Hmmm….
26 May 2012 Leave a Comment
I think it is interesting what I am reading right now.
I am in the middle of Passing for Thin. Oh, I love this book. This is maybe the third time I have read it. It so inspires me to get off my butt and do something about losing weight. Losing weight is very much about what you eat, and this is something I constantly struggle with.
I am trying some changes in how I eat. Through myfitnesspal, I can modify my carb, protein, and fat goals. I decided to make use of this, to try to get me eating better. I am doing 30% carbohydrates, 30% protein, 40% fat. (I think the typical weight loss diet has about 45% carb, 30% protein, and 25% fat. That does not work for me, I am always hungry on that type of diet.) I have been doing this a couple of days, and I realize that I eat too many carbs! I am usually over my carbohydrate goal, and not making my protein goal. I think I see beef jerky in my future…
I also have been looking at Run Like a Mother. Written by two mothers who have completed marathons. I think it is a book I need to take another look at. I seem to be a runner, and need to find time to do it more often, and in more places! I love running, and I love doing it outside when I can. It makes me feel good, and it is something I want to continue doing. I have a sinking suspicion I may have to get up early and run. But probably not on the days I work, as I am up at 5 am those days anyway. I have resisted for a while now, but I think I may have to give in and do it. It seems to be the best time to go.
I found it interesting that I was drawn to these books, and thought I would share. They are not the typical weight loss and exercise books, but they speak to me. Hopefully they will give me the inspiration to get moving and lose some weight!
The double edged sword.
20 May 2012 1 Comment
Hope.
Strikes again.
Here I am hoping that this OR job will work out, but also knowing that there is a good possibility that it will not.
I go in tomorrow to observe in the applied-for job’s OR. I hope it will help. If nothing else, it will give me some face time and I can talk to some of the employees. It will be interesting to see how they do things.
I did apply for another job this weekend. I just cannot afford to feel like this OR job is a guarantee. I have been on several other interviews, none of which worked out. Of course they were for floor positions, not OR.
I really really want this OR job. It just seems perfect for what I want right now. I am trying to believe that I will end up where I need to be, I just need to have faith.
But faith does not always win against depression. There is a part of my brain which says that this job is not likely to work out, just like all the other jobs I interviewed for. I am going up against a lot of other people, as OR jobs at this hospital do not come open all that often.
I know that I have advantages, though. I have between 4-5 years of OR experience, in a lot of different settings, doing a lot of different procedures. My orientation should be fairly short, given my experience. (Maybe 2-3 months? 4 months if I really am an idiot.) My specialty is gyno, which very few people want to do. I want to work 10-12 hour shifts. I understand what 24 hour call means. I can scrub cases, and circulate. I have experience with robotic surgery (as they are thinking of getting a robot), and EMR (including the EMR that hospital uses.)
I also miss laparoscopic cases, I am bored at my ambulatory surgery center, I am a hard worker, I am fairly easy to get along with. I generally love being a OR nurse. And I like to think I am good at what I do.
What’s not to like about me, right? I should be a good candidate for this job. It really seems like a good fit. I have what they are looking for, and they have what I am looking for.
But I am not believing it will happen until I get the actual job offer. Of course, I will be very disappointed if I do not get the job.
We will see what it is like tomorrow. Hopefully it will be a good fit.
Needing a chilly pill.
16 May 2012 4 Comments
I had my interview this morning at 11 AM, and I am still sort of revved up from it. Between the commute, my mother dropping child off, and then getting child off for nap, I have not had any time to sit and absorb my morning’s experience.
I was really nervous going in, probably because I really want this job. Fingers crossed it works out. They are not huge, with only 5 ORs and a couple of small procedure rooms. But they do a lot of laparoscopy (hooray), and they also do a good amount of gyno. (My specialty!) I would also get to do c-sections, as their OR people staff an OB OR, too. Believe it or not, despite all my OR experience, I have never done a c-section. The hospitals that I worked for either did not do it, or they had a separate OB OR staffed by L and D nurses. I get to learn a new skill! I could work 12 hours if I wanted, and they do 24 hour call. Hopefully it will not be so bad.
They offered the opportunity to come in and observe for a day. I may try to do that. Hopefully if I call tomorrow, I can do it on Monday. That would be good for me, and hopefully for them.
I guess I really need to find child care now. Damn it. I have been in total denial of that process. I love my current child care provider, but I cannot keep her after we move. Sigh. I think I will save that for tomorrow.
Right now I need some down time. I will likely run later this afternoon, but right now I think I am going to lie down and read for a bit…
Nope, still nothing.
13 May 2012 2 Comments
This will be my third mother’s day with my child. I still want to hide from all the Mother’s day stuff. I cannot deal with all the fuss made over this day.
I decided that I am going to hide, again I am not going to church. I am not going out to eat. I plan on going for a fun run Sunday morning. It is our Run Like a Mother fun run, and it is mostly people I run with regularly so it will be very low key, and the one thing I want to do for myself.
But yet..
I still feel like I should do something more. I am a mother, and I waited a long time to get here. I should celebrate the fact that I am a mother.
But the Hall.mark card version of the holiday just does not work for me. I do not want to be a part of the worshiping at the altar of motherhood. Maybe that is my problem with Mother’s Day. It celebrates a version of motherhood which does not exist.
Mothers are not saints. It is not all pretty rainbows and sunshine. Life does not work what way.
Mothers can be self-sacrificing, but we do not have to like it. Mothers get bitter and angry and depressed and frustrated. Mothers are human, after all. Motherhood is messy, involves a lot of sleep deprivation, and is generally very hard work.
But it is a good gig, despite all of that.
I enjoy seeing my son laugh and run and play. It gives me a lot of satisfaction to know that he is a happy child. And I have worked hard to make it possible for him to be happy. (I have an intense toddler boy, so things are not so easy.)
I refuse to give up who I am as a person just because I am a mother. If I want to do something, I will do it myself. I do not have to have my son do it for me. He is his own person and will have his own interests. I will not give my whole life over to my child. I continually struggle to balance who I am with motherhood. (And it is tough, since my son is in toddler-hood now, so he is a total time suck!)
Maybe for Mother’s day I would really like my individuality recognized. Celebrate me as a person, not just as a mother. I am also a nurse, a contemplative, a romance addict, a runner, an open infertile, and an owner of two Great Danes. There is a lot more to me than motherhood. I am still a person who happens to be a mother.
Oh, I hope this is it!
10 May 2012 2 Comments
I got a call from the hospital in the town we are moving to. I have an interview for a full time OR position with that hospital next week. I really hope that I get it. I am an OR nurse. I only have one year of floor experience, everything else is OR. That is probably why none of the floor jobs would take me. Once you are in the OR, you pretty much do not get out. Fortunately, I love the OR, and I love being an OR nurse. One of the things I was disappointed about was the fact that I may have to leave OR. So this OR job would be great for me.
Now I have to wait until next week to interview, and then after that to see if I get the job. I am trying not to get my hopes high, but it is difficult!
Fingers crossed!
Sunday thoughts
29 Apr 2012 Leave a Comment
I do not really have anything which would make a full post, so here is what is on my mind right now…
- AF is here, so I am grouchy and crampy and just want to be left alone.
- Have not lost it with child yet, which is a definite improvement.
- Still not comfortable around pregnant women. One of the other mothers at my church is really nice, but pregnant again. I still feel a tug on my heart. I wish it was so easy for us.
- Applied for an OR position in a medium sized hospital in the area where we are moving to. It has been about a week since the application went in. Fingers are crossed that this job works out. OR positions in this hospital come up only once in a blue moon, so it must be a great place to work. Any prayers would be appreciated!
- I have only run once in two weeks. But I have been doing a lot of moving of boxes and furniture, so I think it is not as bad as it appears. But I really need to start again.
- We finally decided on a house in Pulaski, and will put in a bid this week. We are really excited about it. The back yard is huge, and it has a swing! There is also a hot tub which comes with the house. The house is fairly secluded, and rather far from the interstate. I think that is why I feel that it is really important that I get a job in the NRV. It is about an hour trip from Radford to Roanoke. I would do it if I had to, but it is not my first choice.
- I have decided the time has come to put this house on the market. The staging will just be a continuous process. There comes a point where you have to say enough is enough and just do it. So I am going to try to do it next weekend.
- I see my counselor on Tuesday. Thank goodness! I have had a lot going on, and I think I really need to talk to her.
- I am sort of depressed at having to locate a new child care provider. I love our current day care. And I hate not being able to tell them what our needs are, because everything is up in the air at this point.
- I am trying to be patient, truly. It is not easy for me.
Better, I think.
16 Apr 2012 2 Comments
Though we seem to be in a holding pattern.
Still have not heard back from the small hospital ICU I interviewed with a couple of weeks ago. Fingers crossed I hear back in the next week or two. It would be nice to have it settled and not hanging over my head.
Still packing. and trying to stage house. I am going to start to run into problems if I do not get stuff moved out soon. I need space to put things we may need access to, and right now all our boxes are in the way. But I am going to keep going, anyway. I will find a way to make it work.
House search is still going, though we have changed real estate agents. Our first agent was not so helpful, and it was hard to work with everyone’s schedules. We got bumped or moved a couple of times which was not cool, as Hubby had to clear his day and I had to arrange child care. We cannot be moved around at the last minute.
House search is made easier by the fact that FIL is going to help us buy the house, whether we have sold our current house or not. So if we find something, we can put in an offer on it.
As I was packing I re-discovered all my hard copy romance novels, some of which I actually wanted to read again. So I have been enjoying the process of turning pages and actually reading a book instead of a reader. A nice change.
I ran my first off road 5K on Saturday. Wow, what a difference to road racing! It was a good day for a run, and the route took us through orchards and pastures, not to mention over a lot of hills! I could not manage the last three hills, but ran the rest of it. So I guess I did pretty well for a first trail race. Timing was low tech, so I suspect it may be a while before results are up.
The race was my birthday present to myself. My 38th birthday is Tuesday, though I suspect that any celebration will be held next weekend. Though maybe I will drop by Krispy Kreme on the way home from work for a “birthday cake.”
All I want is a break.
12 Apr 2012 2 Comments
But it is apparently not to be.
Child is not napping today. I gave up trying to get him to sleep after about 30 minutes, and I put the hook on his door. I know he is safe in his room, and I just need some down time. He just will not calm down for me. I can lie on the floor with my eyes closed, and he will just continue jumping and screaming. I cannot take the shrieking. So I left the room.
But damn, I hate getting him to sleep. It takes a long time, and I just do not have the patience. So if he is not going to sleep, he is going to not sleep in his room by himself, because I need the break. I can hear him in there destroying his room, but I am beyond caring.
Not being able to get him to sleep makes me so mad, I see red. I know the child is tired because he has been going a mile a minute all damn day. He is not even 2.5, and I know he needs a nap. So why won’t he take it! If he gets to sleep too late, I will not be able to do my evening activity, and I desperately need my running group today. Especially if child will not get to sleep and give me break.
And I cannot really relax until he is asleep. So I just sit here pissed off. I hate the limbo.
Night time battles.
09 Apr 2012 3 Comments
The past few days it has been a bitch to get child to sleep. I suspect I know what is going on, but it is still frustrating.
It is taking close to an hour to get child to sleep. And I always have to be involved for most of it. I am starting to resent all the time I have to spend just getting the child to get to sleep. It feels like big chunks of my day, and everything has to stop in order to get him to sleep.
I am sort of tearing my hair out because there just does not seem to be a good solution. It is an effort just to get Little Dude to stay in the bed, much less go to sleep. Before we take him off to bed at night, we generally watch the Good.Night Show Sleep.a.thon which generally calms him down some. The nursery is dark, we have white noise, and Hubby or I stay with him until he goes to sleep. Stories only get him more excited, lullabies only work when he is already on the way to sleep anyway. We have to stop switching parents when he requests it because he asks for it every few minutes, so that is stimulating, too. I also suspect that he is more of a tension increaser at night, so leaving him to cry it out by himself does not usually work.
I suspect I know why this is happening. We are having work done on our house to get it ready to put on the market. I have also started moving furniture and toys around to start staging our house. So basically our house is a mess, and everything is in transition. This is stressful on everyone.
So far, I have not changed much of anything in his nursery, and I do not plan to change much. I have moved his toys, but only while he was there and could “help.” He has met our contractors and we always look to see what they have done if he has been gone all day. I have not changed his schedule, other than an extra day or two at day care. We are still going to mother’s group activities, and we still go to running group. I am not sure what else I can do.
Anyone have any thoughts on decreasing our night time battles? It took about an hour to get him to sleep tonight again, and that is starting to be the norm.
Yet another early morning post
04 Apr 2012 1 Comment
But only because of child.
Child will not go back to sleep. I hate it. I finally ran out of patience at 2:30 AM and yelled at him because I was so frustrated. I spent an hour at bedtime getting him to sleep, and then woke up at 1:30, when he probably stayed awake.
Child is stripping his clothes off, playing with everything, and generally doing anything he can to stay awake.
I wanted to leave him in his room by himself, no matter what he did, but Hubby opened the door and is in there now. I am over it, and now I am awake and very pissed off. I suspect if child was left alone he would eventually go back to sleep.
Just go to sleep, already!
Not to mention, my period started today. That probably does not help my disposition.
But the sleep deprivation is not going to make things easier. Now I am going to be grumpy and irritable all day tomorrow.
Edit: Child never did get back to sleep, so everyone was up all night long. Momma is really not happy right now.
