My brain is so fried. Here is my schedule…

Last Wednesday: Work 7a-11a.

Thursday: Work 7a-3p, class/presentation 5:30-6:45p. Then Jon and I had to go to my parent’s house to exchange cars for this weekend.

Friday: Work 11a-7p.

Saturday & Sunday: Work 7a-7p, and then Sunday night go to my parent’s to exchange cars again

Monday: Work 7p-3a

Tuesday: Test 5:30-6:45p

Wednesday: Work 7a-7p

Thursday: Work 7a-3p, class 5:30-6:45p, and then leave for Florida!

Ahhhhhhh…. Not to mention that I was behind on all my biology reading and have a computer class I have online assignments for. So in every hour that I haven’t been working, I’ve been studying.

Saturday and Sunday I ended up working in our children’s ER from 3p-7p both days and both days were so busy! I don’t particularly like kids (other than my nieces and nephews) and I really don’t like working with them. I’m not comfortable medicating them. I don’t know what they are capable of (did you know 2 year olds can use straws???). You have to do math to figure out their meds based on their weight (which we do with adults, but for some reason, it just seems way easier). I have to be so mentally involved when I work with the kids and it’s not like I even enjoy it, so I was completely exhausted by the time I left work last night.

And in the midst of this busy schedule, Tom has taken to using the floor as his litterbox. It’s been sporadic, but about 6-7 times now since his surgery. So that has really been stressing me out (thank god his urine hasn’t smelled strong and most of it has been poop!). I plan on putting in wood floors anyway, but that doesn’t mean I want my carpets a mess until then! So we’ve had to arrange the vet (thankfully, Jon is super amazing and took Tom to the vet for me on Friday and left way later than planned for his bachelor party, and my parents are super awesome and came and dropped Tom off at my house for me after they picked him up from the vet!) and poor Jon has had to deal with my ruined mood and high stress levels all week long. It makes me even more grateful that I got so lucky to have found such an amazing and understanding man! His patience with me has been impressive!

Due to my frazzled brain, I went in to see my biology professor early this morning and couldn’t even remember what was confusing me about the possible essay question/pedigree I was working on. Felt like an idiot. But I can’t think. I’m dreading work tonight 100%. I want to call out but I can’t even make myself call out when I’m sick, so I definitely won’t be able to make myself do it tonight. And Mondays are always so horrible at work! Busiest day of the week.

I am pretty excited because this weekend is Adam and Jessie’s wedding weekend! So even though everything sucks, once I wake up on Friday, we’ll be in Florida! I plan on having some beach time this weekend because I need it! I need some peace and quiet and waves and relaxation! Although I doubt Jon and I will get much “us” time, at least we’ll be in a nice hotel on Saturday night and we’ll have 12 hours in the car together (however, I usually sleep most of the way down there if we leave later). I think it’s going to be a really good weekend though, and I get to see Jon’s niece and nephew!

It’s getting so cold in Georgia! I had the window open last night in our bedroom and had to get up and close it cause I was freezing! And I was freezing this morning when I woke up, which I’m sure contributed to my laziness and made it impossible to get out of bed before 10:15 (seriously… that’s late for me! that’s how you know I’m exhausted!).

I can’t wait until Monday comes! I plan on going to buy my running shoes since my schedule slows down and it’ll be nice to have some gym/running time again since I’ve had none this past week! And once my schedule slows down, maybe I’ll actually write about some of the things that have been on my mind lately!

I’m still feeling so unmotivated regarding any work for school. The 60 hour workweek is looming overhead right now! I worked for four hours this morning and was asked to stay since I was on call, but luckily the other girl who was on call had also worked the same hours as me this morning and she wanted to stay. I had planned on coming home to start my day full of studying, but met up with Crista instead for some lunch. After our lunch, we headed over to the mall so she could return a shirt. We stopped at Lululemon and I was carrying a shirt to buy it but talked myself out of it. I love their shirts, but I only buy two things from there: their speed shorts (which I don’t even work out in because I wear Nike Pro shorts 24/7- but those are the exact ones I tried on and of course, I loved them) and their swiftly shirts (also the same color I tried on). I love those shirts! They are so perfect, but they’re also stupid expensive. Since I have told myself 10,000 times that I need to wait to buy running shoes until I get paid next week, I really can’t spend $68 on a shirt that I’m not even going to wear until it gets colder!

Speaking of working out (or clothes), I wanted to do legs today at the gym, but I need to study. So I didn’t. Oh well. I did go grocery shopping while I was extremely tired and was feeling not very great after my way too sweet mocha and it was probably the worst trip of my life. I couldn’t think about what food I needed at all and looked at sauces for my chicken for a good 15 minutes and then didn’t even buy any. Then I tried to go to my car and stood there wondering where the key hole on my trunk was for like, 2 minutes before realizing that it wasn’t my car. It was the exact same other then the key hole and was in the same spot in the parking lot, just one aisle over. So I came home and napped for 20 minutes cause that’s just not okay. There were even people in their cars on both sides of the car that wasn’t mine. They saw me.

I was getting really excited about getting paid next week (to buy shoes, back to that topic), but I have to pay for my shower repair and my tag fees next week. My mom is the primary signer on my car so I could get 0.9% financing on it when I bought it back in 2011, so I pay my tag fee on her birthday. I think I’m going to make my mom the primary signer for the rest of my life because I feel like it takes away from your birthday to have to drop like, $150-$200 on your car. I hope she’s okay with that. Thanks Mom. I actually completely forgot about it, but Jon turns 30 on Saturday and he was talking about doing the tags for his Jeep and I remembered that mine are due too. I’m still buying shoes next week though. I’ll be fast like a gazelle. I’m kidding. I’ll still be slow.

I really wanted to do something special for Jon’s 30th birthday, but I have no idea what to do. Adam is coming home from Italy this Friday because his wedding is next weekend (can’t wait!!!), so Jon will be out of town this weekend for the bachelor party. Then next weekend is the wedding. The following weekend I work. I was hoping to do something the weekend after, but Jon wants to go hunting and since there’s limited time for that, I told him to hunt instead. I usually go all out on his birthday, but not this year. Sorry 30. You had bad timing this year. Guess we’ll do something big in January, when it’s all cold and miserable.

I did stay 35 minutes late at work today to talk about travel nursing. I’m trying to recruit a buddy to go with me. And in doing so, I have realized how lucky I am that Jon is 100% supportive of me leaving him for a year to do travel nursing. I’m also lucky that he will live in my house and watch my cats (however, in 3 weeks, it’ll be his house and his cats too, lucky man). I’m getting really excited about travel nursing though! It’s such an awesome way to see the country and get paid to do it! I’m hoping that I make a decent amount of money and can take Jon and I to Italy next December for a Christmas trip with Adam and Jessie, but who knows. It’ll be the last shabang before going to grad school and living in a poor, miserable hell for three years.

Mmkay, I should probably go study for this biology test that I have on Tuesday. I’m rambling and had nothing important to even say, but everything seems so important when you have school stuff to do.

I’m really not even sure how to start off about this weekend! Saturday was a bit of a waste! I studied all morning and then decided to go to the gym, but once I got to the gym I had no motivation. Costco and LA Fitness are in the same parking lot and Jon happened to be at Costco, so I asked if he wanted to head over to a Chili Cookoff with me just down the road for a little bit. Unfortunately, after paying the $20 fee to get in, we got into an argument and headed back home.

I ended up just taking a nap and going into work from 7p-3a. It was an extremely slow night at work and a lot of people went home, but I wasn’t one of them! I actually didn’t even leave until 3:30 in the morning because lab had messed up the urine results on my one patient, and then we finally got those at 3:10 and I had to wait on the doctor to bring back the prescription. I know staying late is really just part of nursing a lot of times, but I hate staying more than 20 minutes after my shift unless there’s a good reason (like I get a patient having a heart attack at 6:55pm or something), especially when it’s 3:30 in the morning and I’m tired!

Jon and I got a bit of a later start on Sunday. I managed to get up at 11 even though I hadn’t gone to bed till after 5. I studied a bit more, went to the gym and did 20 minutes on the elliptical, biceps, and triceps. I had a pretty good workout. I was only there for maybe just over an hour, but I had stuff to get done and plans for the evening. I’m sore today though so at least I know I did something productive! I also saw a guy deadlifting at the gym which I hadn’t seen yet and thought maybe people just didn’t do that at the regular gym, but now I’m really excited for another leg day!

I haven’t done any running lately. I tried last weekend to do a 7 mile run, but my knee started killing me and I was so thirsty. Runners, what do you drink on your run?! Do you carry a water bottle with you? I try to hydrate regularly but can’t drink a ton if I plan on running for more than 45 minutes or so because my bladder is so small and I pee all the time! I also need to go find new running shoes, but haven’t yet. I really want to get a lot of running in but it’s so hard with working full time, being in school, and trying to maintain any sort of relationship. I shouldn’t even be blogging now. I have so much to clean around the house and I’m six chapters behind in studying for biology, plus I have a presentation due on Thursday and I have my computer science homework to do… And I need to grocery shop. And pick up my cat (Fluff, she’s been there while Tom is healing) from my parent’s and I’m supposed to see my friend Jim while I’m up in the town my parents live in. And hopefully work out today. I was going to try and go to CrossFit, but I’m feeling highly unmotivated at this very moment, so maybe I’ll run instead. It looks like a beautiful day out.

Anyway, so last night I went pumpkin carving with my friends. I had to beg Jon to come with me but I think he actually ended up having a decent time. Thankfully, all the boyfriends love baseball so they talked about who will be coming back to play for the Braves next year and Jon actually ended up carving a pretty nice pumpkin. Once pumpkin carving was over, Jon and I went to Bottle Rocket (an Asian fusion restaurant downtown) because they have an official Walking Dead viewing party. It was packed out and Jon and I ended up sharing one bar stool (luckily I’m small and the stools were bigger than normal). I’d never seen the show but I actually liked it. He goes to Bottle Rocket religiously for the viewing party, but I don’t know if I’d go back. We had to get there so early for a seat and I could just save my money and watch it from home.

Alright, time to go get my million things done for the day. I’ll leave off with a few pictures!

I don’t know why these pictures come out blurry on here and so small. Ain’t nobody got time to figure that out.

I haven’t made any updates on the love story lately!

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

After Jon and I broke up, I knew I had to move out. We had planned on moving to Alpharetta into a two bedroom apartment together and we were only a few weeks out from the end of our lease in our house at that point. Since the apartment was where I went to high school and I liked the area, I decided to go ahead and sign a lease on a one bedroom apartment in the complex where Jon and I were planning on moving originally.

I was absolutely miserable. I was sad and wanted things to work out. He was completely distant and we got into a lot of arguments when he first got back into town after the break up. Things were just awful between the two of us (I am really bad at break ups!).

I moved into my apartment and Jon and Justin (our roommate at the end of our relationship) ended up moving into the apartment that Jon and I had planned on moving to which was in the same complex as my new place! Fortunately, our apartments were separated by a gate so I never had to go past his place unless I was going to the dumpster.

But we kept hanging out. After a few weeks of not talking, it just happened. We spent a lot of time together but it wasn’t the same and I knew he had no feelings for me. After an extremely rough few months (where he had talked me out of dating somebody that I had an interest in because he wanted me as a friend), he told me he couldn’t be friends with me anymore.

He began dating a girl that very same week, which was a slap in my face. But at the same time, I wanted him to be happy and he seemed happy. Over the next year, we talked a handful of times. When we talked on the phone, it would be for a few hours at a time. He drove me to my car one morning (I got dropped off late at night after a night of drinking) and then I saw him another time when he came to pick up his Army stuff from me. There were no feelings involved for either one of us, but I missed him.

I missed my best friend. I can’t even say that I missed our relationship. I didn’t crave that from him. I was okay waking up alone and living alone. Sure, there were some hard times (all of my friends moved in with their boyfriends during my single time), but overall, I was okay. I dated a few people but never got too into any of them. I still saw a future with Jon, but didn’t have any romantic feelings towards him.

I called Jon up in December for some advice on some CrossFit stuff. I still valued his advice and he knew me well. He returned the call and I heard some hints of hesitation with his relationship with his girlfriend. Over the next couple of months, we spoke fairly regularly. He ended up moving into a room in a house and that’s when I saw him for the first time in probably 6 or 7 months.

We began spending a lot of time together. We were communicating like we never had before and we were having fun together. I went into the friendship with no expectations of where things would go, other than knowing that I would get closure one way or another. Things would either work out, or we would be friends and realize that we didn’t want anything else.

After a few months of spending time together, feelings got involved on my end, but he still wanted to be single. He wasn’t going out and being “single” if you know what I mean, but he didn’t want a girlfriend. We had a few conversations regarding this, and eventually I got to a point where I wanted more and he didn’t yet.

To be continued…

I really need to be productive today but am failing miserably! I have lost all motivation to do any biology. It’s fall! I go into can’t-do-anything-but-want-to-go-outside mode in the fall and spring. I got Tom declawed and fixed on Monday and last night he was bleeding a lot and kind of lethargic, so I was really worried about him. Instead of getting up early this morning, I slept in until 10 and cuddled with him. I wanted to go to the gym right after getting up, but he peed in the guest bathroom so I ended up cleaning that up (hopefully because the litter was hurting his paws! this better not be his new thing). Also, did you know that if you declaw all four paws, get your cat fixed, and buy 8 months of flea treatments, your bill will be close to $700? Me either.

I spent two hours at the gym. Had every intention of at least doing 30 minutes on the elliptical but made it 14 minutes. I did have a good leg and shoulder workout though. I am starting to get a little more comfortable at the gym. Since I’ve been CrossFitting, I don’t have much experience at globo gyms other than my year in Iraq, where I had a workout buddy every time I went. So this is really hard for me to be in a gym where I’m not comfortable. I know CrossFit. I know clean and jerks and pull ups and deadlifts and handstand pushups and everything else. I can walk into any CrossFit gym and be comfortable. But doing free weights and using machines is just not my thing. I do it because I have to stay in shape, but it’s taking me a long time to really break out of my comfort zone at the gym. I have been doing squats for awhile and finally used free weights for shoulders today, so I’m making progress.

I came home and made breakfast/lunch. Then started watching CatFish. Then read a private blog of one of my favorite public bloggers, which made me feel like I needed to stop neglecting my blogs. Now I’m going to go to the pool and hopefully make it back in time to study before going to have coffee with Laura tonight and making steaks for dinner with Jon (it’s been so long since we’ve had a steak night!).

Also, Jon has decided to move in. I need to work on a million house projects before he moves in and have zero time. But I’m excited that he’ll be here officially (since he’s unofficially been living here- hasn’t stayed at his house in FOREVER). We may or may not have gotten me sized for rings last weekend. I should finish our love story eventually. But I feel overwhelmed lately but how lucky I am. I think both of us are equally surprised at how amazing this relationship is going and I can’t get over how awesome it is that he is my best friend. My friends have expressed their surprise at us talking about marriage since we’ve only “officially” been back together for a month or so, but we spent three years together, lived together, and have been spending time together since February. And we went to Europe together. I’m huge on waiting to get engaged! People who get married after 6 months are insane! But this isn’t our first rodeo. I have no idea when the proposal is coming, but I’m not in a big hurry. I’m just enjoying things right now!

It’s beeeautiful outside these days. Love the weather!

Next week starts a 60 hour work week for me. I’ve had a much better attitude about work lately. My attitude at work and with my patients is pretty stellar anyway, but my enthusiasm for my job is less than stellar. For sure. And I’ve noticed that I’m feeling much better about work than I used to, which I attribute to my 4 and 8 hour workdays. I rarely work 12s anymore (I think I have 4 or 5 total this month). I am hoping to get a few more hours in November and December by hitting up the full timers for their hours when they take vacation. So far, I’m up to 24 hours for November, so maybe I’ll be able to get some more money next month!

My house is such a disaster. Jon has definitely been pitching in more, but somehow he still seems to have so much shit lying around. Drives me insane. Really, when I say it’s a disaster, it’s probably still more in order than like, 80% of other people’s houses. But I hate stuff all over the place. Like, your socks don’t go on the living room floor, okay?! They go in the HAMPER! And “doing laundry” means putting it in the dryer too. Not leaving it in the washer for two days until I find it. I definitely let these things go easier this time around. I’ve accepted that Jon is amazing at some things (he did bring me flowers and clean my kitchen), but his laundry will usually be found by the couch, where he takes his clothes off when he comes home at the end of a day.

This is long and I’m rambling. I’m going to to go to the pool and enjoy the last few weeks of sunshine before freezing cold weather sets in.

After working Sunday night and Monday night, I’m feeling a bit rough. I barely slept when I got off work Monday morning and then wasn’t able to take a nap before going back into work on Monday night (I just laid in bed all day!). So I was exhausted all night on Monday night at work and ended up spending close to five hours in the same patient’s room, and we had started two different pressors (my patient’s pressure was so low) and temporarily had dobutamine infusing. Anyway, I got off work at 3:45 because 2/4 people on my hallway went to lunch at 2:50am (WHYYYY?!). I did sleep good that night, until I woke up when Jon went to work, and then I woke back up around noon and knew I needed to get up.

I had my first biology lab test last night. I was already so out of it from my sleep schedule being off (I don’t do well when my sleep is messed up) and the test was so hard! I spent so long looking through the microscope and had the worst headache by the end of the test. I probably should have done really poorly, but he gave me full credit for two when I should have received partial credit, but why would I correct that mistake? Anyway, I was stressed and tired and just wanted to get home to see Jon since we hadn’t even seen each other except for in the middle of the night for the last five days.

It was good to drink some wine with him, get a massage, and then I attempted to go to bed. Was unsuccessful. That’s how I am when my sleep schedule is off. I just lay in bed, exhausted with burning eyes… So I got three hours of sleep and went back to work today for 8 hours.

I am in a pickle… I can go back to being full time… Which means I work a set pattern for three weeks and work every third weekend, and then I use paid time off if I need time off (except weekends, we can’t use PTO on weekends), and I also make $300 less a month IF I work 72 hours. I can stay PRN, know that I will be able to have a weekend off for sure if I need it off, but I literally can’t plan any more than a few days here and there off because shifts are so hard to come by at work right now. I also worked three weekends in the last schedule period and am working three weekends again in the schedule period coming up (I don’t work the whole weekend, just parts of it, but it still ruins it). I realize I can’t work more than one evening at a time because I can’t function. But I only have to work 60 hours in a pay period to make that extra $300 a month. However, the hours are totally unpredictable so I can’t plan any sort of life. I just have to wait to see what my shifts are at work. And I know that if I go back to full time, I won’t be getting any overtime at work.

The other option is find another job somewhere else and keep my job now, just working less hours there. However, this all has to happen this month. By the end of October. So I guess what really needs to happen is my resume needs to get done tonight and I need to apply to jobs tomorrow night and see what happens. I just don’t know what the best option is at this time… That extra $300 a month does make a difference and it probably ends up being more than that once I add in my night differential for these evenings I’m working… Ahh… I just don’t know! Seeing the options I have at other hospitals may work out for me… Or maybe I can ask my manager if I can supplement my hours by going PRN in another department. Actually, maybe I will do that tomorrow. I really want experience outside of the ER anyway… And I’ll still apply other places, just to see what’s out there.

This is more of a monologue. I realize I am the worst blogger. I admire bloggers who can write about one thing but that’s so not me. And I’m the youngest child. Youngest children are all about themselves. It’s a fact, youngest children. Don’t be offended. And I totally fit that. Luckily, I like to talk a ton about random stuff, mostly about my life, and Jon doesn’t really say a whole lot unless you get him telling a story and then he draws it way the hell out. But really, it’s perfect. But who wants to read the youngest child blog that’s all about random stuff that doesn’t even make any sense? I had every intention today of writing about the gym and that’s like, the one thing I didn’t even mention (but I did go to the gym even though I almost drove right by it, and then had a really good shoulder workout). I can’t even write all about myself on one topic (unless it’s mine and Jon’s love story, cause it’s my favorite). I’m the same way in conversation though. My mind goes everywhere.

I have to go shower and then go watch Jon’s softball game. I should do homework but I’m not in the mood at all, so instead I’ll just make Jon help me write a fantastic resume tonight. Sounds like a plan.