leavin' on a jet plane, don't know when i'll be back again...

It was my last night, and it was fantastic. Great friends, great food, lots of hugs, some excitement, some sadness.

I'll miss you guys.

The next time you hear from me, I'll be in Birmingham.

Ready to go...

Mark is here with me in Chattanooga. So nice to have him here!

I'm getting so impatient to be back in Birmingham. 5 more days here, total, and it's going to be fun - I'm getting my hair cut tomorrow with Mark, and then Sunday night I think my mom and I are seeing Julie and Julia, and then Monday morning we're having girls' day. And Wednesday will be my last night. I'm so ready.

Back in Chattanooga....

I'm back for work for the last time. (Not back for the last time, much to the assured relief of my family and friends here.)

We finally got our box springs today - still waiting on the bed. Seriously, it's been over a month now - I'm getting impatient. We've paid for it on the credit card already, and I want to be sleeping in it! Pictures to come as soon as we get it.

Andy and Suzie are settling in pretty well, it seems like - Andy's job searching right now, and Suzie is trying frantically to get her paper done, and is going to ask for another extension probably next week, since she had so much stuff happen during the writing process. (She had the flu for over a week, then all her research got locked in the library when it closed, unannounced, for a long weekend, and then some of their luggage got lost for a day, not to mention moving halfway across the world.... So. Hopefully they'll grant that, and she can get it done.

Mark's school is going really well so far - he got a B+ on his first paper!! Yay for him!!!! He seems to be enjoying his classes, and has picked his topics for his two major papers this semester (he just has to talk with his advisors about them before he starts the research.) He's coming to visit tomorrow, and will be here through Sunday :) That will make my week go a bit easier, I think.

It's crazy to think that in 7 days, my life is going to change. I'm hoping it's going to be a change for the better - definitely better hours, seeing my hubby a LOT more often, getting my house in the shape I want it ... It sounds excellent. And now that we have our good friends back in town, we have people to do things with, and split the cost of things with :) Suzie loves to entertain as much as I do, so that will be a lot of fun for us. It'll be nice to have somebody to have coffee and scrapbook and do fun crafty things with :) I'm really excited about the prospects of what our lives are going to be like.

"Live every week like it's shark week"

-Mark, quoting 30 Rock. How would that be, exactly? Sit around and watch the Discovery Channel all day and night?

Today was an INCREDIBLE day. Wanna know why?







Do you, really?







Really?







It's because...






I GOT MY OFFICIAL JOB OFFER THIS AFTERNOON!!!!!! Wahoo!!!! (And I also got to come home to my sweet hubby, which ties as the best thing that happened to me today)

Reasons why this is wonderful:
-I can breathe a sigh of relief
-My 2-week notice that I turned in the other day is correct, and effective. I've never done one of those before...
-I get to work dayshift.
-I get to be a wife, 5 days a week.
-I get to sleep at NIGHT like a normal person :)
-I get to live with my hubby all the time again :)
-Despite the fact that I work every weekend, Mark and I still have two completely free days together :)

Oh man, I am excited. I think I've been saying that for like weeks now, but seriously. I'm excited. It's crazy ... it seems to be happening so fast, all of a sudden, and life is just so sweet.

Speaking of sweet - I got to go home to my love today for the first time in 9 days. Long time. Too long. We missed each other lots, and I really, really love him :) A whole lot. We're so excited to get to live together all the time again!


I really like this guy. I think I'll keep him.

almost there.

Tomorrow, I get to go home. I cannot tell you how much joy this brings to my soul.

Tonight, I am thankful. God has given me so many blessings ... so many people who love me, so many wonderful opportunities to be happy, so many things to make me smile. It's unfathomable, the love and support that I have received throughout this time of being separated from my sweet hubby. So many friends offered their beds and homes for me to stay in, so many have offered me their time and a listening ear when I want to vent/complain, so many have offered me encouragement when I felt like things were never going to work out. And now that they are working out, I have just gotten this incredible outpouring of love from people who've been praying for us, from people at work wishing me well but assuring I'll be missed. People are good. I really, really believe that. I may be the eternal optimist about this, and probably wrongly so, but I can't bring myself to believe anything but that. That people, deep down, are good. (Good not in the sense that we all aren't sinful and inherently wrong and all that jazz.... but just ... good. I think they care. And want to do the right thing. And all that.)

thoughts on leaving

I turned in my 2 weeks notice tonight. I'll really, really miss my co-workers. They are so great. I hope they know that.

But, there are so many things I can't wait for. Having Mon-Fri off every week dances in my head like a fairy tale ... that part is almost too good to be true. Working two days a week. Being able to be a wife, being able to sleep at night rather than when the sun is out and bright. Being able to have a life. I know I keep talking about this, but I'm so excited to see what the future brings. I'm so hopeful. Mark is really enjoying school, we'll have our friends back and close to us very soon (just one week now!), I've got an amazing schedule...

About 6 months ago (give or take) I was really really frustrated about where we were, and where life was taking us. I wanted to be able to have a baby if I wanted (which I wasn't ready for, still am not, but still, it was the priniciple...), I wanted to buy a house, I wanted to BE THERE ALREADY. But I'm realizing more and more that I am HERE, not there, and I need to not take this time for granted. I know for a fact (well ... at least, I hope) that we aren't going to be having kids in the next three years. I could be grumpy and mopey and moody about it, and beg Mark and do something that wouldn't be best for anybody in the long run. But instead, I'm choosing to enjoy this time - this is the only time we'll have to enjoy each other until we're old, and by then, we'll feel too yucky to do anything fun. So I'm going to try and make the most of it. Yes, there are days when I want a baby. But there are more days when I LOVE my life, and being able to go out and do things on the spur of the moment without worrying about a babysitter. I know we're poor, but I want to travel, and do things and enjoy my husband now without the stresses of children. We are at such an amazing place in our lives, especially with our schedules right now... it's just taken a while for me to realize it. Now that I have, I'm intending to appreciate it more, and take full advantage of our situation.

Life is good. And so is God. And daily, I'm remembering that it's important not to forget both.

Awake

Today, I'm meeting my mom and grandma for lunch, and then going shopping with them for a bit. I'm trying to buy some new fall/winter clothes with what little extra money we have, before it gets really tight. Then I work tonight thru Sunday night, and on Sunday, I'll go home with Sarah to sleep, and spend the day with her. Trying to get in my friend time before I head back to the 'ham for good :)

This week seems so long. I feel like I've been here for at least 4 days or something, but I just got here wednesday afternoon... I'm just tired, and ready for the change. It's hard for me, when I am anticipating a big change, but I have to wait for it. I have become so impatient - I want things to happen NOW, instant gratification. I'm not good at waiting, even after these last two years. I'm getting better, though, slowly. God is teaching me through everything with Mark and his job, and everything with my job search - and I'm getting better. More calm. More at peace with myself, and the things around me. For the first time in quite a long time, things are working out for both of us at the same time - I've (finally) found a job, and Mark is really going to like grad school. Money will be tight for a while (not that it hasn't been already...) but it's a means to an end, and hopefully after the next couple years, Mark can find a really great job that he loves, and we can start our family. If not - well, we'll figure that out when the time comes. (After I have a nervous breakdown.) My mantra over the past year or so has become "It will be okay." And it will. It will always be okay, eventually. And, momentarily at least, it's okay right now. I'd even go so far to say: things are good :) I like it that way.

A day in the life...

Housewife-ing it again today. I don't know what has come over me, but I vacuumed the entire house today. We are not having houseguests. We are not moving. (These are typically the reasons that I vacuum.) Those of you who know me probably think I'm off my rocker. I may very well be. But in the last two days, I've cleaned the upstairs bathroom (including the shower), cleaned the kitchen (twice) including the floor (once), vacuumed the house, did 3 loads of laundry (granted, they were tiny loads, as the inside of our washer is about the size of a large pumpkin), generally straightened things up...

Have I gone mad?

I think it's a combination of several things. 1)I'm getting old. Yes, I know what you're thinking - I'm only 24. That isn't old. But I feel old. And what else can you call a person who gets abnormally excited about getting a brand new vacuum cleaner for her birthday but old?? (I still LOVE my vacuum, btw. It makes vacuuming that much more fun. Why do I love it so much? It works.) I like to cook. I'm beginning to sort of tolerate cleaning. (Which is saying a lot for me.) Yesterday, I, much to my dismay, found a shirt that I am decidedly too old to wear. I look dumb in it. So ... yeah. I'm old.
2) I actually really like this place. It's the first time that I've really been proud of where we've lived - the first place was ehh, mediocre. The second, we VASTLY improved the aesthetics of, but that's not saying much. Mark's dad called it "Mark and April's Bait and Tackle shop." Not a good thing, when it's your place of residence. At least we didn't own it, and therefore didn't really have to claim it. But here - I love. It's bright, and feels roomy, particularly for an apartment (townhouse, actually.) It has these precious little wooden rails between the dining room and living room. (Those rails totally SOLD me on the place. I. Love. Them.) We have nice decorations and furnishings (aside from our OLD OLD couches, which don't even look too bad.) The lighting is good, particularly with the help of our lamps. The kitchen is small, but functional. The painting we've done, and it wasn't nearly as much as the last place, really completed the look we were going for. It's comfortable, it's quiet, it's spacious, and just... nice. Not to say that it doesn't have problems - I hate hate hate the washer/dryer, and I'm not fond of the dishwasher, and the oven is teensy and we only have one oven rack. (Ridiculous!) But ... all that is not so bad, considering what we have. So I like to keep it looking nice. Which ... makes cleaning tolerable.
3) I wanna be a housewife. Plain and simple. And the desire is growing - so therefore, so are my efforts.
4) I'm not working at all while I'm in the 'ham, as of right now. I do all my work in Chattanooga, and then I come here, and I get to play housewife for a week. So what else am I going to do besides keep things looking nice and baking? We have NO MONEY to shop with (so sad. Cause I could go nuts.) We have NO MONEY to go out to eat with (also sad, since we have friends here). So ... I cook. And I clean. And ... I like it :)

In other news, I'm still farming obsessively (particularly when I should be studying for my NRP test, which is Thursday.) I'm still (obvioulsy) blogging. I'm making a list of things to ask my potential new manager when I touch base with her tomorrow or Tuesday. And I really, really am not excited about going back to Chattanooga to work on Wednesday :(

Mattress, Bed, House, and Church :)

I'm loving my life in Birmingham right now (too bad it has to be cut short every other week to go to work...) Mark and I are settling into a nice routine (during the day!! I love it!!), and he's getting really excited about school starting. I can't believe it's already August - just 17 more days, and he's a "real" grad student! (And then will begin another crazy chapter in our lives...)

Yesterday was exciting. We'd been talking for quite a while about buying new bedroom furniture and a new mattress, because ours are OLD and Andy and Suzie will need the bed back when they return. So we did :) We got a GREAT deal on our mattress ($300 off! Woo!), and our bed was 20% off, which put it exactly into the price range we decided on :) We also decided that right now, it would be more profitable to spend more money on a better mattress, and buy just the bed and not the matching furniture. (Because the mattress is what you actually sleep ON, you know, and we already have passable bedroom drawers and stuff.) So the mattress is being delivered on Wednesday, and the bed is being delivered in a week or 2, and I will post pictures of our completed bedroom after that's all put together!

Also! Completed office:

Mark's desk space and the bookshelf



And my scrapbooking area :)



And we finally have the living room totally completed as well - I think it's my favorite room in the house :)

Mark in his chair



Front view of the couch



View of couch from the dining room



We love it!

In other news (and I know this blog is getting long, so I'll make it short), we went to church today at Vestavia Hills United Methodist - it was our first time there, so the jury's still out, but it was nice, and they came to our door like 20 or 30 minutes after church had ended and gave us a "thank you for visiting" welcome packet, including a loaf of homemade bread! (Mark didn't answer the door because he thought it would be Mormons - I feel bad that we didn't answer it now.) They've got their welcome game on, for sure :)

Oh! Side note! Mi familia is coming to visit on Tuesday! They've never seen our place, and my mom is dying to go to Whole Foods and my whole family wants to go to Surin for lunch (SO happy to oblige on both counts), so I'm super excited about it :)

It's about time for me to go warm us up some dinner (I made yummy taco soup yesterday in the crock pot - LOVE having that stuff for leftovers...) so time to go, but I'll post more pictures after my family (and the bed) comes :)

Home :)

At long last, I have finally calmed down enough/gotten the camera to work/saved all the pictures on mark's computer - and am posting pictures of the apartment!! Yay!!



Here is the entrance to our apartment, and our lovely tree in front! So pretty!


First view of the inside of the apartment: not so pretty. Brown ugly texture before...



...matching cream paint and pretty painting from Andy after! (Still the icky texture though. Yuck.)


Dungeon-y upstairs bathroom before (again with the nasty brown textured walls...)



And after! Pretty seafoam-ish color :)


Also, ugly brown textured kitchen before...



And after! (If you can't tell, that's blue paint on the wall.)



Now - we have wallpaper! (Better than the ugly brown textured paint - but still eww.)



And after! Lavender with pretties :)



And the objects of my day of shopping: LOVE this painting. LOVE IT. Can't wait till it gets hung up :)



AMAZING patio table! Green mosaic tile, on sale at World Market. Woo!



My cool backyard. Mark desperately wants to plant grass back here. It will be a fun project :)



Friends!! Lissa with her hedgehog, Pliny - isn't he ADORABLE???



And then last night, before Mark and I drove home late late late, Matthew came over and we had double date night at our place. This is the boys washing dishes. We thought it was cute.



And that's it for now! More later, I promise. But at the moment, I'm in Chattanooga for my first "official" week of the "on" part - work tomorrow and Saturday, off sunday, and then on again mon, tues, and wed. And then home again! Hopefully it'll go smoothly .... we'll see :) And now it's time to eat! (Perk of living in Chattanooga - my mom's awesome food!)

Here, There, and Everywhere (also, we love our apartment!)

Well, blogging world, I've survived my first Birmingham-Chattanooga-Birmingham weekend. It wasn't so bad. Not so limbo-y. I think I'm going to be okay. The excellent thing is that here (bham) I can be a housewife on a normal daytime schedule - we don't have curtains here yet, so the sunlight wakes me up early. It's nice - I can reset myself so much faster!

Unfortunately, my camera is dead, I can't find my charger (boxes EVERYWHERE!!), and I can't figure out how to get pictures from the memory card onto mark's computer to save. (I'm computer-dumb at some things. Good thing I'm married to a computer genius!) So no pictures today. But I will say - I love the apartment. The painting turned out WONDERFULLY, we just have the kitchen left to do in that aspect. The bathroom is done. I'm about to go tackle the bedroom - this scares me. And Elissa is coming today to help! Yay!

Things I like about our apartment:
-We have a kitchen window that looks out to our pretty tree in the "front yard" (ie patch of grass beside the sidewalk), and my pretty curtain-y thing from the last apartment that I made still fits!
-The new paint jobs look incredible
-The whole thing has the potential to look like actual grown-ups live here!
-We have a backyard. The living room has big sliding glass doors that look out onto our patio (big enough for patio furniture!) and a decent-sized patch of grass, and a fence around all of it! (And Mark's planning some sort of project for it. The yard, I mean. Woo!)
-We have BANISTERS! (It's my favorite part about the whole thing. I'll show you when I find the camera charger, etc.)
-There is a decent amount of storage space
-I love our living room :) (Or at least I will, when the boxes are out of it.)
-This apartment has POTENTIAL.
-The washer and dryer aren't in the kitchen! (And even better- they're in the bathroom! So convenient!)
-It has SIGNIFICANTLY better carpet than our last place.
-Our bedroom is huge
-So is the office :)

Love it!

Things I don't like about the apartment:
-The washer and dryer came pre-installed, and they are tiny. I miss my nice big whirlpool ones :(
-There's not really a great place for the litter box
-There's this nasty texture on a lot of the walls. Paint made it better, but still - eww. Not necessary.
-I wish all the counters were white instead of beige-y cream-ish
-One of our bedroom closets has a hanging rod, and the other has all shelves. This is awesome. Unfortunately, the hanging rod is anchored only to the shelf above it, so it sags when you put stuff on it. This could potentially be a problem - we need a brace for it.

That's really all so far. Verdict: favorite apartment thus far!! I guess we'll see once we've lived here a bit longer, but I like it a lot :)

Moved In!

(But not yet unpacked.)

Well, I made it through. Funny how life is like that. You think you're going to just DIE, and then somehow, magically, you don't. You live to tell about it, and you gain funny stories, more experiences, more colors on your paint pants, new pictures for your scrapbooks.

These last few days have been so much easier than I ever imagined, mostly due to my fabulous husband and family and friends. On Tuesday, while I slept off a crazy two previous days, they (our band of 6 dutiful workers) packed up our entire side of the duplex and loaded it onto the truck in 3 hours. They came to eat lunch, and we went back and cleaned. About an hour or so later, we were off. Got to the 'ham around 5-ish, unloaded everything (just me, Mark, Dad, and Thomas) in about another 3 hours. (Dream team, right there.) It was a good day. Long, but good.

Then yesterday, we unloaded the washer and dryer and pushed them up a HUMONGOUS hill (actually, not me. just dad and mark and thomas. i would have died) to our storage room. Took the truck back, organized my kitchen, unpacked a few more things. Dad and Thomas left, and I went to buy paint.

Today, we started painting. Thus far we've primed a wall, a large bathroom, and a small bathroom, and painted on top of the primed wall. Not too shabby, I say. We still have to paint the office (Aloe Vera!), the bathroom (Delicate Mist!), the downstairs bathroom (Luscious Lavendar!), and prime and paint the kitchen (First Light!). So lots to do ... but we're going to try to finish everything but the kitchen tonight. Which means that I should probably get on that.

Pictures will come soon.

On Moving

Just a quick update:

We move a week from today. As stressed as I am about the next two weeks, and as worried as I am about the whole job thing (or lack thereof), I am really pleased with our progress toward the actual MOVING DAY. I'm a big list-maker ... and we have lists EVERYWHERE! Taped on the fridge are, I think, 3 different lists. Mark has earned the title of "Best Husband Ever" for putting up with me these last few weeks (as well as actually DOING what the lists tell him to ... I'm not so good in that area.) We have a bunch of boxes already packed, and have a pretty decent game plan for packing everything else.

So, the countdown:
I work tonight, and then tomorrow night. I'm off for three days after that, which will be go time for me. And then I work Sunday night, stay over for the CPR class, work Monday night from 1am to 7am, come home, sleep a bit, and then .... move! It's come so quickly, but I think this has been the best prepared that we have been of all the MANY times we've moved. I actually feel pretty good about things.

Life, bring it on.

Life in NI

We're back!

Mark and I got home from a lovely, restful vacation on Friday afternoon, and I will post a blog telling all about that tomorrow, but I'd like to touch on something that I haven't really talked about before: my work.

I love these NICU babies. I love to cuddle them (which happens not often enough), and I have poured blood, sweat, and tears into some of them. I have fought for them and with them, I've chased them and their lab values into oblivion, I've caught illnesses early (and also later than I've wished as well.) I've laughed and cried with their families, cheered over small hurdles ("He peed!! Just a couple drops, but his kidneys are working again!!"), mourned over huge losses, prayed for them... I really, really do love them.
When people first learn what I do, where I work, their immediate reaction is usually something along the lines of "Oh, that must be so sad!" And really, it isn't as sad as most people think. We have a lot more happy moments than sad ones, because babies' bodies don't really like to die very much.

But sometimes it's hard. Right now, I'm in a pod with a few of your run-of-the-mill preemies, not really sick, just not really big enough to be well at this point. But also here with us are some heartbreakers. Babies who will never be "normal," babies who will potentially be vegetables, babies whose mothers don't care about them, babies who would be perfect, aside from the fact that their mothers did drugs while pregnant, thus sending them into a spiraling withdrawl from birth. These babies can be frustrating to take care of. They are long-timers, they stay for months, they can be very irritable, they like to pull tubes and IVs and other important things out, and a lot of people don't like taking care of them very much. And I fall victim to the frustration too. But sometimes, in the quiet of the night, a little part of my heart whispers "You know you love them the most." It's true. Because they need it the most. They are the "unlovable," if a baby can be such a thing. But there's just something about walking up and down the unit with a crabby, crying baby in your arms and ever so slowly soothing it to sleep, placing it in its crib, and knowing it will stay asleep until time to wake up and eat again. There's something about finding beauty in babies with congenital malformations, and agreeing with their parents that yes, they really are lovely. That, despite the fact that a baby may never read or readily communicate, they still have worth and deserve a fighting chance in this world.

Sometimes this job rips my heart out. When a baby dies, part of my heart dies with it. Sometimes you know that medically, it's for the best. Best for their quality of life, best because it's never right to prolong the dying process in a tiny little precious person (at least, that's my opinion...) And it never matters. It never becomes commonplace, never routine, never okay. And I hope it never does.

But other times, which happen much more often, my heart overflows. With love, with joy, with happiness that a little life has been spared by the grace of God and His mercy. Because He loves these babies too. I think God has a very special place in that big, big heart of His for our precious NICU babies (and all babies who are sick, in fact.) I rejoice inside every time a baby goes home to a loving family. I rejoice every time these little miracles prove that they are stronger than anyone believed them to be, and beat the odds. I rejoice even more when I hear from a family I took care of before, and get an excellent update on the baby (who is now walking/talking/sitting/smiling/hearing/will never have CP/etc, etc, etc.) In fact, tonight at least, I rejoice when it's quiet, when all my babies have calmed down and I have done a decent job at placating them. It's funny what you never take for granted in the NICU.

All of this, this long, drawn-out explanation, is why I am commuting back and forth from here to Birmingham, to wait for a NICU job there to open up, rather than seeking out just any old something just to have a job. I am a NICU nurse, and a good one at that. I know that sounds pretty terrible to say, but it's just what I'm good at. I am always so impressed with anyone who can work in a nursing home or on a medsurg floor without completely losing their minds. Other jobs just aren't for me at this point ... I'm a NICU nurse, through and through. So I will wait, and be patient, and God will provide me with my dream Birmingham job. I just hope that it's sooner rather than later, so me and my dear hubby will not have to be parted for so long.

Introductions...

I decided to make a blogspot account so our friends and family can follow us on our journey through ... life in general, I guess, at this point. For those of you who are behind, here's an update on the Skinners (be forwarned, it's long... I promise that my future posts won't be this wordy):

We got married right after undergrad in June of '07 and moved to Chattanooga. I started working in the NICU, and while Mark valiantly searched for a job and skillfully played the role of "house husband." He found a job working as a Claim's Coordinator for US Express, did that for about 5 or 6 months, hated it, and quit. Then, after a couple months' search, he found a job as a front desk night auditor for the Hampton Inn - hated it too. Then, early this year, he got an interesting email from the head of the history department at UAB, saying that his original application for grad school back when we got married was received but never processed, and asking if he was still interested. "Heck yes!" was his reply - he was ready to get out of the no-education-required workfield - and we began the application process. He was quickly accepted (of course, since he's brilliant), and we started making plans to move to Birmingham this summer.
Enter: April's job search. Having worked in the NICU (my dream job) for two years, I'm sort of reluctant to change fields, particularly over to adult side (gag me with a spoon ... no offense to all those adult patients out there, just not my cup of tea...). However, with 7 NICUs in Birmingham and the surrounding area, I figured it would be a piece of cake to find something. WRONG. I've been job-searching since March, applied to four different jobs, heard from one (they were filling that position internally, thanks so much), and there hasn't been a single thing open since. I've made contacts, called nurse managers, checked the hospital websites daily: nothing.
Meanwhile, we went down to Birmingham and found this sweet apartment complex (Rollingwood, for anyone in the area) and managed to snag a 2BR townhouse that I think we'll really love. But here's the rub: we are moving in, for sure, on July 15th. I do not yet have a job. So I might be doing some taxi-ing back and forth, working here and living there, for a while. Which I'm not thrilled about, but I'm way more thrilled about that than the prospect of working on an adult psych floor at Brookwood (the only position that seems to be in abundance in Birmingham at this time.)
So. You're caught up. That's where the Skinners find themselves at the moment - caught in limbo (what else is new?) between Chattanooga/Birmingham, facing a LONG commute, and some LONG weeks of work, and one heck of a move. (My schedule is sort of ridiculous the week we move, provided that I still do not have a Bham job when that takes place. After that, the plan is to work Thurs, Fri, Sat, Mon, Tues, Wed with a Sunday thrown in there once a month to fulfill my weekend requirements, and that would secure my being off for 7 days in a row, during which I would trek back to Birmingham to live with my hubby and set up my house.)

Whew. Long explanation, complicated situation... I'm tired. I'm ready for this all to be done with...

So, blog followers, that's where we begin. I'm looking forward to see where we end up...