Here are some oldies but goodies:

1.Valentine’s Cards: Buy a bunch of children’s Valentine’s Day cards and send one everyday to your loved one until Valentine’s Day.

2. Capture the moment: Who doesn’t love photos? Make a collage with photos of the two of you or even just a bunch of photos of him/her and their friends. You can even find inexpensive snow globes at places like your local hobby store to insert your own photos into to create a homemade snow globe! You can also add photos to mugs, mouse pads, or calendars to spice up any loved ones life.

• Walgreens Photo
• Cafe Press

3. Be Betty Crocker: If it isn’t too far to send the baked good-try making some of the cookies below, everyone loves homemade treats. Otherwise, if you’re like a lot of people you can always just order cookies and have them shipped to your loved one!

• Valentine Suger Cookie recipe
• Valentine Chocolate Suger Cookie recipe
• Mrs. Fields

4. Coupon book: Make homemade coupons that you know the other person would love to have you do for them. Such as “I’ll do the dishes” or “One Free Back Massage” or “I’ll make breakfast” either way the coupons you create will be a sure hit.

5. Scrapbook: Make a page or an entire book of pictures of the two of you. Decorate the pages with quotes or stories that go along with each photo.

6. Flowers: Flowers will never go out of style. Just find a local store near where you’d like to send them and order away.

• 1-800 Flowers

Here are some new unique ideas to keep things interesting:

1. Jar of LOVE: Find a little box or jar and decorate it if you choose.

• Fill with pieces of paper with reasons why you love them or memories you have with them. Also spice it up with some quotes and/or drawings.

2. Email Valentine’s: There are a bunch of new ways to say “I love you” or “I miss you” through email “cards.” They are cheap yet are sure to warm any heart.

3. Buy A STAR: Buy your significant other a star. Nothing says you’re special to me like a star of their very own!

• International Star Registry

4. Perfume: Create your own perfume or cologne. You get to pick not only the way yours will smell but also the bottle it comes in and best of all… you get to create its name / logo for the bottle.

• ScentCrafters

5. CANDY: If they love M&M’s or Dove Chocolate, what could be better than creating a little message on the inside wrapper or a couple words on M&Ms! It’s a sure treat that your loved one will eat right up.

• Personalized M&M’s
• My Dove Chocolate

6. Photo Book: Create an actual hard cover book full of your choice of pictures! You even get to choose the design and color of both the pages as well as the cover.

• Our Hubbub – Photo Memory Books

Even though you may be miles away from your loved one, hopefully by reading these 12 Valentine’s Day ideas you’ll be able to easily surprise your Valentine with something they would have never expected. Sometimes the joy of holidays isn’t in the huge present you give or receive; it is the idea and meaning behind the gift itself. Make this Valentine’s Day the holiday you give out of love and creativity. Those seem to be the gifts that are never forgotten.

Ask a Travel Nurse Question:

My wife and I are both nurses and are starting to travel nurse. Her experience is in home health, hospice and LT care. My experience is ED, cardiac and CATH lab. We have signed with a couple different companies, but they seem to be looking more for me and not for us together. Could you recommend a good company that would work for both of us to travel together.

Ask a Travel Nurse Answer:

There are a handful of agencies I use, but when referring people, I prefer to give nurses the names and numbers for specific recruiters, as these are the people I work with and trust. The nurse/recruiter relationship is very important in travel nursing and a good recruiter can make all the difference in the world. I prefer not to post those numbers online as some are direct numbers that dial in to a specific recruiter rather than going through the company switchboard (where most new travelers are routed). If you contact me at david@travelnursesbible.com, I’ll be happy to share with you the contacts I have at the companies I use and trust.

Just be sure that your recruiters understand up front that they need to secure a position for BOTH of you. I have worked with many husband/wife teams (work in a unit with two traveling couples right now). Be very emphatic if you need to, but make them understand that if they don’t find you two positions, they’ll lose TWO travelers to another company that will find you assignments. Do understand though that it might take some time if you are both new to traveling, but the more agencies you use, the better. It might even be possible to find you an assignment with one agency and her an assignment in the same location with another agency.

Email me and I’ll hook you up with some of the people I use.

David
TravelNursesBible.com
david@travelnursesbible.com

Being a travel nurse means you have the opportunity to meet new people and make new friends all over the United States. Making new friends is one of life’s richest pleasures and is a fun and easy way to interact with others while at your workplace or during your free time. Take some time and try out some of these ideas to help you meet new people, whether a new co-worker or a new neighbor.

Why you should meet new people

Because you are a dedicated travel nurse we know it can be difficult for you to find time for yourself, let alone meeting others. However, whether you have one minute or one hour, you should take some time to say hello and introduce yourself to new people. Doing this is the first step towards feeling connected to your new community and co-workers. Meeting new people helps you enjoy activities, can bring positive opportunities into your personal and professional life, gives you the sense of support through difficult times, and contributes to your experience when you have something to celebrate. Meeting new people also helps you get involved, share things with others, and connect with people at work.

How to meet new people

• When you meet someone for the first time it is important to be yourself. Being true to who you are is the most important thing and will show others your true character.
• Have a positive attitude. When you have an attitude that is accepting and you behave like you believe you will find you’ll get a better response from those that are around you.
• Be natural. When you force a smile it looks unnatural, but when you act natural it is more comfortable and inviting to others.

I am an experienced OR Nurse (over 35 years) and also an experienced Traveling Nurse. I have been permanent for the last three years and I am considering traveling again. I would like to know how the travel nurse industry is holding up (in our current economic situation) in terms of getting contracts that will allow the nurse to continue to be employed full-time within a travel nurse setting. In other words, is it realistically possible to get three to four contracts per year which would constitute full-time hours?

Ask a Travel Nurse Answer:

Hello.  As you might already know, 2009 was a bad year for the traveler with assignments down almost 50%. The following year was a “bounce back” year, but things were certainly not up to their pre-2009 state. In 2011, we only continued the climb, but I’d say that with hospitals around the nation facing state and federal cutbacks, we are not going to see anything like pre-2009 for a long time.

However, one thing remains and will continue for a LONG time. We are still in a nursing shortage, that by all accounts, will only continue to worsen. That means staffing needs throughout the country.

If you still have inactive (or active) licenses in a few states, you will be ahead of the game. The major thing is that needs are more immediate and the quicker you can interview, accept, and have license in hand, the better off you will be. Many travelers will now obtain their license before interviewing in a particular state (I believe all the travel agencies I use will still reimburse for that license if it is used on an assignment with them, even after the fact).

You might also need to be more flexible in assignment locations and if you were not using several agencies before, I recommend everyone be on file with at least two or three (I am currently on file with about 6 or 7).

So, if you understand how the market has changed, you should still expect to be able to work on a full time basis. Most of my years as a traveler have been spent on multiple extensions or repeat locations to help me limit my gap time, but you should still be able to keep traveling full time even if you need a change of venue every 13 weeks.

Hope this helps.

David
TravelNursesBible.com
david@travelnursesbible.com

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