Overdue updates and random thoughts

So, I'm pretty sure its spring here, which is awesome.  Most of March the weather was very flip/floppy, warm one day, cold the next.  Now though, not only has the forsythia bloomed (yellow flowered shrub, one of the first things that blooms in spring), but a lot of other things are now in bloom, including in my yard, with some lovely Azaleas and Camellias.  And the Southern Dogwood are about to bloom, which are my favorite down here.  They put out lovely white or pink blooms, big showy ones, and they last a long time because they're not actually flower petals, they're bracts (like a poinsettia, just trust me on this).  Anyway, yay!

I had the door open the other day, just the screen door latched, and one of the neighborhood cats came and looked in and he and sephy had quite the staring match.  Since then I've caught her sitting in front of that door and staring a number of times, and I'm not sure if its because now he's her boyfriend and I'm keeping apart two star-crossed lovers, or if she's just being ready to let him know that this house is already owned by kitties, in case he comes back.

Work has totally been stressing me out lately, and I've only just realized part of the problem.  I learned from experience back when I worked in long term care that it does you no good to care more about a patient's health and well-being than they do.  You can't externally motivate people, and all that happens is you waste your time and energy.  I have unfortunately fallen into a somewhat similar place with my current job, though not directly with the patient's, more with my higher ups.  I've been putting all of my emotional energy into trying to do everything as perfectly as possible, but that's not what they want.  They want certain things done within a certain time frame, and no one really cares how well its done.  I have been feeling like they should care, and possibly falling into a fallacy of thinking that I could externally motivate my higher ups to appreciate better work.  I have finally had a moment of sufficient clarity to realize that that is not going to happen, and I should move on with finding a middle ground of work I can feel good about, but that I have not put my everything into, and can be done faster.  The trick being to find the right level; not too sloppy, not too OCD.  This will be my challenge going forward.

Hopefully that didn't sound all bitter.

In other news, I got braces on my teeth yesterday.  They feel very strange and my tongue is sore from rubbing up against them.  I'll need to get a tooth pulled on each side on the top, and one that will come out is my oldest root canal, good riddance, and the other will be one that has a cavity that we were going to drill before the braces plan came up.   That tooth has been causing pain for months now, so also good riddance.  I got clear braces on the upper teeth, so my credibility won't be damaged more than absolutely necessary.  Being young and female is already bad for my credibility, but since it'll take two years to get the teeth taken care of, I figured it was better to not wait any longer.  I'm actually pretty excited about the whole thing, as my teeth are something I've been unhappy with for forever.  Also, between my medical retirement account that I was forced to contribute to when I was in Ohio and my orthodontic benefit on my dental insurance, there should be very little of the cost that isn't covered.  Yay!

In other good news, I was finally able to get my new bed, full-size, set up in my bedroom, after the giant king size bed that lived there before was finally moved out, after about three months of trying to  make that happen.  For the first time, I am sleeping on my own bed with a proper bed frame, mattress, sheet set and quilt, with, wait for it, matching pillow shams!  I know, crazy.  I feel like a little bit more of an adult now.

Something that's interesting about working in a smaller town, is that I actually get recognized when I'm out and about.  I'm still trying to decide how I feel about this.  It was certainly unexpected.  It also makes things awkward, when someone looks vaguely familiar and are giving me that look that clearly expects me to recognize them, and I can't place them more than that they look familiar.   Awkward....

Anyway, that's about it.  I've been working a lot, living the dream, saving lives, etc, and trying to recuperate on my days off.  I'm working on improving that balance.