A post about nothing

In the 11 days since my last post I have been busy, emotional, lazy, overwhelmed, uninspired, and just plain tired...not necessarily in that order.  As a result, this post will be as aimless as I've felt lately.

With the above disclaimer, I present my week and a half in pictures...

Princess B got her first big girl bed...

...and a black eye when she fell out of bed the first night in it =(

I got flowers, just because I'd had a hard weekend.

We did some artwork (that handsome guy is my grandson, L)

I did A LOT of homework (blech!)

 Colored my hair (it looks better now than it did at first)...

 Bought myself a Starbuck's gift card for my birthday...

Did a mountain of laundry (that I plan to fold tonight...I promise)...

In that 11 days I had:
1 garage sale
1 bottle of wine
1 transport to E. Chicago
2 patients in 5 work days
60+ hours of work
7 loads of laundry
14 cups of coffee
3 trips to the gym
3 miles of running (pathetic =( )
ENTIRELY TOO MUCH STRESS!

I will now take this moment to breathe and think of this:

oh yeah... I also talked to a couple of recruiters today and am feeling a lot more secure in my decision to move...so I guess things aren't all THAT bad...

My new mantra:  "just a few more months"

No Puppies and Rainbows Today

I have hesitated in writing a new post lately.  In my line of work, one has to take the sad days with the good days and lately there have been a lot of sad days in the PICU.  Some days it just seems so difficult to do my job.  People come into my life at the worst time in their lives and it's my job to be not only their child's nurse but their source of hope, comfort, and strength.  And when there is no hope of giving a parent the answer they want to hear, it hurts to be the one who has to continue to repeat the same answers over and over again.  Then there are the times when even though a patient will eventually be ok, the family won't.  Multiple traumas, fires, car accidents...how do you explain to a parent why one child was taken and another wasn't?

I often share my losses with my patient's parents if I think it will give them some insight on what they are going through.  While I know every situation is different, there is a common bond between parents who have lost children.  It is the club no one wants to join but it often gives one strength to know that someone else has gone through it and survived.  My emotional investment in my patients and their families can take a big toll on me, though.

Today as I get ready to leave for work, I mentally put on my armor and pray for the right words to say to parents who have lost children, parents who stand by and watch their child hurt while powerless to do anything for them, and parents who may or may not have their hopes dashed.  I pray for the strength to hold these parents up when they are unable to hold themselves up.

Peace.

Finally a relevant update

Relevant, yes... positive, no.

I finally got a call from HR in Hawaii.  I got the stock answer "we decided to go with an internal candidate".  Funny since I was told initially there was more than one position.

Needless to say, I am discouraged.  Here's to hoping that finding a traveling position in June is easier or I may end up living on the beach.

So....Why?

I've had a lot of people ask me why we want to move to Hawaii.  Aside from the obvious (it's paradise...HELLO!), what started it was my husband's ambitions.

My husband is the smartest person I know.  He may work as a paramedic but his true love was always research.  Specifically marine biology and coral genetic research.  His dream was to go somewhere where he could do research for a living.  For that kind of research, we had 3 choices:  Australia, Florida, and Hawaii.  In the first 2, he'd have to actually go away for months at a time to live on an island and do his research.  While he may at times prefer this, I would not.  That left Hawaii and the University of Hawaii.

As I began researching the university and the hospitals there I began to get on the bandwagon.  U of H has a pediatric nurse practitioner program and the children's hospital services the entire South Pacific with fixed wing transport.

It still took me a few years before I was really comfortable planning such a big move.  I didn't want to leave my older kids and, frankly, I was scared to fail.  As the kids got older and moved farther and farther away with their own lives I decided it was time to live my own, scared or not.

I've run into a lot of people who have tried to talk me out of it.  "It's too expensive"  "It's too far away"  "What will you do with no family?"  I don't know if people think this is spur of the moment and that I've done no research on it at all, or what.  Yes, I know things cost more but I'll also be making more.  Yes, it's far away but there are planes.  Yes, some family will be far away but some of the most important people in my life are coming with me so I think we'll be ok.

No other news on the ER job yet.  I'm continuing with my planning as if it doesn't exist.  I have a lot to do in a short 9 months!

Take care of yourselves.  Smile as if you are up to something.  And hug someone for no reason.

Peace.

I don't know why I was worried

I was so worried that I'd run out of things to write about in between big updates on our move.  Silly me.  When one has kids, it's almost guaranteed that when it seems as if things are going smoothly the chit will eventually hit the fan.  This happened over the holiday weekend in my little world.

I have a lot of kids.  I've always said that they have meetings to decide who is going to be the troublemaker of the week (or day... sometimes of the hour).  With four of them grown and out of the house, I figure I'm on easy street with just the 3 year old to deal with.  My mistake was letting down my guard.

Today, we're going to talk about my oldest son.  R and I have always had our issues; he's a high maintenance kid but while he lacks in common sense I don't think he's a bad kid.  He can be loving and kind as well as selfish and irresponsible.  Lately, I thought things were going so well with him.  He'd come out of a long string of bad decisions and was finally taking care of his responsibilities and acting (for the most part) like a grown up.

Back story:  he got his high school girlfriend pregnant senior year and I have a beautiful grandson who just turned 3 (6 weeks older than Princess B).  Up until the last 6 months, he hadn't been taking responsibility and had not been able to keep a job longer than a few weeks.  He burned all his bridges with family and friends.  Then, after ending up in a homeless shelter 6 hours from home, he joined the Army.  It was a struggle but he overcame everything that came his way and graduated boot camp and AIT.  He paid his back child support.  I thought things were on the upswing for him

Then he came home this weekend for his son's birthday.  He brought his girlfriend (I'd met her once).  In the midst of party preparation he dropped the news completely out of the blue that they had gotten married.  That's right.  I said married.  And he can't understand why I am upset that I found out after the fact.

I hope that one day he can understand the why.  I really don't know how to explain it to him so that he'll understand.  I hope that his understanding isn't brought about by the actions of his own children.

I don't know right now when or if I'll get over this.  Even if I don't, I really hope this works out for him simply because I don't want him hurt.  He may have hurt me but he is my son and I would protect him from pain in any way I could.

Thank you, God

Tonight will be a short post...today was an even longer day than yesterday if that's possible!  Darn full moon strikes again.

I want to give a shout out to Kate, my one and only follower...thanks to her, I had 44 page views yesterday!  I guess I better start writing interesting stuff, huh?

No news on the Hawaii front today.  Not surprising since it's a holiday weekend.  For these few days I'm concentrating on work, homework, and my grandson's birthday party on Monday.  My plan is to call them on Tuesday.

For those of you who are walking into this in the middle (which is similar to turning on the tv in the middle of a show), the cliff notes version is while we are definately planning to move in June, my dream job popped up on my search engine last month so it was decided that I'd apply for it.  The job is a residency program for seasoned critical care nurses to cross train to ER.  Anyway, I've passed a pharmacology test and had a phone interview with the educator and now I'm waiting on a video interview to be set up.  Waiting a long time and getting frustrated.  I just keep telling myself that what happens is what is supposed to happen and even if I don't get this job, we are definately going to Hawaii in June.  Did I accidently pray for patience?!

I did learn one thing today.  I went to work today with the mindset that I may as well have a positive attitude because positive or negative I was going to have to be there anyway.  What I learned was that when I have thoughts like that, God likes to have a little giggle at my expense.  All in good fun, right?  Everytime I turned around, something new was thrown at me making it very hard to keep that smile glued in place.  Gotta love Him, right?  The smile is still there, albeit a little crooked, and I have only one more day to work before my days off.

Take time to laugh today.  Tell someone you appreciate them.  And in the words of my grandma (as said to me everytime I complained about something):  "Have you thanked God for that?"

Peace.