Merry Christmas Again

We had a wonderful Christmas. The kids loved their presents and we had dinner with friends. All in all it was a wonderful day spent with people I love and enjoy. I also wanted to share a few more pictures of my beautiful children.

Drew is growing so fast and becoming an amazing young man. He is very excited about his new computer games, dvds, and books.

Sam is as ornery as the day is long, but he is a great little boy who loves his new "iPod" and keyboard.

Olivia is such a sweet person. She loves her new pony and unicorn figures, as well as her new "iPod" and her R.C. Dragon. Then there is her new stuffed Terrier puppy that she named Buzzway (???)

Sofia just keeps getting bigger. She was most pleased with her new Cabbage Patch Babies and her Christmas Morning Barbie. (At least one of my girls realizes she is a girl...LOL)

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas from our family to yours. I hope your Christmas is wonderful and that you get to spend it with those you love most.

Happy Birthday

Happy Birthday to me!

Happy Birthday to me!

Happy Birthday to me!

Happy Birthday to me!

Get To Know You Christmas

1. Wrapping paper or gift bags? Wrapping Paper.

2. Real tree or artificial? This is our first year for an artificial, but I love it.

3. When do you put up the tree? Around the beginning of December.

4. When do you take the tree down? Around the beginning of January.

5. Do you like eggnog? No.

6. Favorite gift received as a child? Two-wheel bicycle.

7. Do you have a nativity scene? Yes.

8. Hardest person to buy for? Drew and Sofia.

9. Easiest person to buy for? Sam and Olivia.

10. Mail or Email Christmas cards? Mail, but I NEVER remember!

11. Worst Christmas gift you ever received? I don't remember getting a bad gift.

12. Favorite Christmas Movie? It's A Wonderful Life.

13. When do you start shopping for Christmas? In September.

14. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present? No

15. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas? Double Decker Fudge

16. Clear lights or colored on the tree? Colored, don't even get me started on my feelings about white lights.

17. Favorite Christmas song? O Holy Night.

18. Travel at Christmas or stay home? HOME

19. Can you name all of Santa's reindeer's? Yes.

20. Angel on the tree top or a star? Angel, I have have a beautiful Angel.

21. Open the presents Christmas Eve or morning? Morning.

22. Most annoying thing about this time of year? How people act towards one another while Christmas shopping!

Our Christmas Tree

I love Christmas. I love Christmas trees. I love live Christmas trees. However, Thomas and I have been talking about getting an artificial tree for a few years, and we finally did so yesterday. The only kind of artificial tree I would accept is a white tree that was not pre-lit. I have no issues with pre-lit trees, however all of the white trees I have seen come with white lights. I CANNOT stand white lights on a Christmas tree, well maybe in Church, but that is the only exception.

Why do I dislike white lights you ask? There is no heart and no life behind them. They are just white, and not really white, they are clear! I like happy multi-colored lights.

I also love our tree! It is a very happy, cheerful tree. We have a variety of ornaments and we bought them because they are pretty, or have some special meaning, or were gifts. We don't have a "theme" tree, I dislke "theme" trees even more than I dislike white lights. Theme trees belong in Macy's or Dillard's or any of a variety of department stores. They do not belong in homes!

Our tree has a first Christmas ornament for Sam, Olivia, and Sofia; Olivia's and Sofia's are personalized. I don't know if I ever got on for Drew or not. We have ornaments Drew made in school. We have our 2000 First Christmas Together ornament. We have the hand painted ornaments that my mom got for us in 2000, Thomas' with a guitar and musical notes and mine with a nurse's hat and stethoscope. I have ornaments that Drew and I bought with the Rugrats on them, we have Disney ornaments, angels, colored balls, Ricky & Lucy Ricardo, Star Wars, Eyeore, , ducks, snow men, and others. We have a Christmas ornament I got as a child, a Cabbage Patch ornament from when Cabbage Patch Kids first came out. I named her Madeline, one of my favorite names. And then there is my Angel on top. I bought her the first year I was a nurse and had my own apartment and own Christmas tree, she has sat atop my tree every year since! I think she is beautiful.

I really think trees should reflect the people who live in the home, and should have a great variety of personalities represented! Well, I definitely hope I haven't offended anyone with my opinions, but I do feel strongly about this topic. Please leave theme trees at the stores where they belong and make your tree a reflection of those living in the home.

Recycled Black Friday Post

Okay, so this post was recycled from last year, so prices and item examples are a little out of date. However, the post still exemplifies how I feel about Black Friday! I hope if any of my readers braved the sales, they were kind to everyone shopping around them. Most of my readers are religious (Christian, Muslim, etc.) so I hope they exemplified the graciousness of the chosen religion while shopping today.


My post from yesterday and the reply I have gotten has made me think about my biggest pet peeve/complaint about the holiday season and that is Black Friday. I find it very offensive that retailers would make their employees get up and get to work for a store to open at 5:00 AM. What daycare opens at that time? Hopefully none of the employees are single parents who rely on daycare.

But beyond that, for me personally, I find it offensive that a retailer would have a sale start at 5:00 AM and end it six hours later. Why must I get up at that time in order to find the items I want at these great prices? I am not a Wal-Mart fan at all, the company could go out of business and I wouldn't miss them, but they had computers at $398 for six hours on Friday morning. If I was in the market for a new desktop or laptop PC, these were GREAT models especially for the price. However, if I didn't get to Wal-Mart at least an hour before it opened to wait in line, I wouldn't have a chance at getting one of these computers. Hear what happened to the guy who cut in line in Florida?

That brings me to my next point. People who are perfectly sane every other day of the year become absolutely insane the day after Thanksgiving. People fight each other for parking spaces, for the last Tickle Me Elmo (or whatever the toy of the year is,) for spots in the check-out line, etc. What happens to these normal people that they become horrible, terrible people on this one day? Actually, this is the worst day of the shopping season for people to act so terribly, but it continues on through the holiday season. What material item in the world is worth turning into a raving lunatic over? Are we really so materialistic?

The individual who replied to me state she/he saved over $160 on one item. That is wonderful, but I didn't even spend the amount she saved on each of my children. They probably will have around $100-$150 spent on each of them (except the baby, she is getting one item under the tree and one item in her stocking.) This is what we are spending on them, they will have more spent on them by grandparents and others, but not by us. It is not that we are cheap, it isn't even because I went out of work early and money is much tighter.

We buy our children things they want throughout the year, not great big items, but toys or movies or CD's or whatever, that they may want. We have found that they so hugely appreciate things when the get them in small doses, they become massively overwhelmed when they have tons of presents showered on them at one time. I know as they get older presents become more expensive, which is the challenge I have with Drew, but since we don't allow video games that does seeem to help control costs. I about had a fit when I saw the new X-Box was $400, who the heck spends that kind of money on ONE item for a child?

Okay, to get back on topic of Black Friday. I can only vaguely remember going shopping on that day once, and that was with my mom when I was a teenager. I have never gone on my own and cannot imagine a deal so good that I would go at any point in the future. I bought a newspaper on Thanksgiving and looked through all the sale ads and, I must say, there really weren't any sales that tempted me to get out of my bed that early on a Friday morning. I don't like to be used, and that is what the retailers do when they offer these sales for such a short period of time. I like to be treated with respect as a consumer, so when retailers stop trying to "lure" me into their stores at unreasonable times of the day, I will be more apt to spend my money there.

So Excited

Since I bought my very first PC when I was in nursing school, I have wanted a Mac. Macs have better hardware, the software is much more stable and the operating system is known for not crashing. Thomas could tell you I have talked about owning a Mac since we were dating! When we lived in CA, we visited the Apple store numerous times, of course we couldn't afford to buy one, but I went and drooled over them.

Well, yesterday afternoon, the FedEx guy brought my iMac to my front door! I am so excited I can't even stand it. I still haven't figured it all out, as it is very different, but I am enjoying the challenge. So, let me figure out what I am doing and I will blog more. At least getting around online is the same as my favorite browser, Firefox, is Mac compatible.

Help The Drunk Get Home

This is one of those funny web games that looks easy but isn't really. My friend Lisa emailed it to me and I thought I would share it on here. Let me know your high score.


Help The Funny Drunk Get Home

Sam and Sofia

Thomas blogged about this as well, but I thought it was pretty neat so I want to write about it as well. On Thursday while I was sleeping to go to work that night, Thomas took the girls outside to play. Sofia loves her "Zoom Zoom," which is the name that we gave the push toy when we bought it for Sam. Sam didn't walk without some sort of help until he was 17 months old, so he was probably around that age in this picture. Sofia is eleven months old now.

As Thomas mentioned the similarity of the outfits is coincidental but the shoes are the same (white Keds type shoes are great for boys and girls.) Of course the toy is the same, but the kids are different. One boy, one girl born 3 1/2 years apart. Sam was in our backyard in St. Louis and Olivia is in our driveway here in Austell.

Happy Halloween

We went Trick-or-Treating on Halloween night. All three of our children dressed up and had a blast. Sweet Sofia dressed up as a chicken. Her nickname is Chicken because when she was tiny, she never really cried, she just squawked like a chicken. We were very excited when we found a chicken costume at Target.


Olivia is a cat, just ask her. She swears she isn't a little girl, she is a cat. She will crawl around on the floor and meow, and her meow is very authentic as it has brought Vinnie running on multiple occasions. For Olivia, she was bound and determined to be a cat. That was the only costume she had talked about for quite a while. The problem came when we went costume shopping. We couldn't find a cat...anywhere. I found an absolutely adorable cat costume on Gymboree.com, but her size was sold out. The Gymboree shop at the mall didn't have her size either, I was told the costume was sold out almost immediately. As for Target, Wal-Mart, etc, neither place had a cat. They had every other animal imaginable, but no cat...and Olivia wouldn't entertain any other costume. So, our friends lent us theirs from last year and it worked well.


Sam decided early this summer he wanted to be Dash from "The Incredibles." Again, he wasn't to be budged on this idea. We found his costume on the same day we got Sofia's. Now, don't tell him, but his costume is NOT Dash, but Mr. Incredible. I am not sure why the only choice was of Mr. Incredible, but it was. Of course, since Then Incredibles all wear the same costume, it wasn't too big a deal. He was just a VERY muscular Dash. Now, he hated the mask that came with it, he kept grabbing it off of his face, so Daddy used some face makeup that I had bought for our "cat" and painted him a mask.

Drew didn't dress up this year, but he was an awesome helper during trick-or-treating. We went to our friend's neighborhood to trick-or-treat. The babies stayed in their strollers during the evening. Drew took four other kids up to each door and helped them ring doorbells and such. He did a great job and was very much appreciated by all the little kids.

Faith vs. Religion

My husband recently blogged about religion, Protestant Fundamentalism in particular. He only talked about his views, and it was regarding just one specific idea. I must say, as a preface, that neither Thomas nor I are overly religious. I do hold some of my Catholic upbringing close to my heart, but I don't buy into anything 100%.

Then, of course, the blogger people started coming out of the woodwork to comment, as I knew would happen. There were a lot of good comments, and challenging arguments, which I don't mind because it makes me think. However, there was one anonymous poster who infuriated me. I can only refer to this person as an idiot. I don't mind differing beliefs or ideas, in fact, I welcome them. However, the fact that people are very stuck in their own little boxes makes me angry.

The anonymous poster in question stated "you keep blogging about religion. Maybe you should blog about faith." I copied and pasted that from his blog, so there could be no mistake in retyping.

How dare anyone judge my husband's, or anyone's, faith based on a blog about religion! Religion and faith are not one and the same. There can be faith without religion, and there can definitely be religion without faith. I see so many people going through the motions of their religion without any real faith all the time. I also see many people with tons of faith who practice no religion at all. Now to be fair, there are a lot of faithful, religious people in this world. I, myself, know many.

What a small, boxed in world that person must live in to make that comment which sounds so accusing and judgmental. What little faith this person shows, when they make such a giant leap. They definitely seem to be of the mind set that religion = faith and faith = religion.

I think I will have to say prayers for this person as I don't think they are actually very faithful at all. I probably shouldn't refer to them as an idiot, as sad and stuck seem more appropriate.

If I have offended anyone, I am sorry, but I am really angry and I needed to vent.

Pet Peeves

Pet peeves, we all have them and I saw on a blog today one of my big ones.

Daylight Saving Time. Not Daylight Savings Time. There is no "s" at the end of Saving.

There are others like this. It is Valentine's Day, not Valentime's Day.

On New Year's Day, we should wish each other a "Happy New Year" not a "Happy New Years."

Other grammatical things like this bother me also.

Say "I couldn't care less," not "I could care less."

Or supposedly, not supposebly.

Congratulations does not have a "d" in it.

I will stop here for now! I know about a year ago I ranted on grammar, and my opinion hasn't changed so no need to go there again.

Six Years

I have been thinking about six years ago. In January, Thomas and I will be married for six years.

A lot has changed in six years. I have four children instead of one. I am an old married woman now (how did THAT happen?) I have been a registered nurse for 7 1/2 years now. I have been a pediatric nurse for almost two years and I have now been in the PICU for five weeks.

We have moved eight times, in five different states (North Carolina, Missouri, Virginia, California, and Georgia.) I have worked at nine different hospitals (of course, as a travel nurse for part of the time helped boost those numbers.) Drew has been in TEN different schools in that time period plus the catastrophy of trying to home school him when we were travelling (so he didn't have to change schools so frequently.)

Thomas and I married January 14, 2001. We moved to St. Louis in June of that year. Sam was born June 15, 2002. Olivia was born August 12, 2003. We moved to Virginia in January, 2004. We moved to California in April, 2004. We moved to Georgia in November, 2004. Sofia was born December 5, 2005.

Whew, I am tired from thinking about all of that!

Has anyone else's life changed significantly in a relatively short period of time?

PICU

Well, I am starting my third weekend of orientation in the PICU. I have an outstanding preceptor, she is an unbelievably awesome nurse. Working with critically ill children, and their families, is very different than when I was caring for kids on the regular floors. I think I like it a lot. There is an awful lot to learn, and sometimes I wonder if it is possible to become competent at all with this. I do like it and I am going to work hard to learn as much as I can. This is a challenge, but one I am enjoying. I work tonight and tomorrow night, so I am heading to bed soon. Everyone have a wonderful weekend.

I Got My iPod

I am so excited. I finally got my iPod. Not only that, I got the one I wanted, the 30gb black ipod with the full color screen and everything. I am not quite sure how to work everything, but I will figure it out. I downloaded the Mandy Patinkin album I bought a couple of days ago. I am not looking forward to converting my CD collection, but it will be worth it when it is done.

Well, I have to go to bed now. I have my first night of orientation in the PICU tonight, so I need to be rested.

Rest In Peace

I woke this morning to the news that Steve Irwin had died. My first thoughts were of a vibrant, full of life man; it was inconceivable that he could so suddenly be gone. My second thoughts were for his wife and children who have lost a husband and father.

In our house, Steve Irwin was a god. My Olivia adored him, she loves watching him on Animal Planet. She would have only been too happy to be packed up in a box and shipped off to the Australia Zoo. We tried to be VERY careful about not having her see any episodes with Bindi because it would all be over for her. Of course, she saw Bindi in spite of our best efforts. You should have seen her eyes.

I can't even begin to imagine the pain and loss that is being experienced by those who love him. By all accounts, he was a wonderful husband and a very involved father, my sympathies lie with Terri, Bindi, and Bob this morning, as well as his friends and colleagues.

Long Time, No Blog

Well, I have been off my blog for a while, sorry everyone.

I am SURE everyone is DYING to hear about my job. Right? Of course you are.

Well, I didn't get the Assistant Nurse Manager position, but that is okay because they chose a wonderful nurse for the position. I probably would have hired her if it had been my decision. Of course, I still think I would have been an awesome nurse for the job, but I have no hard feelings at all.

So, that left me in a situation of choosing the ER or the PICU. The interview in the PICU went wonderfully. I was a little disappointed in the interview in the ER because the manager wasn't available, she was in another meeting. One of the assistant managers interviewed me. This was the only thing I really had a problem with, I figure if you set up an interview, you don't set up a meeting at the same time. If it is unavoidable (say HER boss set up this meeting) then she should have called to reschedule or ask if one of her assistant managers could do the interview. I would have a hard time accepting a job on a unit where I had never talked with the manager.

However, that being said, I LOVED the ER, it looked really cool. It would be an exciting, dynamic place to work. The same could be said for the PICU as well.

When all was said and done, I chose the PICU. They had the schedule I needed available, the option in the ER wasn't even CLOSE to what I wanted. Also, the manager thing did push me over a lot. In the PICU, I interviewed with the Manager and one of the Assistant Managers. The Manager herself took me on a tour of the PICU and even offered to let me talk with the staff if I wanted. She had HR offer me the job very soon after my interview and even called me back and answered a question within a day of returning from her vacation.

Managers are a major issue for me. Especially since I am leaving the best manager I have ever worked for in my entire career. My current Manager has been a gift from Heaven over the last 20 months. I can't even begin to describe how wonderful she is and how much she has done for me.

On to other, more interesting issues. Sam started pre-K and promptly decided he hated it. He was very surprised on the way home from his first day when I said something about going back the next day. He was under the impression he only had to go once and he was done. He is now in his third week and is adjusting much better. I think he understands now, that while this is a major change in routine, it is still a routine, just a new one. He doesn't cope well with change at all, he is worse than the most crusty-set-in-her-ways-nurse I have ever met. (Ask Thomas about nurses and change...LOL)

Olivia is now three and is very angry that she can't go to school. She insists that SHE is BIG and she needs to go to school with the kids. She has a hard time with the fact that her brother can go and she can't. Of course, we made her happy today, we bought her a tiger family. A Daddy who is an orange tiger, a Mama who is a white tiger, and a Baby who is also white. This is her new tiger family and she loves them. These animals are awesome, they come from Target and are really cool and well made. Considering what the three cost, they should be nice. Worth every penny based on the look on her face.

Sofia is scooting around everywhere and has eight teeth in her mouth. She is HUGE. She is way off the growth charts. At 7 1/2 months she weighed 24 pounds, but since she is very tall, and everything was proportionate, the doc was happy.

Drew is now in high school and involved with Army JROTC. He comes home in pain every night with all the physical activity for ROTC and PE. I think it is good for him, and he agrees. He just wishes he wouldn't be so uncomfortable, but it will pass.

Well, I am exhausted and I need to go to bed. Have a good night.

Peace

Thomas and I had a talk this morning about peace. World peace, and personal peace. I realize that the only type of peace I have any real control over is my own. I realize that I am very lucky, I have a wonderful husband, family, friends, and career. Of course, everything is not perfect, I don't think it ever can be as we are not perfect.

When thinking what I would like to have a more "perfect" life, I came up with the fact that I want and need more girlfriends. I can work on that, and I am working on that, so this is not too big a deal.

To bring more peace to my life, I would need to heal a broken relationship. I have gotten to the point where I would allow the relationship to heal if the other individual would just pick up the phone. This is a situation where I feel I was really wronged, but I have accepted the fact that I won't ever receive an apology, that the other person just isn't capable of doing that. I think to make things more peaceful, you have to accept people where they are, limitations and all. I do realize that I am not yet at a point where I can pick up the phone and make that phone call, maybe because I am the one who last made a call, back in April of 2004. That phone call was never returned and I guess I am still waiting. There has been communication of sorts, via email. First it was friendly, then it turned nasty. The nastiness was not on my part, which is why I am still not quite ready to make the first move.

I have done a lot to move forward though. I have moved to the point where I would not require an apology, which is huge. This is significant movement on my part and it has brought me some measure of peace.

I don't understand why people won't own their mistakes, and do what they can to fix them. God always wants us to right any wrong we have committed, and I try hard to do this. Not everyone does though, even those who claim God in every aspect of their lives, that is hugely hypocritical to me.

Of course, the person I am in "conflict" with doesn't claim God at all, as far as I know. That may be some of the problem.

Oh well, I am rambling now. I will end here, if anyone has anything helpful to add, please do so.

Job Update....Again

Okay, so I did get very tired of waiting for a call about my job application, so I submitted more applications. I submitted an application to the PICU and to the ER, both at the same hospital where I currently work. I realized, that while I really want the Assistant Nurse Manager position, I really needed a change even if I didn't get the job that was my first choice.

So, now I have applied for three jobs, and these three jobs require a total of five interviews. One interview apiece for the ER and PICU. Three interviews for the Assistant Manager position; one with the management team, one with the director, and one with the staff. So far, I have completed all three interviews for the Assistant Manager position, the final one was yesterday. I interviewed for the PICU last week and I interview for the ER next Tuesday.

I have been offered the position in the PICU, but thankfully, I don't have to make a decision quite yet. I spoke with the recruiter who assured me that I can finish my interview process and wait for decisions/offers before I accept or decline any position.

Next Tuesday after my interview I have a staff meeting with my current department. We are meeting our new director at this meeting. Our manager is staying the same, but there is a new director. I am also curious if the changes within my department might not allow me to stay where I am but take on the new responsibilities I am desiring. I was promoted this spring, but the only thing I have seen with the promotion thus far is the salary increase. The money is nice, but I did the required work for the promotion because I wanted to have the increased/different responsibilities this would allow. However, this has never happened. I am doing the same thing I was doing before my promotion, I am just being paid more. As I said, the money is nice, but not the only thing.

I guess I am saying, that I need personal and professional satisfaction out of my career, not just a paycheck. I require constant challenges and new learning experiences. Stagnation is the death of a job for me, but I like where I work, so I am looking internally for the new challenges instead of looking externally. This is very different from where I have been in the past, I always looked externally. I would hope this shows growth on my part.

Well, enough for today. I will update as news comes available.

Job Update

Well, things are moving at a snail's pace wtih the new job that I want. The day after I applied the recruiter emailed me asking for me to update a few things on my application, as it was the same application I had put in when I was first hired. Applying is done online and the application is saved for possible use in the future.

So, I updated as asked, and then heard nothing at all. I called HR and left a message and still heard nothing. So, I applied for a couple of other positions that interest me. And then I heard back, finally. Turns out the recruiter was on vacation, so everything came to a stand still until she got back. As things stand now, my application was forwarded to the hiring manager on Monday and I should hear from her within a week or so. (Of course I am going on vacation in two weeks, but nevermind that.)

Now I am waiting again. I hate waiting. I am not very patient about things like this. Nothing gets my anxiety level up like sitting around and just waiting.

On the plus side, I have been accepted to the University of Phoenix Online to complete my BSN. That is good news, now I just have to figure out how to pay for it. I have applied for a bunch of scholarships, and I can apply for tuition reimbursement from work in October, so I may have to wait for one or the other to come through since the program is pricey. At least I have gotten accepted, which is a major step.

I will update as I have any information! Please keep saying prayers for me.