Catch 22

So this past week has been quite interesting.  What began as going to Home Depot to buy a few pieces of trim to finish the crown molding in our house turned into a HUGE endeavor that has ultimately turned into purchasing a motorcycle.  The irony about this purchase is the fact we are going on a strict budget to save money and pay off debt and here we are... buying something else to increase our debt.  It's the saying you have to spend money to make money i guess.  Like all financial conversations go, it began with looking ways to save money and pay off debt.  Everything was analyzed.  However, our conversation revolved around one of our biggest expenses every month....Transportation cost aka fuel!

My GTO was has been an awesome car.  Considering it has a 6.0 Liter V8, gas mileage isn't horrible at 18-20 mpg compared to some vehicles but definitely not great.  Recently, I hit the 100,000 milestone on the car.  The car has been quite dependable with all origin parts excluding the radiator, water pump, batteries, tires, and fluids.  That being said, replacing the clutch on the car is a realistic upcoming expense since ive hit 100,000 miles.  Having one of the local shops do the replacement would put us out a little over 1K and leave us without the car for 2 days.  As mechanically inclined as i am, i totally could change it out myself, only 2 days would probably turn into 4 days.

Which brings us to our conversation.  With a trade in value of 6-8K, trading the car in isn't an option.  Seeing as how most new cars start at like 20-30K, even with trading it in, another car payment at 300-400/month would be unavoidable.  Selling it outright, drops us down to 1 vehicle which isn't practical since i work so far away and working 4 days per week would make it extremely hard on my wife being stuck at home.  Having her drop me off at work wouldnt be practical either making 4 trips/ day.  Buying a new car isn't an option because the payment would be high without a decent trade or money down.  Buying used opens us up to the same potential problems particularly if we buy a used car with lots of mileage.  Even a used car with decent mileage wasn't beneficially cheaper vs buying a new vehicle.  Then we came up with the great idea of getting a motorcycle.

Taking the GTO to work 4 days per week was getting quite expensive.  I figured it down to cost per trip and was surprised to find that it cost slight over $10/trip.  Not a huge amount of money but enough for almost 200/month in my car alone.  A definite contributor to our 400-500/month in fuel costs.

In doing a little reseach and we found a decent used motorcycle, a 2009 honda shadow with 32500 miles on it.  Know i know you're probably thinking wow thats a lot of miles for a motorcycle.  We said the same thing.  But as long as you maintain the bike, they can last as longs as cars.  Also, having that amount of miles means the bike was driving and didn't spend months sitting.  The dealer we found it through even offered an extended warrenty of 2 years.  With an estimated 50 mpg, our fuel cost just went down to about $4/trip.  Cutting our fuel cost in half.  Our trip to the dealer branched off into also looking at what is available now.  Lots of research revealed, Honda would be our cheapest option for buying new.  They had a CBR250R sportbike that was also reasonably priced as well.  Being a lighter, smaller engine bike, gas mileage was estimated to be 70mpg.  The cost per trip is now down to $2/trip! Factor in the cost of the bike and insurance and we are still saving money on transportation cost every month.  

And now all the naysayers out there.  Everybody has an opinion!  Motorcycles are too dangerous, nobody ever sees them, i would end up getting killed or hurt.  Just like skydiving is extremely dangerous, the parachute opening hurts, landing is hard, and there is a falling sensation.  Now as an avid cyclist, i know the dangers because i ride on the same roads with a bicycle only going 20-30mph slower than traffic.  I've already got myself preprogrammed to be defensive because i'm always defensive on the bicycle.  The advantage is now, i'm on a level playing field because i can travel the same speeds as the vehicles that are usually passing me.  This also reverts to the reason we got the bike we did.  Upon really examining these two bikes, i noticed something.  The tail light and turn signal positioning are quite different.  In a automobile, both sit approximately 4 feet off the ground.  On the CBR250, they sit about 3 feet off the ground while the Shawdow sits about 2 feet off the ground.  Obviously people aren't looking close to the ground to see your lights which is why most people don't see the motorcyclist.  So we went with the CBR250. 

Then there is the issue of gear.  The majority of people injured in a motorcycle accident are due to lack of protective equipment.  Being in Florida, helmets are not mandatory.  Riding with a helmet and some people make fun of you, riding with a full face helmet and they really make fun of you.  But yet these are the same people that complain when they get hit by bugs in the face.  I'll forgo the taste of love bugs, and the impact of the rain i'll occasionally hit on the way home and go with the full protection of a full face helmet.  By the way, rain sucks when your exposed and traveling at a high rate of speed.  Believe me i know i've made a few skydives in the rain and it hurts.  NOT FUN!  As for further protection, i'm all about full protective gear and make fun of me if you will, my jacket is bright yellow.  No mistaking me.  Call me new, call me inexperienced, make fun of me all you.  I don't care.  Instead I'm looking forward to a long time of riding pleasure as safely as i can be.   

Exhaustion

Since, miss Addie is now 2 years old (hard to believe) i'm drawn to reflecting on things that have happened.  Being a new parent, the stress of everything, and lots of sleepless nights can really take a toll on you.  Nothing was more evident than one night when i got up to feed our daughter.  Honestly, i don't remember if it was one of those times where i worked the night before or not, nor do i remember when exactly it was.  But i do remember what happened...

I took on the responsibility of giving miss Addie a bath that night.  Something that i don't usually do since i worked nights at that time.  Miss Addie loves baths and showers so it's always enjoyable for both parties.  While getting her dressed, i had this funny feeling i was totally forgetting something.  That's funny because everyday i leave for work, i have that same feeling i totally missed something important to pass on report or even some sort of paperwork that i needed to fill out that wasn't.  So i dismissed it.  After all what's the worst that could happen.  At that time, we would bring her into our bedroom to feed her in the middle of the night because it was so much easier.  So 0'dark thirty arrived, and it's feeding time.  I took on the responsibility to get up with her at this time.  In my drunken sleeping state i managed to get Adelyn and her bottle and headed back to our bed.  After getting back into a comfortable position to begin feeding Adelyn, i realized i'm going to have to change her onesie because her diaper soaked through again.  Then it hit me.  LITERALLY.  The wet spot became a river all down my side.  My thoughts go back to when i got Adelyn dressed earlier that night.  I was looking at her and realized i was totally forgetting something....something important.... And now i know what it was... a diaper!  Now if you haven't had kids you'd probably freak out about now.  Most parents would just be like "eh..at least it isn't poop."  Being a nurse, i'm thinking, "well at least it's sterile."

Since this little mishap has occurred, i can honestly say i haven't missed a diaper yet!  All in all the only damage was a little extra laundry and a shower.  I leave you with a cute picture of miss Adelyn recently...

Ralph

So we got a new greyhound.  We named him Ralph because Adelyn's favorite movie is Wreck it Ralph.  We've been talking about getting another greyhound since we got Moby.  But since it has been quite busy attempting to raise Adelyn, we held off on getting another one right away.  But a quick ride down to north fort myers and we found ourselves at the same adoption kennel we went to 3 years ago.  Moby even tagged along to potentially met a new buddy.  Since Moby is so huge, we wanted to get a much smaller one.  The females are usually smaller and we managed to see one that was almost the same markings as Moby.  Moby seemed to like her as well.  In fact he attempted to mount her almost immediately.  However, Donna recommended that another boy would be a better option due to Adelyn.  After looking at a few, we came to Ralph aka "Gunsmoke."  Now Ralph is a beautiful fawn colored greyhound.  He acted just like Moby when he was brought out.  He immediately leaned on us and gave us kisses, something Moby never does.

Upon bringing him home, we determined Moby and Ralph are completely different.  Ralph is a thief, a hoarder, and a bully.  In the first few days, Ralph found his bag of food picked it up and dragged it to his bed.  I guess he figured it was his so why not keep it with his stuff.

The other night my wife and i were watching tv sitting on the floor in our bedroom.  Low and behold in walks Ralph with a stuffed animal in his mouth carrying it to his crate all nonchalant.  The funny thing about it is the fact all the stuffed animals are in the kids bedroom across the house.  So he had to sneak into their bedrooms, search around, grab an animal and head back to the crate.  As for being a bully, you can see how skinny he is.  He has snarled and growled at Moby a few times.  Mainly because food was involved and he hasn't realized that we won't deprive him of it.  

Ralph also raced in 60 races.  Unfortunately, he didn't win any.  Moby on the other hand is a racing dropout and never raced.  This became very evident when we take the two for a walk.  Moby is huffing and puffing a 1/4 mile down the road and needs to stop and pee or poo every 100 yards.  Ralph just keeps on walking.  In fact Ralph has been out to a 1.5 miles without slowing us down.  Attempting to walk Moby that distance would result in us practically dragging him home.  So it just proves if you want to walk and run with a greyhound... get one fresh off the track!

History

Okay so it's been awhile since the last time i posted anything.  I'm attempting a return into this blogging thing so i can post interesting things that have and will come up in my life.  Just to give you an update, the last two years have been quite interesting.  My wife and I have managed to survive the upbringing of our extremely challenging daughter.  And by survive i mean barely.  Almost all sleepless nights, extreme fuzziness, food allergies, mental breakdowns, and never ending crying and screaming has and continues to be our norm.  However, we are making progress.  The other day, Adelyn was evaluated for a potential speech delay and sure enough we have a developmental delay.  OT will be here in a week or two to really establish what type and how to better assist Adelyn in overcoming this challenge.  Thanks to my wife who has been there the entire time, we've determined that she has a sensitivity issue that may be the root cause of all of this.  We've tried pretty much anything and everything.  Some things have worked, some things haven't.  I will say something as simple as position in the crib when we set her down at night can have a huge impact on how everyone sleeps.  Hopefully, we are on the downslope of the challenging times and increased communication will be able to help make things more easier for the both of us.  Knowing that things are moving to enable her to communicate more is a huge relief.  

As for our family, we have been to Disney quite a few times.  This has become our new norm.  In fact, we have been enough times to warrant an annual pass for each and every one of us.  Pin trading has become one of our favorite things to do at the parks.  Needless to say, it has also become part of our lives.  Who knew how cool some of these disney pins could be.  Also who knew what type of money people are willing to pay for these pins as well... more to come on that one later.  Being a Florida resident and being close to Disney has it's advantage.  Close enough to go for a day or two, far enough away to miss the crowds.  Beside traveling up to Virginia a few times, we really haven't been anywhere else interesting lately.  We've rescued another greyhound because one just wasn't enough.  In fact we named him Ralph in regards one of Adelyn's favorite movie "Wreck it Ralph."  More to come on Ralph in the next few posts.  

As for work, i've switched to days.  I can honestly say, it's been so much easier.  I'm not as tired all the time switching back and forth, and my days off i can actually feel productive without having to go home and waste most of the day sleeping.  Getting up early on the other hand is totally for the birds but i've managed.  As for work itself, things have been quite interesting.  I feel like i'm working for the government.  Oh wait...I am.  After all, sequestration was their excuse to completely cut out our vacation time for 4 months, forgo on increasing our all ready lousy 401K match, and eliminate the "market adjustment" aka raises promised to us at the beginning of the year.  I very thankful that i actually have a job at this time, but wow.  After all it's takes me two months to acquire a one day vacation.  

I'm sure i've missed a few things that have happened in the last 2 years.  As they come to me i'll be sure to write about them.  Until next time....

I see...DEAD people....or not.

So our story begins with moving into our new unit about 1 year ago.  The down fall to this new unit is the person that designed it wasn't nor ever has been someone that actually does patient care.  In our unit, three rooms are particularly close to the nurses station, rooms 4, 5, and 6.  Naturally, being able to see the patients is very important when the patients aren't doing the greatest. Usually we use these rooms for the the sicker patients so we can keep an eye on them.  Recently, things have gotten quite extreme with room 4.  Since i work in Cardiovascular Intensive Care Unite, or CVICU, most of are patients need heart surgery one way or another.  Usually most of the patients have issues prior and surgery is scheduled.  However, every once in a while we have those emergent patients that have a cardiac arrest at home and end up here.  A few of these patients have ended up in room 4 simply being the room was open and close to the nurses station.  Granted because of their condition, they didn't always make it.  Now since we opened the unit, the so called death toll in that room started to climb.  Granted this isn't the only room that somebody has passed away in.  In fact in looking back at the books, there has been only 2 more persons that passed away in that room compared to say room 6.  However, after the fourth person passed away in that room our staff started going crazy. 

Day shift nurses started it saying the room is haunted and there is a ghost in that room.  One of our surgeons totally fed off that and declared that room unsuitable for his patients.  As things started to escalate, the hospital chaplain was summoned to bless the room and pray over that room.  This all occurred on day shift.  Our night shift nurses were in complete awe regarding these whole entire shenanigans.  Night shift realized that half of all the patients that passed away in that room did so after being found unresponsive after cardiac arrest, who knows how long they had been down and miraculously were brought back to life never to fully awaken.  Never mind the fact it wasn't like these patients walked into this room and passed away.  These patients were totally critically ill prior to arriving in the room.  The final draw came when on the patients passed away in the OR and was supposed to come back to this room.  Never mind the fact the patient had never entered the room, but since their name was supposed to come to the room, Room 4 was closed.  No more patients to that room for the duration of the summer.  Since the chaplain's blessing obliviously didn't work, Day shift nurses and the surgeon decided to broaden their abilities.  Now they were turning to the Catholic church looking for a priest to do an exorcism of the room or in the room, or whatever they were trying to do.  I'm just sitting back watching all these people getting worked up over this room when nobody is looking at what type of patients are included.  Totally entertaining.

After the so called summer vacation and exorcism, Room 4 is back in business as usual.  Since then nothing weird has happened.  Haven't seen a staff member walk into the room and suddenly disappear or anything, but i keep looking and waiting. 

More to come soon....

And the Parenting Begins...

Wow, It's been a while since i've gotten a chance to post anything in almost like 4 months.  I'm blaming it on new parenting brain.  After all if my wife can use pregnancy brain, i'm going to use parenting brain.  So to begin, things have been quite interesting being a new parent.  And the fact my beautiful wife is almost like a new parent as well, it's been quite an experience raising our little fusspot.  She totally has a new nickname around our house as "McFussy."  It partially isn't her fault.  After all she developed a milk allergy, so we had to place her on the gold formula nutramagin.  And by gold, i mean it totally comes in a gold can that only lasts like 3 days and costs more than it does to fill up my car with gas for 2 weeks.  If that isn't the worst part, she totally developed colic.  So our first 2 months was nothing but sleepless nights and days, crying, and throwing up.  The only relief we got was when company came down.  For some magical reason, she was absolutely amazing whenever anybody else was here.  The second they left, McFussy returned with a vengence.  To make matters worse, i now had to return to work.  In a way i was the lucky one that got relief from all the crying by going to work.  Then again i would rather change a poopy baby diaper than a huge 300lb person that has stool dripping off the bed.  Or even worse, having to FLOAT to another unit.  The thought still makes me shudder.   As for McFussy, she as slowely gotten better throughtout the course of the last 3 months.  Some days are better than others and she still has days where she totally has bad days.  Thankfully i have a very awesome wife and mother who has gotten her on a schedule and has been attending to her needs night and day.  Working nights has a slight dissadvantage of requiring me to sleep during the day so i'm not much help, but has the advantage of allowing me to take care of McFussy at night when i'm not overly exhausted from working.  I have been picking up the slack by totally being the one that manages the food around the house.  Even this has been a little challenging because my wife has totally gone to the extreme to even change her diet so milk isn't crossing from her body into her breastmilk.  Just proves we will do anything for our children.  

It's been interesting adapting to life with a little one that can't feed themselves, walk, talk, or really do anything more than being a bump on the log.  Things definitely take much longer.  The simple trip to the grocery store now involves feed the baby, burp her, change the babies clothes that she just spit up on, set her down to change your shirt that she spit up on, pick her up to place in car seat "explosion heard."  Now change her diaper, change her clothes again from the massive blowout, put the dog in the crate, put the baby in the car seat, grab the diaper bag, load the car up with stroller, diaper bag, 5 sets of bottles, 10 pacifiers, 2 sets of clothes, 15 diapers, a box of wipes, car seat, run inside for keys left on kitchen counter, run outside, place pacifier in mouth, forgot wallet, run back inside, run outside, still crying change different pacifier, nope doesn't work still crying, say screw it maybe she'll stop crying when the car starts moving.  Start heading down the road, nope still crying now screaming.  Ten minutes later arrive at the grocery store.  Still crying, trying to remember what i came here for....oh yeah....milk.  Get the stroller out, load up the stroller, place another pacifier in her mouth,  YEAH this one works from the car to the entrance.  Screaming now, wondering why the milk is all the way in the back of the store?  Didn't they have parents in mind when they designed these stores? Grab the milk...left the wallet in the car, place the milk back, push the baby back out to the car, grab the wallet, head back in grab the milk pay.  Load up the car again and drive home screaming all the way home.  Pull into the driveway, the crying has stopped, the baby is finally asleep.  God totally has a sense of humor....

It does have quite a humbling affect when you remind yourself at one point and time you were just like this and now you have all this knowledge.  It really does prove that evolution doesn't exist.  First off if we totally evolved from monkeys as survival of the fittest, how come as humans we actually transgressed by being the only animal on this entire planet that can't do anything really for the first year?  Even monkeys have the strength to hold onto their mothers not long after being born. And even if it's suggested that well they age faster, why would the law of physics totally slow down the aging process for humans and make us develop slower and not anything else?  And the most important question if we developed from monkey why are there still monkeys?  Food for thought.

Anyways i'll try and update more often now that my life has become a little less crazy.

Gotta love a walk...drag

So tonight we decided to go out for a little walk seeing as how the humidity was down and the temperature is quite tolerable.  So we asked Moby if he wanted to go and of course he was extremely exicited.  After all he's a greyhound and used to running at 45 mph around the track.  Granted, they only do one lap around the track per race and usually only race once maybe twice per week.  So for everybody that thinks greyhounds are hyper dogs and need lots of exercise keep on reading.  Stacey took Adelyn in the stoller and walked around the block, while i wanted a little more excercise decided to run around the block with our couch potato.  He was very excited and ran with a happy gallop that kept up to my much slower pace.  We of course had to stop on the way for him to relieve his bowels and bladder.  No big deal.  As we came around our block, now it's approximately 1/2 mile around the block, he was starting to wear down quickly.  I figured i could keep running around and catch up to my wife.  I should have turned around and headed back the way we came to catch back up to her.  After passing the house, Moby had lost almost all energy and was barely keeping up to my rather slow jog.  I had to even encourage him to keep on coming.  About halfway around the block i realized i should have retraced my steps.  I was in a slow walk, the leash was stretched straight out behind me and he was sniffing around to trying to produce some sort of bladder sweat in order to get me to stop for just a second.  I was seriously considering having to run home and get the element to pick him up.  Surprisingly he made it around the second time even though by the end of it was walking very slowly and was practically dragging Moby.  A full 1 mile walk.  After drinking a full bowl of water he totally passed out on our bed. After we got everything cleaned up, he took to the couch where he totally has passed out ever since.  Tongue hanging out very similar to this pic of him and totally incapacitated.  Usually he gets up and follows us when we both leave the room because he is so codependent.  However, tonight that is not the case.  He is so exhausted we could leave the house for the night and would still find him in the same spot in the morning.  He'll be like that for the next two days.  That's about how long it takes hime to recover from a walk.  Which is why 1, most greyhounds only run once or twice a week and 2, moby was a drop out.  So Moby has two speeds in life.  45mph and 0.  More to come...

Firsts

This has been a week of firsts.  Some have been fun, some not so much.  After coming home, we had our first of many sleepless nights....big surprise.  The joys of having a baby.  Other than sleepless nights it's been quite uneventful.  We had our first doctors visit.  Everything is looking great.  We have been given the advice to stay away from public places and lots of people due to the potential infection possibilities.  Something we will definitely listen too.  We've learned somethings new as well.  Adelyn doesn't poop... she explodes.  Nothing like sitting on the opposite side of the room and heard a wet explosion.  If the diaper wasn't there i'm betting she could hit the next door neighbors house.  Surprisingly, Moby hasn't attempted to sniff any poopy diapers, nor has he found the magical diaper genie which is probably a good thing.  Seeing as how he's eaten a sweeper duster and passed it, i wouldn't be a bit surprised if we see a pampers come through one day or another.  Adelyn has also had her first smile.  Unfortunately she only smiles when she is sleeping right now.  Though i'm not quite sure what a 11 day old dreams about  while sleeping.  Possibly milky nipples and warm fuzzy blankets but we may never know.  Another first was Adelyn's first taste of vitamins.  The funniest face i have ever seen.  She hasn't gotten the art of spitting down quite yet, but she sure has the face for it.

Moby has been quite interesting as well.  The crying and fuzziness doesn't seem to bother him at all.  He still manages to sleep through everything.  If anything, he's gotten more and more lazy.  I actually had to wake him up and drag him out of bed at 9 am the other day in order to eat breakfast.  Normally he is an early riser...up around about 7ish.  Lazy dog.

Today I had my Triathlon.  Great time.  I was part of a two person relay team.  Surprisingly, i did fairly well.  I would say i had the easier part, biking.  It wasn't too far only 13 miles.  Things started out great.  Adrenaline is a wonderful thing.  My initial 20+ mph slowly crept down to 19.5 avg.  I would say it felt great passing almost everyone.  But then again, as the miles crept up, my speed slowly crept down.  I'll definitely have to step it up in the next few weeks before my next one.
More to come soon...

Homecoming

It's official, we are all home.  The blood cultures came back negative, just like we thought they were.  After all if she was going to have some sort of positive blood culture, Adelyn probably would have been sicker than what she seemed.  The last few nurses have been absolutely awesome, beginning with the nurse from my last blog.  It's the type of nurses that are more what i was expecting in the NICU environment.  Even though the nurses were awesome, they were still a stickler on the time for the unit.  The good news is that they did allow us to enter a few minutes prior to the change of shift.  Though it really didnt matter seeing as how with feeding, getting ready, packing up, and finally getting the discharge paperwork together, we didn't get to leave until like around 9pm.  Moby on the other hand was quite interested in this new thing that he has never seen.  We were careful not to put her in an orange outfit for fear he may mistake her for one of his loved squeaky balls.  Moby seems to be taken his usual course of action with her in the last few days he's been sleeping just as normal.  Crying and fussing don't seem to disturb his slumber at all.  Things have been getting into a nice rhythm.  But seeing as how it's only been a few days, we have yet to see if they will last.  We are looking forward to the the upcoming firsts.  Monday will be the first visit to the doctors outside of the hospital.  More to come soon...

Dingo Bait

Adelyn Day 1

 So, it has been quite an interesting ride.  Being a nurse has had quite a few drawbacks.  The biggest is finding out which nurses are better than others.  Some of our nurses have been absolutely wonderful.  Everything a nurse needs to be ... compassionate, caring, holistic in nursing care and even encouraging family bonding.  Unfortunately most of the nurses we have encountered haven't held these qualities.  Since we've had to be in the NICU, i would have guessed that most of the nurses would have these qualities since it's such an important time for family bonding.  Surprisingly we've met more resistance than encouragement.  For instance, i was playing soft soothing music

while i was holding my baby and the nurse was like are "you playing music?  you should turn that off."  Really?  Constant soothing music that drowns out the hum of the ac, the ringing of the phones and beeping of the montiors and iv pumps is disturbing to my baby?   Even picking up adelyn has met resistance.  The nurses have said we shouldn't pick up a sleeping baby and we have touch times here.  I totally understand if she was under some sort of care like being in an isolette or under bili lights or oxygen, but she doesn't need anything like that.  Then of course there is the whole entire time issue.  Since i work in the icu, i know it's very important to have time during shift report to not have family members in the unit.  But i'm also realistic in the fact that if family wants to be in so be it.  I can very easily close the door and give report.  I was very surprised when my wife was booted out of the nicu literally right after she just started breast feeding in order for the nurse to do her work.  Shouldn't we be encouraging breast feeding?  Then of course they wonder why Adelyn isn't eating enough.  Then to top it off the nurses gave her a pacifier which was totally against our wishes.  In fact, you need to sign a waiver in order for the nursing staff to give her a pacifier.  We never did and when we brought that to their attention the nurse said well we signed the medically necessary form and it was medically necessary in order to consul her.  How about actually calling down to the room to have the parents come and see if they can consul her?  It's not like we are down the elevator, across the courtyard, throught the woods and across the river.  The good news is after almost 24 hours of dealing with really crappy nurses we finally got one that was awesome.  The chairs in the nicu are definitely not comfortable and condusive to breast feeding mothers.  It took almost all day yesterday to get a more comfortable chair. Then of course our awesome nurse came in and said hey why don't you use the stool we have?  So we are thinking why is this the first time we've heard of such thing?  Then of course there was the entire discharge issue with my wife.  Two minutes after my wifes discharge instructions were written, we were told we have to be out of the room before the hour is up which was like 15 minutes from then.  Then to top it all off, the billing called the room expecting payment.  Seriously?  Not that i'm expecting special gold treatment from being an employee of this hospital system, but i would be expected to be treated a little better than this.

The good news is how Adelyn is doing.  Not that I expected anything different.  The reason we ended up in the NICU was because of the blood work we got back.  Her wbc count was slightly elevated.  Its funny they were using the words sepis when in fact she didnt any organ dysfunction one of the requirements for sepsis.  Since my wife was strep b positive it was more precautions than anything.  The hardest part of the entire process was when they came to take her to the NICU.  Being a nurse i can totally understand not having parents in the room to get an IV on your little one.  But at least update the parents.  It was the longest 3 hours of my life.  The worst of it was they giving small updates like we're getting her settled and we are still tring to get an IV to my wifes nurse who was no longer providing care for adelyn.  Why weren't they giving us the updates instead of the nurse?  Anyways,  they finally established the iv and started her on the antibiotics.  Since she was spitting up a little bit.  They placed an og tube and sucked out all the contents then removed it.  Totally agree with this considering how easy the labor was and she really didn't get all the contents expelled with lots of pushing.  Now the spitting up hasn't been an issue.  I'm sure the projective vomiting will be coming somtime in the next few months thought.  Nothing a change of clothes can't fix.  I just hope moby isn't in the way.

The doctors have been wonderful here.  Very down to earth and realistic. The blood cultures came back with the preliminary result of negative, a wonderful sign.  She's been eating great.  Voiding fine.  She still needs two more doses of antibiotics and we need the blood cultures to come back as officially negative fri afternoon, but from the looks of it we will going home fri night.  The neonatologist seems to think that her elevated wbc count was in response to the entire labor process and not any infective organism.

One thing that totally surpises me is the lack of other parents i've seen in the nicu.  I've seen a few parents here and there but noone really staying with their babies like we have.  Shocking to me but maybe not so much to the nurses in the NICU.  Moby on the other hand has been quite entertaining as well.  Considering he has been lacking in the attention department and has spent most of his time in the crate, we haven't felt a whole lot of compassion considering the first thing he does after peeing and pooping is lay down on the couch or bed.  A few days ago he even got a real treat when i went home to take a little nap and slept for like 2 hours.  He was sprawled across the entire bed.  His time in the crate will be short lived considering my wife will be pretty much a stay at home mom.  Well back to Adelyn with more to come...

Adelyn Calliope

She has finally arrived.  My daughter Adelyn Calliope arrived on 05 July 2011.  She came a little quicker than expected.  It was a great surprise.  We arrived at the hospital monday night.  Totally misssed the fireworks which wasn't too bad considering it was raining off and on all afternoon.  I of course was quite excited, my wife on the other hand was quite nervous considering that she had all day to think about what was going to happen.  After settling into the room, our journey began.  It seemed like quite a long journey, i felt like my patients sometimes.  Sleeping for what seemed like hours and only minutes gone by.  Plus its also kinda hard to sleep in a broken recliner.  But all in all, it was an experience.  The morning brought on the real excitement.  As the contractions became stronger and stronger, i was urged by my wife to head home and take care of the Moby prior to anything happening.  I actually felt bad for him considering he had been in the crate all night long and here i was only letting him out to let him eat and poop.  Of course that really didn't last long before my phone rang saying i should hurry up.  Rush back to the hospital i did.  No stopping for food and no shower.  At the hospital, i got there in time to assist my wife through some of the contractions prior to the epidural. After the epidural was placed, the wonderful world of no feeling in your lower half of your body kinda took over all the work.  I will have to say, my wife is a better man than me.  I would rather take a foley catheter or a ng tube then any sort of needle in the back of my spine.  I would totally have to be sedated in order to do such a thing.  So now time was once again on my side.  I was sent out to get food since i hadn't had the chance to get any and the crapateria at the hospital is less than optimal.  Not too long after getting back and feeling partially human and not starved to death. I was back to providing comfort care.  I had just gotten comfortable when the doctor came in and decided to check my wife to see how she is progressing.  Surprisingly, he's news shocked us.  He said "are you ready to have a baby?"  Her head was right there.  A few minutes later all the nurses came in, two pushes and out she came. The most beautiful baby girl i had ever seen.  I am partial of course but why wouldn't i be.  She was 7lbs, 8oz.  20 inches long with blond hair and blue eyes.  Words can't describe the feeling of overwhelming happiness.  Only the people with children know this feeling.  We have a wonderful beautiful girl....  The best part is the smell.  That sweet baby smell, not the poopy diaper smell.

However,...
Things changed slightly with some of the blood work we got back along with her throwing up a little bit bought her a ticket to the NICU.  So here i am.  Like a roller coaster ride of emotions all rolled up in one.  From the looks of it, she's the healthiest sick baby in the NICU.  The bad news is that it looks like she'll be spending the next 7 days here getting antibiotics and fluids.      It will be the the place i love to be but hate to be at.   Pics to come soon.

Squeaky Balls

First, i'm aware i haven't had a chance to post anything in the last month with everything that has gone on.  I'll be posting about everything real soon.  But this is something that absolutely needs to be posted.  

Moby, our greyhound, loves squeaky balls.  Not just any balls, the balls in the shape of a tennis ball that squeak when you squeeze them.  He loves them so much in a matter of ten minutes, he will have the squeaker disabled and the ball split open so you can flatten it out.  Does the death of the squeaker discourage him?  Absolutely not.   Recently we purchased a three pack of those squeaky balls.  These were the medium orange tennis balls, his absolute favorite.  Of course he couldn't contain himself, nor could he get a hold of one quick enough. After what seemed like an infinite matter of doggie time, the netting package was open.  The very clean, very soft, and very orange ball is now reflecting off the ambient light into the "sushi" look of the greyhound ready to pounce and sprint the 3 strikes to 45mph.  A quick through and a drooled catch and he is gone into the next room to chew to his orgasmic doggie pleasure.  This of course didn't last long.  Long enough to put the other two on the patio table and walk over to the pool and relax with our feet in there when the squeaker suddenly stopped.  Seeing as how his new toy died and remembering there was another two in the package,  he went searching.  Low and behold he found them sitting on the patio table.  Without any regard to a big "HEYYYY",  he snatched the balls off the table, package and all and ran back inside to his chewing delight.  Laughter burst out from the pool as the squeaker of an ill fated ball echoed from inside the house.  This wouldn't be the last....

FOOD OR PLAY?
First off, Moby is on a see food diet.  He see's food he eat's it.  Frankly, he'll even eat the boogers attached to the tissues that we throw away in the bathroom trashcan.  We've caught him going in after the tissues while we take showers.  Why tissues?  I have no idea.  Usually he pukes them up so you would think he would learn by now, but he hasn't.  The good news is that he did learn his lesson after eating the swiffer duster and having to poop it out.  Swiffer dusters are no longer on his diet thanks to 2 days of vomiting before finally passing it out.  I guess it's one way to clean out your intestines.  Anyways, recently he got into the trash can that i left open and had recently threw away some old chili.  The tomatoes, spices, and onions are not a good thing for a dog to have.  So i had the fun job of inducing vomiting before anything get absorbed.  Yahoo.  But how soon we forget... 
So last week my coworkers threw me a daddy shower for the upcoming birth of my little girl whose name is *%&%#)$*%*%(%()$.  Sorry can't reveal it just quite yet.  The one advantage of being a male nurse and working with a bunch of women is they loving doing showers like that.  I was able to take a small cake home and sat it on the counter in our kitchen.  Why not?  It's not like Moby has ever tried to get anything from the counter.  Nope instead he usually tries to raid the trash cans or the dinner table after we get up.  The good news is that he doesn't beg while we are eating he just lays next to us laying in wait... 
A few days ago my wife went out and bought more of the those yellow squeaky balls that he loves.  I of course opened the netting pack and removed one of the three balls and started playing with him.  Without thinking, i placed the other two balls on top of the counter next to the cake.  So yesterday i was trying to get him to play with the one ball that i had already taken out but he wasn't interested in it at all.  What does that little stinker do instead?  I walk back into the living room to find him playing with two balls still wrapped up in the netting package.  Not only did he reach up on the counter to get those balls, he totally bypassed the cake that was sitting right next to it when he had a choice to eat or play with new squeaky balls.  Crazy Dog!!!  I think that's the first time he has every turned down food.  Just shows you how much he really loves those balls.

24 Hours

Well, here we are.  Less than 24 hours away from actually beginning the long process of owning a house.  Pics to come after we move in of course.  The weekend is going to be fun packed of disorganization and clutter strewn all over the place, but it'll be fun.  Our biggest concern is Moby.  In packing up our house, we have learned a few things.  One, he gets stressed out very easily. Two, he is deathly afraid of cardboard boxes.  Seeing a box in our hand has him running away as if a knife weilding clown is chasing him.  The second the box leaves our hand he is plastered up against us leaning on us for dear life for reassurance that everything is going to be okay.  The question that has come to our mind since he's toally going to freak out this weekend is should we get him some doggy prozac?  But then again what happens when you give a dog whose baseline is 22 hours a day sleeping some sort of anti-anxiety/sedative drugs?  Would we need to invest in some sort of greyhound recuscitative kit incase it totally knocks him out? Also as goofy and clumpsy as he has been sometimes (he has walked into the glass sliding door, the chair, and the wall a couple of times) would he be more goofy and clumpsy?  I guess we could wrap a blanket around him to protect him from falls and what not.  We would need to get a doggy helmet as well.  Could be quite entertaining considering how he reacts and walks with the paw protectors on.  Another interesting note is the fact we now have a pool.  Considering his complete and utter dislike of water, i'm looking forward to how he reacts with the huge cement pond we will have.  I see him totally hating life after he falls into the fall the first time.  Look forward to updates on that. 

As for this past weekend, we continued the process of packing things up.  We shot the wedding on saturday to some great success of course.  The pictures came out great.  We'll have to see how the bride and groom...er well maybe not the groom so much like the pics.  The reception was quite entertaining, and of course we have determined that one of the requirements to live in florida is to either be named rob or donna.  We have met realtor rob, bike center rob, mortgage rob, and now dj rob.  I think there is even more robs that i'm missing somewhere.  I will assure you our child will not be called either one. 

The Happening

Well it has happened.  The past few weeks have been quite interesting to say the least.  First, the appraisal came in low on the house we are building.  BIG Shocker there!!  It actually came in higher than we anticipated at 148,000.  So that is our final out.  However, getting them to agree with our request has been quite difficult to say the least.  After all why wouldn't we want the house that doesn't appraise for the price we decided on, and yet still has many issues to resolve.  The tile was laid, and low and behold it was on the diagonal like we said, only it was tiled in the wrong area!  One of the doors was put on wrong, and yet there is still one of the arched windows that would need to be removed to complete our contract as written.  Long story short, we are done.
Other news that is quite exciting is the fact we placed a contract on the house that we really really like.  The home inspection went beautifully and we were just waiting for everything to clear when low and behold the appraisal came in low.  Seeing as how the appraisers got the brunt of the blame for the financial crisis with housing for overappraising everything, we are now in a time where everything is under appraised to cover their own butts. With the appraisal 10,000 less than what we had anticipated, it has been a whirlwind of negotiations with the seller.  The breaking point came monday when the seller went by the house and the water softener was spewing like old faithful.  Thankfully this happened prior to closing and not right after.  Realizing how close he would be to closing had him reworking the terms of sale along with us being willing to work.  All in all i believe we are both quite happy with the outcome.  So now the fun begins.  We have exactely 1 week to closing and 1 week to moving out of the house.  The only bad thing is that i work the majority of the week for next two weeks.  The lack of sleep will definitely be a precursor to the next few months.  After all we hit the lovely 30 weeks on tuesday.  10 weeks to go but who is counting!!  Anyways off to prep for the next few weeks.  Pics to come of the new house and other things but may be a bit depending on how we get settled. 

Two Weeks!!!

I wish i was saying our house would be done in two weeks but... not even close.  Nope the drywall and the stucco just arrived onsite.  Still sitting in a huge pile outside and inside the garage.  The good news is they have taken to our recommendations and the recommendations of the financing company to go ahead with the appraisal.  So... I'm thinking since they can't get us into the house quick enough they think they are going to appease up by getting the appraisal.  I'm not holding my breath.  I still think the appraisal will come in round about 140's, nowhere near the 160 they hope to get.  Either way, it should be an interesting next two weeks.  Since we are so confident the appraisal will go through, we've decided to start our scout work in looking for a preexisting house.  Of the five houses i scouted yesterday on my bike, we have two potentials with 1 possible.  Today, i plan on scouting another 3 houses but will more than likely only get 1 potential with 1 possible from that trip.  That leaves us with only 6 houses to determine our house from that would meet our needs.  The questions is what house meets our needs the best?  Each house has unique features that set them apart from the others all have at least one advantage and one disadvantage.  I feel like we are on the show house hunters only this time it's in real life.  The good news is in the next two weeks we will find out either way if we are going to buy the house we are building or else buy another house.  Time will only tell.

So....

Okay, the last few weeks have been lacking in post.  Funny, It's just like the lack of work that's being done our house.  Needless to say it's been almost an entire month and we haven't seen hardly anything completed or even fixed for that matter on the house.  Phone calls have been giving us the run around with empty promises of how things are moving along.  What they fail to realize is i used to work in construction as an electrician.  So back on the 4th of april we met wit the superintendent of the job site.  Suprisingly he remains optimistic that the house will be completed in the first week of may.  Just like all the superintendent's i worked with back then, he has no idea what he's doing.  The house isn't going to be completed in the first week of may.  The drywall still isn't even onsite as of today.  I'm thinking we'll be lucky if the house is completed by the end of may at the earliest from my predictions.  I would definitely say we have become realists with everything in this house.  We realize that the house wouldn't be completed in six months like they said it would, nor will it be completed by the beginning of may like they said it would.  Also we've pretty much realized there is no way this house is going to appraise anywhere near what they are asking for it.  I'm expecting this house to appraise somewhere in the 140's range at best.  Nowhere near the 160's they are asking for it. Frankly i wish we lived in the same make believe world they are living in because who knows maybe money does grow on trees there.  So Plan B was started again.  After all we all need a fallback, right?  The good news is we have a potential fallback.  We have started potentially looking at preexisting houses once again.  We have a few on the grid that are potentials if the builder isn't willing to negoiate, which we don't think they will.  After all why would they want to lose money?  The biggest concern is that this same house is going for 30,000 cheaper about 45 minutes away from here.  Now i'm not a rocket scientist, but i know for a fact that the labor and building materials in these two areas isn't going to make up the difference of 30,000.  Yeah i will admit the cost of the lot may be a little cheaper there but nowhere 30,000 cheaper.  According to the everybody is building, since it will be complete by the first week of may, we should find out about the appraisal at the end of this month.  I guess time will tell.

Happy Anniversary!!!

Well it's official.  We hit the 4 years of being together yesterday.  Surprise surprise!!  We are still together and still going strong.   We had a lovely lunch to celebrate our four years together.  We at Carrabba's.  Unfortunately, it wasn't our first choice for lunch.  We had hoped to eat at a japanese steakhouse but the one we intended to go to wasn't open for lunch.  It was excellent as usual.  It rieminds me on our wedding day as well seeing as how prior to our marriage ceremony, we had a prewedding lunch at olive garden.  I remember our wedding all too well. Considering we officially got married at the justice 4 years ago, it definitely wasn't a big ceremony.  I do remember feeling like i was on display from where we stood and all our friends and family lined up and took pictures of us.  I will never forget saying those words and looking into those beautiful eyes of the woman i loved and wanted to spend the rest of my life with.  It was been the best four years of my life.  I'm looking forward this upcoming year the most as lots of changes are taking place.  New baby and potentially new house has definitly got me excited to experience it with the woman i love.   I'm also looking forward to the years to come as we get to experience so many more things together.  

The Look

The yesterday morning i got to experience the Look.  It's funny how all animals, human and dogs alike, can have the look.  The look is sheer terror.  The terror that something is happening or going to happen and nothing can be done about it.  My wife gets the look quite often when we are messing around in a tickle war and i lift her arm over her head.  I don't even have to tickle her armpit.  All i have to do is think about it and she has the look.  As uncommon as it is, Moby, our dog gave us the look.  After all it's really hard to scare a dog.  Surprisingly, it was his own doing.  After coming home from an uneventful night, i was greeted at the door by moby like usual.  After crawling into bed next to stacey, i found out moby is in total rebellion with sleeping in the same bed as my wife.  I gave the explanation that it's because she uses her boppy body pillow, and moby uses it during the day when he is sleeping in the bed.  After yelling up, our signal for moby to jump up on the bed, moby jumped up on the bed and decided to lay down at the foot of the bed.  After like 5 turn arounds he finally laid down precariously close to the edge of the bed.  At first he was totally fine laying down like most dogs lay down.  His front body was upright with his nose between his two front paws, and his back legs turned to one side.  Moby however doesn't like to sleep like this.  Instead he loves to flop down so he is laying completely on his side as if somebody left him for dead.  So me and my wife are laying there and he does his flop.  Only his flop shifts his center of gravity and now is butt is sliding off the bed.  In like slow motion the sheer terror look quickly comes across his face as he bolts his upper body upright and digs his front claws in the bedspread.  It's no use. A body in motion remains in motion.  He falls off the bed taking part of the bedspread with him.  Laughter erupts in our room as both stacey and i witness this event.  Moby gets up and walks around the room trying to either shake off his embaressment or figure out who moved the bed.  Either way he decides to play it safe and lay down on his bed on the floor.  A lesson had been learned but will probably be repeated sometime in the near future. 

Shopping Spree!!!

Well our trip up to virginia was quite exciting.  Of course it was like a week ago and now is the first time i'm actually able to write about it.  The drive up was uneventful only long as noted in the previous blog.  Since i was dissappointed with the gloomy weather outlook, i decided to leave my bike at home and forgo the idea of cycling skyline drive like i had planned.  I was slightly disappointed at first but as it started raining, became windy and overcast, not to mention the cold, i'm glad i didn't have my bike.  Of course on saturday, the day we left to come home, it cleared up and was quite nice.  I guess i didn't bring the beautiful weather from florida with me.  The cold and gloom didn't stop us from going out.  Nope, instead we went shopping.  There was a huge list of items that we could use, wanted to have, and of course needed.  The first stop involved petsmart.  We needed a crate to hold moby.  After all, even if we acquired one of those signs that said service dog, it wouldn't do any good.  I'm sure we would just be cleaning up excrement as our dog tries to poop and pee on everything he can find.  It'll work out great exspecially if we continue to travel up to virginia like we plan to do.  After all, we live in the vacation spot.  When the beach is 30 minutes away, why would we vacation to the beach?  Which brings me an interesting question where do park rangers go to get away from it all? 

Anyways, the next stop was ikea to check out potential ideas and things for the new house.  Ikea has some neat ideas, but only a few that we loved for our new house.  We didn't spend too much there only like $150.  We did however, walk away with some great ideas for a bookshelves that will fit in the corner of our house perfectly, so we shall return.  From there, it was hitting the outlet mall potomac mills.  Thats were all the fun began.  All in all we probably spent close to $400 on things that we loved and needed.  The majority of the items purchased were baby related.  We managed to find quite a few good deals on the clothes that we purchased.  Some for me, some for stacey, but most were for our lovely baby girl.  We managed to get a few gifts as well.  That night found us asleep rather soon.  It's amazing how much shopping can drag the life out of you, not including your wallet as well.

The next day, we traveled to lowes and purchsed one of those tax rebate cards.  After all it's like free money.  10% return on the amount put down, basically 100 dollars for every thousand.  Of course they limited it to 4000 dollars/card but no limit on how many you bought.  I wish i could say we took full advantage of those cards but we didn't.  The card has already been put to good use as we purchased our refrigerator this past friday.  It was the one thing that isn't included in the house that we would have to purchase. Speaking of the house, we were quite surprised at how little progress was made during the 4 work days we were gone.  Not only was nothing really changed, they continued trimming out the windows that were wrong.  Stacey was livid.  What began as an irate call to our building contact person, ended when one of the upper management of adam homes called us.  Rest assured things needed to be completed to move forward and get the inspections they needed instead of waiting to fix then getting the inspections.  According to his estimate, 1 week to drywall, 10 days to complete drywall, and then 1 month to go.  Which should put us into the house around the first week of may.  I'm alittle more realistic and think it'll be closer to the end of may myself.  But time will tell.

All in all a good trip.  One thing that i'm very excited about that i acquired on my shopping trip was a kindle.  Needless to say i totally love it, and the fact that i've picked up and have time to read again.  I would love to say we purchased the ipad 2 that my wife wanted.  But neither of use was willing to wait in line for 6 hours.  There was a small line forming in best buy when we picked up my kindle.  Needless to say now she has to wait until production catches up with the demand which should be about 5-6 weeks.  But it'll come soon enough.  

Just Call me Charlie...

Since Charlie Sheen has been so popular in the news recently with all his crazy tirads and all jacked up on something, one of my coworkers has used that to poke some fun at my expense.  In going back, since i work nights and some times have a hard time switching back and forth between day and night schedule, i've been prescribed provigil.  Yes, it works great in the fact it helps me switch over from night to day shift.  No, i don't take it everyday.  It doesn't give me a "high," only helps keep me awake and somewhat functional.  When my coworker found out that it's a cns stimulant that affects the same chemical receptor as cocaine, the fun began.  According to him, i jacked up on that stuff like Charlie Sheen is.  He even looked it up saying monkeys preferred it over cocaine.  I will admit i did take it yesterday morning so i can switch over and drive up to VA after working.  I managed to work my usual 12 hour shift and then drive from florida all the way up to north carolina.  All in all almost 800 miles of the 1000 mile trip.  Instead of actually making my crazy and wacked out and totally strung out, i was just like all the rest of the normal people on day shift...awake.  The one bad thing about provigil for me is the crash later on.  I wouldn't say its a crash from the drug itself, more of a crash from being awake for something like 24 hours.  Like normal i totally crashed from a few hours on the last part of the drive.