Catching Up

It's been a while since I've had the time to sit down and write a blog post update. Since returning from my parent's place at the beginning of November it has been work....work......work. Well, realistically it was more like this: work, eat, sleep, work, work, sleep, work, eat, work, work, sleep, repeat. This past month was one I wasn't really looking forward to because I knew I'd be putting in more than my far share of hours at work. My week back in MN at the beginning of the month was strategically planned and then I also had 4 days off at Thanksgiving, leaving me to work 15 shifts in November. 15 shifts doesn't sound bad, right?! Well, working 200 hours over the course of those 15 shifts is just about enough to make anybody go bonkers. No wonder why I barely got any sleep! For the entire month of November, I only saw Ryan during my vacation week and over Thanksgiving break and then 5 minutes here and there - but honestly, we went days without seeing each other. There were times where I'm sure I was in acute kidney failure as I rarely went to the bathroom. There was a 36 hours stretch where I didn't eat more than a couple hand fulls of popcorn and a diet mountain dew. Not the best thing to do but dire times call for dire measures. I had to choose between eating and sleeping and I choose to sleep. Not fun. But November 2012 is in the books and I'm moving on! I start rotating in the ICU tomorrow which will be a change for me.

But first here's what has been going on {besides work} since our week back in Minnesota.

Ryan hurt his knee playing hockey. He's been out for three weeks now and it will be at least another month before he will be able to get back on the ice. He tore his PCL so he is currently doing physical therapy. He is making good progress and can walk without a limp. He can't quite take the stairs two at a time yet {he found that out the hard way today} but he's improving. One of his hockey buddies sells used exercise equipment, and he brought over a stationary bike for Ryan to use to rehab his knee. He told us that we can use it until someone wants to buy it! So Ryan has been dutifully doing his knee exercises and using the bike to strengthen his knee.

We hit the road back to Ryan's parent's place in Minnesota for Thanksgiving. Ryan was nice enough to drive up as I was so sleep deprived, I slept almost the entire way back. Ryan jokingly told me that he didn't think his knee would be able to handle the entire drive back. I told him if that were true, we'd have to wait to leave Thanksgiving morning. I wasn't messing around - I could barely keep my eyes open and likely was sleeping by the time we hit the interstate just a few short minutes from our house. Ugh, working countless hours just to come home and read and study and then go to bed to wake up and do it all over really takes it out of a person. I slept a lot over Thanksgiving break. I was in bed by 8pm on Thanksgiving night and even slept through movie plans with friends. I definitely needed to recharge my batteries. We had a big turkey dinner which was delicious! I did a little Black Friday shopping. Not the crazy midnight/1am thing though {I was sleeping and not giving up those precious hours of sleep}. I like going to Sterling Drug for Black Friday. The store opens at 9:00am and it's not full of crazy people. Their black Friday special is 50% off anything you can stuff into a big Christmas gift bag. I ended up only getting a couple Christmas ornaments - they must have changed their buyer or something because the flavor of the store has changed over the past year. Oh well, better for my pocket book I guess! We ate lunch at Piggy Blues with a bunch of friends later that afternoon. We watched plenty of football. We got together with friends to play cards. Renee and I made and decorated more sugar cookies than I'd like to admit. Renee made her spaghetti sauce from scratch for us {so delicious}. I watched Christmas movies on TV {however, I haven't watched National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, which is my all-time favorite,yet}. I did a little reading for work {gotta keep plugging away at that stuff to stay on top}. And last but not least, I slept...a....lot! It was so hard to come back to work after having a few extra days off. But, at the end of the day, I love what I do. {Although, had a won the power ball, I would have significantly scaled back the amount of time I was working from 200 hours in 15 shifts to say, I don't know, *cough, cough* 0 hours in 15 shifts :) No such luck for me. Long hours, we will meet again!}

I had this weekend off so as you can imagine, I've spent the majority of it sleeping! I went to bed at 930ish Friday night and besides waking up at 6:00am for a half an hour {darn internal clock} I slept until 11:30! I haven't slept in that late in a LONG time. Actually, I don't know if I've ever slept in that late....ever. Ryan and I went and saw the new James Bond movie which was decent. I have missed going to the movie theater so it was nice to actually have the time to take in a flick. Ryan and I are also prepping for Christmas since I work the holiday this year. Another post to come regarding our holiday prep :)

~Ashley