December!

It's 1 in the morning, and Miguel and I are still awake.  He's taking pictures of paper cranes and spray painted leaves for his photography class, and I'm being the dutiful wife and staying up with him, ironing sheets for backdrops and giving the occasional "good job, looks good" type of comments.  My parents are asleep in the living room (their choice of bedroom these days) and will be off to Kona, Hawaii in a few hot hours.  They'll visit my Tita Nenet Nona, cousin Jakob, black sand beaches, volcanos and eat fresh fruit and seafood for a week, while Michael and I will be here in the big cold house, working non-stop and feeding various animals more times per day than we eat ourselves.  I might be a tinge jealous.

One month to go until the completion of our house.  Due to the economy or some problem with Gig Harbor, the builder of our community decided to pull out.  The nine homes that were started will be completed, and as far as I know, everyone will remain living there.  We tried looking for another place to live in the area with our money, but all that would buy us would be some trailer built in the 1980s with one bathroom.  Until a new builder comes in (or the old one returns), we will be living in an awesome empty development.  Quadrant Homes will maintain the community playground and we still have to pay HOA dues (lame), but the developer will be responsible for maintaining the grounds.  I hope s/he hires goats, like the empty community behind Target.  At least they're fun to look at, especially better looking than some guy on a tractor.  Despite the setback, we're still excited to move into our first home.  

In employment news, I was offered a dayshift position in the critical care unit at the new St. Anthony Hospital.  The hospital is about a two minute drive from our house and is set to open up in March.  I'm pretty excited about opening up a new hospital with all the new equipment and modern facilities.  The architecture of the hospital is very pretty and serene, with views from every bed.  Speaking of beds, the ones in the critical care unit are like magic and unicorns -- they're all weigh beds, with built-in bed alarms, a cassette slot for x-rays, and language interpretation services.  Amazing!  I wonder if they have an automatic bedpan feature as well, that would make my job a lot easier.  I'll transition over to the new hospital in early to mid-January.  It's kind of a bummer because I had two weeks of vacation all set up for moving, getting my wisdom teeth out, or visiting California, but now all that's up in the air.  I hope we get to have some fun before starting the new job!