A 30-Minute Commute...

People have often asked me why I live so far away from the places I work, and I've thought about this off and on. In Seattle, my commute was 13 miles and 25-45 minutes depending on traffic (and across a bridge!). In California, I lived 19 miles from work and the commute was 20-30 minutes. In Salt Lake, I live about 20 miles (?) and the commute is usually 25-35 minutes. I realized that I've always lived about 30 minutes away from my place of work, at least for about the last 7 1/2 years -- the entire time I've been a nurse... until now...

Here in Portland, where I'm currently working as a Travel Nurse for the summer, I have an apartment about 5 minutes from the hospital that I work in. Overall it's been great...until I got off work this morning after a LONG, 13 1/2 hour night, and was tired and frustrated, and just needed to blow off a little aggression by driving really fast in my car. Instead of turning into my parking garage, I made a last minute decision and headed to the freeway, where I proceeded to "drive it off" (slowly of course, since I AM in Oregon!) for about 13 miles out, and 13 miles back. It was exactly what I needed, and I laughed as I came to realize that 30 minutes continues to be my perfect commute.

I know it's a waste of gas, and of time, and of a lot of other things, but the benefits are amazing sometimes! It's just enough time to "come down" from a shift, process it, and "put it away" before getting home. It's not long enough to get so tired that I'm falling asleep driving. And it also means that I RARELY run into my patients at the grocery store!

Now if only they had some hard "head-banging" music on the radio on a Sunday morning...

A perfect day...

Okay, so for the first time since I left Seattle in 2003, I actually was out today running errands and got distracted by the sunshine! Yes, it was a beautiful day in Portland, 98% sunny and everyone was out and about, and I was no exception... I reverted back to my "old Northwest habits" and parked my car at some random park I found across the street from Fred Meyer, got out my "park blanket" from my trunk, and went and laid in the sun for 40 minutes!!! The funny part is that for the last few months and years in Utah and even in California, I had wondered why I even still kept a "park blanket" in the car since I never used it anymore... but today it seemed perfectly natural to have it in my trunk, because you never know when it's going to be a perfect day to lay in the park! And as I lay there soaking up the sun, I kept thinking to myself, "List of things to do? WHAT list of things to do?!" Yep...back to my Northwest Mentality!

Tagged!

1. Link your tagger and list these rules on your blog
2. Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog, some random, some weird.
3. Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blogs.
4. Let them know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

7 random facts about me:

1. My two dream careers when I was a young child (under 10) were being a semi-truck driver and being a cashier...I actually was a cashier for a while and LOVED it!
2. I stay up late at night because I HATE the process of trying to go to sleep.
3. I won first place in a fashion show once that I got talked into doing with a friend.
4. I was a clogger and performed with a group at the Nevada State Fair.
5. I have had a birthday crisis every 5 years (on the 5's and 10's) since I was 25...and I have some fabulous stories about what goes into those crisis times!
6. I make some dang good home-made ice cream!
7. I can't fly a kite, and if I'm around people who are flying kites, I am a kite magnet!


I was tagged by Katherine Bronson, and I tag Ramona Brown, Teddy Elder, Michelle Black, Jessica Lamirand, Adri Nye, Alena Kesti and Karen Barres!