POST GRAD SCHOOL
The post grad school tension is finally off my shoulders. It took me months to stop waking up every
morning and feeling like I had a baby to try and write during my 12 hour shift
or while talking a toddler that never wants to watch shows into giving me a
little thinking space.
The toddler days
and the paper days are past me now and I got to say that although I miss the
toddler days, I don’t miss the paper days.
I’m so glad to be out of school and living life more connected to the
moment. Which leads me to…
NEW JOB
I spent the last semester of grad school shadowing at the best
OB practice in the universe. I knew this
practice from when I was a nurse and loved them. At first I was shadowing my sister in-law
Rachel, who happens to be an OB/GYN at this practice. But don’t forget that I knew Rachel from when
I was a nurse and liked her so much I set her up with my husband’s brother. Who she then married! So – she is my handpicked sister and I might
be a little biased because of how much I love her. She really is an amazing doc and I loved
following her around. Then I spent the
second half of the semester shadowing another doc in the practice named Dr.
Sanders. He had started up an addiction
treatment program for pregnant mother and I knew I wanted in.
One day in November of 2016 I was at work and overwhelmed with all the grad school crap I had to do. I decided to do a job search and see if there where any jobs open that I might love. I saw an opening for an NP that would work in the OB practice I had only dreamed of working in and it was as for someone also wanted to do addiction medicine.
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| my official work portrait Not bad for a girl that took math 152 three times and Purdue |
And I knew it took advantage of every single thing that my
heart wanted to do when I got out of school.
Women’s health and addiction medicine.
I felt like karma had prepared me my entire life to do this very job and
I pulled out every connection I had ever made to make sure I got the job. Human Resources got my application but immediately
kicked it out as I didn’t have the minimum requirements. It took MONTHS of begging and bringing it up
to get to the right person to FINALLY in A-P-R-I-L
I got my official offer and snapped it right up.
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| Blurry picture of my sister/mentor and I celebrating my name getting added to the door. |
My job is to be a women health nurse practitioner who
specializes in addiction treatment for pregnant women. I take care of regular OB/GYN needs but then
I help run our drug treatment program.
Every day I spend time making sure the moms in the program are getting
what they need to be successful and that their program is individualized for
their needs. Every patient presents so
new loop hole, or area for growth, that hasn’t occurred yet and my job is to
figure out a solution. I love being able
to help these women. They have been
through so much and they are usually SO motivated to get better. I love being on the front line of stemming the
opioid epidemic and I give this ladies my all.
We hug, we laugh, we cry, and we all are better people at the end of the
day. This is my dream job. Plus, we working 4 ten hour shifts a week
with the same days off and no holidays/call/or weekends has led to…
THURSDAY DATE DAY
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| first day of school |
This is our first year to have all our children in full time
school every day. I really do miss
having babies around this house, and at least once a week I wish I had another
little person. But I turned 40 this year
and the little people from me are over.
So, we have decided instead to focus our energy on making Thursdays our
date day. We get the crew on the bus and
then we make a nice leaisurely breakfast.
I make Josh his favorite breakfast which is called Egg-In-A-Hole. Toast with the center cut out and toasted in the
frying pan with an egg in the center.
There might be a TON of butter involved with this whole (or hole???)
concept. Then we take a nap, or go to a
movie, or go on a mini adventure. We
have till 3:30 that afternoon to be just us.
Two kids on a date. We had Lily
10 months after we got married, and Emma was two when Josh and I met. We have never been just two kids on a
date. For a couple hours every Thursday
we focus on our relationship and enjoying each other’s company. (Seems like we talk about Disney a lot during
that time, which never hurts.) I have
grown to LOVE Thursdays. Around 3:30pm
the crew starts rolling home and we happily get refocused on…
KIDS
Oh, this crew of mine. I
have so much joy in having a family. The
boys are like two feral cats, but I just adore their boy brains. Quinn is gigantic, 95% for height! HUGE kid that is immune to all physical
discomfort except hunger. He can take
cold better than anyone I have ever met.
He wears shorts all the time. He
is my most bull headed child, but that kid LOVES kindergarten. He loves the learning and the other
kids. He has gotten in zero trouble, and
seems to walk the straight and narrow.
Mr. Max is such a calming agent for my heart. Every since the baby we lost years ago, Max
has been such a comfort to me. He is
such a different kid. His thinking is in
400 directions and most of them are the most unique thoughts humans have ever
come up with. School comes to him easily
and he is in advanced classes. His ADD
has not seemed to be much of a hold back to him. His brain just ping pongs around and his charisma
makes the world his oyster. He just got
a huge role in the school play as Mike TeeVee in Willie Wonka, and he was
amazing. (Again – maybe I am biased but
I was blown away by him.)
Lily bug has been rocking it out as a teenager. She is 14 (WHAT!) and she is the most pleasant
person. She has occasion teenager breaks
with kindness but they are rare and short and she seems to come apologizing
back very quickly. She has been getting
solo’s in choir, and her vocal talent just keeps growing. She got Wendy in her junior high play of
Peter Pan. They told her they didn’t
give her Peter because they needed their best vocalist in the largest vocal
role. It’s really amazing to see her
take her natural talent and her constant work at trying to improve it. She has been singing since she was 10 months
old. She is thriving in her school and
has really started growing into an amazing
adult. I can’t wait to see what this kid ends up
doing with her life.
Emma is 19 years old. Seriously,
almost a real adult. She is halfway
through her sophomore year at Ball State and seems to be doing very well. She’s got an apartment set up for next
year. I can’t believe she is going to be
21 soon! We are planning on taking her
to Disney World for her 21th with the female friend of her choice and taking
her to all the fun bars we have enjoyed when we do an adults only trip. Emma is a very funny and interesting person. She has a seriously kick ass sense of humor
and I really love the rare times we get to spend time with just her. She is brave about food (accept sea food) and
fun to travel with. We will have such a
blast with her.
With all these kids we are really enjoying our…
NEW FARM
Moving and renovating this farm was one of the most stressful
things I have ever been involved with.
Living in a rental and the crew working on this house and all the
uncertainty that involved was more than my little brain could take in my last semester
of grad school. We worked with the best company
and they took such good emotional care of me, but it was still very
stressful. At the end of the day it was
so worth it. I’ve talked about almost
every room of this house on here, but the biggest thing I have to say is I LOVE
THIS HOUSE. It has so much natural
sunlight and the space is all so well used.
We got rid of 60% of our stuff before we moved and I don’t miss one
thing. This house is easy to clean and
easy to live in. My new bedroom and bath
are the fanciest thing I have ever lived in and I adore it. It’s like a dream. The view from the giant kitchen windows is
part of my soul. I love this house. It looks like a pretty little cottage on the
outside and feels like a dream house on the inside. Having our first Christmas here was
wonderful. And the best present of all
added to our collection of…
ANIMALS:
I have been begging for years to get an indoor dog. I really thought I wanted a Wheaten Terrier
but at the last minute the breeder had a Shih Zhu Bichon cross that was going
to be ready for Christmas and I went for it.
I thought the more lap dog like personality of a Shih Zhu might work
better for Josh then the terrier enthusiasm.
We went and picked her up and then hid her at my inlaws till Christmas
morning. I had this extensive plan about
how I was going to sneak her under the tree.
She was out in our heated shop and then at 5am I was going to go get her
and put her under the tree. The three
little kids all sleep in one room together on Christmas night and they were
out. We had it all ready, but I decided
to warm up the puppies bed so she would be more likely to stay asleep. AND THE LITTLE SPACE HEATER SET OFF ALL THE
SMOKE DETECTORS!!!!!! So we quickly
threw her under the tree and told the now awake kids to comes on out. They were so in love with her from the very
start. She is wonderful! We named her Princess Popsicle Petunia
Jingles Consuela Banana Hammock, but we call her Poppy.
The big dogs have had a great winter. They have access to the green house when they
are cold and they get to go on lots of long walks. They have a large fenced in area and over all
I think they are very happy together. I
hope this winter we can move our one sheep and our donkey home so they can play
together.
We have about six chickens and two roosters. The two rooster take turns being in the coop
with the ladies. If they are together
they fight with each other. One of our
rooster is special needs, he has a birth defect and can’t walk. He just flops around with his wings and oddly
seems very happy with his life. But if
the two rooster get together the healthy rooster beats up the special needs
rooster too much and I can’t take it.
The chickens currently lay not one damn egg a day, which is very
annoying but they get like that in winter sometimes. Hopefully they will start back up again soon.
Meanwhile, I have been having a blast starting up…
MY ETSY SHOP
I have had a secret bucket list dream to have some kind of art
that I make that I sell on Etsy and at art fairs. I wanted to buy some custom Disney inspired
mouse ears for the girls for Christmas.
But they where about $35 each and that seemed like too much. I decided that I was going to make some
instead. I ended up overall spending WAY
more money than it would have taken to buy those two sets of ears – BUT I found
a new hobby that is bringing me such joy!
I have had so much fun making all kinds of different ears. I make sketches about them when I have a
little down time. I dream about them at
night. I make them and send them to my
friends little girls for free just cause I love sending them to people. I love it so much that I set up a little Etsy
shop to sell them. They aren’t exactly
flying off the shelf right now.
Honestly, I’ve only sold one so far.
But that isn’t getting me down.
They are joyful and enjoyable and my collection of personal ears has
exploded! We leave for Disney in a few
days and we are going to have so much fun wearing our ears around the most
magical place on earth. Working on these
ears brings a little Disney magic into my art time and it is helping me
maintain my optimistic outlook.
I think this is the longest post I have made in years, but I’m
so glad to have this back as an outlet to chronicle our little family and my
adventure through life.
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