Weeks Sixteen Through Nineteen

Not too much to report from the last month. We signed up for the free trial of HBO now, and enjoyed catching up on John Oliver and Bill Maher's shows. We also watched Family Tree, and rewatched Flight of the Conchords, both of which were very good and funny.

We also tried a new grocery store, Safeway, and liked it. We're still figuring out which places to go to for the best deals. It's all part of our continuing exploration and familiarizing ourselves with our new town.

Thanksgiving was quiet, with just the two of us, but it was still a great dinner. Courtney stayed up all night making it. We had turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy, green bean casserole, corn, sweet potatoes, rolls, stuffing, grapes, mac 'n' cheese, cranberry sauce, and pumpkin pie. And to help serve it all, she used the very last of our unopened wedding gifts, a three-pot warmer. We're still working on the leftovers.

After dinner, we took a nap and then went out for some Black Friday shopping. It was nice to have stores accommodating our schedule for a change. And, since we were out so much later than most of the other shoppers, it wasn't even that busy.

This weekend we went out to see the last Hunger Games movie, Mockingjay Part 2. It was a really good movie, though a bit surreal to see Phillip Seymour Hoffman's last performance. He was in so many of our favorite films; it's sad to know he won't be in another.

Work has been going well. I've taken over the reference department's evening shift now that my trainer has gone to days. It's a lot of responsibility, and it's been somewhat overwhelming at times having to handle things on my own. But I've received some positive feedback on my work from my fellow reference workers. So I think I'm doing well.

That's all for know. We're looking forward to our upcoming Christmas trip. We'll see you all then!

P.S. Stay tuned to the next post for Courtney's 2015 reading list!

Weeks Twelve Through Fifteen

Hello to all!

I thought I'd take a stab at blogging and give Derek a break. The past couple of weeks have been a flurry of work and mostly I've been covered in paint or food or both.

Since coming home, I've been cooking quite a bit and enjoying the space in this bigger kitchen. I've made spaghetti, pot roast, and a variety of Meatless-Monday inspired dinner options. And after visiting Sunrise Asian Market in town, I've been able to make Japanese dishes like gyoza (potstickers), onigiri (rice rolled into balls with shrimp and seasonings), and takoyaki (skewers of diced octopus breaded and covered in thick BBQ-like sauce). It has been extremely fun and allowed me to flex my creative muscle. Not to mention it's nice to have Derek around to eat whatever is in front of him.

Speaking of creative muscle, I've also been painting up a storm. My studio, aka the dining room, has been ground zero for my repainting of the dining room table (with leaf), and six completed chairs. The table took a little over a week and the chairs took between three and four days apiece. We also just got a farmhouse coffee table from a cute antique store called The Vintage Industry that I just finished painting.While I've been painting, I've been watching (or listening to) an indescribable amount of TV--especially Law and Order SVU--which I do not recommend late at night when you're all alone. Once Upon a Time has started its fifth season and it is still my absolute favorite show. Blindspot and iZombie are also very good in this new fall line-up.

When Derek is at work and I'm not cleaning, painting, or cooking, I'm researching. This apartment is quite a bit bigger that the little house in Bellflower so we've been gathering furniture bit by bit. Since the little house was short on space but large on storage, we've now needed to find furniture that is functional and good to store items. I scour through craigslist ads and check through Goodwill and several other thrift shops, antique stores, or places like Ross, Home Goods, Marshall's, and Hobby Lobby. We've found some pretty great (and affordable!) stuff including a cute white iron bed frame for our spare bedroom we call the Library. Which was perfect timing since our friends came up to visit at the end of the month.

Which reminds me, anyone who's interested is always welcome to pay us a visit, especially now that we have a room set up to accommodate guests!

I've also decorated the apartment up in Halloween fun, now changed to Thanksgiving decor, and thanks to Costco, we have a big bowl of candy that I'm currently picking through as I write this.

Every Monday we go to the Eugene library and really enjoy it. It's a four-story building, so there's a lot to see.

We also rented a table at the Community Yard Sale in the gymnasium of our leasing office, hoping to meet some of our neighbors and make a little bit of money. I sold several pairs of shoes, clothes, and accessories and made $50. I might have made more or met more people if it hadn't rained though...so that was kind of a bummer. But then I took a few more of my shoes to a consignment shop and made $20 to put back into my furniture search.

And now over to Derek, with the weather.

Thanks, Courtney. The weather's been getting colder here, The days have become shorter, usually in the 70's, and it can get down to the 40's at night. It's been raining quite a bit, too.

Work's been going well. It's been difficult, at times, adjusting to the new schedule (9:30 pm to 6 am). But I'm enjoying the kind of work I'm doing now. It's beginning to look more and more like I'll be taking over the evening shift of the reference department when the woman who currently holds that shift, and who has been training me, moves to days. And, as part of my training, I'm changing shifts yet again starting today. It's just a small change this time, I'll be working from 8 pm to 4:30 am.

For the past few weeks, Courtney and I have been playing around with a phone app called Duolingo, which is a language-learning software. We're both taking the Dutch course, learning vocabulary and some sentence structure. It's been fun to go through the short lessons, which the app makes very intuitive. I'm not sure how much Dutch we're actually going to learn, but it's been interesting to experiment with it.

Last week we had some visitors, our friends Nathan and Nikki. It was nice to catch up with them for a few hours while they were passing through, and we got to take them to Sushi Island, our favorite Eugene restaurant (so far), where the sushi goes around the restaurant on conveyor belts.

I'll end the post with some pictures of how the apartment's looking now, including the furniture my mom and I picked up at Ikea that I (eventually) put together.

Newly painted dining room table and chairs

Library 

 Entry-way, with new shoe cabinet and bench

Living room, with new couch and coffee table 

 Other half of living room, with entertainment center

New bedroom dresser

Weeks Nine Through Eleven

Big changes! First, and most important, Courtney is home! I picked her up from the Portland airport on Saturday the 19th. There was a bad accident on the 5, which on a two-lane highway, meant that I ended up being about an hour late. Courtney was exhausted from the trip, so we went straight home.

Since then, we've spent as much time as we can together. We've done a bit of exploring around the town, and we've been shopping around for deals on things to spruce up the apartment. Mostly it's just been nice to be able to talk, about anything and everything.

Another big change Courtney brought has been in my eating habits. She's a terrific cook, and now that she has the time and space in the kitchen, she's been making a lot of amazing, nutritious meals. Which, suffice to say, is a significant improvement over the way I'd been eating when left to my own devices.

There have been significant changes at work as well. Three weeks ago, we had a meeting, at which we were all told that the current schedule, in which all shifts are staggered throughout the day, wasn't working. The current proposal, we were told, was to move to three set shifts that everyone would be on. We were given sheets to fill out with suggestions and elected people from each shift to form a committee to help decide exactly how things should change.

A week later, at another meeting, we were told that the three-set-shift proposal was off the table. Everyone would keep their current shifts. But a committee would still meet to offer suggestions on alternative schedules.

Shortly after, my supervisor informed me that she and my trainer felt that I no longer needed to have my hand held, so I was going to be changing to my new shift - 9:30 pm to 6 am. This would allow my trainer to take a new position as a troubleshooter.

Shortly after that, in a staffing update email, I read that I would be moving to the night shift, as well as "send outs to flex as needed and PTO coverage of reference caregiver." I wasn't sure what that meant. Eventually, I was able to talk to the supervisor about it, and she explained that I would be trained in the reference department, which is the area in the lab that coordinates the specialized send-out tests.

My training, and new shift, was supposed to have started today (for me, it's still Monday). But when I arrived at 9:30, I saw that I was just scheduled for the same processing work I've been doing. So, I guess I'll see. My training may still be coming.

This weekend, Courtney and I took a trip up to Portland and visited the nation's largest bookstore, Powell's City of Books. It was interesting, and worth seeing, but very overcrowded. We also stopped at Ikea to pick up some shelves for our DVD collection.

Yesterday (Sunday), we had a little birthday celebration. We exchanged gifts (since we were apart for Courtney's birthday) and had some cake and ice cream.

I think that just about brings us up to date. I'll try not to wait quite so long between posts in the future.

Weeks Six Through Eight

The last three weeks seem like they went past very quickly. And until the last week or so, there wasn't a whole lot to report. Things at work got a bit surreal. The night supervisor, one of the two people who interviewed me at PeaceHealth before I started, took his own life. I'd only met him a couple of times, but the sense I got from the rest of the people working in the lab was that it wasn't expected. I think he was the first person I've ever known to commit suicide. It's still strange to think about.

My training has been steadily progressing. I've done a few hours of training on the P-Tube, which is not, as was my first impression, a specimen tube of urine. It's what they call the pneumatic tube system that connects the lab to the nearby hospital. Operating the pneumatic tubes themselves is a simple task. You mostly just pick up the containers that drop out, remove the contents, and send them back. But being on P-Tube duty can be one of the most hectic, stressful parts of the job.

Almost everything that's sent through the tubes comes that way because there's a big rush to process it and get the tests run. During the busier times of the day, you have to constantly juggle making and receiving calls to and from the hospital and client services, grabbing containers, processing specimens, spinning tubes in the centrifuge and running everything over to the appropriate lab department for testing.

The other part of the training that I've just started is body fluid triage. Basically, this consists of receiving large containers of things like cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) and pleural fluid (from the lung cavity). These fluids, particularly CSF, are among the more contagious specimens we handle, so transferring them to smaller tubes for testing has to be done under a ventilated hood, using sterilized needles and droppers.

Overall, I think work is going well for me. The message I keep getting from people is that I pick things up very quickly, and I'm pretty far ahead of the standard training schedule.

Over Labor Day weekend, my mom came up to visit, towing the rest of our stuff with her. We didn't have a whole lot of time to spend together, as I still had to work Friday night, but I think we had a good weekend on the whole. On Saturday, we took a trip up to Portland to Ikea to pick up a couch, dresser, shoe cabinet, and entertainment center. Afterwards, we were able to meet up with my mom's cousin for dinner at Shari's. I think she really enjoyed it, and I was glad they were able to arrange it. Sunday was a short day for us. We took a walk down the trail by the Willamette River, had some lunch, and it was time for her to start the long journey home. But for a brief while, there were Ornees in Oregon again.

And this weekend, Ornees in Oregon will be reunited at last! Courtney's flight is coming in on Saturday. It's been hard being apart for so long, a lot longer than we'd expected. But during her time in Ohio, she's helped her mom and her sisters through an extremely trying time. And they're in a much better place now, emotionally and financially, because of her help.

And it's funny, without the flexibility of her continuing income, we probably wouldn't have been able to find an apartment or afford the move here to Eugene, where we expect to grow and thrive together.

P.S. No picture ready for this post, but I'll post some of the new Ikea furniture on the next one. I just have to finish getting them put together. It's a lot of work!

Fifth Week

Not much to report from week five in Eugene, so I'll make this a short one. Work has been going fine. I've been slowly expanding the work that I've been able to do. Tonight (technically it's Tuesday, but I've only been off work for a couple hours, so it seems like Monday night still), I picked up my first delivered specimen. All that means is I went down to the lobby and grabbed a bag with a cup of urine in it.

During my last couple of shifts, I've started doing data entry. Almost all of the work I do could be considered a form of data entry, but in this case it specifically refers to receiving a requisition and specimen that's not already been entered into the system. The people who've been working in the lab much longer than I have seem to know a way to tell just by looking at a form whether or not it's a data entry. But for me it's still a bit tougher.

When I pick a bag out of my inbox and pull out the requisition form, the first thing I look for is one of our labels, which would let me scan in the code and be on my way. If it's not there, I look for an order number I can enter. If I don't find one, or it doesn't pull up an order in the system, I have to open "PINQ," or the patient inquiry menu, which allows me to look up patient names to see if there are any orders for them. If I don't see an order there, then I'll know it's a data entry.

When it comes to the data entering itself, it's like the other parts of the job so far. It seems complicated at first, but once you get the hang of it, it's not so tough.

The rest of the week was mostly spent working out the little details of the job. For example, all of the sinks in the building are motion-activated, including the paper towel dispensers. On Friday I finally found the most responsive of the sinks, so now I know to always go there to wash my hands as I leave for breaks and at the end of the day. Otherwise I have to just stand there waving my hands around like an idiot.

As promised, a short one. I'll end with another picture. This one's a better view of the Delta Ponds park, which made its first appearance in this blog's inaugural post, that's right next to my apartment complex. It's a nice place to walk around in the afternoons before work.

Fourth Week

Week four in Oregon (and a little of week five, sorry for the late posting this week) is over, and I've begun working at PeaceHealth as a lab assistant. It's not exactly the job I had in mind when I majored in English, minored in Writing, but it actually uses a lot of the same skills as the editing job I was prepared for. It just uses those skills in a different way.

Work in the specimen management lab can be rather hectic and very complicated. On my first day, the supervisor was going through some paperwork with me and explaining that the training process will be long and involved. It'll be a couple of months at least before I've been shown how to do each of the different types of work that the lab assistants do.

So far, I've been primarily working on the main task of the lab assistant, which is referred to as tubeval, which stands for Tube Validation. Essentially, this consists of receiving a requisition form along with a specimen, or specimens, from a patient. I scan in or enter the number on the form, verify that all of the information and specimen(s) match, print labels, and if necessary, pour out the specimen(s) into tubes.

It's usually a fairly straight-forward process, though a bit tricky to get the hang of. But problems can and do arise, with missing or incorrect specimens, wrong tests ordered, mismatched information, etc. And in these cases a certain amount of detective work can be necessary to figure out how to resolve the issue. These problems can be irritating, but they also add another interesting dimension to the work.

Beginning on my third day, which was Friday, I've been told to have a sheet at the desk with me to help keep track of how much work I'm able to get done during the shift. My trainer told me that I'm already keeping pace with people who've worked in the lab for nine months, so I guess that's a sign that I'm doing well. Actually, I think my experience working with the computer system at Fleet Services was pretty good preparation, since the system at PeaceHealth works in a similar way.

My shifts are from 4 pm to 12:30 am. I get two 15-minute breaks, one in each half of the shift, and a 30-minute "lunch" break at 8. The people I work with in the lab have all been nice and friendly, but it's hard for me to keep track of who everyone is, especially because most of the people working around me are either on a more standard 9-5 schedule or an overnight, graveyard schedule. That, and I'm really not very good with new names and faces. But I'm sure I'll learn them all eventually.

I didn't put any pictures in my last post, and maybe it seems like I'm giving whoever's reading these less of a chore if I add pictures. So I'll end this post with a Google Earth shot of the building I work in to give you an idea of how big it is.

The main entrance is on the north side of the building, but I usually park in the second lot and enter through the side, since it's closer to the specimen management lab.

Third Week

Week three in Eugene, and I'm now gainfully employed! The placement agency set me up with a company called PeaceHealth Medical Group. It's a Catholic non-profit organization with hospitals and labs in Oregon, Washington, and Alaska. I'll be working as a lab assistant in their annex building across from the hospital in Springfield. It's just 10 minutes from my apartment.

I interviewed with their evening and night supervisors, a woman and man, respectively. I arrived early, so I sat down in the lobby for a few minutes. The building is about 10 years old, and was originally a Sony disc packing plant. PeaceHealth has had it for a few years now, I think, and they just tore out the Sony equipment and replaced it with medical laboratories.

When the time came for the interview, I dialed the phone in the lobby, per my instructions, and was led back to the offices. The first thing they did was sit me down at a computer to take a typing/data entry test. After the three-minute practice round, the night supervisor saw my results and said something about my score being the highest he'd ever seen. The actual test was five minutes, and my kph score was a little higher than before, so I was feeling good.

Next, they took me to an HR conference room and went through a quick sheet of some pretty standard interview questions. The only one I slipped up on was when they asked me about a time when I've thought outside the box. I didn't really know how to answer. I guess I tend to think inside the box.

But they seemed happy enough with my answers. They're both pretty laid back; they were making jokes with me and each other. After that round of questions, they took me on a quick tour of the facility. It's quite a large building. They led me down a few hallways lined with sizable lab rooms. They took me to the one I'll be working in and showed me where I'll be receiving specimens, logging them, and sorting out where they need to go.

After that I was expecting to see more of the building or answer more questions, but instead they just led me back out to the lobby and told me they'd confer with the placement agency, who'd let me know what they decide.

The next day, I got the good news! I came back into the placement agency and went through about four hours of paperwork. It was tedious and very repetitive, since I was essentially going through the hiring process at two different companies at the same time. Because I'll be working at PeaceHealth, but still working for the placement agency during the evaluation period. There were also some packets and tests covering some medical information.

But everything's finally in order. All I need to do now is get a physical and I'll be all set. At first I thought I was going to be starting training and orientation tonight (Monday), but it turns out I won't be put into the computer system in time for that, so I start Wednesday. My shift is 4 pm to 12:30 am. It's a little later than would be ideal, but it's really not a bad schedule for me, as I tend to be more of a night-owl than morning person. Plus, I think there'll be a shift differential for every hour after 5 pm.

That's the biggest, and pretty much only, news for the week. So I'll end the post here.

Second Week

Week two here in Eugene, and the top priority has been the job hunt. I've been looking through all of the job databases and noting every "Now Hiring" sign. I've been sending out applications and resumes for any and every type of position.

The most promising lead so far has been with an employment placement agency. Their website was a bit tricky to figure out, and I called a few times to leave messages without getting much of anywhere. But on Thursday I found that there was an option to apply to the agency itself instead of applying to specific positions they had listed. Within an hour of completing the application, I received a call and scheduled an interview for the following morning.

Now I had to decide what to wear to the interview. I do own a suit, but I wasn't sure if that would send the right message. I ended up thinking that the suit might be overdoing it, so I arrived at the agency in the next best thing I have: black pants, white dress shirt, and a tie. Seeing the other applicant in the lobby, a guy about my age, wearing jeans and a t-shirt with sunglasses resting on top of his head, I was glad I didn't go with the suit.

I signed in, completed a short evaluation, and was soon upstairs in their offices. I was nervous, but I think I did a decent job. Presumably because of my job experience, I was being interviewed by the agency's industrial recruiter. But when I mentioned I might like to try something more in an office setting, she asked the administrative recruiter in the next office to talk over my options with me.

The administrative recruiter was frank with me; she told me my lack of office work experience would work against me. But, she said, there were some lab positions that I might have a chance at landing. She asked me a few more questions and seemed to like my answers. She brought me back downstairs to the lobby and had me fill out a three-page checklist indicating my experience in a wide range of medical/laboratory procedures, which I mostly had to just go through, checking the "no experience" box.

When I was done with that, I was sent home to take a few more evaluations. I'd been told that the data entry tests were key for this position, so I was extremely careful on those. When I was done, I called back to the agency, and the administrative recruiter told me that she'd already seen my data entry scores and had set up another interview for me with the head of the franchise of the agency on Monday morning. So, hopefully all goes well, and I'll be placed in a job soon.

I haven't done much this week besides the job search, so there's not much else to report. I tried another new restaurant, Cafe Yumm! I suppose it more or less lived up to it's name.

I'll end this post with a couple pictures of the apartment, as I promised last week.

 Living room

Master bathroom 

Second bedroom (Library)

I'll try to keep adding more pictures in posts throughout the coming weeks.

First Week

It's been a great week one in Oregon. And before I get to anything else I wanted to thank everyone in the family for their support and well-wishes. Extra thanks to Grandma and Grandpa for all of their help getting everything packed up and ready the day before the move. Extra, extra thanks to Jeff and my mom for the huge amount of help they provided.

I'm glad we decided to get an early start on the drive up, as it ended up taking around 18 hours to make it all the way here. It was a long, grueling, and mostly uneventful journey. The only trouble, if you can call it that, came when my mom pulled up to a Chevron station in Oregon and began to pull out her card to swipe at the pump. The attendant was none too happy about that, saying that here in Oregon, gas stations are full service, meaning that only the attendants are allowed to touch the pumps in any way. He then pointed up at the side of the pump where it read, "Mini," as if that explained everything. He went on to allege that the state of Oregon was trying to take all of their jobs away, eyeing us as if we were part of the conspiracy.

(not the actual pump we were at)

But we made it up to Eugene in the end, and after a night's stay in a hotel, we arrived at River Terrace Apartments. We got a quick tour of the facilities and our new apartment and began to slog through the 43 page lease agreement. Then, we discovered that unloading things from a trailer and cars goes a lot faster than packing them in. It wasn't more than a few hours before we had everything in the apartment. We took a lunch break, stashed the Escalade and trailer in the mall parking lot down the road, took a quick drive through downtown Eugene, then got back to work. We made good progress, got to the point where Courtney and I felt confident that we would be able to handle it from there, then returned to the mall to have dinner at Dickie Jo's Burgers. Jeff and my mom decided to go ahead and leave from there to give themselves some extra time to make the trip home. We were, and are, so grateful to them both.

The past week has been a mix of further unpacking, shopping, and a bit of exploring. Highlights included walking around downtown to get our Eugene library cards, finally getting all of our books and DVDs unpacked and onto shelves in the second bedroom (or library, as we're calling it), and trying some new restaurants like Shari's (per Grandpa's suggestion) and Sushi Island (where plates of sushi ride around on conveyor belts).

Yesterday was the tough day. We drove up to Portland, did a bit of driving around, and shopped a bit at the Ikea there. Then I dropped Courtney off at the airport to catch her flight back to Ohio. At least that's what was supposed to happen. Unfortunately the flight from Portland ended up delayed too long for her to make her connection, and she was forced to spend the night in Denver. But, as I'm writing this (2 pm, Saturday), she has arrived in Columbus, collected her baggage, and been picked up by her mom AND CAMBRIE MY AWESOME SISTER IN LAW (edit requested by Cambrie).

This has ended up being a much longer post than I intended; I meant to just give a quick update. So I'll end it here with a couple of pictures of the area around our new home. As you'll now see, I'm not much of a photographer.

A view of the Delta Ponds Park from the River Terrace property

The Willamette River, a five minute walk from our apartment

P.S. I'll be sure to include some pictures of our apartment in my next post. But I'd like to get a bit more unpacking and cleaning up done before I do.