What Happened to Common Sense?

To me it seems that the number of interactions I am having with people who possess common sense is continually decreasing. Some experiences of late:

• I am managing the clinic I work at while the real manager is on maternity leave. It's a small clinic, so right now, there are only 4 employees. Me, two techs, and a social worker. I get to work bright and early one morning (5:45 a.m.) and strangely, I am alone. I think oh... my coworkers must be running a little late this morning, so I go about starting to set up for the day and I give both of the techs a call. Neither one answers. At 6:00, the first patient gets there. I can't do anything because there has to be at least two employees present in order to do any patient care. I decide to check the company voice mail while I wait. There are two messages. One from each tech saying that he is too sick to come to work today. Lack of common sense: don't call in sick to an answering machine. Call in sick to a real person (preferably the person who is currently in charge) so that they can find someone to cover your shift.

• Two weeks later, after I had given explicit instructions to call my cell phone directly if they couldn't make it to work for any reason, it happened again. I arrived at work and I was alone. Again I tried to call both of them repeatedly. No answer. I called another clinic in Provo and they sent me a tech. Two hours later, one of the techs calls me and tells me that he had sent the other tech a text message telling him that he was sick and couldn't come to work. About a half hour later, the other tech calls and says that he forgot to turn on his cell phone/alarm clock last night. He never got the text from the other employee and didn't wake up on time. Lack of common sense: don't call in sick by texting your fellow tech. Call in sick to the person in charge. Make sure your alarm clock is turned on before you go to bed.

• I went to Dillard's to get my sister a birthday present. I found a shirt that I thought she would like, but you never know, so I asked the cashier to print me a gift receipt. She just looked at me blankly and says "I don't know how." Lack of common sense: If you work at a store in customer service, help the customer. If you don't know how to help, find someone who does. So I say, "Can you find someone who does know how?" She looks at me and says, "Yeah, I guess." She makes a phone call and within about 30 seconds, I have my gift receipt.

• One night, my husband and I decide to grab an unhealthy meal of burgers, fries, and ice cream. We go to this local place and order to go. This place usually takes about 15 min to get your food out to you. The girl behind the counter takes our order then immediately makes our ice cream cones and lets them sit out on the counter and melt while our food is cooking. Lack of common sense: If it has potential to melt, don't prepare it first, prepare it last.

• This happened a few years ago, but I think it's my favorite experience with the lack of common sense. I was living in Quito, Ecuador volunteering in orphanages. I lived with a bunch of girls who were doing the same thing. I was in charge of doing all the shopping for the house. I had just gone to the produce stand and bought a bunch of food. I was in the process of washing it with diluted bleach (we didn't want to get parasites). One girl came in and offered to help me. I was glad to have some help until she asked this question... "So, like do we wash the fruit or dry it first?" I just looked at her. I couldn't continue the interaction. I had to leave the room.

Seriously, what happened to common sense? I know it's out there somewhere...

Ben Folds Live

For many years, I have been a fan of Ben Folds (and his five...before they broke up). My friend Scott introduced me to his music sometime in high school. But up until last night, I hadn't had a chance to see him preform live. It was awesome. He played some of my favorites: Fred Jones Part II, Rockin' the Suburbs, Kate, Annie waits... Great tunes! The concert was at Saltair. This was the first time I've been to that venue... not my favorite. Part of the problem is that Anna and I both left our wallets home so we didn't have our IDs to get into the bar where there was a significantly better view. So we were stuck in the middle of big crowd of people trying to see over the tall guy in the gray shirt-hate him. After a while, we moved to the back on the side, where we could see quite a bit better. We had a great time. Ben puts on a good show. Oh yeah, and he threw his stool at the piano at the end. I loved that.

Before the concert, we met Anna and Peter and at Pete's request, went out for sushi. This was a first for Michael and Anna. I had sushi once with an old man a few years ago. Pete ordered everything for us because the rest of us didn't really know what to order. I didn't love it, didn't hate it. But it was a fun experience.

Costa Rica Love

Well, the big trip is over. A week in Costa Rica wasn't nearly enough. We went to three places: Arenal Volcano area, Monteverde cloud forest, and Manuel Antonio national park and beach. I'll give a brief synopsis of the trip.
We arrived in San Jose at 5:25 a.m and met Arnufal, our driver who took us to our hotel in Arenal (a 3 hour drive). We were exhausted from flying all night, so after breakfast, we crashed for a few hours and woke up just in time to meet our guide for horseback riding. We rode to the beautiful La Fortuna Falls.

Later that evening, we went to Tabacon Hot Springs. This is an amazing river that is heated by the volcano. It is warmer than a hot tub in some places.

The next morning we got up early and headed for the Pacuare River where we went white water rafting. It was a blast. There were class III and IV rapids.

That evening we drove to the observatory lodge and watched the fiery magma rocks roll off the top of the volcano while we ate dinner. Unfortunately, my camera is not good enough to capture a great night photo of this, so here's a pic of the volcano in the daytime.

The next morning we headed for Monteverde via a boat ride across Arenal Lake and the a long drive in a van on a winding dirt road. That day, we went and hiked around Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve. We spotted a white faced monkey on one of our hikes, and listened as wild boars talked to each other (they sounded mean).

The next day we went on a zip line canopy tour (over 2 miles of zip lines). Then we walked through the canopy on hanging bridges that were about 150-200 feet tall.

Later that day, we went to the serpentarium. I hate snakes, but I have an unhealthy fascination with them. The serpentarium featured only snakes that are native to Costa Rica... a lot of vipers. There were also a few poisonous dart frogs...very cool.

The next day, we took another drive on that winding dirt road to get out of Monteverde. We drove another 3 hours to the Pacific coast. We stayed in a town called Quepos, about a 5 minute bus ride from Manuel Antonio National park. We spent Sunday just hanging out on the beach and playing in the ocean until sunset.

The next day we went for a coastal kayaking tour to a beautiful beach where we snorkeled. We were going to go on another tour of a mangrove forest later in the evening, but the tide was too high, so the tour was not running, so we just hung out in the town of Quepos.

Our last real day was spent in Manuel Antonio National Park. We hiked around and spotted wildlife. A lot of Howler Monkeys, sloths, lizards, and iguanas. We hit the beach for one last hour then headed back to San Jose. On our way, we crossed the crocodile bridge... a ton of crocs just hang out under this bridge all of the time.

That was it. We ate dinner in San Jose, went to bed, woke up at 3:30 and got on the airplane headed for Denver at 6:00 a.m. It was a great trip. We did so much, but there is so much we didn't do. Maybe we'll go back someday. PURA VIDA!

An End to Limbo?

The last year of my life has not been exactly what I'd had in mind before it started. You see, at this time last year, Michael was about to graduate from BYU with a degree in Actuarial Sciences. Shortly thereafter, he was going to take and pass the first Actuarial exam, and get a great job on the northwest coast. I was going to get a great travel job in the same city and we were going to live rent free for 3-6 months (travel nurses get free housing), save-save-save- and buy a house where we would live happily ever after.

Didn't happen... We are still living in a basement apartment in American Fork, UT. Michael did graduate from BYU with a degree in Actuarial Sciences last April, but the rest is yet to work out. He is employed at 1-800 Contacts and I am working at a Dialysis Clinic. We are NOT living rent-free. Michael did pass the exam in November and is currently in the process of applying for a job. We are learning that it is not easy to get a job if you are not a nurse. Entry level positions are the hardest to get because the experience field on the resume is basically blank. Not to mention having to send applications via email. Oh, and there's that economic recession (shhhhh, don't tell Pres. Bush, he doesn't know). So needless to say, this is taking longer than we thought it would.

It might sound like I am complaining... I'm not (Although 2 months ago I was). It has been a lot of fun to have so much time to spend together and to live so close to both of our families. I know someday we will look back on these responsibility-free days and wish we could have them back.

It's just that for a lot of this year, it's felt like we've been living in a state of limbo. Should we buy tickets to that concert? I don't know... Will he have a job by then? If he does, we won't be around to use them. Should we take that vacation we've been wanting to go on? I don't know... Will he have a job by then? Which airport should we fly out of? I don't know... Where will we live by then?

So, about a month ago, I decided that we had to get out of limbo and just start living our lives. We bought those concert tickets (Ben Folds, April 23, 2008, SLC) and we planned that trip (Costa Rica, April 8-16 2008- flight departs out of SLC). The funny thing is that since we've done this, Michael has had 3 companies call him wanting to interview him. One in California, one in Texas, and one in Illinois.

So, is there an end to Limbo? I don't know yet, but things are looking up. I'll let you know after we get back from Costa Rica :)

New Hobby

For many years, I've wanted to learn how to draw. A few years ago, when I was in Ecuador, my friend Ashlee lent me her "teach yourself to draw" book. I learned how to draw basic shapes such as cubes, cones, and cylinders. Once, I even drew a feather, but I didn't do much with it.

Then nursing school happened... no time to learn to draw.

Then the awful nursing job at VA happened... too stressed/depressed to care.

Then I quit that awful job and started working at my current job... University of Utah Dialysis Program... ahhhhhhhh. It is a lovely job. I only work three days a week, Mon, Wed, Fri. What should I do with those other four days? Tues: ski, Sun: church, Sat and Thurs: DRAW (among other things).

About 6 weeks ago I bought my very own "teach yourself to draw book" called Drawing for the Utter and Absolute Beginner. Above are my first two drawings which were an assignment in the book. Since then, I've been practicing by drawing some household items. I have a long way to go, but at least I'm on my way. Here are some of the household items I've done:

Weekend Getaway to Bryce Canyon National Park

A couple of weeks ago, we were feeling the travel bug. We couldn't really go anywhere for more than a weekend because I can't get work off because my manager is on maternity leave, so we decided to go on a little mini trip to Bryce Canyon National Park. We left Friday after work, met my sister Carlie and husband Danny in Lindon and started driving. After 4 hours including a stop at the fine establishement of Arby's (I had the roast beef), we arrived at Ruby's Inn where we crashed for the night. Saturday morning, we got up and went on a 7 mile hike around the park. It was fun hiking in the snow, although we all took a few spills on the trail when our feet would get stuck in knee-deep snow. After the hike, we drove to the scenic town of Tropic, Utah where we dined at the General Store. We wanted to go see Grosvener Arch (Michael had been there before and knew how to get there) so we drove to Kodachrome Basin State Park where this arch was supposedly located. Well, it wasn't there, so we ended up visiting Chimney Rock. On our way out of $6 visit to a rock, we asked the park ranger where the arch actually was. He told us (it wasn't too far off), but we couldn't get there because we needed a truck to drive through the muddy river that crossed the dirt road that led to the arch. We had plans to do some more hiking on Sunday, but we woke up to a blizzard. So we checked out of the hotel, had Sunday brunch and headed home.

The Fast

Last week I completed a 5 day juice fast. My purpose in doing this was to be more conscious of what foods were going into my body. I have tried fasts before and usually (not always) give up at the end of the second day because I am so consumed by hunger. This time was different. I decided to take it one day at a time. I would finish one day and if I felt like I could keep going another day, I would. The first two days were the hardest. Michael helped me get through these days by fasting with me. We pretty much just stayed away from food and kept busy. Day three was a breeze. I didn't even want food. I had great energy and I just felt really good. Day four was great until the evening. I really wanted to eat, but the desire to hold out for one more day was greater than my desire for food. The fifth day, all I could think about was protein. I was craving chicken and nuts. My favorite craving was for Lunchables... I don't know when the last time I had Lunchables was, maybe fifth grade, but the meat and cheese were very alluring.

So the juice fast was comprised of fresh vegetable and fruit juice that I would put through my juicer when it was time for a "meal." My favorite juice was a pineapple-orange-strawberry mix and the worst was anything with celery. I took a picture of all the fruits/veggies before I started the fast. This amount of food only lasted me three days. I had to go back for more on the morning of the fourth day.

My greatest reward from this fast is that I haven't had a single headache since I started. I usually get really bad headaches 4-5 days out of the week. I had no refined sugar for over a week and limited amounts since then. I don't know for sure, but I think it was sugar giving me the headaches. I am also more conscious of what I put in my body. Portion sizes have decreased significantly as I listen to my body telling me when to stop. I've also had a desire to eat much healthier foods. I'm glad I did this and I'm glad it's over.