Sarah Who Wanders...

There are far fewer people to read my musings these days, since cutting my social media friends (and therefore outreach) literally in half a few weeks ago. I don't mind though. I am beginning a new chapter in my journey, and have a feeling that the blogging and Facebook time will eventually fall to very little.  Last week I began orientation for my new employer, a large hospital to the south. It was a gruelingly long week of classroom training, written and computer tests and some simulation scenarios reminiscent of nursing school. Each day I joked to Barrett, "What new hell awaits me today?" I miss Peds sooooo much. I have only questioned my decision to leave approximately 1,342,587 times (per day). The funny thing is that I didn't find much satisfaction in the job itself, but the people I worked with and knowing the good we were doing. It would not even be one iota of fairness to say that I dislike my new role, as I have yet to train on my unit. That begins this

According to my Facebook memories, 3 years ago today we had a lecture on pediatrics in nursing school. I was floored! Something that combined both my love for children, education, and medicine. I have 3 work days left after spending the last 1 year and 10 months working as a Triage/Advice/Care Coordinator RN in a pediatric clinic. It is bittersweet. I desperately want to be more hands on, while I love the population I work with and will miss it dearly (hence leaving one foot in the door by moving to relief so I can fill in sometimes). I know that moving to hospital nursing is in many ways necessary for my career, my skills, and my confidence as an RN. I know that just working the 2 LONG days will give me much needed time to continue my education to be a family nurse practitioner. I know that in just 1.5 years I will walk those pediatric halls again as a FNP student, and complete my pediatric training alongside my friends and mentors there. Maybe, just maybe, I will eventually work ther

I sit on our flight back right now, travel magazine in my lap, husband next to me, and the Arctic Islands below out the plane window. I am ever so grateful for the journey we just made and the way that it has filled my heart. I will never forget those brief but oh so memorable five days we just spent in Dublin and Northern Ireland.  I don't feel my words can do justice to the power I felt of the churning Atlantic many, many (1,972 to be exact) feet below at Slieve League, nor the spirituality felt in the giant, historic cathedrals. My favorite was St. Eunan's in Letterkenny, which was built in 1890. Giant's Causeway felt otherworldly as I looked at the strange, hexagonal rocks and the tumultuous surf feeling its misty spray.  Inch Abbey humbled me with the sheer age of the ruins. We explored all alone and I felt as if at any moment we could be time travelers, experiencing the monastery in all its glory. Our bus tour of Dublin made me giggle as the driver told of the Mi

The scene is and has been utter chaos since the second I woke up with my sweet husband bringing our near 100 lbs shepherd "puppy" to wake me. Stumble out of bed, gather enough eggs to feed a small army (aka my family of 4 with two growing boys), turn on the burner. I have been up just 1.5 hours and I have made breakfast, organized and arranged all of each kid's school fundraiser packets taking pictures of what was ordered and putting checks dutifully in each envelope which involved "covering" a few family members and coordinating with father of the spawn for his orders. I have done room checks to ensure my spawn are not living like the slobs they would be if I did not enforce said checks every few days (because we should all have a multitude of string cheese wrappers and sports paraphernalia in every crevice).  I have re-stocked the toilet paper in each bathroom since apparently I am the only one who thinks of this even though I am only 1/4 of the butts in the

Sometimes I think I am a rare creature. I have friends, but few close ones, and I often feel very misunderstood. I don't mean that in a woe is me-I need sympathy way, because I am fine being misunderstood. It is more a statement of fact. I have NEVER felt as though I have fit in. I have always felt like an outsider for as long as I can remember. Does that surprise you?  I was the shy bookworm in my early years. I even hid from family members. I was the outgoing queen bee in junior high because that is what people like, but craving alone time to recharge. I had a million good acquaintances but few actual friends in high school, being both very nerdily intelligent as well as a drama and choir kid, still shy but often mistaken as aloof, and boy crazy. What a combination!   I always felt more at home with adults than peers (only child thing), and sadly, I remember hiding things such as my IQ score when we tested in school psych class (I am in the top 5% if you believe in IQ te

In 6 days I will be the mom of a teenager. Everyone always says that time is but a blink of an eye. That time goes so fast. It does, and it doesn't all at once. I remember vividly the day that Matthew was born. Emergency C-section at 34 1/2 weeks. It was a Monday, and I remember that because the day before I was at church, singing my heart out to hymns, and he was tumbling all around his cramped living space. The next day he moved not at all. I went to work (I worked at a dental office back then), and I had some light spotting. I was concerned enough to call my OBGYN office, and we planned to have me seen after work. Long story short, as many of you have heard it before, Matthew did not move again all day, nor later at my appointment despite countless efforts to elicit a response-movement/positional changes, sugar, shock. Nothing. I would love to say that I remember his first breaths, but he came out not breathing at all. His first breaths were delivered via ambu-bag by his fat

I thought I would write a short little post to update you all on how this dual living thing with my parents is actually going now that each family has their own space. It seemed like such a long journey to get here, but we have been in the house (new portion) for a few months now as all the final touches have been getting finished up. Before the addition, we had 4 adults, 2 kids, and 3 dogs sharing 2300 square feet (which doesn't seem too bad), and our family of 4 was crammed into 2 bedrooms. We had all of our things stored in the garage/shop, and shared the living rooms and kitchen as well as the laundry room. Barrett had set up his office in the garage amidst boxes and boxes of stuff. It was doable, but it was a tight squeeze and we were often at odds about who was going to use the kitchen or the laundry, who was in charge of cleaning what, etc. Barrett was constantly interrupted while working by a flow a traffic through the garage as that is one of the main exits my parents us

A little less than two months to wait to find out if I am in the program I am applying to. Every day I doubt. Every day I question myself. Is this what I really want? Will I be good at it? Is this the plan for me? Is the cost worth it? Is the time studying worth it? Do I want to specialize so much? Can I really help people? As I sit here with one of my favorite dinners ever (pad Thai, coconut shrimp, spring rolls, and Thai iced tea), I ponder how much to share and vent. Super moment of honesty here (but don't hold it against me...?): I've been looking around at other jobs lately. I’ve been very bored by mine. I love the people I work with, but not necessarily the job I do. And yet… I am here for some reason. I applied to six other jobs and I prayed hard. I figured I could at least interview and see what I thought, and I don't HATE my job so it'd have to be a good deal to leave.  I prayed that if this was not the route I was supposed to take that God would close thos

Whoever says that building a house is fun, obviously has never built a house. As I touched up paint for what felt like the millionth time today I said to Barrett, "We are NEVER doing this again." I thought about it for a minute because I will be the first to admit that I have no idea what our future holds, so I amended, "If we ever do this again, we will NOT paint, shelve, trim. We will do nothing ourselves. We will simply write a check and tell some lovely people our preferences." Barrett laughed, and agreed. Seriously though, this past year has been ROUGH at times, heartbreaking at others, and always full of tremendous blessing. We get that, we really do. I would like to think that building a house is a bit like being a 3 year hold handing a stick figure idea to a professional. You get a never-ending stream of reality served to you daily. Those grand ideas? Think a bit smaller. You will hear (repeatedly): "We can't do that on your budget." &quo

There is a lot more attention on introverts these days. While there are many reasons our fun loving, charismatic, outgoing counterparts make good parents too, this post is for the introverts. I have to be perfectly honest here. There are times that I have doubted myself for having children.  When I was a young adult I never figured that I would have children. I thought that I would be a career woman, married of course, and devote my life and time to my relationship, my job, and traveling the world (duh). In many ways I thought I would be perfectly happy without children, and that probably sounds terrible. Both my boys were planned pregnancies and both of them were at good points in my life after I had grown up a little bit and was prepared to be a little less selfish. I had Matthew at age 24 and Isaiah at age 27. I love my sons more than life itself and they have brought so much joy and fulfillment. Sometimes though I have wondered if being an introvert mom is detrimental to them.

Hello, my name is Sarah, and I am an introvert.  You likely wouldn’t think that upon meeting me. Some people have this huge misconception that introverts cannot conduct business in a social world. They think that introverts hide at home in their closets (sometimes this is where I want to be!). Truthfully though, many introverts can hold down productive jobs more than fine-even excelling, and do not completely fail in social situations.  Introversion is not a disease. Introversion is part of what makes up personality. It simply means that the way I recharge is different than the way an extrovert recharges. Being around people does not give me energy, it drains my energy bank. Only time alone refills this energy. Thankfully, some introverted personality types are great at being chameleons, and mine is one of them. You would likely never know just how overstimulated I am sometimes when we are conversing. Thankfully, due to my profession, I actually have a great poker face, and it tak