Baked Oatmeal: My New Food Obsession

I'm not a huge fan of gloppy, sticky oatmeal. It looks yucky and without out enough brown sugar to top it off, it tastes pretty yucky, too. So I was never in a big rush to try the baked oatmeal that my friend always raved about. I think I probably scrunched up my nose in disdain as she described how her family of 6 boys gobbled it up every time she cooked it for breakfast.

But when her dad passed away recently, and I was thinking of ways that I could help out, I settled on making them their favorite breakfast for the day of the funeral. And since I had extra of all the ingredients needed, I decided to make one for me too (I was pretty sure the boys wouldn't be brave enough to try it. And I was right with the first batch).

Oh my goodness! My friend was right. Baked oatmeal is delicious. I have no idea of what I was afraid of and why I waited so long to give it a try. My first batch was a banana chocolate chip recipe found on budgetbytes.com. Since that first batch I have made an apple walnut baked oatmeal, a peanut butter banana chocolate chip baked oatmeal, and in the oven this morning, is a strawberry banana chocolate chip baked oatmeal. The house smells so yummy while the oatmeal is baking!

So if you have an aversion to gloppy, sticky, stove-top oatmeal, I suggest you give baked oatmeal a try. Because it is baked and contains eggs, it takes on more a bread-like texture. The lady at budgetbytes describes it as custard-like, but I think it is more bread pudding-like if anything. Anyway, it takes only a few minutes to prepare and about 45 minutes to cook. My friend says that you can prepare it the night before and cook it in the oven the next morning. I haven't tried this way yet, but I can see it as a great option for Christmas morning.

I'm sure a quick Google or Pinterest search will yield a plethora of baked oatmeal recipes. I used budgetbytes because that was the recipe that my friend really liked. The fun thing about budgebytes is that it breaks out cost/serving, so if you are budget conscious and a numbers person, you might enjoy using this website.

Happy cooking.

School Nursing Can Be...

A. Mundane and routine
B. Challenging and limit testing
C. Frustrating and aggravating
D. Humorous
E. All of the above

A. Mundane and routine: Yep, school nursing can be both of these things. Day in and day out there are a lot of band-aids and ice packs that get distributed for the typical scrapes, bumps and owies that children suffer. There is also a lot of temperature checking and re-assuring and shooing back to class, day in and day out.

B. Challenging and limit testing: But on occasion there are situations that come up that challenge my assessment skills and decision making. In the past few weeks I have had to call 9-1-1.

First was an elementary boy who has a cardiac history of SVT (supraventricular tachycardia). When I was called to assess him his heart rate was 115. He was complaining of crushing chest pain. He had already been quietly resting for 15 minutes with no relief. I have at my disposal a stethoscope, a blood pressure cuff and a pulse oximeter. That's it. Those are all of the fancy tools I get to care for kiddos in school. So a thorough assessment becomes very important. In this case, the boy's color was good but he was uncomfortable. He kept saying how much his chest hurt. And then he develops this weird cough, which he describes as feeling a tickle in his throat. Not knowing this kiddo (did I  mention he is a student at a school I am not assigned to? I just happened to be the nurse on-call for that school) and with his parents unreachable (unreachable parents are a HUGE frustration factor when facing these kinds of situations), the decision to call 9-1-1 was made. The paramedics came, hooked him up to all of their fancy machines, saw that his heart rate with a sinus dysrhythmia, still couldn't reach a parent or emergency contact, and loaded him into an ambulance to take him to the hospital for further evaluation.

The second 9-1-1 call was for a middle school student who reported to the health room with a blood pressure of 194/138. That's not good. I had her rest and rechecked her blood pressure after 15 minutes. While waiting for the 15 minutes to pass, I tried to reach the parent. The student tried multiple times to reach the parent. The assistant principal tried several times to reach the parent. NO PARENT AVAILABLE. UGH! 15 minutes later and the student's blood pressure is now 140/100. Now she is complaining of impaired vision, dizziness and tingly. OK. 9-1-1 to come do a further assessment because remember all I have is a blood pressure cuff, a stethoscope, and a pulse oximeter. Again the paramedics come, hook the student up to all of their fancy tools, discover she has significant orthostatic changes in BP, and load her onto a gurney to take her to the hospital.

C. Frustrating and aggravating: Besides not being able to get a hold of parents when their children are sick, there are other frustrating aspects of being a school nurse. As a school nurse I am responsible for monitoring immunization compliance. I spend several hours a month reviewing records, sending out notices, making phone calls, and doing all I can to make sure that students meet the state standards for immunizations. But making phone calls and sending out notices is about all I can. It is up to administrators to enforce the law. And quite frankly, immunization compliance falls way down the list of priorities for administrators.

The sh*! only hits the fan when there is a potential of disease outbreak and the administrators discover that many children are at risk and will have to be excluded if there is an outbreak.  Then all of  the sudden it becomes a priority. This is what happened recently in a large neighboring school district. The head shed people finally decided to hold school administrators feet to the fire regarding immunization compliance and a huge effort was taken to get students caught up. The district went from having 5000 students out of compliance to 98! That is an amazing change. And do you know what else happened? Instead of praising the school nurse who is the coordinator of school health for her efforts to bring immunization clinics to schools to get those kids in compliance, the district is firing her. FIRING HER! She has become the fall guy for the negative press that surrounded the large out-of-compliance rate even though school nurses, as I previously mentioned, have absolutely no authority to enforce immunization laws. Oh I am SO MAD over this injustice.

D. Humorous: Fortunately there are enough humorous moments to compensate for the frustrations, aggravations, challenges, and mundane tasks. The humorous moments definitely help keep me going. Things such as pea gravel in ears (seen more cases of this than I ever thought I would), funny little kids and funny big kids are daily bright spots in my job. The other day an 8th grade girl came to see me. She said she had a rash on her chin. I looked at her chin and she did have lots of little dots on the underside of her chin, but it looked more like she had rubbed up against something rather than a rash. So I asked if she played softball and had slid on the ground. No. How about dancing and sliding on the floor? No. Well it looks like your chin rubbed against something and ruptured lots of little blood vessels. Oh, I did have a cup stuck there for a couple of minutes. Congratulations, you gave yourself a hickey. Spent the rest of the afternoon chuckling over that.

E All of the above: So as you can see, school nursing fits all of the above descriptors. And as difficult as B and C can be, those are things that make sure there is never a dull moment. But thank heaven they don't happen on a daily basis.

News from Kate

Sometimes we get unexpected pictures of Katelyn texted to us.

That happened last week when the Peterson's sent us a couple of pictures.

Sister Peterson with Katelyn and Sister Schoeder. And Sister Peterson's two adorable boys

After we received the pictures, I then received a text from Sister Peterson.
She had asked Katelyn to describe me.
This is how Katelyn sees me

 

 

Sister Peterson's message in yellow; my response in blue



Well, there you have it.
I'm a dragon, which apparently means I'm feisty.
I'm an elf, which apparently means I'm undersized.
I can't really argue with either description.

 

Have Courage and Be Kind

In the recent Disney remake of Cinderella, Cinderella's dying mother whispered that line "have courage and be kind" to Cinderella. I have to admit that once I heard that line I was a bit distracted through the rest of the movie as I pondered on those words.

I wondered how I was doing to reflect that line. I have often defined myself as courageous, but we saw the movie on the heels of the news breaking that over 100 Christian college students had been killed at their university in Kenya. I wondered if I had that kind of Christian courage. Sure it's easy to say that from the safety of my home in the United States of America but would I say the same if in the actual situation? Today I say "Yes".

But that isn't the only way to show Christian courage. And that led me to the next part of the phrase, "and be kind".

If you asked people who knew me in high school to describe me, I doubt that "kind" would be in the top 10 descriptor words. I would like to think that my friends I have now would use "kind" to describe me, but I honestly don't know. The problem is that I tend to still define myself by the old high-school terms.

I'm not sure why I continue to old on to this old characterization, even if it isn't accurate anymore. I guess it is kind of like continuing to run in running shoes well past their mileage. You do it because you know what to expect from them, even if it means achy knees and hips. Changing shoes might not work out, they might not feel right or fit right or they might feel just different enough you know it's going to take some time to get used to it and you are sure that you really want to take that time. The point is, the old shoes are familiar and known and the pain they cause is worth it because then you avoid all the unpleasantness of change.

And so I hold onto a familiar, known characterization even though it doesn't really work for me anymore. It gives me an excuse to fall back on if this "kind" thing doesn't work out. It provides a bit of protection and a retreat to fall back to when my awkward efforts at being kind appear to be rebuffed.

But where is the courage in retreat? And more importantly where is the Christian courage? For what I realized is that by not accepting a this new character trait, I in fact am rejecting Christ's sacrifice for me. I am rejecting the grace He is extending to me to make weak things strong.

Whew, can you see why I was so distracted during the movie? That's a lot of self-reflection. My mind and heart were still ripe for learning.

This phrase from General Conference:

God cares a lot more about who we are,

And about who we are becoming,

Than about who once were. - Dale Relund

 

and then this phrase that I heard at my friend's church on Easter Sunday:

Your story + God's story = A New Story

 

spoke right to my heart. And reinforced all that I had thought about during Cinderella.

 

Good-bye old familiar unkind self. You no longer serve any person. I am now moving forward with courage AND with kindness.

 



Good-bye Tall Shoes

There is only some much a 5' girl can do to make herself appear a bit taller. Wearing tall shoes is one of those things. Now, I don't go crazy with the height of the heels; most of my "tall shoes" only have a 2-3" heel. And for the better part of the last 13 years as a school nurse, I wasn't wearing tall shoes to work. But the last couple of years I decided to make tall shoes my "go to" footwear most days of the week (sometimes I cave to fashion). I thought that wearing brands such as Sofft, or Clarks would offer some cushion and more comfort than other shoes. Maybe they do for some people. But for me?Yeah, not so much.

A year or so ago, I began noticing a dull, aching, throbbing pain at the base of my big toe if I wore tall shoes on back to back days. So I cut back a little bit and tried alternating between flats and heels. That seemed to work OK and the pain went away for the most part unless I made of the mistake of wearing heels on back-to-back days.

Well last night that pain was back and back with a vengeance. Matter of fact, it kind of kept me up. The frustrating part was that I hadn't worn heels on back to back days. I wore flats on Sunday, had been barefoot most of the weekend, and Monday was the first time since probably Thursday that I had worn tall shoes. So as I was laying there in bed, with my foot aching, I resolved to give up tall shoes for good. I decided that looking a few inches taller was not worth the irritating, constant pain and the possibility of creating a neuroma that would prevent me from running or biking any more.

There is a silver lining in this however...I now have a reason to purchase several pairs of new shoes, flat shoes that is.

April is poetry month, or so I'm told. I was thinking about that the other night when I was trying to sleep. Because sleep was slow in coming, my mind began crafting a poem of sorts. It went like this

In and out, in and out
Shallow, shallow, deep
Those are the breath sounds I hear
As I try to fall asleep

Sometimes those sounds are calming
Tonight they are incredibly galling
For all I want tonight, dear
Is to fall asleep
Without hearing you breathe in my ear!

And that is my contribution to Poetry Month. I think I better stick to my day job since trying to compose poetry in the stillness of the night leads to questionable results.

An Apology

Apparently I offended Carson in my last blog post. I know this because he called me right after he read it to let me know. He said I need to quit referring to him as a "man of few words" because he isn't that at all. He then went on to tell me why, in his perception of himself, he does not fit the description of being a man of few words. Unfortunately, he called me when I was at work and I had to attend to some students before I could apologize.

As I continued to think on the conversation I thought that perhaps since I had inadvertently offended him through the public forum of my blog, I should offer an apology the same way. I asked him if that would be OK and he said, "Yes. Thank you." I realize that for it to be a real apology I should only say "I'm sorry" and not include any examples or justifications of why I think he is a man of few words. (Does it negate today's apology if I share those examples in later blog posts? Probably. So I'll leave them unsaid and try to remember that Carson has asked me to quit using that description for him.)

So for you, Carson:

I am sorry that I described you as a man of few words. You were right to point out to me how you have grown and changed. If you were still a man of few words, you probably wouldn't have made as many friends as you have this year and you certainly wouldn't be hanging out with them as often. I'm sorry that I failed to adequately acknowledge this growth. I did not mean to offend you. I love you lots my boy.

Love,
Mom

PS And I'm sorry that this apology is a day later than I told you I would post it. Things got busy yesterday. See there I go, trying to justify why I didn't get the apology done sooner, only in the process I negate the apology. Bother.