Weather Angst

Emily is terrified of weather lately.

Be it rain, any cloud that isn't perfectly fluffy and white, or wind of any kind.  The girl is just SURE that some kind of inclement weather is going to turn into a tornado and she is terrified. I'm doing my best just to be calm and reassuring without reacting too much to her drama.  It usually involves tears and refusal to go wherever she was supposed to be headed for the day and the need for her blankie.  At 8 years old... really?  Let's hope this is a phase.  Please. A neighbor whose son is  a year old and had similar fears told me that in 2nd grade they do a tornado drill and show them a film that describes how to identify potential funnel clouds forming and that wind is an early warning sign of tornadoes.  Apparently that scares A LOT of the kids and the timing seems right on for when this fear started.  Nice, thanks school.

We've had our fair share of storms over the past few weeks so we now have her sleeping bag stashed in my closet so that if something develops in the night we can just let her sleep in our room.  It's easier and everyone gets more rested than trying to convince her it's safe to sleep in her room alone.  This too shall pass, right?

On the home front, things are particularly pleasant right now. Jim's job is still going very well. He has 2 more weeks of orientation/precepting and then he's completely on his own.  He's been working up to a full patient load over the last few weeks and doing fine, just using his preceptor to double check a med here or there if there's a complicated dosage calculation or high risk med.  But he should be good to go.  He is so happy lately it's almost comical.  Yesterday for example he picked up Emily from summer camp, which ended at 3, and brought home her best friend who was also there so they could play and her friend was going to stay over for dinner.  They had a blast.  Jim had a dance party going for the girls in the kitchen and they were hanging off of him like little monkeys.  He was loving it!

Hoping the storms stay away from the weekend so we can break-in the new fire-pit Jim built last week in the backyard.  Time for hot-dogs and s'mores! Happy summer weekend all.

Finally time to slow down a bit.

April through the beginning of July were absolutely crazy.  Every weekend I was either away or planning to be away and needing to pack/unpack/organize for the upcoming event.

This past weekend was the first real down time I've had in months and it felt amazing.  Jim was working this weekend so Emily and I puttered around the house a fair bit but I felt really productive.  It was ungodly hot for the past week, with highs over 100 and humidity making the head index somewhere between 110-115.  Forget about going outside.  Saturday after some chores around the house we spent the afternoon at the YMCA indoor pool.  Best move of the weekend.  No sunscreen and no crazy heat to deal with.  Sunday after more chores (I think I tackled every pile of paperwork lying around the house and lots of cleaning) the heat finally broke, highs only up to 88, so we decided to brave the outdoors.  We went to a local botanical garden that is just gorgeous, a nice place for me to play with the "good" camera, not just the usual point and click or my iphone camera.  And there is  a huge children's garden with a tree house, suspended boardwalk and water garden.  We spent 4 hours just wandering around enjoying the not too scorching weather and each others company.

I feel so much more organized today back at the office, like I finally have my head screwed on straight so it's time to get back at it. Lots of deadlines are looming this week.

Small update on Jim, he's on week 6 at his new job and still absolutely loving it.  It's so nice to see him come home with a smile on his face even after 13 hours on his feet at the hospital.

We made a budget for the month of July, the first one ever, honestly how crazy is that.  And that too makes my mind rest, knowing that we have double the income coming in for the first time in 4 years and have planned where it all goes makes managing the finances so much less stressful.  Here's to a relaxed but productive week!

Camping Trips and Orientation

So I'm on my own for 3 days… Jim and little one headed off on a Daddy & Daughter camping trip along with my brother and his daughter Ava who is also 8.  I'm hoping this will become a nice tradition for the 4 of them.

We went on our usual "School's Out" cabin camping weekend with friends this past weekend at  local state park.  We stayed for 3 days and 2 nights.  Had gorgeous weather and a great time.  We all rated this 3rd annual trip as our best yet.  Best park, best cabin, best weather!  We got home on Sunday afternoon and then did a quick assessment of what needed to be washed and repacked to send them back out for 2 more nights.  It wasn't actually as bad as I thought it would be to have the 2 outings back to back. Everything was already out and semi-packed so it actually worked out nicely.

Now… the 4 of them are in for some rain today and tomorrow morning so we'll see how chipper they are when they return!

Jim finished up his weeklong orientation at the hospital last week, and starting Thursday he's on the SIMCU for 3 shifts a week of precepting.  I think he has 9 weeks of on the floor with a preceptor (a current RN ) before they turn him loose on his own. Last week was nice as we thought about real money finally starting to roll in for the first time in 4 years, but the orientation was… well…. orientation.  Tolerable, not super exciting.  So on the floor precepting should be much more fun and challenging for him.

Once we make it through June we should have some downtime together.
But this coming weekend Jim is working 7am-7pm Saturday & Sunday
Next week I'm in Boston from Wednesday through Sunday for work
Then the following week I'm headed up to Cleveland on Wednesday to help with prep for my parents 50th anniversary part that weekend and won't be back until Monday evening of the following week.

All good stuff, but a busy month for sure!

Day 1

I swear I'll take a break from this monotonous kind of blogging soon, but I like getting things out of my head. It helps me focus on what I need to do now.

So today is Jim's first day of orientation.  He is orientation all week, 1 day at the corporate headquarters for the hospital system, 1 day back at the college of nursing in the auditorium space, and 3 days of computer system training back at corporate.  Next week he'll move into working 3 12-hr shifts on the floor per week.  I am SO jealous of this schedule.  But also really glad for us as a family.  During his training he has no night shifts and I don't think he has to work weekends either.  So that should make for a nice summer with lots of time for family outings.  Everything we've been missing for the past 3 years.  Trips to the zoo, park, beach, pool....

I can't wait to catch up tonight and hear how it went.  Although I have a feeling this week probably won't be all that exciting... paperwork for benefits, payroll info, getting his new badge etc.  Kind of like the first day of class where you get your syllabus and find your seat but don't really get into anything interesting yet.

Being a numbers nerd I have been running the numbers like crazy trying to figure out what our new budget will look like, and tackling the "to do" list of items around the house that need to be repaired, fixed, updated, etc.  Emily's college fund to be reactivated and his 403B to be activated.  All the things we put on hold for the last 4 years have to get back up and rolling. Oh, and don't forgot that student loan repayment starts this month.  But if I have the numbers crunched right and we keep our lifestyle similar to what it is now, we should be able to pay off his student loans completely in the next 12-months, 6-months if we go nuts and do nothing else but put the extra income towards student loans. Yay for paying off debt!

Happy x2!

2 good pieces of news to document.  They officially offered Jim the RN position in the Surgical ICU/Step-Down Unit.  Starting.... MONDAY!  Holy crap.  Exciting!!! But... lots of arrangements need to be made for that timing to work.  School ends for Emily next Tuesday and I didn't sign her up for any childcare for the remainder of next week or the following week, figuring she and Jim would have some down time together.  I never anticipated they would want him to start that soon. Since it's a transfer and role change within the same hospital system he doesn't have to give the standard 2 weeks notice, HR has already cleared the immediate move with his current supervisor. I am so excited for him to be starting his career, and on a critical care floor with an awesome group of RNs as well.  Awesome!

Then this morning I had my yearly review which went extremely well, all positive, lots of movement upward in the company, plans for my next five years and what my path within the company will be. Plus a substantial bonus that I was NOT expecting!  Yay!

So I think there will be some serious celebrating happening this weekend.

Long Weekend

The weekend around our house was BUSY.  We got a ton done around the house.  My favorite part of spring is getting my flowers in place on the front porch and the back deck, and all the plants in place in our tiny vegetable garden.  I am 90% done.  The flowers looks gorgeous, Emily helped me pick them out and I'm really pleased with the choices, they look so pretty.  The deck especially.  Emily choose yellow and orange zinnias that I totally would have passed by and I love how they look.

We spent a lot of time, or Emily did, playing with neighbor friends.  It was oppressively hot so pretty much every time we were outside it involved a sprinkler or pool and Em lived in a bathing suit.  She got her first sunburn which I feel bad about.  It's just on her shoulders and I think it was either outdated sunscreen from last year or that we didn't reapply soon enough.  She was outside all day and we used SPF 50 and reapplied at around noon. We gave her some baby aspirin and have been using aloe with lidocaine on the burn. I have very fair skin and burned often when I was younger, my dad is fair skinned Irish and also burns like crazy.  He developed a very serious melanoma about 4 years ago that was luckily caught before it metastasized and was treated surgically but it made me even more judicious about using sunscreen every time she's out.

Had an interesting experience with a neighbor kid who has always been off in terms of behavior.  This child is 5 maybe 6 and is pretty badly behaved but I see her mom trying her best to reign her in.  She is sassy and talks back, uses words and a tone of voice you would never expect for a little girl.  Sometime the look in her eye is worse than the words that come out of her mouth.  There's a lot of anger in that little girl.  When she does come over to play we keep a strict on her and I'm very quick to give her a single warning and tell her we don't talk that way to our friends and any more means she's going home.  I had had that talk with her already when she was being sassy and rude to another neighbor friend that was over, a 4 year old. Sheeesh, who is rude and sassy to a 4 year old.  This girl.  Then I was inside starting dinner and Jim and another Dad where in the backyard supervising the pool/sprinkler activity.  Emily and this little girl where on the deck, which I had a clear view of out of the kitchen window.  I saw that Emily was practicing her baton twirling (her latest obsession) and this little girl was grabbing for it repeatedly.  I knew this would not end well.  After trying multiple times to grab the baton from Emily she held Emily's shoulder and pulled back her right hand, and balled up her first to punch Emily.  I just about burst out of the kitchen to stop her. I've NEVER seen a little kid, let alone a little girl, pull back to punch that way.  I was totally appalled.  I told her "You're done, put on your shoes, you're going home NOW."  She looked at me and said "Emily scratched me."  WHAT?!!!  I watched the whole thing out the window.  I walked her home, had a long chat with her mom and after talking with Jim I think it's going to be a long time before we let this little animal over to play again.  Even supervised. So completely unacceptable. I did get from talking to her Mom that she picks up the behaviors from her father who has a short temper and tends to punch the walls or table or something when he's frustrated.  Nice right?  Definitely putting some serious distance between the 2 kids. And of course her mom apologized but no punishment.  I saw the little girl running around playing in her own backyard in the pool all afternoon, no apology was required... Had that been Emily she would have been marched back down to apologize in person and than would have been in the house without friends, screens, etc. for the rest of the day at the very least.  Argh.

Interview Update

So Jim had his interview today, and it went really well.  He interviewed with the RN Unit Manager and RN Clinical Manager who co-manage a Surgical ICU and Surgical Step-Down Unit.  He said he got a really great vibe from both of them, in particular the RN Clinical Manager he said seemed really engaged and excited about her work, which generally translates into the overall staff vibe.

The position is officially part-time, but they said that even their part-time staff are generally working full-time hours by picking up additional shifts.  The part-time thing might be a nice situation actually.  He'd have 10 weeks  of training where he'd be working full-time hours anyway, and then he'd have a lot of flexibility to float to other depts or pick up other hours as he wanted to. They only have to work every 3rd weekend, his current floor they work every other weekend. And they have a rotation for nights where they get put on nights for a week every 6th week at the most.

They asked him to come in and shadow for a 4 hour shift and get a feel for the floor, the rapport between the surgeons and the nurses (which apparently is very different than interactions between medical dr's and nurses, surgeons and nurses collaborate more intensely on patient care which Jim would love) and then let them know how it went.

Fingers crossed for this opportunity being a good fit on both sides!