14August2008
Posted by megan under: Uncategorized.
I helped Leah transplant some pepper plants to her new apartment today, she rewarded me with this huge Polish tomato. It was probably one of the best tomatoes I have ever had, it was so meaty inside but still really full of flavor.
I made turkey/garden burgers (I but lots of veggies inside the turkey) for dinner and the tomatoes were a perfect touch thanks Leah!
14August2008
Posted by megan under: Uncategorized.
forgot to include the pictures taken from when Aunt Karen (AK) stopped by to see Erin before she left Ohio, AK saw the set of “Gnarly Teeth” that we purchased in Vermont and had to take a picture with them!
10August2008
Posted by megan under: Hikes; Vacations.
Erin and I left Sunday morning heading north to New York’s finger lakes, we didn’t really plan much we just sort of had a general idea about where we wanted to go and from there we just sort of flew by the seat of our pants. Our first stop was Robert H. Treman State Park which is just outside of Ithaca. We went on a really nice hike through the gorge, it was pretty much beautiful, tons of mushrooms tons!! We could barely get five feet without stopping to take pictures of another hatch of fungus. The trail followed along the gorge overlooking countless waterfalls, it was great and we had perfect weather, not too hot. There was an amazing swimming spot we didn’t end up going in but I was literally frothing at the mouth when I saw it Erin was ready to push me in it, words just wouldn’t do it justice.
After our hike we headed into Ithaca in search for some “Ithaca is Gorges” T-shirts, these shirts don’t lie folks, it really is gorgeous in the gorges there. We found that Ithaca suited us quite nicely, quaint earthy town that reminded us of Corvallis, Bend and a touch of San Francisco to boot. We found our T-shirts and had a hard time not buying one in every color and style, they are just so satisfying. Our second night we stayed at Filmore Glen State Park in New York, we thought we were going to make it to Vermont this day but the fingerlakes were holding our attention and we wanted to drive around Skaneateles (pronounced Skinny-Atlas) it took us forever to get that one done, we literally had to stalk the locals with our ears to figure out how to say some of the names in New York and Vermont.
Filmore Glen was a nice campground with a built in gorge hike as well, love the campgrounds that come complete with decent hikes, more waterfalls, mushrooms and beautiful views, we got up early to hike this one so we also had the trail to ourselves which is always nice. After our hike we continued on our drive around Skaneateles and then along highway 20 towards Vermont for most of the day. We arrived in Vermont early evening at one of the most beautiful campgrounds we had ever stayed at, nestled in the woods it was so perfect, our site was very private right next to a big stream. We made dinner and then headed out for an evening hike to the top of Bald Mountain, which was a pretty good climb, the only trouble was that the mosquitoes were bitting like crazy so we literally had to book it up the mountain to keep from getting eaten alive, it was a good workout and by the time we got to the top it was getting dark so it was a good thing we had our headlamps with us so that we could see the splotches of blue paint on the trees marking the trail otherwise I couldn’t totally see how people get lost in the forest on simple trails.
The next morning we woke to a torrential down pour so we quickly packed our things and headed out onto the road to do a little touring of Vermont. Our first stop was the Grafton Cheese Company were we got to catch a little cheese making in action and taste some sharp and yummy Vermont Cheddar.
Next we headed to the Vermont Country Store and spent a good hour in there perusing the knick-knacks, it was here that Erin made one of the best purchases of the trip, a set of eight Gnarly Teeth, these little gems proved to be a campers best friend throughout the trip, anytime things were needing a mood lift simply pop in a pair of these bad boys and it was hard not to crack up. since the weather was sort of foul on this particular day we continued to “hike” Vermont via the car stopping at various country stores and sites trying to make the most of the weather. Luckily that night we were able to get a Lean-to at a state park near Waterbury, this was great considering we needed our tent to dry out and the ground was soaked. The next morning we went on another nature hike and then headed to Ben & Jerry’s for a factory tour. We then headed to a Cider house to get some Cider Doughnuts, Erin had been told by someone that these doughnuts were the best thing they had found in VT, so naturally we had to see for ourselves. It was here that we had a very special encounter, Lucky Leo was a man that struck up conversation with us while we were waiting for our hot doughnuts, he offered to take our picture for us and then proceeded to tell us his whole life story and then some. He was quite the character, Leo and his wife Barb are from New Jersey, he boasted “We don’t smoke or drink, never have” and it showed because when he told us he was 81 we were shocked, “You are not 81 years old” I told him and he replied “You are right, I’m not, I’m going to be 82 next month!”
2August2008
Posted by megan under: nursing news.
I finished up with psych on Friday, my last clinical day was Thursday, my clinical group and I decided to do Karaoke with our patients on our unit as a last day thank you for letting us have the experience there. It was pretty neat to see these people light up, they loved it, everyone wanted to sing a song no one seemed to be too embarrassed. People were dancing and smiling it was such a nice way to end our time there because at times it was so depressing to hear peoples sad stories all day long; it really wears on you because you want to help these people but you can’t. Some of the songs that were a hit with the patients:
You’re So Vain - Carly Simon
I Feel the Earth Move - Carol King
Yesterday - The Beatles
These are just a few that got everyone joining in and singing with the person who was up at the mic. The hospital has a karaoke machine but the staff said that they rarely let the patients use it because it gets to be annoying for them. I thought this was sort of a shame especially after seeing how happy it made everyone, seems like a much better way to spend your time compared to the alternative which usually consists of watching quality shows such as Jerry Springer. Anyway, I am off for a week now and I am heading north tomorrow to go camping with Erin (she flew in this morning) we are hoping to check out Finger Lakes in Ithaca, NY and then head over to Vermont to do some hiking/camping in the Green Mountains. Should be a good time. Jason can’t go this time, I feel sort of bad leaving him in stinky Ohio especially after being inundated by Ohioans today at the Ohio State Fair, it was good people watching but it didn’t really make Ohio seem anymore appealing. Jason posted pictures already here!
27July2008
Posted by megan under: Family; Hikes.
Last weekend Jason, Grams and I dusted off Grams’ old bike and got it ready for the road again. The bike is about 40+ years old but it is still in great condition since she kept it in a shed and when she use to ride it she told us how she use to scrub the chrome with steel wool and then put Vaseline on it to keep it from rusting. We had to buy new tires and a seat (for comfort reasons) but other than that it was a pretty easy clean-up.
13July2008
Posted by megan under: Hikes; nursing news.
Jason went home to Oregon for a break and headed to Hells Canyon with his good friend Jos to do some adventuring/backpacking near the border of Idaho. I was very Jealous that I wasn’t able to go along with them this time since our breaks never seem to line up. They had a pretty excellent time the pictures are great check them out here.
While he was off having a good time, I started my first week in Psych. I am doing my clinical rotation at Twin Valley Behavioral Hospital which is the state psych facility. It is really interesting but I can assure you that my first day on the floor pretty much was the decider, I don’t think I could ever work as a psych nurse. Although the ways of psych hospitals have changed a lot over the years (for the better, people with mental illness are no longer treated like criminals) I just don’t think I could handle it every day. The best part of my day was when I got to attend art therapy with my patient, I got to paint too and listen to music. It was very therapeutic for both of us especially after being in the middle of a “psych code” in which a patient became violent and was throwing punches. Since the floor that I am on is considered to be an admissions unit a lot of the patients are just being started on meds either for the first time or they are back due to a relapse so a lot of the symptoms are evident (word salad, psychotic rambling etc.) this is good for learning but it also means that the tensions are high. Luckily I only have three more weeks of this and then it will be my turn to have a week off and do some hiking!
7July2008
Posted by megan under: Hikes.
This weekend I went with Leah and her friends to West Virginia to do a little rafting and camping. We had a nice day for rafting on the New River Gorge, not too hot not too cold. It was a good weekend playing games, relaxing and hiking. I didn’t have any homework this weekend after finishing up with OB on Thursday so I truly was able to relax and forget about school for a while. We left Columbus Thursday night and headed south east to Marietta, OH, which is two hours away and on the border of Ohio and WV, to meet up with Leah’s friend Cecilia. We stayed the night in Marietta at a sorority house that was empty for the summer, Cecilia’s Aunt is a house mom there and was kind enough to let us stay for free. It was a lot of fun staying in this big old house especially since I was never in a sorority so it was interesting to see how things work in there. The next morning we got up early and had a light breakfast in the big dinning hall before continuing on to WV, it was really nice of Leah and her friends to let me tag along with them since this is sort of their tradition to get together every year and go rafting. It was great being back in WV, I love the rolling hills they remind me of some of Oregon’s foothills (except for the deciduous trees dominating the landscape of course) . We arrived at the campground with enough time to set up camp and get ready for rafting, our campground was associated with the rafting company so we were able to walk to the rafting office from the campsite and from there a big school bus took us to the spot on the river were we put in. I was really excited because on the way over to the rafting office I spotted a Luna moth hanging out on the women’s restroom sign, I wasn’t going to bring my camera rafting so I had to run back to camp and get it, I have been hoping to find one for a long time and was so worried it would fly away before I got my camera, luckily it didn’t and I was able to get my camera which I ended up successfully taking with me on the raft with the aid of two freezer zip lock baggies.
1July2008
Posted by megan under: Uncategorized.
This past weekend I went home with Leah to visit her home town which is in the Cleveland vicinity on Lake Erie. She had been talking up one of her hometown festivals, the International Festival, for a few weeks now and I must say it did deliver! We started off on Saturday going on a lighthouse tour with her Babci (Polish for grandmother), Babci had been wanting to take this tour for a long time so it was cute to see how excited she was about it, Leah had told me a lot about her, but after spending a few hours with her I was able to truly appreciate her spunk! She was the center of attention on the boat that we had to ride in order to get to the lighthouse, I think everyone was getting a kick out of her, the Polish accent was an added charm. The lighthouse that we toured is being renovated right now by volunteers and they only just recently started doing tours as a means to get people interested/excited about the restoration project so that they can hopefully gain more backing for the project. It was pretty amazing to see what they had done so far considering the limited funds. After the tour we went back to shore and hit up some food at the International Festival. The International Festival costs one dollar to get in for the entire weekend! I mean really what a deal! The festival is all about food from different nationalities, food and dancing specific to each different nationality, and since Lorain is such a diverse city the food was authentic so that was cool (side note: Leah tells me that Lorain is actually known as the international city).
27June2008
Posted by megan under: nursing news.
I finished up my last clinical evening on OB, it started out sort of slow and the nurse that I was paired up with was very disgruntled and probably should look into a new field of nursing because she was definitely burnt out. But I got to see two vaginal deliveries tonight and one c-section and one vag last week. Very exciting L & D would be a fun place to work for a while, a lot of excitement and the nurses get to do a lot and are very involved with the process so that is cool. Last night we had a major storm go through Columbus so we were expecting a busy night on the floor, (they say that foul weather acts as sort of a natural induction to labor and usually the floor gets flooded with new admissions) I think this was probably true considering the nursery was packed and nearly all the laboring rooms were full. It was such an intense storm last night I was actually beginning to worry, there wasn’t a lot of wind which was weird but the lightning was incredible, this time the storm passed right through Columbus instead of splitting like they usually do, the tornado sirens were going off and the rain was coming down in sheets. It was about 12:30 when it hit my area and I ended up having to call my Grandma and wake her up to tell her to get to her basement, it is always really scary when there are tornadoes at night because depending upon where your house is you might not hear the sirens real well and could never know. It was a good thing I called her because she was sound asleep and had no idea that a storm was coming through. I took some video of the thunder, Jason was snapping pictures as well you can hear his shutter snapping and the tornado sirens (I am pretty familiar with the sirens now, last year was a different story, some of you know about my exciting run home during a tornado warning) it is sort of creepy.
“Thunder and Lightning”
“Thunder”
“Sirens”
23June2008
Posted by megan under: Family.
Steph arrived early Friday morning, we decided to have a little bbq to celebrate the first day of summer and her arrival to Ohio. It was sort of a ghetto bbq since we ended up doing it in my front yard since the back stairs are still under construction, (they are replacing the back porch and steps it is taking forever) but it was actually really nice since it wasn’t too hot and ended up being more of an Oregon summer kind of night but with lightening bugs! It was a whirlwind trip for Steph, but we did manage to swing up to northwest Ohio to visit our great Aunts Kathy and Nana on the lake. It wasn’t too warm so we didn’t get to swim but Steph was happy because she got to enjoy a thunderstorm that rolled over the lake (mild though it was there was thunder nonetheless). Something that I really do enjoy about living in Ohio, thunderstorms, I look forward to them and actually track them on the radar in hopes that the red areas will run over my zip code, not that I want anyone to get hurt I just enjoy a good storm. A few weeks ago I ended up missing a huge storm because I was over at Leah’s studying, (Columbus is sort of weird in that the thunderstorms tend to split and go either north or south of the city, sometimes one side of the city could get totally pummeled with a severe thunderstorm and the other side could be completely dry and sunny) when I came home from studying it was dark and my entire street was without power, a street lamp had fallen over and crushed a car and tore down some power lines, I guess it was probably a good thing that I was not there just in case my car had been parked on the street but still I was sort of disappointed that I missed the action. when Steph and I lived in Corvallis together my first year at Oregon State there was a random thunderstorm (very rare for Oregon) at 2am we were both asleep but woke up with the thunder and lightening and I walked into Steph’s room to see if she was up and sure enough she was sitting on the edge of her bed all excited looking out the window, we stayed up until it was over storm watching out our windows. Anyway, although it was a quick weekend it was so nice to see my sister made me a little homesick because we have always lived really close to each other, I am looking forward to living close to my sisters again. In semi-related news, Jason got into OHSU for an away rotation this coming fall, hopefully this will help him to get into OHSU for residency so that we can live close to family again!
