Hello Again!

Hello there! I haven't written a blog entry in almost four years; my last post was the text of my graduation speech from nursing school in 2017. Time to bring everyone up to speed.

For the last four years, I have been working full-time plus at Syracuse Home, a five-star longterm care facility in Baldwinsville, NY. I love my job as an LPN, and I feel very fortunate to work there. The juxtaposition of name and location may seem odd, but there is a valid reason for it. In fact, you can read all about the history of Syracuse Home here: mcharrielife.org/about/history.

I am proud to work at a place with roots of helping indigent women and children (before government-funded social safety nets).

I also have started an Etsy shop where I sell items made on the fantastic sewing machine my husband bought me a few years ago for Christmas. My inventory is low, however, as I would rather be outside when the weather is warm than inside sewing. Colder days lie ahead, so it will back to the sewing machine to see what I can whip up. Until then, check out a few of my creations.

I have enjoyed some success with my shop, and am making it a goal for 2022 to be more proactive with it. Visit it at etsy.com/shop/MollysSewingCircle?ref=seller-platform-mcna

I am open to creating items to order as well. Visit my shop and shoot me a message. Or leave a message in the comments section of this blog. Then we can discuss fabric, a design and a price. I'll make it happen.

I continue competing in road races and triathlons, but annus horribilis 2020 placed a hold on competitions that is slowly easing. I look forward to a fuller slate of events in 2022.

That's all for now. Have a wonderful early fall, everyone; see you soon!

Graduation Speech

On March 30, 2017, I graduated from LPN school at OCM-BOCES in Liverpool, NY. My classmates selected me to give the graduation speech, and I was honored to do so.

I consulted other speeches I found on the Internet for ideas and inspiration. I am posting my speech for the benefit of others who may need some ideas.

What follows is the text of that speech.

Good evening. First I'd like to thank my classmates for choosing me to speak tonight. It's quite an honor.
Today is a momentous day! Almost a year ago, on April 11, more than 25 of us gathered for our first day of LPN school. A number of our classmates dropped out for a variety of reasons. Nineteen of us remain, and here we are!
Other than the first year of motherhood, this has been the most intense 12 months of my life. I felt especially overwhelmed for two reasons—I hadn't been inside a classroom for 30 years and I had no experience in the medical field.
And much like that first year nurturing an infant, nursing school became all consuming. Ms. Badore warned us that life would be put on hold and, except for studying, attending classes and our clinical training, it was; but life always finds a way....
We celebrated births and a marriage. We tended to sick family members. We mourned as loved ones passed away. We missed children's school events, birthdays and other milestones.
Through it all, we learned about each other: why we want to be nurses, our individual plans for the future, who has the cutest dog, cat or guinea pig, that sort of thing.
Graduation marks the end of our time together and the beginning of our nursing careers, after passing our boards, of course. We will be pursuing the most trusted profession in America, as named by Gallup for the 15^th straight year.
Remember that as you struggle with working nights, as you tend to patients who are on palliative care, as you feel exhausted, physically and mentally. Everything you do as a nurse matters, and matters deeply. Be proud of that.
I offer huge thanks to our friends and families for their patience and love during this challenging year. Thank you for giving us the space and quiet we needed to study, for understanding when we couldn't attend a family event, for honoring our desire to become nurses.
I offer huge thanks to our instructors for their wisdom and guidance while we learned about and practiced giving a bed bath, administering medications and reporting unusual vital signs, among the myriad skills a nurse must learn.
We wouldn't be here without any of you.
In closing, I wish all the luck to my classmates as they either look for an LPN job or decide to pursue their RN. I am certain all of you will find success. No matter in which direction your career takes you, you will never stop learning.
Consider these words of Florence Nightingale, the founder of modern nursing: “Let us never consider ourselves finished nurses....we must be learning all of our lives.”
Thank you.

Liverpool Library Holds Trip Down Memory Lane

Abandoned Oswego Canal, June 22, 1932.

Liverpool will forever be linked with Syracuse, not only as a major suburb, but also as another center of the salt industry and the canals that connected both to the outside world. Around Liverpool, by Dorianne Elitharp Gutierrez and Joyce M. Mills (Arcadia Publishing, Charleston, S.C.; 127 pages/softcover), released in June, aims to bring that history to your coffee table through photos and extended captions.

What's inside the book and even more information that couldn't fit are the subject of Around Liverpool, a presentation Thursday, Nov. 12, 7 p.m. at the Liverpool Public Library, 310 Tulip St. There the co-authors will speak about the village's salty past, as well as other industries, prominent early settlers, how the Onondaga Lake shore has morphed over the years and noteworthy architecture, some of which still stands.

A wagon load of woven willow baskets, Nov. 15, 1926.

Intersection of Old Liverpool Road and Onondaga Lake Parkway.

The two will also take part in the library's Local Author Meet and Greet on Sunday, Nov. 8, from noon to 2 p.m.

Gutierrez has worked as the Liverpool Village Historian since 1991, while Mills retired as a media specialist from the Liverpool Public Library and now volunteers at the Liverpool Village Museum.

Founded in 2014, Arcadia has published more than 12,000 local history books, notable by their format of heavy on the photographs with captions, not chapters. "We had been approached by Arcadia for a couple years and finally found time to do it," says Gutierrez. "It turned out to be labor-intensive, and took us a year to complete, a little less. I tend to be verbal, and Joyce is excellent with images. We are two halves of one brain."

And while Arcadia has strict guidelines, the co-authors strove to improve upon them. "Arcadia sent us some samples," Gutierrez says, "and we looked at others. We thought we could do better. We intended to tell a story, and that is why the organization ended up like it did."

The chapters are organized somewhat chronologically, starting with the burgeoning salt industry and moving next into basketmaking, and on through the sixth and final chapter, the village's growth into a bustling suburb of Syracuse. Liverpool retained its small-village charm, however, and that's evident in the photographs the co-authors selected.

Finalizing the book likely would have taken more time if not for the access the authors had to the Liverpool Public Library's scanned photos; they also used Liverpool Village Museum photos. "We were fortunate in being able to utilize the library's collection that was already scanned," Gutierrez says. "Otherwise, it would have been a different book and it would have taken it a lot longer."

For the library presentation, expect about 45 minutes covering the book but also bonus content of photos and captions that didn't fit into the book. Gutierrez calls it “But Wait, There's More!"

"People can expect the tone of the book," she says, "but with more--more stories, and some other images and pictures of objects. There's something for everyone in this book."

Also at the presentation, Russ Tarby Jr. will sell books for a $20 donation to the Historical Association of Greater Liverpool. The authors will autograph them upon request.

For more information, call the library at 457-0310 or visit www.lpl.org.

Chicago Marathon: Urban Legend

The Chicago Marathon Oct. 11 delivered the spectacle that it touted. More than 46,000 of us, along 26.2 miles of the Second City, with an estimated 1.7 million spectators lining nearly every inch of Chicago sidewalk and roadway. What a sight they were.

At various points in the race I saw:

• A group of men dressed like the Statue of Liberty but in rainbow/pride colors.
• Another group of men dressed in all black and cheering us on with red metallic pompons.
• A Vegas Elvis impersonator (couldn't run away from him fast enough!).
• Many inventive signs urging us on to the finish line.
• Two large papier-mache puppets dancing in the city's Mexican neighborhood. I apologize that I don't know what that neighborhood is called, but it was my favorite for the crowd support, the music, the kids handing us food and drink.
• Children (not officially volunteers) handing out pretzels, orange slices and small bottles of water. 
• Thousands of hard-charging, dedicated runners pushing toward the finish line in Grant Park.
• More spectators wearing Green Bay Packers garb than Chicago Bears clothing. I could have finished five minutes faster if I hadn't stopped to talk to/high five all of them.

This was my first big-city marathon, and likely my last. Not because I didn't enjoy it, but races of such magnitude bring with them increased expenses, logistical planning and a lot of waiting around to cross the starting line. The expo was huge, too, but the bus ride there was especially enjoyable with a jovial, friendly, inquisitive driver ("So, who's from the farthest away?" Iceland trumped Syracuse, I'm afraid.)

On the other hand, I felt a huge sense of camaraderie running with so many others. I enjoyed the "countdown" from mile 25.2--banners with "1 Mile to go," "800 meters," "400 meters," "200 meters" and then the finish. I enjoyed running through the neighborhoods of Chicago. I liked being asked hours afterwards if I had "run the marathon." Unlike many other finishers, I didn't wear my medal into the restaurant I walked to afterwards--Lou Malnati's--but I wouldn't exactly call my perambulation "walking." My hobbling must have given it away.

And what a revelation Chicago was to me! Big, bustling and full of life, but cleaner and friendlier than New York City. The only vehicles with beeping horns were taxi cabs. I took the Red Line to the race ($3!) and marveled at how clean and urine-free the station was.

My finish time is a disappointment, but, as with all marathons, that time hints at improvements I can make while training for the next one. Still, I finished at approximately 29,000 out of the 46,000, not even close to last.

And now for my minor suggestions for improving the race:

It's "The Bean." 

• Could you please get the rights to more songs than "Right Now" by Van Halen, which played over and over and over again as we stood in the starting corral? Since we were in there for 30 minutes, that's a lot of time hearing one song.
• The medal underwhelmed me. I understand the race organizers wanting to feature a Chicago landmark on the medal. But, not being from Chicago, I had no idea what I was seeing. Was it a big cloud hovering over the runners? Was it the Mothership disgorging aliens into Grant Park? Take a look for yourself (at right). 

I am grateful to have had this opportunity, and urge anyone who wants to run a major marathon to do this one. Even though I never saw them, it was cool knowing that big-time runners led the way and finished hours before so many of us. But the spectators treated everyone like he or she was a speedy Kenyan, and at the end of the day, that's this race's biggest charm.

My New Favorite Race

I don't really know how many races I have run. The number must be between 100 and 200. When I began racing in my 20s there were events out there that no longer exist. I seem to recall a Frog Hollow 5K run along the main street in Fabius way back in the mid-1980s. Then there was the beloved Grunt Run in Geddes, where I always placed well because the prime runners were in New York for the marathon.

Kudos to that woman wearing a tutu.

It's always an adventure to run a race that is brand new, or that isn't new but has been rerouted to a new course. Such was the case with the Rochester Half Marathon, September 20. I have done that half for several years--in fact, my 13.1-mile PR was run there, 1:42:49, and I placed third in my age group in 2007 (that will never happen again, but I don't care). The course was nice, but it was getting old, and the race organizers must have recognized that as well. They mapped out something entirely new and different and challenging for 2015, and I can't wait to go back and run it again.

They promised a few hills, they promised neighborhoods many of us who don't live in Rochester have never even heard of, they promised four bridge crossings spanning the Genesee River (though I counted five), and they promised two waterfalls. After a challenging incline at mile 11.5, we got a slight downhill finish that brought us through the High Falls District and the breweries there, straight across the river and into the chute for the finish. No turns, as in past years, just a mad dash to cross that line.

I loved nearly everything about this race (except that hubby wasn't there at the finish). We traveled with the youngest child and the dog, and logistics weren't in our favor. Next year. . .

Crowd support seemed heartier and more populous than in years past, despite the 7:30 (on the nose) starting time. Rochesterians really came out to support this race, and those runners I was keeping pace with all noticed. The shuttle bus driver who took us from the finish line a few miles to the start was amazingly perky and friendly at 6 a.m., wishing us all good luck.

River Boardwalk over the Genesee River.

A factor out of everyone's control but that everyone talked about was the weather--absolutely perfect conditions for a long-distance race. Mid-50s to start, some clouds, minimal wind. Those factors were the exclamation point on an already perfect day.

My one criticism--I have never enjoyed pizza after a race. I am never hungry for a good hour afterwards, but I do force down a banana, or a yogurt, or a granola bar. But pizza just never sits well with me. I couldn't imagine even wanting to think about pizza had I run the full 26.2. So, maybe something different afterwards? I could be the only one, but since this is my forum, I'm bringing it up.

Speaking of sustenance, I have never run a race that offered four different flavors of Gu. Four! And they had my latest favorite, Salty Caramel. Oh, and I don't know what flavor electolytes were out there, but when I sipped, I smelled and tasted flowers. Ew.

Anyway, a huge shout-out to the crew at Fleet Feet Rochester and Yellow Jacket Racing for an amazing morning spent in Rochester. I enjoyed the half marathon you folks put on in April, as well, taking us through a different set of Rochester neighborhoods and a different finish line.

I intend to return next fall, and I hope to run faster than 2:09!