Good thing I disclaimed this blog as being a roller coaster from the gitgo. If you've been reading, you've probably noticed my tornado-esque mind spinning. Am I going to remain home full-time? And I going to try to go back to work full-time? Am I going to school? Am I going to try to actually get this whole writing thing off the ground?

This is very much "me." Always has been. I have noticed, through years of self-examination (in lieu of therapy) that I have a tough time settling down and being content with my life as it is in any one moment. Much of that probably comes from years of events occurring, many of which were out of my control, that would catch me off-guard and require me to jump and deal. So now, when things are calm for any length of time, it doesn't sit all that well with me. I am constantly looking for the "next big thing." A move, a new job, school, a new baby. Something on which to focus my attention.

Recently, I wanted to try to submit some pieces of work to publications on a freelance basis after I had been blogging for awhile and received good feedback. But I didn't. Fear of rejection and feeling arrogant. I have felt arrogant since I started blogging. And then, when I was faced with the thought of actually sending something in to a magazine for consideration...well, let's just say I froze.

So I started to think about nursing school. I still hold great interest in it, but really, who am I kidding? Just because I can let my kid cover me in puke and intestinal worms without flinching does not a nursing candidate make. And the truth is, I found myself looking for ways and reasons to avoid achieving what I really wanted. I thought I could abandon my love for writing by throwing myself into something completely different.

It didn't work.

I just started thinking about this whole thing from my readers' perspectives and thought, "I must seem like a total kook! I change my mind about everything constantly!" And all I can say to that is, yeah, I do and I am a total kook. But I'm getting better. Just applying for this whole Examiner thing and then doing it has been a step toward unkookiness. I'm trying. Trying to sort it all out and figure out how I can be the best mom and wife to my family, and the best person to myself.

This is a long-winded way of saying thanks for staying on the roller coaster with me. It would be so boring if I were just a set in my ways, sure of myself carousel rider. Enjoy the kookiness. We're never in short supply here.

For several years I've toyed with the idea of going back to school for Nursing. I actually had the pieces put into place in 2006, but we soon thereafter decided to move to Maryland, I got pregnant unexpectedly with Liz, yada, yada, yada. So I abandoned the notion at that time.

Then, after living in the NICU for ten weeks and getting a bird's eye view of what real nursing is all about, I started to think about it again. Lizzy came home on a nasogastric feeding tube that I had to put in place before we left the hospital. I checked its placement daily, administered her meds through it, just like I had watched the nurses do for weeks. And while I hated doing it for my baby, I loved it. I felt confident and interested and fed that I was so needed in a way I had never been needed before...and I was good at it. Don't get me wrong...I was ridiculously psyched to pull that tube out a month after she came home and to never have to put it back in. But the learning that went on as I watched and listened and waited, both in the NICU and at home with her, was exhilarating, unlike anything I'd known in college or law school. (Which is probably why I don't teach now and am not a lawyer. They just didn't do it for me.) And obviously, while Lizzy was so little and still pretty sick, me thinking about a career was out of the question.

But here we are, cruising out of baby mode yet again, and we know that's where we are going to stay. In perpetual forward motion. And with that motion come the realities of life with three children, and those realities are beginning to hit us upside the head..just feeding this group of us requires a pretty penny. And then you think about activities, sports, parties, them getting their drivers' licenses and needing wheels (*gulp*), wanting to pursue their higher educations...and then to top it off with three weddings. It's enough to make one sick to her stomach.

Which, by the way, it just has. Again.

So it's time for me to think about where I go from here...and with my husband's encouragement, I am looking at what do I want to do, rather than just do something because it's a quick band-aid style fix. With that thought in mind, I have arrived back on the nursing doorstep. As I have begun to research, I am quickly finding myself entrenched in the world of prerequisites and applications, weighing the options of going for my Associates degree (because it's cheaper) against trying to find scholarship money and get my B.S.N. There are so many components about which I must seriously think because doing this will require a sacrifice of my family time and the peace we enjoy now. But the more I think about it, the more sure I am becoming that this is the right course of action for me.

I have felt a little lost all these years, hoping to find answers in various places. My kids and my husband have been the only medium through which I've learned anything definitive. I've learned that I am patient. (Not always, but more than I used to be.) I have a lot of love to give. I communicate well. I love to take care of people and be needed. I've dealt with NG tubes and have removed intestinal worms from my child's backside without even gaging, much less barfing. I think I could handle this.

If any of you fab readers have any thoughts, insights, resources, etc. about this topic, please share them. I need all the help I can get with this one.