Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl invited us to share ten posts about ourselves this week. I usually share some personal details in my Weekly Update posts so if you follow those, you know quite a bit about me. But here are some dedicated posts about me. Back to Blogging–I wrote this in 2020 after [...]
Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl invited us to share "ten things I'm thankful for" in honor of the Thanksgiving holiday here in the US. I'm not going to lie. I've got a bad case of covid restriction fatigue at the moment. I just want to be able to explore when and where I want without worrying about whether I'm going to make anyone sick or whether the place I want to go is even open. Don't worry, I'm still following the rules because I do understand the importance. That doesn't mean I'm not inwardly chafing against restrictions though. So I'm stepping back to reflect on how blessed I really am in the midst of 2020. I'm thankful that my family and friends are healthy. As far as I know, only one aunt has had covid and she did have a really hard time with it. But she's on the mend and feisty as ever. My husband's job and paycheck have been secure this year. He works healthcare so that should be a given but when states put a hold on elective surgeries when we first went into lockdown? That got scary. Almost every procedure is technically elective. He works with cardiac patients but the only people who were having procedures were the ones who were on death's door. Luckily, his company paid him through the end of his contract even though he wasn't working . Governors had lifted those restrictions by the time we were looking for a new contract. So many people still don't have jobs, all these months later. We were blessed indeed.My husband's job essentially pays him to explore this beautiful country! We took a leap of faith and left everyone we know and love behind in February 2019 and started traveling. We try to choose…
Soooo.... Hi? IntrovertedJen here. It's been a while, hasn't it? Almost four years to be exact. I can't believe it! I blogged as The Introverted Reader from 2009 - 2016 but I lost that domain in 2017. That's a long story about a lack of communication on my hosting company's part and my own oversight, but anyway. It had been over six months since my last post and life was busy so I didn't worry about it. In 2015, my department essentially down-sized from two full-timers and a part-timer to just me. I stepped up and handled the load. In fact, I grew it. But by the time I got home at the end of the day, there was nothing left. All I wanted to do was veg out in front of the TV. Traveling and a New Career My husband, Luis, and I have always loved traveling. The bug got serious when we went to Hawaii on our honeymoon in 2004 and then St. John in the US Virgin Islands for our one-year anniversary. We were hooked. My family teased us about our "honeymoon" every year because we usually take our "big trip" around our anniversary in October. My husband took a new job in 2015. He had been working as a paramedic, but that's a career with a lot of burnout and he was so over it. He transferred into the hospital's cardiac cath lab and fell in love. He's always enjoyed cardiology but when he was working side-by-side with physicians to "fix" a heart attack, he was in his element. Travel Job? And then the hospital hired traveling cath lab techs. And our eyes were opened. We met when we both worked in and around the hospital, so we knew that travel nurses existed. We thought it…
I've struggled with whether to write this post about suicide prevention. If you've been around long, I'm sure you've noticed I don't write many personal things. I'm a private person. The few posts I have written have been fun little stories, nothing serious at all. But I feel this needs to be shared, just in case it helps anyone. My husband and I lost a very dear friend on May 3, 2015 when he took his own life. I don't feel that his story is mine to share, so I'll only say that he was an Iraq War veteran who had been through more personal tragedy in his lifetime than anyone should have to experience in a full 80+ span of years. All of us who knew him well knew that he needed help and begged him to go somewhere or talk to someone or just--anything. But he never would and here we are. He was one of the most deeply kind, generous, and just mischievous people I've ever had the pleasure of meeting and his absence is a loss not only to my husband and me and his other friends but to the world. Kindness feels like it's in short supply some days. So I'm writing this to ask that if you need help, please seek it out. There's no shame in asking for help. Everyone needs assistance getting through something in their lives. If you know someone who needs help, please don't give up on them. Here are a few resources: 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline American Foundation for Suicide Prevention National Alliance on Mental Illness Some employers participate in the confidential Employee Assistance Network. See if your employer offers anything similar. Veterans can get help at Wounded Warrior Project, or find a facility of the Veteran's Health…
Suey at It's All About Books asked for a vacation report. Since she and a few more of you were kind enough to suggest alternates when the government shutdown threatened to shutdown my National Park Vacation as well, I owe you all an update. Note: I didn't share any of our pictures, I just linked to other sites. When the shutdown was announced, we initially thought, "Oh, we have 12 days for them to resolve this. We don't have to worry about it." And then days kept passing by. We went back and forth a lot, trying to decide what to do. We finally decided to just go for it as planned. The state parks in the area still looked great and if the National Parks did reopen while we were on vacation, we would be in place to take advantage of it. What a relief to have that decision made! The very next day (I believe), Utah announced they would open the National Parks on the state budget! Woohoo! That took care of Zion and Bryce Canyon, our first two stops! A day or two later, Arizona announced they were opening the Grand Canyon for a few days, including the first two days we planned to be there! We were pretty much set! We flew into Las Vegas the first day. We were kind of exhausted but we did go over to the MGM Grand to see Cirque du Soleil's Ka show. Holy cow. We were blown away! Neither of us has seen a Cirque show before and this one was awesome. A ship sunk, the stage was tilting every which way and the performers were swinging out over the audience. We loved it! The next day we drove to Zion National Park. We loved seeing the desert landscape…
So, with impeccable timing, my husband and I are going on vacation in about a week. To the National Parks of the Southwest. A few of them anyway. Grand Canyon, Bryce Canyon, and Zion. Do you see where this is going already? Yup. The government shutdown. I am generally an optimistic person, but I'm also a just-in-case-r at heart. So, just in case the shutdown is ongoing when we fly in to Vegas, do any of you have suggestions for where we should go if the National Parks are still closed? We're staying our first and last nights in Vegas and that's probably going to be more than enough for this Introverted Reader. We've come up with the vague idea of just driving across to San Diego, but we've never been to the Southwest at all; I'm not entirely ready to give up on the idea. I mean, look at these gorgeous photos: Grand Canyon. From Wikimedia Commons, taken by Muu-Karhu Bryce Canyon. From Wikimedia Commons, taken by Ymaup Zion. From Wikimedia Commons Taken by Diliff In the brief amount of time that I've spent looking for alternate ideas, I keep smacking into National Parks. I have one friend who has been telling me to go to Sedona ever since she heard we were going out that way, so that could be one possibility. I'm just looking for more ideas. That rocky landscape is so very different from what I'm used to: Blue Ridge Parkway. From Wikimedia Commons taken by Ken Thomas We've already booked hotels in Tusayan, AZ; Panguitch, UT; and Springdale, UT. If we have to, we'll cancel. I'd rather not, partly because I don't want to take a chance on any cancellation fees but also because I know local businesses have to be hurting from all this…
I promise I have not fallen off the face of the earth, although you wouldn't know it from the look of things around here. My last post was on October 9, so let me think about what I've done since then... That was my wedding anniversary (8 years!), so I was out that night. I had plans every night that week and then we drove to Atlanta to fly out to Jamaica for 6 days. We were in Jamaica at just the perfect time. Our weather was gorgeous, mid-80s during the day, mid-70s at night, only a little bit of rain on our last day. All this hurricane stuff happened a few days after we left. We didn't even know there was anything in the forecast! So this is how I spent most of those 6 days: My idea of paradise! Of course I came back to a lot of work, but I'm really liking my new job so I didn't mind it too much. Then my boss and I had to fly out to Dallas for a conference this weekend. That's three weekends in a row of flying! I'm starting to get sick of it! Although it's been great for my reading. I was waaay behind on my GoodReads challenge but I've caught up a little. I came home today and found a postcard that made me smile. Margaret Mitchell at her desk In case that's too small: "Jen, An invitation to view Gone With the Wind at my home. Anytime. Any day. Always! Please bring attitude and love for Rhett. Pat" Pat is my aunt and my reading buddy when I read Gone With the Wind last winter. We intend to watch the movie together but it just hasn't happened yet! Hopefully soon! Unfortunately, all of this has…
I met a couple of friends for an un-birthday trip to The Cheesecake Factory a few weeks ago. Yes, I live two hours away from the closest one. So, yes, I traveled two hours for cheesecake. Sometimes, you just need a good cheesecake. Anyway, on the way back to my car, the friend who was driving took us by the place where the District 12 village scenes were filmed for The Hunger Games. She and I went to see the movie together so it was fun to poke around as she reminded me, "This is the bakery, this was Katniss's house, this is the dam she runs across at the beginning." She remembers it better than I do, and she isn't a reader at all! Our other friend, an avid reader, hasn't seen the movie or read the trilogy yet, but hopefully we convinced her to give it a try. She's just wary of all the hype. "Sometimes the hype's there for a reason!" I told her. She's read Twilight and Harry Potter, so she'll get to The Hunger Games eventually, I'm sure. This location is actually an old mill town. I'm not clear on what kind of mill it was. These are historic buildings that the film crew used, they are not sets that were built and made to look old. Anyway, here are the pictures I took. I only had my phone with me so they aren't the greatest, but I thought I'd share them anyway. The place is the Henry River Mill Village, located in Burke County, NC. The aforementioned dam. There were signs up all over the place saying this was a dangerous location and not to go farther, so this is as close as I got. Katniss's living room. My friend said the upstairs scenes…
Holy cow. It has been three weeks since I last posted. Three weeks! Where does the time go? I've been desperately juggling a lot of things for a while now and I just finally hit critical capacity. My blog had to go neglected. I accepted a new position at work as a "Clinical Research Coordinator." Sounds way important, doesn't it? Don't let that Coordinator title fool you. There's a director above me who is very hands-on. Thank goodness. There's also a part-time person and that's my whole department. The doctors at the office where I work take part in a lot of clinical drug studies and I'll be helping with those. I have a feeling it's a job you either love or hate. I really think it's going to be a good fit for me. Variety, independence, details, time with patients but not too much... At the beginning, I'm scrambling to get in a ton of training. I've just really gotten started this week but in the interim, I've had a lot of reading to do. A lot. Hopefully I will get caught up on all that soon and get back to some sort of normalcy. Until that happens, I'll only be posting sporadically. I'm not giving up on my blog by any means, and I don't even expect this interruption to last much longer. I ask for your patience as I struggle to find my footing in this new role. I'll be posting a Character Connection on Thursday for sure, and I do still check in on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest occasionally. Meanwhile, let me just say that I've read and mostly loved The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane by Katherine Howe, Saving CeeCee Honeycutt by Beth Hoffman, and Juniper Berry by M. P. Kozlowsky. I'm currently reading Madame…
I don't know about you, but having the 4th of July fall on Wednesday this year threw me all out of whack. Work two days, a day off then work another two days and have another two days off... It kind of didn't work for me. It was nice to have Wednesday off but then I was a little indignant about having to go back to work so soon. And the rest of the week dragged. My aunt had her annual 4th of July cookout so we went to that. I blogged most of the morning and then made my mac and cheese. My family loves it and I make it for most get-togethers. The secret is the sour cream. I got all Betty Crocker-y after looking at Pinterest too and made a couple of patriotic desserts. Here they are: Found at Occasionally Crafty via Pinterest