Selfishness

This last week my doctor was away on vacation so the office was closed. I had a wonderful time of doing nothing. I took this opportunity to treat myself to some "me" time. I slept in every day, worked out on my Wii Fit, watched a lot of HGTV and sat around and did a lot of self reflection. I didn't want to go out and be with people or talk on the phone. I wanted to really be selfish and just think about myself and do what I wanted to do and it was amazing! I was having so much fun with it all when Russ wanted to go to a card show today I told him to go alone and I stayed home and watched movies all day by myself.



Now that the weekend is winding down I guess its time to go back to my normal day to day life. I'll have to return to work on Monday and go back to my routine of taking care of patients. I love my job but it can be very tiring being "fake LeAnn" as Russ calls it. When I'm at work (and a lot of times just dealing with people in general) I have to always be "on." Always having a smile on my face and speaking in a calm soothing yet happy voice. Listening to every one's stories like they are the most interesting things I've heard in all my life. Laughing at their stupid jokes and nodding along in sympathy to what ever it is that is going wrong in their lives.



I'm a peacemaker by nature and so it's in my personality to do whatever it takes to make everyone else happy. Don't get me wrong the same things that I complain about are the things that I also love. I do like to hear about my patient that was an army nurse in World War II. I love to hear about the guy that takes soccer balls down to South America. The kid that just graduated high school and is going to Italy to learn to cook. It's just that it can be tiring always trying to please everyone all the time. So it was a much needed staycation to just be alone and relax and be able to be my true self nonstop for a whole week.

Books

I mentioned a few posts ago how when I start reading a book I become consumed by it. I have to restrict myself to only one book a month because even after I finish the book I can't stop thinking about the characters and their lives. If I get too many story lines in my head at once I would never be able to get anything done. I also usually try to start and finish a book in the same day because I especially can't focus at work when all I can think about is how the book is going to end. Unfortunately, I started reading "Firefly Lane" yesterday and because its almost 500 pages only got three quarters of the way through it. I tried to go to bed at eleven last night but couldn't sleep (in case you haven't caught on yet, its because I was thinking about the book). I got out of bed at 12:15 and went up stairs so I could keep reading. Finally at 2:00 in the morning I forced myself to put the book down and try to sleep. Today I am super bratty and have no patience for my patients. I don't know if its the lack of sleep or my feelings from the book carrying over into my normal life.

The book starts out with two pages of the current day where the women are no longer friends and then jumps back to the 70's when they met and continues on through the 80's, 90's, and then 2000's. I am almost to the current day and I have a need to know what happens that sends a thirty year friendship down the drain.

I'm usually not a fiction reader, I prefer real life stories like memoirs, but for some reason I picked this book up and I'm glad I did. It is set in Seattle which I love because I feel like I'm special because I know all the places that are referenced. Even though its fiction its very true to life about the relationship between friends. How over time they grow apart and then grow back together again.

National Nurse's Day

Tomorrow being National Nurse's Day I would like to give a shout out to my sister Lauren. She is an Army Nurse and I like to think of her as a modern day Florence Nightingale. She is an amazing, compassionate, patient nurse. She served in Iraq and not only took care of wounded soldiers but was constantly coming up with ways to boost everyone's moral. She is now back in Georgia and teaching her nursing skills to others. She is just as good at teaching as she is at nursing. I love her very much and am so so so proud of her.