a little bitching

Right now I feel a bit like this old pressure cooker. I got so many things bouncing around inside me. Frustrations, fears, worries, things that are pissing me
off, hormones. I can feel the tension increasing. I can feel some of my wing nuts loosening and my lid is starting to rattle. I just don't know what to do. I want to cry. I want to scream and yell. I want to stomp my feet on the floor and pound my fists on something.

I want to quit my job. I don't have a different one. I am chicken to make a change, but I am in a giant dysfunctional family where I am now. I leave work so discouraged and depressed. I dread, DREAD getting out of the bed in the mornings because I know I will have to go there. I am a workaholic. My life revolves around work. The actual work I love it is just how people manage to fuck with everything that makes it bad. I am very sensitive and I let other people get to me. It is hard when they have authority over you. It is just hard because I am a people pleaser. I just want to get in bed and pull the covers over my head and not get out for a really long time, not that I will sleep because of the whole insomnia thing. Which of course, helps with my difficulty coping at the moment.

Christmas already!

I have been so exhausted this weekend that it didn't occur to me that I should start getting ready for Christmas. I am the type of person that likes to have their presents bought by October. Well that didn't happen this year, but I have been working on making presents since before then. I made my plan of what I was going to do for everyone by October at least. It just hit me today that I have to get going on this stuff. I need to develop a plan for the time I have remaining. (I am so weird).

My sister-in-law did help me get my Christmas cards made this weekend. I knew she was going to help me get started and how to figure out what I wanted to do, but I didn't realize it would be a done deal. Now all I have to do is write a letter and start addressing and get Christmas stamps. I am proud of myself because this is the first time I have ever made my own cards. I had a lot of help, but I then turned around and helped my SIL make her cards as well.

I guess now would be the time to get the decorations going since the house is clean...

Insomnia

Insomnia is something I have had trouble with since my hormones started changing with puberty. By the time I was ten or eleven I had some trouble. By fourteen it was significant. I went on medication that I took for about five years straight, but I had these terrible headaches. I get a lot of migraines, but I get a lot - A LOT - of other headaches. My doctor thought that medication was the problem and when I stopped taking it my headaches improved significantly. I tried a different medication that didn't work as well and left me feeling hungover in the mornings. So then I was on my own. I did alright for awhile but a number of years later I went back on medication #1. I don't remember how long I took it again before I stopped but I did.

I have done pretty well for a number of years. I started having trouble before the wedding. I would have a few nights where I would hardly get any sleep at all. I tried some of the new medications that I seen advertised but had no relief. I was very disappointed. For a long time I kept thinking there were all these new medicines that could help me if my insomnia got bad again. That made me feel almost relieved. I lived believing that there would be help if I needed it again. Here I am at 0226 in the morning wide awake. Tonight was a bit more of choice that some nights, but this is a problem again. I was on call for work Wednesday and I was trying to get work done in my house since dinner was at my house on Thursday. I didn't sleep at all that night. I had to stay late at work, then I had to go back to finish the addons (the surgeries that get added in the day). Then I had to go in for a trauma at a little before 0300. I was still cleaning in my bathroom when the phone rang. We had seen (Mike saw, I heard) the helicopter go out at about 0100. Mike always assumes that that means I will have to go to work, but I tried to convince him that isn't always true. We do hospital-to-hospital transfers quite often. However, I did suspect he would be right, like he was. Some not-so-intelligent person under the influence of alcohol tried to get in the house and his wife didn't want his drunk self there so she locked him out. He decided to go through a window and severed the great big artery in his arm. He got the nerve next to it as an added bonus. What fun.

I was able to go home at 0730, not because we were finished but because my call ended at 0700. I came home and had to finish thawing my turkey. I had to get my house cleaned up and get myself cleaned up and, oh yeah, cook. It was not one of my best days. I went to bed at about 1900. No nap or anything. Smart huh?

In the last two weeks, I think I have had four nights where I have had little or no sleep. I don't drink caffeine after 1600. I have been drinking caffeine more and more in the mornings now. I turned 30 and now I have to drink coffee. This is sad. I am just so tired, but there is no sleep.

I heard the dryer buzz. I couldn't go to sleep tonight until I had some clean pants for my husband to wear to work. I think I am off the hook now.

Thanksgiving

Today, I am thankful that I have a crazy, but wonderful family. I am thankful that I have a helpful husband even when I get irritated that he doesn't do things on my schedule. I am thankful that I have good friends who are always there to support me. I am thankful I have a warm home to live in even though I don't like it a lot of the time. I am thankful that I have a job to go to even though it drives me nuts, makes me mad, and keeps me there for endless hours at times. I am thankful that for my good health - aches, pains, asthma, allergies and all - because I see others that aren't so fortunate. Today, I can step back and look at how fortunate I am when many days I can not

A good man. A good man?

I love my dear husband. He is very handy. He can fix about anything. He is a total goof. He is really pissing me off. He has the tendency to start projects and then almost finish them. He told me Saturday night that we would have all the painting in the bathroom done by Sunday night. When Sunday came around he had a different story. We couldn't touch up the walls and get the trim done. He needed to change out the plug in and light switch and he wanted to put up the new light. Those three things managed to take him more than four hours. In the meantime, I decided that I was just going to have to get something done. I removed all the cabinet doors and drawers. I sanded them and primed them. I taped off the trim and got it all primed. I managed to get the first coat on the window and a little bit more of the cabinet. I am hoping to get all the trim done tonight. I only managed to get one side of the cabinet doors done tonight and the other side will have to wait until tomorrow. Tomorrow I have a haircut after work and I need to make a cheesecake because I can't do it on Wednesday. Hopefully, I won't have to work all night Wednesday and I will be able to get some cleaning done. Mike should be back early Wednesday morning and he WILL finish whatever I could not. I'm hoping I can get the doors done and touch up the walls tomorrow, but that feels lofty. I got one coat on the ceiling tonight as well. I don't know when I will do the second... I am so mad. So much for being done and getting everything clean. I wish I could pay someone to finish it!

"Sure, I'll do it"

What was I thinking??? I agreed to have Thanksgiving dinner at my house this year. There won't be many people, probably just my mom, aunt, husband, and me. It was still a bad idea. The bathroom isn't going well, the one bathroom our has. We are having problems with joint compound stuff. Long story - husband, father-in-law, husband still trying to fix it. Can't paint until it is ready, right? Great! I am on call Wednesday so that day is lost. I still have to clean the whole house. There is dust from the bathroom everywhere. The stuff to work on the bathroom is clogging the hall. All of our things from the bathroom are in the dining room. (old and new light fixtures, contents of the cupboards, curtain rod and shower curtain, shop vac, etc). This is not going to work well. My mom is one of those people that looks down her little nose at you about your dirty or messy house. Right now mine is both. My in-laws decided to "stop by" and see our progress, two minutes after husband had just started to settle down about joint compound and FIL. The dogs had just calmed down and then there they are :( FIL stirs up dogs and tells husband how he is doing everything wrong. MIL tries to find a place to stand out of the mess and stay away from offending cats. Meanwhile, I am working on emptying dishwasher and fixing dinner. What have I done?

Thanksgiving will be served in a mess. We will end up eating outside at the OLD picnic table and you will just have to help yourself to nature when you feel the call. This is going to suck.

Grouchy me

I am tired. I don't know how some people do it. I worked 19 hours Saturday and then slept until noon on Sunday. I got up and read the paper and then I was able to take my first bath in my new tub. The bathroom still isn't finished. We still have the walls to finish sanding, then prime, then paint. Then the new floor has to go in. One of my coworkers came to work yesterday said demo was starting her bathroom that morning. When we came back at 1930 she said she had a new tub, shower, and walls already in. I wanted to puke.

I got to leave work early today since we worked into the night last night. My room was one of only three actually running and there were a dozen people standing or sitting around so I said I was ready to go and shockingly was allowed to do such. I came home and sanded in the bathroom to help take out some of my frustrations. It did help. Today, someone with five less years experience, was aloud to start cross training. I am none too happy. I would like to this if I knew what the rules were going in. The rules have a funny way of changing where I work depending upon what your name is and how much you whine or bitch. I am mad. I am plain old mad. I feel like this should be offered to the more experienced staff first and if they don't want it, then it should be offered to the next in line and so forth. There are two people ahead of me in the ladder that should have been asked first. Who the hell am I anyway?

I need to find a different job. I have locked myself into a specialty that is hard to get out of. I knew it would be going in. I like what I do. I am good at what I do. I am very frustrated with how things are run. If circumstances were different I would just go somewhere else and see how long it took me to get sick of how they do things. There is something that I would really like to do. It isn't actually a job now, but if I present it well enough I bet I could make it happen. There are a couple of issues though. First I would have to get this cross training that was not offered to me and second it would take sometime.

I just feel tired, angry, sad, frustrated, weepy, crabby, and all sorts of other bad things a lot of the time. I don't have enough separation between work and not work. I want so badly to get pregnant. I have been dealing with all these hormones that a nice little bcp has leveled out for me for half of my life. This has definitely impaired my ability to cope. I want Mike to be done with this stupid training. He thinks he is going to be forced back into his old job tomorrow through New Years. That sucks and yet it doesn't. That means it will be that much longer before he is done, but he will actually make some money. That has put a terrible strain on me. I have to compete with this person at work who has pissed me off so much for the extra call. Call has been so horrendous lately, yet I still seek more.

There has been one good thing. I have a new student that is wonderful. She has worked in my department for about four years. This weekend when we were scrambling like mad she was a godsend! She could help me comb the department for things we needed. She could run in one direction while I ran in the other to procure the items in need. I love having her. She is interested it what is going on. She listens to what I tell her. I just love her. There is one problem. She is only with me for 174hours. I have already used up the 74 hours in the last nine days. I don't want to give her back. After four years of being promised we would have a job for her, now the boss says she may not. After four years of good work she maybe rewarded with no job. This makes me mad(der).

My shoulder has been killing me these past few days, so I think I will go knit to keep my hands busy instead of sanding.

You want me to what?!?

This week I went to preop to get a patient to take back to surgery. The man was 50ish and no teeth. He was hard of hearing and was speaking loudly to me. When I asked him what his surgery was going to be he told me and then he said something very quiet. I asked him to repeat himself and I leaned in to hear him. What I thought he said was "will you save all of my pubic hair for me?" I said "I'm sorry???" He then explained to me that he had a inguinal hernia repair 3 months ago and only part of his pubic hair had been shaved. He wanted to know if I would shave all of his pubic hair because he thought it would be less painful growing back. I don't know about that, but when the surgeon came in and saw me clipping all of this man's hair he said I didn't need to do that. I then explained the patient's discussion with me. He laughed and still thought it was perverse.

Road trip

Today was my day off (since I have to work this weekend) and I went to see my SIL. She lives about 2 1/2 hours away in Colorado. That is a little funny to me because she lives down by where I came from and now I live here where she came from. Interesting. Anyway, I decided this year I am going to make my Christmas cards instead of buy them. She sells stuff to do this so I went last night to get her help and stayed over. It is so hard for me to come back. If my husband said he would move I would grab my pets and kiss my friends goodbye and get the fell out. I need a change. I need to live where there are more things going on.

I had to stop and actually rest at a rest stop. I was having trouble staying awake. That is odd. My mind was so busy on the drive and I am such a tense driver I don't usually get very tired. But I stopped and I think I slept for about 45 minutes. I guess I needed it. It is funny, I don't mind driving in the city very much but the long stretches kill me. I tend to drive rather fast. I just want to get there. I don't like driving. I didn't get my driver's license until I was 22. When I turned 16 I didn't have a car to drive and we really couldn't afford the insurance so I was going to wait a bit. When I was 17, I was the passenger in pretty major car accident. No one's injuries were too severe, but it was a high speed accident and everyone got the shit beat out of them. I was in physical therapy for close to three years I think. Anyway, I had NO desire to drive then. I still have issues when it is icy out. It has been 13 years last month, but I still have anxiety with ice.

Anyway, it was nice to get away even if it was only over night. It is nice to go somewhere where there is some vitality. Someplace where I can actually find the damn things I need.

Why?

Why don't some people just shut up?!? Pretty much everyone I work with knows that I want to have a baby, like now. This week when I had the flu (that five other people at work had!!) I had fifteen people ask me or accuse me of being pregnant. Then question me when I said it was really a bug. Do they not realize that every time someone reminds you that you aren't pregnant it hurts? It justs digs it in a little more? There are 3 women in my department that are pregnant and a male coworker's wife. I can think of eight babies a year and under in the department. This is great for them, but I am all about me right now.

One of my very good friends just wouldn't shut up about it today. I thought I was going to physically harm her to shut her mouth. I ended up taking a patient to the recovery room so I was able to abandon the conversation. I was mortified. My "friend" was caring on about what I needed to do to get pregnant and what "we" were going to do to get me that way. I was so embarrassed. The conversation she was caring on, with out my consent, about my fertility involved two of my male coworkers that are my age. It made me so uncomfortable. Most of the men in my department are old enough to be my father. Besides, both of these guys have kids under the age of one (one has twins). I feel bad enough about all this as it is, I don't feel like anyone else should know my business unless I decide to share it. I kept telling her to shut up and that I didn't want to discuss this now but it didn't help. I don't seem to have any control over my fertility and I don't seem to have any control over who knows about it. I just want to scream and cry.

So, here we go again

I got up this morning and gave my sample for my ovulation stick. Then I abandoned it to take the puppy out. I let Sparky out of his kennel and he emptied his bladder right there, two steps from the door. I thought we were over needing to take the kennel outside to open it. Great! I took him out, I took Molly out and ran back to my test. There it was in all its glory, the glowing positive line. Fuck! And not in a good way. Mike went to work at 0400 he probably won't get off the train until 1600 then he will have at least 10 hours off and get on a train to come home. That means a conservative estimate is 1800 tomorrow. Too late. again. As if it isn't hard enough when we both in the right place at the right time.