Random Thoughts about life in general, living in the big city of Toronto
Thank you very much for all of the condolence messages that I received yesterday. Many of you have lost loved ones,and some several in recent times. I felt bad for many of the commenter’s as they told me their stories of loss.
I do appreciate your kind words.
I’m feeling better about things today. I think I am anyway. Perhaps since it was a big anniversary of my fathers death it hit me harder. I don’t know, but that’s the hardest my grief has hit me in a long time.
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This weeks Theme is RED
Ha! I bet a lot of you did Christmassy stuff didn’t ya? Me? Nope … you know I’ve always gotta be different.
This is a photo that I took on bright sunny summer day. Look at that blue sky! We were driving in our car on a busy thoroughway called the QEW or Queen Elizabeth Way in Toronto, near Lake Ontario. I was lucky the photo didn’t blur. In fact it was so sharp that I put a little motion blur where the car is in a couple versions of this photo to give it more interest. But this version- it works for this theme … bright vibrant red, speeding along on a sunny summer day.
If you are a photo scavenger hunt participant please feel free to leave a link. All other links will be removed. Please do NOT link and RUN. I really really hate that.
There’s a new site called Loanwize that offers a look at the best rates for personal loans, with listings as low as 5.6% on loans with major banks and financial organizations.
You can also get advice from Loanwize on secured personal loans and mortgages as well as read some of their many articles. The articles on the site describe the different types of loans, and which types of institutions are better to secure loans with depending upon your own needs.
I kept myself busy all day today. I didn’t spend much time thinking, I was busy posting … but when I was finally caught up with almost all my postings at around 6 p.m. it suddenly hit me …
My father died exactly five years ago today.
It wasn’t as if I didn’t realize it. I think I was blocking it out all day. But I kept seeing December 8th, December, 8, 2006, 12/8/2006 … all day … and it finally got to me. I let my guard down around six, and bang, I’ve been crying and crying. I can’t stop. Well I do for a bit, and then a song will come on the radio and the tears start to flow again.
My cheeks are burning. It’s like my tears are acid.
I know that if my dad didn’t die when he did, he would have gone downhill and he would have still been gone by the time this year arrived. He had major heart problems, and I guess in the end he was lucky. He didn’t feel very well for about a month before he died, and he might have suspected that it was coming, but he didn’t really suffer. Not like he could have ended up suffering anyway. He died quite peacefully in his sleep. Just the way I imagine he would have wanted.
It doesn’t help that my mother ended up having cancer and died two years after him. I’m mourning both of them today.
It doesn’t usually hit me this hard though. I guess I usually just deal with what life hands me, but today- I’m not dealing very well.
I wonder how many people who read my page are nurses, or have thought of becoming a nurse as a career? Even though I haven’t been able to work for a while due to my Crohns, I can tell you that I love my career choice. If you’ve been reading this page for a while you probably also know that becoming a nurse wasn’t my first career choice. It took me a while to come around to nursing. I was a make up artist first, then a Jeweller to the trade, and only when the Jewelry trade went into recession did I decide that I wanted to make a career out of helping others.
As a nurse, I can tell you that you will never come home from your shift feeling glamorous, but you will come home from your shift most of the time feeling like you’ve made a difference in someones life. Whether that feeling of accomplishment comes from making someone who’s in pain feel just a little bit better, making someone laugh, or from saving a life – you’ll know you made a difference.
If you’ve been thinking of becoming a nurse or going back to school to take some specialty courses in nursing you should take a look at the Nursing Degree Guide. You’ll find information on the site about the various types of nurses/ nursing careers from LVN/LPN, RN, specialties and advanced practice Nursing.
The Nursing Degree guide also has information regarding the various types of Nursing Degrees that are available Online and in Universities, such as Associates Degree, Bachelor’s Degree and Master’s Degree courses. If you are interested in getting a Degree you can read up on what’s involved in the course and the specialties that you can branch out into when you achieve your degree.
I really enjoyed reading this site and getting more information on the courses available to me. I was also pleased to find that if I wanted to take more courses that there is a way for me to take them online through the University of Phoenix, Kaplan Nursing and six other Colleges and Universities that offer Online courses.
I hope that if any of my readers have ever thought of a career in nursing that they will take a look at the Nursing Degree Guide for an explanation of the types of nursing careers that are available today. There are nursing shortages all over North America. We need more nurses to join us in our work. It’s demanding, but it’s also satisfying work.
I can tell you that one of the reasons why there are long waiting times in the ER and for surgeries is because of the nursing shortage. I work in one of the busiest ER’s in Canada and while we are likely one of the best staffed units in our hospital, most days we could easily double our staff and still have people waiting to be seen.