Saturday I had the loveliest of parties hosted by Miranda and Sarah.  They provided delicious and beautiful snacks and desserts, tangerine and turquoise decorations, and invited a variety of friends from all different points of my life.  It was wonderful to see all these special women from school and work over the years, and I’m so grateful to have their influence in my life.  My mom also drove all the way from Grand Junction to attend!  I trust that Miranda will soon post pictures on her site, or email some to me so I can post them.

I feel much better about welcoming a baby into our house.  We got a lot of cute and practical clothes, footie pajamas, and I might venture to say that we have enough onesies. Gasp! I also got a nice start to his library and toy collection. 

My parents helped immensely by shopping for a crib and changing table!  The baby now has a safe place sleep and I feel less anxiety about my lack of nesting so far.  We have a place to sleep, clothes to wear, and a good carseat courtesy of Ben’s parents.  Throw in a pack of diapers and we could be set if needed.  Of course there are many many small things that make life easier.  I have a wishlist on amazon to keep track of all the little things we can pick up between now and the birth.  Sometimes I feel overwhelmed at how much I need to do still.  Here’s a list of things accomplished to make me feel better:

• Nursery room emptied
• Carpets cleaned
• New craft space established
• New couch in the basement
• Finished a handmade flannel blanket
• Toys
• Books
• Queen bed for me and Ben
• DVR and netflix queue for late nights and being stuck at home
• Saved up money to cover the hospital bill
• Got a portable AC to survive the hot summer 
• Registered and toured at the hospital

Things to do still:

• Arrange and fill-in the nursery with supplies
• Find a dresser (maybe?)
• Fix the bathroom sink and fan, and anything else that breaks between now and May
• Paperwork to HR for maternity leave (cannot complete for another month)
• Take a birthing class
• Finish the sweater vest I’m knitting
• Give the bathrooms a deep cleaning
• Pick a pediatrician

So that’s not too bad, right?

But those are curtains from Anthropologie.  Dearie me, I just can’t rationalize paying $200 for curtains. Target and other stores were dead ends.  I’ll just have to make my own.  After an hour staring at the fabric racks in Fancy Tiger I came up with these two:

The consensus so far is for the bird print.  I love the colors and the birds.  But when I hang the two in the room I feel like the teal damask does better over a large space.  It’s also heavier fabric so it would function better than the bird print for drapes.  I’m still mulling it over.  Feel free to drop me your opinion.  My other other decoration for the room is this wall art from blik:

At the end of a hard day my impulse is to blog about it.  But I try to hold off, wondering the rant will really make me feel better.  I already released a lot to Ben, so what’s the point of putting it here?  Feels like garnering pity.  Still, this is my journal.  I won’t go into detail, but it was yet another crazy busy day of
trying to treat too many patients in too short of a time
constant push push push to get people in our chairs
many catheters and fistulas busting
working with a doctor who is difficult
getting lost in the hospital system while trying to give meds or get patients beds or lunches
starting the day off short-staffed
being assigned to charge nurse when I really shouldn’t be charge yet
being on the phone 95% of the day
endless questions from the techs about when so and so will be picked up
wrestling with machine malfunctions

I come home from days like this feeling incredibly unappreciated and ready to quit.  We are still short-staffed with no end of in sight.  Too many hours with too many demands and too many promises broken.  Oh Rachel, we probably pushed you into the charge role too fast, let’s back off and have you gain more experience [then they assign me charge every time I’m at our big hospital]. Oh Rachel, you shouldn’t take care of isolation patients while you are pregnant [then I have to do a hepatitis B+ patient, among many others]. Oh Rachel, take it easy while you’re pregnant, be sure to eat well and drink a lot [then I’m the only RN, meaning I CAN’T leave the room to take a break for the whole shift].  Maternity leave is looking more and more like a glorious summer vacation.

Biscuits+jam ice cream is wonderful!

Ben makes fun of the many terms and steps involved in making yarn.   Here’s how you do it:

Take your washed wool and brush it into roving or a bat using paddles.
Take your roving and draft it into a bobbin of yarn using a spindle.
Take your bobbin and wind it into a hank using a niddy noddy.
Take your hank and wind it into a ball using a swift and ball winder.
Take your ball and knit it into a hat using needles.

• Last night I had to do an emergency.  Not bad, I got home by 12:45.  It meant I could sleep well knowing the call 2 person had to take the next emergency.  Free and clear.  I had a rude doctor and a mean patient.  Luckily I sucked up to both of them well enough.  The ICU nurse is the one who took it hard from them.  
• Ah, a glorious long weekend off.  No work until Tuesday!
• Monday I’m going to the dentist after at least 2 years off.  Hurrah for dental insurance!
• I bought some lilies and my house smells amazing!
• Ben bought me the chocolate chip bagels I’ve been craving for two weeks.  Don’t get excited, it wasn’t, like, a “pregnancy” craving.  I just really really wanted some.  That’s a good way to start Saturday.
• I finished choreographing the opening dance number for Amanda’s musical.  I hope the kids pick it up fast on Monday!
• Amanda and I have a fun day planned – Alice in Wonderland, then dinner out, then craft and watch Every Little Step at home.  
• Kick-puncher is still kicking and punching.  He has weird sleep cycles.  
• I want to buy a portable air conditioner/swamp cooler for this summer.  Our room is always unbearably hot.  I have a free trial of Amazon Prime that would give me free shipping.  Is it crazy to buy an AC in March?  How would I even know if it works well enough?
• Yesterday as I was cleaning up the clinic before going home I chatted with Ben on my cell.  I was scrubbing human blood off the floor while merrily talking to my husband, and was struck by how NOT morbid it felt.  
• I have a lot of spending money and don’t know what to do with it.  I hoard it and then forget it, never taking the splurge.  Any ideas?

Crap, yo. I bought some decoration for the nursery and it has
arrived. I guess i need to seriously start working on that room. I'm
7 month pregnant today. Time is running out! But today is my one day
off over two weeks and it's booked full with an OB visit, grocery
shopping, choreography rehearsal, and putting my aching feet up for an
hour tonight. I worked four 12 hour shifts in a row (3/4 going into
OT), then 6 hours call back right after on Sunday. Today i'm off but
I have four more in a row starting tomorrow. Looks like saturday will
be nursery work day!

Get a load of my sweet lovin'.

Thank you for all the birthday well wishes!  I had a wonderful day.  My dear sweet husband took me to all my favorite things and I had a great time visiting with friends tonight.  I took a few pictures to post later showing what we did to celebrate.