Daughters, new friends, and old friends

Well, it's been a great weekend...fairly relaxing, feeling pretty good, enjoying the good weather, and getting out for regular walks in the local hills (about 45 minutes of walking each day, so that's been great).

We're awaiting the arrival of our sweet Dani who, unfortunately, is stuck in miserable Memorial Day traffic, but we'll be diving into yummy food once she gets here and plan on having a relaxing visit with her tonight and tomorrow, since her life has been a bit on the stressful side for a while now (end of semester, overly-full schedule, that sort of thing)...so Kirk and I thought we could baby her a bit. (You know...the kind of thing moms love to do but I haven't had a lot of opportunities to do... thank goodness I have Kirk to help me with this!). And then we might get some shopping and errands done down the hill -- and give Kirk a break from all the running around he has to do for / with me.

We've also got plans to do dinner with our dear Like-a-Daughter (LAD), Jen, this week, which is great, since we missed a few of our usual Monday night visits over the past month...plus she's with her family in southern California today, so there goes our usual Monday LAD visit for this week. :(

Had a wonderful, wonderful visit this week from two of my NICU nurse buddies, Barbara Johnson and Sandy Fiorenza. All the NICU nurses were so important in my efforts to become the best nurse I could be, since I was just starting out at this nursing thing, but the nurses that precepted me have a special place in my heart. Sandy I've known since I started in the NICU -- she precepted me for one shift (for the non-medical folks, that means she was the nurse responsible for training me on that shift), and it was a great shift -- she's smart, a wonderful teacher, and I learned so much from her in that 8 hour shift...plus had a great time, as she's just a sweetheart. We stayed close throughout my time in the NICU, even though she switched to day shift soon after I joined the "p.m." shift in the NICU.

As for Barbara, she's also a day shift nurse, so I didn't get to know her as well until recently, but all my interactions with her were wonderful, and whenever we interacted (mostly at shift changes, where we'd give report to one another), I always left the interaction feeling warm and supported and educated, to say the very least. I knew Barbara lives up nearby where Kirk and I live (just down the hill from us), her proximity was made more real when she ran into Kirk and me one day a couple of weeks ago -- and since then she has made sure that we are and will be in more regular contact.

So, I'm again feeling very blessed, indeed, to have such wonderful people in my life.
I've got a couple of visits from old friends coming up this week -- and I'm serious when I say old friends: one of them (Valerie) I've known since 1973 or 1974, although we lost touch for quite a number of years and haven't actually seen each other since the '70s. So I'm hoping we can actually make our calendars work for a visit...we're still working out the details. And I'll certainly be visiting with my dear friend, Kate, and her fiance, Michael, who will be visiting from Australia...they should be here Friday and/or Saturday. It's been at least a couple of years since I've seen them, so I'm thrilled that they'll be here. Kate's been a very special person in my life...it's hard that she's half way around the world and that we can see each other so rarely.

So that's the current plan for my next week: a little vague, but filled with potential for wonderful reconnection with wonderful people. I'll keep you posted!

Love to you all,
/ab