't be working on the garage today seeing as tool guns and water don't mix. I got a few hours of sleep before the rain apparently stopped, I heard the nail gun going again, so I was awake at 11am. But then it got quiet again, either they left for lunch or it started raining again, either way, I was happy to have peace and quiet and was back asleep again, only to be awaken again at 2. Apparently it stopped raining. It't going to be a long night at work with only 5 hours of sleep. But I have to admit I was impressed with the progress on the garage. Just 2 days ago it was a cement slab, this is what it looks like now.

And speaking of working night shift, I don't do it because I like it, yes there are some things I like about it, but for the most part I would much rather work normal daytime hours like everyone else. Apparently the majority of nurses feel the same, because it is always the night shift that has the most trouble finding regular staff. Which is where I benefit being an agency nurse. I make more $$ than a staff RN, but have no guaranteed hours, minimal benefits and I know that I can be replaced at anytime with a regular full time nurse. So far I have not had to worry about this, I have worked full time hours at the same ER for a year now as an agency nurse. I get to pick my own schedule because they do not have a single night shift nurse that isn't agency and I give them full time hours every week, so therefore I get first pick of the schedule. It has actually been very nice, but I'm worried this can't last forever.

They are trying to recruit their own staff, and are therefore offering a $10,000* sign on bonus for experienced ER RN's for a 2 year commitment. So my dilemma is, do I take the job or call their bluff. They haven't been able to hire anyone for nights in the past 3 years, and they would need to hire 4.5 nurses to fully staff the night shift. If I take the job, I give up a lot of control over when I work, when I take vacation, and what holidays and weekends I work. If I don't take the job and they do fill all their positions, then I am basically out of a job. Of course I'm sure I can get another job somewhere else, but nothing would compare to what I have right now as far as pay, flexibility, commute, and workload. Decisions, decisions, I guess for now I'm going to call their bluff and hope they can't hire enough staff. Maybe if they would give me internet access I'd reconsider. (just kidding)

*This isn't as good as it sounds, when you take out taxes, and divide it out over 2 years, it's only about $75 a week.

Could someone please get me a cupcake?

Most women will experience food cravings at some point or another during pregnancy. The most popular craving is sweets. Why all the cravings?
There are many reasons that women experience food cravings during pregnancy. Perhaps the simplest explanation is your body is working twenty four hours a day seven days a week to grow a healthy baby. Some cravings are simply the result of your body's needs for additional calories during pregnancy.
Many women describe their pregnancy cravings as overpowering. While scientists haven't yet established why cravings are so strong among pregnant women, they certainly acknowledge that food cravings during pregnancy are the norm rather than the exception to the rule.

Okay so I found an article on food cravings during pregnancy and cut and pasted it into my blog, I then deleted all the stuff it said that I didn't want to hear or didn't agree with to make a very fitting statement about my food cravings. (You can read the article in full HERE if your curious.)

Many people have asked me what my cravings are, and I really haven't had a specific answer other than "food in general" until tonight. I currently have a very strong craving for cupcakes, they are of course the new cake! I have been craving them on and off ever since I watched an episode of The Biggest Loser a couple weeks ago and they were trying to tempt the coaches to cheat on their diet with the most amazing looking cupcakes. Well today when I was out shopping I gave into my craving and picked up some cake mix, buttery yellow and fudge chocolate, since I couldn't decide, and some dark chocolate frosting. Well it is now 9:30pm and I really want to make these cupcakes but I can't find my muffin tins. UGH! I'm so frustrated. So to all my sisters, whichever one of you has my muffin tins could you please return them ASAP!!!

P.S. Can you really blame me? Don't the cupcakes in the pictures look delicious?

Another picture for the Nursery

Here's Natalie's latest work of art! She was trying to create a character coach resembling Charlie Weis. Looks pretty good don't you think? She sent me the picture via camera phone so I can't make it bigger, but you get the idea. This was the picture of Charlie Weis she used as her guide since she had no idea what he looked like.

And this is the picture she already painted last week.
Thanks Natalie! You did an awesome job!

A friend survey

Just for fun:

What time is it 01:15 AM
Your full name – Lori Michelle C********
What are you most afraid of – dying young
What is the most recent movie that you have seen in a
Theater – Heartbreak Kid
Place of birth – OKC, OK
Favorite food - Italian
What's your natural hair color - Brown
Ever been to Italy – Yes
Ever been toilet papering – No
Love someone so much it made you cry - Yes!!!
Been in a car accident – Yes 3 times - all my fault
Favorite day of the week - Saturdays and Sundays
Favorite restaurant - Bamboo Garden in Seattle WA they have the best vegetarian food ever!!
Favorite sport to watch – Football particularly Notre Dame
Favorite drink – Diet Coke
Favorite ice cream – Black Cherry
Ever been on a ship - Yes
What color is your bedroom carpet – Tan shag
How many times did you fail your driver's test - None (surprisingly, since I learned how to drive the day before I took the test)
Before this, from who did you get your last
email? - Rachael
Bedtime - Between 11pm - midnight OR 8am depending if I worked all night or not
Favorite TV show – Grays Anatomy
Last person you went to dinner with - Sarah and Sheila
What were you doing at age 31 and 32 – Only 30, don't know yet
What are your favorite colors – purple
How many tattoos do you have - none
How many pets do you have – One
Which came first, the chicken or the egg - Chicken
What do you want to do before you die – Live life to the fullest
Have you ever been to Hawaii – Yes, and would love to go back!
Have you been to countries outside the U.S. – Yes, Canada, Jamaica, Mexico, Australia, Italy, Dominican Republic, Switzerland (for a minute)
Time this survey ended – 01:40am
Copy and paste the survey into your blog or into my comment section, change the answers to make them your own. Come on, give it a try, their fun easy questions to answer! Not a lot of thinking required.

Flight of ideas (mini blog posts)

I'm feeling the need to blog, yet nothing great comes to mind as to what to blog about. I have sort of had a flight of ideas but none of them significant enough to have a blog post of their own. So her are a few random thoughts:

1. BRRRR it's cold outside! Yesterday it was 73 degrees and sunny, and today it is 49 degrees, cloudy, and drizzly and very cold! I guess were not getting fall around here! Just summer and winter. I have enjoyed the prolonged summer, but such drastic temperature changes are not fun at all.

2. I am getting a garage! YEAH!!!! Did I mention that I wanted one? Yes, Todd wanted one too, but I think he put it all on me when getting the OK from his parents who own the house and land. He denies this of course but he slipped up one time and said that they told him "lots of people have babies and don't have garages". That was one of my reasons for wanting a garage, 1 to store things we don't use all the time (like a stroller) and 2 because I didn't want to have to be loading the baby in and out of the car in the cold and snow. So he either used my reasoning as his own, or he put it all on me wanting the garage! I think the later is true, but either way, I'm so thankful to be getting a garage so I guess it doesn't really matter.

3. I finally got the guest room moved out of the new baby's room and to the spare room in the basement. It is now painted the proper color and the furniture is in place. Now I just need some decorative touches and it will be perfect. Any suggestions as to what to cover that big electrical box in the corner with? It is an odd 16X40 inches and they just don't make many pictures that size. I'm thinking about a custom made cork board or fabric covered board with ribbon to hold photos, but really not sure yet. If you have any creative ideas let me know.

4. I finally got the crib put together. Rachael gave me her crib since she is done having babies. But you know how it goes, as soon as you say your done and give everything away.....

But seriously, she gave me a crib in 5 pieces and a jar of screws of different sizes with no directions, so I was pretty impressed that I was able to figure it out without too much distress all by myself. Now I just need to get a new mattress and I can make the bed. I of course need Rachael to show me how to adjust the crib first, apparently it has 3 positions for the mattress and I can only figure out 1. Oh and the room is all painted! Just need to finish the football field mural.

5. Today is Emergency nurses day! I didn't know such a day existed and I've been an ER nurse for 4 years now. But I heard it on the radio so it must be true. I guess the hospitals don't want us to know about it, otherwise they might have to acknowledge us in some way.

6. I am a bad meat cooker! I've been a vegetarian my whole life, Todd is not, so this meat thing is very foreign to me. I have tried for almost 2 years now to make decent things containing meat, but it is very hard to look at a recipe and know if it will be good or not. Oh well it's not like he didn't know this when he married me, and at least I try, maybe in 5 years I will have perfected a few more things. Last night I made a steak marinated in a Jack Daniels marinade sauce I saw at the store and thought sounded good (from a meat eaters point of view) but it didn't turn out so good. So tonight I decided to convert one of my favorite vegetarian recipes into a meat dish and see if it's as good with real meat as fake meat. Of course we'll never really know, because I wont try his version and he wont try mine. Todd is as much apposed to fake meat as I am to real meat. The recipe I made is called 5 Can Casserole. It uses 5 cans, that's where the name comes from.

Here is the finished product. And here's the recipe if your feeling like a little 5 Can Casserole yourself.

1 can vegeburger (or 1 pound ground beef for non vegetarians)

1 can celery soup

1 can mushroom soup

1 can tomato soup

1 can enchalada sauce

1 diced onion

1 pkg shredded cheese

1 pkg corn tortillas

Saute vegeburger and onions. Add cans of soup and enchalada sauce. Mix well. In a 9x13 baking dish, place a layer of tortillas, the filling, and cheese, repeat 3 times. Bake at 350 degrees until cheese melts. About 20-30 minutes. Enjoy!

Baby room progress

My Sunday started off with a short 4 hours of sleep for me after working all night and a very long night (all night plus the 4 hours he slept with me) for Brewster! He thinks he has just as much right to the pillows as I do. I woke up to Todd taking our picture.






Then it was off to pick up Rachael and Natalie and head to Ace Hardware to pick out some paint! We finally decided to paint the baby room. When Natalie painted me this very cute picture, we got the inspiration we were looking for to get started. The theme is now football.

The colors of the picture match my baby bedding very well. We painted the room blue and are going to recreate a football field on one wall in the room that will look somewhat like the one in the picture. Since Natalie did such a good job on the painting, she has been given the job of painting me a few more pictures to go with it. She is going to paint a cat/dog (whatever that animal is) kicking a field goal, and another one of a coach on the sidelines (again a cat/dog) that resembles Charlie Weis. (Notre Dames head coach)

We have a few other ideas for a couple more pictures, maybe a jersey with C******** on it and the no 07 (for the year he's born), and maybe another picture of a football or something. Any suggestions welcome. I can't wait till it's all done. I hope Natalie has the motivation to get them done quickly, she tends to get bored easily and this is a big task for her. I'll keep on her this week and maybe she'll get them done before she comes back into town next weekend.

Here is Rachael and I in the early stages of creating our mural of a football field. Todd was our photographer/entertainer while we painted. He was very resistant to actually helping, he just wanted to watch and talk. He claims he didn't want to get in the way of sisters bonding, which we weren't buying. I begged him to go and get a fan to help with the paint fumes and because we were hot, (a scorching 85 degrees outside) but it took Rachael teasing him that our baby might be somewhat mentally and or physically affected from being exposed to the fumes to get him to go and get the fan.

This is what we have done so far for the field. Now we just have to put the markings on it.
While we were all busy painting, Brewster was tormenting Natalie's kitten, or maybe it was the other way around! Neither one of them got hurt, at least not by each other. Todd did manage to drop a mattress on Brewster and he limped for a bit, but seems to have fully recovered.

And with all that activity and only 4 hours of sleep I can't believe I am awake at 4 am blogging! I was so tired when I went to bed I didn't take a Benadryl like I have gotten into the habit of doing every night that I don't work. Apparently I am addicted, because this is the first time since I started taking it that I have been up in the middle of the night. Or maybe it had something to do with my slightly more than usual caffeine consumption. Oh well, I needed to catch up on my blogging anyway.

More pictures to come when the project is done!

Delurking Day

Today I was reading Kathy's blog and realized that October 3 was designated as a delurking day in blog world, which was started by Schmutzie and friends to try and get people to leave comments and let their lurking be known. I'm glad they brought this up, I have often wondered myself, who is reading my blog? Of course I know of some because they are my faithful commenters. Then there are some that will email me with their comments and sometimes people will comment when they see me (like my friends calling me out on planning a trip to Costa Rica without inviting them). But surely there are others out there, of course there are the random one timers, who I don't really care who they are if they're never coming back, but if someone regularly reads, it would be nice to hear from you once in a while.
I myself am guilty of lurking around blogs and MySpace. My friend Lynette has a MySpace account and I was lurking on her site one day but never left a comment, the very next day she left me a comment, so then I got paranoid that there was some way to tell I had been there. Not that it mattered if I went to her site since we are friends, but I had also visited (lurked) some of her other friends sites too that I don't really know. But then I figured it doesn't really matter, if you blog or have a MySpace that is public to the web, you obviously don't mind people stopping by. By the way, I did fess up to lurking just to ask her if she knew I'd been there, and she hadn't, it was just random. At least that's what she told me, I still wonder. Because of course with blogs you can see who's been at your website to some degree.
So thank you to all my readers who leave me comments, they are much appreciated, and to those of you who read and don't comment, here is your chance to delurk yourself! And now I am going to start leaving comments more often too.

Back to the name debate

I was quite surprised today when I found Todd looking at this website today. It's actually pretty cool. You can type in your last name and the name genie gives you first and middle names that sound good with it, or you can give it a first name or middle name with your last name and it gives you the other one. I would have never guessed Todd was looking on the internet for baby names in his free time. So today we put in Lucio since Todd has been pretty stuck on that name lately, and guess what the first choice for a middle name was? Leo. Which is the name I like. Lucio Leo C*******. Sounds like it might be a winner. When I only gave the genie my last name he came up with another name I really like... Gavin Riley C*******. So far Todd's not convinced, but who knows, it might grow on him like Lucio is growing on me.

Of course if we do name him Lucio he will most likely be called Luke, the American version of Lucio. My family is big on nicknames so it's really no big thing to call him something other than his actual name. My grandpa has 3 siblings, and they all go by something other than their real name. My grandpa's name was Charles and he always went by Buddy, his sister Virginia went by Ginner, another sister we called Bugs and I don't even know her real name, another sister was called Mone, and I think that might actually be her real name but who knows. My Grandpa must have thought all that nickname stuff was dumb and you should just name them what your going to call them because he and my grandma named my dad Tommy, not Thomas, not Tom but Tommy!
So we have yet to come up with a definite name, it is such a hard decision. But at least we're making progress.

Baby room decor

Does this picture look familiar? It is actually a painting my sister Natalie painted for my baby's room. She stole the idea from the cover of Land of Nod catalog. I think she did a great job. I can't wait to get it from her this weekend. Now I just need to get going on the room. Maybe Sunday I will move the guest room furniture to it's new room in the basement. I think once I get the room empty I will be more motivated to get it decorated because it will be empty. So Rach I hope you've been coming up with some good ideas, were running out of time and I'm soon going to be running out of energy! lol!

Work talk

Last night at work I was asked by the doctor to get some meds together for him so he could do an injection for back pain. I gathered all the supplies and meds he would need and handed them to him at the nurses station. He sarcastically stated that most nurses would put the supplies in the room and set it up on a mayo stand for him. This is when I tried to play my pregnancy card, I said, Have you seen how big my belly is? Do you really think its necessary for me to walk all the way down the hall just to put these things on a stand for you when your going down there yourself? He then came around the other side of the desk and stood next to me and showed me that his belly is much bigger than mine and his is permanent! Okay so he won the biggest belly contest, but he still carried his own supplies to the room. ;)
We even took a picture, (always thinking about the blog in the back of my head) on my camera phone, but I can't find the cord to get it off the phone and on the computer, so you'll just have to take my word for it.
Other drama at work to mention is October 1 the hospital became a non-smoking campus. You now must leave the property to smoke, and you must clock out if you leave hospital property. Technically you can only clock out on your 30 min lunch break because your 15 min breaks are paid for. Last night I worked with 2 smokers, they did better than I thought they would, only went out 3 times in 12 hours. But tonight I work with a secretary who is a 2 pack a day smoker and I am really worried how she will handle it tonight. She doesn't do well with stress, so I am hoping for an easy night at work, because if it's really busy AND she is going through nicotine withdrawl I think she might just quit (work, not smoking). Not really, but it will be a tough night I'm sure. This is the same secretary who finds humor in reminding me how big I am getting, so I think I will have a little fun teasing her tonight about not being able to smoke!
Well I must rap this up, I need to catch up on my Tivo'd shows before heading off to work. Too many shows to watch and not enough time!

My friend Jodi's wedding weekend!

I have been so busy lately that I haven't had time to blog. This past weekend was my friend Jodi's wedding. Everything went great, with no disasters. My friend Lynette and I got roped into being what she called her goto girls, (we had another name for it;) ). She kept us very busy doing all sorts of things for her. I was starting to think 3rd trimester fatigue was at an all time high, but my friend Lynette was just as tired as I was, so I don't think that was it. We were happy to help though, she of course did the same for me when I had my wedding reception, so I definitely owed her. Now she is off to Mexico and I am off to work. Here are a few pictures from the wedding. Since we all work at the same hospital (for the most part) it usually takes a big event like this to get us all off on the same night, so it was fun to spend time with all my friends for an evening.