I Promise I'm Alive!

Hi y'all!! What a blur of a week it's been! I'm sorry that I never checked in and let you all know how my first week was going, I had good intentions but, alas, never got around to it. 

First off, thank you all so much for your well wishes for my new job.  I guess no one really likes change, but I appreciate all of your thoughts!  I have to do two whole weeks of 8-5 orientation days (that are a little boring if I must tell).  I'm halfway there!!  My first day on the floor will be a week from Tuesday. I'm nervous and excited all in one.

I have to give credit to all of you folks who work 8-5 jobs.  I don't know how you do it!  I was exhausted and ready for bed by nine o'clock every night and the thought of cooking dinner was enough to send me over the edge.  Baron and I are a good team, so we didn't have to eat out every night :)  The dogs had quite the adjustment period and were surprisingly well behaved.  Thank the Lord!

We did manage to find time to drive by the house every night this week and were amazed at how quickly things are happening!  The next two photos are from last Sunday, and exactly a week later, this afternoon:

I can't wait to see what it looks like in another week!  This stage of the process is happening so fast!

I hope you all have a wonderful week! Back to the grind tomorrow :)

On the Eve of Change

I never really understood the Sunday evening blues...until today.  Ha!  My first real job was working night shift as a nurse and each week I worked on different days so there was never the feeling of having to get ready for a full week of work.

I start hospital orientation tomorrow for my new job and although there won't be any clinical work tomorrow I'm still a little nervous.  Never having been a huge fan of change, I've kind of been dreading this afternoon for a while. 

I've got my lunch packed, paperwork ready, and my clothes laid out for my first day.  Here goes nothing!

Baron and I had a low key weekend that started out by celebrating my new job at the Melting Pot on Friday night.  Imagine my surprise when I saw this on my little menu board:

We had a nice dinner and fun experience cooking all of our own food.  Baron had never been before and I think he liked it :)  While trying to cook some shrimp on a skewer, this guy walks by and I think,  "I know him!" But then I thought, "we just moved here and there are very few people that we know and I'd be able to identify them easily." Hmmmm....

Then it clicked, it was Jared the Subway guy! At the Melting Pot. Certainly not eating a five dollar foot long.  Baron didn't believe me at first and after it was confirmed by our waiter, he too, was in awe of the big celebrity sighting in our city.

Speaking of Subway, there is one pretty close to our new house.  We went and grabbed dinner one night last week.  Our sandwich artist was very enthusiastic and even penned the words "His" and "Hers" on our sandwiches.  Ha!

Saturday was spent doing absolutely nothing.  We did drive around late in the afternoon to check on our house and just see the city.  Spring has definitely sprung here in North Alabama and it is beautiful!

I hope you all have a wonderful week! I'll try to stop in at some point but won't make any promises, this is going to be quite the 180 for a girl who's had a year off of work.  Gulp!  I'm excited to get started but kind of wish I could snap my fingers and have been at my new job for a year.  I remember saying that about my last job when I first started and the three and a half years there went by so fast. 

I hope I can touch peoples' lives.  I hope I can be a caretaker, pain-reliever, answer giver, comedian, baby rocker, comforter, and perfect counter-to-ten (you do a lot of that in Labor and Delivery) for all of the women that I will care for.  The way that all of the doors were closed until this opportunity came about, and then this door was wide open and I was practically shoved through it, helps me to be less anxious about the whole thing.  This is where I'm supposed to be.  This is what I'm supposed to do.  I can't wait to get back into the groove of it all.  I'll just keep repeating that to myself until it feels natural again.

Have a great week, friends!

Grandma's Pennies

My Grandma Gloria, my Dad's mom, used to find money all the time.  And I'm not talking loose change on the ground, I'm talking ten dollar bills in the bushes on the way into a restaurant. All the time!

My Grandma passed away when I was twelve and I still miss her and think of her all the time.  Ever since she died I started finding pennies everywhere! It's funny because it seems that if I'm upset about something I almost always find a penny on the way to my car. I've found pennies on all of the important days of my life. My graduations, first day of college, nursing school interview, you know, the big days.  I was a little sad that I hadn't found a penny on my wedding day when my Aunt walked up to me while I was getting my hair done with a shiny penny in hand and said, "Look Brekke, Grandma's here."

Whew! She's approved ;)

In fact, as I walked out of the hospital after the interview for the job I start on Monday, I found a shiny Abe Lincoln in the revolving door of the hospital.  I almost lost a limb trying to pick it up!

I've kept my Grandma's pennies all these years except for one year when I was desperately trying to pay off my credit card and I knew Grandma wouldn't mind.  I never keep pennies that I get for change in my wallet because I don't want them to mix with my Grandma's pennies.  It's wierd, I accept it :)

I knew that I wanted to leave some of my pennies in the foundation of the house somewhere so that I knew that they were always close by if I didn't find one that day.  But where??  I thought long and hard and decided they'd be tossed into the back porch, that's where my Grandma always was anyways. 

About to go into the rubble in the back porch (they'll pour concrete over it at some point)

See 'em?? I'm hoping to be able to catch the wet concrete after they pour it and press one penny into it so there's always one I can see but who knows if I'll be able to catch it in time.  At least I know that they're there.

What goes up...

There is so much happening with the construction of our new house and it's happening so quickly that I want to try to document it and keep up with it as best as I can.

Remember yesterday when I posted about the mini-crisis surrounding our storm shelter?  Baron's been looking at that picture over and over and kept saying that something just wasn't right.  He didn't like how the two interior walls would be anchored by a long length of rebar but the exterior walls were just anchored with a few inches.  Doesn't make much sense.  We couldn't see how the exterior walls would be anchored to the foundation.  We got a response before they "fixed" it a few days ago from the builder's assistant who basically told us that we were right and they totally forgot about the shelter and it had been remedied. Oh, and P.S., don't contact me anymore, go through the realtors that don't know a dang thing and I'll see you at closing. 

Baron waited to respond to her email until we had a chance to go by the house and see it yesterday afternoon:

When we saw that our storm shelter had practically been finished we thought, "Crap! Hopefully it's done right!"  When we got home Baron responded to the verging-on-rude email and stated his concerns about the integrity of the shelter.  He made sure to point out that because it had been entirely missed when the poured our slab that he's concerned it was just given a quick fix and not done correctly, including a picture of the questionable work.  He responded to the woman who basically told us not to contact her as well as our realtor, the two realtors working for the builder that don't know squat, and lastly, the builder himself.  Let's call him Jim.  That was at 9:30 last night.

This morning Baron decides to go by the house on the way to work and was happy to see that Jim, the owner of the company and his construction managers were all there. Jim had Baron's picture that was sent in the email pulled up on his iPad and was furious according to Baron.  He apologized profusely and said that he was humiliated and could not believe that this had happened after all that we've been through.  He said he felt like they had lost all credibility with us and were very sorry.  He talked to Baron about what they were going to do to fix it and let us know that it would probably push everything back another week.  My understanding is that they'll be ripping up all of the foundation and repouring everything to start over again.

Tearing down the storm shelter

I have a lot of different emotions about this whole process.  I still feel like we chose a good builder who builds a good product and that we will be happy with the final result.  At the same time I feel like there have been one too many mistakes along the way and we're only about a week into construction! The is the first problem we've had with the actual builder and not the realty team that works for him.  Everyone that we've talked to that has ever built a house says that it's a lot of work, a lot of stress, and that they've caught mistakes during the construction.  It makes me feel a little better to know that it's not totally out of the ordinary.  I'll just keep looking at pictures of my kitchen and telling myself it'll be okay!

Weekend Catch Up

Can it still be a "Weekend Catch Up" on Wednesday?? I feel a little late with this one but I'm gonna do it anyway. No rules, that's how I live ;)

My parents came into town late Friday afternoon and we went straight from the airport to Sonic to get fried pickles, duh!  They don't have them in Florida and Momma needed a snack!  Then we went and explored our house under construction and saw that they had dumped a bunch of gravel into our foundation footing and were ready to pour some concrete for the foundation! Hurray!

On Saturday we took my parents to the model home and let them see what our future house will look like.  It was a nice reminder for me because I haven't seen the model in months!  I still like it! :) 

I can't wait to be in this kitchen!

We showed them the sights and sounds of our city and spent some QT with the pups.  My Dad loves Boston Terriers and was in heaven. Max cried for a solid two hours when I came home alone after dropping my parents off at the airport.  I joined him for an hour or so ;)

Just look at the two of them :)

We had a mini crisis yesterday when we thought the builders had forgetten about our storm shelter.  They had poured the entire slab for our foundation but there was nothing sticking up for the storm shelter to tie to like we had been told.  When we came back later that evening they had cut out a portion of the concrete and poured new concrete with rebar sticking up to bolt the cinderblock walls of our storm shelter to. Whew! I'm still not sure if they forgot and our phone calls reminded them or if that's just how they do it.  Either way, we're getting our storm shelter!  I dare say that they will start framing our house today...we'll see this afternoon!

Baron with the rebar!

I was a terrible blogger and only busted out the camera once or twice...oops! Better next time, I promise! I don't think I got any pictures of my Momma.  Here's an older picture of my mom and I for good measure.  Getting ready for our wedding :)

Happy Hump Day friends! I'm savoring my last few days as an unemployed woman and dreading my full time, 8-5 orientation that takes place next week.  Ugh.  Nurses aren't supposed to work like that ;)  Can't wait to get to the three day a week stuff!

Coming to Town!

Hi y'all, just wanted to touch base and let you know that I won't be around for the next few days.  My parents are coming into town this afternoon and we plan on showing them the sights and sounds of our little town over the weekend.

Dad, Mom, and little brother, Chris

They'll be staying until Tuesday afternoon so I hope to update you on our fun weekend then!  Have a wonderful weekend friends!

Big News!

Hi friends!  I've got quite the update for you guys today.  There are so many exciting things happening for us right now that I know will swirl the calm waters of our lives for months to come.

No, we're not having a baby.

Actually, I am having lots of them, but not Baron.  Weird, right??  Not really because, you guys, I am going to be a labor and delivery nurse again!!  When I wrote this post in August, I had no idea that six months later I still wouldn't have a job.  After searching high and low and submitting application after application with no bites, it got me a little down.  I only had one bite and had an interview at a doctor's office that I wasn't terribly excited about, a few months ago.  I was terribly conflicted after I left the interview because I really wasn't feeling it, so I prayed that they wouldn't call and offer me the job.  Well they must have picked up on my vibe, because they never called.

I now see exactly why all these doors have been shut right in front of me.  Why I get e-mail after e-mail about how they chose another candidate, they had already filled the position, I didn't have the experience they were looking for, blah, blah, blah.

On Monday afternoon I got a call from the Nurse Manager at a hospital in my town, she wanted me to come in for an interview the following day at 1.  The interview went well and I met with about six nurses from the unit and really liked their personalities and the feel of the unit.  At six o'clock that night I received a call from the manager and she said that she wanted to offer me the position. Say what?!  I went from having absolutely no prospects to having secured a job in about 26 hours.  Okay God, I hear you! This is where I'm supposed to be! :)

The best part? It's a PRN position, which means as needed.  After working full time for one year I'll go PRN and be able to work basically whenever I want to.  There is a minimum shift amount that I'll have to work and I can work as much as up to full time, whatever works for my schedule.  How great is that?!

I am so, so excited to get back into my old thing.  To do what I do best and get back to where I feel like I'm making a difference in this world.  Of course I'm nervous beyond belief too, but with the way everything worked out I have no doubt that God has placed me here in the position and that it will be okay!

House Update:
In other news, right after getting called about the interview on Monday, Baron and I headed to our lot to see if any action had been done on our house.  Much to our surprise, they had broken ground!!

Our lot has been scraped!

Rebar for our storm shelter!

What an exciting Monday it was! After my interview on Tuesday, I was mentally exhausted and mulling things over in my head when Baron and I headed back down to the lot again.  What did we find?? More progress!!

Concrete footing for our foundation

As we were exploring the outline of our house my phone rang.  I didn't recognize the number at first so I wasn't going to answer it and then it clicked.  It was the hospital!  I answered and when I heard the voice of the Nurse Manager that I had just met with earlier that day, I teared up.  She offered me the position and we spoke briefly about my next steps. When I hung up I jumped up and down and told Baron that I was a labor and delivery nurse again!!  It was surreal to be watching our new home being built while I got the call about my new job.  Lots of things happening for sure!

Last night we didn't have a chance to get to the lot until it was dark, but we still went!  We were impressed that they had already started laying cinder blocks for the foundation.  It's all going so fast!

Our future garage

I hope you all have a wonderful Thursday!  I'm heading to the hospital today to get some paperwork out of the way and then prepping for my parents' visit tomorrow!  This week has become a lot more crazy than I thought it would be.  Such is life, right?!

Be blessed friends!

Weekend Recap

Hey y'all! We had quite an eventful weekend and Baron even had a surprise three day weekend! We were expecting rough weather on Friday afternoon so Baron went to work that morning to try to get a few hours in before the storms came through.  I sent Baron this picture and said, "We're ready for the tornadoes!"

Well imagine my surprise when at about 9 o'clock I heard tornado sirens!  I flipped on the TV and was instantly sent into a frenzy!  We were under a tornado warning and the weathermen were calling for people in my area to take cover.  I grabbed the dogs and my phone and hopped in the bathtub.  I called Baron and because they were reporting a tornado between the two of us, he stayed put while I waited in the bathroom with the dogs.

It was really scary and I may or may not have been crying on the phone with my husband.  Finally, after the worst was over, Baron raced home and we were glued to the TV for the rest of the day.  There was a break around lunchtime with no storms so we drove out to check on our new neighborhood and grab some lunch.  When we drove past our lot there was a huge truck dropping off a dumpster and a Porta-Potty!  The first action on our property, hooray!

There was another strong string of storms that went through that afternoon but thankfully we were safe.  I cannot wait until our storm shelter is built!!  This was the view from our apartment right before the second string of storms came though.  We were really lucky!

On Saturday we had plans to drive to Birmingham to see Flying Monsters at an IMAX theatre there.  Baron had the opportunity to help in the production of the film about two years ago so we were excited to see the finished product.  We had lunch at The Fish Market, in downtown Birmingham and it was really good!  It's hard to find good seafood in northern Alabama but we were impressed with this place.  Did it help that everything we ate was fried? Probably.

The best fried pickles I've ever had! Yum!  Baron was excited to see his movie!!

After lunch we headed to the theatre and settled in for the movie. Unfortunately none of the parts that Baron worked on made the final cut but it was still neat to see the final product, since he had gotten to see behind the scenes!

Sunday was a very lazy day, Baron made breakfast and was in the kitchen for a looooong time just to make a bagel, but I understood when he came forth with this little masterpiece.

How sweet!  I hope you all have a great Monday! 

Happy March!

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Well folks, it's the first day of March!! Do you know what that means?  Spring has almost sprung! Hooray!  Spring is the happiest time of the year; Beautiful weather, beautiful flowers, beautiful babies.  Ahhh, everything is just a little merrier during springtime.

The weather in North Alabama is beautiful today!  Our current temp is 68 degrees and I've got all the windows open enjoying the sunshine and cool breeze.  It's hard to be in a grumpy mood when it's this pretty out. 

Nothing more to discuss today. Sorry! Here's a cute picture of the pups I took yesterday:

Don't worry, Macey doesn't need Doggie Antidepressants, she just hates having her picture taken.  She's definitely not cut out to live the life of the rich and famous.