You know you're a nurse when...

Last week sometime, Roger and I were talking and, I don't even remember what the conversation was about, but I said "I can't even remember the last time I was sick."

Well Monday I left work early with a terribly stomach ache. I tried to stick it out, but blood and other bodily fluids are not easy on a queasy stomach. I went to work the next day and was fine, but I could feel a cold coming on. Thursday morning I woke up feeling awful and, by the grace of God, got a call from work that they didn't need me!

So, for the past two days, I have been hanging out on the couch, snuggled up in a sweater and two blankets and watching Netflix.

(Cosmo and knock-off Dayquil/Nyquil to keep me company)

For once I wish someone would bring me a warm blanket and adjust my pillow!

Anyway...

Here are a few funny "you know you're a nurse when's..."

• You would like to meet the inventor of the call bell in a dark alley one night.
• You can only tell time with a 24 hour clock.
•  You don't get excited about blood loss unless it's your own
•  You live by the motto, "to be right is only half the battle, to convince the physician is more difficult.
• You find yourself admiring other people's veins in the line at the grocery store.
• You believe that saying "it can't get any worse" causes it to get worse.
• You've ever had to leave a patient's room before you began laughing uncontrollably. 
• You have to stop yourself from adding "RN" to your name on your credit card slips.
• You have dreams that 10 hours of your shift has gone by and you haven't seen any of your patients yet.
• When you hear the song "Staying Alive," all you think about is CPR.
• You plan what you will have for lunch while cleaning up a bowel movement.
• You've had to choose between eating and peeing.

• The only reason you watch medical shows is to point out the errors.

 

I hope you all have a great weekend!

 

Keep smiling

 

Meagan

Adventures in the Great Outdoors: My First Deer!

Hey everyone! Hope you had a fabulous weekend and the Monday blues aren't getting you down.

I mentioned in my last/first post that my husband is a deer hunter and I've recently decided to join him in the nonsense. I know, I know, "how could I shoot Bambi?" Well, Roger is so obsessed with hunting and, like I mentioned before, this means hunting and deer are all he thinks about from September to January. So I thought if I joined him, it would give us something to enjoy doing together. I think a lot of couples get divorced because they don't do anything together. They stop spending quality time together because they no longer have anything in common. I guess you can say I decided to do it in hopes of keeping my marriage strong.

Well I love it!

But with the good comes the bad. Over the last month or so the most important thing I have learned about hunting is you must smell like dirt! I used to think washing yourself and your clothes with scent-a-way was a completely ridiculous ritual, but you go try to get a deer to come anywhere near you with your Pantene scented hair and downy scented clothes and let me know how it goes...

This stuff completely dries out my skin and I can't even brush through my hair after I use it. Sorry Scent-A-Way, I'm sure your products work great on the males they are designed for, but this is my least favorite part about hunting. I ordered myself some girl-friendly stuff. Hopefully it works great, we'll see. 

I've also learned that wind direction determines the best place to hunt and how to load/unload and shoot Roger's rife and a whole slew of information that I never thought I wanted or needed in my brain. I won't bore you with any of that stuff though. 

Let's get to the important part.

After 4 or 5 missed shots (a few of those, including the only buck I've shot at, I blame on a bad scope that we indeed ended up replacing) I finally killed my first deer!!!! 

(Here she is! Excuse the fact that she looks grilled. She was in the bed of the truck for a while)

I was sitting in my favorite stand on the entire club when I got her. It overlooks a field, I'm not brave or quiet enough to sit in the woods yet, and she walked out at about 4:00. It was still early in the hunt and she was about 200 yards away so I originally decided I wasn't going to take the shot unless she got closer. 

I sat and watched her for 30 minutes. I've done this before. I've had perfectly good shots and not taken them because I talked myself out of it for whatever reason. So at 4:30 I pulled the trigger and could not believe it when that deer, 200 yards away (I must brag about that :) ), actually hit the ground. Immediately, with my shaking fingers, I called Roger and told him the news. 

When I went to find her in the field, I was mortified at how small she was! I called Roger and told him I hoped she wasn't a baby. When he got there, he ensured me she was a normal sized doe. He didn't make me feel any better when he simply grabbed her legs and pulled her across the field like a bag of potatoes though.

(A downside of hunting: minimal makeup, sorry)

Guys, it's such an adrenaline rush! I can't describe the feeling I get when I'm getting my sights on a deer, knowing I'm about to take a shot at it. Sometimes I think my heart will burst out of my chest it's beating so hard and fast. And it's so great to make my husband proud. I worried that I would become a nuisance and he would hate taking me hunting, but it's not like that at all. He loves that I go and would rather me get a deer than himself.


But, aside from all of the heart pounding, intense excitement, I also just love being in nature. It's so calming to just sit outside for a few hours watching the birds fly and the sunset. 

(These are no filter, with my iphone btw)

(Look at that sun shining across the field!)
  

If your husband, boyfriend or even dad hunts and has asked you to come along, I encourage you to try at least once. You don't even have to shoot anything. Just sit there and enjoy listening to and watching the animals. Take in the sunrise or sunset and the way the temperature changes so drastically as the day begins and ends.

(My proud husband and I)

Keep smiling,

Meagan

My Life

So since this is my first post, I will use it to tell you a little bit about myself.

That's me above :) My name is Meagan and I was born in a little town in eastern North Carolina called New Bern. I'm so thankful I got to grow up here. We're less than an hour from the beach, we sometimes have 70 degree Christmases, we have the best bbq, sweet tea and the southern hospitality is an added bonus. 

I am the oldest of five: two sisters and a half brother and half sister. Growing up with so many siblings was such a blessing. I didn't think so back then, but now that we're older, I'm realizing that siblings are lifelong best friends and I don't know what I would do without them. I also have a two-year-old nephew who is the cutest kid I have ever met (maybe I'm a little biased). Seriously, I have actually told my sister I'm scared to have my own kids for fear that they will not be as cute as he is. He is the reason for my baby fever as well as the reason I religiously take my birth control!

I guess that leads me to my wonderful husband. 

5 1/2 years ago I began dating a boy who I had known since middle school, had mutual friends with, but NEVER thought of in a romantic way beforehand. Well I guess it's true that love finds you when you least expect it because here we are, happily married. 

 Roger proposed to me on October 29th, 2010. Check out the photo below! That is, no lie, how he did it! We were at one of those "old time photo" places in Myrtle Beach. I knew about the ring, but I was not expecting it AT ALL! These pictures are so precious to me and hang on m living room wall.

On October 8th, 2011 we got married in Emerald Isle, NC. 

(I think this is such a cool picture)

Before we got married (before we got engaged actually) Roger bought a house, well a shell would be a better word. See the man who owned it previously started "remodeling it." It would take all day to list everything we did so instead I'll just post a couple of pictures to give you an idea of what we did. I'll do an entire post on it some other time.

 (Living room before)

(Living Room almost finished)

 

I have an amazingly talented husband and father-in-law. They completely changed the layout of the house and constructed everything pretty much from scratch with no professional help. I know this is cliche, but they literally poured their blood, sweat and tears into this house. I now live in a beautiful house that is brand new on the inside.

So then in May of this year, I graduated nursing school, took the biggest, most important test of my life and became an RN! I am now working at our local hospital on a busy neurology unit and I absolutely love it! It's HARD. Most days 12 hours is not enough time to get everything I need to get done done. Sometimes I can't spend the extra time I wish I could with each patient. Most nights I hear call bells and phones ringing in my sleep. But the other night I had a patient cry because I told her I was going home and was off the next day and wouldn't see her again. THAT is what makes my aching feet and chapped lips from not having time to drink all day worth it. I'm tearing up just writing this because I feel so incredibly blessed to touch people's lives constantly.

 (That's me at our pinning ceremony for nursing school)

So that's my life in a wordy nutshell. I'm just a normal girl trying to get settled into my career and married life. Oh, and if your wondering where the "camo" comes from in my blog name, my husband is an extremely dedicated hunter. This used to mean that I didn't see much of him from September through December. Well this year I decided if you can't beat 'em, join 'em! More about that later too :)

Keep smiling,

Meagan