So today I decided that since it snowed and we can’t get out of our driveway, it was time to tackle the Christmas tree decorating chores.
Used to be that I’d have the thing up and decorated by dinnertime the day after Thanksgiving, but this year I’ve been dragging my feet for some reason……partly because I was in that depression, but I’ve also been busy with other stuff. Namely, trying to wrap my mind around the concept of actually having gotten my dream shot at becoming a state inspector for long-term care facilities. Or, as my name badge will read, a Client Care Surveyor.
Even now, two days after getting the call, I can hardly believe it. I was so down on myself there for awhile that I couldn’t even imagine anything beyond my current station in life, which is what I’d call humble to say the least. And it’s not that I’m going to get a big head or anything, but it is so sweet to have attained this long-desired position at a time when I desperately needed objective affirmation that all my struggles in this profession have been worth it.
Now I’ll have the chance to bow out gracefully from clinical nursing and put all these years of experience to work for the vulnerable elderly and disabled citizens in nursing homes all over the state. You see, even as old and jaded as I am, I still have some idealism left, and in this position I’ll be monitoring the quality of care they receive, as well as enforcing state rules and regulations governing the delivery of that care. That’s right: I’ve gone over to the “dark side”. And God willing, I ain’t coming back. They’ve got cookies AND hot chocolate!
Now where were we? Oh yes, the Christmas tree. Being rather OCDish, I’m pretty particular about the way I put the lights and decorations on, and tonight I reached a level of annoyed that under certain circumstances would have made me positively apoplectic: I don’t have enough colored twinkle lights.
I’m SERIOUS. I have three big plastic boxes full of lights, and not one single strand of colored twinkle lights. To my dismay, several strands have gone to wherever dead Christmas lights go, and then I have colored lights by the score….but none of them twinkle, and I must have twinkle lights all over the tree, not just on 7/8ths of it. All I have on the very bottom of the tree are white lights, and none of them twinkle. This is, to say the least, totally unacceptable, so I can’t finish decorating the tree until I obtain another strand of colored twinkle lights!
There’s just one problem with jumping in the car and running down to Target for more: We have several inches of powder snow covering our looooooong, sloping driveway, and under that snow is about an inch of packed ice. It’s also about 18 degrees out and it’s not going to warm up until next week; and from everything I’ve heard today, the roads are all but impassable. I know for sure that the only vehicles going up or down our road have been 4-wheel-drive, and there have been maybe a half-dozen all day. In other words: nobody is going ANYWHERE.
So now I’ve got a Christmas tree that’s not decorated because I don’t have the proper number of lights, I can’t get out to buy more, and I can’t put the 10 boxes of decorations away that are cluttering up the dining room and driving me crazy. It’s a fine fix we’re in, and all because I refused to put the tree up the day after Thanksgiving like I have every other year but this one……and yeah, okay, because I’m anal-retentive about the lights. Craptastic!
bpnurse 