Babble #2

I’m sorry.  There probably isn’t really going to be much of a point to this post.  Probably not much in the way of pictures either.  I’m just exhausted from riding too many hours at the squad lately on top of stressing over work and my personal life and sleeping ohsoverylittle (I roll my eyes at people that whine “I’m so tired… I only slept 6 hours last night.” Uhm, that’s a *good* night for me. Shaddupalready)… I just kind of need to, well, babble.

I know that my main goal for this blog is to find a direction for my life. Yeah, I want to try doing a day (or several days…or a week) of my “eats.”  Yeah, I want to document important events in my life, like vacations or get-togethers with friends.  Yeah, I want to see what this blogging world is about. But I guess I want to make my life more interesting, less boring, and so I must go out and find stuff to blog about, I guess?  Because really, who wants to read about my day-to-day life… it’s pretty boring.  For example, this is how today would go:

My alarm went off at 05:55.  I glared at it, hit snooze.  It went off again in 9 minutes.  I didn’t even open my eyes this time, just kept tapping a finger on the screen and hoped I would eventually find the snooze icon (I love my iPhone, but it was waaaay easier to snooze with my Blackberry).  Repeat this process several more times.  Finally get up around 06:45.  Stand up, fall over.  Stand back up, open the blinds.  Stumble out of my bedroom, feed Toffee.  Keep her from attacking my foot, stick her back in her cage.  Go into the bathroom, squint against the bright lights, pee.  Continue turning on lights, trying so hard to wake up, and quickly.  Defrost some frozen berries in the microwave.  Start putting together a lunch, gathering my purse and lunchbag and books and ID tag and everything else I need for work.  Take bowl out of microwave, add cinnamon, chia seeds, raw oats, a few walnuts, vanilla chobani.  Mix.  Take a few bites while browsing Facebook and blogs.  Take probiotic.  Finish breakfast.  Get cleaned up for work, decide on an outfit (black dress pants, lilac sweater, black heels).  Decide against changing earrings.  Straighten hair.  Start gathering bags to head out the door.  Feel heart ache from watching Toffee run around her cage because she wants attention and she wants to PLAY and I have to go to work.

Walk slowly down the two flights of steps, trying to balance on 3 inch heels with oddly sore leg muscles.  Get in car, drive to work amid traffic.  Curse myself for not getting out of bed earlier, allowing myself to leave earlier and thereby missing all of this traffic.  Pull into the parking lot at work.  Go inside, drop stuff off in locker.  Walk into the lab, still feeling sleepy.  Note the lazy people still sitting at the walk-ups.  Try to figure out what runs I’m supposed to do today.  Pull samples and blocked plates from freezers, burn fingers (thank you, -80C).  Start thawing while labeling tubes.  Set up runs as quickly as possible, noting hatred stemming from coworkers.  Wonder what I did to piss them off, especially as I wasn’t at work yesterday.

Start incubations, catch up on paperwork.  Take my “break” and go to Target during an incubation.  Find coconut caramel chocolate Keebler cookies, realize they look like Girl Scout Samoas, realize you want need Samoas.  Buy.  Proceed to eat the entire package today. (sigh – fatass).  Eat actual lunch (spaghetti squash with tomato sauce and mozzarella, dried apricots) outside while reading. (uber fatass).

Take down runs.  Calculate – both pass.  Label tubes for tomorrow.  Talk to coworker, try to find out why it seems that EVERYONE is peeved with you.  Decide it must just be me being paranoid.  Go home. Start getting dinner together as you seem to be starving again/still.  Cook brown rice in chicken boullion.  Cook chicken on Georgie.  Cut up chicken, mix into rice with spinach, celery, onion, tomato sauce, and seasonings.  Spoon into prepared red peppers, steam in microwave instead of bake in oven because you don’t want to wait.  Eat remaining rice mixture that didn’t fit for dinner.  Feed Toffee.  Do a load of laundry.  Workout while watching Home Improvement from Netflix (kickboxing, light walking, full body strength training, stretch).

Text station 2 crew, find out they want you to come in earlier.  Change clothes, gather boots and stethoscope.  Go to station.  Know that if a call comes out, you have to go POV because they felt they needed the ambulance AND the QRV at dinner for 4 people.  Get scared to death by the tones going off.  Thank your lucky stars that the call is at a business and not a residence, because you already know how to get there.  Speed (waaay too fast) down the road to meet the crew.  Jump in the back of the ambulance, hand car keys to the departing medic.  Take patient to ER, wait way too long for a room, constantly sneak peeks at the monitor and hope you won’t regret not starting an IV en route.

Clear from the call.  Go back to the station. Kill time as best you can, because you know it’s a slow area.  Sit with your throbbing head, eyes not quite focusing, wondering if you will get to sleep tonight.  Uncomfortably wish you hadn’t binged on those damn cookies, as your stomach is now way bloated and gassy.  Wish the fellow crew member would stop watching American Idol so that you can go to sleep.  Type way too long and way stupid blog post that no one is likely to read but you just want to type…

Okay, not a totally typical day.  But such is my life.  B O R I N G.  And gross.  Sorry if TMI.  I feel so needy.  It doesn’t even matter if no one reads this.  It kind of helps just to get my thoughts out of my head for right now.

I need… to find a new job.

I need… to stop binging.

I need… to lose serious weight.  Like, 35 pounds.  To start with.

I need… to study more seriously for my critical care paramedic/flight paramedic exams.

I need… to stop treating my friends so horribly.

I need… to pay off my credit card debt.

I need… to go clothes shopping.

I need… to have a real vacation and have some fun.

I need… to sleep.

Good night.

Indecisive

One thing you’ll learn about me quickly is that I am both as stubborn as a mule, and indecisive as… well, something that doesn’t make decisions easily.  I take a looooong time to decide on something.  It took me two months to find an apartment that I liked in my price range in the right part of the county.  It took me 6 months to decide on which car to buy several years ago.  I may debate about purchasing a particular item of clothing for weeks before buying it.

That’s not to say that I can’t make a decision quickly when needed.  I’ve ridden EMS for nearly four and a half years now, and have worked in other areas of healthcare since I was 15.  If you could hear the inner monologue I have when I’m trying to decide how to treat a critical patient, well, for one thing, it’d probably scare you.  BUT I try to squish my typical long-winded decision-making process into analyzing as many possible outcomes as I can in less than a minute.

Car to the left. Driver (aka the patient) to the right.

(by the way – all those spots? Pollen. My head aches just looking at it)

So why am I telling you this and scaring you away from ever calling an ambulance?

It will probably take me a while to iron out the kinks and find the focus for this blog.  I want to use it as motivation for me to get un-bored, to explore life, and to have a place to record it.  But at the same time, I want to use it an a creative outlet for photography and writing and cooking (yes, there’s still going to be some healthy-living-ish-ness going on).  And I want to see what this blogging community is all about.

And while I’m figuring all this out, I apologize… there probably won’t be much regularity to my posting.  I work 4o hours a week, often more, spend anywhere from 12-30+ hours a week at the squad, spend a good 2 hours working out every day… and then there’s that silly sleeping thing.

But there will always be cute bunny pictures… though mostly old ones for now.

Too much cuteness to fit into the picture!

Off to clean up a bit… my mother’s coming to visit.

Babble #1

Welcome to thebabblingbunny!  I’m Rachel.  While I’m a human, not a rabbit, I tend to babble.  Still interested?  Sweet!

After a year of perusing mostly healthy living blogs, I’ve decided to start my own, with one slight change: It’s not a healthy living blog.

Let me back up a bit.

I graduated from college in May 2009.  I had followed the pre-med track for three years, taking science and medical humanities classes, showing my responsibility as an RA, shadowing physicians, joining a local rescue squad, volunteering and then working in busy ERs… I was focused and driven, studying hard and partying little.  I then decided halfway through the application process my senior year that I didn’t want to be a doctor.  What’s a pre-med student to do if she doesn’t go to medical school?

With no driving direction, my life rapidly spun out of control. I endured a nasty break-up with my fiance (and we had lived together for a year and a half) just weeks before graduating.  I had no place to live in my current city, no life plan, and I didn’t want to return to my hometown.  My physical and mental health plummeted.  I felt lost and confused, and very, very alone.  More than one night (and day) was spent in tears.

Exhausted from working way too hard for four years, I moved in with a few close friends.  I began a job search, and with the help of another friend, landed a position in a pharmaceutical development lab.  Soon, I moved into my own apartment.

And there I have remained for nearly a year and a half.  Getting by, day to day, but not sure where I’m headed, and constantly bored.  I don’t think this blog is going to show me my new life path, but it’ll help me remember my explorations.  There is so much out there to discover… my rabbit still finds new things in my one-bedroom apartment after 15 months here.  I’ve got a much bigger world to explore, so why am I so bored?

So what do I have to offer you, the brave reader who stumbled upon this fresh-faced blog?  Just myself and my babbles on my life.  I have so many interests: EMS, photography, science, travel, music, and nutrition and exercise (yes, there will be a bit of “healthy living” going on here), to name just a few, so hopefully there will be something to keep you coming back.

And lots of cute bunny pictures.

Toffee. Know her. Love her. Spoil her rotten.