Blessed are the flexible, for they will not be broken!

If there is one thing we have learned about travel nursing, it is that PLANS CHANGE, often very quickly.

We have called off the trip to Wyoming and are staying put in Wisconsin for a few more weeks. It all came down to housing- we simply could not find a place to live that was both in our budget and pet friendly. Certain parts of the country are very pet friendly... the DC area for example. It was absolutely no problem to take Ralph with us on that assignment. But other parts of the country have not really caught on to the dog-instead-of-a-baby thing.

Before we landed this job the first time around, we had to turn down two others because we couldn't find a place to live with the dog. We've already been warned that we cannot take him to Alaska or Hawaii, two places that are high on our list.

Even here, it's costing us an extra 100 dollars a month in rent to keep the dog.

So, we are considering finding a new home for Ralph. This is a VERY difficult decision for us. We've been talking about it for the past three months, and I think we are finally at the point where we can do it. It certainly won't be easy, but I think it is the right thing for him as well as us. We obviously need steady work and can't afford to keep missing out on job opportunities. He needs a stable home. It's not good for him to constantly change apartments and to possibly have to stay with someone else for three months when we go to Alaska... and I would love for him to have a private yard. Here, he shares the dog walk with hundred of other dogs, and he constantly picks up fleas and ear mites. It would be so much better for him to be in a real home.

Ralph is like part of the family, so pray for us as we try to find the right family for him.

And the winner is....

We posted a poll of places we were considering for our next assignment. A few of you even voted! Colorado got a vote, Texas got a vote, and Maine got a vote. So who won?

Wyoming!

We are officially heading to Wyoming next week, unless we just absolutely cannot find an apartment. We are struggling with that a bit, so our company is looking into some condos and townhouses. We are praying that they find something quickly, because we could not be more excited!

So why Wyoming? Especially when it wasn't even on our list?

The way this has all worked out is just another testimony of how faithful God is.

When we first started looking for an assignment, our top priority was finding something close to home so that we could go home around the holidays. But as you well know, those assignments closed quickly, because the hospitals simply couldn't afford to hire travelers.

Some assignments opened up in places that we weren't too thrilled about, like Texas. When we were talking about these assignments, I honestly felt depressed. I told Brandon that if I couldn't be home for Christmas, then I wanted to go somewhere on "our list." When we started traveling, we made a list of everywhere we wanted to go. None of our assignments have been in places on that list.

So of the ones available, our first choice was Maine, primarily because it was on "the list." But we got a very bad feeling about the hospital, and they were asking their traveler to do some unsafe/unethical things. So we moved on.

We got to the point where we decided to just give up and stay here. The hospital here in Wisconsin offered Brandon an extension. He loves the hospital, we have a nice apartment, and it's a nice place to live. Staying here would have been fine, except that we are both anxious to get on the road. Brandon and I both have serious cases of wanderlust. We can't stand to stay in one place for too long. I'm not sure how we are ever going to settle down into a normal life. We tried it in Jonesboro, and it didn't go so well. I think I drove Brandon crazy, because every few weeks I begged him to take me camping or take me away for the weekend, just get out of town and see new things. I'm pretty sure I inherited that from my Dad, who is the same way.

Anyway, just as we were giving up, the Wyoming job came along. We immediately sent Brandon's profile over and they offered him the job the following day. We've just been working out contract details since.

Wyoming has definitely been on "our list." As some of you know, I spent some of my childhood in Wyoming. Wyoming is even the center of the children's book that I've been writing. I even have a sticker on my guitar case that says "Wyoming Native- Almost". I absolutely love Wyoming... I love the mountains, the sage brush, the wildflowers, the wild ponies, the elk, the buffalo... it is my favorite place in the US (thus far) and Brandon and I have always talked about going there together. Now I get to live there again, and he gets to experience the magic of Wyoming with me.
It's a dream come true.

Although we will still miss being with family over the holidays... if I can't be in Arkansas, Wyoming is definitely the next best place. After all these years, it still feels like home.

The Downside of This Job

I love my job. I find it amazing that I travel around the country for work. It has amazing benefits. However, I have found the downside of this job is trying to get a job.

It's painfully obvious that the economy is not at it's best now. To put it bluntly, it's hurting everyone. And everyone includes nurses. As I went through school, and even now working, everyone tells me "that's such a good profession, you'll always have a job because there are always sick people." And yes, while there is truth to this, I don't always have a job, because my job is not simply nursing.

As many of you know, we are due to end out contract here in WI on Dec 6th. So I have been trying to find a new contract with another hospital. Over the past 2wks I have sent my file to around 9 hospitals. Not a single interview. To put this in perspective, I usually send my file to around 3-5 hospitals and get an interview with 2 hospitals and have my choice of where I want to go.

My recruiter tells me that travel nursing as a business is hurting. And, you guessed it, the economy is to blame. The new motto for hospitals is to hire a full time, permanent nurse for 1yr over a 3mo traveler. It's a lot cheaper. The exception to this rule is rural hospitals that don't need someone for a full year. So at this point and time that is where we are looking.

This has been extremely frustrating for me and Courtney to not even have an interview. However, I continue to remind myself that God is in control and He has always provided for us. I know something will work out. I also received some good news just yesterday. I was informed by my manager at our current hospital that they have approved for me to stay for an 8wk contract with them. At this point we are holding out hope that one of the remaining 2 hospitals will give us an interview and accept us, simply because we want to travel. So we are using the renewal guarantee as plan B. However things are looking more and more like we will be staying right where we are.

So from WI, GO BADGERS and PACKERS

Finding a job is complicated

Travel nursing jobs are incredibly complicated, if you are the least bit picky about where you go and what you do. There are so many factors involved, and they often fall through at the last minute. By the grace of God, it always seems to work out. But it can definitely be stressful- especially for a wife who wants a sense of stability.

Here's a little update on the jobs we've considered, which ones have fallen through, and which ones are still on the table.

Missouri Fell through. They found a permanent nurse who was willing to work cheap. Can't really blame them for that.

Kansas 1 Would have been a pretty good situation, but we decided we just couldn't take the pay cut.

Kansas 2 Pretty much the same as above, with an even more severe pay cut.

Colorado Rural town with no housing. Would have to live in a tiny hotel room for 8 weeks. Not a suite with a kitchenette... just a hotel room. We decided my sanity was more important than finding a job right away. It's still on the table if they can find better housing.

Iowa We're actually a little disappointed about not getting this one. They were looking for someone with more experience. We're hoping that we won't have to deal with that anymore once he gets a full travel year under his belt.

Nevada Again, they hired a local nurse. We have mixed feelings on this one. On one hand, this was a pretty cool mining/cowboy town. On the other hand... well, it was a mining/cowboy town, complete with working brothels. So it could have been a great experience or a really bad experience.

Texas 1 On the table, simply because we could spend a night or two at home on our way, and possibly drive in for the holidays. We've both been to Texas (Brandon was born there), so we don't have any great desire to see Texas. But it's a good hospital, a reasonable drive, and we wouldn't mind being back in the South.

Texas 2 The town where Brandon was born! On the table, for the same reasons as above. Interesting sidenote- we would live at a Bed and Breakfast.

North Carolina A pretty town, small and historical. I've always wanted to see the Carolinas because of a book I read as a kid. The company is trying to find housing and get the details of the contract finalized, then if the hospital wants us we'll talk.

Massachusetts This one is my second favorite. Again, it's a beautiful, historic, small town. It's in the mountains, right on the Appalachian trail. Brandon just sent his profile over yesterday. We hope they are interested in us!

Maine Our number one choice- beautiful Maine, right on the Canadian border. Brandon has always talked about seeing Maine, and I've always wanted to see PE Island. It's a small hospital, pretty rural. The town considers themselves the shopping hub of Eastern Maine, which is funny to us because less than 4,000 people live there. That will be strange, after being in DC and Madison. Anyway, we are really hoping this works out but there are some complications. The hospital is trying to change some things in the contract, etc. So we're just waiting to hear something.


Anyway, hopefully this will catch everyone up on our situation. Every day we get asked, "So where are you heading next?" Obviously, the answer is that we don't know, and we probably won't know until the week before we leave. If the right job doesn't come along, we will consider staying here a bit longer to wait for that right situation. I promise- as soon as we know something, YOU will know something. We're not trying to keep people out of the loop, we really just don't have any definite answers yet.

Even more reading questions!

Do you ever reread your books?
Yes. Probably too much. I think I spend more time rereading than reading new books. That is something I need to change.

If so, which ones? If not, why not?

All of Jane Austen's- I reread them every fall. I'm not exactly sure why, but it seems to work out that way. The Anne of Green Gables series, The Chronicles of Narnia, The Little House on the Prairie series, A Walk in the Woods, the Little Women books. I'm beginning to notice a trend... hmmm...

Do you read the books the whole way through or pick through for favorite scenes?

Always all the way through. I'm way too OCD to just read part of the story. In fact, if it is a series, I have to start at book one and work my way through.


What qualifies a book for the reread pile?

That's hard to answer, because there are different reasons for each one. I think it's usually because it impacts me in a personal way. Maybe I really identified with the lead character or the relationships, maybe I fell in love with the setting, maybe I learned something about life or about myself. There is no checklist or special qualifier- you just know.

A Sad Anniversary

Six years ago today the world lost an amazing woman, lovingly known as "Nonnie." She was my great grandmother, although I would not have been allowed to tell you that if she was alive. I only made the mistake of introducing her that way one time- she did not consider herself old enough to be a grandparent.

She was born in 1912 and was forced to grow up early. Her father passed away when she was very young. Her mother remarried, but passed away shortly after. By the age of 13, Nonnie was taking care of all of her younger step siblings.

She married, had four children of her own, and started working at St. Bernards (the very same hospital where Brandon and I both worked). She worked until they forced her to retire. I don't blame them- she was seventy years old. She never got a drivers license, but that certainly didn't slow her down. She never got a college degree, but that didn't stop her from successfully achieving 175 credit hours at the University.

She was fiercely independent, even at the very end. She never wanted to slow down and she never wanted any help. I remember that when I was pretty young, she had a heart attack. We were all at the hospital with her when she got the news. That poor doctor didn't know what he was getting into. When he tried to gently give her the news, she slapped him! She insisted that she had NOT had a heart attack and that she was perfectly fine to go home. We knew that she was angry at him for telling her in front of us. She never wanted for us to know when she was sick.

That is a quality that I regret about her. Her stubbornness led her to hide it from us when she started getting sick. She had developed inflammatory breast cancer, a highly aggressive form of cancer that begins as a rash. She didn't want to be sick, so she pretended she wasn't. She continued on with her life, never going to the doctor, never complaining about her pain. By the time we figured out that something was wrong, the cancer had spread.

I always wonder if things would have been different had they caught the cancer before it spread.

She had a radical mastectomy in October 2002. Six days later she was dressed up like a cowgirl, trick-or-treating with her great grandkids. That's just the way she was.

Then, November 8, she passed away. We were all with her, crowded into the ICC. Her siblings, her children, her grandchildren, and her greatgrandchildren- we were all there, holding her hands and telling her how much we loved her.

There are still times when I miss her so much that it hurts. She was truly wonderful (even if frustratingly stubborn). I wish that I could have known her as an adult, instead of just as a child/teenager. There are so many things that I would ask her now, so many things I would like to learn from her.

It's about that time

We've hit the two month mark, just five more weeks here. I'm discovering that there is a pattern to our attitudes during these three month stints. The first four weeks fly by, and we start worrying that we won't be ready to leave when our time is up. The next two weeks slow down just a bit, and we decide that yes we will be ready to leave. Weeks seven and eight slow down a LOT, and we start saying things like "do we really have six whole weeks left to go? Wow, thirteen weeks is a long time."

By this point, week nine, I can barely sleep at night because all I can think about is my house. MY house. MY bed. MY dishes. We're both a bit homesick, and we're starting to really miss our families. Suddenly, the idea of going somewhere else for another three months is less than exciting.

Our conversations go something like this:

Brandon: "Wow, the second half sure drags by slowly."
Courtney: "Yeah. Remember when we said we might want to stay here longer?" (Both start laughing hysterically) "At least we only have four weeks left."
Brandon: "Five."
Courtney: "Five what?"
Brandon: "Five weeks left."
Courtney: "Are you serious?? Good grief. Are you sure?"
Brandon: "Yep." (Courtney pulls out calendar to make sure)
Courtney: "You're right. Five weeks. Maybe four and a half. Could you try to work Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday that week so we can leave on Wednesday?"
Brandon: "I'll try."
Courtney: "Well at least we only have four weeks left." (are you sensing a bit of denial?)

I think it's worse this time, because we don't know if we're going to get a week off in between assignments. It's entirely possible, even probable, that we won't have more than two or three days. Since most of the assignments are on the coasts, all of that time will have to be spent driving, without any detours home. Arkansas is not exactly on the way to Oregon or Maryland or wherever else we may end up.

We do have two very exciting possibilities for jobs a bit closer to home. Our first choice is in Doniphan, Missouri- less than two hours from our house!! We don't have any details yet and Brandon cannot interview with the hospital until Wednesday. But our fingers are crossed that the pay will be decent. Even if the commute isn't practical, we could certainly spend two or three nights a week in our home, in our own bed. This is so important, because it's pretty much our only chance to be at home for Christmas. We are praying that all the details work out!

If it doesn't work out, our second choice is in Kansas. If I can't see family over the holidays, spending some time with Julie would definitely help! Again, no details about the job as of yet.

In the meantime, I will continue day dreaming about being home.