Reasons For Hope

Since we need a little optimism I was doing some thinking and thought of a few things that I should to keep in mind to be hopeful and excited for the future.

#1: I am probably going to graduate from NP school in May

Back when I met Hubbin I was working in research but research doesn’t make very much money. My original plan in college was a career in research which would require me to get a PhD and move on from there — only after working in a lab for a few years, while I liked it, and still miss it sometimes I decided the PhD business wasn’t for me. I couldn’t pick a concentration and didn’t want the rest of my life to be defined by grant writing. I made the decision to go back to school but wasn’t sure for what. Medical school, which is probably what I would have done if I had some better advising in high school and college, was kind of out of the question because of my GPA from college. I never really wanted to be a nurse, but was interested in being an NP or PA to be sort of a mini doctor. So the breakdown went as follows: PA program for 2 years and done but I couldn’t work during it and would need to take out loans for school. OR NP school. To do NP school though, first you need to go to nursing school and a bachelors in nursing is required for entrance. So I needed to do nursing school, get a BSN, then go to the masters program, which would take a lot longer but I would be able to work the whole time.

Since Hubbin and I were engaged and getting ready to start out lives together, I made the decision to go the nursing route, mainly for financial reasons. We didn’t want to take on huge debt for school at the same time we were trying to buy a house and everything. Which sucks. Because I’ve been working full time and going to school part to full time since 2005 (really, with the prerequisites for nursing school – Nursing school actually started in January about 6 months after we got married)

So just think: The ENTIRE time we’ve been together I’ve been working and going to school full time. How nice is it going to be when I will just have 1 job! We both talk about how the best part of being on vacation together is getting to finally spend time together. The thing to be excited about is that the more time I spend with Hubbin the happier I am and the more I love him. It might just feel like vacation all the time once I’m out of school!

#2: I’m going to graduate loan free

Which I consider to be a HUGE accomplishment in and of itself

I have completely busted my butt and dealt with a lot of comments from Hubbin but this is totally going to pay off. I don’t mean it like that per say I mean we both agreed it was the route to go, but it is hard for Hubbin to 100% avoid reminding me that he pays ALL the bills. He pays EVERYTHING, my pay check goes towards fun activities, vacations, dates, and a weekly allowance for both of us. Otherwise I squirrel it away in my savings so I can write a check for a few thousand dollars each and every semester.

Between my tuition benefit from working full time, and choosing to go the cheapest route possible for nursing school (community college) I was able to finish nursing school by paying cash. While I was doing that I took a slight pay cut moving from research to being a nursing aide. But I thought the experience would be important to job hunting (and it was, because I was offered my nursing job in my same department about 5 months before I graduated). THEN I started my job as a nurse and got about a — $13,000 a year raise by moving from an aid to a RN. I enrolled in a BSN-MSN program the soonest start date after I graduated and paid about $15,000 in tuition to get my BSN. So we never felt that raise. The month after I finished the BSN I started the nurse practitioner program and I’m just ending and my bill is $33,000, so the entire time I’ve been working as a nurse we’ve still only been getting the same income as from when I was an aide really…. When I start working as an NP I’ll get an approximate $20 – $30,000 a year raise from my salary now… SO if you add that on to the raise I got when I was a nurse that we’ve never really felt the benefit from me finishing nursing school in the first place. So:

#3: It’s going to feel I’m getting a roughly $50,000 a year raise when I get a new job. (Holy shit!)

And

(Which I am both excited and nervous about): One of my coworkers in the ER who is a PA now is encouraging me to apply to jobs over Christmas break because the ER company is hiring lots of PAs & NPs right now. EEK! So:

#4: There is the potential to have a job lined up for me before I even graduate.

My friend who graduated last year said no one was too interested in talking to her in interviews until she had passed her boards, but my friend who is encouraging me to apply says they hired her before she passed her boards. My original plan was to leisurely take boards maybe around August after I graduated since I have this awesome weekend only gig at work now which I’ll be sad to leave. BUT this is causing me to need to seriously reevaluate this and really just the thought of taking boards makes me a little nauseated, I’m not going to lie. The plus side is if I can get a job lined up to start in August then I might be able to quit my current job in July and Hubbin and I could take a nice long vacation or just enjoy a long time together (since he’s a teacher).

and PS:

I believe we are a ‘go’ this month for the first unmedicated IUI. I called the clinic to let them know we were planning on doing it. The only issue would be if it needs to be a weekend. The clinic is open but my mandatory 12 hour shifts would prevent me from going in at all. So. Cross your fingers for a nice Sunday- Thursday positive OPK.

The Sniper

I’m still in the limbo of my period not being late with this suspicion of knocked upedness hanging over my head. The past few days I keep pulling up my temperature chart and studying it and then thinking “seriously? Is this possible?” I peed on a stick today and it was a resounding negative.

I honestly wasn’t really sure what to say to Hubbin if anything. I mean I had warned him I was dangerous at the time and he’s got this cold/flu thing going on now and stayed home from work on Monday and today. He texted me at work sometime on Monday asking me whether I caught it from him or not. I said “well my temperature was high this morning so I’m either getting sick or pregnant” he didn’t respond.

Then today after school I went grocery shopped and stopped at the liqour store and got him a present (we usually have a glass of wine or two after I’m done with classes on Tuesday) of some Jameson figuring “well when he asks me why I got something just for him I’ll just say ‘well there’s this possibility…'”

But before that happened he came over and gave me a welcome home hug and said “You know… Earlier this week when you said you were either getting sick or pregnant I got kind of excited…” I said “really?!” he said “yeah” and I said “cause I might be”…. I explained (just roughly because he doesn’t really want to hear the finer points of FAM) that there was a possibility but it was still too early to know for sure. He got excited and started jumping around saying we can call him “The Sniper” cause he just needs one shot. Lol

So now that I guess were both hoping it’s true the wait intensifies… I think we’ll begin a chart play by play:

Summer Review

Aww thanks Ashley 🙂 Nice to know I’ve been missed (PS, can you let me read your blog again? I miss knowing what you guys are up to)

I took a blogging hiatus mainly because I felt like I had nothing to talk about and due to school I was just a giant pool of negativity. Rather than post nothing but whining I thought maybe I should take a break.

June– Stu’s dad came for Stu’s graduation from our school district and stayed for about a week. Hubbin looooooved Stu’s dad and promptly announced he wanted to adopt Stu’s dad for a year too. I told him we couldn’t just go adopting every German that swings by. We saw little of Stu his last couple weeks in the US because he was hanging out with his friends and getting in all the last minute social stops and graduation parties he could. We dropped Stu off at the drop off point on June 26th where he went to debrief for 3 days before flying home. All in all, Stu was a wonderful kid to have for a first exchange student because he was so pleasant and easy going. I’m quite sure we’ll have another one in the next few years. Fortunately I’m off the hook this year because Hubbin successfully recruited one of his German students to host another kid. Whew.

July– We celebrated our 3 year wedding anniversary 🙂 Then the next day I dropped Hubbin off at the airport for THREE WEEKS in Germany. Being a teacher is a very rough life. I finished my summer classes July 14th (finally!) My heart was just so not in the classes this summer and I felt guilty because I felt like I didn’t learn enough. I got ‘A’s in both of them but I did feel like I wasted a lot of time especially with my Advanced Assessment class. After school finished I essentially worked a lot in July and cleaned the whole house really well since there was no one to come around behind me and mess it all up. 😉 I swept swiffered and mopped each room in the whole house 🙂 and it stayed nice and clean until the day Hubbin got home and his suitcase exploded in the living room. Hubbin had horrible flight karma on the way home and missed his flight from DC to home by 5 minutes and then the next flight was delayed because of weather then delayed again and again, so instead of picking him up at 5pm in the afternoon my mom ended up picking him up at 2am because I had to get up for work at 5am the next day. Alls well that ends well but it was highly irritating to be looking forward to pick him up for THREE weeks and then barely get to see him at all when he got home.

August (so far)- I’m finally on my summer vacation and we just spent 5 days in Nice, France 🙂 We liked it so much on our cruise last year that we thought it would be a nice place for a summer vacation 🙂 I know it seems like a short trip but I was trying to be budget conscious with booking it 😉 It was very nice, we had a lovely time and every time we go on a vacation together where we can relax and aren’t distracted by our computers and TV and actually hang out together and reconnect I’m reminded of how well we fit together.

Now hopefully I can get back to posting more regularly without all the whining.—that may be a little optimistic though because my classes start again in two weeks and I registered for 14credits. Correct me if I’m wrong but wasn’t this a part time program I signed up for? I thought so. Oh well, I’ll be finished with the BSN in December and then I solomnly swear I will register for no more than 8 credits the rest of the program!

Ahhh

Spring break began at 7:30pm tonight and I have the next three days off work. Excellent planning on my part! I got 100% on my graduate statistics midterm (nerd I know, but she also totally spoon feeds us) and I presented my final project for my 1/2 semester community health nursing class -on teens and caffeine- and got an A, woohoo! That was 20% on my grade. I hope I got an A, that would be awesome because I hated that class. Then I went to walmart and bought groceries to cook for the rest of the week on my days off, so I’m feeling exceptionally accomplished. Tonight Stu is staying with a family in another school district so he can give a speech at their school tomorrow. So we are without child also. This is how I’m celebrating: glass of wine on the couch next to Hubbin (He’s prepping for work tomorrow – teacher with lots of jazzy powerpoints).

Hubbin and I had sort of an emotional week, so this makes a nice ending/break for me and us.

My Gift

This weekend was my Christmas.

In lieu of a physical gift this year Hubbin booked us a night at the bed and breakfast where we got married.

So we dumped the kid at my parents house, went out for a nice dinner… then spent 2.5 hours watching The Sex and the City Movie while soaking in hot water in the bathroom of our room(yes together, and Hubbin confessed to even liking the movie!). A perfect evening all around!

Oops

We got tired of comcast raising our bill each month and got dish network a few months ago and got their DVR as we were addicted to our comcast DVR. Unfortunately the dish DVR is the least user friendly electronic I’ve ever interacted with Hubbin was bitch bitch bitching about it the other night and why won’t it just effing record Brotherhood for me. So he tossed me the remote and asked me to set it up while he took a shower. So I fiddled for a while and it started recording right at 9oclock.

Tonight I’m brushing my teeth and here shouting in the living room something about why did I erase our DVR. I shout down “I didn’t! I just recorded
Brotherhood for you!” “you did and then it recorded the next 72 straight hours over everything that we had saved!”

Oops. I didn’t mean too. I’m a little angry that I lost all the episodes of the shows I like to watch that I was about a month behind on >:(. Dexter, Californication, Weeds…. All gone.

Oh So Manly

Like previous falls it seems a few young squirrels have found their way into our attic. And like past falls we’re actively setting traps so we can relocate them two miles down the road to the lake/park.

Today I walked into the garage to get something out of my trunk while Hubbin was at work, and I heard a rattling on one of the shelves and saw a spazzy young squirrel had fallen for the old peanut-butter-in-a-trap trick and found himself locked in a metal cage. I sent Hubbin a photo and a text praising him as Hunter Gatherer Man of the year and my how manly and brave his hunting skills are.

I was upstairs folding laundry at the top of the stairs when Hubbin got home and he came inside and called “Frau!” jumping to the third step landing putting his fists on his hips and puffing out his chest “have you seen my trophy squirrel?!” looking side to side chest out with mock pride.

Not to worry squirrel activists, the little guy will be released in the park two miles away unharmed albeit majorly wigged out.

Swiffer

SSFB: “…as you walk across the freshly swiffered floor. I even dusted the tops of the door frames.”

Hubbin: “Aww you love me.”

SSFB: “I just want to get laid.”

Hubbin: “I’ll settle for that.”

Celebrity Summit

Last honeymoon entry I SWEAR!

Long story short, we would definitely go on another cruise. We were very pleased with Celebrity, it was clean with excellent service. We ended up in a small interior room on the lowest floor and it was fantastic. Not for everyone probably, but for someone who may want to sleep in on days when the ship is at sea it was fantastic. There were sea days where we slept till 2pm, then got up and found lounge chairs pool side and laid down to read/eat for an hour then fall back asleep for the rest of the afternoon. Exactly what a vacation should be like in my opinion. We were lucky that the entire trip there was only one thunder/lighting night and really you almost never felt the ship moving. (except at the beginning of the trip when I was incredibly nauseated to begin with and could practically talk myself into feeling the movement)

Barcelona, Spain

Now it was time to bid our ship goodbye in Barcelona. Being as this was our honeymoon and Hubbin had some specific goals for Barcelona when he booked the trip, he booked us an extra night in Barcelona before we would fly home. It was a verrrrry nice hotel and it seem exceptionally lush after two weeks in our little closet cruise ship room. He used to have a Spanish girlfriend so he’d been to Spain a few times and more than anything this time in Spain he wanted to visit La Sagrada Familia. So that’s what we did. While consulting tour books in our hotel I decided I wanted to visit the Gothic Quarter and La Rambla. Fortunately our hotel was pretty much in between all those, so even though we vowed to treat ourselves to cab rides, we still ended up walking nearly everywhere. Here’s a traffic sign Hubbin decided means “It is now ok to run down pedestrians with bicycles”. I’ll go ahead and admit I was not really looking forward to La Sagrada Familia, but I was completely impressed. In awe really. We ended up spending several hours there and I’ll just give you the two minute overview on what it’s all about. So Gaudi was an architect who is famous for his “overdone” style (where we get gaudy from). And he set out to build this enormous cathedral that told the story of Jesus Christ. You need a lot of time to sit an look at it, but nearly every story you can think of in the bible is represented in the architecture. This particular side is “the nativity” side. The church is really only maybe 40% built at this point and is still actively under construction. I was pretty surprised how much Hubbin enjoyed it, since he’s generally anti-religion. He said if he had visited this church in his younger days it may have made him a religious man, that the kind of impact this had. Inside the church is a really neat effect. Gaudi found inspiration of religion in nature and really tried to bring that into the church. His pillars are supposed to look like redwood trees. They REALLY do. You would get the distinct impression that you’re attending church in a forest when you came here to worship. Especially when all the stain glass windows are installed it really gives the impression of light filtering down through the trees. We’ve decided we’re going to make another pilgramage back when the church is finished… of course we may be in our 70s by then and traveling with grandchildren… We had a good time strolling down La Rambla but were a little confused about what we were supposed to be thinking. There’s lots of gypsies and stands set up in the middle where people are selling everything from flowers to live animals. We saw chipmunks, ducks, bunnies, turtles, hedgehogs and so forth. There was a distinct black-market quality about it all. We obviously made no purchases. The gothic quarter we just sort of wandered into. I was expecting gothic buildings and for it to be a bit more like Venice, but it seemed to be more like Barcelona’s shopping mall, full of teenagers and buildings transformed into H&M. We had a lovely time in Barcelona, but we were quite ready to head home the next day 🙂 it had been a long and wonderful trip.