How Can I Help?

Happy Weekend Sweet Blogging Friends.

We are all trying to stay in and stay safe.  Finding things to keep our minds still and feel productive can be a real challenge.

I was thinking the other day as I was laying on the sectional feeling no motivation whatsoever!  

Feeling kind of down and feeling like should I come out of retirement as an RN to help in the crisis???  

I retired when I was 50 years old and now am 61.  I have not been in the field for over 11 years.  

You never lose your knowledge and experience but you can lose your skills especially with not being trained on the new advances.  This has been weighing on my mind.

I have a husband, daughter and son in law on the front lines of this so do I want to be the 4th in the family to possibly get exposure and bring it back to my family?  

We already have three in our family with the potential to bring this home or possibly get this Covid-19 themselves.

I had a long talk with my daughter Kimmie that runs a Cancer Clinic and she told me "Mom they are not even taking nurses unless they have worked in the last 5 years so I would not qualify".  

While that made me feel better about not coming out of retirement, I still felt like I needed to do something to help.

I needed to get off the couch more than walking Buddy once a day and do something.

Why not think about those on the front lines and do something to make life just a little easier for them.

Plus I have been painting everything in site in my house to keep active and Buddy is giving me the look like am I next to become blue or white lol!

This is my first activity for this week.  

I figured I would try to come up with something each week to make a difference in some way to the people on the front lines of this scary virus.

My daughters clinic has 24 employees including doctors, nurses, schedulers and pharmacy staff.  

Here is what I came up with and why:

Found these cute gift bags on Amazon and they could be delivered to my front door on Prime.

Also on Target.com I found all kinds of smart snacks, protein bars, individual popcorn and wonderful hand cream for frequently washed hands.
All could be ordered on Target.com and brought out to my car for pick up.  No exposure needed.

Kimmie (my daughter) told me that her staff love protein bars of all kinds. 
Some days with the amount of chemo patients they barely get lunch so these protein bars are a quick grab and go.  They keep them not feeling hungry for long periods of time. 
Found these Chocolate Brownie by Clif. 
They sounded pretty yummy.

One thing that has been a big disruption to the nurses in the infusion rooms is they can no longer bring in their reusable mugs to keep their morning coffee warm and at reach. 
Now they have to use throw away cups and they really do not have the time to wait for brewing fresh coffee in between treatments. 
I got this instant coffee packets they can just add to hot water in the infusion room to continue to have fresh and hot coffee as they run through their day.

They also can no longer have their reusable water bottles. 
They can open a fresh bottle of cold water so I thought these energy flavors for water bottles would be a nice treat for them.

Kimmie said the nurses and doctors love to pop in Microwave popcorn for a quick treat. 
I found these smart pops that are individual servings to add to the gift bags.

Target had these hand creams for extra dry skin which they all have from washing their hands so much and wearing gloves. 
I found these in the travel sample bins at Target for
69 cents each.
 Score!

Of course I had to add the Lifesavers since this is exactly what all of these dedicated employee are.

Added some tissue paper and they are ready to be delivered to the employees on Monday. 

I feel like I tapped into something I love to do which also helps me feel productive. 

Showing kindness and gratitude right now with what is going on is so important.

Each week I hope to find something special like these thank you gift bags to put together for our police, firefighter/paramedics, hospital employees and clinics like my daughters. 

Maybe even do something special for all my neighbors that are all following the rules and staying home and indoors.

Hope you are staying home and safe. 

I guess we all just need to remember there will be an end to all of this in the near future. 

These next few weeks are ramping up with the spread and the more precautions we take in these critical weeks will lesson the exposure and infection rate.

Keep safe and well.

Hugs,

Kris