Snow Days & Company

Like most of the country, we had horrible weather over last weekend. We’re retired, and when the snow piles up, we have the luxury of hibernating. And we KNOW that’s a luxury. This time, though, we worried about slippery roads again because our daughter, a traveling nurse, is staying with us when she works at one of the hospitals in town. She goes into work at 3 p.m. and gets off at 3 a.m. And by then, the snow had plenty of time to make the roads terrible. But we got lucky. The snow started slow and the snow plows started fast, and she made it home with no problems.

She usually works three days, then has three or four days off. On her days off, she drives back to Indianapolis to her apartment and her cats. For some reason, though, this time, she was scheduled to work three days, had one off, then worked two more, so there was no point in making the drive home. She stayed with us the entire six days and had her son, who lives in Indy too, feed and check on her cats. On the two days she was scheduled to work, though, she got down staffed. An odd predicament, because the hospital tells you not to come in at three but they might need you at seven. So she was all geared up to work but was stuck at home with us instead. Maybe for the entire night. Maybe not. She couldn’t drive home because they might call her in. And she couldn’t really complain because they paid her anyway. But boy, was she restless.

She was at loose ends, which meant we spent time monkeying in the kitchen, watching shows we’d never watched before, and did our best to have a pleasant time. And sometimes she wanted to visit, and sometimes she didn’t, so I felt like I was in limbo. I couldn’t concentrate enough to write anything new, so I’d edit for a while, visit with her a while, edit a little more, back and forth. And it was all fine because we really enjoy her company, but it made us realize how much we’ve settled into our retired routine. It reminded me of the days when I worked around HH and the kids and grabbed time to write whenever I could.

She left for Indy late this morning to enjoy three days off, and we won’t see her again until she gets off work at 3:00 Sunday morning. And then it will be fun to have her underfoot again. We have to enjoy it while we can, because her next travel assignment will probably whisk her somewhere too far away, since she wants to be a traveling nurse for one more year before she signs on at a hospital closer to home. In the meantime, we get to bond with her while she’s here and write more when she’s not. And the books will still get done.

Enjoy your February!