I did it! I retired from nursing after 45 years! Last shift was August 14, and check out my retirement gift to myself:
To paraphrase Shelby from Steel Magnolias, "Purple is my signature color". It's almost all grown out now, and faded to lavender, but I still get compliments on it. It was also the first color Hazel learned to identify. So, I'm getting it done again the end of January, if not before.
We sold the house, too. This past summer was even more of a headache than I anticipated, since we found a house in VA and submitted an offer 2 weeks before we listed our house. Not the smartest decision I ever made, but houses were moving fast in NC and VA, and I was afraid of losing out on one of the few houses that met our criteria. This new house not only ticked off all our needs, but all my wants, too. It was a nail-biter, what with having to do some additional, unexpected repairs on the old house, re-scheduling the closing date in VA, and dealing with a seller's agent who tried to sabotage closing. But we made it happen!
This year's Halloween decor was skimpy, most of it not yet unpacked, but we moved into a neighborhood where kids from all over come to trick-or-treat. Everybody decorates! (Well, except the Mennonites. There's a pretty large number of them living around here.) We had probably 150 kiddos (including my adorable granddaughter) in two hours!
Dawn bought her first house in October, and her whole septic system had to be redone before the lenders would sign off on it. I am totally convinced that HGTV lies to us. The "problems" on their shows just don't compare to the ones in real life, do they? At any rate, we are now only 35 minutes apart. We haven't all lived in the same state since 2002! My sister-in-law, the wife of my brother who died in 2014, flew up for Thanksgiving and we all celebrated it at my daughter's house. It's the first time in decades that I have celebrated Thanksgiving on the actual date, eating traditional Thanksgiving food, and spent it with anyone who wasn't Jack. It was wonderful!
The house is a work in progress. I still have boxes to unpack, furniture that needs to be moved to yet another place in the house, a garage where Jack still cannot park, and two sewing machines that haven't seen the light of day in 4 months. There are toddler clothes and diapers in my guest bedroom dresser; a booster seat, wildly colored utensils and bibs in my kitchen; episodes of Thomas the train and Sesame Street on the DVR; Nemo and Dory slippers in the closet; shelves of toys and books in the office; and a car seat in the SUV. But a little voice asks "Po'sy (can't get that second P in there yet), watch choo-choo Thomas?" as soon as she wakes up from sleep-overs; "Meen-go (Mango) holp?" putting on her shoes; and squeals of "I hiding!" when I find a munchkin in the master closet.
I hope I never have to work again.
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