Post-Equinox

For the first time in a long time, I can't wait for winter. I don't know if it's my advancing age or living here in the north amongst the wilderness and hippies, but I'm getting that whole "in-tune-with-the-seasons" thing going.

This summer was a little exhausting. I really should be smacked for saying that, since I didn't work until August, but it just felt really hectic. And then once I did start working, it felt like Kevin and I were always, always busy. We'd plan on a stay-at-home weekend, then something would come up here, another thing would come up there, and before we knew it our schedule was full. Don't get me wrong, we had fun and I'm so, so glad we have made so many wonderful friends up here, but I am dying for a quiet, snowed-in weekend, just us and some movies and craft projects.

Work is going well, I suppose. I'm starting to get IVs down, although today I tried to start an IV on someone who apparently has concrete coating his veins. When I finally gave up and pulled out the catheter (the needle doesn't stay in, it's just to get through the skin and hopefully the vein), there was no blood on it and it looked like I had jammed it into the wall. Mad skills, yo. But my success rate is slowly improving. I'm trying to keep telling myself to give myself a year to get comfortable in my job--I'm a new nurse, it's a tough specialty--but I'm not great about being patient with myself. I do my chemo certification at the end of the month and once I start doing chemo as well, I'm sure my comfort level will plummet again. But I've got great teachers working with me.

I'll switch to part-time once I'm done training, probably some time in November. It will be awesome to get that extra time back, especially as we start working on the house, but I'm worried about the drop in income. My full-time nurse's paycheck has been pretty nice. But we'll manage. We know how to live poor, and it's only uphill from there. And Kevin has a fantastic job that he absolutely loves, working for a really great guy who builds and restores fine wooden boats. So we're pretty solid, all in all.

I know this is incredibly sappy and unlike me, but I often kind of marvel at how lucky we've been, to move up to this little economically depressed town in rural northern Wisconsin and both find really good jobs right out of school. I think we're definitely home, our little family with our dog and cats. Especially doing what I do, I know that lightning can strike any time and the odds are decent that someday, hopefully a long time from now, it will. But right here and right now, we're happy. Perfection? No, but for now it's pretty damn good.