Images from Marine Corps Marathon yesterday.

Playing tourist again

This weekend, I went to the Udvar-Hazy National Museum of Air & Space out near Dullest Airport, and I went to see the National Christmas tree. The tree was supplied by Washington State, so I thought that was pretty cool!

NYC

I had a great trip up to NYC last weekend to look at the Christmas window displays :-) It was actually cheaper to fly than take the train, so 1 hour up, 1 hour back -- perfect! I stayed at a hotel south of Grand Central Station. No bedbugs to report (whew, thank goodness!)! I walked 13.3 miles on Saturday alone, fueled by a monster chocolate chip cookie from Levain's Bakery. My aunt had heard about them so I went up to 74th St. to find the bakery. I timed it just right, getting there with only 2 people in front of me. The next time I looked, the line behind me quite long. My favorite windows were the ones at Bergdorf Goodman's and at Tiffany. Saks 5th Ave had cute ones too. They were kind of hard to photograph though. I was able to catch the Broadway show "Cinderella", by Rodgers & Hammerstein. The lead who plays Prince Topher is from Richland, WA! Small world. As fun as it was, I was glad I live in DC and not NYC. I'm happy to be back to my nice clean city :-)

Christmas at Mount Vernon

At my aunt's insistence, I headed down to Mount Vernon yesterday. It is only about a half an hour outside of DC by car, probably less by horse! It was sunny and 50 degrees - hard to believe it's December! His estate is magnificent and the tour was excellent. One thing I love, but sadly can't take pictures of, is how bright their walls were back then. Think kelly green with ornate white wood accents. It reminds me, like in Williamsburg, of Kate Spade green and either Vera Bradley or Kate Spade. Very cool. There were about a dozen Christmas trees, each decorated to honor either one of his rooms or one aspect of his life. There was one for him as a surveyor, one for him as a host, one for him as an entrepreneur, and one for him as president. The surprise highlight was getting to see the two turkeys that were pardoned by President Obama on Thanksgiving day! They get to come here for a while before being sent to a farm in Virginia to live out their turkey life in peace. Enjoy!

Williamsburg

When my aunt was here, I took Friday off and we went for a 3-day weekend to Williamsburg, VA. It was about a 2.5 hr drive, through some really rural areas. We went down there at night, leaving after 8 to avoid the traffic jam that is I-395 in the evening. My mom would have had a fit if she would have seen how many people were still out after 8 PM :-) We passed several deer on the sides of the road, which always makes me nervous, especially when I'm tired! We stayed at Wyndham Patriot's Place, which was nice. We got a multi-day pass for Colonial Williamsburg, which meant it didn't matter if we got a late start ;-) Highlights: Our spa evening at "The Spa at Colonial Williamsburg" and our supper at King's Arms Tavern. The tours of the buildings made them come to life far more than just walking through them and through the town like we'd done the first day. Good times!

Big job ahead

I am in my first full week in the ER and I've already discovered in the past week and a half that I'm going to have my work cut out for me! The pharmacy department is definitely not like the one I left behind. It takes multiple phone calls to get medicines from point A to point B, with point B being the ER. The inefficiency drives me crazy! I've already met with ED nursing and pharmacy management to see if we can change some of the processes, to try to cut down on phone calls. As always - data, data, data. Another thing that is different here is that when a doctor enters an order for a medicine to start at a certain time, I can't just change it like I did in Yakima. I have to "reject" the initial order, call the doctor, and have them re-enter it for the correct starting time. That's getting really old fast! I can understand the value of training them to pay attention to such things but it's very time-consuming for me. The ED physicians have been great and have went out of their way to get me set up with everything I need. Soon I'll have electronic devices hanging off of every side of my body :-) I'm getting to know the nurses too, and slowly I'm learning their names. The ER keeps a lot of "boarders," so it's not unusual for a patient to be in the ER for over 24 hours, waiting for a bed upstairs. I'd say at this point my time has been split fairly evenly between entering orders for ER boarding patients, pestering the residents who entered the orders incorrectly, and tracking down meds that were never sent. It seems like it will be a while before I can tackle any clinical-type projects because first we've got to get the drugs coming from pharmacy in a satisfactory fashion. Wish me luck and lots of patience!

Busy busy

I survived the month and a half of orientation and now I'm finally up in the ER. YAY! I have a few projects already that will need to be addressed, and I'm sure they'll think of more things for me to fix :-) My aunt came to see me for my birthday, and we're having fun. We took a "Fall Foliage Cruise" here in DC this past Saturday. The weather couldn't have been better! We went to a couple flea markets (her idea) and ate some good food. This coming weekend we're heading down to Williamsburg, VA to check out that area. It should be lots of fun!