Rain, jobs, etc...

It was a dark and stormy night... (alright, now that I've gotten that out of my system...)

Tonight I resolved not to do my grocery shopping at the last minute. I'm good about planning out my menus for next week in advance, and even writing out grocery lists in advance. But for some reason I'm really bad about putting off grocery shopping (usually causing me to have to rearrange pre-planned meals at the beginning of the week). I don't like shopping at the little grocery store about 5 miles from us because everything is more expensive there and usually only use it for emergency trips to the store (like the one I need to make tomorrow because I forgot to buy cat litter tonight!) Walmart, where I like the go grocery shopping is about 25 minutes away, and for some reason it's just hard to psych myself up into driving that far to do something that I don't even like to do.

So tonight I was determined to get it out of the way early, and dutifully drove off to Walmart. Anyway, apparently Michigan has this stuff that they call "rain." It is water that falls from the sky. Lol! It was sprinkling when I left the house, but I wasn't really all that worried about it, and left the dog in the backyard. The rain had picked up a little by the time I was halfway there but had let up completely by the time I arrived. I spent about 45 minutes shopping, and by the time I pushed my basket to the front door, the sprinkling had turned into a torrential downpour. A guy was giving people rides out to their cars. I am probably paranoid, but I didn't feel comfortable getting into a car with a guy I didn't know, so I sucked it up and ran 17 miles out in the parking lot to my car.

With my windshield wipers on high-speed, and driving about half the speed limit. I knew I should pull over, but I honestly just wanted to get home. I lived for the lightning strikes when I was able to see that I was still on the right side of the road, and it was almost impossible to see. When I got home, I thought I'd park in Andrew's side of the garage, because it's closer to the house, and the garage door opens from the outside. (We have a double garage, but the two halves are separated by a wall.) I was wearing flip-flops, and unfortunately our drive-way is not paved, so I lost my shoes in the mud several times. I left the car running while I jumped out to open the garage door, and wouldn't you know it, it wouldn't open from the outside (this is the first time I can recall this happening!!!). So I opened the car back up again, got the keys out, unlocked the side door, let myself in the garage, opened the garage door from the inside, and pulled the car into the garage.

Then I heard the dog whimpering in the backyard. (That was one reason I wanted to get home, because I had remembered the poor puppy stuck out in the rain.) Well, the crazy dog had dug under the chainlink fence and tied herself up in her leash. It took me 3 hours to get her untangled (maybe not, but it seemed that long because it was still pouring). I finally got her untangled, and put her in her crate in the garage (where she sleeps). She was wet, shivering, all-around pathetic looking, and was doing a great job at making me feel like a terrible mommy =( I let her out of her crate after closing the garage door (I definitely did NOT want to be chasing her all over the neighborhood during a thunderstorm... no thank you.)

I got all the groceries out of the trunk and took them into the house, during which time Penny managed to sneak into the house. Now, wet dog is not exactly my favorite smell, but I certainly prefer it to the mud that she tracked ALL OVER my newly swept floors. I put her back out in the garage to dry off while I went to change clothes and repair the floors.

That was an adventure.

Anyway, on a different note, I finally decided to get off my rear end and get a job. My license transfer went through quite a while ago, but it kind of took me by surprise and I decided not to pursue employment until things were settled around the house. Lately I've found myself getting bored when Andrew has been at work, so I decided it was time for a job. I applied online on a Wednesday evening (actually around midnight!), was contacted by a nurse manager on Thursday afternoon, and had an interview on Friday morning!

The job that I interviewed for was for a full-time, 12-hour (7pm-7am) position on a pediatrics unit (usually kids anywhere from 1 month to 18 years of age). The nurse manager told me that she wanted to snatch me up because I had a year of experience and everyone else she had hired lately was a new grad. Because she had hired all these new grads, she was needing a relief charge nurse for nights. I'm not crazy with the idea of charging, but I like pedi, and I'm willing to do it as long as the nurse:patient ratios are controlled and I know where to go for help.

She asked me what I thought I would miss the most about adult medical-surgical nursing if I took the job. The main thing that came to mind were the hospice patients that I had fallen in love with back in Lubbock. I loved working with them, and really do miss that part of working for Covenant. (Although I really have to say that is all I miss about Covenant!) Well, it turns out that this hospital has an entire floor dedicated to in-patient hospice and long-term care. When I mentioned that I didn't need benefits (I'm covered on all of Andrew's insurance policies), she said that she had another position open, but it was per diem, allowing me to schedule myself, and also to get paid extra due to the fact that the hospital wouldn't have to provide me with benefits.

This is the position that I ultimately ended up accepting. It is as an RN in the hospital's resource pool, and able to float to any unit on which they need me on a given night. This can include labor and delivery, postpartum, nursery, operating room, emergency room, pediatrics, ICU, med-surg, hospice/LTC, rehab, and possibly a few other units that I have forgotten at the moment.

The minimum scheduling requirement is that I sign up for 2 shifts every 6 weeks (WOW!!!) The pay increases after 2 shifts, then again after 4 shifts. I almost fell over dead when I heard the pay. (Now remember I'm from Texas where RNs generally start around $19/hr, one of the lowest rates in the nation. Is there any wonder that it's also one of the worst states to work in, with extreme under-staffing in almost every unit in every hospital.)

I start training on July 7, so I still have a month before starting, but I'm sure I will find some way to occupy myself before then.

We haven't heard a whole lot on the union/strike situation at Andrew's hospital. The contract between their union and their hospital expired in May, but they agreed upon a 30-day extension for more negotiations. The extension expired at midnight last night (it's 6:22am right now), so I'm looking forward (I think) to him getting home and hearing what's going on. I'm hoping at least for another 30-day extension so I can start working before they potentially go on strike.

Well, I've been terrible about going to church on the weekends that Andrew works, but I'm really going to try this morning. I'm going to try to catch a few hours' sleep before then!