Three years

It's hard to believe it's been three years already. Some days it feels like a lifetime. We've lived a lot and learned a lot the last few years. 

Ronnie took me on a surprise anniversary/New Years eve date. How sweet is he?!?  It started by  visiting the spot where we got engaged. We got there right at sunset. Breathtaking. Then we went to Prime 47 Steak House downtown. It was delicious!  And they even gave us a free dessert!

I'm lucky to have married the man of my dreams.  I love you, babe.

Christmas

The Christmas Season is already drawing to a close. I am sad to see it go so quickly. Between the late Thanksgiving and the hospital move, I feel like I hardly got to enjoy it! Ronnie had a great first Christmas living at home. He decked the house out in lights and helped me make the interior warm and festive as well. We were able to entertain a few times in the past few weeks which also brought cheer to our home. We spent our Christmas up in Ft. Wayne with my Grandma and my mom's siblings this year. It is always so fun to get together with everyone and goof off a little bit. The DELICIOUS Christmas feast never hurts either. ;)

Christmas decor

This year we have so enjoyed decorating the house. Since it's Ronnie's first official Christmas at home, even he has been in on the fun!

Historic Times

This week has been full of packing, moving, unpacking, and strange schedules as Wishard Hospital makes the historic move two blocks west to become Eskenazi Health. As we leave this grungy old building for a shiny new one, we have been reminded at every step of the rich history of Wishard Memorial Hospital. With over 150 years of service to the community, Wishard has played many roles including being a place of healing for soldiers during the Civil War and a place of learning as one of the nations first nursing schools. Today, Wishard-Eskenazi stands out as the regions top burn center and level one trauma center, and I couldn't be more proud.

While I'm sure I wont miss the basement cockroaches and speratic leaks and breaks, I will miss the secret passage ways and stories that go along with this old building. You see, Wishard has history for me too; history that began even before I started working here. Both my parents worked here in the Wishard basement after graduating from college; my mom as a cytology tech and my dad as a med tech. I've heard stories about their days down in the basement and I even work with some of their past coworkers now! But leaving Wishard is only the end of a chapter and I for one am beyond excited for our new home as Eskenazi Health.

The new Eskenazi boasts individual rooms for each patient, a new Clinical Decisions unit, a rooftop garden, the second largest parking garage in Indiana, snazzy art pieces, and all the latest innovations that earned it a green leaf certification. And best of all... the lab is NOT in the basement! We graduated all the way up to the second floor! After several tours and a bit of wandering, I have learned my way to most of the most necessary locations: lab, locker room, breakroom, cafeteria, and of course Starbucks. I'm so excited to be a part of something so amazing, and while it has been a bit stressful, I can honestly say I have enjoyed the ride.

All of our boxes arrived at the lab yesterday and a select few of us spent the evening unpacking and organizing each lab bench. Today, the instruments are being set up and validated. That leaves a scant few of us here at Wishard today to run the few samples that trickle in from the ER and units. Tomorrow is the big day. Over 200 patients will be moved, with the help of the Indiana National Gaurd and Navy Reserves as well as EMS, volunteers, and police, to the new hospital. We will be working from 2 locations starting tonight until everyone is out. Yes, this is a legistical nightmare that we are just begining to comprehend. It comes with a 12 hour shift starting at 3am tomorrowm, too.

Wish us luck and say a few prayers as we end this move and begin this exciting new chapter!

For more info about our move, check out:

• WTHR:  Eskenazi facility rises above old Wishard
• IndyStar:  Eskenazi Hospital prepares to open
• IndyStar: Eskenazi Hospital Tour

Meet Boomer

So I just realized, that I never officially introduced the world to our new (old) dog, Boomer! Yes... you heard right... we have ANOTHER dog. Boomer is Ronnie's childhood dog that we decided to take in. We brought him back with us after our trip to Oklahoma in November. He seems to be adjusting well to the house of energetic little dogs. He jumps right in and runs around with Mia and Sulley. He even tried to play tug of war with them the other day despite his complete toothlessness.

Little Lady Turns One!

We made a quick trip to Oklahoma for our sweet little niece's first birthday. It was so fun to hang out with our little lady and the rest of Ronnie's family. Ronnie was able to visit his sister and brother at their jobs and we got to spend time with all his grandparents (Keep his papa in your prayers as he is having a dificult time recovering from heart surgery). Little miss Brooke had a lot of fun with her birthday cake and really seemed to like the play food we got for. A girl after my own heart. ;) We miss them all so much already and cant wait until the next visit. 

Halloween Puppers

I know this is a little late, but we had a fun Halloween this year.  I don't know about the rest of the country, but here in Indy, Halloween was postponed due to severe storms.  All the trick-or-treaters came around on Friday night instead and the puppies were ready for them.  Sulley was the world's cutest baby seal and Mia was a pig.  

Weekend Work

I passed another milestone in my "new" job a couple of weeks ago. I worked my first weekend. This marked the end of my official training and the start of handeling benches on my own. Weekends have a lower volume of work but with fewer staff, I had a large hematology area to cover. The weekend went really well and I managed to hold my own despite it being only 3 days after going live with our new hematology analyzers. Funny thing though; working that weekend made me the resident expert on the new instruments which pretty much still stands. I dont mean that in a cocky way by any means. The analyzer is new to everyone and having four or so consecutive days running it, trouble shooting it, and releasing results with low volume of "experts" to ask over the weekend made me feel pretty competent. I really enjoyed the fast pace and managed to keep up and hold my own. The downside of working the weekend was, well, not having a weekend, but having the days off during the week was a huge perk. I even got to take Mom out for her birthday! I dont know, maybe I can get use to this weekend thing... At least for the couple time a month it comes around.

Tortellini Pasta Salad

I couldn't wait to post this after making it tonight.  We are having a birthday pitch-in at work tomorrow and I needed an appetizer that was easy and could be refrigerated.  I decided it was the perfect opportunity to try something from Pinterest [of course].  I've been wanting to try this new rendition of pasta salad for a while now.  It has tortellini, cherry tomatoes, pepperoni, basil, and fresh mozzarella.  It turned out SO GOOD.  I'm SUPER excited to take it in tomorrow.

The original recipe can be found here by "Dream Home Cooking Girl."  I made a couple changes.  First, I was making it for a large group so instead of using all tortellini, I used a box of colored spiral noodles as well.  I figured it would make it a little less rich and add some more color.  Second, my little basil plant that has done so well all summer while I didn't need it, is now pretty sorry looking so I used dried basil to taste.  Really, I didn't do a lot of measuring; just kinda eyeballed it.  All-in-all, it was very easy and VERY yummy.  

• Cook tortellini and spiral noodles in separate pots following package directions 
• (I used a normal box of noodles and two 8 oz packages of tortellini.)
• Once done, drain and rinse with cold water
• Add in:
• about a cup of cherry tomatoes, halved
• 3/4 cup of pepperoni cut in to small pieces
• 1 cup fresh mozzarella cheese, diced
• about 3/4 cup Ceasar dressing
• basil, salt, and pepper to taste (Original recipe calls for 3/4 cup copped fresh basil)
• Gently stir and refrigerate

Pay Day!

I've been at my new job for three whole weeks now.  Since I started in the middle of a pay period, today was my first big girl pay day!  That is a milestone in any college grad's life and mine is no different.  I would love to say that I went and celebrated in some way, but truth be told, I am just enjoying a lazy weekend at home catching up on some much needed sleep.  I've had a time getting use to these early mornings.  I get up at 5am now and, as a night owl and ANTI morning bird, it has taken its toll.  

I have enjoyed my first couple weeks on the bench though and have been "checked off" to work in blood gas, troponin iStat, Urinalysis, and kit testing.  It's been a lot of fun and I am looking forward to starting a new bench sometime next week.