Entry # 1 - The Vast Sea of Blogs!

Okay so here's something that I imagine isn't particularly a new fact but still startled me - there are a LOT of blogs out there!  Like a whole lot of blogs out there.  While searching around to find some blogs to interest myself with I found myself being sucked into different ones and laughing along at the various topics or nodding me head along with them.  Apparently I enjoy blogs that have a humorous tone to them, although I can't say this is any sort of a surprise.  With my job, I find that having a sense humor tends to go a long way to maintaining sanity and clearly I'm not the only nurse who feels this way!

Warped.  Warped sense of humor.

 

Ha!  Hah... crap that's way too accurate.

The fabled first blog - and so it begins.

So speaking of my job, that's actually what led me to discover the first blog I want to share with you all today.  Behold, the glory of a nursing blog:

Nurse Buff
 
Nurse Buff is a blog that I find wonderful because it's equal parts humorous and informative.  Personally I think this is appealing because it takes a very stressful, involved, complicated profession and helps make it just a little bit more manageable.  

The blog itself is easy to navigate because, let's be honest, nurses need at least something that's easy for us to deal with.  The last thing any of us want is something more complicated than it needs to be.  We deal with that enough at work!  I particularly love the "List" tab where everything from gift ideas to mnemonics to pharmacology questions and even lifestyle is covered.  Because I'll be honest, my scrubs are more comfortable to wear than some of my regular clothes and I have often stared at my closet and pondered whether or not it was acceptable to wear my scrub top just because it was more comfortable - even if I wasn't going to work!

I really enjoyed the Humor section.  Really enjoyed it.  As will be evidenced by the regular use of memes you'll likely be seeing throughout this blog.  I love nursing memes.  I particularly love them when they're not only funny but accurate, even if the fact that the accuracy makes it funny is kind of sad.  For instance, see below.  This one can be taken one of two ways: either your patients are crazy... or the medical staff is.  Fun fact: sometimes it's both!  

Hint: Most of us in the medical field are a bit "extra special"

 

It should totally listen to you.  It should.

Addendum!  While discussing my thought process with my husband regarding what I was writing, I mentioned the "is it ok to wear scrubs in public" portion.  According to him it's perfectly acceptable, the interaction went something like this: 

Dan (the hubster): "Of course it's okay to wear your scrubs outside of work."

Me: "But it's not like I'm just getting off shift or about to go into work, I mean more akin to 'It's my day off and I want to wear my super comfy cotton scrub top, plus it's cute!' sort of thing, but it's my day off, I'm not working."

Dan: "You see the people wearing jerseys around town, they aren't getting ready to go play a game."  

Me: "Yeah but that's more acceptable, people wear jerseys for their favorite team or player, sports have cheerleaders and fans, nurses don't."

Dan: "Two points, first - just because someone doesn't want to dress like a superhero doesn't mean they're right.  Second - Nurses should have fans and cheerleaders."

It is official - Dan is awesome.  Also, see below:

Legit.

Some do this, some of us help making meeting the Angel of Death as peaceful and respectful as possible

The second installment - A little dose of truth.

 Okay, so I could continue blathering on about things related to nursing ALLLLLLL day long, but I really want to get on to the next blog I stumbled upon.  Now as much as nursing is near and dear to my heart (and directly tied to my stress and sanity levels), this next blog spoke to my heart.  I feel it spoke to a core part of who I am as a person, expressing things that I am generally incapable of hoping to ever truly verbalize in any meaningful manner.  And so I give to you the following:

People I Want to Punch in the Throat 

Not even joking.  What did we do to you?  Why do you hate us, why would you say something that mean?

Seriously.  Someone went there.  They honestly went there.  And. It. Is. Glorious!  Seriously, sometimes you can't help but think to yourself that someone just really deserves a good punch to the throat.  Sometimes they legitimately do, other times it might just be a matter of making us feel better.  Or at least it would make me feel better.  Whether anyone else is willing to admit this or not is another matter but I think most people secretly have thoughts along these lines more often than not.  

And that's what makes this blog so awesome!  It's brutally honest.   I think what is so amazing about it is the sheer honesty that's involved as the author shares her innermost thoughts regarding the situations she finds herself in during her day to day life.  Let's face it, brutal honesty is pretty rare in this day and age and it's a refreshing breath of fresh air to have someone who's literally telling it like it is and not afraid to share their thoughts.  

"At least..."

Something else that's really kind of unique about this blog is it's ability to really capture aspects of everyday life that a vast majority of people have to deal with regularly.  From complaining about rude people in the isles of a store to the inordinate amount of supplies being put on the required supply list for start of school, these are situations we run into every day.  And in the case of this blog, it's rather refreshing to have someone who isn't afraid to put thoughts to keyboard and share the frustrations we often only grumble about inside our heads.  

Truth.

 

Look this might seem trivial, but you DO NOT mess with a nurse's pen!

At last the third blog - It was bound to happen eventually.

Okay yes, I know, this post is obscenely long, but I wanted to cover these three blogs and there was a lot to say (and a lot I didn't say) about them!  But we're finally here to the final blog!  You've hung in this long, hopefully you've been amused a bit, maybe rolled your eyes more, hopefully my clearly superior sense of sarcasm has entertained you through to this point and it can carry you on just a little further.  

So last but not least the final blog I wanted to talk about on this post.  So this one I have to say I struggled with because I really wanted to like it - and I do - but I also don't.  First let me introduce you to it, the last blog I'm going to talk about on this post is the following: 

Lawyers, Guns & Money 

 

This.  ALLLLL this.

Okay so the meme kind of in a nutshell explains my issues with this blog.  It's informative and I enjoyed reading the articles but it's just... There is some aspect to the layout and set up of the blog itself that feels almost frenetic.  While I'm sure, fairly positive in fact, that there are a great deal of people who have absolutely no issue with the way this blog is set up it appears I am not one of them.

The content itself isn't the issue so much. However, I did feel as if this is less of a truly informative blog and more of an opportunity to post excerpts from articles that make up the majority of each post and then include a tiny blurb of the writer's, often sarcastic, opinions about it.  While clearly I don't have an issue with sarcasm itself, there's no depth to the comments.  There's no real way to state a position or give any sort of in-depth explanation about why the author has those opinions.  All of the content itself aside, the layout was killing me.  It seemed to have no real sense of rhyme or reason.  Even the articles themselves seemed to simply be randomly plucked from the minds of the authors and slapped up onto a post.

Perhaps I'm being too critical, I'm actively trying not to be but to be honest this was one blog that I really wanted to like and just couldn't seem to take that final step towards really enjoying anything about it.  Maybe it's simply my desire for things to be neatly organized and arranged but the layout definitely played a strong part in my dislike for this blog.  I didn't hate it, I just don't... like it.

So you have made it through to the end!  I applaud you for your fortitude in trekking through my opinions and ramblings and occasional comedic attempt at humor.  So those are just three of the blogs that I stumbled across, I stopped and read many more and while I've never been a big blog reader I have to say that the ones that called the most to me were ones that made me laugh.  Perhaps that's indicative of a deeper need of laughter and humor in my life but maybe it holds more to my belief that even when discussing serious matters we should strive to never take ourselves too seriously.

I thank you for braving your way through this entire lengthy post, I'll endeavor to not be quite so verbose upon my next posting.  (However I entirely blame the length of this post on having three blogs to talk about and exonerate myself from just having too much to say.)  Soooo, sit tight and stick around and we'll see what interesting topics I'll have coming up next!  Till next time.