Getting A Life

Life post University is a little strange but I am getting there and vastly enjoying having my life back. It is very relaxing approaching Christmas without juggling homework. It was actually a delight this year and not a pressure to decorate the house, took my time going through decorations from years ago, bringing back memories of when the boys were little. The tree goes up this weekend. We have been quite social in December too, which is a new thing. Last weekend, Colin and I went on the Polar Express Steam Train Ride because it is my favorite christmas movie, so what if the train was full of kids, we saw Santa and went to a favorite bar after for drinks and appetizers. Our newly formed gourmet food club meets again next week to taste great food and drink good wines together, that will surely be a highlight. Joe and Katie promise me they will come home at some point. They have had so much snow in New Hampshire already I think all their free time is spent with a snowboard attached to their ankles on the side of a mountain, I just keep saying....errrr...finals!! I am looking forward to baking and cooking and decorating and just enjoying the moment. But....and I know this will sound crazy, I do miss Grad School, I had got into a zone with research and homework and writing and connecting with fellow students, I have always enjoyed the collegiate experience. But as much as I miss it I am not going to do it again, it really did play chaos with my life and its time to move on to some fun-less-academic-activity.

Have a wonderful December, I certainly am.

Celebrations

Tis done. After two and a half years, 20 classes, over a hundred papers and team presentations, a practicum, a thesis (that literally nearly killed me)I have successfully completed graduate school and now can put MSN after my name. This is huge for me, really huge. I have dreamed since my 20's of going to graduate school, did not have the courage to do it until I was 40 and now at 43 I am done. I loved it, really loved it, did not love the pressure and chaos it created in my life but did love being a student and the learning experience. However, it took over my life completely, when I wasnt doing homework or preparing for the next assignment I was always thinking about school and now not to have that is going to be a little weird. However, it will be nice to get my life back and focus on family and be able to do Christmas without juggling a homework deadline. It will be nice to never have to worry about going away for a weekend because I had too much work to do and I could never be more than one day away from my laptop. I have been enriched in so many ways by the experience, first the sense of accomplishment is huge but I also learned so much about nursing theory, evidence based practice, cultural competency and how to juggle life, school, family , work (sometimes not well) We survived. I think everyone in our house has a big sigh of relief. I have been celebrating every night this week with just a teeny weeny glass of champagne - I deserve it.

Other celebration is Joe and Katie came home last night for Thanksgiving, they got a little lost on the way home and as a result did not get in until around 1am, we all stayed up to greet them (yawn) When i said "kids bring me home your laundry" they took me at my word....it will take me days, good job homework is over. So sooooo good to see them both. The family is complete again. I have not been this excited for Thanksgiving for years, we are going to have a wonderful week.

The Final Push!

In my last class, an ethics class. I was really looking forward to going out on an high because I love the conversation that ethical dilemma's generate and writing papers on the subject may be quasi enjoyable. But there is only one problem, the professor is a Nazi, and I mean that in the full sense of the word. And I am really disappointed it is robbing me the enjoyment of my final class of graduate school! (lets hope she does not read my blog otherwise I am toast!) Apparently my academic writing is below par becuase I write in passive voice - 2 and 1/2 years into grad school and its the first I heard of it. Apparently if I only write 280 words to a discussion question instead of the required 300 (who knew this was news to me) I will get a C that week instead of an A!!! For a highly functioning overachieving adult getting a C (the first ever in grad school) was very humbling and lost me sleep for at least a night. But I have regained my composure and I soldier on and apparently this week I am doing better so I may just squeak by! The G (graduation) date is November 30th, I am soooo excited I can hardly bare it, to be done, to be finished, to have finally achieved something I have been chasing for many many years. What will I do next..... who knows watch this space. This excitement of finishing grad school is only overtaken by the knowledge that all 3 kids will be home for Thanksgiving week. Gosh, I have missed them sooo much, I can hardly stand it. TO have them all here will be such a treat. This weekend we are off to Boston to look at Universities for Elliot, I can hardly believe we are at that point with him already, get the kleenex ready, there will be many many tears!

GirlFriends

I made a mistake at work last week, not perfect, I do make mistakes every now and again and try hard to learn from them when I do. In the scheme of things this was not a huge mistake, nobody died, nobody was even in danger of getting hurt (important factor in my job). However, one particular female collegue chose to expose my mistake in a very public way, presumably in an attempt to make me look small and her look superior. I find its usually women that do that to each other, why do we do that?

I have always struggled with female relationships, I am blessed to have had a few very close female relationships but the circle is small and is getting smaller as the older I get the trust I place in female friendships seems to diminish. I am not sure what the answer is, I suspect part of the reason for my lack of deep female friendships lies within me.

So, this issue at hand, the mistake I made at work, I chuntered about it all weekend, rehearsed in my head exactly what I was going to say to this person, in a perfect articulated and sophisticated way ( we are good at doing that in our head arn't we). When I got back to work on Monday and finally prepared to have "that difficult conversation" at the last minute decided not to be adversarial, not to be a doormat either but to return meanness with kindness. Result, my target was shocked and surprised and maybe a little embarrassed at my frank but reasonable approach and I had the privelege of having my say and walking away with my dignity intact.

Things That Make Me Happy :-)

- A snow day, when the whole world is forced to stop and all there is to be done is build a fire, make hot chocolate and snuggle under a quilt to read a good book.

- a free afternoon to go to the movies all by myself

- a long walk around the state park with Biggles, often I do not want to go but I always always feel better when I have

- finishing an assignment and realizing I actually quite like writing just dont enjoy doing it under pressure with a deadline pressing

- Sharing a fine meal with Colin and the kids

- Going to bed knowing I dont have to get up early the next morning

- A deep and luxurious bubble bath

- A good cup of english tea

- Making a Sunday roast dinner and taking all day to do it

- Howling over a really good book

- A vacation in a cottage by a lake at the foot of a mountain

- A very heavy snowstorm enjoyed from the inside

- Warm socks!

- Walking on a beach out of season, when its soooo cold it makes your nose and eyes run, watching the dog chase sea gulls and dash in and out of the water because he thinks he is brave

- A long chat with an old and trusted girlfriend

- a cold winters night, sitting in the family room with the lights off, mellow music playing staring into the flames of a roaring fire

- a summers evening spent on the deck drinking a chilled glass of chardonnay

- dancing dancing dancing

What Would I Want Written On My Gravestone

So following on from my previous blog of what would I want my legacy to be I have been working on a list.

1. First and foremost it is incredibly important to me that I have been important in the life of a child. One child will do but I do hope I have made a difference to many.

2. My personal belief that you can have transformation through education and that I can impart that to others, hopefully adolescents and young adults that cross my path.

3. Anything can be solved with chocolate

4. She made a damn good breakfast!

5. If you are in town you had better be at Angies dinner table on a Sunday night to break bread.....or else!!

6. When someone shows you meaness, return it with kindness

7. Never never give up.

8. Sometimes courage is not like a roaring lion, it can be that small quiet voice that says "in the morning I will try again".

9. Keshavan Nair:
With courage you will dare to take risks, have the strength to be compassionate, and the wisdom to be humble. Courage is the foundation of integrity.

10. Life is better with a dog!

A Challenging Few Weeks

Its been a stressful few weeks. About 2 months ago I started having some troubling GI issues that got worse over time (wont bore you with the details here, might put you off your dinner!). Eventually I took myself off to a specialist who listened to my story, examined me and then looked at me very seriously and said "we need to rule out colon cancer" Now dont think this had not already gone thru my mind, I know just enough to be annoyingly dangerous, and anyways I had already googled all my symptoms and decided I would be dead within the year of cancer (those of you who know me well know I have a tendancy to catastrophize) So off we went on a whirlwind of tests, buckets of blood tests, drank enough contrast to light up the night sky all on my own, preparing for a colonoscopy is no fun, nope no fun at all but the proceedure itself is not bad ( I love twilght amnesic drugs!)End result was "dont think" it is sinister, not thrilled about the lack of certainty on my physicians part but I will live with that right now. Just this week got my biopsy results which were negative. Kicker is still having horrible GI symptoms and still do not know what is wrong with me. I get totally annoyed with being sick, I have no time for it, way too much to do, so for now I am going to ignore it before I move onto the next round of specialists. Certain to say that I am not going to drop dead anytime soon and no bits are going to drop off. Thank goodness.

Anyways, during this whole trauma of "do I vs do not have a life limiting disease" I did a lot of deep thinking in preparation for bad news. What would I change if I only had a year to live? And you know what I came to the conclusion that I would not change a great deal. I would not quit my job, work is the great distracter for me and even though I have some tough days in pediatric oncology I would not quit my job, I find tremendous purpose in what I do. I would love to cut my days from 4 to 3 but with all 3 kids needing help with tuition for education that is not going to happen anytime soon. I would still want to run my household myself, have no great need for any grand trips, it is enough for me to see all the kids together, sit around the kitchen table and share a gourmet meal and a fine bottle of wine, maybe followed by a game of canasta. But what I did realize is I need to think more about what makes me happy and what would I want my legacy to be? These are maybe topics for future posts.

So, in the spirit of authentic living, a state I have been aspiring to for the last few years I share my struggle, it is not always plain sailing in the life of Angie. This whole process has not been without many tears, nothing could bring me to tears quicker than thinking about leaving Colin and the kids alone and never ever seeing my kids graduate, marry, have children of their own (please let it be noted I intend to be a damn good grandmother!), so Colin and I contemplated all possible outcomes (really sucks having too medical peeps in the family we tend to go to worst case scenario very quickly) but we are glad we do not have to face that for right now.

I soldier on, with a small amount of concern and a whole lot of joy!