Happy Thanksgiving!

There's a lot to be thankful for all the time, but here are a few of my highlights. Sound off in the comments about what you are thankful for this year!

I'm thankful for my husband who supports me in all my craziness and even encourages me. He makes it all worth while!
I'm thankful for my job and the fact that it gives me the opportunity to help people. So far the people I work with have been awesome and I've looked forward to going in each night. Some of them think I'm weird to be so excited to be there, but this place has real potential to be the best and I have the opportunity to help make that happen with them.
I'm thankful that today I get to start evening shift on the locked ward. It's a big deal and I'm going to meet the most interesting people there. Added bonus, my patients will be awake and interactive and I get to sleep with my husband at night! Yay!

I'm thankful that the kittens I first saw in October have come inside and are slowly getting used to us. It's been less than a week and already they will lay out in the open and eat in front of us. They don't like being touched yet, but we can approach them with out them freaking out now. I think they are between 8 and 10 weeks old and we have no idea what their sexes are yet. It'll be a surprise.

Cerberus

Tanus

Kate our gray chicken hurt her leg, but she's healing up and we're all thankful she is back outside with the other chickens. I don't think she liked being inside and watching her hobble around out there makes me smile. Hopefully in a few weeks she'll be back to normal!

Healing nicely!

Yesterday we discovered our first egg! I think Alexis laid it. It's tiny, but perfectly formed. I hope they stay spotted!

The first egg!

I'm super thankful that my household has come through this year almost intact and has even managed to grow a bit We will never be the same, but we are in the homestretch now and 2015 is going out on a super high note. I'm really thankful for everything I have and the chances we will have. 

Life is great and I get to find the awesome in every day. That is something to be thankful for. 

I had a great birthday!

My birthday was yesterday and it was great! I really appreciated all the texts and calls with good wishes! It made me feel loved! Thanks!!!!
I got to spend the day home with my husband watching movies. I finally got to see the new "Night at the Museum" film and it was super funny! We rented it from Redbox.  I love comedy action movies! We also watched a really funny movie on Netflix called "The Extraordinary Adventures of Adele Blanc-Sec". It's in French with English subtitles, but it has mummies, a dinosaur, and crazy adventures.
My husband made me a wonderful birthday cake. It's chocolate chocolate chip with dark chocolate cram cheese icing and coconut. It's the best birthday cake ever! Some chocolate chip ice cream went well with it. I really believe there is no such thing as too much chocolate, but this cake almost did it!

Yummy!

A few days before my birthday, while looking for special beads for a worry bead strand for a friend I came across this great little cross in a box of beads and findings I inherited from my mom. It's simple and substantial with a nice curve to it. I immediately wanted to make prayer beads around it.

A gift.

I dug around trying to find the right ones for it and started off with it on a string of rose quartz, but I have never liked stone beads for prayer. They make great accents, but they feel cold to me. I decided to take apart my normal strand and use the wood beads from that. It would be my birthday gift!

Pretty flower bead.

I found this flower bead in a box of them I had collected to make earrings and such for etsy. I remember the day we got it and how excited I was to use it. Then it went into a box and waited for the right project. I finally had the right project for it.

Smile!

My husband took me to the local bead store to get some wire to string it with. I wanted the fancy 49 strand wire. It acts like thread and is really flexible. He got me a spool and this wonderful stone skull bead for my birthday.  

I was having trouble finding the right final bead to use as marker in my recreated prayer beads. I have tons of different types and styles, but none of them seemed right. All the other beads in the strand had meaning, even the wood ones and their tiger eye end bead meant something to me. I couldn't just throw any bead in there.

The perfect fit.

On Saturday we went to deliver the worry beads. She had an old box of glass beads that she let me look through. I found two that she gave me for my birthday. I now had the final piece! I spent most of the rest of the day figuring out what order to put them in and how to safely and neatly crimp off the wire. It came out great! They will even fit in my pocket thanks to the amazing wires flexibility!

A gift of many sources!

The finished prayer beads came out great and when I worked with them yesterday I couldn't help but smile. I may have put them all together, but it took family to make it happen. It's the best birthday gift I could have ever hoped for, the gift of love.

It was the best birthday ever!

On a side note. If you ever accidentally crush a garnet with your pliers, don't pick it up with the tip of your finger. It's like tiny glass shards  that stick inside and you have to use tape to get them out. Tweezers don't work it just breaks them off shorter. Use a dust pan to pick up the shards instead!

I registered for school today!

I went down to Tucson College today to finish my registration and make the first payment! I was so excited I managed to get lost on the way, but I made it with 5 minutes to spare before my appointment. I still can't believe how Sylvia flies with her new gears!
I got to fill out even more paper work and answer a bunch of questions about why I want to go there and what my goals are. It really helped clarify things in my head to write it out for them. I want to get an education that will improve my life and the lives of others. This is a quick stop on my end goal of becoming a nurse. It's a bit sad that it took me until age 37 to realize I want to be a nurse. I'm still a writer in my soul, but that will be my secret identity. Now I just have to wait for the acceptance letter to be a real student. Have I mentioned that patience isn't my virtue? I hope it gets here fast!

This will be where she waits while I'm in class! Door to door with covered parking!

On the way home from the school the job I wanted at the hospital called. He re-posted the position and wants me to apply then call him immediately. I need to see if they will work around my school schedule before I decide to try for it again. I really wanted that job; I could have ridden to work every day and worn nice clothes. It was in the hospital which is where I want to be and the other phone operators seem great. There's the chance to get benefits and a cafeteria that has the best fried chicken in the universe! A month ago it was my dream job. Then I wasn't selected and it crushed me. I cried and everything. I had wanted so badly to go back to the hospital. However, not being picked really helped my to figure out what I wanted to do with my life.

I decided I needed more than just a job, so I hatched my crazy plan to finally get back to hands on healthcare and make a difference in peoples lives. I love my plan, but the siren call of that other job is ringing loudly. It whispers that I would still be helping people and if I get chosen this time I would be making a bit more cash to boot. Plus, I'd never have to drive my car again because parking at the hospital is a nightmare and they have bike lockers.

On Monday I go for orientation with a home health care company. If I survive it they will hire me and I will have a job! It's a great part time job and the shifts are short so it won't interfere with school. They like the fact that I'm getting my CNA and seem almost as excited about it as I am. My fingers are crossed that I survive!

I'm considering doing all three if the hospital will work me around school and I survive the home health care orientation on Monday. I could conceivably make it work, but it would be an insane few months and would take a lot of juggling. Once I start actually nursing school, which I plan to do in a year, something will have to give though. 

On the flip side there's a chance that I won't survive Monday and the hospital won't chose me again. That would suck! I hope at least one of the jobs chooses me, but if not I still have hope for my fundraiser!
In the meantime here's a quick photo update on Rory. He is doing great and is in love with Ginger.

Ginger and Rory

He wants to play ball with her.

Rory and a kitchen improvement

So far I've been keeping myself entertained while waiting for call backs from jobs by sewing and crocheting. Rory is also a ton of fun and way more active than I thought he would be. He does have one weakness though. Rory loves to watch TV, he yells at me when I turn it off.
He's very well behaved when there is something flashing on the screen. It makes me feel like a parent almost. Pop it on and get on to other things.

Castle is fascinating.

Feeding him is so much easier than I thought it would be. He gets all the hay he wants, a big bowl of fresh greens and vegis in the morning, and a nice scoop of pellets in the evening. So far he likes everything we've given him, but he really loves carrots. I also scared myself when I gave him a strawberry. It looked like someone had slit his throat. I admit I freaked a bit, but he loved eating it.

Breakfast!

This is his first time with cucumber. I only give him one new thing at a time so I can see what he likes.

Rory likes it!

He loves it! He also loves playing with his frozen blueberries. He rolls them around the cage before he eats them. He's to funny and I don't have the heart to tell him not to play with his food.

Now on to the kitchen improvement. My dear husband got these really great wire panels and installed them in the kitchen. They came with these cool baskets and shelves. I love the blue color of them and they make the kitchen so organized. It will take a bit of adjustment to decide what goes where, but after just one night it already fits in our house wonderfully.

They go to the ceiling!

It's great to not have to dig around to find things anymore. Now I want to get more baskets for them. These will definitely make life smoother! And they are pretty too!

Best cereal ever!

Happy New Year

Now that the holiday madness is behind us I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and New Years day.

Best gift ever from my husband!

 Mine was filled with family and I loved it. On Christmas Eve we had a wonderful dinner at the in-laws and the food was almost as good as the company. On Christmas morning we went back there to open gifts and I got to help make breakfast. It was a great time and I almost didn't want to leave. For the evening we went to my brother and his family's home for dinner. Even my sister and Lacey my niece were able to join us! The kids gave us gifts of pictures they had made themselves and my nephew Adam gave me some BBs for my sling shot in a paper basket, Nathan gave me a drawing of a bunny and Emily had snowflakes she had cut out. I don't think I could ask for a better Christmas. I hope yours was just as wonderful!

The weather forecast was crazy for New Years day! I went to sleep with visions of riding in the snow. Sadly the snow was gone when I got up, but Sylvia and I enjoyed a few puddles on the way to work yesterday. My dear husband had gotten me some new gloves and they rock! No more frozen fingers. Today seems colder.

Weather forecast.

It's going to be a great year! I hope yours is too!

Princess says Happy New Year! (or meh)