Tips

The Mimi woke up at 0615, threw a fit for twenty minutes when I tried to change her out of her soaked outfit, and is now reading quietly to herself on the couch. I love my daughter, but some days I don't understand her in the slightest.

Job-hunting continues. I've pretty much ran out of clinic and outpatient jobs to apply to (I'm kind of done with in-hospital nursing for now) but I realized it's been four years since I had anything to do with long-term care nursing and health care has no doubt changed since then. I've been trying to do "informational interviews" with the HR people from various facilities in the area (like the unemployment office suggested) but so far no one has returned my phone calls.

So I've also been asking nurses I know if they know any nurses who work in long-term care I could call to get a better idea of what their work day is like. And asking friends and neighbors what their experience has been with area facilities and "is there anywhere you wouldn't want to send a loved one to?" (Because if there's a place like that, they probably treat the staff just as bad as the patients.)

So far, I've heard everything from "Elderhome Gardens is great--I spent a few weeks there after my hip surgery" to "Ye Olde Nursing Home is nice, but the staff there always seems rushed," to "Casa de Bluehaired Ladies should be burned to the ground, and all the ashes should be swept up and dropped into an active volcano!" I bet there's a story with the last one, but I'm too scared to ask. I'm definitely not wanting to work there.