Happy Valentine's Day!

For your Valentine's listening enjoyment, I present two beautiful duets, sung in heart-tugging harmonies.

Lucky - Jason Mraz featuring Colbie Caillat



Once - Falling Slowly

All things misc.

I woke up this morning, and my google blogstalker feature was inundated with new posts from my various subscriptions. I dove in and read everybody, and then felt guilty for all of the neglect my blog has seen since... well, last fall. It's a silly thing to feel guilty about, especially since there are no clamouring audiences waiting anxiously for my next words. There is only me, wishing I had the patience or energy to sit down and write, since it's something I enjoy so much. (And a few kindly readers who pop as well. Hi! And thanks!) However, I'm better at guilt than I am at writing, so it often wins out and I guiltily indulge in reading everyone else's new thoughts while leaving my own blog untouched.

So today - a miscellaneous update post (also known as an excuse post). Some people aren't fans of the random topic update type of post, but it's one of my favorites. The only theme to my blog is me, and those of you who know me personally will agree that the long-winded-random-strings-of-stories-with-no-point posts are closest to what real life with Mandi is like. (For better or worse...)

Anyhow, away we go!

This weekend we had our housewarming open house. It turned out to be a pretty good party, and it was fun to have people over to our (mostly unpacked) house. We netted six or so bottles of wine plus two of champagne - I'm going to have to have people over again to drink all the wine they brought this time. Interestingly, the party seems to have worked - it feels so much more like home now that we've had our friends over. Maybe the walls absorb the happiness and the laughter and the little kids' joyful shrieks, but somehow the energy feels different. Maybe it's all perception. Whatever it was, it worked. This place feels like home.

We moved into this house three weeks ago yesterday. It's gone by quick, mostly because I've kept busy with lots of little repairs and improvements. I painted the laundry room and the downstairs bathroom (twice for the bath - didn't like the first color), done small electrical and plumbing fixes (leaky faucets and toilets), patched nail holes and drywall and all sorts of other little odd jobs. I really enjoy that type of work - there is a real satisfaction in standing back and seeing something that works because I fixed it, or that looks good because I put a lot of time into the details of patching or painting it. It's kept me busy and distracted from the fact that I am jobless and broke...

...but -- I have an interview tomorrow! Wish me luck - it's at the hospital where I really want to work, and for a job that isn't overnights! If the position I originally applied for is still open, it's a 3-11:30 evening shift. I had sort of reluctantly resigned myself to the fact that I would have to work 12 hour shifts overnight (7p-7a) as a new graduate nurse, but I just really don't want to. I worked nights at the post office years ago, and I had a really difficult time with the sleep deprivation. Granted, I worked part time there (midnight to 6am, about three days a week), but I also worked at a department store, taught clarinet lessons two days a week, and went to college full time. God, to be twenty again... I only managed that schedule for about six weeks before I quit the night job, but these days I imagine I could survive for about, oh, 48 hours before I went completely berserk. Anyhow, evenings sounds lovely by comparison. Cross your fingers for me!

Okay, I'm off to unpack all of my nursing books so I can get started on studying for my boards. I finally set my test date (March 11th) and now that there are a finite number of days between now and when I'll sit down to the exam, I'm feeling the pressure to crack some books. Yay!

But before I go, one more thing:

Happy birthday to my wonderful brother-in-law Emilio!

Celebrating the beginning of change.

President Barack Obama dancing at the Inaugural Ball.

Photo by Jason Reed, Reuter's. As seen at news.yahoo.com

Yes he can... dance. :) Glad to see he's as excited as we are!

Moving fun!

A week ago today an army of friends showed up at our apartment and proceeded to swiftly and artfully load our U-Haul, plus Creighton's pickup truck and Steve's flatbead trailer. Two hours later we were sitting amongst a sea of boxes in our new house, eating Pringles and gabbing. It was, without a doubt, the fastest move I've ever made. Thanks so much to Ashlee, Kate, another Kate, Steve, Creighton, James, and Tommy for the fantastic help!

This past week has been war - me against the boxes. I don't like living out of boxes, and I pride myself on being quick to settle in to new places. And since I am currently without gainful employment, I have dedicated myself full time to the task of organizing our life. I've done fairly well so far - living room and kitchen are done, and our bedroom, both bathrooms, computer room, and the family room are in various states of unpacking.

(Living room, box free!)


I took a day to do some major drywall patching and then paint in the laundry room. I love being able to put color on my walls!

(I've been saving those overalls for seven years for this very purpose! Wee!)



Okay, back to the boxes!

Hello, internets!

After a week without, our new home is finally wired to the internet, phone, and cable.

...aaaaaand there goes my drive to unpack boxes. :)

Home, sweet home!

We closed on our first house today!

Poor, sad iPod.

It's a fantastic sunny day outside, but my poor iPod insists on being pensive.
The past few songs, in reverse order:

Fire Walk With Me - Angelo Badalamenti
Something to Believe In - Poison [...don't judge me]
You Never Know - Dave Matthews Band
In Your Eyes - Jeffrey Gaines
Return to Innocence - Enigma
Nothing Better - The Postal Service
Naughty Girl - Beyonce [this one definitely varies from the pattern]
Crash Into Me - Dave Matthews Band
I Miss You - Blink 182
The Weight - The Band
Glory Box - Portishead

I'm revoking its shuffling privileges for the day - I needs me some upbeat-sun-shiny-day packing music!

Must have experience to get experience.

It's difficult trying to find work as a new graduate nurse. Granted, I've only been looking for 2.5 business days, but still. Most places want experienced nurses, but I can't become an experienced nurse without a nursing job. And round and round the cycle goes...

Honestly, I understand the hesitancy in hiring new graduates. A new employee for any company is a huge investment, and a new nurse even more so - it takes a loooooong time to orient a brand new nurse. After four difficult years in a highly respected baccalaureate program, the typical graduate nurse is perfectly prepared - to learn how to be a nurse. We have a great base of knowledge, but there is still much to learn. It makes sense that facilities will have to integrate new nurses in over time, and I'm sure I'll find work fairly soon.

It's strange being without a daily occupation. I've been both an employee and a full time student for the past four and a half years, and now suddenly my world is devoid of any real obligation, save for making student loan payments and exchanging carbon dioxide for oxygen. It's sort of surreal.
"Enjoy it," people keep telling me. Yeah - it was enjoyable for about four days. After that I started getting this nagging "do something" feeling, though the nagging didn't translate into any real accomplishment. I should be working out at the gym, studying for the NCLEX, and packing all of my worldly belongings, but instead I just watch mass quantities of HGTV and dream of buying furniture.

Clearly, I'm in some sort of post-degree freefall.

Online job search - now with faster rejection.

I don't like this era of internet-aided job applications. Job hunting has never been high on my list of things I enjoy, but I definitely liked the old way better. Get all dressed up, have resumés and cover letters printed on fancy paper, then go use your people skills to secure an interview. Now you roll out of bed, step into your fluffy house slippers, grab a Clif bar and a cup of coffee, and sit down to the computer. You fill out an extensive application online, then copy the text of your carefully formatted resumé and paste it into a text only window. I feel like I represent myself fairly well in print, but I miss the humanness of the old way.

As a new graduate nurse, I am on the hunt for a nursing position (the snag in this plan will be elaborated on in my next post). I like the idea of starting in a hospital, and being in Missoula this gives me two options for employment. I spent Friday morning rewriting my resumé (to reflect the fact that I now want to be a nurse as opposed to a receptionist, the only thing for which my old resumé clearly qualified me). I then signed up for Jobline accounts with each of the local hospitals and proceeded to fill out an online application for each facility. This morning, while reviewing the positions available at one of them, I came across a position in the cardiac cath lab. It said experience preferred, but it also said that it was a training bid, which my brain translated into "maybe they'll take a new grad." I logged in and applied my application to that position this morning at about 10:30. I got home from running errands about 2:45, and already waiting for me was an emailed response, letting me know that I don't have the experience they are looking for, but thanks anyway.
Applied at brunch, shot down before teatime.

Thanks, internets.

Caught with my hand in the cookie jar.

Okay, so we close on our new house next Friday, which means that we don't technically own it yet. (Just a minor detail...) I've been driving by every so often (okay, fairly often), trying to get a feel for it during different times of day, observe the neighborhood, check out the nearby traffic, that sort of thing. The other day as I was driving by, I noticed that the snow had melted enough for me to easily access the backyard. I wanted measure the height of the retaining wall in the back (the one major fixer-upper feature of the property). The house is empty, so I decided it would be okay to slip into the back yard to measure and take a few pictures. As I was leaving, who should drive by but... the owner. He slowed down, an incredulous look on his face, undoubtedly wondering who the hell was in the backyard of his empty house.

So embarrassing.

I waved as soon as I saw him, trying to pretend that I wasn't totally trespassing. He stopped and got out of the car to chat (thank god we've met before, so he knows that I'm the woman about to give him a large sum of money for the place, and am not just a crazy house stalker). Turns out he was coming to try and clear the obstacle course of ice and snow obscuring the driveway. He actually didn't seem all that surprised to see me, and he offered to let me in to the house. He's a realtor, so maybe this is normal first time homebuyer behavior. Either way, I felt like a total creeper.
I politely declined the offer to go inside and made a quick getaway, feeling a bit like a peeping Tom caught red-handed.

Hopefully he won't notice the faceprints on the windows.