Thanksgiving update

Today ends the four day Thanksgiving weekend bonanza. The house is a little worse for wear but my spirits are soaring higher than they have in quite a while.

My brother drove up from Virginia on Wednesday and spent two days with us. We weren't very productive except for making Thanksgiving dinner on Friday but it was a nice relaxing two days just getting to talk and hang out. It's been a long time since we got to spend quality time together. I couldn't be more proud of how far he's gone and how successful he is. He's done so well in the Navy.

Thursday we did dinner at the in-laws. Quick and dirty and no screaming matches. Hopefully Christmas will go as smoothly. Then on Friday my in-laws and Tom and Beth came to our house and my Mom came down with my grandmother and aunt and uncle from NY and we had Thanksgiving 2.0. For my second big-ish dinner ever it went shockingly well. I brined my turkey again (which is my secret to a slamming juicy turkey) but didn't do enough research on using a brined turkey to make gravy. It was quite salty because I used the drippings but I thought it was still tasty. Next time I'll roast up some wings and make a separate dripping pan for gravy.

Jim and I slept in Saturday and then he let me have a fun girly shopping day. We hit up Goodwill, Savers, Michael's and then I stopped in at the mall and got a few pretty things at Lane Bryant and Torrid. We thought about seeing Breaking Dawn but the mall was a zoo and I was anxious to get home and let the dog out so maybe next week.

I was super excited to find a small console table at Goodwill for 24 bucks. Someone painted it black and eventually I'd love to sand it down and repaint it but for now it fits and is replacing our wobbly wicker end table. It gives us more room to put stuff on top plus it has storage!! Yay!
Eventually I'll clean up the house and drag the rest of the holiday decorations out and I'll take some pictures but until then I hope everyone else had a great holiday!

Yay!

Got some awesomely fantabulous news today :)

Still alive.

Quick updates.

1. Tonsils- I still got 'em. You can thank Hurricane Irene for that. Half of the state had no power for a week... so for some strange reason the hospital didn't consider tonsillectomies to be a priority surgery. It's cool though... I slept about five million hours that week and became human again.

2. Anti-depressants. Got those on board now too. Only day three but we'll see how it goes.

3. Only 83 days, 17 hours, and 57... 56... 55 minutes left of nursing school. By far the most intense and challenging experience of my life. I can't believe I'm almost there.

4. On Monday it's Jim and my 2 year wedding anniversary. Which also means that we've been together 7 years. Damn. We've done good :)

Reminders

There are stupid things, little things, that keep popping up and reminding me of you. A fleeting glimpse of something so insignificant, so trivial, that it shouldn't even matter and yet it brings me back to those weeks of pain and love and loss.

I was flipping through netflix instant view options for some background noise while I study and the miniseries "Tin Man" popped up. We watched it together while you were still lucid, while you were still really you.

Is it always going to be this way? I wait around for something to trigger me and knock me back to the ground. A song is like a sucker-punch and I'm desperate for the hit. I miss you. I'm sure I'll always miss you.

Going under the knife

Tonsillectomies are more intimidating than they should be.

I have to have my tonsils out in two weeks. I'm really not looking forward to it because they say that it's horrendously painful for adults to have their tonsils out. Compared to young children's recovery time of 2-3 days, for adults it's 10-14. But compared to the yearly tonsil flare ups and the recurrent vomiting that's happening now because of them being so inflamed I'm hoping that it is worth it in the end. I also just can't afford to get sick and have another major tonsil attack during the school year so I have to try and get them out now when I have the time.

Thankfully I had a 9 day vacation from school coming up so the surgery is planned for day three of that, which will hopefully give me enough recovery time before I have to go back to school. Jim's on vacation too so he'll be taking care of me throughout my recovery. Lot's of ice-pops and water.

Realistically I know it's a very minor surgery, but I am still scared about it. Wish me luck.

Probably TMI

I've been feeling kinda crappy lately. It's a sort of hodgepodge of depression and illness just rolled into me feeling so funky that I haven't wanted to get out of bed for days.

My tonsils are acting up again. Surprise surprise. The right one is all puffy and hard again. I don't have a sore throat feeling, it's more that I feel like I'm swallowing around a golf ball all the time. Plus I've gotten to the point were it's starting to make me gag. I've been steadily getting nauseated after brushing my teeth for a few weeks now and last week after brushing I got so nauseated that I threw up/dry heaved for about an hour. I ended up missing a day of clinical and bursting a blood vessel in the middle of my forehead (which looks AWESOME, by the way.)

I spent the rest of the day feeling like something the cat threw up and I'm still not feeling stellar three days later.

I'll be calling the ENT later today to see if I can get an appointment. They told me a couple years ago I needed my tonsils out. It looks like it's finally time to bite the bullet.

DIY and doggy time.

A few weeks back I went on a thrift store/Homegoods clearance area shopping spree. At my favorite thrift store Savers, I managed to find a set of 4 dining room chairs for the grand total of $35.96. That's right, $8.99 a piece.



And they don't look half bad right?? Granted they're not the most gorgeous things in the world but they're sturdy and in good shape and I figure down the road if I'm motivated I can paint the chairs or get some cute cushions to jazz them up. Plus since I got them on the cheap I wont feel guilty getting new chairs when we're a little more financially secure and I can actually get the upholstered parsons chairs I've been dreaming of.


And since Jim and I are desperately trying to conquer the mail monster and all the junk that lands on the kitchen counter daily (okay, my junk that lands on the counter, geez) when I saw this puppy in the clearance section of HomeGoods I snapped it up.



She was a little dirty and battered and had some scratches but with some elbow grease and one of those 'color sample' sized pots of paint we ended up with this teal beauty.



I probably could have done a 3rd coat of paint, since it reads kind of streaky in certain light, but it looks good enough to stay on the wall until I feel like making a mess again.

I also found some vintage glass bottles and a vase at Savers that fed my love of teal and funky glassware. They're camped out on top of the kitchen cabinet now with the awesome candle houses my Mom got me for my birthday last year.





Now, I realized it's been ages since you've seen pictures of Penelope, so let's have some doggy time!


Isn't this the cutest face??



Isn't she just so serious?!? Until I tied a cape (err... blanket) around her and we enjoyed the antics of Superdog!


Superdog want's a biscuit dammit.


Now Superdog needs a nap. This is what Penny spends most of her time doing. Napping. It's a tough life being a dog. She's usually playing speedbump in the living room, the middle of the kitchen or under the bed.

At least, when she's not just being cool.

Tales from Winter Street

I'm sure most people who have followed my bitching via Facebook know that Jim and I live on an interesting street. Most of the people we've met have been mildly odd with the highlights of the street being the crappy neighbors immediately to our right and the "good" neighbors immediately to our left.

Turns out, "good" neighbor has gone a bit stranger than we ever realized.

I started to notice things last year when he first took up sweeping the road because all the dust on the street made things look bad. But that seemed harmless enough and hey, it got all the dirt and stuff away from my porch, so who am I to say anything.

Then over the winter he started snowblowing the road at the first 2 inches of snow, regardless of whether or not the plows were just around the corner. Yet again, harmless enough, if a little strange.

This summer he's getting weirder.

We noticed ground bees had infested our side yard when it started to look like this:

So understandably, when we heard him outside with his lawn mower we ran out to tell him about the bees thinking that, like most people, he wouldn't want to mow over bees. Boy were were wrong.

Instead of waiting until nighttime and spraying the bees with bug killer stuff, he equipped himself with a broken rake and started jumping up and down on the area that was most heavily infested while wacking the ground with his rake remnant over and over again. Imagine this:

Only replace the suitcase with bees and give him a broken rake.

I was slightly afraid.

It got worse after vandals hit the street last week, see here for more info about that (Jim and I were lucky enough to be spared but both neighbors got hit.) Now crazy neighbor has upped the ante and is acting as the new neighborhood vigilante.

Jim walked Penelope around 3am last night and while he was out he was approached by a black garbed man with a headlamp and a crowbar. I wish I was making this up.

El crazy neighbor is part of the neighborhood watch and is patrolling the streets from 2-5am every night. With a crowbar. And a headlamp. All in black.

Let me say that again. Crowbar. Headlamp. Black.

Yeahhhh.



Doesn't this make you feel all safe and fuzzy?? I know I'm going to sleep soundly tonight, knowing that I'm protected by the valiant neighborhood looney.

Waaahahoooo

I'm excited, but you can probably tell that from my title.

Why, you might ask?

This girl got a 98 on her psych test!!!
*dances*

Which is the best grade I've gotten since going into nursing school. I'd been stoked about my 96 from the first psych test but now that I have TWO good test grades it makes me want to bounce around the house.

Maybe it helps being a nutter in a psych class.

I love interior design and decorating.

But since I didn't feel like picking up the house I'm going to share a few of the select items/areas in the house that I absolutely love or that mean a great deal to me.

I love my earring hanger. It's ridiculously simple, but for some reason I absolutely adore how it looks aesthetically on the wall with just my jewelery as the pops of color. Someday I'll modify it if I can find a funky frame I like at the thrift store. My mom made one with a very thick frame and fabric along the back with cordage just across the front instead of crisscrossed like mine.

I'd debated doing it with this frame from Ikea that I have hanging in my office:

But it's kind of massive and just looks so darned pretty in the office that I haven't wanted to move it. The office has more of that slightly feminine fleur-de-lie floral type feeling in pinks and purples with pops of teal, whereas the bedroom has mostly metal scroll work accents and a mostly neutral tan/brown with pops of dark red color scheme with a global feel to it (think aged world maps.)

The master bedroom also houses my collection of linen trunks and some of my owls.

These are some hand made stuffed owls that Beth donated to my decorating madness. They live on the top of a wooden chest that is decorated with wooden spirals that I got around the time of the wedding from Home Goods. (I love Home Goods!)


This is probably the worlds most deceitful 'fancy' clock. It's plastic (which I didn't know until a couple months ago) and lived on top of my parent's kitchen cabinets for as long as I can remember. It was Dad's clock and I've always loved it, even though the 'metal' handle had long since broken off the top. It was one of those iconic pieces of property that I just always remember being a part of home.


This is the cigar box on my nightstand that I keep most of my Dad memento's. It makes me feel closer to him to be able to reach out and touch something of his.


Now let's move into the dining room.

This is one of my simpler paintings. Basically I had empty wall space and knew what colors I wanted up but couldn't find anything right in the store. An hour or so later and I had this.


It's next to this hutch that is the closest thing I have to a china cabinet. It's home to all of our wedding china, and the silver chest Jim's Gram gave us. The chest on top of the hutch has all the cards and memento's left over from the wedding.


This is one of my favorite art pieces in the house. It's a drawing my Mom did of a scene in The Little Prince, complete with a short passage from the book.


And who can pass up a $25 Pier One papasan chair that we got as part of a set on Craigslist. Two chairs for $50 bucks. Since normally one chair is $80 and a cushion ranges from $90 to $40 (on clearance) that makes it around $160 per chair. Two chairs for $320 vs. two for $50. For that price I don't even care then if I have to put one down in the basement if I want more space in the office someday.

Christmas Tree Shoppe pillow on our couch. We have two and they are purdy :)


These are one inch high elephant figurines that I have on the tv stand. Dad collected these figurines out of his iced tea boxes for decades. I have about 100 of them now, some of which are strategically placed around the house in small collections.


Jim and I got this little amethyst wire tree at the Big E on our one year anniversary. We thought it was appropriate since we'd had a gemstone wire tree as a cake topper on our wedding cake. Plus it's frigging cute.


Blue green kitchen art hanging out behind Fishy. That tin next to the fish tank has tea bags in it.

Following the kitchens blue green theme (in decor only since I haven't had the gumption to paint the kitchen yet and we have to live with those hideous pine cabinets, we are renters after all) we have a peacock feather inspired glass plate and some blue mosaic candle holders with the handmade wooden dragon Jim got me for Christmas one year.




My office got moved around a few months ago. But it still has it's cute areas, like my favorite photo collage in the whole house.

If it wasn't absolutely psychotic

I'd almost think about fighting with Jim more often since I got home from work last night to find this waiting for me:



Yes, it's a steam mop. Basically because I'm a nut and had gone on a psychotic rant about our floors being dirty and how I needed a steam mop because I couldn't bleach the floors with all the pets in the house (plus, how the hell do you clean hardwoods?!) And I had gotten all pissy with Jim and stormed out of the house for my shift at work.

Not my finest moment, I assure you.

I can honestly say that I spent the whole first half of my shift agonizing having left the house mid-fight. As a rule, we try never to leave things unsettled like that. Mostly because I'm morose and am constantly thinking that any moment could be the last so you don't want to leave without saying I love you. What can I say, I'm weird.

Oh, but in addition to the steam mop there were more goodies waiting for me!



And....



Pretty right?? He's a good guy :D

I was also bombarded with random cuteness.


Penelope is too frigging cute to come home to.


Rari's greeting "meeh!"



Tobey, of course, was invisible. The ripped curtain had just grown legs and a tail. Curious.

Heh.

Eleven months.

It's been eleven months since Dad died. I miss him so bad I cant even think or concentrate on anything. I have to get back into an upswing before it effects my schoolwork.



I look at these pictures and think What if we knew? What if I'd noticed the dark circles and how thin he was getting? Could I have saved him if I'd pushed him to see a doctor? It doesn't help but I can't stop the thoughts from running through my mind.



Jim's going camping with his buddies Friday through Monday this weekend... I'm terrified of four days alone. Four days of thinking how my Mom's been alone. Four nights in an empty bed with no comforting Jim snoring next to me.

The newest family member!

Meet Penelope! Fondly called Penny by her new Mommy and Daddy.

Penny is a 4 1/2 year old golden retriever/great pyrenees mix that we rescued out of Tennessee.

Apparently she was found crawling through a church parking lot, practically starved to death and very sick with heartworms.

Lucky for Penny, and for Jim and I, she was picked up by Big Fluffy Dog Rescue who took her to the vet and spent loads of time and money and care getting her all fixed up. She went from weighing 58lbs when they found her to 90lbs when Jim and I got her, and she is still at least 10lbs underweight for her size. She's a big baby.

But she's been an absolute gem since we picked her up off the puppy transport yesterday. We had one little potty accident last night when one of the cats knocked something over and startled her, but since then she's been perfectly housebroken. She ignores the cats and lets them get right up and sniff her with no problems. And she's the quietest, calmest dog I've ever seen.

Even Jim, the notorious dog disliker, is taken with her.

She's the best behaved dog I've ever seen. She hasn't touched the cat food that has been sitting on the ground since she got here. She doesn't beg when we eat dinner. No whining, barking, growling or any other noises. She doesn't go into any of the rooms that we haven't led her into and if she is doing something wrong a simple "Penelope, no!" turns her right around.

If she stays this calm and this isn't just her readjustment period, then I'm planning on enrolling her in a pet therapy program so we can volunteer at the hospital and local nursing homes. She's a complete sweetie who just wants someone to pet her and scratch behind her ears. I'm happy to oblige her.

She's a big, sleepy girl but we're so happy to have her with us!


















And since I'm introducing the new dog, I figure I'd introduce the relatively newish kittens.

Ferrari (called Rari, or Puss mostly) is on the left and Tobey (called Hey You, NO! and DON'T EAT THAT!) is on the right.

These are our adopted kittens that Jim pulled from under a car in September. We never intended on keeping them, but they were too sweet to split up and give away. They still like to snuggle.

And sometimes things DO workout.

Edit: Mom revised a few of my facts so I've changed a few of the details.

My grandfather had bladder cancer.

I say had because they cant find it anymore. It's not in his bladder, and it's not showing up anywhere else on the cat scan and that means his untreatable and uncurable deadly bladder cancer is gone.

This cancer in a way saved his life.

Let me explain.

In September before my wedding my grandfather had some medical problems crop up. Not to be too gross about it but he basically started peeing blood... continuously... all night long. Around 4am he finally decided it actually was a bad thing and they called an ambulance.

After they got him to the hospital the bleeding stopped on it's own but while they were testing to figure out what caused it they discovered that he had an abdominal aortic aneurysm the size of a grape fruit. Which is incredibly life threatening. With it being so huge it meant the the blood vessel wall was so delicate that the surgeons told us he was surprised that hitting pot holes on the way to the hospital didn't cause it to rupture.

The survival rate for a ruptured aortic aneurysm is less than 40%. IF you can be in surgery in under ten minutes. My grandparents live 45 minutes from the hospital. So it was a death sentence.

The hospital he was at couldn't perform the surgery for several days (small hospital/unqualified doctors) and since their suggestion at that point was for him to go home for the weekend my parents stepped in and drove him to a bigger hospital. He there had the surgery and made it through fine. The doctors there basically ignored the hematuria (blood in the urine) for the much bigger aneurysm issue. He went home and a few weeks later they readressed the hematuria. Where unfortunately the doctor discovered a very aggressive bladder cancer.

A few rounds with chemo had no results except weakening my 85 year old grandfather. So they decided that the only way to keep the cancer from invading the rest of his body they would do a cystectomy (complete bladder removal.) This is drastic surgery that results in the placement of a stoma and the use of a bag attached to your stomach to collect the urine. This was at least supposed to buy us 5 more years with him and it was the only option at stopping the spread.

After they opened him up for the surgery they discovered that the cystectomy was impossible. The aneurysm repair had required the placement of a stent around the abdominal aorta. That basically means they had put a support tube around the aorta so it couldn't bulge out again since it was already weakened. The problem was the stent placement was so entangled with the ureters and the blood supply to the kidney that removal was impossible.

This basically meant he was going to be sent home to live with cancer and just wait for it to kill him by spreading throughout his body.

We were devastated.

The doctors arranged for him to have radiation treatments that MIGHT have a chance of slowing the progression of his cancer. A big maybe they told us.

The year went by, Grandpa went to his treatments every day for weeks on end. We pretended like there was no problem.

Two weeks ago he went back for a cancer screening to see how far things had spread. First they did a cystoscopy where you look inside the bladder with a scope. It was completely negative. No cancer. So they did a full body cat scan to make sure that the cancer just hadn't metastasized to somewhere else in his body. It was negative. No cancer.

NO FRIGGING CANCER. NONE ANYWHERE.

They treated the untreatable cancer. And because of the aneurysm he got to keep his bladder. And because of the cancer he didn't die from a ruptured aneurysm. Huh. Lucky right?

So now he's home, healthy, and happy.

And so am I.

On to maternity!!

I scraped up a 91 on my final for Med Surg which brought my grade for the whole class up to a 89.6 and they ROUND UP!

Which means I got an A!!! My first A in nursing school!! Makes me feel vindicated about cutting back my hours at work. I actually can do this well :)

The other day I half-heartedly tried to light a fire under Jim's ass about doing something with his life. Something more than working a job he only tolerates that basically chains him to this area for the rest of his life because the position is so specific that it just doesn't exist anywhere else. He's been taking classes to get certified as a systems administrator for oh.. about two years now. It's only 4 classes. He's less than serious about it. Which leads me to believe that even if he does finish the class he'll never look into a job as a systems administrator because he's comfortable where he is now.

F U comfortable. Ugh.

I doubt anything will come of it but I wish he'd at least try to do something. He's mentioned to me before that he's disappointed in how much he's accomplished in his 34 years but he never makes any attempt to change things or to go out and DO something. At least he hasn't yet.

At some point you just have to take a f@%*ing leap and do something with your life. Go bold or go home.

It's a little frustrating sometimes thinking that our future is entirely in my hands. If we want a home (I dream of LAND) I'm going to be the one to make it happen. If we want to travel I'm going to be the one to push for it. If we want to live somewhere besides southwestern Connecticut I'm going to be the one who makes it happen. And it seems most likely that I'll be doing all of this without any help from Jim. He'll come along (I hope), terrified of change, and I'll feel horrible for turning his life upside down. His safe little comfortable life. Like he had before we got married. Ugh :(

Maybe that's the difference between us. He seems to be okay just being comfortable. He never wants anything. I'm filled with wants that I'm unwilling to compromise on.

I wanted more than a job that just pays the bills and a room to keep my stuff in. And I'm a stubborn, bullish, pushy bitch when it comes to getting my way. I constantly talk about my dreams of a home with a couple acres of SUNSHINE and a swimming pool and laughing children and mountain breezes. I fill with joy when I leave work after a good shift where I really felt like I got to help someone and I am ecstatic when I think that I can do this for the rest of my life. I dream of taking a cruise around the Mediterranean, or a biking tour of Great Britain, or a week relaxing on a beach in Belize with days alternating between climbing Mayan temples and swinging in a hammock with a rum drink in my hand. I yearn for my college friends that filled every day with laughter and talking and friendship at a level that I still don't think Jim's ever experienced.

And I know with unfailing confidence that somehow I'll make it happen. I'll revel in that each day and keep working towards my dreams. I wish I could give him some of this determination. I wish I didn't feel like I was going for it all alone.

A hard day.

Today would have been my Dad's 57th birthday.

I didn't go home last year for his birthday because he was being his typical stubborn cranky self around his birthday and he'd planned a colonoscopy for the day after. Sharing the joys of bowel prep with the family for his birthday. He said don't bother. And I was still nursing some resentment over the fact that they hadn't come to visit me for my birthday.

I was so stupid.

Miss you Dad.

I made it through the whole day without a meltdown. I studied like I needed to, stuck to my diet (I've lost 4 pounds since friday!) and kept moving. One day at a time.

New Topic

I lost three pounds. :)

Whoohoo

I passed my urinary catheterization competency on Wednesday. Now there are only two more tests between me and the end of med/surg. (Naturally they are only one week apart, but hey whatever!)

:)

Moving forward again.

Going per diem was the best decision I've ever made.

Emotionally I'm feeling like a new person.

I hit bottom around my birthday. I felt pretty much nothing but pain and loss and anger. Months of not dealing with Dad's death and being overtired and stressed from school and work just came to a head. But I eventually hashed things out with Jim, cried to Jen, called my family back and got a hold of myself. I still feel like I'm the walking wounded, like I have a tiny badge on my shoulder that reads "fatherless child" but most of the time it's bearable. It's more a constant dull ache than the bottomless void that I was teetering over.


My Mom posted a picture on Facebook last week of my dad from about three days before he died. It hit me like a hammer to the guts. Sucked me back in time to when I was sitting at his bedside holding his hand and telling him that it was okay for him to go while praying with all my heart for him to take one more breath. I get so wrapped up in that pain, in that loss, that I forget how to live, how to laugh and enjoy just being alive.

I'd still give it all up to have him back.


We'd arranged for Dad to get to take a ride in a Porsche around a real private race track. It was his last trip out of the house and the first time his life he ever got to sit in a Porsche. It was the closest we were able to get him to a Nascar race. It still hurts that he never got to do all the things he dreamed of.

But I'm still trying. I'm going to classes and getting better grades on my tests. I actually feel like I'm learning how to be a nurse now. I'm trying to get to know my classmates and I'm finding out that I really do like a lot of them. I'm part of a group of people now who are trying to change their lives by helping others. We laugh at the same disgusting stories about poop and drainage tubes over lunch. We bitch about ditsy professors and condescending classmates and we come to each other for a supportive shoulder when times get tough. I'm not the only out of towner or the only person with a rocky history, I'm not the only person trying to pick themselves up off the ground. I can figure out how to smile.

So I get up each day and go to class, I come home and cuddle with my cats or my husband and do some studying. I even go out for drinks or dancing with the girls every once and a while. I go to work and get encouraged by all the wonderful nurses and techs who stood by me through my darkest hour. The people who have helped me keep my promise to Dad to keep going and become a nurse, to do what makes me happy.

One day at a time.

Birthday Depression

Struggling with a bit of depression here.

I think it's because my birthday is Friday and life as I know it is in a general state of upheaval. I don't want to be unhappy but I can't seem to figure out how to do that. We had a snow day yesterday and it seems whenever I'm not running full tilt I have a meltdown and end up spending the entire day in a depressed funk on the couch. It's awesome.

Ugh, I have to go clean until I have to leave for work. Got a longish day tomorrow of clinical and microbiology lab and then I have a full but hopefully fun Friday. (Say that five times fast!)

One day at a time.

It's time.

“But I miss him.”

“So miss him. Send him some love and light every time you think about him, then drop it.”

- Eat Pray Love

I’ve been wallowing. I’ve been engulfed in being the girl without a father, a survivor after a tragic loss, the only lonely daughter in the world. I’m tired of being a survivor. I want to be alive.

I love you, Dad. I miss you more than anything.

But it's time to start breathing again.

It's just home.

It's bitter cold outside this morning. The wind is whipping glittering snow through the air like fresh powder. Yet I'm content to sit, coffee cup to my left and newspaper in a careless heap to my right. My mother is reading a manuscript on alzheimer's and Jim is curled up in the armchair with my labtop transferring music.

Everything about this moment reeks of familiarity. From the rerun's playing on the battered tube television, to the washing mashine clanking in the laundry room. The snowclad birch trees outside the living room window look the same as they have every winter for the past 15 years. Mom's in tattered moccasin's and the cat is curled up over the heat vent. I still expect the door to open in a blast of cold air and my Dad to stomp in after plowing the driveway. I don't think I'll ever lose that feeling. That sense that he's just outside.

The house is so empty without him. When do you start to heal? There is no way to fill this void but I feel like something is starting to change. I'm starting to learn how to endure.

Career Changes

I officially resigned my position from Norwalk yesterday. It took a lot of thought and was a very hard decision but after talking to Amy I realized it was the best thing to do at this time. I'm going to stay with Norwalk as a per diem PCT, which just means that I wont be scheduled to work set shifts each week. I'll be able to pick up shifts when I have time and am only required to work 2 shifts a month in order to stay on the payroll. This will let me go for the accelerated program so I can finish up by December. I'll be finishing out my schedule through the first week of February and then going down to per diem.

To be honest, I'm not happy about it because I love the time I spend at my job. But I cant wait for February because it's just mind numbingly exhausting trying to work during the week and keep up with school. In a couple weeks I also start taking microbiology on Friday evenings and Saturday afternoons so that just one more thing to juggle. It's the right time to cut down my schedule.