Around the house...

Jimbo and I have been very excited to work on some things around our new house. Unfortunately, we have had some bumps in the road since we moved in 2 months ago. Car trouble, me stranded in Florida because of the car trouble, more car trouble (see a trend?), and Jimbo having to spend a lot of time in the field with work. The last two weekends, though, we have been able to work on a few things and we are so excited about them!

The first project we completed was much needed! When we first moved in, we had to quickly come up with an idea to keep our dogs contained since we don't have a fence around the backyard yet. This has been frustrating since they are crazy dogs who can jump over or dig out of just about anything. Also, it has been a HOT summer. HOT. And dogs have to use the bathroom from time to time. And we are trying to keep them out of the house since they are usually filthy because they wrestle all. day. long. You see my dilemma?

Some days (104 degrees outside type of days) I caved and this is where they hung out for the day:

Inside.

But most days they spent outside on the porch where we rigged it so they were blocked in by a piece of plywood across the top of the stairs. It gets really technical around this house. This picture is lacking the piece of plywood, but you can see where we had to block off so the rascals don't run away. 

Anyway, we built a gate! So now we don't have to slide the plywood back and forth to let the dogs out. It's seriously the small things that make my day :)

It's awesome! My husband does some great work. And he has a pretty great assistant too ;)

The next project was done this past weekend and it was a pain! We painted the half bathroom downstairs. It was a pain because it is a tiny room when you're trying to fit a ladder and two people, while trying to balance paint trays, while your feet are sticking to the plastic drop cloth. It really wasn't that bad. We picked out the color "Honeybee" and we really love how it turned out.

Before

Sink before painting

Our awesome way of protecting the  toilet

Tools

Everything removed

Our very safe way of rigging the light fixture, ha!

After primer and paint

Finished product!

After (with a shelf my honey hung for me!)

Clearly we still have to decorate, but we're so happy with what we have so far! The color is kind of difficult to capture because of the lighting. There is no natural light that gets into this room so these pictures will have to do :) We look forward to doing many more projects around our home. Jimbo already has plans for painting the dining room...I'm still sore from this job! Ha!

Warm Welcome

Last Thursday we went to our first Hail and Farewell. Also, it just so happened to be for us :) Of course we found out about it that day (Thanks, Army. You never seem to let us down on last minute events!) so we scrambled to get outfits together and figure out what we were supposed to do. Luckily, it was pretty informal and we looked like we knew what we were doing.

For those of you who don't know what a hail and farewell is, it is when the unit that your spouse has joined welcomes the new officers and non-comissioned officers as well as says their goodbye's to soldiers leaving that unit. For this hail and farewell, we all met at a restaurant and after dinner they did the ceremony. We were asked to go up in front of the group (around 50 people if I had to guess) and they introduced us. They told everyone where we were from and that we like to fish...I guess Jimbo filled out a card for them to read and that was the best fun fact he could come up with haha! 

It was a really nice welcome to the unit and a great way to meet a few people that Jimbo works with. I didn't actually get any pictures of the event, but the unit chaplain was taking some great shots throughout the night!

You can find this photo on the unit facebook page: 2nd Battalion, 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment

You can find this photo on the unit facebook page: 2nd Battalion, 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment

Workin' girl

I just wanted to do a quick update on my new job! Last Wednesday I went to Cape Fear Valley Hospital for four interviews!! It was overwhelming and exciting all at the same time. The first one was for a Nephrology floor (kidneys, dialysis, etc. for all you non medical people :) ). The interview went great! The manager was so nice and gave me a tour of the floor and talked to me, rather than drilled me with awkward questions like I have experienced in the past. After the interview was over, she walked me down to the cafeteria because I had about 45 minutes until my next interview. She even gave me a voucher for a free lunch! How awesome is she!? So I ate my free lunch and headed back to the lobby to meet the nursing recruiter.
The nursing recruiter informed me that the nephrology manager had already called her and offered me a position! Yay!! I felt great going into the rest of the interviews knowing that I already had an offer to fall back on if need be. The next interview was with a general rehab floor (stroke victims, hip and knee replacements, etc). That manager was so nice as well! I got so lucky! She also offered me a position :)
The last two were for a pediatric ICU and labor and delivery. I would have loved to work on either of those floors, but they only needed night nurses. I am not the type of person who can do nights and then be a day person on my days off. The rehab floor included day and evening shifts rotated each week. I value my time with Jimbo so much. We have a lot of time apart in our near future so my biggest concern was to maximize my time with him now. So ultimately I chose and accepted the offer for the nephrology floor!! I am so excited and nervous to start on this floor. I have a little bit of background in urology so I am hoping that will help me in the learning process. I am just so thankful to have a nursing opportunity in a setting that I can develop my skills rather than the world of psych nursing that I was apart of before. Wish me luck as I start my new job and I will be back with updates as they come! Hope everyone has a great rest of the week :)