Everyday Happenings: 01/2011

I'm really quite a crabby grump today.

I don't know why. The sun is glistening off of the powdery snow, birds are dinning on the orange halves that I placed on the wooden fence. The dog is snoring loudly in the patch of sunshine that she's claimed on the carpet. I have Dave Matthews blaring from our wonderfully finished wedding website. I don't have to work this weekend, and get to spend it lounging and doing whatever I want. I showered and put my hair in a braid. I continue to rock bright red toenails. I have everything ahead of me, just waiting to be pounced upon.

And yet, I sit here, struggling to finish a thought, failing to accomplish anything today.

I actually do know why I'm a crabby grump.

Somewhere between noon on Thursday, when I was cancelled at work, jumping up and down because I had a free afternoon, to yesterday afternoon when I went back and forth with the agency over whether or not I was going to do another eight hours at the job site that I had already put four hours in, only to be cancelled, and then called back when I was on the road home, SOMEWHERE between those weird, tangled 24 hours, did I realize.

I have no routine. I have no idea what to do next.

And, it's seriously getting to me, yo.

It's easy to understand why some people never want to let go of the college experience. Or, why people put off finishing something. Because why not stay with what you already know. Why take a chance and go forward, because you know you'll be stuck for a little while and will be in the in between.

One of the biggest life lessons that I've learned since starting my career as a LPN 3.5 years ago, is that nothing works out like you think it should. Good or bad. Don't come into things thinking, "I'm going to do this, and then I'll get a job by this time, and then I'll be making lots of money and I'll never have to worry about that again."

Instead, there's a hurry up and wait. As with most things in life. Hurry up and graduate, and then wait for all of those job offers that everyone said would come.

Life doesn't work out like that. Sometimes, life surprises you, and BAM, you're hit with the dream that you've been dreaming. But, most of the time, you have to be patient, and suck it up.

The in between sucks.

I am faced with the facts that right now, I have some more waiting to do, and it's up to me to deal with it.

So how do you create a new routine, a new life in the middle of winter? It's six degrees today.

How do you create a new routine when your whole life is wrapped up into two categories: passing the boards/finding a job and getting married.

Where's the in between of that?

Should I make a Winter list, knowing that my Fall list failed miserably?

Should I take up a new hobby?

Should I rearrange my furniture or paint a wall and look for inspiration there?

Should I train for a 5k or something like that, to take my mind off of everything, while accomplishing "Get your butt into shape for your wedding already" task on my lists?

Or all of the above?

The holidays are over, and that is great news.

But, Spring is on it's away, and I don't know if you remember me saying something about me possibly changing by then.

So, the challenge is on. To overcome the in between. To overcome Winter and all of it's bluesy blues. To overcome whatever the hell is keeping me from overcoming.

Good sigh.

Arm stretch.

Keyboard dusting.

It's nice to be back.

I'm pretty darn excited for this little corner of my heart. Like most things in my life right now, I'm able to give more of my time and attention to writing and recording life. That's what happens when you don't have to go to school anymore. That's what happens when you only have to work 8 hours a day for a couple days a week. You get to sleep more and you tend to eat better, and all of a sudden, you have energy and you can cross things off your list.

Like blogging again. Like writing in general.

This was a pretty crazy year. This was the year that I really started to devote myself to blogging. While I was taking my Christmas break away from the computer, the number of pageviews hit above 1000. How nifty is that? Yeah, I know it's mostly my mom and fiancee, but that's still a lot in my book.

I'm going to get it out right now and cover the worst of 2010. Get it over with and don't dwell on it. I worked half as much as last year and it reflects in my checking account. There were falling outs with friends and family, which I think it's natural when you start growing up and realizing that everything isn't as glamorous and innocent as it use to be when you were a child. I came down with the worse stomach flu of my life in February, resulting in a call-off at clinicals and requiring a make-up day. I also experienced something worse than that flu experience in the form of my nursing school final exam, which I am still dreaming about, even though I graduated. And this Christmas was the worst of my entire sheltered life, to the point where I didn't even want a re-do, I just wanted to pack up everything the next day and punch Santas.

But, there was some greatness too.

We started out the year in the same fashion that we will be (well hopefully not, that trip was miserable) in a couple of days: in the Pacific Northwest. It rained the whole time. And, for some reason, I didn't post the pink stain that I so wonderfully described in the post.

January 2010; good start

Still, we rang New Years in together with Tom Douglas in our bellies, so it wasn't that bad.

In February, I distinctly remember saying, "Well, this wasn't a very bad winter this year."

February 2010; Nor'easter #1

Nor'easter #2

Spending that much time indoors prompted me to start planning for the rest of my life. I started dreaming. I started making goals. I started reading Kelle Hampton. I didn't want to stay inside, I wanted to live. I wanted to do stuff. So, I started to do stuff. I was like, "I'm going to own you PA."

To the point where I didn't even care if there was snow on the ground anymore.

But eventually, I got tired of the snow and started dreaming of seedlings. Enter: my first garden.

And let me tell you, I'm going through withdrawals. Dirt withdrawals.

My postings took off. Which I find very peculiar right now. I had the most post in February and March, which was the same time that I was in my first semester of RN school. That isn't right. Or, maybe it was a coping mechanism.

Then, something spectacular happened.

March 2010

Life became beautiful.

He proposed in the best way I ever could have thought of. We were happy and giddy and I should just end this post right here because that was the highest part of my year.

I found out that wedding planning ain't so bad. In fact, it's pretty awesome to take one day out of your life and make it everything that you want to be.

It doesn't help either to have a big honkin ring too.

Then I broke my camera and went crazy. Because I couldn't show you my engagement and because life was so wonderful in March and April and I wanted to shout it to the world in the form of digital photography. But I couldn't because I was also in nursing school and flat broke, so I just showed old photos to compensate.

April 2009 actually

I also turned 25. Which seemed old a long time ago, but really, we're just gettin started baby.

The next few months, I pretty much talked about my dog and my garden. And my dog in my garden. I finally bought a camera, just in time for Memorial Day.

May 2010

Summer arrived and so did the Summer List.

June 2010

We spent a good chunk of time in Seattle, crossing things off of our wedding list. I never talked about it because I'm a very lazy blogger sometimes. Well, that's a lie. I talked about the food, and that was pretty much it. The church is beautiful. The reception site is so cool. We rode the ferry, gazed at mountains, discovered Dahlia's bakery croutons, visited the Space Needle spontaneously, and had a solid trip.

I very much planned on talking about it when we got back to PA, but life was so busy all of a sudden. I had the least amount of post in June, when I was out of school. Again, that worries me.

But July, oh July. I made up for lost time. In the blogging world and in real life. We did some good living in July.

July 2010

Our engagement party rocked.

The garden took off.

My blog turned a year old. And I wrote the most important thing I've ever written.

The Summer went by much too quickly and the semester started up faster than I'd ever imagined. Still, we held onto Summer for as long as we could. We were able to afterall, because K quit his job to finish up school. It's nice having him around ya know.

We continued to walk barefoot (hell, I still do that outside and it's January).

We ate tomatoes off of the vine.

We waited for baby deer to appear in the field.

We started running and sure stopped a couple of times, but caught the running bug for life.

I attempted to write about Seattle every week. And failed.

And we hiked. That was the most important thing we did this summer. I don't get out much.

August 2010

As I said before, new school year, new me. I didn't even make any New Year's resolutions this year, except to write more. My post in September are all about making something of my self. That's because life was really starting to open up. When you're in your last semester of nursing school you're either thinking 1) there's no way I'm going to make it because this is too good to be true, I'm going to be a failure and have to figure out a new career path; or 2) Woooohoooo!!

I was #2. I knew this was happening. I knew I was going to make it. I knew I was going to make it in style.

I'm still #2.

September 2010

Even though school was consuming our life, our time, and our date nights, we still dug our nails in and managed to have some good times. Sure, the camping trip fell through, and yes I'm still mad. But, it turns out that ticks didn't go away until the middle of November this year, so maybe that was a blessing.

In a pathetic attempt to capture some of that fire and energy from the summer, I wrote a Fall List. Then proceeded to do absolutely nothing on it. But, I did go to Seattle, and I did keep on growing dahlias, and I also celebrated my 100th post. We also celebrated a year until we get married. I in the airport, he at home. Romantical.

I liked October, but boy did it go by fast.

October 2010

The remaining two months of the year were focused on finishing and surviving. Finishing things on our lists, finishing classes, surviving the winter months, and surviving whatever curve-balls came our way. I was in total denial about the seasonal change. I like Fall. We get along. I like Summer, we can get things done. I don't like winter (I'm not going to even capitalize you because I don't like you that much) because it's cold and you can't go outside without your lungs hurting. It's windy. It's freezing rain that makes tree branches heavy and breaks things.

I didn't want to do it, but I put my garden away for the winter.