A Gathering of Friends

When I married Michael in 1994 I had worked as an operating room nurse for sixteen years—as a worker bee in the actual OR and in management.  Big Timber has a very small hospital, with the nearest hospital having an operating room being about 58 miles from us.  So, in 1994, I quit working.  I’ve worked since I was 14-15 years old—my first job was in a Western Auto store and I was employed from then until I married Michael.  I quickly became very bored, did some interim management for a hospital management firm and by some stroke of luck was in the right place at the right time.

I interviewed for a position at a Billings hospital to work in their heart surgery program.  I declined the offer after deciding I didn’t want to drive that far on nasty roads in winter.  But, the person with whom I interviewed, Linda, the assistant director of the operating room remembered me from that interview.  She worked on call/interim for the Kimberly-Clark Corporation doing sales support for a line of drapes and gowns used in ORs.  Linda called me out of the blue one day to say Kimberly-Clark was looking to hire three nurses on an as needed contract basis, would I be interested.  After hearing the details, I was more than interested.

For twelve years I traveled for Kimberly-Clark on a contract basis, not being paid when I was not working, but having the luxury of saying yes or no to assignments and being paid well when I did work.  My dear friend Kelly and I went to work in June of 1995 for Kimberly-Clark.  We joined a team of other nurses, two of those nurses, Shirley and Elaine along with Kelly and myself have kept in touch over the years making the effort to see each other at least once a year.

Wednesday morning (way, way too early), I flew to Chicago meeting up with Kelly and Elaine.  Poor Shirley took a tumble on her kitchen floor the other day and wasn’t able to travel so we are missing her very much!   In this photo (2013) we were in Corpus Christi, TX—from the left, Shirley, me, Elaine and Kelly.   

Kelly is hosting this gathering and we are going to the opera—her daughter-in-law, Alison is an aspiring opera singer—quite good—and we are going to one of her recitals.  I am sure there will be lots of laughing, eating, shopping, and wine drinking along the way.

The cowboy and Emmi are holding down the fort back at home, finishing up the last minute motorhome packing!

In West Palm Beach, Florida, October, 2014