I am thankful....

I was having a hard time thinking of what to blog about this time given not much exciting has happened since my last one. Granted there were the laughs and full bellies that accompany family during Thanksgiving. Brian and I went to his mom's for dinner. We were joined by his sister and friends of his mom's. We enjoyed the traditional meal with a few dishes from each family (including a little Meyer touch!). Overall it was a great day topped off with some good football games.


Now that I've summed up the Thanksgiving day, I wanted to list what I am thankful for since all too often I have a hard time recognizing how blessed I am and let the "downs" of life consume me. So here goes...


God and His amazing gift of grace, redemption, and mercy
Jesus for His unconditional love and sacrifice
The Holy Spirit for being my companion through life
Love
My family and their good health
My husband for all that he is to me
My friends for knowing how to make me laugh when I want to cry
My dogs
My health
My home
My job
Food in my house
A car that runs well
Enough money to buy Christmas presents and other non-essentials
My education
Music
Laughter
Beautiful sunsets
Having all my senses intact so I can see, hear, smell, touch, and taste all that God has given me
Freedom of religion


I hope this Holiday season you all will strive, as I will, to remember the blessings in your life.

Happy Birthday to Me!

Most of you have already wished me a "happy birthday" so this post is nothing really new. I had a very wonderful birthday, mostly because of all the people calling or sending me a message on facebook to remind me of how blessed I am to have people in my life who love me. And several people even sang to me on the phone which is always enjoyable!

Most of the day was spent answering calls and texts, as well as opening thoughtful cards. It was pretty overwhelming to feel so much love from everyone back home in Texas and from my new home in North Dakota. My honey of course got me a wii and wii fit, as well as some chocolate (because he loves me!). I got a beautiful scarf from my brother and his fabulous wife to match one of my new coats (which I wore to dinner!). I got a text picture of my Cavanaugh as well as a voice/text message from Johanna (which made me laugh it was great!). My sweet Aila colored a picture (and my card) for the refrigerator. More than anything the love I felt from everyone on my special day was the best gift I could've received.

Not to mention.....I got a job!! (halleluia, halleluia...). I'm going back to my roots and am now employed at Medcenter One Labor and Delivery. Of course it's more than L&D in a community this size. It'll be a lot like my internship in Aberdeen where I'll be doing L&D, postpartum, antepartum, and some overflow general gyn surgery. I wasn't so sure I wanted to do more than L&D but the more I thought about it the more I think I will enjoy the change from day to day. I really liked both of my bosses during my interview so I'm really excited to start working with patients again. I won't start until the end of the month (at the earliest) which is a blessing in a sense because I can take a pre-employment vacation and enjoy time with my family during Thanksgiving.

Well I hope you enjoy the pictures from my birthday bash. My mother-in-law made a yummy Butterfinger cake which was perfect because it was so sweet that you could only have a small piece (figure friendly!). The others are of me and Aila opening my cards and Brian relaxing after a long day at work. Miss you all and can't wait to get back to Texas home for a visit!

Oh how I hurt...

Hello all. It's been all of 9 days since I last spoke with you. My how time flies when you're not working! Actually I just got called for my first interview with an L&D department here so fingers crossed! Other than filling out applications, I've stayed relatively busy. There were those two trips to the DMV to get my driver's license. Then all the running around to get my nursing license.

Now to the subject at hand...the pain my body is in. All of you know I have a GREAT aversion to exercise; and, now I'm paying for it! Between running up and down, up and down, up and down, up and.. well you get the picture..stairs after a 16 month old, getting my butt kicked by Brian in Wii tennis, bowling, and baseball, chasing after the same 16 month old up and down slides in the park, then spending 3 hours raking up 330 gallons of leaves from my front yard....I'M IN PAIN!


But I'm having fun..with the 16 month old that is. Her name is Aila and she's our niece. Her smile will melt your heart, especially when she says "hi" the perfect little way she does. She's even cuter when she shows her two bottom teeth. Raking leaves, on the other hand is just ridiculous. Speaking of hands, mine feel like they're permanently wrapped around a rake handle. And never mind the other muscles I never knew I had! I guess I should take this as a kick start to getting active again.....or not!

Unpacking? Try shuffling!

Saturday evening I was reunited with Brian and the girls. It was a long 24 hour trek across the country. Thank you "Kings of Leon" for providing the traveling theme music. I got to see lots of small "middle America" towns. There was even a little snow on the ground around Sioux Falls, SD. I had to laugh because the first time I moved up here, the same amount of snow was on the ground and I thought it was SO MUCH! Boy did I get an education!! And I'm coming to the realization that in a short time I'll be getting a cram session tutorial on living in the tundra again.

So the reason for the title of the post. I've come to the conclusion that no one ever really "unpacks." It's more appropriate to call it "shuffling" because that's all you end up doing. In order to clean out one room, you have to shuffle all the extra boxes to another. And you continue this pattern until you've developed a "junk" room. So yesterday I accomplished getting the spare room "shuffled" and our junk room grew by leaps and bounds. I'm hoping to get pictures up of the house once most of the clutter has been relocated. But until then, a description will have to do.

Our house is very cute with two upstairs bedrooms, a bathroom upstairs and a semi-finished basement with a bedroom and bathroom. Brian finally has a man cave that he doesn't have to share with me because quite frankly it's cold and dark and perfect for his mounted critters. The girls have a big back yard we are hoping to someday fence in so we don't have to establish the routine of putting on all our snow gear just to take the girls out to do their business. Brian also has a garage and a little room downstairs he can use for his hobbies.

Altogether nothing too exciting just yet. But of course, that's not a bad thing!