Back in School!

At long last, we are emerging from the fog of the 2014-15 school year. It has been exhausting. I'm in no way ready to plunge back in, and somehow the summer has ended up giving us only about four weeks off. I don't know how some people stay in this career for forty years.

The good news is that I. has been able to venture forth into greener pastures! Back in the winter, he applied to nursing school at a nearby university, and he was admitted into an accelerated program. Because it's accelerated, he not only had no time to recuperate from the school year, but he actually spent the first week of nursing school writing finals (and having them administered) for his middle school students. He is thrilled to be on the way to a medical career after many years of wishing and hoping for just such an opportunity.

Here's I. on one of our early trips to get to know the campus:

We took this in front of what we then thought was the nursing building (we were wrong). Oh, well! School started in mid-May, so he has now been in the program for about a month. He comes home often and regales me with new facts about bowel movements and germs.

We've also moved about 30 minutes from our old house, in order to split the commute more evenly. We now live in a house that is twice the size of our old one, and are enjoying the fact that for the first time in our marriage, we don't share walls, floors, or ceilings with any neighbors. Our new home has three bedrooms (really one bedroom and two libraries), a luxurious bathroom (it is actually larger than our bedroom on the last house) and a separate garage. We are blessed! We also now live downtown in one of my favourite small towns in Tennessee, within easy walking distance of the public library and a Christian coffee shop. I. has taken up gardening, and I am desperately trying to get unpacked and ahead on meals before the school year kicks me into my endless cycle of exhaustion again. In the meantime, we've been sleeping in until 5 on weekdays and 7 on weekends, which feels like the height of luxury.