Giving a Bit of Grace

It's been a week since I was able to actually do anything with the RV. My hours at the hospital vary, but I usually work three 12-hour shifts, one overnight call shift (11-7), and one weekend day every two weeks on top of that, so in total it's between 44 and 68 hours a week on call and at the hospital. Every few weeks it all adds up to be the perfect storm and call plus my hours plus Mercury in retrograde or some sort of fresh hell makes all my shifts line up and I get my ass handed to me. 

I was able to get away early from the hospital on Friday, but I was on call that night, so I didn't want to get involved in a messy project and then potentially be called back in to take care of someone. I decided instead to run to Ace Hardware and pick up my paint and some rollers to have on hand for the weekend in case I was able to break away and get some RV time in. I finalized my color choices and switched the lightest white out for a greener hue versus the pink-tinged white that I thought might look strange against the green and gray-green beige. This is what I came up with.

Magnolia House colors courtesy of Ace Hardware and Joanna Gaines

I got home with my treasures but would have to postpone work on the camper for now because I had a little girl turning 9 that had a birthday sleepover planned for Saturday night. 

I spent Saturday morning scrubbing the house clean in anticipation for 4 little girls to come over for a get together, then two of them would be staying the night with my two girls for a party sleepover. We had the best time, we had Popeye's chicken for dinner per the birthday girl's request, unicorn cupcakes, played Roblox, then went to the dollar store for movie snacks (2 bags of candy per child, their choice), went and looked at Christmas lights, got home and had a dance party, built gingerbread houses, built a fort, and watched movies. The girls stayed up all night in their rooms with the guests, but I checked out about 10pm.

DH was a bit more productive than I had been, and he and his worker spent his Saturday coating the roof on the RV with the two-step Dicor system. The end result looks amazing and thus far has not leaked, even with a heavy rainstorm today (Wednesday).

Sunday was about picking up our mess, getting little girls ready to go home, and getting Pootie ready for her Christmas concert at one of the large churches in town. 

Once THAT was done, I was tired, but I did a load of laundry and worked on one of my final APA papers for the Bachelor's in Nursing course I'm in. I love writing and I can crank a paper out in a few hours, this one was 7 pages long and I finished it in 2.5 hours, including sources. 

One thing about me-I'm gonna procrastinate. You could give me 100 days to get something done, I'm going to wait until day 99.5 to even start on it. It's a problem I've tried to work on for years. Either I'll get a project done on day one or I'll wait until the last minute and dread it the whole time. The fact that these classes are online makes it easier for me to procrastinate, and I'm also getting a bit (read: A LOT) burned out on school so that doesn't help either. I didn't think I was going to sign up for spring semester classes, but after a pep talk from one of my best friends, I reluctantly signed up for the 7 credit hours' worth of courses. If I stay on track, I'll be done with my Bachelor's degree in December of next year. 😑

So, Sunday was a bust. I went back to work Monday at 9am and knew I was on call that night. I had hoped I would get a bit of time off early, however the surgeons continued to add cases and I didn't get to go home until a little after midnight Tuesday morning. Exhausted, I tried to eat something and wind down after a shower to get some sleep. 

I fell asleep at 2am, only to be awoken by my phone ringing at 4:30am-the house supervisor was calling in the team for a neurology case set to start around 5am. I dragged myself slowly out of the bed, put on my light blue call scrubs, and sleepily drove back to the hospital. Fortunately, the AM holding staff was there and were able to take over for preop care, so I clocked back out and went home and back to bed after winding back down again. I slept from 7am to about 11am, then got up so I wouldn't flip hours and be up all night. 

I worked on two final projects for my classes and finished them both in 3 hours, including research. The kids got home at 2pm from school and I was then informed that Pootie had yet ANOTHER Christmas chorus performance, this one would be at the school at 5:30pm. Feeling overwhelmed and under-caffeinated, I took a nap. I dragged myself up and we all went to Pootie's performance, which was great. So Tuesday was a bust as well for RV renovations.

I have no excuse for today (Wednesday). I'm simply exhausted. I've scrubbed and cleaned and washed and dried and folded and bought and shopped and Christmas shopped and gone and done and worked and wrote and researched and visited and drove and cooked and thought and problem solved until I'm just plum DONE for a bit!

So that's where I'm at. I'm still searching Facebook marketplace for some flooring (330s/f+/-) and a brown leather recliner, but I have plenty of projects to keep me busy until the new year for sure. I think at this point I have to do what one of my favorite preceptors used to tell me when I was learning how to be a CVICU nurse, 'Give yourself some grace and give credit where credit is due.' 

And that's just what I plan to do.