Spoke with the Parkview North nurse manager this morning. She has 2 part time nights positions left to fill and her assistant is supposed to be calling to arrange interviews end of this week/begining of next. Please pray that I'm selected for an interview. :)

After all this time (Feb. to now)...the Dupont job has fallen through and I'm not getting it.

She said she's very upset about it and is not sure why they ended up saying no. I guess
Lutheran didn't have anything bad to say about me so who knows. I personally think a nurse manager should be able to decide who she wants to hire! Heck she is the one managing the nurse!!

She did say I should be able to come in and do my assessment assignments on the infants (since I'd be going through the NNP & Neo's) but we'll see if I can get a job elsewhere first.

So now we are praying super hard about the Parkview & Parkview North NICU jobs. There are 3 available at Pk Main and I think 2 or 3 available at Pk North. I've spoke to the nurse recruiters at both hospitals and have a letter of recommendation from my good friend Jessica who works at Pk North.

God has a plan...just hard to wait.

Sorry for the lack of blogging. Just been busy/same old, same old.

Classes started Monday and are going well so far. I have neonatal/newborn assessment and Procedures in Neonatolgy. Yay! :) Went to Indy Wednesday for a 6 hour class. Blah..went by fast but its hard to be away from Austin for so long with the boring drive added in too! Have to go again next week on Tues and Thurs then again on June 6th. She wanted to get in all our lecture stuff for assessments early on so that we can spend the rest of the summer doing our assessments on infants..10 in total on different (gestational) age ranges. Then for the other class we have a bunch of online stuff to do and will meet in early August to do hands on procedures in a skills learning lab. (not on real babies that day though..that'll come in the fall!)

On the job front...getting so ridiculous. Never realized how much a persons patience could be tested! The dupont nurse manager had a mtg on Monday to discuss/confirm hiring me with her manager and was supposed to call me. Well she still hasnt. Talked to my dupont nicu nurse friend and I guess the nurse manager gave her notice (to quit) this week. Great! :( Well she told my friend that she is adamant on hiring me before she leaves so I am giving her til 3pm to call me and then I'm gonna call her! I have too much time and energy invested in getting this job!

Talked to the Nurse recruiter for Parkview Main (competing hospital for my out of state readers) and he is sending my application to the nurse manager in the NICU. Andys boss is his cousin so she gave him my resume. You really do have to know someone to get in anywhere it feels like. I also have a letter of recommendation going for me at Parkview North and talked to that Nurse recruiter yesterday.

THIS IS CRAZY!!! I just need a job!!! Dukes never called back or returned my email that I had sent (by request as a followup) so I'm assuming they picked someone else for that adult ICU position.

I've applied everywhere!! Including non hospital places. Dang Fort Wayne and its bazillion nursing schools that have so many graduating at one time! Well that...and my termination is always a red flag on applications. :(

Ok vent over.

Austin is doing awesome! :) I swear he has grown an inch in the last week because suddenly all of his 3 month sleepers are getting to short in the legs! We only have four 6 or 6-9 month (depending on the brand) sleepers so I might have to get some more soon! Had to move up to the 6-12 month socks this week too. Growing so fast! He is currently loving his exersaucer and being outside (brief amts of time and out of the sun). Still likes to catnap for me...sleeps great for mom. He sleeps from 9/9:30pm to 6-7ish am!! No teeth yet (thankfully on my part) but I don't think it'll be too long because he really bites down hard on his fingers and his teethers lately. :)

Wow this turned into a long post. Sorry! I'll update later or tomorrow on what I hear about Dupont.

I had a great first Mothers day! Love Austin soo much!! Love Andy too of course! :) Austin did very well at his baby dedication & lunch afterwards.

Andy & I celebrated our 3 year anniversary yesterday. :) We went to Applebees for dinner and then DQ for dessert while my parents watched Austin. Looking forward to many, many more happy years together!!

Earned a A- in both classes this semester bringing my total gpa to a 3.6. :)
Summer semester starts Monday.

A part time nights NICU position was posted yesterday for Dupont!! I applied & called the nurse manager. :) She said the prn one should be posted soon now that the part time one was up. I told her that I was interested in the part time one also so she is checking on permission to hire me for that one...she has permission to hire me for the prn one I guess. She is suppose to be calling me back soon. I hope! This has been a long, crazy waiting process.

Happy Mother's Day to all the momma's out there!! :)

Happy Nurse's Day!! :) Can't wait to start working again...I miss taking care of the tiny babies so much! Although nothing compares to taking care of Austin! :)

I hope everyone has a great Mother's Day weekend! Austin's baby dedication is also on Sunday morning. :)

Gotta finish my case study today (yeah, I've been slackin') and submit it and then spring semester will be done!

Austin has averaged 10 hours of nighttime sleeping each night for the last 3 nights!!! Let's hope this trend continues. He wakes up super happy. :)

But with this new nighttime schedule he appears to be on a nap strike!! Cat naps or no naps the last two days....hmm...

I have a interview tomorrow afternoon at Dukes Memorial in Peru. It's for a prn position in the medical/surgical ICU...not ideal at all but I need a job so I'm taking the interview. It's 70 miles from my house. Why can't Dupont just post that darn position?!?

Happy May everyone! :)

We like our new couch! :) Much more comfortable and it seats more people now. Attempting to train the dogs to stay on a blanket only when they are laying on the couch.

Got my hearing date for my unemployment benefit appeal. Its May 13th. But then today when I was on the unemployemt website it wanted me to fill out a form to resume my benefits...so I did but I don't know if that was just a standard computer thing or what?? Who knows.

My fabulous friend Jessica wrote me a letter of recommendation for Parkview North! She works there in surgical admissions but knows the NICU nurse manager and the NICU educator so she gave them a letter of recommendation about me. So maybe I will have a better chance at getting an interview in their NICU. Last I checked they had 3 spots that were open...they arent on the website anymore but they may still be open. Still waiting on Dupont also.... I have of course been applying at other hospitals and other positions but no calls yet. Need something fast!!! If I don't have a NICU job by the end of May then I will have to get some strings pulled so that I can go in to a NICU to do my assessments for one of my summer classes. Stressful to think about. My advisor says she can set me up at Methodist to do the assignments ...nice ..but I don't want to drive 2 hrs each way to do assessments for free.

This upcoming week is the last week of spring semester! Yay! I have my scholary project paper due on Wednesday, a final big case study due Friday and my adv. pathophysiology final to take by Friday. Whew! Summer classes start May 16th so I get a whopping 10 days off.

Austin is doing great!! We've tried cereal 3 times now and he's steadily getting better at it!!! :) His baby dedication is this coming Sunday, on Mother's day! :)

Rain, rain go away! It's been raining everyyyy day! We need a break from it! The dogs would really like to start going on walks!! They have cabin fever!

Our couch is finally going to be delivered on Wednesday!! We ordered it a loooong time ago and it was originally supposed to be in April 1st. In hindsight we prolly should have saved our $$ since I ended up quitting Community North but we can't go back in the past. I'm excited about it!! Salvation Army is coming to take our old couch and chair. :)

Austin had a great first Easter! He got spoiled & loved on by all the family!! :) See facebook for pics! :)

The end of the semester is coming up fast! I have one more quiz to take on Thursday for Patho and then I'll be studying for my final which is May 6th and working on my final big case study due that same day. I also have to finish up our Scholarly Project group paper which is due May 4th. I'm sooo happy this is the last paper I will have to write/co-write for my masters! Less than 13 months til I graduate...who's counting?! :)

No new news on the job front but it is only Monday so stay tuned.

Hopefully I'll hear back this week from the judge on when my unemployment hearing will be.

That's all for now. Looking forward to Abbey, Gracie, & Gregory Jr visiting tomorrow afternoon! :)

Austin had a great pediatrician appt this morning. :) He weighs 14lbs 5oz (50th percentile), 23 1/4in long (5th percentile), and his head measured 16.5in (40th percentile).

She wasn't worried that he no longer wants to roll from belly to back. She said sometimes babies just choose not to anymore..haha! She was happy with his supported sitting, his weight bearing on his legs when held in the standing position, and the fact that he controls his head when she helps pull him from laying to sitting to standing. :) He's a good boy! I'm glad we work on all this stuff at home!

She said we could start on cereal if we wanted but it wasn't necessary yet since he's breastfed. Might try it and see how he does. :) He tolerated his 2 shots well. :)

Got my "Determination of Eligibility" letter in the mail today and my unemployment claim was not approved. Dang it. So now I have to file for an appeal and have a hearing with the administrative law judge. Hopefully he/she rules in my favor and the process doesn't take weeks (it could take 8-10 weeks).

What would be really great is if Dupont would just approve that position so I can start working there!! I've been applying for jobs while waiting since we need money! God is in control but it's hard to be patient.

Hmm...the unemployment homepage is not showing anything new...guess I will have to call them in the morning to see what's up.

Austin had a good 4 month birthday yesterday. :) His grandma (my mom) & I took him to get his pictures taken with a real bunny. He did really well!! No smiles for the camera though..stinker!

This semester is almost over!! 3 more weeks! Crazy!!

My unemployment was approved!!! ....I think..

It's not showing anything under "Issues delaying payment" where before it was saying "Voluntary Quit". Not getting my hopes up yet since in the payment column it is only showing one week of payments left which is all I had left before I started at Community North. I'm thinking/hoping that after I file my work search on Saturday/Sunday that it will reset the system and show me how many weeks I am eligible for.

I've been applying to jobs since that is a requirement for umeployment collection (minimum 3 jobs per week that you have to list) while I am waiting for the Dupont job to be finalized which seems to be taking forever. What the heck?!

Stressed out. Too many things to list. Ranges from lack of money to school issues. Lots of things in between. Also feeling guilty that I quit my job before the dupont job was completely "signed & sealed".

Andy's grandpa passed away this morning. His sister said he was peaceful so that's good. Prayers for comfort for the family...especially his grandma. Andy's grandparents had been together since they were 13 and had always done everything together.

Hospice nurse said Andys gpa has a few more days possibly. After a somewhat mean/demanding phone call from Andy's dad we are going over there soon.

Hoping to somewhat keep the peace. His family is ridiculous with the guilting. You should have seen some of texts Kerry sent to him & then was cranky with me yesterday evening when I tried to stick up for my own husband.

Who promoted her to the visitor police?! I've been calling her that for awhile...she likes to keep track of who visits the grandparents! Makes me embarassed to claim them as family after the way his sister, mom & dad have been acting this week.

Andy's grandpa is hanging on & doing ok. He is on morphine and oxygen around the clock now. He can talk somewhat. Andy's sister is keeping us updated.

and...she is also driving me crazy! Andy too. She has been trying to guilt trip him into visiting. She said that their grandpa won't know that he cares if he doesn't visit. How rude of her! Andy is really struggling with this since he does not want his last memory of his grandpa to be of him in pain and looking/feeling so sickly.


Then his mother  called and left him a voicemail telling him that he had no choice but to go see his grandpa. It's a requirement in her mind. Her & Andy's dad were supposed to arrive home in the middle of the night last night...they were in Florida on vacation.

So now Andy has been completely stressed out since Wednesday night when we got the first call from Kerry about his rapidly declining health.

Prayers for Andy & his family. His grandfather has been on hospice care for ALS and had a very rough night. The hospice nurse says he does not have long. Pray for a peaceful passing and comfort for his family.

Feeling fairly overwhelmed lately. I'm doing the bare minimum each week for school lately and that sucks! My grades aren't suffering since I am able to look up answers to quiz questions that I don't know but thats never a good idea!! Afraid when the time comes that I won't know anything. I keep saying that I'm going to wake up before Austin and work on my reading more but he's still somewhat unpredictable on when he wakes up and I've been sick this week so that doesn't help. Excuses, excuses I know. Blah.

Hopefully this summer when Austins schedule is more predictable I can really focus. Lets hope. Like today...its 3:30ish and Austin has barely napped. Tried the car ride trick and it worked but then he woke up about 10 minutes after we got home. I really try to make every day consistent so that he will be in a routine but he only naps well 2-3 days out of the week. :(

Refiled for unemployment today since the Dupont nurse manager still has no idea on when the position will be posted and she claims she doesn't know if she continue the interviewing process before the job is posted. Hopefully my claim gets approved so that a little bit more money can be coming in while we are waiting. This process with Dupont has been going on for 6 weeks...thought it would take 2-3 maximum. Yeah I thought wrong!! So did the nurse manager I guess. We are not drowning money wise but I don't want to get to that point obviously. Theres only so much in our savings!!

Theres my rant and whining for the week. Sorry for the negativism but this week so far has been a struggle for some reason.

Happy April! ...feels like yesterday that I was saying Happy March!

Class got cancelled today because my professors doggie isn't doing well. Luckily she remembered that I live out of town so I knew about it before I even started getting ready. Hopefully her dog pulls through!

Talked to the nurse manager at Dupont today...we talk about once a week. She's frustrated that the approved prn spot is still not posted. Finally just asked if she could continue the interviewing/hiring process before its posted. Shes going to ask her manager (who is on spring break) and call me back Monday or Tuesday. Prayers that her manager doesn't care! My mom thinks it might have something to do with the "equal opportunity employment" rule and that's why they have to post it online first.

Austin is being his usual charming self. :) ...and drooooling up a storm! Might be time to break out all the cute bibs we got at the baby showers!

Go Cubs!! Andy stayed home for opening day today ..but they are currently losing. :(  They were winning for quite a while though.