Sweet dreams....or a nightmare?

I haven't decided which yet! My children, the loves of my heart and pains in my neck all rolled into one, are both, yes...BOTH gone to camp this week. It's my son's gazillionth trip and he packed like the seasoned pro he is: at the last minute, nothing labelled because he knows what he's taking, and with that teenage attitude of "eh, whatever" that he adopts when he's confident of what he's doing. It is my daughter's first trip, one she has been counting down the days to for, oh, about 4 years now! She has been a bug up my keister for the last week, driving me crazy about packing: what to pack, how to pack, did we get this, should she take that, what about snacks, what about extra pants, what about time to change between classes... O. M. G. I totally understand where she's coming from because we all know I love a list... but yowza. She was packed a full 2 days prior to the trip. My son was still pulling stuff out yesterday. At this point the busses are halfway there and I'm praying he remembered to pack pjs! :/

I love that they are able to go, and that we are able to afford to send them. God Himself knows the BeachBum household has come close to living in a cardboard box on the beach (and not by choice - I'd rather build a tiki hut, thank you!) more than a few times the last couple years.

I'm excited that they are going, time to make new friends and enjoy being away from home a bit. Time to spread their wings a little and become those bright young adults they are on their way to becoming.

However, it also reminds me that in just 4 wink-of-an-eye years, my oldest will be heading off to college. And that I only have about 8 more years with my little one. Sure, to those of you without kids that seems like a lifetime I'm sure, but omigosh, I can't believe my oldest is almost 15. He should be in diapers and terrified of the scene in 101 Dalmations where the puppies are kidnapped still! He would scream and cry every time the Dearly's would put Pongo and Perdita on their leashes for that fateful evening walk. Our VHS tape (yes I'm showing my age) probably won't even run with the puppy abduction scene anymore, we fast-forwarded through it so many times!

My house is so quiet. I was going to clean, but maybe I'll leave it messy to remind me of my kiddos until they come back home again!

Isn't life grand? And yet, isn't it crazy?

Here I am, another month or two gone before I remember that I do have a blog that I'm trying to maintain. I don't know why I forget. I suppose for the same reason I forget the journals I'm keeping for my kids. I usually get about one entry a month. I suppose that's ok, it will certainly be interesting reading once they are grown since it won't be the everyday, mundane "you ate, you slept" type stuff. I'd like to do better, really I would. Some days I think the OCD has given way to ADD and I just can't remember my own name. LOL

Things are going well for the most part for my family. I got a job. I got another job. I quit the first job because the second job was offering more hours and better money. C'est la vie. The husband got a job, praise Jesus! It's a huge pay cut. Huge. Enormous. Gigantic. But it's day shift, and he only works about 45 hours a week. This means we see him in the mornings, we see him in the afternoons, he is home with us at night, and he has every other weekend off. I forgot how much I enjoyed his company. (no, really I didn't...but it's one of those things that for the last few years I've told myself we could do it, seeing him a few hours on Saturday was enough... yeah, I lied. A lot.)

I'm working 3 days a week, which often feels more like 7 days a week! My days aren't full of manual labor, but my job is very mentally intensive. I have to focus my mind and all my attentions on my patients and what they did, will do, and need to do. Once my shift is over, it becomes all about the paperwork. I'm finding that the problem with the whole insurance debacle is not fraud, it's the insurance companies contracting out the work, and so the poor patients are paying the insurance company and the contractor ...neither of which care what the patient could do before or wants to do after. Gah. And none of the contractors are in the USA, which means we spend hours upon hours of time trying to speak with someone that doesn't speak English as a native language, over stupid things like why my patient that had a stroke and rotator cuff surgery needs to come more than 4 visits!!

I digress. (see, ADD. I'm telling you.)

(but self diagnosis is bad.)

I'm going to try and get more organized now that I'm at a regular job with regular (hah!) hours, and things are sort of simmering down. Which hopefully means more time for introspection and working on myself too.

In the words of my 8 year old daughter... peace, love, and hope, dudes!