Life has been a little crazy in my house for the last year or so. I lost a sister this time last year, and another moved in with my family and (happily on all accounts) stayed with us a bit longer than any of us anticipated. She moved out last week. Her daughter, granddaughter, and the daughter’s boyfriend lived at my house for a few months, too. My husband changed jobs, started back to college at the geezerly age of 35, and started working with two personal trainers and a dietitian. Add to that training and raising three puppies, integrating a 10 year old German Shepherd guard dog with a cranky 14 year old cat, and dealing with a newly minted teenage boy, and you have all the ingredients for complete chaos.Â
My own health has improved vastly over the last year. Really as early as April 2011, I felt like I was on the road to recovery. Since then, I’ve gotten better, stronger, and more stable every day. I don’t have many episodes of IST/POTS anymore, I’m not on any meds for it, and I haven’t even set foot in a cardiology office for over a year. I wanted to make sure that this wonderful, unexpected recovery was for realsies before I jumped into another situation that would send me back to sitting in a chair all day, but in the last couple of months, I’ve started sending out resumes and doing interviews, interviews, and more interviews, looking for that perfect back-to-nursing job. Flexible schedule, low stress environment (ha! well, relatively), and something that leaves me time to pursue my education. I have a few good prospects lined up and am waiting to hear back from their HR departments with firm offers and $$ figures.
Not only that, but I’ve been accepted to a very good nursing program to advance my degree. Classes start next month. Organic Chemistry, here I come!
I have lost friends and loved ones. I’ve gotten a few of them back and salted the earth where some of those relationships were laid to rest. My extended family has pulled together in some ways and pulled apart in others. We’re all still feeling for the seams and testing the waters. Mostly, we survived. So much has happened, both good and bad, over the last couple of years that I really felt like I was living in a Chinese curse about interesting times, but I honestly don’t regret a moment of it. If anything, I look back on the last couple of years and realize how much stronger and wiser a person I am today. Which isn’t to say I am wise. Just wiser than that butthead I was a couple years ago.
Needless to say, in all that life change, there has been more than a little stress. The writing is kind of hit or miss right now. I got pretty badly burned out right before the holidays and while I’ve gotten back up on the horse, it’s not going as smoothly or as quickly as I might like. I added over 42k words to my overall count last year from July until December, though, and the novel I’m working on revising at the moment has really developed, matured, and improved in just about every way from that “almost there” version that scored both full and partial requests from agents two years ago. I am confident that it will be finished (again) sometime very soon, and will be making rounds among the agents again sometime this year.
So… how are things on your side of the planet?
Chaotic. Home all day with the baby while daughter works. Struggling with my internal demons. Dealing with hubby stressing over his up in the air job. Expecting to add two more kids to the mix this summer when daughter’s best friend goes off to war (another infant and a toddler). Too many pets. Too much clutter. Not enough time. And, somewhere in there, I’m supposed to write and sew and clean and be sexy.
Yeah, right.
Wow, Tam. Didn’t realize you were running a home for wayward children. Your place is starting to sound a lot like mine. *hug*
**huggles & glomps ari & tam**
YAY on the nursing program, boo on the chaos.
We’re just trying to get into a house and get settled so I can get back to writing. The move has been an interesting experience to say the least. Take care you two.
Hey! Glad to hear you’re feeling much better! *hugs* That’s wonderful news and desipte all the stress, it’s good to know you’ve gotten through it.
And, Tam, waystation for kids? Heh. =^P
Catch you in Chat, hopefully!