It's Been A(Long)while

Sooooo, it has been forever and a day since I last posted on this sad little blog of mine.  Quite honestly this year has been so full of bad things that I haven’t really wanted to talk about any of it because of how depressing it all was.  And by depressing, I really mean I was depressed for at least the first three or four months.  I won’t bore you with all the details but let me sum things up so you can finish reading this post sometime today.  :o)

1.      We finally closed on the new house (yes I will post pictures)  on January 18^th.   The week leading up to closing I requested a walk through.  We did not get a walkthrough.  There were some things that were not finished - some we knew about, some were a surprise.  Then, a couple days after closing we received and invoice from our contractor asking for additional money.  Our roof was missing shingles, and the shingles that were on would flap horribly in the wind.  We asked them to fix it, but they said not until we get our money.  There are a few other things that we found out were done poorly or incorrectly, so the first few months of living in a nice new home with so many flaws made me sick to my stomach.  I wasn’t even excited to move in, and I’m just now starting to enjoy the house. 

2.      I finally found a part time job as a C.N.A.  It lasted a whole two days.  When I got the call for an interview, they asked me what hours I could work.  I explained that I work full time in Wichita and wouldn’t be able to work until 6:00 pm, but could work until 10 or 11.  They said that would be no problem.  I interviewed, got the job and sat through two days of HR orientation.  Finally, after all the paperwork and orientation, I was ready for work.  I spent two four hour shifts training with another C.N.A and when I asked for the next week’s schedule, the scheduling lady said she needed to talk to the nurse in charge of things to see how they wanted to work me in.  Well, they decided that since I couldn’t do a 5-10 shift, that they couldn’t use me.  So I am still looking for C.N.A. work.

3.      I didn’t get into PA school, but I honestly wasn’t thinking that I would. I took the opportunity to do a feedback session and found out what I already knew – I need to get experience.  They also told me that my personal statement didn’t do a good job of explaining why I wanted to be a PA or set me out from the crowd.  Even though this hurt the most, it was good information.  Everyone that read my PS said it was great and well written, but apparently it wasn’t.  Since I wasn’t having much luck with finding a C.N.A. job and with everything else going on at the time (read below) I decided to wait a year to reapply.   

4.       Brad’s job progressively worsened, and sometime in April (I think) Brad slipped on the stairs and tore the muscles in his back.  He had to stay home for a couple of weeks.  After about two weeks of unpaid resting, Brad was finally ready to go back out and his boss decided to take the truck in and have a few things done to it.  So Brad would be sitting for another week.  When that week was up, Brad’s boss kindly told him not to worry about picking the truck up as he wouldn’t be driving anymore and gave a really bad excuse.  We were not surprised by all of this, but it would have been nice to know three weeks ago since Brad wasn’t being paid during this time. 

5.      Finally after a couple of months of searching, Brad found a job and started work again in June.  The first day on the job he pulled up to an elevated scale and as he was getting out of his truck he fell.  Five feet.  Onto his side.  He broke five ribs and bruised his lung and spleen.  So, once again he is at home mending broken ribs for another month or two.  At least this time it was work related and workman’s comp has been helping with everything. 

As you can see this year has truly been a year of the unlucky 13.  It just seemed like no matter how positive I tried to be and to look for the bright side of things, I just couldn’t find the light.  It was all sucky.  It still sort of is, but things are quieting down, Brad will go to work again soon and I decided to apply this year to PA school.  The PA program just hired a new chair and I had the opportunity to meet with him and talk about my chances. He gave me some really great ideas to get the experience I need plus some other general tips and advice.  He also said that I shouldn’t wait a year to apply and that if I want this, to go after it. There shouldn’t be any reason why I can’t get 100-200 hours by my interview in January.  He even offered to practice interviewing me and wants to follow up with me in a couple months.  This was a pretty big boost for me, and his pep talk really helped me get excited about this whole PA thing again.  So I talked to Brad and I’m going to go for it.  The next three years (one year of volunteering to get my hours and two in PA school) might suck a little, but it will be so worth it in the end. 

That has been the past seven months in a nutshell.  I will talk more about the house, post pictures and talk about a few other things that are going on at a later date, but I thought I would at least show my face on here and explain why I haven’t felt like posting much lately.