Shelley B. McPherson

Author of Flights of Love series

[cute-animals-only]

[gianluc30]

[shellumbo]

Despite High Demand For Nurses, Colleges Aren't Keeping Up

Even before COVID-19, the system wasn't turning out enough nurses to meet the national shortage.

[shellumbo]

Hospital CEOs Have Gotten Rich Cutting Staff and Supplies. Now They’re Not Ready for the Next Wave.

Years of understaffing nurses and health care workers have consequences, experts say.

[shellumbo]

Concerned Nurses Ask: Are We Heroes or Expendable? - Ms. Magazine

Countless stories have applauded nurses as heroes. Yet, actions to protect them are lacking by the public and places where nurses work.

[shellumbo]

America Is Running Out of Nurses

Travelling nurses have been moving from one hot spot to another. What happens when the hot spots keep multiplying?

[shellumbo]

If anything, this report from Rachel Maddow understates what health care workers are going through and have been going through. It doesn’t matter how many parking garages you fill with beds for Covid patients if you don’t have nurses to take care of those patients. Nurses are already suffering acute moral distress that will have very serious long-term consequences. People are leaving the profession. People like me, who are training the next generation of nurses, are suffering from our own kind of moral distress at the idea of sending our new grads out into the hospitals to face things even the most experienced nurses are unable to handle. 

[ducissatenebrarum]

#cat

[talesfromtreatment]

I’m sorry for screaming but as of today WE HAVE A CONFIRMED MALE CALICO KITTEN AT MY RESCUE! I did his intake 5 weeks ago (when he was 4-5 weeks old) & all I saw was diarrhea, but he came in today for a URI recheck with an obvious set of testes! we’re all extremely excited and I now have about 10 too many pictures of kitten genitals on my phone, but AHHHH MALE CALICO! I had to share with someone who would actually get it! :D

WHERE ARE THE PICTURES?????

well… maybe not of the genitals, but of the kitten???

[catcherintherats]

here’s his beautiful face!!! his back has a lot more black on it, he’s almost an even 1/3 of each color. even my director who’s been working here for 17 years hasn’t seen a true male calico/tortie, so we’re all stoked!!!

[talesfromtreatment]

It’s the Boy! :D

[followthebluebell]

the boy!!!

[stephanemiroux]

Apparently its a 0.1% chance for there to be a calico boy.

[dualumina]

@shifuto​

[ask-genie]

THIS CAN HAPPEN!?!?! I LITERALLY THOUGHT CALICOS AND TORTIES WERE STRICTLY FEMALE LIKE????? IM SO FLABBERGASTED

[death-and-ruin]

Oooh, a male calico, that’s so rare! Here’s some info as to why it is so rare:

First of all, calico cats are basically tortoiseshell + white. Here’s a pic of two torties in case you don’t know what I mean:

Tortoiseshell cats have a mix of black and orange fur. Now, the thing is, the colors black and orange are coded for on the X chromosome, with orange being dominant (it’s a bit more complicated than that, but for simplicity’s sake I’m gonna stay with this explanation). However, in each cell only one of the X chromosomes is active – which one gets deactivated is random, so in some cells the active X chromosome has the information for orange, and in some cells the active X chromosome has the information for black.

So that means that you need two X chromosomes to get a tortie (or calico, or torbie, or any other coat pattern that is dependent on the tortie pattern). Obvioulsy, male cats only have one X chromosome – so they either get the information for orange or black, but not both (by the way, this is also the reason why most orange cats are male! Because a female cat needs two X chromosomes with the information for orange to have a completely orange coat). 

Male torties are usually XXY! So they have one extra X chromosome, a result of a very rare event called non-disjunction, which can happen during meiosis. 

[shellumbo]

As thousands of athletes get coronavirus tests, nurses wonder: What about us?

Sports were a distraction for California nurse Jane Sandoval. Now they're a reminder of the country's virus-testing divide.

[helloamhere]

Have created a new novel-writing approach for myself that I am calling Very Gentle Writing. Very Gentle Writing is an approach for people who live nearly every waking second in self-castigation and actually need peaceful slowness to unleash their creativity. 

Very Gentle Writing does not set staggering word count goals and then feel bad about it. No! Very Gentle Writing for me sets an extremely low word count and then feels magnificently productive when the low bar is exceeded (which is easy…it’s a low bar, I mean really low). 

Very Gentle Writing is about saying hey yo maybe I just want to listen to a chill playlist for a while and feel one sentence spill out. Go me! 

Very Gentle Writing is kind of about realizing I have a really limited amount of time to write in between work, and adulting, and taking care of a thousand life responsibilities, and trying to heal&deal from trauma in 2020. So I want that writing time to be….just…..nice. 

Very Gentle Writing means I have a goal of enjoying every single time I sit down to write. Really. I use all the fun words first. 

Very Gentle Writing came to me as an idea when I started to think about how as someone actively trying to recover from a lot of lifelong trauma, the usual word harder!! Work harder!! mantras in the world of “people doing hard things” didn’t motivate me at all, they only hurt me. I truly need a voice saying work less hard, personally.

[phdmama]

I am 8 BILLION PERCENT HERE FOR THIS

Today I was literally like, I really need to drop my nanowrimo word goal because I’m not going to make 50,000 and everytime I see how far behind I am, I get sad.

What if I set my goal for… what i’ve already written?? THEN THE REST OF THE MONTH IS GRAVY???

Imma do it

[ruffboi-mags]

Hey just a heads-up for anyone who, like me, woke to the news of Biden’s win and promptly burst into tears and is spiraling or feeling depressed instead of ecstatic, even though you wanted this result?

You’re okay. We have been through 4 years of hell, and this year in particular has been awful. Your emotions are all over the place because there’s part of you that has relaxed with relief that 45′s out, and that’s okay.

We’re okay. Take this weekend to give yourself some aftercare. Soft clothes, warm baths, comfort food. Hydrate and get plenty of rest. Get a hug if you can. Be kind to yourself.

The work’s not done, but that doesn’t mean it’s wrong to take a weekend to rest.

[krakenartificer]

There’s a post somewhere, which I am too tired to find rn, about how long-term trauma gets buried inside like a fire burning down to embers in a room with no air. When a good thing happens, it’s like firefighters opening a door into that room: all that heat flares up suddenly, from a place you thought was safe. You’re not crazy, and this will pass, but you have to take time to put out the fire

[ruffboi-mags]

^THIS!!!!!!!

[anais-in-the-blanketfort]

may United States Senator Addison Mitchell McConnell Jr be struck down with apoplexy and die.

likes charge. reblogs cast.

[thesnadger]

Remember it is perfectly possible to both be aware that the struggle is going to continue and there is always more work to do AND feel deeply, profoundly relieved and even celebratory right now.

Let yourself enjoy any feelings of happiness, comfort or relief you have. Life is short and hard, and joy is a worthy and wonderful thing.

[clintfbarton-deactivated2025012]

[humordepot-blog]

[deducecanoe-deactivated20161213]

He is successful.

[nesija]

im so proud

[fimbry-talks]

Love when my cat flings himself into the air after a toy, but he has no style. Straight up ragdoll physics.

[followthebluebell]

One day i want to take a video of Yardstick straight-up hurling himself into the void. Cats have no conception that there is a future. There is just now and the jingly toy.

[kleppy02]

Your cat’s name is Yardstick?

[followthebluebell]

He has three feet.