September, must be balloons!

Despite my good intentions and real willingness to sit down and write, time seems to get away.

It is now Autumn, it doesn't feel like it outside here in North Texas but I am hopeful that we will have an early morning crispness in the air soon.The boys are all in school and the year has been going very well so far. I have started my new job, more about that later, and classes have started at the college and I am really enjoying being back in the teacher mode.

We had the local balloon festival here last weekend. We took the boys on Friday night and had a nice time. The picture above is from the balloon glow that is held at sunset and is quite spectacular. Those are just a few of the balloons that filled the fields. We look forward to this every year and in the mornings we also enjoy watching the balloons float over our backyard. We go out and wave and they wave back.


My oldest son has earned a hot air balloon ride. Several years ago he made a contract with one of the resource teachers that if he met certain goals, both behavior and academic, and once he was 10 years old, he could go on a hot air balloon ride in her balloon. He is next on the list, he has made it! He is so excited. We are hoping he will be able to go up sometime in October. He wants another teacher to go with him so both mom and dad get left on the ground waving. I guess you have to let go at some point. But I would really like to go on a ride too! He has been working hard to take good pictures on his digital camera so that he can come back and show them to everyone afterwards.


I have been knitting like a fiend lately and have made several shawls and baby sweaters and blankets. I have a sweater for me on the needles as well as some beautiful yarn for another. I have so rarely knit for myself and I need to. I have so many other project though that I have been asked to do for other people and I seem to always put those first. I will have to get some good photos of some of my projects and post them. I would start a craft blog but I can't seem to keep up with this one!

I am teaching a 12 hour clinical as a pilot program for the college this semester. We start at 6:30AM and leave the hospital at 6:30PM. I have a great group of students from very diverse backgrounds and we have an excellent clinical site. I come home energized and feeling so excited to be able to this every Wednesday. I think in many ways it is the highlight of my week lately. It feels like such a privilege to work with these future nurses and influence their career choice in a positive way.

I am still doing colposcopy most Tuesdays. I still love doing that and I was in Paris the other day. I love going there to work, I just wish the drive were easier. There has been allot of construction on the highways lately and what has usually been a hour and a half drive is now over two hours. I am finding it to be quite tiring. I think it may feel more so since I am worried about the hours at the my new job.

And about my new job, I am wondering if now was the time to change jobs. I am really excited to be back to a more holistic approach to health care but I am worried about the hours at this point. My main reason for changing jobs was to be home earlier in the evenings but I am getting home later and later each week. The MD that I am working with is great, the staff is wonderful and I am getting up to speed on general medicine again fairly quickly. So why is it that I feel that I am robbing my family of my time and attention as much as I was before? I had been hoping that this would give me that extra time in the evening to help with homework, spend time reading with the boys and actually have dinner together again. I find that we are rushing as much if not more than we were a month ago when I was working 35 miles from home, not less than a mile. I have ended up getting home even later than before! One of the things that I thought that I had made very clear when I accepted the position is that I need to be home by 5:30 each evening and that was something that they seemed to agree with. The clinic is open until 6PM and they accept walk ins until they lock the door at 6. They have set it up that my last scheduled patient is at 5:15 but that doesn't mean that I will be done by 5:30, by the time the patient is checked in and then weighed and vital signs done and ready for me it is already after 5:30. I am frustrated. I am hoping to make a time to sit and discuss this with the office administrator and the doctor tomorrow. I need them to understand that my family has to come first.
OK, enough about work...

Well, I have allot to do on my day off today, I still need to shop and finish the laundry, try and do a little cleaning, you know, daily life!

I will try to not be absent so long next time.