Beauty From Ashes

Anyway.

We got married! It was gorgeous and perfect and everything I could have dreamed of. Everyone behaved themselves and it was everything I could have ever asked for.

We went to Chicago for a mini-honeymoon and hit up several of the museums and a Blackhawks game.

Then it was all work and little play and honestly, I had become so accustomed to the stress of having a million irons in the fire like life has been for me for the past, uh, 5 years now....I got bored. Not with Rafe, not with work, but just the whole experience of not being under tight deadlines and incredible stress.

So I just started a Master's degree program through WGU (same place I got my BSN). I started June 1, I have already passed one class and have a second class's project paper in the grading queue. I'm working on a third class's paper today. If I'm lucky, that'll be 3 classes down in a week. Anyway, once I'm done with the MSN in Leadership and Management, I'll apply to postgrad psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner (PMHNP) programs for certification as a PMHNP. All things considered, doing my graduate stuff this way will shave 6 months to a year off of the timeline to become a PMHNP versus going the traditional route of applying to a MSN PMHNP program and having to wait until Fall 2018 to start due to the way application deadlines fall.

Oh! And we're going to Pennsic! We'll be there starting the Saturday of War week as Rafe only gets a total of 7 PTO days per year. Our preregistrations are paid, we're camping in N01 with the Barony of Shadowed Stars, and I. Am. Stoked. Rafe has been watching YouTube videos of Pennsic battles shot with helmet cams and is really into the idea of fighting heavy as well as rapier. I'm looking forward to a week of not being connected to technology and a chance to be my best self. We've been playing more in the SCA lately -- well, Rafe has. I'm still stuck working every other weekend and now the MSN program is going to be eating up my free weekends. But it will be worth it in the end. Anyway, the Barony of Shadowed Stars, our liocal SCA group, is much more lively than our local Adria groups and quite frankly, I'm sick of the Adrian politics. Maybe someday I'll be more interested in Adria again, but not right now.

Um, other than that, the cats are all good, and so is Maggie. I've dropped the rope with trying to stay in touch with Dad and Rita and suddenly I'm a hot commodity as far as Rita trying to get my attention goes. Mom has decided to stop drinking, which can only be to the good. Melanie got out of floor nursing and is working as a case manager making better money with better hours. Brett is deployed someplace with sand and has 3 years left on his contract. I am terrified that The Great Pumpkin will do something even stupider than his usual embarrassments and trigger a war with someone, anyone, just so he can try to prove he has a bigger dick. Cause it's not like the current President has to worry about sending his own relatives into combat, just ours. And in the words of Lord Faarquad from Shrek, that's a sacrifice he is willing to make.

Well...I got a little opinionated there. Let me close this with an update on Princess, a much happier topic and certainly less controversial. Pretty pretty Princess has made such enormous strides in her socialization! She has begun sleeping next to me about 25% of nights and is allowing me to pet her regularly!
Yay!