Breaking the Surface

Ok, so my ear is finally on the mend and I’m starting to feel like I’m functional again. I feel like I've been underwater and I'm breaking the surface. I know it sounds crazy that something as simple as fluid in the ear can be so debilitating, but it was. It was so distracting to not be able to hear that I didn’t want to go anywhere or do anything. It’s difficult to carry on a conversation with someone when you hear your own voice so clearly in your head. It’s sort of like when you hear yourself on the answering machine and say, “Do I REALLY sound like that?” It’s also difficult to focus on what someone else is saying when you hear everything in stereo. So if you have talked to me in the past month and it seemed like I wasn’t really paying attention. I wasn’t. Just so we are clear.
In the meantime, I’ve got some catching up to do.
During the past few weeks I did get one major thing accomplished. I completed my CNA (Certified Nursing Assistant) Class. Now I just have to study like crazy and take the state test in a couple of weeks. In case you are wondering what in the hell I’m doing taking a CNA class, let me enlighten you. I’ve decided to go back to school for nursing. Some of you will be astounded by this, being that I have such a cool career as a graphic designer going for me. However, it’s not so cool to watch your field dry up before your very eyes as soon as someone even thinks the word recession. Plus, now that the online templates and design programs have become “idiot proof” the mainstream of start up companies that utilized graphic designers to get their corporate presence situated are now doing it themselves. Not to mention websites that offer design bids, where the average joe can get a logo for $50.00. Why don’t I hop on one of these websites and get some work there you might ask? Because in the end you are still competing with people in other countries, (you know, the countries that hold our talk centers), that will do the design for a quarter of the price I would charge. I’m just not willing to do the work if I’m only making $5.00 an hour. But I digress.
When Jorma was unemployed two years ago, I realized one thing. If had a degree in nursing I could have walked out the door and gotten a full time job with benefits. Hell, I probably could have gotten a full time job AND a part time job, just to glue us together until he found something else. Instead I searched for six months before finally landing a fantastic design gig with a company that I still do side work for. But now that he’s working and I’m not, I know one thing for sure. If he gets laid off… we are screwed. So, I’m going to step up to the plate.
Now, please don’t make the mistake of thinking that when I say I’m stepping up to the plate it means that currently I’m lying on the sofa eating bon bons all day while the children play quietly in the corner. I stay pretty busy. Managing the house, the kids, the laundry, (OMG the laundry), going to the gym and working part time is more than a full time job in itself. So much so that when I was working a temp part time design gig last fall I savored each Friday because I could go and pee without a child in the bathroom with me. And lunch with the girls. In a restaurant. A restaurant that doesn’t have a giant mouse for a mascot! Oh the glory.So, I'm going back to school. I'm not quite sure what I'm going to do with the kids when I get into nursing school, since it's a full time gig. But I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.
Until then, I've got some studying to do... and some laundry. Always the laundry.