Category Archives: Uncategorized

0

Korn Dog

|

Its been a difficult week in the Moehlmann house. Monday was the best day ever but set off an unexpected chain of events that led to more stress than I could have imagined and my itching skin that I had finally gotten under control, flared up again. This leads me to the conclusion I can eat all the gluten I want, and if my stress is under control I won’t be such a dry flaky mess.

Today Brian received the news that his really good friend Dave had passed away. His friends nickname was Korn Dog because Korn was his last name. Dave had been diagnosed with HPV of the tonsil. I remember asking Dr. Chobanian about it at the time and he said he was sorry because that was a really bad cancer. Dave did well for a while after the surgery and treatment although he became very thin and never drank like he use to. It came back and I think he may have done one more round of treatment but the last time he refused and now he is in heaven.

There are so many great Korn Dog stories. One of my favorites was a party Brian attended at their house. I must have been working but I will never forget Brian telling me Dave would let the kids ride on his back while he went down the stairs on his stomach. So it was like the kids were sleigh riding in the house. I can’t even imagine how sore he was when he woke up. He and Brian met when Brian worked at RotoMetrics. They were both on the same golf league with a few other Roto guys. Every year the golf league would have a weekend golf getaway which basically was a drunken fest. Dave laid down in the fairway and fell asleep while waiting to tee off. When it was his time, he woke up, rolled down the hill and hit the ball as if he were awake the entire time. He was one of my favorites of Brian’s friends.

Mole Moral~ Live as if your time is short and focus on what is most important. Love God with all your heart, soul and mind, and love your neighbor as your self. Jesus!

1

Leap Day is the best day ever!

|

Ever since I was a little kid leap day has always been my favorite day of the year. There are several reasons for this but the biggest one is it’s special because it only happens once every four years. Also it was the year of the Olympics because they use to do the summer and winter Olympics in the same year. I can’t remember when they moved the winter Olympics to the non leap even year but they did!

Seven leap years ago Brian called me and proposed to me over the phone. I was at school (Deaconess College of Nursing) and I think he maybe came to visit me three or four times the entire time I was there. In his defense I came home every weekend because no one stayed there and everyone went home. I said yes and couldn’t wait to go ring shopping. He quickly informed me he wasn’t buying a ring at this time. I finally got him to part with the money for an engagement ring three months later on my birthday. We originally planned to get married on February 29, 1992 as it even fell on a Saturday. However, in August (1988) I moved to Edwardsville to get my bachelors degree in nursing. I moved in with my best friend Gena. I was also working as a nurse at Deaconess and was scheduled Labor Day weekend. I was crazy busy and did not call him for three days. Brian was convinced I had met someone else and the next thing I knew he wanted to move the date up. He will deny this but it was not my idea. I wanted to be finished with my degree before I got married. I was slated to finish school in March of 1990. (Back in those days SIUE was on weird trimesters). We decided we wanted to get married in October. Our first (and blind) date was on October 11 so I wanted to get married on the 13 but Brian refused. He said our anniversary would fall on a Friday from time to time and that would be bad luck. So we settled on October 20, 1990 and the rest is history.

Since I ended up not getting married on leap day, I tried to have my two oldest kids on leap day. I missed it by three months both times. Allyson was not born in a leap year so I was really off with her. I worked with a nurse on Women’s Health whose birthday was leap day but she has since retired. Last leap day I made a cake and brought it in for her. She was really touched an surprised. Who knows maybe I will have a grand baby on leap day! I cannot believe I just said that! I am not old enough for that nonsense.

 

Mole Moral~Leap Day will always be the best day ever!

0

Late night with Andy Stanley

|

I haven’t been up past eleven o’clock in a long time. Last night I was working on Emily’s laundry and actually made it up past Saturday Night Live. I was in for a bit of surprise when talking points with Andy Stanley came on channel 5. For those of you that have no clue who I am talking about, Andy is the pastor of Northpoint Community Church outside of Atlanta. I visited there once as they are the church that writes Kid Stuf. The place is huge and has like 25,000 members. He was really interesting but then again he always is.

Andy was talking about how if you live your life as if your days are numbered, you will gain a heart of wisdom. Too many people go through life as if they have all the time in the world and often find themselves at the end of life not where they wanted to be. He quoted a nurse who worked hospice who asked her patients what their biggest regret was. Almost every single man’s response was working too much when the kids were little and missing out on their childhood and spending time with their spouse. The second response was not living the life the person wanted but the life others expected them to live. Of course I received validation for something I have said for a long long time. Anytime Brian harasses me about the house being messy and asks why I don’t keep it spotless my response has always been on my deathbed I will not say “I wish I kept the house cleaner.” It will be  “I wish I helped others more, made gifts for others and made time for people.”

I certainly feel i am living the life I wanted except for being married and having kids. I swore when I was younger I was never getting married or having kids. However both of those turned into a huge blessing, I never dreamed possible in my younger years. I always knew I would be a nurse and I wanted to be a burn nurse. I did that for ten years and lived my dream. And now on Women’s Health I have felt it is the place God wants me to be. I have tried to leave a couple times when things were really rough and he told me no. I am glad I stayed because I really do enjoy it 99% of the time. It’s hard to believe in a little over a year I will be fifty. I remember when Brian’s dad turned fifty and I gave him a coffee cup that said “how the hell did I get this old”. Oh that is so fitting and every time I think of it, I smile. Time goes by so fast, too fast and their is no slowing it down. So my goal is to try and follow the two greatest commandments. Love God with all my heart, soul and mind and love my neighbors as myself.

 

Mole moral~ If you stop by my house, it is most likely to be a mess but I will invite you in and we will have a lot of fun. And when I’m gone you will say that girl had the messiest house ever but she sure was a lot of fun!

0

Facebook and Gluten Free

|

I guess its been close to a month since I decided to remove the Facebook app from my phone. I just felt like I was wasting too much time reading it. I also was tired of all the political mumbo jumbo and everything else. I can indeed pull Facebook up via the safari browser but I have found myself rarely doing that. Before Christmas I had an eczema flare start that will not go away. I had it once before many years ago for a month or so. It started behind my knees both times. This time it has gotten out of control and to the point I wanted to claw my skin off! There have been times my skin felt like it was on fire. So i am either going crazy or just my usual hot mess.

So I decided I would try gluten free even though I do not have celiac disease and have never had digestive type issues. Gluten can trigger eczema. I rarely cook or grocery shop. I have zero interest and I swore I had no time. Well since I have cut Facebook down to a bare minimum I have done both. We have tried all kinds of crazy recipes and I started making my own gluten free bread and crackers. I am just going to say that when one has to make their own crackers, one is less likely to binge and eat them all at once because there is no running to the store for more. My first attempt at the bread was hysterical. It looked beautiful when I took it out of the oven, but two hours later when I was back from running it has fallen to midget size. I had not cooked it near long enough. I haven’t made that mistake since.

The kids are not too keen on it but then again if its not fast food they aren’t keen on anything. I have given up on trying to make food they like. Actually I am to the point as long as I like it everyone else can make what they like. Brian has enjoyed the new recipes and not cooking so much although I do find him often wondering around the kitchen looking for ways to help.

 

Mole moral ~ I have found social medial to be a bigger waste of time than I had realized. However I am not cutting it totally out of my life, as that would be crazy!

0

We Are Camp Nine Surgery on the Boardwalk

|

After dinner I was walking along and came across a group of people surrounding a girl on a bench who was hysterically crying. I took one look at her foot and saw this sticking out of the bottom of it close to her toes. It was about the size of the top stick in the picture.

images

 

 

 

 

 

Someone told me it couldn’t be pulled out because there was a barb or something preventing it. It was pretty far under the skin so I had to go into burn unit nurse mode (maybe that’s why I dreamed about the burn unit last night) and take a pair of tweezers and pick the skin apart to reveal the stick. I had gotten about halfway through this endeavor when it was clear we needed a scalpel or a needle or a razor blade. So up comes the official Big Stuf camp nurse with a gadget called splinter out.

images

 

 

 

 

 

 

It actually reminded me of the really old blood sugar lancet’s from my really early nursing days. So I stabilized the stick while she finished opening it up so we could pull the stick out. The girl did really well. Her group had a wash cloth so the camp nurse washed it and dried it and put a temporary band-aid on. I told her to take a shower and then come to my room and I would fix her up. Apparently the kids with her convinced her that peroxide on it would feel like acid and it would hurt forever. I told her the peroxide wouldn’t hurt but her foot would probably really bother her to put weight on it. So while she is freaking out about the peroxide I sneak and pour it on and it was over and done with before she even knew it. Then a little Neosporin a 2×2 and some gauze wrap and she was good as new. Someone asked why I didn’t use alcohol. I said now that would have burned like battery acid and she would have come out of her skin. Then they asked if I could look at another kids toe. He was so worked up trying to find injured girls sister he jammed and stubbed his toe and peeled the skin off. He already had cleaned and put Neosporin on in, so I did a burn unit toe wrap! It’s been 15 years since I have done any sort of debridement or burn wrapping but it came right back like it was just yesterday!

Mole moral~Once a burn nurse, always a burn nurse!

 

0

Wayward Pines

|

A while back my dad suggested I watch this show. I set the DVR up to record it, but hadn’t started watching it. When I saw my cousin Eddie last week, he told me it was awesome and all of his friends loved it. So yesterday I took a look at the DVR and saw I had 4 of the 6 episodes recorded. I then checked on demand and sure enough all the episodes were available. Because I overdid it on Tuesday with greater than 12,000 steps, I decided to cross stitch and watch this show. About thirty minutes into it, I was ready to kill Eddie. I was already freaked out. When I was young, The Twlight Zone came on channel nine at 10:30 at night. I didn’t always stay awake but I will never forget the episode that freaked me out for life. It was called “Stopover in a Quiet Town.” Not too long ago I watched it on YouTube and it was just as freaky scary in present day as when I was a kid. A husband and wife get drunk and wake up in a strange place. That’s all I’m going to say about it. I think this new show may have the same premise! After watching the first three episodes, my friend Laura stopped by with her new puppy so that was the end of that for the day. I did some googling and this show is based on a trilogy. It’s only ten episodes long. It also reminds me of American Horror Story as that show makes no sense till the last couple of episodes and then everything is tied together. So we shall see!

Mole moral~do not take tv suggestions from my dad or my cousin Eddie! 😂

0

Happy Birthday Emily

|

imageToday is May 23, 2015 and Emily’s twenty-third birthday. What makes it even more special is she was born on a Saturday afternoon and today is Saturday. I’m just trying to orientate any of the un-orientated people who might be reading today. It’s hard to believe that it has been 23 years ago since I sent Brian to the bar with his friends and went to my mom’s house on a Friday night to watch my Uncle Larry try to beat this one level he and my mom were stuck on in Mario World for Super Nintendo. (That was at least 3 or 4 Nintendo gaming systems ago.) My mom came with us to the hospital I do believe and she would call Uncle Larry from time to time to see if he had beaten the level yet. If I remember correctly he still hadn’t beaten it when Emily was born. When I arrived at the hospital I was convinced I was at least 3cm dilated. Not even close, I was a whopping 1cm. By the time 5 am rolled around and I was finally a 3 the anesthesiologist asked me if I wanted an epidural. My response “yes, I don’t care if you paralyze me and I never walk again, do something about these contractions.” She was horrified I said that but I was dead serious! So my doctor came by around 7 before Saturday office hours and broke my water. Things progressed along nicely and around 10:30 my nurse said I should have the baby before lunch. The next thing I knew I was crazy as a loon and told everyone I was playing Mario in my head and making up levels as I go. Uncle Larry finally arrived and I said “hi honey” or something to that effect. I never talk like that. I asked the nurse what she put in my IV when I come out of that and she said I was just delusional from being up all night. I to this day do not believe this. I will always be convinced my doctor didn’t want his office hours screwed up and needed to delay my birth. (All my life I was convinced something went wrong with my appendectomy since I was in the hospital for a week and I found out from Dr. Meiners that my appendix most likely burst and I was never told based on the amount of adhesions Dr. V. found and the length of time I was in the hospital and my giant scar.) Uncle Larry and mom went to the cafeteria to get something to eat. Uncle Larry came back up to see if anything was happening. He stood outside the door and heard Emily be born. Brian and I had fought for nine months about boy or girl and we did not find out. She was born and we just stared at her until the nurse finally asked if it were a boy or a girl. Finally uncle larry yelled through the door, “do we have an Emily or a Larry.) I said Emily and he went back down to the cafeteria to tell mom. They all came in and saw her. Now the Moehlmann’s were at the Lake of the Ozarks at their lake house. So they drove back and also arrived shortly after Emily was born. They visited with her for a couple of hours and then went back to the lake as it was Memorial Day weekend (just like it is this weekend). I was discharged on Memorial Day and was crying as the tech wheeled me out. Brian asked her what was wrong with me and she said “honey, this is totally normal.” I think I was overtaken with the spirit of every post partum hormonal woman ever when I looked at him and said “I told you so!” And so we brought Emily home and the adventure began.

Happy Birthday Emily Mole!

0

Today’s reality check

|

I worked today and now that my foot has been pain-free for almost 4 months I enjoy my job 99.9% of the time. I even enjoyed today even though I was smacked with reality three times in less than four hours.

Today my bosses were interviewing a new nurse for nights. They were showing her around the unit and introduced me as the seasoned nurse. I looked her and said “I bet I’ve been a nurse longer than you have been alive.” I followed that statement up with “let me go check myself into a nursing home”. This May will be 27 years since I graduated from Deaconess College of Nursing.

Next I was chatting with my patient who is my mom’s age. We were discussing the ages of our kids. When she said hers were 47-53 I thought what is she talking about, her kids should be in their 20’s. I then remembered my mom saying she would be disowning me when I am 50 because she is not old enough to have a 50-year-old daughter. And if this lady is my mom’s age then her kids should be my age and I am not in my twenties even though I always think I am in my head.

Lastly, I ran into a respiratory therapist I haven’t seen long enough to chat with since I left the burn unit almost 15 years ago. I asked him if he ever got married and if he ever had kids.Yes was the answer to both and his kids are 15 and 18. Ok how did that happen, he still looked 25 to me and certainly could not have children that old. Later on I kind of remember his first daughter being born but that was so long ago and yet also seems like just yesterday.

Mole moral~ Time keeps on passing by, and I am getting older. However I will always be 20 and all my friends will be the same age as when I met them as well as their kids. No one ever gets older in my head. Perhaps that is what Heaven will be like!

0

Fractions

|

It’s been a fairly quiet week or two around the house so not much to write about. And the things I would like to write about involve work and cannot be posted in a public forum anyway. I so enjoy my work, especially since the steroid injection has worn off my left foot and with massive stretching, I have been pain-free.

Anyway I still have not finished my cake Christmas ornaments but when I do I will blog about that. Instead I have decided to start working on the t-shirt quilt for one of Emily’s friends. This is only my third one and the first two were all the same sized blocks which made it really easy. This girls shirts gave me the idea to combine two into one square and four into one. This requires knowledge of fractions to get it all to work out correctly. Each big square will be 12×12 after sewing (12.5×12.5 before to allow for 1.25 seam allowance on each side). The smaller squares will have material in between at .5 inch so see how this becomes I fraction nightmare. We shall see how it all turns out when I’m finished. I guess this proves basic math is used in everyday life. As for the square root of something maybe. The quilt is 25 blocks and wouldn’t the square root be 5?

Mole moral: One never knows when one will use something they learned a long long time ago!

1

Breaking a big rule!

|

When I was a kid there were certain things I said I would never do as an adult. Almost all of them have come back to bite me. Just recently I realized I broke a really big one. When I was senior in high school my mom was in the adult community band as a drummer. There was another drummer that she just adored and thought would be perfect for me. He was a little bit older but I agreed to go on a date with him. To say he was socially awkward and a dork is an understatement. I swore after that I would never attempt to fix my kids up with anyone. So this past summer a new cute guy got hired at my favorite gas station. I told one of the girls that works there that she should go out with him. She informed me that he was too young for her. Last week Brian said hey in the leader a couple of weeks ago there was a story about an x employee of said gas station that stole 14,000 worth of lottery tickets and got caught. Well I had to know who it was so I went on-line and sure enough it was the “cute guy”. He had been fired before he decided to rob the place.

Mole moral: Older people need to stick with fixing each other up and leave the young people to deal with it all on their own.