each day an adventure in alaska: some days you want to scream out..."i got this, i know what i'm doing here".

some family members of chronic kids...well, i'm convinced that a syndrome can happen with some of them. not all of them but i believe that for some who have totally dedicated their lives to this one child...it's almost like they must find fault in all staff do, otherwise, what have they done all this sacrificing for if just anyone can take care of their child.

this week it was cancer. it's easy to feel sorry for a kid with cancer and at some point you give in here and there, but when that kid is actually sick, there is just stuff that needs to be done. last night was one little battle after another with this mom.....and the questions and little accusations. exhausting. allowing yourself to be manipulated by a child can be detrimental to the child in the long run.
above was how much of drive north in CA looked, dry, dry, dry!

i still have pictures to look through...a lot of pictures. so now i'm behind in pics for months. i'll eventually get them in here and then another summer will start and i will take thousands more photos again.

there were grapes all over. never stopped and checked out any vineyards though.

these are in Pismo. always a favorite town that way.

stopped both ways and just enjoyed the sights and wave action.

i try to not work more than 3 days in a row. that is as long as i feel like i can keep the happy nurse look on. you really want to not roll your eyes in front of crazy parents. haha. i think that is frowned upon. patience is a limited resource some weeks and so i need to know my limit. next week i have a 4 day stretch coming up...it could be rough. haha.

tomorrow i want to make bird seed ornaments for our tree decorating on the Monday walk. digging that Pinterest. my twitter attempts have been less than impressive. Pinterest though is a fun place i think. will have to add more walrus stuff to that place.

sluggish calendar sales this week. stayed in PICU all week. did put up some signs in PICU, ER , RESOURCE POOL and ICU. perhaps some folks will find them good xmas gifts and stocking stuffers.

i was pretty happy with all that i got done last week on my two days off. gotta do some cleaning tomorrow between the usual stuff and the ornaments. those are tomorrow's goals.

my brother had surgery, hope he is doing well. did stop by his page on facebook the other day. i do that from time to time. i have blocked a few siblings postings as they tend to be pretty negative, political and overall hateful. it's really just stressful to be exposed to that much anger and hate in the postings. i actually have a visceral painful reaction to it. pretty sad to avoid that sort of contact just because of the negative/angry postings but i tend to try and keep life lighter and more positive.

personally i think that negative energy and anger really can negatively impact your overall health. i really wish these brothers would attempt "HATE FREE FRIDAYS" and just take one day a week where they post zero political stuff and only posts happy pics of family, kittens, scenery, a cartoon maybe...all light stuff so that i would feel safe stopping by and checking it out. would love it they took it one step further and opted out of all news sources on fridays. only post happy stuff on their pages and not even scroll through the stuff in the general feed to prevent getting sucked in to the negative. one day a week...it's just got to be good for the soul.

i remember this brother doing these chocolate free months and stuff which i always thought was good...to be able to take control of those little things in life. surely he could handle, "hate free fridays"??? it is funny to me as i scrolled the other day that for a guy who seems to have a visceral hatred of certain political persons...those are the faces all over their facebook page. ironic. the other one is apparently writing a book on joy and i also find it ironic that his page is filled with so much negative stuff.

what is joy...extreme happiness. always seems that to obtain joy one should give joy out to the world and then it will return ten fold. mostly, i just find it sad to check their pages and see how negative the posts are. so, i just don't go very often.

aren't these waves impressive.

i was skimming the rest of the pictures i have to edit and there should be some fun ones in there. thought i'd go ahead and write the blog for the day and start in on the photos after that. my neck has sure gotten older. i know the rest of me has as well. but in the pictures it's my neck that really has taken the age to it. we try to pretend that we aren't aging. our brains don't feel any different really. but then you see photo's of yourself and you have clearly changed. hopefully, one day i will live to be an old lady. outspoken and wrinkled. i pray my brain remains intact and i am blessed with decent health for as long as possible.

today we just popped up to see the last bit of sunset at Basher Trails. i slept in. then tonight there was a little work party at one of my co-workers houses. great to see my old boss and new boss both there. great gals!! i pulled together an OREO salad for the event. haha. didn't take long for the kids at the party to discover that!! it was devoured. i didn't take a photo. thanks big brother, Jeff, for the recipe. haha.

make sure the lettuce leaves are dry before you make the salad or you will have soggy OREO's and nobody wants that. this one had both double stuffs and the new fudge covered OREO"s...well new to me i guess. i then tossed in some Hersheys Kisses and candy canes to add to the festive spirit of it.

it was so relaxing to watch those big waves crash into the rocks. wish i'd had more time to stay and watch the sunset here in Pismo. i really felt i best move on. in the end, perhaps i could have, i had a few hours before my flight to chill.

proposals are out there that will impact the Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend. we shall see. that is usually met with a wall. our Governor is supposedly attempting to find a way to fix the budget shortfalls. not sure that includes the walrus of Round Island though. doubtful. still need to find a way to get them back on the budget. tough once they were removed. we shall battle on.

did find out that we might possibly be able to use REI event room to host an event. they don't charge for non-profits. yea...REI. i have heard that BP also has that same thing with event rooms they have. Round Island is an adventure so i think that could be a good fit. i think REI will have event room openings in February. i emailed a Walrus Biologist (the ones KR and KH went to see at that wildlife Wednesday in the valley) and he is open to doing a speech and won't charge us. :-) waiting to hear back from fish and game.

figure we can have the biologist speak in general about Walrus and then have the Fish and Game source/s speak to visiting Round Island and answer questions. may drum up some visitors for this place...which means some small boost to the local economy in Togiak. people can make their plans and request permits, we can set up an information table for WARIS. excited to start to get this together finally.

funny how i was just writing about negative energy impacting your health and then i opened yesterdays paper and there is an article headed, "Happiness doesn't bring good health, study finds". haha. so go ahead and be miserable i guess. :-) i'll reword it to stress. i think stress in general life does negatively impact health. stress can bring on unhappiness though....oh hell, wouldn't you rather be happy and not so stressed about all the negative crap in the world? i would. i'll stick to happiness and low stress for myself.

posted a video of these Kurdish fighters today. there is a large contingency of female fighters in the Kurdish ranks. the more i hear of Kurds, the more i like them. anyway. they were saying that these Terrorists of the not to be named group have a great deal of shame at the idea of possibly being killed by a woman. they are actually terrified to be killed by a woman...Girl Power...Go get em Kurdish Chicks!!!

enjoyed watching clips of a Canadian woman who took up arms with the Kurds to fight the terrorist group that shall not be named. i loved that they were doing some video's just saying how weak their enemy was and laughing. they need more of these sort of thing out there on social media to combat the crap the terrorist group puts out.

apparently more and more whales are getting caught up in old fishing gear off the CA coasts. they say El Nino has something to do with this...in that the whales are following the warmer waters closer to shore. they have had a few storms. when i was down at Crystal Cove with friends there was so much litter on the beach. they said it was unusual. it seemed like bits from some barge or something. not sure how else to explain the presence of loads of various colored kids sand shovels and toys.

we had some bags with us so i began picking them up. got quite a few and turned them into the folks manning the state beach parking building. being from out of state wasn't much i knew what to do with them all. they were intact toys so perhaps some kids could have fun with them.

no child left behind is looking more and more like it will finally be left behind. i hope so...seems it never really worked. next can we dismantle JAHCO. that thing costs our hospitals and medicine so much money and time and energy. it's just one of those things that seemed like a good idea at the time but has gotten way out of control. the level of crap we have to do at work to appease JAHCO is ridiculous and keeps us from the job we signed up for...taking care of actual sick people rather than filling out more and more ridiculous chart crap.

the ridiculous Trump lives on. his latest thought to Ban all Muslims from entering the states. so much for religious freedoms. God forbid we take away the gun rights of someone on the terrorist no fly list, but for sure we should condemn every person of the Muslim faith. seems to be selective about which portions of our constitution we will defend and which we will not. Trump is frightening but it's more frightening how much hatred is in our nation and how easily we could be set up for a genocide event here in the states. the Republican Party for sure needs to get control of the rhetoric that is coming from their end. no way you will get any swing voters with the crazy stuff coming from some of their candidates.

seen it compared to Carter during the Iran Hostage Crisis. he banned travel of people from Iran to the states. i don't believe he banned only Muslims. i also believe it was limited to Iran...so different situations.

there are over 1.8 billion Muslims on the earth. a rational person would seem to note that you can't beat them all, so finding a way to work with the differences and join forces to battle terrorists that claim to be Muslim would be wiser than alienating all 1.8 billion folks.

watched a video of these guys who had covered a bible with a jacket of the Koran. they had highlighted passages and asked folks on the street to read the passages which were super brutal. then asked them how they felt about those passages and the religion that would have them in their text. weren't they all surprised and embarrassed to discover that the bible is full of cruel and violent passages. Christians find a way to work around those or not take them too literally...i'm guessing Muslims often must find ways to do the same with passages in their holy book.

sunset, i think close to Ventura or Oxnard. i just kept stopping at state beaches since i had the day pass. i did that coming and going

oh wait...unhappiness doesn't lead to health issues per say...but it can lead to addiction and suicide...those are all bad for your health so i feel again i'm on top in my claim. haha

we were talking at work about a recent murder here in Anchorage. a 71 year old woman called 911 to inform them she had just killed her exhusband because, she was "tired of his shit". they had divorced years before but still lived together and he was her caregiver. i guess lesson is don't become a caregiver of your ex or perhaps if you get divorced it's a sign that you shouldn't be together and it may be healthier to just part before someone gets tired of your shit.

it was another beautiful sunset.

a few from several weeks back. cute little porcupine in the tree.

yesterday Blossom and i walked the bog. she did loads of sniffing and seemed pretty happy. i still find myself trying to feed two dogs instead of one. stepping wide around places where water bowls used to be. i need to do a wall hunt and clear off some of the dog spit that comes with living with a mastiff.