The last think I did for fun was taking my golden “Capone” outside with me for shoveling the decks off at my house. It makes the day fade away when I focus on things that bring me joy. Sometimes as a nurse educator we forget how to have fun with the most mundane of things.

My goal for this coming year is to remind myself to appreciate the little things (like playing in the snow with my dog) so that as a nurse and an educator, I can really focus on the things that make differences in the lives of my students.

I have a tendency to get so busy focusing on the little things (like the fact that the student cannot write a complete sentence) that I forget why I do what I do. With 30 years of nursing experience behind me, I know how to teach, I know what they need as beginning nurses, I just need to get them the content in a mode they can understand.