Dreams of Parenthood

Those were the salad days, the halcyon years! The sleepless nights, the wailing babies; the days the interior of the house looked like it had been hit by a hurricane; the times I had five kids, a chimpanzee, and a wife in bed with fever. Even when the fourth glass of milk got spilled in a single night, or the shrill screeching threatened to split my skull, or when I was bailing out some son…they were good years, grand years. - Sara Gruen, Water for Elephants

There's nothing like a wonderful, loving marriage to bring about dreams of children. Although my view of parenthood is somewhat idyllic, I'm a firm believer that you can live the life you dream with careful planning, adjusting plans as necessary, and finding the beauty and humor in trying times. 

I enjoy planning, but I've quickly found that "trying" to get pregnant is unromantic and stressful. I think we should enjoy the next few months and work on ourselves; getting healthy and active, working toward a career change, and building a little nest egg for our future home and family while trying to live a purposeful and meaningful life. If we're blessed with a pregnancy that would be wonderful, if not, we'll adjust and keep moving forward. 

Simple Quiche

This is just one of the many variations of our go to quiche recipe. The salty feta works well with the creamy egg mixture with the spinach rounding it all out. There are so many variations of this recipe just by changing the vegetable and cheese. We've made asparagus and gruyere, broccoli and cheddar, mushroom and swiss, and tomato and goat cheese. Just stick to the standard template of 1 cup cheese and 1/2 cup milk and just add the vegetables to taste. The crust is simple and slightly lower in calories that most traditional quiche crusts because it replaces the butter with vegetable oil. 

Crust

2 cups white flour

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup olive or vegetable oil

1/2 cup water

Preheat oven to 350. Mix flour and salt together with a fork or just shake it around a bit. Add oil and water. Form into a ball. Spread it out around the bottom of a cake pan or quiche/tart pan. With a fork, poke a few holes in the crust and throw it in the oven for about 20 minutes (it makes the crust, thicker and crustier in the end).

Meanwhile:

Filling

4 eggs

1 lb spinach

1/2 large red onion or 1 small red onion, diced.

1 cup feta cheese

1/2 cup milk

Heat a large skillet/saute pan over high heat and coat the bottom of the pan with olive oil (a couple of swirls or about 2 tablespoons). Add the onions, lower the heat and cook until soft, about 5 minutes. Add spinach, a few pinches of salt and pepper and give it a good mix with the onion for about 2 minutes, letting the spinach wilt. Remove from heat.

In a large bowl, whisk together the 4 eggs. Add the milk and feta cheese. Add the spinach/onion mixture. Throw in a little more salt and pepper. Pour in crust. Bake for 40 minutes. Give it a wiggle to make sure it is cooked through. It shouldn't wiggle. Let it sit for 5 minutes before cutting. It'll be a rich, creamy, cheesy little slice of egg pie.

The Layover

We closed on the sale of our house. It was a fight to the bitter end with the buyers trying to get our house ready for their renters. It was a lesson in patience. We're all settled in at my aunts house and things are moving along nicely. We've continued our routines and started a few new ones. We're grateful for this place. A place where we can get our feet back underneath us. A beautiful place with a farm next door where we have privacy and comfort.

I'm calling this phase The Layover. We've took our first trip and sold the house and now we're waiting in the terminal for a little while until we're ready for the next trip.

I'm starting to daydream about our new home. About land, and chicken coops, lakes and vegetable gardens. About family dinners and bonfires. About having a village to raise a family.

Necklace purchased from Zailove on Etsy. A reminder about what we're working for.

Sold

The house went up for sale on Tuesday. On Wednesday we had two back to back showings. On Thursday we got two offers. On Friday we signed a contract.

Mike and I sat in the car in the parking lot across the street watching Django Unchained while our home was inspected and the buyers lounged on our couch. We talked about the madness of our house selling in two days when it didn't even get an offer when we had it on the market for over a year. We started packing that night, and I'm already weary and frustrated with moving. I'm being ridiculous and I need to focus on the big picture. A few weeks of packing and we'll be living with my aunt and rebuilding our savings. We'll figure out the rest once we get settled.

We close at the end of March. We're finally on our way home.

Nurse

I've been working as a nurse for 3 months. In many ways it's not what I thought it was. There's a lot more bullshit than just taking care of people. There's admissions and discharges, phone calls to doctors in the middle of the night, scheduling tests, and reporting off to the next shift. There are too many patients and not enough nurses. There's only time for the bare minimum in care; vitals, meds, and endless charting. Being on a cardiac floor you quickly realize that 75% of your patients ate themselves into the situation they're in.  A standard patient history includes coronary artery disease, heart attack, hypertension, high cholesterol and diabetes. I'm cynical already because it weighs on you to take care of people who don't take care of themselves. To be yelled at because they can't have their pain medication any sooner than ordered, to be spit on by patients with dementia who need care that you can't provide. To be expected to somehow be with six patients at once. I still believe that not all nursing is like this. At a less busy hospital, on a less busy and short staffed unit, with a different patient population.

I do have to say that I feel a little like a bad ass being able to handle this madness right out of the gate. I'm becoming more confident, independent and am learning to trust my judgement. I think this job will make me a better person.

I still aspire to be a labor and delivery nurse. Like many of the other new grads on my floor, we took jobs to get experience so we could work the required year and quietly sneak away to the position that we really want. I almost took a job somewhere else, but I figure, if I can survive here, I can survive anywhere. I'll finish up the year, learn as much as I can, and hope my next job is in a quieter hospital, on a less acute unit, in Michigan.