The Traveling Kind

Part I was the biggie. Having a positive working experience greatly effects overall satisfaction with travel nursing. In this post I'm going to list a few other things you can do to ensure you have the best possible time seeing the states! HAVE REALISTIC HOUSING EXPECTATIONS You really can't expect to live in luxury housing everywhere you go. In my four assignments I've taken my company's housing 3 times. The first was great! the second was eh, and the third was average. Every apartment we had was safe, clean, and close to the hospital. And to be honest, the second place was probably better than "eh" but the first apartment set high expectations. Those'll get ya. It'll all depends on what city you're in and the cost of living. The cost of living in a "luxury" 2 bedroom apartment in Texas is the same month's rent as a grungy studio in LA (note: we did not live in a grungy studio in LA). START MAKING FRIENDS RIGHT AWAY Sometimes t...

Obviously, as with every job, there are ups and downs to travel nursing. Let me start off by saying there are TONS more ups, but the downs can weigh kind of heavily sometimes...mainly if you're home sick, it's a holiday, or your girlmones are going cray...or all of the above. Ha! During my second assignment in Los Angeles I completely changed my attitude towards traveling and it has really helped me become a happier traveler and happier person in general. I just got news that the last two weeks of this assignment I'll be switching to night shift (boo). So excuse me while I talk it out and give myself a pep talk. I'll let you in on some ideas that will make your travel experience exponentially better. LOWER YOUR EXPECTATIONS A LITTLE   and BE REALISTIC (this doesn't mean work is going to suck) Negative Nancy:  If you've been an inpatient nurse for any length of time you've probably worked with a traveler. Did you see their assignments? Yeah, the...

Gah! We've been so busy! Except today. Today we watched TV and I played on the internet for a lot of the day. What?! Don't judge me, it's my Saturday. In the last two weeks we've flown to Texas, seen tons of friends and family, been in a wedding, cleaned up a wedding, more family time, flown back to San Diego, put up our Christmas tree, and lots of good ol' working. Let me just say that with every trip to the Lone Star State it's gets harder to leave. I love how comfortable home feels. I love traveling and we get settled in new places but they never become home. It was so good to get to attend so many family functions! We got to see most of my family at Thanksgiving and most of Ryan's at the wedding. Speaking of the wedding, it was so beautiful!! And so fun!! I'm so glad I got to be apart of it. The next three professional photos are by  Brian Shofner Photography out of San Antonio. Absolutely BEAUTIFUL bride and quite dapper groom. I...

WARNING: This post only has one picture...but it's a funny one. When I think about when I started getting serious about traveling I remember being so overwhelmed and having no idea where to start. Luckily, I had worked with a travel nurse at Scott and White and he gave me his recruiter's number. Then, multiple anxiety attacks, lots of stress, and two months later I finally got my first travel gig with a completely different recruiter and travel company. I thought it would be nice to write out a nice, simple list to help y'all that are thinking about traveling get started with the process. 1. Have a travel nurse friend? Ask them for the name, number, and email of their recruiter.  This is by far the fastest way to getting on the road. Who's mine? Oh, her name's Cait (comment/email/text me for her info)  and she works for American Mobile . She's seriously the best recruiter EVER. Once you get in contact with them they'll tell you specifically what to do a...

All this running is gettin' hard y'all. Some runs make me feel strong and confident while others get me down and make me feel like poop. Sunday was my long run day-7miles in an hour and a half. It was great. I felt good I ran a faster pace than I expected and didn't get the slightest headache. It was on this run when I decided to change my eating habits. It's real hard to eat healthily when you're surrounded by the best baja mexican food on our side of the border. So I've pretty much been stuffing my face with ALL THE FOOD! I realized it's probably gonna be a least a little easier if I can clean up my eating habits and lose some of these pounds that have been hiding in my street tacos and making their way to my thighs. Ha! I wasn't totally sure if I wanted to post the rules. I've been in the health and fitness circle for a few years now and every single person has a different idea of what a healthy diet looks like. It is an eating plan that I ...

Well y'all, karma got me back. You remember way back when last week when I ALMOST hit a girl on my bike ?? Well, today I was just running along on the boardwalk listening to my music and minding my own business and BAM! I get hit from behind by this guy riding a bike. Now I realize that I ALMOST hit someone while riding a bike BUT I wasn't just riding along a straight, 12 ft wide path where it was just me and the pedestrian. Really. I don't know if he was texting or what but he was going slow enough to not knock me down. So he was either texting or thought it'd be funny to hit the fluffy girl bouncing slowly down the fast side of the right lane. I know, I know slower people to the right. But there's always sand on the right side of the path and that makes it harder to run and more likely for me to slip and fall...I mean, hello! I AM one of the clumsiest people on the planet. Do I need to refer to the last post again? PLUS there are other people that run in the left...

They say that riding a bike is something you never forget. Once you learn how, you're good to go. Today, I call BS on that. In my defense I've never biked in the city and the seat needed to be adjusted down a few inches but still, I almost died and took a innocent lady down with me! If all I had to do was keep going I'd be good to go.  But when you bike in town there's lots of stopping. And when the bike seat's too high bad things happen when I have to stop. And that's when as I started to go at a cross walk I couldn't get going and there we just too many people. So in order to not hit the lady in the pencil skirt and killer nude wedges I basically fell off my bike and everybody laughed at me. Meanwhile Ryan rides off into the sunset and never knew what happened until I caught up. Me. At every. single. stoplight. I think the worst part about all of it is I was laughing at myself to keep from crying all the while never saying I'm sorry to girl ...