New Town, New House, New Job

This last month, things happened so fast. I'm already up in Cleveland-Carl is not.

After we found out where Carl would be doing his residency at, Carl emailed his residency coordinator (who is kind of like his mom in the program) and asked if she had any contacts for me. She came back with the email of a nursing recruiter.

On Tuesday night, I emailed the nursing recruiter my resume. By Wednesday afternoon, I had an interview set up for the next Monday (the 28th of March). By the next Thursday, I had been offered the job, which started on May 2nd.

I am extremely grateful to have gotten a job so quickly. Nursing in one of the jobs that you can count on there always being jobs available, but politics in the last little while have made jobs hard to find.

The only problem is that I was starting on May 2nd. Carl doesn't graduate medical school until May 22nd. If I waited, the next orientation for new nurses isn't until July. I took the job, knowing I would be up here by myself for a few weeks.

April was a blur. Carl and I went to Honduras (!) for two weeks on a medical mission with the med school (yes, I will do a post about that). We got home with two weeks to pack up and move up to Cleveland while I was still working and he was still in school.

Needless to say, it happened in quite a rush and we really didn't get to say goodbye to many people. Due to us being in Honduras and then being in Cleveland for the last few weeks, we basically showed up to church and said "sorry, we're moving in two weeks!". One of our good friends had a baby while we were in Honduras and I feel horrible that we never made it over to see how they were doing and to say good bye.

We did end up renting a house. It's a nice house, with 3 bedrooms and lots of space. I moved in on the 30th and started work on May 2nd. Carl is coming up on the weekends, but most of the time I'm here by myself trying to unpack, work, and find my way around everywhere!

I am loving where I work at. It is the same hospital as Carl, although not the same department. We will most likely never work together unless I switch floors. The hospital is a Magnet hospital, which is a big deal for nurses. It's one of Cleveland's big hospitals and is the only Trauma 1 center in Cleveland (which is why Carl is going there). It's not associated with the Cleveland Clinic. It's the public hospital in the area, so most of the patients without insurance end up there. This makes it difficult, because of budgeting, the nursing is more primary nursing-nurses doing all the bathing, putting in IV's, blood draws, etc. This is actually great for me to get my skills really down well.

For right now, I'm excited to be living in Cleveland. Of course, it's summer and not winter. :) Sometimes I get really lonely and I have watched way to much netflix the last week, but it hasn't been too bad. I hope some people get adventurous and come visit us!

Clevelanders

Well, we opened the envelope. And we're going to Cleveland! We're excited, although we don't really know a lot about the area. I know it has the Browns, the Cavaliers, the Indians, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, is right next to Lake Erie and an hour away from Cedar Point. And it's cold. That's about the extent of my knowledge. People in Cincinnati aren't big fans of Cleveland, so whenever I would mention that Cleveland was on the list and ranked high (it was third) they would say "You don't want to go to Cleveland!"

We went up this last weekend and looked for places to live. We're still kind of up in the air about what we want to do. The housing market hasn't been that great up there but everybody told us that it's stabilizing. We looked at a bunch of houses and did find a couple that we really liked, but we'll see.

Renting seems to be interesting as well. It's expensive to rent and all the places were kind of dumpy. And I don't really like the idea of somebody else having control over us (raising rent, controlling when and how things get fixed, etc.) I don't know what we'll do.

For now, we're still keeping our options open and are excited about moving up there!

Changes

I'm going to dispense with the excuses and just start blogging.

The last little while have been crazy. I feel like we're growing up all at once. I finally graduating in December with my bachelor degree in nursing from Northern Kentucky University. Just last week, I got my nursing license in the state of Ohio.

Next week, Carl finds out where he goes for residency. It's really nerve wracking. I'll try to explain how the process works.

Carl has decided that's he's going to be an Emergency Room doctor. He applied to about 40 programs across the nation. Most of them where located in the mid-west, with a couple in the west. Some of the programs wanted to interview him and others didn't. I think he went on about 15 interviews. I was able to go on a few on them once I was done with school. We went to NYC city together on an interview, Buffalo, NY, and to PA. Carl also interviewed in Chicago, Cleveland, Toledo, Detroit, Louisville, and other smaller cities.

After interviews, Carl made what's called his Rank List. He put the programs in order, from 1-16, of where he wanted to go. He had a hard time trying to figure out his list. He had to turn in his list on Feb. 23. He had a whole bunch of things he was looking for in a program, from being able to fly on a helicopter, to doing ultrasounds, to how they do the teaching.

The schools also make a list. They rank the students in order of what who they want to come. I don't think they have one student per spot-more like 10 students per spot.

From there, some computer program sticks things together. I'm not exactly sure how it works, but they say it favors the students. It takes the students list and the programs lists and pops out a match. It's like a mission call-where they tell you you're going in where you're going, you can't turn it down.

Next week, on March 17th, it's Match Day across the nation. That's when we're able to find out where we're going. It's crazy to think how our lives can change because of one little thing. I haven't applied for any jobs because I have no idea where we're going to end up at. We're going to be someplace for 3 years and don't really have much of a say in where we're going.

I am happy to go where ever we end up at. It's crazy to find out where we're going. Stay tuned to find out where!

Spain

Some of you already know, but I am leaving for Segovia, Spain on Sunday. I will be there for an entire month, until June 30th. I was originally going to Mexico, but it got too violent. I ended up transferring to Spain instead and moving my trip up a month. I am now frantically trying to get ready for flight on Sunday. You can follow my travels here and also on another blog, A Summer in Segovia. I've added a link on my blog roll so you can find it easy. I had to start a blog to meet my scholarship qualifications, so I will blog frequently!

Oh Christmas Tree!

This semester I had to do my senior project. My partner and I focused on child abuse and for our project, raised awareness of child abuse on Northern Kentucky University campus. We worked with a great agency, The Family Nurturing Center on their activities for National Child Abuse Prevention Month, which is April. Part of our activities included making a Blue Tree, which was decorating a tree in blue (which is the color for child abuse).

So, I hauled my dear Christmas tree to campus. This Christmas tree is only 5 feet tall, but is covered in lights. No, it's not prelit. It's covered in light because our first year our here, I put lights on it for the first time. And I apparently went all out. It took me three days because I kept running out of lights. The 5 foot tree has 900 lights on it. Yes, you read that right. I crammed 9 strands of lights on it. Because it looked so awesome and took me forever to do, I refused to take it down. Instead, I shoved the tree in one of our closets. Definitely makes setting up easier!

Anywho, so I hauled my dear Christmas tree, still covered in lights, to campus. Luckily, the parking lot was close to the nursing building, but I still had a bit to carry the tree.

So, picture this. It's the end of March when I set it up. Beginning of May when I took it down. I'm carrying a Christmas tree across campus, in broad daylight. Yes, I'm sure I look like an idiot. Actually, I know I look like an idiot. That doesn't stop people from making snarky comments.

"Is it December already?" "I must have skipped a few months!" "Hey girl! You got your months wrong!"

Honestly people! Act like college students and pretend to be intelligent. Yes, I know what month it is. Do you think I'm carrying a Christmas tree on campus because I think it's Christmas? Did it ever cross your mind it was for something school related?

I do have to admit....I looked like a complete idiot.

New 'Do

Alright, ignore the crappy picture. And ignore the fact that I haven't posted forever. I promise that I'll post more. I finally did something different with my hair and went blonde! And before you start out on all the jokes, I started out as a blonde, and probably have blonde for most of my life.


Does my nose look slightly like a witches in this picture?

Apparently I've been Stressed

Apparently I've been just a little stressed. I have shingles. Yes, I know I'm young for it. Every time my dad answers the phone, he calls me "Old Women." Thanks Dad. But here's what's been going on to make me so stressed.

Carl started his rotations at the hospital. Right now, he's in surgery, which means he wakes up before 4, gets home sometimes at about 7, still has to study, and get to bed by 9.

I haven't gotten enough sleep lately because I'm a light sleeper. When Carl's alarm goes off at 3:45, I wake up as well. Sometimes I go back to sleep quickly. Sometimes not. The other day, I stayed awake worried about my care plan for school and then realized I had already turned it in.

School ends on the 18th. Yippee! However, that means my time is taken up with papers, papers, and more papers. Oh, and tests. Joy.

My class I'm taking right now is horrible. It's only a eight week test, but they decided to squeeze 5 tests into that. You do the math. That's a test about every 2 weeks. No time to rest in between.

The professors for this class are horrible. Their favorite line is "this is in the book, so I'm not going to cover this." They also lecture incredibly fast, so it's impossible to take notes. Basically, I'm having to teach myself. It's a pain.

I have a mid-curricular exam coming up. They told us about this test this semester and have expected us to study for it on our own. Um...who has time to study for that with everything else? They expect us to pass with a 78% or we have to take an extra class next semester. I really do not want to have to do that.

I joined a gym a couple weeks ago and have been going nearly everyday. So far, it has payed off and I've lost 5 pounds since joining! I'm really excited to lose weight, but it's one more thing on my plate. I'm worried that my current condition is going to cause a setback but I'll do the best I can. However, the gym also causes a problem because I go after work so sometimes don't get home until after 7-7:30, still have to shower, get dinner, and study.

Sometimes I feel really overwhelmed with everything. School, work, gym, and keeping up the house take up my entire life. My house is constantly a mess because I don't have time to clean it. It's fantastic.

Because of everything I've had going on, I've had to cut somethings out of my life. One of these has been blogging. Another thing has been reading. I've read one book in the last couple of months. If you know me, you know this is a tough thing for me. I hope that I will be to catch up on stuff when this semester is over.

Sorry this post was kind of a pity me post. I just had to get some stuff off my chest. Thanks for reading!