Together

I love this photo. It sums up so much, and has a lot of meaning for me because of the timing. When the photographer explained what she was going to do with this shot she gave us the choice of about 12 prop words she had on her. Something about the word "together" struck me. Had I been asked this same question weeks prior I probably would have chosen something else. But seeing as how I had just lost my job days prior to this picture...days prior to our wedding..."together" had a very strong meaning. No matter what, we'd get through this together. We work as a team. We support each other, NO MATTER WHAT.

I just started reading a book by Nancy Horan called "Loving Frank". It is the true story of the woman who had a whirlwind affair with the architect Frank Lloyd Wright. Early on in the novel, there is a short clip of a poem. Now, I've never been all that enlightened by poetry...oh sure, I went through that phase in my teenage years where I tried to write my own but that never lasted. This poem in the book struck me...hard. It was almost like I had the wind knocked out of me. This poem has given the photo, and that special day, and what's in store for the future even more meaning.

"Togetherness" by Reverend Garnett:

Together greet life's solemn real,
Together own one glad ideal.
Together laugh, together ache,
And think one thought - "Each other's sake"
And hope on hope - in new-world weather,
To still go on, and go together.

Role Reversal

I spent about 6 hours in a hospital today tending to my father. Okay, really I just sat there and watched him doze off every 5 minutes for 30 seconds at a time (pain meds can be a blessing and a curse). During my time there, I realized a few things......

1) It's quite strange being the "watcher" instead of the patient. Not something I'm used to. Do I help because I'm the loving daughter? Do I nag because I'm the concerned daughter? Do I sit there and snicker at my not-so-coherent father because I know we have that similar sense of humor? I did a little bit of everything...mission accomplished, I suppose.

2) I have no idea how my parents spent all of those days and months sitting in a hospital room with me. 6 hours really wasn't bad (but maybe that's because it was just nice to get out of the house for a bit). I just can't imagine staying over night or having your life revolve around a hospital rather than a real home. Major kudos to my parents.

3) I am now 150% confident that I NEED to go to nursing school. Not only do I get excited about wearing comfy scrubs all day and not having to buy fancy work clothes......but after interacting with 2 different nurses, I have reassured myself as to why I'm making these recent educational/career decisions for myself. Both nurses were about the same age, certainly not veteran nurses but definitely not newbies. One could barely speak loud enough for us to understand her, and she'd tend to speak as she was walking out the door so it was pretty much pointless. She didn't say hi to me, no small talk with my father, and never explained what she was doing as she was doing it. The second nurse, however, was very friendly...not intrusive at all with her conversation, but definitely knew how to make people comfortable. My father is not a stupid person - he's an engineer for goodness sake - but any person who hasn't spend much time in a hospital environment (and even for those of us who are pros!!) appreciates when a medical professional explains the reasons behind their actions. She always told my father his temperature and blood pressure whenever she took those measurements. When she realized he wasn't doing his breathing exercises with the spirometer, she didn't nag him in a Nurse Ratchet kind of way that made him feel like he was doing something wrong...she playfully took 8 1/2 x 11 paper and made signs to post below the TV (where she knew he'd look!) to remind my dad that he needed to "BREATHE DEEP!!" "15x/HOUR!!!". All because she understood his sense of humor. I really, really appreciated that...and I'm sure my dad did, too.

Interacting with the 2nd nurse today was a nice refresher for me...a good reminder of what I appreciated, and still do. And the first nurse was more than a disappointment - she was a motivator for me, a good example of what NOT to do.

I always tell people that I'd rather be a nurse than a doctor because patients remember their nurses more. This was at least the case for me. I still have vague memories of a few nurses that went above and beyond hitting a few buttons and taking a few vital signs, but I don't remember any of my surgeons or specialists. I think the nurses are the reason I don't look negatively upon my time in the hospital. I can't wait until I can do the same for someone else.

#19

This year seems to be full of 9's and 19's....perhaps I have a new lucky number??

The big day was 9.19.09, Adam randomly was assigned a Colorado license plate with 919 in it (no excuse to forget the anniversary!), our room number in Sonoma was 9, and most recently, I underwent surgery #19.

#19 didn't REALLY count I suppose - no slicing and dicing. But I guess so long as you're administered general anesthesia which is scary enough in itself, it counts to a big enough degree to be able to brag that I hit #19.

I used to joke that I was trying to keep my surgery number up with my age...most people in my life don't find that funny, but I think it's pretty creative.

Fork In the Road

It's been 5 months since my last post. I'm such a slacker! So much has happened since May, so much has changed!!

1) We closed on our new home in June. We love it! It's so nice to have something that's OURS - well, I suppose technically it's still mostly owned by the bank, but you know what I mean.


2) The summer was full of wedding planning, house warming parties, a cousin's wedding in Tybee (wedding 1 of 3 for the year!), and both of us staying busy at work. So busy that the months flew by, and before we knew it, our own wedding was right around the corner....leading to item #3...


3) Our wedding - 09.19.09. It was fantastic, amazing, stupendous!...whatever adjective you'd like to use. Seriously, we couldn't have asked for it to go any better. Despite cruddy weather the weekend before, and cruddy weather just the day after, September 19th was a beautiful day - not a cloud in the sky! It was wonderful seeing all of our friends and family....especially my dad's side who flew in from the East Coast to Colorado for the first time in probably 10 years.



And now it's fall....slowly becoming winter for those of us in Colorado...

Every time the leaves turn, and the weather gets colder, I get the "creativity bug". I'm suddenly inspired to cross stitch again (don't laugh), scrapbook, make homemade Christmas cards...but it usually doesn't happen. Though, I am blogging again - that was part of this creativity bug - so let's hope at the very least I can stick with this.

This year, I am determined to not let procrastination & my inability to pay attention for longer than 30 minutes get in the way. (OK, Homemade Christmas cards MIGHT be pushing it seeing as I have 80+ thank you notes to write for wedding guests.) I think I really need to tap into this creativity as an outlet. I say this because as of a month ago I have been unemployed. That's right...for the first time in my life since I started working at all at Hallmark in high school (wow, those were the days!), I don't have a job. I was upset about it for about, oh...2 days. But the truth is, I wasn't happy there. The pay was nice, I may never see a paycheck like that again for a long, long time, but I wasn't HAPPY.

It's time to move on, and pursue the career I've been talking about for years - NURSING. There's no time like the present, right??? I've hit a fork in the road and I can go one direction - to yet another job that isn't quite what I wanted but was easy to get in to...or I can go in the other direction - countless months to years of hard work that will ultimately pay off in the form of a career that is my passion. Easy choice, right?? Lucky for me I have a husband who is willing to put up with all of this!!!

As I look forward to becoming a student again and push through the extremely frustrating job hunt process yet again, I KNOW I'll need an outlet this winter. That said, if anyone has some good tips on picking a project and sticking with it, I'd love to hear your words of advice!

Big changes, Less money

I'm really bad about keeping up with this thing, aren't I?

I had a big blog drafted and saved weeks ago but I never posted it. It was a long-winded whine session about my old company. It was written "in the moment", therefore it was full of all of the feelings reminiscent of when I was actually employed there. I sat on it for a while and realized it wasn't worth my time, nor yours, to post it. But, I can at least summarize the drama since I still think it's interesting (and it's finally all public information): Coast IRB was caught in a congressional sting in March. They essentially approved a fake research study full of flaws. The supposed purpose of the sting was to see if IRB's were doing their job. The CEO testified in DC to no avail, because just weeks later the FDA was knocking on their door. Now the company has announced that they will be closing. Only a handful of employees remain, most of my friends were laid off. It's been very strange watching it from the "outside", and I feel horrible for my friends who weren't able to escape like me...but I think they're just relieved it's all finally coming to an end. We have yet to see just what the ramifications of the latest FDA audit will be, but I'm not sure they can do much as far as sanctions against the owner since he's voluntarily closing the doors. I just hope that he gets what has been coming his way for a while...and that's all I will say. :o)

And for the BIGGEST news...we put an offer on a house this last weekend and as of 10pm last night we are under contract! I'm pretty sure we set a world record for fastest accepted offer, especially in this market. We had looked at about a dozen houses over the span of a few weeks, and when we found this one, we knew it was the one. I told Adam it was the same feeling I had when I tried on my wedding dress! The Realtor even made us sit in the couches in the home to "test it out, see how it feels". And it totally reinforced that we belonged in that house! We put in our offer Sunday morning and by Monday evening it was confirmed...yeah, that's pretty quick. Especially since the house had only been on the market 2 days by the time we found it!!! I've posted pics on facebook, so check them out! Callie is going to LOVE the yard and the cat will enjoy the multiple "kitty perches" throughout the house. I'm just glad we'll have a place to call home for a long, long time (ok well at least 5-7 years). It's my 4th move in 2 years, and Adam's 3rd I believe, but it's sooooo worth it. We close on June 24th....so much to do before then, I'm sure it'll fly by!

This new investment has been quite a grown-up shock....I wrote the biggest check of my life today, and we have one more due in June that is 3 times as much!! I'm sure we could be classified as clinically insane for getting married and buying a house in the same year, but with the mortgage rates the way they are & the $8,000 tax break we'll get, we couldn't pass it up. Things will be tight for a while...our mortgage + insurance + tax will be about $300 more a month than we're paying now but at least this money isn't going to waste. And, as our realtor put it, we're young adults at the beginning of our career and our salaries can only (hopefully) go up, so it'll get easier over time I'm sure. We're just so fortunate to be in a place that allows us to do this now. It's a great present to ourselves before the wedding, and it will be nice to come home to a real HOME after we're Mr. & Mrs.

Back to the Blog

Wow, it's been a while. I really thought I was doing well when it came to keeping up with this thing, and to be honest, I'm not sure what got in the way. Well, I can't pinpoint anything specific...I guess the craziness of life just caught up with me recently!! All of the sudden, it is Spring time...though it doesn't feel like it since we got 17" of snow yesterday. But, I guess that's Spring in Colorado. Lovely March blizzards.

My new job - guess it's not so new anymore - is in full swing...I have 6 of my own patients that are keeping my schedule full with weekly visits, plus CPR certification & a conference to look forward to in the next month. But even on the most stressful of days I love my job.

Speaking of stress, wedding planning is starting to pick up again....we make our wedding favors this weekend, and the next few big tasks are cake consultations & meeting with the florist.

Another event that we're already looking forward to is the end of our lease at the end of the summer. We aren't looking forward to it in the sense that we HATE where we live, not at all. Our row home (sort of like a townhouse ) is very nice, but we pay far too much in rent, and our poor puppy needs a yard. So we've decided to meet with a realtor. With the low rates & big tax break this year for first time home buyers, it's very tempting to join in on the fun...we just need to run some numbers with the professional before we get TOO excited. Please keep your fingers crossed that we can figure out - through some sort of sign or turn of events or whatever - what we're supposed to do....buy, rent another year, stay in Westminster (not our top pick but close to our jobs), move south (near family but FAR from our jobs), etc. Too many things to consider!

That's my update for now...it's past my old lady bed time, but I'll be back to write more in the next week. So hang tight!

Responsible Adulthood is Tiring

It's been less than 2 weeks since I returned to the real work force and I'm finding only one (BIG) thing extremely difficult: Balance. How does one find the energy to a) get plenty of sleep, b) work 8+ hours, c) remember to eat, d) feed the animals, e) keep the house clean, f) run necessary errands, g) pay bills, and h) show one's face to family and friends, or at least give a phone call.....all in a day? I suppose Adam's 10 day business trip to Australia isn't helping my ability to juggle, as the rhythm that we found during Week 1 has gone out the window.

Almost everyone in my department (a whole 6 people) has kids...how do they do it?! It's hard enough with a needy cat and energetic puppy. And how am I supposed to add on wedding-related tasks, and maintain my motivation to return to school somewhere down the line? Oh and not to mention that I still need to lose about 5 lbs before June - gym time? Right. I'm ready for bed by 8! And the donuts, candy and constant take out food at work isn't helping those few extra lbs or the energy factor!!

I used to give Adam crap for coming home and wanting to sit on his @$$ for a while. Now, I totally understand. The couch is my friend from 5 o'clock on. Throw in a glass of wine or a trashy tv show and I'm content for a while. oh sure, this isn't the case EVERY night - Monday we had puppy preschool and last night I went to a former co-workers house for a homemade meal. But it takes a LOT of motivation to leave the house again after coming home from work.

I don't ever remember being this tired when I was working + going to school, both full time, in Colorado Springs. But now I have a soon-to-be-husband & TWO animals running around, plus I've already started to bring work home (an inevitable part of the new job that I was well aware of when I accepted the offer!). I wouldn't change my circumstances now for anything, it's just all a big adjustment! I can only hope that things get a tad bit easier....Adam's return next week will certainly help, but there's a lot of personal, internal motivation that I still need to find. I'd start looking for it tonight but it's past 8, so I think it's time to hit the sack....