Nicaragua!

Is back on the agenda for Joe! For 5 days in May he'll be heading out on a mission trip with fellow Nurses, senior nursing students, MDs and medical students. The Professor organizing the trip purchased the plane tickets over the weekend and get a great deal, so it's officially on. I blogged about this trip in more detail here. I'm nervous to have him gone but so excited for him to experience this trip. By May he'll have graduated and most likely taken and passed the NCLEXs so he'll be traveling as a certified BSN, RN. I KNOW he'll get so much out of giving back!

Taking Back My Living Room...

AND my kitchen, AND my office.

I swear, the one small(ish) person in our home has somehow completely taken over the space. There is a fort in the living room that has taken over at last 25% of the space, the ottomans from the family room have been moved into the remaining space and set with placemats, coasters and pretend menus to transform the remaining space into a restaurant by this same little person. There's also a double stroller for dolls that somehow got ditched here after taking some babies for a stroll. You can't even WALK in this room to get to the thermostat and turn up the heat or feed the fish. It's ridiculous and it's driving me crazy. So that is my overriding mission for this weekend, I will TAKE BACK MY SPACE.

And if I accomplish my coup on the living room I'll attempt to regain control of the kitchen table from the piles of artwork, craft supplies, library books and school papers. Phase 3 will involve moving barbies out of the office and getting the myriad of half done and mostly forgotten art projects stealthily moved to the bottom of the recycling bin for Monday's trash pick-up.

Oh and don't let me forget that Little One needs to get booted out of the guest room and back into her own bedroom. Sometime during the week she decided she missed her old nursery (which we turned into the guest room) and I decided to let her sleep there for one night rather than continue arguing. Somehow one night turned into the whole week. Sheesh. Wish me luck!

Now what?

Busy day. Busy week. Busy mind. Full heart. And still the pull to add another little munchin to my family remains.

I am as professionally fulfilled as I could ever imagine possible right now. I'm in a place that as a new graduate 15 years ago (ugh that makes me feel old) with a degree in Visual Communication Design & Marketing newly under my belt I couldn't even have imagined.

Joe is 26 days and counting away from his last day of class. It feels so strange to think that chapter of our lives will be wrapping up. Joe studing, Joe going to class, Joe too tired or busy to do family activities, Joe working... again. Those constant refrains will end in 26 days. Whatever will we do with ourselves?

I feel like I have spent the last 4 years peering down a dark tunnel, knowing that if we just put our heads down and powered through good things would meet us on the other end. Then the light at the end of the tunnel started to glow. And now it is absolutely BLINDING, and I kind of wish for the safety of that tunnel again. It was safe, and small, and I knew what to expect. Now a whole new world is opening up to us, full of possibilities, experiences to be had, traveling to do... I don't know where to start!

Day 1

Today starts a new chapter for me professionally. Last week I accepted a promotion to Art Director.

I've mentioned before that I knew changes and a dept reorganization were coming soon but it really caught me off guard last week. I was prepped for my usual bi-weekly meeting with the VP of my dept., but when I walked into her office our HR rep was there and a whole lot of paperwork was on the desk. Now, if I hadn't been told multiple times over the past few months that good things were coming I think I would have had flashbacks to being laid off over 2 years ago. But this situation was obviously more positive. A nice flashy new title with a significant salary increase, 10 additional days of vacation, and let's not forget the pressure to live up to increased expectations. I still manage the same group of employees but there will be 3 new hires in the future that will help make my job more doable and allow me to concentrate my time and efforts on putting out good creative work.

We also ended up purchasing a new vehicle 2 weeks ago. We replaced Joe's ailing pick-up with a 2007 Hybrid Toyota Highlander which I am LOV-ING. My promotion eases some of the concern I had financially about taking on a car payment for the first time in 5 years.

So the year of big changes begin. Knock 2 items of the list, new car, new job... Hopefully other positive changes are not too far behind!

Looking back one last time before looking forward...

Looking Back...I tried to institute some new Christmas traditions this year that I hope will stick. Here are the keepers for next year:

- Go to 7pm mass instead of our usual 4:30. Much less crowded and the timing is better. We got home around 8:30 just in time to put out cookies for Santa and tuck a fairly tired little one into bed.

- Dinner on Christmas Eve was fondue. I made it for the first time ever and it was really fun. I made a traditional Swiss fondue and served it with cubes of pumpernickel bread (next time I would toast these, they were a little crumbly in the fondue), lightly steamed broccoli & cauliflower, sliced granny smith apples and chicken sausage sliced into rounds. YUMMY! Button mushrooms might be a good addition too.

- Christmas morning was the usual open stockings, eat a big breakfast, then open presents routine. No need to mess with that, it always works well.

Overall I would say we had a really good Christmas. We stayed in budget or under budget, which is good because our budget is being sucked dry in other areas right now. Joe seemed really happy with the gifts I got him (a new LL Bean henley, sleeping bag, and dri-fit work out shirt). I got some sparkly things and some techy (Apple) things, along with a new veggies slicer/cheese shredder that hooks onto my Kitchen Aid mixer. The man knows me too well!

New Year's Eve Joe was working 2nd shift at the hospital so it was just Little One and I at home and we basically treated it as any other ordinary evening. On New Year's Day I did make a big pancake breakfast but it was a pretty low key holiday.

Looking Forward: 2012 is full of possibility and potential.

- Joe will finish his BSN and hopefully be gainfully employed full-time for the first time in 4 years. We'll be back to double income, thank GOD!

- 1 or both of our vehicles will be replaced (Joe's truck has to be replaced soon, or we'll have to spend 2K on repairs that just aren't worth it on an 11 year old vehicle).

- My job is likely to change within the next month. Same company, just waiting for the new VP of our dept (my boss) to announce what her restructuring of our dept will look like and what my new job responsibilities will be.

- Baby #2 is back on the table. Joe and I have been talking. It's 2012 or never.

So here's to looking forward only from here on out... 2011 treated us well, but I am very much looking forward to what 2012 brings. I have a habit of writing my Christmas Card letter for the following year as an exercise during the first week of the new year. It becomes a wish list of what I hope I'll be able to say has happened in our family during the year. It feels a little less formulaic than writing a list of goals but it makes it easy for me to visualize the big goals I'm shooting for during the next 12 months. I don't share it with anyone, I just tuck it away as a reminder to myself and it's interesting to read at the end of the year and see how well it matches up with what has really happened in my life. If it doesn't make it into my "fake" Christmas card letter it's probably not all that important.

Is it vacation yet?

So much has happened in the last week. I think I'm going to list it all in a bulleted form or I'll start rambling and never document it all. Because I'm a fast typist my fingers can actually keep up with my thoughts this way, unlike in a pen & paper journal:

- last Wednesday Joe's Dad finally had an experimental heart valve replacement surgery at Mass General. He spent the last year meeting with the 4 teams that are part of the clinical trial at various hospitals and finding one that was willing to take him on as a patient. The he had to work with his insurance to get the survery covered and then finally travel to Boston to have all the pre-op testing that determined he was strong enough to undergo the surgery. Surgery was a success, he was moved out of the ICU last Friday and has been off oxygen since the surgery. Amazing. He has been on supplemental O2 24 hours a day for over a year now. So excited that things are progressing so well for him after such a long wait.

- Joe got confirmation that he got an A in the last class he was waiting to hear results on, which means he pulled a 4.0 during his toughest semester in 4 years. That also pulls his GPA up high enough that unless something horrible happens during his final class this spring he will graduate with honors "Cum Laude".

- Joe's mom finished up chemo treatment for Stage -4 Lymphoma with good results. The tumor they had been watching shrunk from 9cm to 5cm with 6 courses of chemo but she did not tolerate the chemo well at all. After every treatment she spent 3-4 days in the ICU. So her dr. is changing her treatment plan and is switching from chemo to radiation after the first of the year. Hopefully the more targeted approach will be better for her overall health.

- Joe's shoulder separation injury is improving each week, he's been able to go 24 hours without pain meds when he's not working which is great. He has good range of motion but still can't lift heavy things or bear much weight on it.

- On the home front, I finally got the tree up and decorated and all the other Christmas decorations are up. All the Christmas gifts are purchased and Santa's elves (aka FED-EX, UPS and the mail man) should be making the final deliveries this week. Christmas cards are out the door!

- Joe's truck is on it's last leg and is requiring a $2500 repair. The truck BADLY needs to be replaced. There is no point in my mind in sinking $2500 into an 11 year old truck, time to replace that baby but not until we have another paycheck rolling in. We're going to try to nurse it along until spring if possible.

- Little One has today and tomorrow in school and then is off for 2 weeks. yay!

- Just this morning I signed off on the final round of proofs for all of my projects at work that had to go to the printer before Christmas.

That's plenty for now. Hoping to relax over the holiday with my little family and take a breather!

Yay for Christmas Break!

Not for me or little one yet, but for Joe. He took his last exam of the semester this morning. Then he and I met for a fancy lunch downtown to celebrate. We both knew going into it that this was going to be one of the most challenging semester's of the last 4 years. Upping to 18 credit hours from his usual 12-15 at most, plus working. And it's not like a normal college student taking 18 credit hours when you only have yourself to take care of. Being a Dad and a husband on top of everyything, we knew that a lot of the normal responsibilities around the house and Little One would end up resting on my shoulders. But we made it. We survived the semester from H.E. double hockey sticks. He has 2 A's and is just waiting for the grade in his final class, but he feels pretty confident that should be an A as well.

So yay for Christmas break. Joe is still working 2 shifts a week, and already has studying he has to get done in preparation for his next clinical rotation in Acute Care but it still feels like a break for both of us.