Job News

Back in December I saw an ad in the Massachusetts Nursing newsletter for a new program they are starting called Career Connections. I signed up to get a nurse mentor and I was paired with the Nurse Executive at the VA. Brian and I went to meet her - her name is Ceci and she is incredibly nice!! She gave me lots of great ideas and knows a lot of people in the nursing field, which is just what I need. Her soon-to-be daughter-in-law, Luz, is a psychiatric Nurse Practitioner and she also started getting my name out there. Well, not long after did I get 2 phone calls for interviews from referrals by Luz. One was at a hospital a little over an hour away for the inpatient psych unit and the other was for a clinic downtown, both per diem (as needed) jobs. I also had another interview the following week for another hospital psych inpatient per diem position about 45 min away. Of course it snowed on each of these days (but not any of the other days during that week), so it was quite interesting getting around without my boots on and my hair was hardly curled by the time I got to the interview, but it makes for fun memories.

Today was my first day of orientation at the clinic and I am going to start observing the nurses this week to see what I will need to do. It seems like a really neat place to work, with a lot of great perks for benefited employees (not me). I haven't heard yet from the other two jobs, but it is possible that I might get them both as well, which would be great. We'll see what happens! If not, I definitely can keep babysitting and dog walking in the meantime.

It's been TOO long (thus a long post)

I can't believe how long it has been since I blogged! We've been pretty busy, which is good. During Christmas, we were watching a cat in Cambridge. His name is Loki (left) and he is very sweet. He needed medication in his ear twice a day, so we basically just stayed at their nice apartment or in the area until heading back home. The day after Christmas was the first big snow (blizzard) that we experienced - but nothing stopped us! We were out walking 2 miles through the blizzard and having a blast in the fresh snow. Of course a snow angel was totally necessary!! When Loki's parents came home, they referred us to a family in Belmont who was leaving for New Years weekend. So, we stayed at their beautiful 4 story house in Belmont watching Casper - he was probably one of the best dogs I have ever taken care of!! He was a lot of fun and pretty easy. We walked him to a nearby pond that was frozen over and saw a beautiful sunset! Of course it was better the day before, but we didn't have our camera, so we went back the next day, but it was a little cloudier - still made for a great picture though!

As we left housesitting in Belmont, we walked over to Cambridge (about 25 min walk) and met another lady for dog sitting. She lives in a brand new super nice apartment complex - she said only like 10 people live there right now. She just moved here from Chicago and has two 12 yr old dogs that needed medications with every meal. One of them, Cassi, has seizures so we also had to keep the house no warmer than 67 degrees since any higher can trigger a seizure. Cassi was a little stressful at times for us - we would just be sitting on the couch and she would bark at us for 15 min straight. We still aren't quite sure what it was (she didn't want to go outside, she didn't want to play, she may have been trying to get food), but we just tried to ignore her. Also, one morning while I was emailing their owner (who was in Switzerland for work) I heard Cassi rummaging through our suitcases, and in about 3 minutes, she chewed the strap off of one of my bras! I was a little upset, but just threw it in the trash and let it go. Then, another morning I heard her in there again and I knew what she was capable of doing, so I ran in there within less than a minute and she had been digging through the trash. I noticed that the bra was missing (no longer in the trash) and I never found it after searching the whole house. So, I am not sure if she hid it or ate it, but whatever she did with it, she did it VERY fast! Callie, the other dog (in the picture with me), was just sooo sweet and loveable! While we were housesitting here there was another blizzard! Luckily we didn't have anything to do that day and could just stay home all day. These are a couple pictures of the snow from the back door/porch. It was absolutely so beautiful out! I wish I could have taken more pictures, but I didn't feel like putting on all the layers to go out in it. The day after the blizzard was the day we headed home, which was quite an adventure in the snow! We had 2 suitcases, 2 backpacks, and another large bag (with a space heater we bought for our apt). We were definitely exhausted and excited to be home.

We have still be dog walking a couple times a week (when the weather cooperates). Here is a picture of me with Baxter and Millie on our first day of walking, which was in December. There have been a few days where I have been babysitting, so Brian has had to walk them by himself, and now with all the ice on the ground Brian walks them anyway and I follow behind (I'm the pooper scooper). The dogs are definitely crazy and difficult to walk, but we are going to continue doing it as long as we can.

Other things we've been up to:
Since Angel and Dan hosted game night last month, we decided to host it for January with a taco bar (pic on left). I bought a new game that we tried out: Anomia. I definitely was the worst at it, but it was still fun. We also played Bang again and Cranium twice - this time the girls won!!

Daryn and Nichole bought us tickets to a BC basketball game, so they picked us up and we grabbed dinner beforehand at an awesome Thai place near campus. BC played Virginia and won - it was a very close game, which made it even more fun.

That's most of what's been going on here. We've seen a lot of snow and it looks like more is coming our way, but we are still enjoying it!! It dropped into the negatives recently and that was something new for us - we've never been in weather that cold. There's also lots of great stuff happening in my job search, so I will write that update right now in another post.

Thanks be to God

These are the beautiful lyrics to a Lonestar song called "Hey God" that I have always loved - such a wonderful prayer and reminder.

"You have your ways, you have your plan Sometimes mysterious and hard to understand. I am humbled by your grace and everything you do. Hey God, Hey God - I just want to thank you! Sometimes I forget to stop and bow my head, and remember that I have been blessed..."

So, I just wanted to take this time to Thank God for a wonderful year and blessing our lives in so many incredible ways!!

Also, Fr. Peter (at St. Clement's Shrine) recently wrote this "I think God's unpredictability can sometimes unnerve us. But, if we follow him, it will be an adventure. I can tell you this - you will never miss out on the best things in life."

It's Snowing!!!!!!!

As I am writing this it is snowing outside, officially! Brian and I were so excited - we stood by the windows just watching it come down. The ground and car right outside our window slowly got covered in white! I have tried to take some pictures of the progression, since this is just so exciting for us!
I would say it took about 2 hours to look like this and it is still coming down. Now the trees are starting to turn white! So much fun! So those pictures were outside our front window, and these are from the kitchen window:
Now the fun snowy winter pictures begin! Stay tuned! :)

Back to Babysitting & Our Weekend

I recently signed up for a website to get some side jobs baby/pet sitting. I met a family in Cambridge area last week and babysat for them on Friday night. They have 3 great kids, ages 6, 5, & 4. They have never had a babysitter before either, so they were excited to have me there I think. :) It was fun. While I was babysitting, Brian went to check out this Organic/Vegan place she told us about not too far away called Life Alive in Cambridge (pic on the left). Downstairs they have a lounge so he hung out there and worked on his last paper. Around midnight, once most places were closed, Brian came back to the house and kept me company. At 12:30am I texted the mom telling her that our last bus left at 1, and she said they would just pay for our cab home since it would be more like 1:30. I told her no, but when they got home their was a cab already waiting for us outside and they had already paid & tipped the driver!! Because of that we tried to give them some of the money back and they looked at us like we were crazy for not taking it. We are very thankful for this opportunity and that they are such kind people. She went to BC and was studying nursing, but changed to English. She said she might be able to help find me a nursing job through some of her friends, which would be great, but I am planning on babysitting for her a few times a week until a nursing job comes along.

We also met a couple for dog walking last week and did a "trial walk" with the dogs over the weekend. They have 2 beagles, but the 1 yr old pup doesn't really know how to walk on a leash and she just pulls herself the whole time, while howling (or beagle barking). It's actually sad to watch her - it would be so much more comfortable for her if she could just walk normal on the leash. Brian and I are determined to train her! haha. Their names are Baxter & Millie :) I'm sure I will take pictures at some point. The guy came home last week to a huge mess in the house so he wanted to have someone come and let them out/walk them during the day, so that's me now. They're a really nice couple and I will probably be walking their dogs 3x a week for now.

After our trial walk, we waited for a bus in the freezing cold for almost an hour! We started to get inpatient and called people to help us determine if that bus was in fact running - it was. But we were getting cold and I was really inpatient so we walked toward a different bus stop, but on our way we saw the bus that we had been waiting for. So, we ran on it and sure enough it stopped right where we had been standing! Go figure. At least we made it on the bus though. We were heading to Somerville to meet someone for cat sitting during Christmastime - they live about an 8 min walk from the babysitting house. We will be taking care of their cat Loki for 4 days - she needs medication in her ear 2x/day so we will probably just be hanging out in the area during the day. They live in a super nice/new apartment (looks like Irvine or something), but they are preparing to move out because they're expecting a baby soon and need a bigger place. Too bad we can't move in there- haha. Although, we really like our cozy apartment. After seeing some other houses/apartments in the area, we have come to really appreciate ours and how well kept it is here. If only it were a little bigger...

From meeting Loki, we walked about a mile to the Orange subway and headed up to Melrose for game night at Dan & Angel's. They live in a really cute apartment - another complex just like one we would see back home. I almost forgot I was in Boston with the moderness of it, carpeting, spaciousness, etc. We learned how to play BANG, where Brian was the Sheriff (and I was an Outlaw trying to kill him, among others. Angel was the Deputy who was trying not to kill him...although everyone's character is unknown except the Sheriff). It was fun and the outlaws won. Then we played Cranium, my favorite game. The brainiac guys won against us girls, twice!!! Then we played Apples to Apples. Fun night!!

On Sunday, I babysat again and helped build (or should I say the kids help me build) a gingerbread train (from a kit, thankfully). I took some pictures to show their parents what the finished train looked like, since all the kids wanted to do the whole time was eat it...and it was quite demolished by the time they got home.

While I was babysitting, Brian went and got a haircut and had lunch at Life Alive. Then he came to pick me up and we walked back over to Life Alive for dinner. So, Brian ate there 3 times in the past 3 days - that's pretty much against our rules of eating on Boston (we don't like to eat at the same place twice because there are so many great places!). Here's what we had for dinner:
I got the "Goddess" - brown rice, tofu, carrots, beets, kale and some awesome sauce. Brian got the "Lover", which was almost the same but with mushrooms I think. So good and super healthy! This is such a cool place and there should be more of them around. The upstairs is where you order and there are some tables/chairs, a counter with healthy eating/lifestyle books, and some plant life. Then downstairs is a lounge with more tables/chairs and more comfortable/spacious seating, plus a little play area for kids. It's really neat! This is us in the lounge:


Afterward we left Harvard square and headed to St. Clement Shrine for mass. I snapped this picture of the Harvard area street lights before we got on the Subway.
I guess they are dancers or something...I'm not too sure really. Any ideas?

So that was our weekend! It was pretty busy and also somewhat stressful getting around within our time constraints, but it was really nice to be able to get out and explore some more, make some money, and do things I love!

December Activities

A couple Sundays ago we met Caleb & Robyn (and her sister, Becky) for breakfast in Cambridge. We were connected to Robyn through Brian's teacher Tracy from LMU (but she went to BC as well) - Tracy and Robyn are cousins and Robyn recently moved here with her husband - they're very nice!! When we got off the subway, we were shocked to see the stairs/escalator climb up to the street. This is a picture from the bottom of the first set of stairs/escalators (the second one was shorter).

I am working on a little class project for St. Norbert School for my flower girls' class. They read a story about Flat Stanley, so I colored him and put him in his winter clothes and have been taking him with me places. This is us going down the giant escalator.

A few days later, we went to a Christmas party at one of Brian's teachers' house in Newton. Her students turn in their papers at the party, which is probably a great way to get more people to turn them in on time. It was starting to snow a little on our way home, but it was tough to take a picture of since it was very light (but I tried anyway, pic on the right).

Then we stopped to take a picture at the entrance of BC on our way home. Like I said before, everything is so nicely decorated for Christmas!! :)
Lastly, this is our little "Christmas Tree" that we got for our apartment. It is actually rosemary, but it was cheaper than the mini pine trees, and it's edible! :) We put just 2 little ornaments on it because it can't hold much weight, so these 2 are from Dawn in 2007 and are perfect on our little tree.

Catching up

On November 20, Faneuil Hall had their 26th annual Christmas tree lighting ceremony, so we went to check it out. All the trees were lit, there were street performers, and live music. The Christmas Tree was huge!! We just walked around the shops and then ate dinner in the North End at La Galleria 33 - yum!


I will be posting many more pictures of Christmastime here in Boston, hopefully with some snow on the ground too! We have been walking around a lot and I've seen a lot of cute decorations and lights, but never have my camera of course.

Other things over the past few weeks that are notable are the meals we have had with friends. I met Kate at Panera in Brookline during thanksgiving week - she and Conor are getting married this weekend! The night before thanksgiving Daryn & Nichole came over and we went and ate at Harry's Bar down the street. We went to dinner a couple Sundays ago with Maggi, a girl from Orange County who is now going to Harvard Divinity School. Kirsten connected us, but Maggi also knows Pam, Teresa O., and Megan. We had dinner at an Irish pub called Mr. Dooley's downtown. They had live music and the food was great - very cute, fun atmosphere. I also went out last week for lunch at Quotes Cafe to meet a girl named Stephanie. I was connected to Stephanie through Katie, another bridesmaid from Kate's wedding last month. Kate, Katie, and Stephanie all went to USC, but Katie went to New York for some time which is where Stephanie is from. Stephanie did her undergrad here in Boston and now is back here living with her boyfriend. She is an occupational therapist in New Jersey and works with babies, which was really fascinating to learn about. We have been very blessed to be able to meet so many wonderful people here in our new town.

Now onto the weather - here are some pictures to show the progression of the trees in our "backyard" (view from the kitchen window). Green --> yellow/orange --> brown --> bare!
We have a huge pile of leaves on the ground outside our bedroom window from all these trees over the past month. Pretty much all the trees (and bushes) around here are bare now - its sort of sad, yet interesting to think that they are still "alive". Loving the seasons here, as we approach winter. On the news today they said today is the coldest day of the season (fall, since winter starts in a couple weeks). It was 23 this morning, but "felt like" 10 degrees (which is all that really matters!). The wind sure does make a difference, but we are enjoying it & having fun, especially now that we have all our gear (long underwear, beanies, gloves, scarves, ear muffs, jackets, boots, etc.). Next post will hopefully include some snow, which is coming soon!!! :)

Thanksgiving

We had such a wonderful thanksgiving with our new friends here in Boston. We woke up and began baking pumpkin spice cookies and we also made a green bean casserole (pic on right) to bring to our thanksgiving potluck. Around 2:30, Angel & Dan came and picked us up and we headed to Ashland to have dinner at Josh & Amanda's super cute condo! Angel & Dan brought a pumpkin cheesecake that was delicious and also mac n' cheese, and our lovely hosts took care of the turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, gravy, and cranberry sauce - all homemade! I think this was the first time we had homemade stuffing and it was very good!

Top: Josh & Amanda Bottom: Dan & Angel

The Saturday following Thanksgiving we went over to Deb's apartment in Coolidge Corner/Brookline. Deb is dating Kevin, who is a colleague of Brian's and is in his 4th year of the program (this is them on the right). There was another couple there (John & Suzanna) who have been married almost 15 years. She is from Finland and he is from Seattle and is his 5th year of Brian's program. Also at the table was Deb's roommate Yvonne, who is from Germany. We had a lot of fun just sitting and talking with them all evening, and the food was awesome - Deb did most of it. We brought some of our cookies as well as dinner rolls from Trader Joe's. John also made some awesome butternut squash soup.

Since we also had thanksgiving back in California we had 3 thanksgiving meals and all of them were absolutely wonderful!!!

First visit back to Cali!

It has been a while since my last post, so I will do my best in recapping the last month. We started November by going back to California for 2 weddings and to visit family and friends. We were very busy during our stay there, but it was so great seeing everyone!! And both of the weddings were absolutely gorgeous! My bridesmaid, Kate, a friend from nursing school, was the first wedding and I was a bridesmaid in her wedding. It was such a fun day!! I had never met some of the other bridesmaids and the groomsmen, but they are a great bunch. Kate's wedding was very elegant and the setting couldn't have been more perfect - at San Juan Capistrano Mission and then to the Laguna Cliffs resort in Dana Point for the reception! Congrats to Mr. & Mrs. Bullock - and thank you for letting us share in your special day!

Our second wedding was for one of our groomsmen, Evan, a high school buddy of Brian's. This may have been the most extravagant wedding I have ever been to (and probably ever will). The ceremony was at our church, San Antonio, and Brian and I did the Prayers of the Faithful (petitions), which I was so nervous to do (I hate microphones!!). However, I think we did a great job!! The reception was at the beautiful Nixon Library, where there were 3 bars during cocktail hour, not to mention a live musician as well as a painter!! Also, the table centerpieces were out of this world!

The flower arrangements were absolutely beautiful. The one below was by the cake/dessert table, but they were also on the altar at the church. Gorgeous!

We tried to spend as much time as we could with our families while we were home. We met my grandma, aunt and mom for breakfast one morning (left). My dad's side of the family had a thanksgiving dinner for us while we were home, which was so nice! Somehow I forgot to take pictures though! We also had lunch with Brian's family too. The picture on the right is of balloons outside Pam's house - she always decorates for her guests! She and her family had a lovely dinner for us!! Also during our time in CA I was able to visit with some of my lovely nursing buddies!!!

Sari, Caroline & Me

Krystin (& Noah), Katie, Pami, Erin, Me, & Tiffany

That just about sums up our trip back in California. It was so much fun and we really enjoyed the weather! We left Boston at 6:00 am at 34 degrees and arrived in Los Angeles around lunch time where it was about 100 degrees!!! It was great! We were peeling off all our layers. :) We were happy to be there for some record breaking November temps, but it was only for the first couple days. We also got to drive again! We were so excited for that - we thought we were going to forget how to drive, but of course we didn't! It was nice having the freedom you get with a car, but we spent so much on gas and that we do not miss. :) Lastly, our time catching up with friends was wonderful and we were able to see our pregnant friends "showing" their baby bellies now!! This is me with the beautiful mommy-to-be, Emily!