3 years...

It's been almost 3 years to the day since I last blogged. Holy smokes, life has sped by. Fall always leaves me feeling nastolgic and happy. It makes me want to write. I have been reading stories from our blog with the kids lately. They have loved it and I realize how nice it has been to have something for them to see from when they were little. Maybe I can make this a habit again lol! So...where are we now....

Over the last three years I have completed an associate and bachelor's of nursing degrees and worked 4 different nursing jobs (long story). I have finally settled on my ultimate top choice as an Operating Room nurse at our county hospital and am loving every second of it (drama, gore and all).

 Mickey was promoted at work a few years ago and now trains all new employees for workers comp as well as many other new and amazing things. He has officially worked for the state for 5 years! He loves what he does. He injured his "bad" ankle and foot again in December which resulted in another surgery in July. He is still on the road to healing but is doing significantly better. He is toying the idea of grad school again but in the mean time has settled in working in the yard, riding his motorcycle and being all things awesome. 

PJ has been through alot medically and emotionally but has stabilized over the last few months. While I don't post many public details about his health on here it is important to point out his stabilizing. This is huge for us. He is now in 4th grade and has the best teacher we could ever ask for him. He continues with his Minecraft and Lego obessions and has the best sense of humor (as always).

Amiah is in 1st grade and is flying through life with grins and giggles and is always learning something new. She hacked her hair off and got her ears pierced, reads everything she can gets her hands on and is the most kind and patient child I know.  

Owen started kindergarten and has grown so much over the last 3 years, it's insane. He is still super shy and hates being the center of attention. He is kind hearted and has an amazing imagination. He and Amiah are the best of friends and are always creating something together. 

 We still have our dog, Maddi, who will be 13 this month. Her age is startig to show as she can't jump onto furniture as easy anymore and is losing her eye sight and hearing. Getting old stinks. 

And we added Jack-the-Cat to our family 2 years ago this October. He is the friendliest orange tabby you will ever meet. One of our neighbors describes his as "more dog than cat". He romes the neighborhood and brings us dead birds, rodents and grasshoppers but is seriously the sweetest cat ever. 

  We also moved from the horrible apartment we lived in for nearly 6 years and bought our first home. A two story house on a corner lot in a quiet neighborhood with 5 bedrooms and 4 bathrooms. Unbeknownst to us when we bought it, it also happens to be on the soggiest piece of property in Cheyenne. We will be rebuilding our sump system and starting to refinish the finished basement next month... the first of MANY projects for this place...

So, for anyone wondering what's happening in our lives, there's a snap shot. 
Mickey is headed out of town for a few weeks starting Monday. Maybe I will get around to more detailed updates on everyone with my free evenings lol. Peace out. 

I'm noticing a pattern here...

Amiah's birthday was last week (I know...I should post about it...I'll get to it, eventually). That night when I tucked her in and laid by her I pulled up my blog on my phone and read to her some of the stories I had written about her birth and being a baby and all the cute things she did and how she looked. It was so much fun. So I proceeded (after she fell asleep) to sort through my past posts and I noticed something...since beginning this blog I have done nothing but try and catch up. Try and make up for lost time, say I will be better and then, well, I'm not. I had intentions a year ago to post past posts I'd written in my head and then eventually I'd be caught up.

That's the funny thing about life though....if  life would stop for just a moment, maybe I could catch up to it. But it doesn't stop. Nope, it keeps going. So rather than sit here and apologize to the abyss of the internet to an invisible audience and beat myself up over being a terrible wife and mother and human being for failing to maintain the perfect blog I for some reason thought I should have, I am just going to start where I am, today, this moment. And perhaps I'll get around to a post or two on recapping the last year or so...or maybe not. But I did realize, while cuddling with my sweet 4 year old little girl, this is as close as a journal as we're ever gunna get. And while I'd love to capture every waking moment on it, it's not going to happen. But it was super fun to recap those fun moments that I had posted about in the past. And at the moment, I am typing on a new laptop I have spent too much time on today trying to master (a lot has changed since we purchased our desktop 6 years ago!) and maybe, just maybe, I'll find a few minutes here and there to post more moments to come. As of today: here I am...

I started nursing school in August. Now the world may remember that this is not my first attempt at the dream. But due to a whirlwind of experiences I decided to give it another go back in January. I stressed, I studied, I tested, I applied, I got in. And now...our lives are totally different. My babies go to a wonderful daycare 4 days a week, PJ and I go to school and Mickey goes to work. We play in the evenings and on the weekends. And we budget our time like we do our money. And things are good. This is why I have a new laptop. I am attending the community colleges nursing school here, and it's 4 semesters long. I will graduate with an Associates of Applied Science degree, but due to my already having a B.S degree I discovered that with the awesomeness of technology, I can actually be concurrently working on another B.S degree (only this one will actually be financially useful) online through our University.
Admittedly the first few weeks were rough for me. Hard because my kids actually love daycare. THEY LOVE IT. And I felt useless and unwanted and un-needed. But harder than that, I felt guilty for actually loving every second of this experience so far. Sure, things can suck, but it has felt so awesome to be working towards something I have always wanted so badly, but never thought I was capable of becoming.

The last few years I have encountered some very painful and trying growth experiences.Some were brought on by own decisions and some were a product of others. And while I will not expand on those here, I have learned a lot about myself. I have learned what I truly do and don't believe in. I have begun not just treating but actually healing my depression and anxieties. I have reintroduced myself to myself and have begun living my life, loving my life, and becoming a more authentic 'me' than I have in a very long time. Some of these decisions have come at costs that I never thought I would have to pay. But ultimately, it's what will eventually result in not only a genuine and sincere happiness, but hopefully life lessons that can be instilled in my children and those closest to me. Anyway, it's late. Too late to be rambling online with an 8 o'clock class quickly approaching.

CAUTION: CONTENTS MAY BE HOT

Things are always dramatic in my life. It's like I am genetically programmed for it. Whether I create it from my own person, or the wind blows it in, I got it. This weeks headline: the burn.
I was at work on Thursday night when my loving hubby texts me that he had spilled a boiling hot cup-o-doodles on his nearly bare thigh and it was burned pretty bad. I received this picture a few minutes later (which to be honest with you doesn't even come close to how bad it really is. The white you see are chunks of skin. When I got home it was seeping a severely blistered). I called him to see if I should come home and felt he needed to go to the hospital. He swore he was fine a million times (shock anyone??) And so I stayed. An hour later another text: I think I need to go to the ER... I was thankfully able to get the night shift to come in early (but not without the obvious drama that continued into the next days shift...) and my sister came to hang with the sleeping kiddos while we went to the ER at nearly midnight.
It was quite possibly the fastest ER visit on record. They got him in, gave him a painful tetanus booster, pain meds, silver-something cream, wrapped it up and sent us home.
One would think an 8 inch circular burn on the thigh wouldn't be so difficult to manage but boy, it is. No bending, squatting, flexing, laying, scratching, dressing or even goosebumping that leg without agony. The bandages won't stay on due to the location and as the skin continues to fall off, the wound (part of the healing process) becomes more painful and prone to infection.
I cannot believe the levels of emotion that comes with this kind of thing. It's exhausting, depressing and at times heart breaking to deal with. I know it could be so much worse, but I hate seeing my husband hurt so much. And I hate that there is really nothing anyone can do to help except wait.
I don't say this to get sympathy or whatever, (who knows how many will actually read this anyway since I rarely write to the public anymore) I just needed to document the story of the gruesome scar that will be left behind from a measly 29cent-cup-of-freaking-noodles. Ouch.