Christmas Decorating

Well, my daughter gets to decorate for Christmas!

She's excited that she'll be able to get a couple of her friends to basically tear apart the house and make it all festive and twinkly.

Giving up creative control to 3 teenagers is probably the scariest thing I've ever done.

I'm worried Mom with have a panic attack, or 3. She doesn't do well with messes or noises. We may end up having to remove her from the house completely. Of course, she wouldn't be against doing Christmas shopping while the house is transformed.

I'm so not ready for the invasion! Trust. Trust. Trust. Trust. Shhh. Calm down. You'll survive. Really. I promise.

Plan: Turn up the Christmas tunes or leave the house.

Prognosis: Decorations up and a beautiful house.

How's that for wishful thinking? Hahahaha!!!

Don't mind me! I'm just having a nervous breakdown!

My Room

The subject of clutter came up on the forum this morning. As I'm a pack rat by nature and inclination, this set my little bitty brain a'twirlin'.

To give you some idea of my environment I should start off with the house. It's a single-wide 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom mobile home in a "mobile home park." Why they call this a park I still haven't got a clue. I do have a little space that has grass, and I attempt small gardening tasks when I'm up to it. (Which is rare enough to be an event.)

There are 4 people living in this almost-40-year-old house. Each of whom need their own bedrooms. My mom gets one, my 17-year-old daughter gets one, and the smallest bedroom is for my 14-year-old son. Are your math skills as horrid as mine? I'm only counting 3 rooms taken by 3 people who MUST have their own spaces. (We tend to get quarrelsome when we can't escape to our own spaces.) That leaves me.

Yep, I sleep on a daybed tucked into the tipout in the living room. Right next to the TV, 4 floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, 2 recliners, a couch, 3 dressers, an end table, approximately 30 plants, 2 lamps, 3 small bookshelves, 1 slightly-larger-than-a-chair computer desk, two 7-foot cabinets, and a slightly-larger-than-a-postage stamp kitchen. (Of course there's the usual kitcheny type items. What? You were wondering if I was a redneck? Only a little bit. Yes, I've got a 4 wheel drive and a pickup.)

Whew! Where do we walk? Single file usually, thank you very much. There's actually an area in front of the chairs and couch big enough to put one of those blow-up beds. I wouldn't recommend it though. There's a lot of traffic through that space!

Every surface is covered in books, plants, and the general items of living that people have to have.  You'd think with all this "stuff" in such a small space that my house would look or be dirty. I surprise myself when I actually look around. The dishes are usually done and put away. The cupboards are clean. The books are generally shelved with care and order. The movies are in their cases and shelved neatly. The tables and desk surfaces are free of too many "extras." The floor is clean. The bed is made religiously. (Mom wants to make it look like a couch or something. I think a bed is a bed and I'm not ashamed!)

Of course, there's no peeking in the hall closet or in my dresser drawers. The usual accoutrements of life have to go somewhere you know. (Shhh ! It's a secret, but I use my son's closet for my dress clothes.)

The funniest part of not having a bedroom is that I have more space available than anyone else in the house!

Other than being parked in the middle of EVERYTHING, my ROOM is perfect!

Did anyone besides me notice that "Christmas Tree and Decorations" aren't on the list of "stuff" in my room? My daughter is currently trying to convince me to dive into storage and find them. My thought is... can't we bypass that this year? There's a lot on my plate and putting up and taking down umpteen boxes of Christmas may be fun for some people, it's a huge chore for me. Besides, I'd have to move my plants from in front of the windows. They'd be unhappy. There's not a lot of light in the winter as it is and I'm out of shelf space. Hmmmm... maybe I can carefully and solidly place my distal lower extremity on the floor.... maybe.

The Disjointed Day

I've been plugging through several 6+ minutes reports in a row. I think they're trying to gear up to throw longer ones at me. I think there's going to be a short one next, but nope, it's just another psych out. (Usually my own. lol)

These reports don't feel difficult. The audio is good, the doctors usually aren't bouncing around changing their minds (don't you hate that?), and the research for any trouble spots is fairly generic and simple. So why are they bogging me down today? Simple answer is that I just don't know. How do I get through these so that I can feel like I'm making progress? Stop procrastinating maybe?

It's like each of these reports drains me in some fundamental way. It could just be my feeling physically unwell for the last few days. I really need to work on overcoming letting my physical health be a distraction. Right now I'm pouring coffee in by the pot. (I really wish someone would invent that IV coffee infusion people refer to.) I've also got my left leg propped on a stool with cushions and a blanket. (Old injuries hate weather changes.) My fingers and hands have been aching so much that I've needed to rub analgesic cream into my joints on a regular basis. I've also been sneezing so hard that my poor eyeballs feel bruised. Zyrtec clears up the sneezes for a period of time and then, ACHOOOOAH, the dogs jump out of their skins and start barking because I've just blown the roof off the house! So annoying.

I spent a lot of last night reviewing MT blogs, forums, sites, etc. It's really amazing and disheartening how many scams are out there in reference to Work-At-Home and Medical Transcription. Do a search if you don't believe me. Finding the jewels though... that's wonderful. There's a lot of really great information out there. It's finding it that's tough.

I'm also still very disappointed in my typing speed. It comes and it goes. More goes though. I've been typing since 7th grade and I still have trouble getting past 70 wpm. That's so frustrating. I'm working with Shorthand and inputting as many common, everyday words as I can to increase it's effectiveness, but speed with it is still iffy. It's typing a lot more of my reports than it used to, but it's still mostly looking for the abbreviation rather than KNOWING what it is and getting faster at using it. I've got a lot of reports ahead of me and I'm really hoping that I can increase my Shorthand speed during that practice.

Mom is in Nutcracker mode. We've seen 3 different versions of the Nutcracker ballet over the last couple of days. The music is wonderful background noise, even when I'm not paying attention to the dancing. Mostly I don't watch the dancing because it's always been an unfulfilled dream of mine to be able to dance. I never cared if it was ballet or belly dancing, just watching people who were graceful and beautiful is joyful and heartbreaking at the same time.

I know this post is completely disjointed and probably boring as hell, but that's how I feel right now. Sorry.

Hugs to all my friends and thank you for bearing with me through this.

On to BAC

Does BAC mean Basic Acute Care? Sometimes I think it means Balance And Calm.

BAC is challenging and I will not say it isn't. I've had reports that make me feel like I got hit with the Stupid Stick. Fortunately, that feeling is much less prevalent than in Clinic Notes. Do I get perfect reports? Nope. Do I know everything I need? Not even close. Do I feel more confident? Yes.

The confidence is because I've learned Balance. The dictations are not easier. I don't think there is such a thing. The Balance comes because I KNOW that I'm learning. Before, it was like I felt I had to be perfect. That I was supposed to know how to make the reports perfect just because I'd been through the Objective portion of the Career Step course and that should make everything clear and understandable.

It's one thing to think that you're learning. It's quite another to internalize it and make it part of your philosophy. The detailed and difficult progression through the bookwork gives a sense that you know everything you need to know in order to do transcription well. You passed the midterm exam and got a great grade didn't you? So how come Clinic Notes kicked you in the head? Are you really dumb and just didn't know it? NO! Not even close.

It took all of Clinic Notes and about 1/4 of  Basic Accute Care to really KNOW that I'm still learning. Duh! Right? Not really. It just took that long to give myself permission to not be perfect. That I needed that long to get it irritates me, but it's not the end of the world. Research and continual learning is part and parcel of the career that I signed up for. Even graduates and working MTs are still learning their craft. Sometimes I'm just a little denser than I'd like to admit.

BAC is where I've been learning to really dig into researching for answers. It's where my Shorthand expander is becoming more and more my friend. BAC is where I'm finding that I don't NEED to look up as many medications or medical words or procedures. Wow! I really am learning something! My speed is still laughable, but that's okay with me. Speed won't really pick up unless I've got regular doctors and templates for them set up.

With the Balance that comes from KNOWING that I'm learning comes the Calm that everything is progressing exactly as it should. Whoa! Where did that come from? Calm? I haven't been calm in years! Giving myself permission to learn made all the difference. The pressure is off! Yay! I can keep learning, expecting to have glaring mistakes, expecting to have to look something up multiple times before it sticks in my almost 40-year-old brain. (Hey! Don't laugh! It takes longer to put things in there and make them stay than it used to!)

I hope you find the Balance and Calm in your life and learning. There's that old saying that as long as you're learning you're alive. Well, it's true! Give yourself permission to go back to your gradeschool or high school self. The pressure comes off. Your brain becomes much more accepting of new information, and believe it or not, you may find yourself enjoying the process more than you thought!

Clinic Notes - How on Earth did I get through it?

Working my way through Clinic Notes, I felt panicky and nervous. Staying motivated was a huge effort. Let's just say I wasn't always successful and leave it there.

All right, I won't just leave it there. This is supposed to be about my student journey and I need to be open and honest. It was so hard to listen to the dictations and think that I could possibly get good at this! Every report that had word swallowers, mumblers, speed talkers, and just general poor audio quality made it feel like I was trying to walk through hip-deep thick mud! I would get through one of these awful reports, hit the submit, get the comparison, and want to hit my computer with a baseball bat! Then, I'd quit working for the day.

So much for doing one report after the next. (Sigh) I felt defeated. But even more than that, I was pissed off! Not at the school. Not at the material I was trying to learn. I was mad at myself! How could I be so dumb? How could I not hear that slurred bit of dictation? Didn't I see that medical term three reports ago? How'd I miss that?

Getting through high school with As and Bs didn't prepare me for trying to get through these dictations and the inevitable failures. I never failed to learn what was placed in front of me! How could this be happening?

I went back through "How to Have a Beautiful Gradebook." Thank you Jill. I went through the Transcription Consultation video. Thank you Jill. I went through the forum. Thank you students and staff! I managed to hold on to my ability to click "NEXT" and attempt the next report. Barely.

During the middle of Clinic Notes, I was also given the horrible financial news that I was going to lose my Social Security, that my Mom was getting more and more ill, and my children were being completely and insanely irresponsible. I was fighting with my brother. I was in pain from injuries, old and new. I was just about ready to jump into the psychiatric ward at the hospital with my poor mangled brain in my hands. Slowly, this horrible period of my life started to calm and the hospital stay was receding from immediate possibility! How? The first part was getting back on medication. (Insert shrugging here.) Sometimes, you grab whatever life preserver you can. Then it was the forum. My friends in Keep On Keepin' On welcomed me every time I posted and helped me to stay encouraging and encouraged me to keep moving forward.

The more I encouraged others, the better I felt. The more positive feedback I got, the easier it was to believe it. Anyone who reads my posts on the forum can probably see that I'm just trying to lift others and keep them going. Supporting them, when they can't support themselves completely, helps to remind myself that I'm not the only one who's got problems, struggles, or needs support!

It's true that helping others can provide relief to yourself. This, apparently, is true of me as well. Who knew that Career Step provided therapy?

10 Rules for Working At HOME

Rules for working at home

I caught this this morning from the MSN home page. I thought it was great advice!

Holiday Renewal

The holidays give a lot of people a burst of energy and excitement. So many people to see, things to do, shopping to accomplish, decorating to be done, special events to attend. The list of holiday activities seems endless. For me, it depends on the year. Weird, I know. I'm one of those unfortunate people with Major Chronic Depression. Along with the physical pain that I deal with daily, depression is like a stalking cat. It waits until I forget about it and then, POUNCE! This year, apparently the cat doesn't want me to forget about it. It's been whopping me upside the head on a fairly regular basis without letting me recover. Oh well. Just part and parcel of being me.

Normally, I love the holidays. My favorite thing to do and never miss a single year, is a drive through my town the weekend before Christmas Day with my kids hogtied into the backseat. (What's the fun if you can't torture your children while you have them?) Wait until about 8 or 9 o'clock and just start driving through neighborhood after neighborhood oohing and aahing at all the lights and decorations. This usually lasts about an hour or so. Then, we go to Locomotive Park. It's decorated to the hilt. There's a train, a fireplace, benches, a vendor with cocoa, trees lit up in every color imaginable, a musical floor, and MUSIC!! Christmas carols blasting from speakers set up high in the trees; an invisible choir of angels passing out Christmas cheer. Not your average choral carols either. The old standards are interspersed with the current Christmas hits from top artists.

This is the only time, I really let myself be the same age as my kids. Well, with a driver's license and bank account. That drive through town and walking through the park with my kids racing around, (hogtie forgotten) being nuts, listening to the holiday cheer pouring over me... Jesus comes to visit me.

Other than when I'm singing, the only time I feel real peace and joy is during this holiday pilgrimage. Everything is lifted away from me. All the trials of the year are released. All the worries that I can't set aside are washed away.

This is my time to reconnect with the joy of being human and all that means. The child with bright pink cheeks and glittering eyes, running and laughing as he climbs fearlessly through this wonderland of light and music gives my heart an incredible feeling of rightness. During this journey, I recharge my weary batteries, laugh and sing, and join in spirit with that laughing, bright-eyed child.

The feelings I get during this yearly trek sustain me. I just have to pull the memory out of storage more often than I do.