On Monday, after our last oh-so-relaxing week, I learned that I hadn't gotten the job I had really hoped for with our local hospital. The news came in a one line email: the position has been cancelled. I don't know about you, but I like to know more than that. I called for more information, but didn't get a call until that Friday. When I finally did get the call I learned that through the interview process, the team had figured out that what they thought of as a Wellness Coordinator, was a whole lot less than what it could be. They realized that the position they advertised as a Wellness Coordinator position was really much less, and had to rework the PD to accurately reflect that. I think they would have offered me the job because the director said, "I so enjoyed listening to your interview, and I wished that we'd had you five years ago because the position would be so much different today." Wonderful, and ouch. Really, I would have done just about anything for the pay they were offering and it had so many other wonderful things about it that I could have forgiven the job for being uninteresting. Oh well, such is life. At least I know I'm good--I guess.
Tuesday I started the day by burning my hair with....my hair dryer. Now, this takes special talent. Many people accomplish it with curling irons, but I exceeded all standards and used indirect heat. Tip: Make sure to clean out your hair dryer's lint filter. The motor over heats if it doesn't get enough air. Luckily, I only burnt a section, so I just whipped out my best small sewing scissors, chopped off the offensive looking smelly bits of hair and feathered the edges.
That night when we got home, my mom called at let us know that my Grandma was in the ER. We're not sure what happened, but my mom had called her when she got home from work and didn't get an answer. Mom went over and found her fully conscious on the ground, unable to get up, but not too upset about that. They called the paramedics and were off to the ER. We spent Tuesday night watching the exciting scenes of the ER-seriously-and went to dinner with Mom at 11. Grandma had no broken bones, and no bruises, but seemed to have some issue with her leg. The next day I spent the afternoon at Grandma's getting things together with Mom and Nancy (her earthly angel points increase by the day) then Joe and I went out with Mom again for some incredible pizza. Grandma's all settled in the nursing home and doing better it seems, and Mom's working hard at figuring out the next steps.
Add to that one crazy work week and havoc in lives all around us, and we were pretty much spent by the end of the week. We tried to get lots of sleep on the weekend, and have a relaxing go of it, but sleep was not bountiful. Monday night we went to bed at 9:15 with visions of sleeping the whole night through, but at 11:00 our smoke detectors went off. I'm not sure what brand of smoke detector we have, but they are not the "you need to leave the house quickly and with purpose now" variety; they prefer to take the "THE WORLD IS ENDING AND ALL HELL IS DESCENDING UPON YOU" approach, which is actually more paralyzing that motivating. The house was in fine condition, but our nerves were shot. An adrenaline flood in the middle of a deep sleep is rather agonizing. An hour later we were able to consider sleep again.
Luckily, we've had a break in the action since then and have been soaking up the glories of life and spring. I feel like a lot of years, I let the early signs of spring slip by me and miss the anticipation they bring. All of a sudden-poof-it's spring, which is great, but I like savoring the progress. This year we've been doing much better. On our walks and runs I've been pointing out swelling buds, blossoms beginning, daffodils in all their varieties and all kinds of things. The warmer weather is perfect for running and that combined with a great fitness bump we've gotten from our training (local half-marathons) has made running a delight. Our speed work on Wednesday had both of us feeling like we could go faster and longer than ever, and our long run today felt great! Often in training we just feel tired and only catch up to our efforts at the end. It's nice to feel those benefits now, though we'll be getting into the breakdown stage again soon. We also spruced up our yard a bit and it's looking good. We've got hyacinth and daffodils making an appearance, and I think the tulips and a few other things are on their way. I've also been plugging away at my quilt project and making some real progress. Finally, and I'll sign off with this random thought, Joe made the best fish tacos ever last night. I'm completely ruined for all restaurant fish tacos now, but that's okay, because we can have his whenever we want them.
Here's hoping next week continues the upward trend!
