Goodbye 2010!

I can't believe how quickly the year has gone by! So much has happened...

• November 2009 I landed my first job as a RN and moved to WV, where I was all by myself.
• I made some wonderful friends.
• I cared for actively dying patients...and those experiences have changed me forever.
• Jared made the decision to move to WV in March 2010.
• Jared spent a few days in the hospital with a mysterious rash/illness.
• My mom came to visit me in WV, and we spent my birthday/the fourth of July in Washington, DC.
• In August Jared moved to ND to go back to school, and I was prepared to spend the fall, winter and spring in WV all by myself...but then I landed a job back in MN!
• I moved in with a friend from work while I got ready to move back to MN...and it made saying goodbye to WV very hard.
• I moved in with my parents, temporarily, and started a new job in September.
• We went on a vacation to Cozumel, Mexico.
• Got exposed to Hepatitis C.
• Scored a SECOND job! Though, I don't start for another couple of weeks.
• Jared and I recently had our first experience dealing with unexpected damage to our house.
  

I had a rough couple of months making the adjustment moving back to MN...but since moving back into my own house I am much happier. This year has had some challenges, but was also filled with many blessings. I'm so excited to see what the next 365 days have in store for Jared and me!!!

I moved, again!

About a month ago, I officially moved back into my house.

I have now moved four times in 14 months. I am so much happier now then I was when I was living at my parents house. It's not that I hated living at my parents house, but I was cooped up in a 9x10 foot room most of the time and it just got to be depressing. I missed having my own space, and kitchen to cook in.

My sister is still living with me...she will be moving out when Jared is finished with the school year and is back in Minnesota.

Although I LOVE my house...right now Jared and I are feeling pretty discouraged. After spending the Christmas holiday with his family we came home to find severe ice dams on our house and water damage in four rooms.





It's a little hard to tell, but the ceiling on one of the bedrooms was water stained & was starting to sag. We had water dripping out of a light fixture, and paint bubbling and pealing in our upstairs bathroom & spare bedroom.

I would have to say this is the first time as home owners we have had to deal with the unexpected...thankfully Jared has been around to help and was able to get some of the snow off the roof himself and things have begun to dry out. As I type this, there are people on my roof removing ice dams and our insurance adjuster suggested we wait until spring to make a claim so that we can include any roof damage that may have occurred.

All I can say, is that I am very thankful Jared and I have been able to save a little money over the past few months and that I had over 30 hours of overtime on my last paycheck. Ice dam removal is not cheap.

What's in your purse?

True story: I walked into Target with these items peaking out of my purse.

I didn't realize they were there until I swung my purse off my shoulder and into the cart. Then I was frantically trying to rip the tag of the snowman because I wasn't sure where my mom had bought it and it looked like a Target item...as for the massive lighter, it was for lighting birthday candles. LOL.

I have to say these are probably not the weirdest items I have ever carried around with me. In high school, I found heavy duty industrial inlaid scissors in my purse and I could remember why I had put them there...

Source

I'm talking big, heavy, metal ones...

Pet Names

This post is not about pets in the animal form. It is about a person that I treat with special favor, my husband. The Husband.

Jared and I started dating December 14th, 2004. So naturally, over the past six years, I have called him a lot of names. I will spare you from the inappropriate ones, and give you a list of a few that I use on a regular basis...

• Jerry: Often used when I lovingly tell him how ridiculous he is being right before I flash him a loving smile, of course. "Oh Jerry..."
  
• Jiggles/Jiggly J: I think the first time I used this nickname I was being snarky, but it made us both laugh...of course there are other reasons why this nickname has stuck. It's catchy, he likes to jiggle his man-parts in front of me (TMI???), and sometimes when he laughs really deeply his belly jiggles and it's very enduring because it signals to me that he still finds me amusing.
  
• J and J.J.: His initials.
  
• J-la: This one has lost a lot of steam, and is usually only used in my private thoughts when I am perfectly content, and thinking about how happy I am.
  
• J-Love: This is new, and stemmed from a random thought I had about J-Lo. I'm interested to see where this one goes...
  
• Nancy/Negative Nancy: I gave him this nickname around the time he started calling me Margo. As is Margo from National Lampoons Christmas Vacation...aka an insult! At the time, I also thought he was becoming more negative...so I began calling him this very frequently because I knew it would eventually get on his nerves, and I could bargain with him. I offered to stop calling him Nancy if he stopped calling me Margo. All is far in love and war, right?!
  
• Honey and Babe: Used ALL.THE.TIME. Especially when I want something from him ;) But seriously, I probably call him babe or honey more than I use his first name.
  

Now here is a photo montage of my husband.

Work, Work, Work

I am blogging at 2 AM...why?

Because I am working a double.

Usually I work from 3 PM- 11:30 PM. Tonight I volunteered to not only work my normal shift, but stay an extra eight hours. At first I told them if they wanted me to stay then I wanted tomorrow off...but then I told them if they really needed me I would work my normal shift tomorrow evening as well.

No, I am not crazy.

I get paid hourly.

• Hours 0-8 = Regular pay
• Hours 8-12 = Time-and-a-half
• Hours 12-16 = Double pay

Enough said.

Plus: It doesn't hurt that night shift is usually pretty quiet, and that Pizza Lucé delievers until 2:30 AM.

Nevermind...

After writing that last post I upset myself even more and ended up calling Jared to tell him how hurt I was, only to find out he had been planning to come visit me all along...he just couldn't leave until this afternoon though because he had a basketball game last night, and his parents had come into town and needed help doing some shopping for their bathroom remodel.

As Jared would say...

"You always ruin all your surprises."

To which I reply...

"Then don't upset me so much!"

Jared and I are horrible at surprising one another. He can't surprise me without making me mad, and I can't just can't keep my mouth shut long enough to actually surprise him with something.

For the record: I still cried. As soon as he told me he was coming I bursted into tears of relief and between sobs I told him "Next time just tell me! I've wasted a lot of time being angry and hurt!"

Oh! BTW, Jared also has Monday off from school too :)

Bad Mood

Yesterday morning Jared found out he didn't have class on Friday. YAY for him! Because he also never has class on Thursday which means he has a four day weekend.

So what does this have to do with my bad mood? Well, I don't have to work Friday night, Saturday or Sunday and Jared is not using his time off to see me...and the part that hurts me the most is that I don't think he even considered it.

When we were still in WV, and he decided to Bismarck...I guess I was just led to believe Jared would use most of his free time to come visit me once I was able to get a job in the Twin Cities. Since relocating back to MN...I see him once every five weeks.

I feel like I have been really understanding, and supportive because my husband loves to hunt, and it's hunting season...He has gone to his parents (who live 2-1/2 hours away from Bismarck) almost every weekend since the middle of October and I haven't complained once because I know he will probably never have this opportunity again. But seriously, enough is enough.

So my plan is to pout for the rest of the afternoon. Shower. Go to work. Cry one more time. Then make some plans with friends, and celebrate payday by doing something nice for myself.

So Blessed

A little over a year ago, I moved to West Virginia to start my first job as RN after many months of job hunting...

Today, I am back in Minnesota, I work at "The Mad House," and I just accepted a offer for a second job.

My job at The Mad House is only a 0.8 FTE, meaning I work 32 hours per week. (For my non-nursing friends, most RN positions now-a-days are not a full 40 hours/week). I'm not entirely happy with my current job, so a few weeks ago I decided to look around for a second job thinking if I got my foot-in-the-door in another healthcare system in the Twin Cities that 1. it would be easier for my to apply for full-time positions on that organization, or 2. I would realize my job at The Mad House isn't so bad...

So my second job is just a casual position meaning I only have to work four shifts a month, but I can work more if I want to. The hospital is a little far away from where I live, and it's small, but the campus is beautiful and they do a lot it alternative therapies which I think is pretty cool.

My next obstacle is trying to find people to switch shifts/work for me so I can get my training in...I have some time though. I won't be starting until the middle of January.

Alternative Christmas

Source

This year, Jared and I have decided not to give each other Christmas gifts. In addition, we have also asked our parents not to buy us Christmas gifts either.

Jared and I feel incredibly blessed this year. Of course there are a few things we would like to have, but we want for nothing when it comes to our basic needs. We live a very simple life, and we like it that way.

When we began thinking about compiling Christmas lists this year, we honestly just couldn't think of anything we really wanted. At least not anything that is within our typical Christmas gifting budget. (The only thing we really want right now is to buy new furniture our living room...the stuff we own now is all used cost us about $50 total, lol). So we've decided that rather than buying a lot of small, frivolous gifts for each other that we would instead take that money, and buy gifts for Toys-for-Tots, and to make donations to other individuals/families/charities that are in need this holiday season.

Source

We've also asked our parents that rather than buying us gifts that they donate to individuals who have greater needs than our own. We made a few suggestions on how they could do this, but also encouraged them to consider a cause that was important to them.

Of course we realize that giving gifts to loved ones can bring a person a lot of joy, so we also told our parents that if they felt so inclined to buy us a gift in addition to making donation in our honor, we would like the gift to remain under $20.

I LOVE Christmas...but I have to admit, in recent years I have had a more consumeristic attitude towards the holiday season rather than actually celebrating its true meaning- the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ. So I guess this year, Jared and I are hoping shift our focus and get back to the true meaning of Christmas by celebrating in a alternative way.