Keeping Track

Today is the last of 2021. The last few years have been uniquely busy. Finished a nursing program. Began a career as an OR nurse. Completed a new nurse residency. Mastered Periop 101. Traveled to London for 6 weeks. Downsized and moved to a townhome. Took a travel job on the central coast of California. Lived in our RV for 6 months. Experienced two Jeep Jamborees. Seeing two children graduate high school and go to college. Having one child enlist in the military. Have three children learn to drive, two licensed so far. Bought our forever home on 15 acres in middle Tennessee. Obtained a Master's in Nursing. Began to teach nursing. Considering a terminal degree. Experiencing life changes. Health challenges with loved ones. Losing loved ones. Moving loved ones. Having loved ones live with us. Keeping track.

2022 is an opportunity to improve. Realistically, any time is an opportunity to improve. 

Born out of a desire to do more of what I like to do, I will take this new year as an opportunity to log my reading. Having spent much of the last few years working through school, reading has not been the pleasure I would like it to be. This desire to change began with a Christmas gift less than a week ago. An autobiography by Dave Grohl, gift to me by my thoughtful husband. I finished it too quickly for observers here. . . I devoured it. The book was well written and an absolute pleasure to read.

Following that book, which my 15 year old has started, with a notebook to capture the F bomb count as well as to prepare for a book report, I read a cheesy romance light book on the kindle app called "Kiss Me Now" by Melanie Bennett Jacobson. I love to read. This morning while on my laptop I read a blog post on Facebook by Joel J. Miller from miller book review.substack.com. This post struck me at the right place and right time. It is my desire to read more this year - and not just cheesy romance books. I would like to read, or listen to more non-fiction, autobiographies, biographies, business, leadership and thoughtful books I would also like to keep track. Kind of like I kept track of the types of cases I did in the OR.

Happy New Year's Eve! 

Here's to keeping track.

TV Junkie

We may be raising a few TV junkies around here. . . Such quality programming, so many choices. . .

Today, Caleb wrote a paragraph entitled "Things That Make Me Angry"
These were his three points, jerks, grammar and chores.

I kind of agree.

Coolest fort. . .

Last week we let the kids have a sleepover in the office/schoolroom. There was an enormous fort, with multiple rooms for each child. Lights, cd player (for listening to a story), a box of Lego pieces. . . It was a huge build for them, and a challenge to clean up the next day. They had a great time.
















Note to self, no more forts on school nights. It makes it tricky to work at the table when it is covered with blankets and books.

Oh what a new Lego box will do. . .

We began Caleb's 8th birthday celebration on Friday with a surprise trip to the newly opened Legoland Discovery Center in nearby Grapevine. He and the other kiss had a great time! Greg and I not so much, if we're being honest. Not the best value for the money.

For his gift from us, Caleb was able to spend some money in the gift shop at the Discovery Center - which he spent wisely. He came home with three different boxes and couldn't wait to begin building.

      

Upon our return home, he shared the building process with his brother and sister. Needless to say that he was disappointed that he had to go to bed without building everything!

Saturday morning arrived earlier than normal. . . The puppy was up and needing to go out. . . as I let her out, I heard a rustling sound from upstairs. Hmmm, I went to see what the sound was and found Caleb and Calvin on the floor in front of their bathroom sink, building a new Lego set! At 5:40 AM!!

I went back to bed and left them to it. Elise joined the group shortly after I departed and they all got along great for quite awhile. The afternoon brought some tired kids who didn't want to rest . . . but did, so as to not spoil Easter Sunday.

{pretty, happy, funny, real}

I am linking up again this week at http://www.ourmothersdaughters.blogspot.com/ .

This week I think I was able to have the button show properly.

Pretty

Happy

Funny

Real

The previous post was supposed to be linked up to http://www.ourmothersdaughters.blogspot.com/ as part of capturing the contentment in everyday life through the week.

Granted, I haven't sorted out how to actually link it. . . I will.

Pretty, happy, funny, real

Pretty girl. My only.





Happy. Ice cream!




Funny. Playing with photo apps. . .




Real.
Lunch and dinner prep, same counter, same time,
same cutting mat, same knife. I could get used to multitasking
like this everyday . . .