Season's Greetings

Happy New Year!  I can't believe the holiday season is over already but am grateful that mine was peaceful and happy and hope everyone else's was as well.  My pops turned 70 at the end of last year, so I got to fly home for a couple of days to see him.  My family rented a giant lodge that slept 30 people and we spent time sledding, eating, laughing and insulting each other.  I enjoyed myself immensely, especially since I didn't have to plan anything except showing up!  For some reason, I am getting worse at documenting my life rather than better, and because of this, I took very few pictures of all the things that happened on my trip!  I did manage to send my friends Kareena and Sarah a pic of me peeing on the plane:

And at a gas station:

But didn't take any pics of the lunch we shared together.  I managed to take a pic with my friend Fowler:

and my daughter Kayley:

But not of anyone else in my family.  Not even my dad who was the birthday boy; the one person I came out to celebrate.  I did remember to take some pictures of the gingerbread house I made with Kayley which we modeled after a crackhouse:

I even managed to take a picture of my sister's house which I thought should have won the contest:

And the house that actually won our annual gingerbread contest:

But didn't take any pictures of the actual winners.  I also remembered to take a picture of myself on the train from Boston to Providence after my red eye flight a few days later:

But didn't think to take any pics of anything that happened after the gingerbread contest...  Which happened the first night I was there I might add...  Just in case you were wondering, I did manage to take some pictures of Christmas.  One of my favorites was the Kayaks Santa brought:

Bubba told Jared she knew Santa was real because Kayaks are "thousands of dollars and my mom is too cheap to buy something like that."  She's right you know.  Both about Santa being real and about me being cheap.  I've accepted my frugality.  No sense trying to badger me about it now.  I realize I've gotten pretty lame, but just in case you think I might be totally losing my ability to keep track of anything, I can remember to document the really important things in my life.  To prove it, let me just leave you with what Jared did to our Julbocks when I was a little late putting them away after Christmas:

See?  I'm not a total waste...

Holes...

Christmas Eve is 3 days away and I can't believe another year has nearly flown by.  The kids are happy, I'm still grateful to be living in Rhode Island, and best of all, my mom agreed to come help me with this:

That's the front bench in my entry way, complete with my giant soda mug.  It currently has 2 holes almost like outhouse seats on the top of it and underneath are the original pine floors.  It would make a great storage bin, or even better, a lovely little seat, if not for the outhouse holes.  I've almost lived in my house for 3 years and it's taken me that long to figure out what to do about the unfortunate thing.  I've decided that fixing the top so that it acts as a single lid might be beautiful.  Since I am not a carpenter, I needed someone with more skills than I currently possess...  Someone cheap...  Enter my mom.  I was sort of worried she would tell me no when I asked if she'd help me, but she was more than happy to come on out for the project.  I found a one way flight from Salt Lake to Boston for a hundred bucks so obviously it was a sign from God that she was making the right choice.  Dad was more than happy for mom to come help me, and wouldn't you know it, he wants to come too.  He's going to let me have my mom for a week, then he's gonna drive out to pick her up, and then they are going to do some touring on their way back home.  Problem solved.  Just as a reminder, here's how the front entry looked on the listing when I bought the house.  Notice the outhouse holes are covered with a grody homemade seat cushion:

And here it is in the early stages of my restoration:

That's right.  She's almost stripped down entirely.  And it's also right that I have had renovation supplies on that bench for 2 years now.  I know...  Shut up....  Just a fix to the bench and then some varnish and won't she be right lovely?!  Jared and I are still working on the dining room, front entry, and stairway as an entire project; mainly because it makes sense to try to time them all together.  I'm now hoping to get most of it all done before mom arrives so she only has to help with the bench.  Along those lines, I finally ripped out a patch of plaster that was poorly concealing a spot on my tin ceiling in the front entryway.  I suspected it was where the old radiator sat, but since you never know what you might find when you start picking away at an old repair, I was relieved to find out I was right:

I've been brainstorming how to fix the problem (besides cramming stupid plaster into the hole) and think I've come up with a solution.  Just for fun though, I contacted the tin company where I purchased my dining room tiles and asked if they could custom make a piece of crown molding to match.  Turns out they can...  for 3,000 bucks!  Since I don't happen to have a fortune sitting in the bank, I'm going to have to go back to my original plan.  I'll keep you posted about how it turns out.  When we first moved in, I placed a bookcase under that tin hole and had forgotten that underneath it, the wood flooring where the radiator would have sat was repaired poorly:

I actually had a floor guy come in when I first took possession of the house and I don't know why I didn't have him fix that.  To be honest, I probably missed it what with all the other issues I needed him to repair.  Anyway, it wasn't long before this happened:

Yep.  Not only did I pry up the crappy patch but ripped down the poorly matched baseboard too.  I secretly feel like the houses we have owned let out sighs of relief when we find little issues to fix.  Almost like they feel better knowing our work will keep them up and running at their lovely best for years to come.  Because I believe this to be true, I sat on the floor right in front of that hole, rubbed the wall lovingly and said to the house, "don't worry old girl.  Momma's here."  Jared didn't tease me at all because he agrees with me on this point.  He just stood there, let me finish talking to my house baby, then helped me decide how to proceed from here.  I kept stroking the walls and calming down my house, and before I knew it, Jared and I worked out a plan.  Unfortunately, I started messing around before Jared left for work, so he couldn't stay to help me with the plan we devised.  I decided since I was already dusty, I may as well get more of the texturing done in the front entryway.  I was going to do the hallway leading up the stairs and then I remembered I had a spot of bulging lath and plaster on that wall.  Maybe I should have just textured over it.  Maybe I should have waited until Jared got home to talk me out of it.  What actually happened?  You guessed it.  Before I knew it, I had ripped a whole chunk of the plaster out and then had to get started replacing it with some sheetrock:

By the time I remembered to snap a pic of my mess, the girls had started to come home from school.  As each one came in, I blamed the hole on someone else in the family.  By the time we got Bub from school, we told her Lily had gotten so angry she had busted through the wall like a hulk.  I even yelled at Lily for a while to make it seem more real.  Unfortunately, Bub has lived with my nonsense her whole life.  She saw through the whole thing, promptly walked away, and started playing with a game I got from my company Christmas party.  Lame.  Even though Bub was not impressed with the show I put on for her, despite the fact that I had wasted at least 10 minutes staging it for her, I still managed to get the rest of the patch up and clean up my mess pretty quickly:

She'll need a few more coats of mud, and it might look like a bigger problem than what I had, but having that bulge gone will make my texturing much easier in the long run.  It just so happens that the same night that I finished my patch was also the advance screening day for The Rise of Skywalker.  Since I am married to a Star Wars nerd, and because Hannah THINKS she's a big Star Wars nerd, we got late tickets after Jared got out of work.  Here's Hannah and me saving a place in line:

Was it good?  Absolutely.  Hannah as usual complained about nearly everything, but I enjoyed myself immensely.  I am not an ass that goes around spoiling movies (I'm a regular type of ass) so I won't spill my guts here.  Just know that I liked it a lot and don't care that the critics have sort of dissed the whole thing.  Besides, I got to have popcorn and a giant Mr Pibb Zero.  Then, I drank half of Hannah's Coke Zero, so life was pretty great for me.

I'm on call now so my projects will have to wait another day as usual.  I'm also just winding down the last few days until the fat man flies again and hoping everyone has a merry holiday with the people they love the most.  Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night...  You too old house baby.  Momma is still here... 

Georgia on my Mind

Last week, Jared and I had the chance to go to Savannah for a vagina conference for my work.  I know most people who went would have said they went to the Nurse Practitioners in Women's Health or NPWH conference.  I guess technically that is also accurate, but not nearly as interesting as saying you went to a vagina conference.  I learned all sorts of stuff while I was there.  Like what to consider when treating a menopausal woman, and information on high blood pressure in pregnancy, and even what I need to know to become an opioid use disorder provider, just to name a few.  It was an informative week and I enjoyed all the knowledge pearls I found, but the best part of the whole trip was this:

Those are two of my colleagues from Idaho, Linda and Helene.  I just loved working with both of those ladies and now that I live in Rhode Island, we rarely see each other anymore.  It was so great to be able to take vagina classes with them, and even better to have some time to catch up our friendship.  What did we do besides talking about vulvas all day?  Well, we hung out in a cool old graveyard where Nathaniel Greene used to be buried:

Nathaniel Greene was one of Washington's most gifted generals in the revolutionary war and he was born in Warwick, Rhode Island!  His home in the Ocean State is called Spell Hall and they have all sorts of reenactments and activities there.  I did not know he died in Georgia, so imagine how happy I was to find out he was there!  Turns out they dug him out of the graveyard we visited and plopped him under an obelisk that is in one of the lovely parks in Savannah.  We actually found a few people from Rhode Island who ended up living and dying in Savannah.  This surprised me a little since Rhode Islanders never leave Rhode Island.  But Savannah is a pretty lovely town, so I can understand why someone wouldn't mind moving there, and staying to die there too.

We also visited a gorgeous catholic church, The Cathedral of St. John the Baptist:

Look at that place!  Helene, Jared, and I, went the first day we were together and had a great time.  I said a swear word inside on accident while Helene and I were chatting, and later, she dropped her metal coffee mug on the floor and made a huge racket.  It was fantastic!  We liked the church so much, that when Linda and her husband Shane showed up, we went back again so that they could check it out.  Who walked in that second time, but a conference of LDS mission presidents!  Here's the Alabama mission president and his wife.  She probably thought I was crazy for getting so excited for a selfie, but there aren't too many LDS folks out here and it was nice to see some of my peeps... 

I asked Helene, who happens to be Catholic, all sorts of questions about cathedrals, mass, and holy water that she couldn't answer.  Since Helene didn't have all the deep, dark info I needed, the docents in the church stepped in to clarify for the both of us.  I told Helene if she wants me to convert, she better get busy trying to advertise the benefits of Catholicism a little better.  I then thought better of it and admitted that if I ever DO convert, I have always planned to run to my Catholic friends for three important reasons:

1. Catholics build mighty fine churches
2. Midnight mass
3. Wine

I digress...

What else did we do?  Well, we ate our faces off that's what!  Loads of sweets, way too much popcorn and bread, and quite a bit of seafood and steak as well.  We did a lot of walking, ferry riding, and rain dodging, and before we knew it, the week was over!  Here are the three girls saying goodbye:

Helene and Linda left in the late afternoon, but Jared and I got to hang around in Savannah until later into the evening.  We got caught in a huge rainstorm that soaked our stuff, but spent some time drying out in a comic book store that happened to have this:

Ms Pacman!  When Jared and I were first married, our apartment had no laundry facilities.  The closest laundromat had the necessary washing equipment, but it also had a Ms. Pacman console!  Once a week, we would grab 10 bucks in quarters, haul our dirty panties to the laundromat, wash and dry our clothes, and waste the whole day playing Ms Pacman!  It's one of my fondest memories of my early married life, and to this day if I see a Ms Pacman game, I feel obligated to drop in some change and play a round or two.  We only ended up spending about $1.50 since Jared only had 2 quarters to start, and the comic book store only had a buck worth of quarters in the till.  Too bad for them.  I had 20 bucks and would have spent it all on Ms Pacman if I could have.  

After Ms Pacman, we caught an Uber to the airport where we saw Paula Deen flying into Savannah on the same plane we were leaving on:

I wanted to run up like a crazy person and tell her I had visited her store the day before and had peed in her bathroom.  She would have been really happy to give me a proper selfie after that I'm sure.  However, I tried to be cool about the whole thing and respect her privacy, so you'll just have to appreciate my creepy peeping Tom pics instead.  You're welcome Paula.

The plane ride home was bumpy because of tropical storm Nestor, but we made it home to little Rhody and settled into our bed at about 2 am yesterday.  The girls woke up me up just a few hours later to beg me for the prizes I promised to bring them from my trip.  I also overhead some interesting conversation that certainly was different than the stuff Jared and I usually discuss when we are alone.  Here's the top three:

1. Don't fart on me Bub!  If you're going to fart, stand up!
2. I hate the Patriots!  Tom Brady's face looks like a pile of dirt!
3. When I was at the dance, I needed to poop, so I went into the bathroom and took a mean stinker!

That's right Savannah.  There's no place like home...  It was nice to meet you and I hope to come back and eat my way through a bit more of your fair city.  However, I was starting to miss my kids and the Ocean State, so it was good we parted when we did.  Don't worry.  I'm sure I'll visit again one day.  Just be sure to take good care of Nathaniel Greene until I can get back...  

Rage Renewed

I've been so busy these last two months since starting my second semester of my post masters, that I haven't had time to do much else besides study.  Unfortunately, this means I haven't had time for my home renovations either.  I promised Hannah last summer when I ripped her door off to refinish it, that I would definitely have it done in just a few weeks...  That was nearly 18 months ago.  The poor thing sits in my garage, so close to being done, yet so very far away.  Hannah stopped complaining about it so much once I hung a sheet over the gaping hole to her room, but I know for a fact she would like to have something more solid to change her underpants behind.  Sorry Hannah.  You have only yourself to blame for being born.  You know exactly what I am like and that my projected finish date for a project is at least 2 years longer than I say it will be.  That means, your door should be done in like 6 months.  It could be worse, Hannah.  Your door could be my dining room:

That's my most recent pic of Jared doing some work and we weren't even working on the stupid dining room!  I got started with that project in January with the goal of having it done by the time my parents and sister got here in June.  Well, here we are in October, and I am only slightly further along than I was in June!  I told Jared very clearly a few weeks ago that I want to be finished by Thanksgiving when his brother comes to visit.  However, let's not kid ourselves.  Thanksgiving is like a month away which means I have absolutely no chance of meeting my goal.  Nevertheless, because I spoke the goal out loud and Jared said, "ok.  we'll get it done,"  I now have a scapegoat for my unhappiness when the project sits unfinished during the holidays.  Having a scapegoat to blame and deride is nice because it helps you feel better about being an asshat yourself.  Trust me on this.  I do it all the time...

One nice thing about not having time to work on my projects is that I forget about how much I hate Maria.  You know, the lady who owned the house before me?  Whenever I can dedicate some time to a project, it just reminds me what a tool she was, and gives me hours of things to complain about.  I had forgotten for a while what a dink she was until I decided to work on this:

That's the wall leading into my kitchen.  See the bulge in front of Bub's fingers?  That sucker has been bugging me since I moved in.  I've had a lot of theories about what might be going on under there, but finally decided that since I am getting close to being done with the entryway, I didn't want to put a nice coat of paint on that hallway to the kitchen without fixing that bulge.  Plus, Maria had like three different pieces of baseboard tapped on that wall so I needed to do some cosmetic work anyway.  I had the solution for the bulge all worked out in my mind and pounded my screwdriver into the mess to see if I was right.  I was not.

Forgive Bub's fingers.  She can't seem to leave me alone.  Turns out Maria had a piece of molding under the bulge that was being used as a kind of feathering tool I guess.  I stood there scratching my head trying to figure that one out for a while, then got busy ripping it down.  Jared was gone when I got started and to prove that he really only gets mad about the projects that endanger his pooping or showering habits, here's all he said when he came in and saw me ankle deep in plaster:

Since Jared's a pretty good old bird, he started helping me with the remainder of my wall destruction.  We soon discovered Maria had hammered a piece of sheetrock over the original lathe and plaster, which then made a ledge on the wall, which then necessitated the molding feathering tool.  However, we couldn't figure out the reason for the extra piece of sheetrock in the first place... that is until we finished ripping off the sheetrock to the abutting wall:

If you can't tell, the sheetrock they used on the opposing well is sticking out further than the wall leading to my kitchen.  Instead of trimming that extra sheetrock, they just added another piece of sheetrock to my hallway wall to try and match the two up.  I'm guessing after they got that taken care of, they had no idea what to do about the area of the wall that was now higher than the rest, so used the molding to help them feather the bulge in an attempt to blend it into the existing wall.  FAIL!  Maria and friends, I hope I don't ever see you again.  Seriously.  You are a dink.  Thankfully, Jared and I knew exactly what to do and were actually pleasantly surprised at how easy this repair is going to be when we finish it.  Here we are with the opposing wall all trimmed.

That's right.  Suck it Maria.  You are slowly fading and eventually I will have replaced all traces of you and I will only be left with my own idiocy -  which is much easier for me to swallow anyway!  See Hannah?  Don't worry.  I'm gonna get my dining room/entry way project done and it's gonna look super good.  I'm even gonna get your door done.  I swear it's only gonna be a few more months.  Give or take another 2 years...

Midwifery Week

Midwifery week just ended, and I spent it like I spend every midwifery week: working as a midwife, taking care of my family, and trying to get some sleep in between.  One of my partners posted this to celebrate:

It made me think of all the nurse midwives that have helped shape me through the years.  Whether it was a pearl of wisdom, a scolding, or just a word of encouragement when I felt down, each of them has helped transform me into what I am today.  While I was ruminating, I remembered another poem that hit a chord with me:

One of my current partners had shared this at a birth blessing we all got together for.  I like to read it from time to time to remind me just how magical midwives are.  We are strong, we are passionate, and consider ourselves advocates for women, their babies, and their birth experiences.  I had three births with a physician before I finally saw the light.  I was in midwifery school and realized that there was a better way to birth.  We were in Salt Lake City at the time, so I found a birth center I liked, a nurse midwife I trusted, and did a 180 degree turn around from the three induced births I had previously had.  It was a profound experience, it cemented my beliefs about birth and the power of my own body, and I was hooked!  That was 12 years ago!  That out of hospital water birth was my Lily and here we are today:

  

I felt sentimental so I sent an email to Rebecca Williams, the nurse midwife that ushered Lily into the world.  I wished her a happy midwifery week and thanked her for the way she changed my life.  It was sappy but I don't care.  It's important for our stories to be told and midwifery is so often a very stressful and thankless job, that it's a ray of sunshine when a patient is grateful for you and takes the time to tell you so. 

My last baby was Bubba.  I ended up delivering her with my partners Helene Reusser and Karen Owens when I still worked in Rexburg.  That was a precious experience too.  I love and trust both of those women and was so grateful they were with my for my last birth.  I hardly ever remember to thank them on midwifery week, but every year on Bub's birthday, I send out a selfie with the two of us and remind Karen, Helene, and my friends, Tina and Laken (who both tagged along to watch) just how many years have passed.  It's just my way to mark another day that was profound because of midwifery care.  Here's this year's selfie:

To all the OB doctors out there:  I'm grateful for you, especially the ones that work with midwives!  We need you for the sick ladies, the surgeries, and for help deciding what to do when things are complicated.  However, you really shouldn't be doing the low risk births (just in case you didn't know).  Leave those to the midwives.  We know what we are doing and the women we care for know it too.  Our mark is deep and important and the impact we leave behind on the women we care for cannot be duplicated. 

If you know a midwife, send her a note and thank her for being around.  If you had a midwife deliver a baby for you, hug that baby a little tighter and be grateful for your experience.  And if you know how to find the midwife that was there, send her a note; tell her about your birth and how it changed you.  I can guarantee you will make her day and give her a little more fuel to keep plugging onward when times seem hard or stressful.  Happy Midwifery Week everyone!  Even if I am a few days late...   

Why Don't He Write?

Another 2 months has passed me by and I have had a huge case of writer's block!  It's not that funny things haven't happened to me.  Heck, even a lot of boring things happened to me.  It's just that I can't seem to remember to take pictures to prove it and I can't seem to muster up the energy to get anything done about the blog.  It might be because I've started my second semester of my Post Master's and just feel overwhelmed trying to think about anything else.  It might also be the stress I feel because my home renovations aren't even close to being done.  Or it might be some mild depression about going back to my regular life once my extended family left me in July.  Whatever the reason, I guess let me step back and give you the highlights of the 2 months you've missed.

After my sister Briana and her family left us, we made good use of the rest of the summer!  We definitely got more beach time (though not as much as I wanted) and checked out a new beach (to us) at Sachuest point.  It was lovely, just like every other Rhode Island beach, and Jared looked particularly handsome with the chin pubes he had been growing:

Let's next turn our attention to my finest achievement of the year which happened at the beginning of August.  I finally got my fence replaced!  It made me feel about 10% less trashy, and that my friends, is worth its weight in gold.  Here's a pic of how high the pile to the dump was on the back of the truck:

Jared managed to get it all on board in one trip!  It cost me about a hundred bucks to dump it, but on the bright side, a nice man who saw I was alone and dumping gloveless, felt sorry for me and gave me a new pair of nice work gloves.  Bonus!  And here's part of the new beauty fence herself:

Remember that the house there off to the left is Maria's cousin's place.  Her husband was so glad when that new fence went up, but I like to believe he was a little sad that he can't tromp through my backyard to visit his friend anymore.  I ended up taking him some cookies because he tapped up a few boards over some gaps from his side, so my quest to make him my friend has begun I guess.  However, my feelings about Maria remain unchanged.  Sorry Maria.  You brought this misery upon yourself!

August finished out with a camping trip right before school started at the end of the month.  This year, we went camping at Pawtuckaway Lake in New Hampshire and had the time of our lives.  We played on the lake every day, paddled the canoe around, bought a huge flamingo floaty and dragged it behind the canoe with the kids on top.  We paddled to the islands in the lake and jumped off a giant rock for hours that that kids named "Jerry the jumping rock."  We even jumped off "Jerry" onto the flamingo and laughed our heads off.  We paddled the canoe to the lake store and parked the canoe in the "boat corral" whenever we needed more ice or something else we forgot.  It was an absolutely perfect week, but I don't have a waterproof phone case, so I have very little proof of my delightful outing.  You might have to make do with a picture of the frog Bubba caught, me acting like a pig eating marshmallows, and Jared fishing instead.

  

Trust me.  It was such a great trip.  We are going back next year and it might just overtake Bear Lake and Warm River as my favorite place to cop a squat...

School started shortly thereafter and I only managed to get a picture of Bubba on the first day of school.  

I was on call that day and missed all of it unfortunately.  The older girls took a picture of themselves for me so as not to break my tradition:

Sadly, their choice of lighting was less than perfect and I felt damn guilty for not asking for that day off so that I could send them out like I normally do.  I did feel badly about shirking my mom duties, but my bigger crime was forgetting to ask for the day off so that Jared and I could drop off the kids and go alone to Six Flags.  Judge me all you like.  You have five kids and see if you don't want to escape the creeps sometimes too...

That my friends catches me up to Labor Day weekend.  I actually had the weekend off and it was glorious.  It started with a sweet gift from my dad in the mail:

Yes that is exactly what it looks like.  The empty Dunkin Donuts bag from the donuts he bought during his visit out to see me in July.  I cannot explain that man in the few sentences I have left.  Just realize that I have known him for 44 years and nothing he does surprises me...  Including getting an empty Dunkin Donuts bag in the mail from him...

On Sunday, we explored Bash Bish Falls and had a lovely drive through a part of Massachusetts we haven't seen since Jared and the kids moved to the Ocean State:

I know it's no Idaho waterfall, but we had fun nonetheless!  We rounded out the weekend with a trip to Battleship Cove in Fall River, Mass on labor day itself and had a fantastic time!  

After all the exploring we did, we ate at a clam shack one last time before the end of the season, and enjoyed the whisperings of the fall weather that has arrived to Rhode Island.  I feel lucky to live in such a great state with so much going on all the time.  I am constantly amazed at how much traveling, eating, and playing we have done since moving, and I am grateful for the new quality of life I found once we made the trek to the East.  

I feel a little bummed about being back on call today after all the fun adventures I just shared with everyone.  In fact, someone painted a nut inside the hospital elevator that perfectly sums up my day today:

Don't get too worried for me though.  My call shift ends in about 12 hours and then I begin our annual "Apple Cider Donut Adventure."  The "adventure" consists of me driving to a new cider house every weekend to try out their cider and/or cider donuts and then critiquing them in order of deliciousness.  Jaswell's Farm is the spot to beat from last year, so everyone better be on their best game this year!  Huh.  I guess I didn't have writer's block after all.  Aren't you lucky?