Lazy Snowy Sunday

Today was such a relaxing day. Somedays (or whole weekends) we just need to catch up and putter around the house.  I still never get everything done that I plan because I am so easily distracted (i.e. iPad my parents gave us for Christmas!) but that's okay... we still enjoyed our day.

"Important things"...

As it is a rare snowy weekend in Washington, we carefully made our way to church, which happens to be on top of Queen Anne so could be difficult if there is very much snow.  Luckily, there was much less snow the closer you got to downtown.  Today, our pastor continued our series on "Living a Generous Life" and discussion of making margin in our lives with talk of how we use our time.

I'll just say that it was yet another great, practical sermon that I go away from wanting to implement in my life.  It comes down to this... how do we use our time?  Do we schedule ourselves to full throughout the day that we don't have the ability to love, serve or be present with people?  Are we focusing our time on "getting ahead"?  Are we giving God our time and trusting Him in His wisdom with it?  Or do we hold tightly to it and try to micromanage/control everything?

And most of all, do we spend our time focusing on making the most important things, the most important things?

No, I didn't just repeat the words accidently.

Pastor Bill was talking about how we have urgent things and important things in our lives.  Do we spend time focusing on the urgent things or do we give priority to the important things.  I think I focus on the urgent things, the things that need to be dealt with, quite often.  The important things are also a priority but when I get busy or stressed at work, the important things of family, friends, etc., get obscured by the flashing neon lights of "you have to or should do this now".  (I hate the word should sometimes because I'm really good making myself feel guilty!).

So, I want to start making "important things" my priority.  Phone calls with friends/family? Yes, please.  Date with the hubby? Absolutely.  Self care with prayer and exercise? Definitely.  Being open to opportunities to serve? Yep.

Snow in Seattle

This afternoon, we've enjoyed a snowy day at home.  There is really very little on the ground and it all melted off the roads, but it felt like a good stay at home day.  To bad tomorrow is back to work... likely on icy roads!  They are supposed to get amazing snow in the mountains though so snowboarding this week is looking like a definite must!

We had fun making food today... roasted root veggie and black bean enchiladas with chipotle enchilada sauce (pretty tasty for an experiment to use up roasted root veggies in the fridge) and we make roasted brussel sprouts with balsamic.  I can't believe I used to dislike brussel sprouts... we were popping these into our mouths off the pan and there are barely any left for my lunch tomorrow!

A current addiction

One thing Chet and I are addicted to right now is Good Earth Tea (the original).

For an herbal tea, it is amazingly addicting and I think we have each been drinking a cup a day for the last 2 weeks.  It doesn't need anything added to it either... just hot water and it is so sweet and flavorful just as it is!  I'm not trying to advertise but it just seems to be the perfect thing to drink on a cold winter's night.

Well, off to bed I go for another week at work.  I do my first solo Saturday clinic this week so that will be a new adventure!

A new year, a new start...

So, 2011 has been a bit of a year.  I went into the year excitedly seeking a new job, wanting to move on from being in graduate school to something new and, hopefully, better.  It has been a harder year than I expected in many ways, but I know that God is using this to grow and shape me. 

I haven't blogged since June because I felt I didn't have much to say.  I felt pretty down at times, with a lack of self confidence and self esteem.  I think that for a long time I felt that I was doing fine prior to this job but the stress of a new job where I am learning and I don't know what I am doing brought out my lack of confidence in myself but also my reliance on my own strength and abilities.  The pressure of making decisions every day, diagnosing problems (or knowing my limitations) and looking tons of things up (and realizing how I thought I was doing the right thing but wasn't quite right) is uncomfortable for me.

Because I am working with people's children, I want to do the right thing... the first time.
I want to make them feel better... and put their parents at ease.
I want to have them feel cared for and in good hands...

And I certainly know that I set too high of expectations for myself, as none of us know it all.

Maybe a little bit of it is pride in doing things "right" or "perfect" (I know I'm a perfectionist with all of its benefits and stuggles).   If people doing this job for 20-30 years still ask questions, how should I know everything after 9 months.

What I am coming back to realize that this all centers on whether I believe Jesus is who He says He is. That He is the One who, with grace and healing, allows our imperfections to be okay.

That I am loved whether I diagnose a cough or a rash right the first time or the second. Or even if a family gets frustrated by me and goes to see some one else instead.  Or if I am running behind... again.

That I am a beloved child of God so that is enough. That I don't need to come home at the end of the day and fret about the mistakes I made at work today or the mistakes I will surely make tomorrow.

That I can do my best, still striving to take excellent care of patients but knowing that I will never be perfect.  That is reserved only for Jesus and my expectations, or my yard stick of my worth, needs to be His and not mine. Mine is all notched up with things I think I should be doing well at in order to avoid possible inadequacy.  His has only one notch... to come to Him and love, trust and obey Him with all my heart. There is where I find my worth and I can rest in Him completely.

Mark 11:28-30: "Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light."

I forget this easily, especially when I am stressed.  I know it wearies my husband that I have such a short term memory in this regard.  But, I can see that, without this job, I may have never been broken to realize my inadequacy in such a way, to realize that I can't do this myself.  So, I look forward to 2012 being a time of growth and change... of learning to trust the One who made me and to rest in His presence.

Spring Hikes

We started this spring off with some easy hikes to warm up (and wait for the snow to melt on higher hikes). Here are a few of our spring adventures!

Hike to Twin Falls (April)

Hike to Wallace Falls (May)

Chet's Motorcycle Ride to Neah Bay (May)

Urban Hike to Meadowdale Beach Park (June)

Mini Hike to Big Four Ice Caves (June)

We are looking forward to doing some bigger hikes this summer and maybe some backpacking! There are so many beautiful places to go explore in the Pacific Northwest. :)

Baby steps...

I have just completed my second week of work. Primary care is fun, hard and a steep learning curve all at the same time! I am loving my coworkers and enjoying the patients... I'm just continuously realizing all that I have to learn and what I don't know. :) Oh, and I'm learning what it means to go home worrying about a patient and hoping they are feeling better the next day, not ending up in the ER because of something that wasn't apparent yet when I saw them (or something I could have missed!). Oh, the joy of taking on a role with more responsibility... and I'm so thankful for the ability of myself or a triage nurse to call and check in on kids the next day.

One of the things that is now really clear how the emotional up and down of not getting jobs over the last year really was part of God's plan... I'm in a great place, I am enjoying what I'm doing, I am love the people I am working and learning from and I have so much room for growth. Working 3 days a week (which are long days) fits in well with Chet and my lifestyle. And, though the drive is long, so far it is tolerable with books on tape and my bluetooth headset... and I have plenty of time to decompress from the day.

So, overall, things are looking up right now. Still challenging but I'm just going to trust that it will get better and it is normal to go through this, at times, painful growing and learning process.

Oh... and now I have a 3 day weekend with my hubby... certainly can't complain about that!

Changes

So this week has been a huge change for me... I started my primary care nurse practitioner job! It is such a blessing but also such a challenge. I just kind of started off taking patients and asking questions when I needed to other providers. I knew that jumping right in would be hard but I guess I had forgotten the anxiety that starting something new like this can bring.

Today I woke up, a day off after working my first two days, realizing all the decisions I made and things I discussed with families over the last two days. And then my mind went into hyperdrive... did I do this right? did I forget something? what if I missed something? should I see them back sooner? did I forget to chart something? Basically the anxiety started swirling and I was so fixated on looking up things to reassure myself that I didn't do anything major wrong that I could barely answer Chet's questions.

I think that I am once again learning that change is hard for me, especially I'm not sure what I am doing is absolutely right (or reasonably right). I don't want to make poor decisions, I want to be a smart successful practitioner... and that's okay. But I need to be patient throughout this transition... with myself, my mistakes and my rocky growth. And I need to trust that this opportunity is part of God's plan and He is with me through this change... if I just give my anxiety to Him. I can still be thorough but I can't let the anxiety tear me away from relationship with my husband and doing things I enjoy.

Maybe I'm putting this here just to remind myself later when I fall back into anxiety. Maybe I just needed to put things down so I could move on with my day. Either way, any prayers during this time of changes would be appreciated.

Being green...

So, I come up with all sorts of ideas that I would love to do around the house and yard... and luckily I am blessed with a loving husband who helps me out with them! I really wanted to put in a raised bed along the fence where we've been growing veggies... to help improve the soil, hopefully have the soil warm up quicker so that things will grow better... and possibly keep out some of the grass from across the fence.

Chet and I both agreed we'd love to do it in a "green" way... recycling lumber to build it rather than spending $50-60 on new wood. So, we've been search craigslist, soliciting our family and friends and rummaging through out own wood pile. As of this week, we had gathered enough good wood (we kept running into pieces that were too rotten to use) and Chet put this together yesterday!

Area ready for the bed to be put in.

Chet getting the back nailed on.

All put together, just waiting to be filled with more dirt & compost!

I'm hopeful that things will grow well in there. And, if nothing else, it will be easier to pick the things we do get since it is raised up a bit! I've already got some quinoa sprouting in my other bed so I'm getting pretty excited that spring is starting to arrive!

This is just a picture of our dogwood stump... you can see the hole in the center of the 3 foot stump. And we suspect that it just gets bigger as you get down lower. Fun, eh?

Yard Changes!

Though I don't have pictures of everything, we are doing a bit of landscaping in the yard this spring... trying to make things look a little more "put together" and add some plantings. We are now on year 3 of living in this house and I've learned a bit about where things do and do not grow in my yard. Namely, the areas that were beds around the edge of the yard that looked lovely for growing things actually do not get sun! Like, barely at all. Hmm... tried planting veggies there the first spring, sort of tried a second spring and pretty much gave up the third year. So, this year, a shade garden is going to join the edge of the yard... including some more permanent, shrub type plants.

Also, our front yard has been a lovely expanse of mossy grass. I've managed to kill the dandelions so it stays pretty green but it is BORING! And it provides no privacy from the street. I added a few things but, this year, I decided that it needed to be a little more dramatic. So, a few weeks ago, Chet and I started tearing up grass so make front beds. Eventually, it will go across the whole hill in the front but we at least have the part adjacent to the fence all fixed up. I'm so excited for flowers to start growing!

The big, big change of today was our dogwood tree was taken out of its misery. Below was the tree when it looked healthy in May while is was blooming a few years ago.

We took out the other one to build some terraced beds a couple years ago... it was rotten and totally water soaked. We thought this one looked okay. Hmm... till we had it officially looked at by an arborist this spring. Every year, the tree starts to lose its leaves about a month after it blooms and continues to lose them till it looks scrawny and pathetic at the end of the summer. Such a pain! Well, we found out that we could spray the tree multiple times a year for the sum of $150 per year in order to keep it looking sort of okay. And that wouldn't fix the extensive rot in the roots and core of the tree. Hmm... what to do especially as it doesn't appear we'll be moving any time soon. So we decided to say "goodbye" to the dogwood to make room for something more disease resistant and healthy! Maybe a pretty maple that turns bright red in the fall? Any other ideas?

Here is our friend taking down our tree! Strange to have it gone but definitely a good decision to get rid of it... as soon as he cut into it, water started just dripping from each cut! The tree was saturated as well as rotting from the inside out.

Now all we have is a stump for Chet (and maybe a few friends) to muscle out of the ground. Oh, and no privacy from our neighbor's yard! Luckily, they are nice folks... but it will be nice to get a new tree in there soon.

We're excited to see what these changes look like as things start to grow this year... and to get to enjoy a beautiful, relaxing yard all summer long. :)