zOMFingG eeeeeee!!!!

I tried to sleep in a bit this morning since I had two days off this week and the first one I got up early to go to spinning with one of my friends/coworkers. I woke up earlier than I would have liked (but after my alarm went off, cause that’s how I roll on my days off) because the old people taxi driver was knocking on the front door for my MIL. *sigh* So while I’m laying in bed someone calls me from a number not in my contact list so I didn’t answer. Yes, I screen calls routinely. They left a message and it was from the person I mailed my resume and cover letter to on Jan 2nd at my first choice company to work as a nurse practitioner in an ER which is also my first choice of job. In her message she said that she wanted to talk to me about an opportunity. EEEEEEEEEEE! (and that’s really what I said too, while I listened to the message in bed, in my pjs with my night time chew toy still in) I was glad I hadn’t answered it because I would have sounded like a moron with my mouth piece in and still fuzzy and somewhat asleep.

So I got up and called Hubbin. And my mom. And was still flipping out excited, and I hadn’t even talked to her yet. I know you’re supposed to be like all tough and negotiating and whatnot when you job interview, but what if it’s at your first choice company in your first choice location that’s half the distance to your house from your current job, and you know who your boss will be, and the starting salary is posted online. I mean, there’s not much really to negotiate?

Anyway, that’s how this went down, when I finally talked to her on the phone she said she spoke with the director at the hospital I’ve been offered about bringing me in for an interview, and he was formally the director at the hospital I’m at now and she said he said (I know, I’m sorry, all convoluted but necessarily vague) “Interview? I don’t need to interview her, I know her, and she’s excellent, and I want to offer her a position immediately” — I about died with excitement and butterflies when she told me this. I mean seriously, she had me at “hello” (lol) but then to go on about how my future boss already thinks I’m fabulous — alright, no negotiating, I’m a sucker, sign me up.

There is a catch though. I’m signed up for a review course in the middle of June and was planning on taking my boards at the end of June, but this position would start July 1 so I’d need to be ready to roll. certified nationally and licensed by the state and who knows how long all that paperwork takes to go through. Which is going to require me redoing my whole boards review plan I had somewhat vaguely worked out. The lady I talked to today advised me to take boards immediately after graduating in May. So essentially I’ve gone from, not really planning on applying until after I had taken and passed boards at the end of June. To applying in January. Getting a job offer in February and now trying to redo my whole entire leisurely summer plan to make this all go down & taking boards at the beginning of May. sheesh. This is intense. The problem with working steady weekends is I’m not able to take a different weekend off for a review course other than what I signed up for in November (That’s when nurses pick their vacations for the following year incase you didn’t know, planning planning planning). I did get as far as calling the review company after I spoke with the lady and they’ll switch me to an online review course for a $25 fee, so that’s not all that bad actually. My head is just totally spinning with all the changes and possibilities right now.

How am I supposed to concentrate on writing a paper now?!?!?!?

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.

So Much & So Little

I was actually toying with just waiting til a whole year had passed before updating again. I’d like to promise I’m going to update more regularly now but clearly I shouldn’t. The sad thing is so little has changed since my last post I haven’t really felt the need or desire to post much.

I’m going to try to post more often for sure, because I feel like I probably need an outlet for some things I have bouncing around in my head at all times… but we’ll see how it goes.

The hard thing is while it seems like so little has changed since my last update, I’m still killing myself at school, I’m still working at the same job, we’re still trying to get pregnant, so much has changed or evolved since then it’s hard to know where to begin when posting. My mother in law lives with us full time, but is in a rehab place right now after falling and breaking her arm. We’ve got our fertility specialist follow up appointment Monday after completing the full work up last cycle. I had to rearrange my school schedule a bit due to circumstances beyond my control but am hoping to double up in the spring to keep my May graduation date. I’m still working at the same job, in the same place but have managed to change my status to steady weekends so now I only work weekends to help with school. On one hand I feel like my organization skills and getting things accomplished are at a level that they never have been before, but I’ve gotten way worse at keeping in touch with anyone I don’t see regularly (my blog included).

I’ve got some not-yet-well-fleshed-out self improvement goals I’m trying to work on in between but self-reflection is definitely tied in there somewhere and why I’m going to try and resurrect my blog. Unfortunately one of my most very top stress inducing items right now and the one that occupies most of my mind at pretty much all times is infertility, so I feel like I need to warn you that that will probably be a main topic of discussion – especially as I try and work through my feelings about all of this.

Snippets

A few snippit thougts from my day so far:

1: I got a clean bill of teeth health from the dentist today (it’s only my third visit so he’s still the new dentist for me). Although I refused to have my teeth x-rayed. They told me it’s their policy to xray every 6months. Are you joking? If you can’t find my cavities with your pick and I’m not complaining of pain, then they’re too small for you to be hunting with an xray. Period. I let you have an xray on my first visit, you’re done.

2: while attempting to find a dress for the wedding we’re going to in two weeks: I have small boobs and a big ass. Every dress is too big around my boobs OR way too tight on my ass. Perhaps I should have been taking my diet more seriously. I’m not a fan of shopping.

Chopped

So I’m getting my hair cut today (for the first time in what has to be 9 months *ashamed*) she cut off about 4-5 inches of my naturally curly and obstinate hair and said “your hair just has a total mind of it’s own doesn’t it?”

Oh, you noticed? Be glad you only have to put up with it for an hour!

Now she has me sitting under the dryer

Snowing again

Not as easy to tell as I had hoped but the snow is up to my side mirror along the road. And it’s snowing again. Fab. I’m spending a few nights at my parents because they live closer to work in the event things get out of hand again. Were forecasted another 6 or so inches tonight on top of the 2 feet we have.

Blizzard 2010

For once the snow started right about on schedule… early afternoon. I got off work (thank god) at 730pm and started my way home. Any later in the evening and I might have been stranded at the hospital all weekend. By the time I left work we had probably around 4-5inches:

The ride home was harrowing. I have AWESOME snow tires and might have made it home without so much as an adrenaline rush if it weren’t for the other yahoos on the road. I don’t know what’s wrong with people. There’s no happy medium in heavy snow. You’ve got the pussys going 5 miles per hour on the highway (not always in the right hand lane either) and then the fools in the pick-up trucks going 50.

There was the one particular asshole (that’s right, I said it) in a pickup truck that I just couldn’t seem to get rid of on the way home. He clearly had a rearwheel drive truck and bad tires because he was fishtailing on the straight aways even. He barely had control over his car and was fishtailing into the right lane while he was attempting to PASS PEOPLE. I would have been SOOOO pissed if he had hit my car. On more than one occasion I was stopped at a red light and had to leave a full empty car length in front of me so that when he tried to start his car again he wouldn’t swing over into mine. UGH. I was a ball of nerves by the time I got home. I fortunately didn’t work for the rest of the weekend and still have a few more days off so I haven’t had to worry about getting to work, but good lord I swear Friday night I woke up like 8 times in the middle of the night worried I was late for work!

Here’s what we woke up to the next day:

Hubbin even shoveled parts of the driveway before bed (can you see where he shoveled?)

And he shoved the deck off before bed cause he was worried about the weight of the snow.

Then here’s the clearing process:

Some kid came by and said “Can I shovel your driveway for $20?” we agreed and then snickered behind the closed door about the deal of the century. We ended up paying him $40 because our driveway is deceptively large. When he finished he said “uhhh, could I up it to $30? That was a lot bigger than I thought” lol Here’s the kid just starting his job (the driveway actually goes all the way over the the phone pole):

His shoveling made possible our going out to Barnes & Nobel for a starbucks today and to pick up some extra food from walmart, which did not include eggs because apparently eggs are essential to surviving any winter storm. This is the egg section all bare (because god forbid you go without an omelet for 24hours til they clear the snow):

Shopping

Since Hubbin announced  that they think his mother has Alzheimers he’s become a bit more serious about the possibility of us buying a newer or bigger house and her moving in with us. We went through this phase last summer with this house we liked a mile or so away from us… but she wasn’t ready to move out of her house. Now she’s game so Hubbin’s been shopping around a bit and there’s a house we both like (MIL hasn’t seen it yet) and we’ve been to see it now with our temporary real estate agent…

Today though is the moment I’m dreading… The real estate agent is going to come take a look at our house, and tell us what we’ve got to do to try an sell it. Why I’m dreading this? Because I do believe our house was on the market >1year before we bought it and I think it’s going bring our dreams of buying this new house to a screeching halt while we wait for someone to take an interest in our house.

I’d love to move, I’m not crazy about our house for many reasons I didn’t think would be important to me at the time we moved in. For instance, our house was built in the 1870s and as such has only makeshift closets, 1 full bathroom (well technically it has two but the one is in the dungeon like basement with the man eating spiders — right next to the laundry) our kitchen is oh… 12×7 with approximately 3 square feet of counter space. The house we went to look at is one Hubbin found online. Also an old house… but more like 1920/30s so it’s considerably newer. It’s essentially a flipped house by some dude that works with a construction company and likes restoring old houses. I saw it for the first time last night and frankly, it’s swoon worthy. 2nd floor laundry! Squee! new kitchens and bathrooms! — he clearly made two of the bedrooms into bathrooms. He finished the attic to make a 4th bedroom and the second full bathroom. New furnace, new windows, new floors on and on…. the two big draw backs are 1. no attached garage (he would build a brand new detached one on as part of the sale conditions) and 2. Its right nextdoor to a funeral home (which I would mind much less if they didn’t keep their gigantic parking lot roped off round the clock…

I was chuckling last night when Hubbin was describing to his mother where it is in relation to our house and it does *honestly* sit right next to the funeral home and then a block on the other side is the cemetary 😉 lol… His mother said “well good you can just wheel me next door then when the time comes”. Hubbin did tell her it’s right down the road from an assisted living center also if she gets too rowdy :-p

The other draw back… okay so three I guess… is that this does not have a finished basement apartment like the one we looked at last summer or the more expensive one we looked at two weeks ago so my mother in law would either take a portion of the second floor or it would be possible to close off the living room area for her on the first floor. So that’s obviously not ideal… however it would be favorable to her living in our current dining room that you have to walk through to get into or out of the house. So well see….

I’m making an effort to post this now before the meeting tonight just because then there’s less to update… plus it was definitely favorable with the temperature “issue” a couple weeks ago to do a play by play rather than try to summarize 3 weeks later when I finally remembered to blog about it.

62

It’s 62 out right now! Feels amazing considering we just had flurries less than a week ago. I spent 1.5 hours walking around the lake and enjoying the air. I think I need to spend more time outdoors. Just in general. Shame I’m coming to this conclusion in late October

Multiple complaints

I can’t believe both my computer and my gecko broke in the same day.

Of course my computer couldn’t break in the middle of July it had to start on the FIRST DAY OF CLASS! After a trip to best buy where the very geeky geek squad dude literally just laid his hands on it and it made it all the way through boot up allowing us to load the windows recovery disk. Hopefully it will be in working order soon. Because classes have started and I have many an online obligation to attend to.

Then tonight we noticed the girl gecko wasn’t moving quite right and was sluggish. I soaked her for a while helped get the shed off of her toes and then moved her to a private shoebox with some deep fresh warm bedding, Hubbins going to take her to the fancy reptile store tomorrow to see if they can offer insight. :-/. Here she is in a photo a few months ago showing off her pretty colors: