Soon to be a California Girl...

Well, the day has almost arrived.  After a super stressful two days of paperwork-gathering, immunization-getting, shopping, and packing, the day has finally almost made it here.  Honestly I thought we weren't going to get everything done in time and we wouldn't be able to go.  We had that much paperwork to do in such a short amount of time.  But it got done, thank goodness!

In the morning, Bela and I are packing our things in my car and starting our drive to California.

I am so excited for this opportunity.  Honestly, I don't think that the reality has set in.  At all.

It's like I'm just going on a really cool road trip.  Not traveling to a place where I'll be staying for the next three months, and then after that on to another place.... it just hasn't registered yet.

Would be thankful for any prayers, good thoughts, etc, as we make our drive this week!  It'll be a whirlwind!

Exciting Changes

It has been an eventful past ten days.

First of all, I got back on Thursday from a 4-night Bahamian cruise on the Disney Dream!  What a blast!  I will eventually post pictures, but that isn't even the half of what has been so eventful.

I have kept it pretty quiet, but since July I have been pursuing travel nursing with my friend, Bela.  I got my California license in September and began the process of getting my ACLS certification.  We got in touch with a travel nurse agency and began the process of sending our information, speaking with our recruiter, and submitting ourselves for assignments.  That was a process, let me tell you.

We got offered a job about ten days ago in San Leandro, California.  We were SO excited.  We would both be working evenings, 3-11:30.  We both put in our two weeks notice, told them our date we were available, and waited to sign our contracts.  This time period was when I left for my Disney cruise.  I had planned to check my e-mail Monday night to see if there was anything else I needed to do.  We found out that day that San Leandro was out of the question because they would not negotiate the start date and needed us out there a week earlier than we could get there.

We were upset, but we both contacted our bosses (I had to e-mail mine) and worked out getting off a week earlier.  All this time in the back of my mind, I was thinking we were screwed if things fell through.  But all they needed was for us to be there earlier, so we thought we were in the clear.  Only to find out the next day that they had pursued other candidates and we had missed the boat.

Needless to say, I was really upset.  I felt like here I had not only quit my job, but I had quit a whole week earlier for something that completely fell through!  We spoke with our recruiter and she very diligently kept looking for jobs, but nothing seemed hopeful.

One popped up in Castro Valley, California, however.  It wasn't really the ideal situation compared to the other one, but we asked her to go ahead and submit us.  We found out that I had the wrong computer charting experience and they required me to have one I had never used before.  However, thanks to my recruiter, by the end of the day we were both given offers and now we are set to leave this Wednesday for our first travel assignment!

Let me tell you, it has been a major emotional roller coaster.  From excitement for a new job, to the low of the prospect of unemployment (which, let me tell you, were a really rough couple of days), and then back to more excitement-- it's about been more stress than I can handle.

Because it was all so last minute, I didn't get much of a chance to say good-bye to my co-workers.  Or really even much closure as far as work is concerned.  It's like I was employed by them like always, then went on vacation, and came home and worked a few more days.  And now I'm done.  It's hard to believe that after four years of working there, that's it.  I will definitely miss my co-workers.

I have so much packing, paperwork, and last-minute shopping to do.  It's definitely more than a little overwhelming.  Hopefully by Wednesday, we will be all set to start off on our first travel assignment!  Can't wait to tell you all about it here!

Gosh, life is such a roller coaster sometimes.  I've got quite a story to tell, but for now will leave it at this:  I'm so grateful to God for what He has done for me, and for the people in my life who have worked to help me get to where I am.  Can't wait to see what the future holds!

On Feeling Low

Tonight I've been feeling really low.

I couldn't put my finger on why.  It's like a thousand different things that are bothering me and stressing me out.  I'm stressed about changes coming.  I'm worried about finances.  I'm afraid everything won't come together.  I'm nervous about an event coming up tomorrow.  I'm fat and disgusting.

Wait.... what?!

How did that creep in?  I'm sitting here worrying about all these legitimately stressful things, and suddenly I find myself running my hands over my stomach, wishing it were thinner. I suddenly felt angry that I ate frozen yogurt after supper, and two small pieces of banana bread just now for a late night snack.

It took me awhile to even figure out that I was taking the stress in my life and turning it into body hatred.  Using it to cut myself down for no good reason at all.  And doing it completely subconsciously without even realizing it.  How many times have I done this before and never figured it out?

I have yet to figure out if it's really my self-esteem that's at fault here tonight, or the stress of life.  But they seem to be working together really well to keep me feeling pretty lousy for now.  Thanks to a good talk with my friend, Lindsey, I do feel better.  But I would still love to take this negative self-talk and give it a roundhouse kick to the face.

On a better note, I kicked ass on the elliptical for an hour today!  (Bet you never thought you'd hear about an ass-kicking and elliptical machine in the same sentence... but that thing can actually give you a pretty hard workout if you use it the right way!)  Even though I don't feel awesome about myself today, I am in good shape and still working hard at it.  To me, that is a victory.

Not Much to Say

I've gotten really bad about keeping up with this blog regularly.  I've actually been on here several times the past few weeks, but every time I start to write something I can't.  I have things to say, but most of the time these thoughts swirl around in my head, unable to be put into words.  I don't know why.

I've had a busy couple of weeks, that's for sure.  Work held me captive for 10 out of 13 nights until Wednesday of this past week.  I was pretty miserable for a lot of that time, just wishing for more of a break so I could get some rest.  But I got through it, and thank goodness!

And afterward, my sister Allison and I went to Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween at the Magic Kingdom!  It was so much fun!  (so much so, that I didn't take any pictures)  I have wanted to go to this for years, and it finally worked out this year!  We didn't dress up, but we did go trick or treating all through the park and got a ton of candy.  That's what I love so much about Disney.  You get to be a kid again.  I think that the Halloween Boo to You parade was my favorite Disney parade yet.  Maybe even more than the Main Street Electrical Parade.

I hung out a bit in Orlando before and after our time in Disney, which was fun.  It's been awhile since I got to hang out down there.  We had fun eating, talking, and watching some of our favorite TV shows. Just fun to enjoy the time that we have.  I wish there was more time for that kind of thing.

I've got some fun plans coming up, which I'll be blogging about another time.  In the meantime, I hope you have a great Monday and rest of the week!

Color Me Rad 5K

I had a lot of fun today running the Color Me Rad 5K!  It's a great way to take what might otherwise be stressful and competitive and make it loads of fun.  How often do you get to throw colored starch in the air and not care how messy you get?  My sister Hannah did it with me, and though we didn't run the whole thing, we still had a ton of fun.  I know I'll do it again the next time it comes to town.

Before, in our sparkly white t-shirts 

During the race.  We got to run through Everbank Field!

The aftermath 

We had so much fun throwing color bombs at each other.  I think I got the most color after the race. 

 Triumphant!