This is the house that Jack built.

The more I read about home house buying, the more I realize I want one.  I want a house.  We have this home here but it's not a forever home.  I'm 30 and I've moved approximately every 1-2 years since I was 18.  Those college years it was from parents' house to college dorm back home back to different college dorm back home then after graduation I moved out and lived alone in Liberty, MO.   I went to William Jewell and I really enjoyed Liberty at that time.  It seems so overloaded and overpriced now.  I absolutely love the Liberty square though it sorta looks like a sham now and I love all those historic old houses there.  Once during college one of my professors had my class over.  His wife and children were there in their adorable old home.  It was warm and cozy and they had this wild yard that in the summer had every color and height and type of wildflower.  Perfect.

I grew up on a farm.  It wasn't a huge farm.  The first farm we lived on came stocked when we moved in.  It had sheep, cows (including a bull and cows to milk), chickens, guineas, pigs and more.  It was only 8 acres or so, a hobby type farm?  My mom did most of the work and my dad sort of dabbled in it.  We had horses, tractors, a pond full of fish, a little row boat, a huge red barn, cats, dogs.  Dreamland.  It was a dreamland - I loved it so much.

When I was in the 8th grade we moved to a larger farm, an 80 acre farm.  It's where my mom still lives though now she has sold some of the land and it has been developed with several houses.  (It's so hard to see it that way).  When we moved there we still had animals and now we grew corn and soybeans.  We've always had multiple, enormous gardens.  My mom canned (still does) fruits and vegetables we grew, froze things to prepare for winter, we belonged to a food co-op.  Our backyard was always outfitted with a clothesline and a tire swing.

I think it's only right now as I write this that I realize how deeply I loved all those things.  I can't tell you how many times I had a baby lamb or some other baby animal in my room whose mama had died or it'd been rejected.  That's heaven to me.  I loved all those animals around.  I had no idea those gardens were really such a luxury.

My mom has multiple times now offered us a piece of her land to build a house on.  As a gift.  She's offered us her home and said she'd build herself a different one.  I don't know how I could possibly reject this offer but now that I have a daughter I'm having so much trouble with the idea of us living there.  And could I be my mom's next-door neighbor?!  Some cons of living there include the small worldviews many residents of that community have.  The schools there are great but the cultural diversity is fairly non-existent.  The class options are limited and I'm just not a home-schooler.  There are so many things Beebs might be involved in that wouldn't be available there and I hate driving 30, 40+ minutes to go anywhere and do anything.  IF I were to still work in this area, the commute to work would be over an hour.  The closest hospital to my Mom's house is 30-some miles away.  I realize I could work somewhere besides a hospital..just sayin'.  I don't know what to do with this.  The other night before I fell asleep I pictured us building a little house.  I imagined my mom helping me do my own garden.  I imagined Beebs running and playing in that wide open space.  I imagined her with a bottle feeding a little lamb with a converted soda bottle.  And I just don't know what to do. 

i could cry, or die, or just make pies all day.

Oh my goodness.  It's nearly 4 am and here I am..still awake. 
I sometimes feel like I "waste" time reading other people's blogs.  In my head I'm learning/researching/being entertained/getting new ideas but then I think maybe that time would be better spent exploring in real life.  It's not that I don't explore in real life and do my own learning, it's just that perhaps I spend too much time reading about what other people are doing. 

Anyway.
I'm off for 4 more days and I am completely wallowing in it.  I asked for a few days off so we could just relax and have some fun here around Roommate's birthday.  He turns 30 on Wednesday.  Today we had my mom and his parents and twin brother over for birthday lunch and birthday PIE.  It was nice, very low key.  I have his gifts wrapped on the table and am having way more trouble than he is waiting.  He's already received a couple early gifts.  So fun.

I should go snuggle Beebs.  Tonight it was hard getting her to bed.  Her sleep schedule has been getting kind of messed with (our fault usually) and it really throws her.  We're not routine people - and again, perhaps that in itself is our routine but she usually goes down for a nap at 2 pm every day and will sleep 2+ hrs.  If we run errands in the morning it is not unusual for her to fall asleep on the way home - even if it's only on the last 5 minutes home and I swear, if she sleeps for 5 min in the car..the nap is out.  The other day I was pulling into the our parking lot and watched her blink...blink...blink off to sleep and I got her out of the car, she was asleep on my shoulder.  I slowly slipped her coat off in the house and the instant I laid her down she was all oh hell no!  We did a cozy little nap routine and it was completely unsuccessful.  All of this to say that tonight she was so tired after a day of family time and we put her down about 8 and at 10:30 we were still working on getting her to sleep.  It felt like such wasted time!  And I feel guilty saying that because I love time with her but she was literally jabbing her fingers into her eyes trying to keep them open.

Here's a photo I took recently.  It was a night when I woke up in the middle and absolutely could not go back to sleep.  I turned on the lights we have hanging on our bed that are perfect for bedtime reading/snuggling and read Franny & Zooey for a couple hrs until I fell asleep about 6 am. 

sick of myself

nightcap.

Hi.  I'm sitting here in a bit of a haze.  I just worked 2 whole days in a row, I don't know, like 14'ish hr days?  Twenty eight hours of work in 2 days isn't much but I'm just so worn out.  One particular patient has been draining the past couple days, mostly because, I got sort of attached to this person when we first met a week or two ago and now this person needs..I don't know what..something I felt like I wasn't giving and..  I felt this patient searching for it?  She held my hand a couple times and blew me a kiss and searched my face more than usual and maybe she saw tiredness there?  I try always to keep that tucked away in a secret place when I'm with patients.  Anyway, just felt a bit pathetic for feeling this tired after only 2 days of work.  

This morning at work, the rooms closest to the nurses' station were the ones with the sun just pouring in.  It felt like a phenomenon.  The sun!  Pow!

I just put a movie in - El Dorado.  I think I'll watch a few minutes of it until I'm out.  heh. 
Tomorrow - man - the days where the temp is say, above freezing are just filled with magical potential. 

a few words.

Mondo Beyondo started and I'm scared a little?  I wish I could have 5 weeks off from work in order to relax and focus on dreaming.  DREAM!  see?!  I was dreaming big..right there!

I bought crafty things today and stitched together a felt block for Beebs with bells inside and then I started on some mod podge goodness.  I know that'd probably 1970's third grader stuff but I love it and I feel so happy when I'm making something for my kid.  Such small little things but. 

It's almost 4 am and I haven't been to bed yet.  This is very very unwise.

I'm trying to put into words all that I'm thinking about my online course thing - mondo beyondo - and ..  it's hard.  I cannot stop comparing myself to others and just relax and do my thing.  I'm reading through 90 other comments and chewing over their words and decided if what I wrote is what I meant. 

I want a large chunk of time off work.  I want time to be productive, creative and to rest.  I should ask off for some time in May or something.  The weather is always so pretty around Beebs' birthday at the end of April and then into May.  I actually asked off for her birthday in April a month or so ago.  I wanted plenty of time this year to prepare and enjoy. 

Our house is a complete and total disaster and I don't even know where to begin. 

Last week I worked Mon/Wed/Fri and each day my very favorite friend/co-worker was also scheduled and all 3 of those days were great.  I feel safer when she's there.  The only way I know to explain that is:  When I worked in the lockdown facility for teens -- there were certain staff members that just sucked ass and had no idea how to maintain some level of control, were not mindful and aware of things going on on the sidelines and the kids would get so...  rawrrrr.  It was like they were just..nervous buzzing..something about to happen..no good..restless..ahhhhhhhh.  With other staff, they felt safe.  They knew that even if the shit hit the fan..it would be handled..they would be kept safe..taken care of...etc.  I don't feel "unsafe" at work..but there are times when I feel like things are solid and I know that even if things get psycho crazy -- we're all in it together.  Other times, I know my ass is just out there wavin' in the breeze and if things get hairy..too f'in bad! 

This is all so jumbled and crude sounding.  I got SouleMama's book  The Creative Family and I'm in love with it.  It makes me feel calm and grounded and ..  hopeful.  I'm also reading Simple Abundance. 
I just got the hiccups.
yow.  pop!

Anyway.
I am craving clarity.
I want to stop considering 8 million other opinions before I decide what mine is.

stream of..somethingness.

In my college english class, in high school, my teacher, one of my very favorites ever, would have us get out our journals and just write write write anything anything for a certain amount of time.  I sometimes hated this but mostly loved it and ohhhh, the crazy things that come out in those times.  This is my stream of somethingness tonight/this morning.
Sitting here on the couch across from Roommate.  He's dozing in and out, head cocked to the left, right elbow in the air.  He's unhappy a bit lately.  He says nothing's wrong but it feels like something's wrong.  I think it's maybe me bringing him down?  I complain so often about my job and really, it's not good for him.  It makes him feel more helpless, like I'm so unhappy & hating my job yet there's nothing he can do about it.  I applied for another job recently and then I had a patient, one that came in to sober up, told me "that hospital's not fit for dogs!"  Of course sometimes I hear similar things about the hospital I work at and I suppose it all depends on that person's experience good/bad etc.  Of course!  But then I was like, hm, gosh, do I want to work there? 

My Mondo Beyondo course starts on the 10th and I couldn't be more excited.  Oh, sweet potential.  Tonight I danced around some nursing message boards - if for no other reason than to see other areas in the field of nursing and to read what other ortho/neuro/trauma nurses have to say.  It's going on 1 am and not long ago I made myself a pot of coffee.  It just sounded so good and warming.  Hating my job is so 2009 (and 2008).  My student loan is paid off.  It's time to cut ties there. 

The whole time I'm typing this I am compulsively reading other blogs.  I'm so ADD on the internet.  I can't even wait for something to load, I click something else to look at for those few seconds.  I've looked at flickr and read a couple blogs and then I'm all, oh yeah, stream of, type type type.  I am, oh, Roommate is going to bed now.  Anyway, I'll head there soon. 

I'm lazy at life lately and it shows.  It shows in the way my new scrub pants my mom got me for christmas hug me tight enough to make my love handles flounce over the top and say Hi, everybody!!  It shows in the way my poor daughter has barely left the house in 2 weeks.  She did go with us to the grocery store the day before yesterday and that was her first time out in...awhile.  I mean, we've played outside but she hasn't been OUT among others.

Tomorrow we have a very small adventure planned.  Adventure indicates BIG but..  this is small.  We have a couple gifts cards to use, one for First Watch, another for Panera.  I think we should use one tomorrow!  heh.

eh meh.  I'm done writing this.  Nothing much came out of it.  I'm allowing myself to be distracted too much.
bye.

pleh.

Where are you, magic wand of happiness?  I'm looking for you!

I woke up in the wee hours of the morning having a gallbladder attack.  There's nothing to do during an attack besides maybe take some pain medicine and berate yourself for eating something unhealthy/fatty that triggered the attack.  I think the trigger I ate was a baked potato with ranch dressing on it.  I hurt so bad.  I knew it would pass but during, gah!  I ended up eating the last Vicodin I had from when I got my teeth pulled.  I tell you what, that one pill made me a worthless, groggy, snoring mess.  It was ridiculous, totally non-functioning person.  I'd sit down and my head would just drop and I'd start snoring.  The whole situation made me super-crazy grumpy because I wasted the day and also felt like shit.  This is especially frustrating when I work tomorrow.  Today was all about being productive and enjoying the day and it was neither productive nor enjoyable. 

"Don't stop, don't give up!  Keep trying.  Keep trying."

Poor Beebs.  She's had to put up with us all day.  My blechiness kind of rubbed off on Roommate. 
Ok.  Time to try to get out of this horrible funk.  I'm teetering between tears and screaming rage.  awesome.

welcome, 2010.

Hey, what's goin' on?  I'm just rollin' into day 2 of this shiny new year.  I cannot believe the difference in my mental stability on my days off.  I worked the past 3 days and I was off today and the days off (assuming I don't work the next day) are so filled with hope.  There's just such a stark constrast between those feelings of defeat I have at work and the ones I have when I'm not there. 

I am simultaneously watching Dr. Bronner's Magic Soapbox and writing this.  My mom is here, asleep on the couch across from me.  Roommate and Beebs are asleep together in our little bed.  

Here's a post I read that has helped me work towards finding the place I want to be in to bring in this year.

Yesterday at work in our little nutrition room where we keep our Zesta crackers and our graham crackers and our Club crackers and our sprite and our Jell-O and popsicles and ice cream and bitter coffee, I had a conversation with 3 co-workers about things that had happened at work recently and we all shared our frustration and essentially our hurt and a little bit of humiliation.  The past 3 days there were cuckoo crazy and our conversation started randomly and perhaps a bit desperately and I tell you this, I left that room feeling 10 pounds lighter.  I had to tell my co-workers that, to thank them for comiserating with me in a way that did not leave us all wallowing in the muck but instead we balled it up and threw it away.  There's more of it, yes, but some of it is gone and I felt redeemed.   

I feel like I'm on the cusp of something great.  I could pop that Hope Bubble in an instant by telling myself I am merely caught up in that New Year's haze of change that gets us all drunk on potential but I'm not going to do that.  I'm thinking about you and hoping for great things for you.