I suppose my life is in some sort of balance.  I am extremely unhappy with work, but other things are going really, really well. 
Let's start with the good stuff.  I am immensely lucky in love, I am healthy once again, and things are moving along in the journey to owning our very own little homestead. The sellers have agreed to fix or write us checks for the stuff that came up on the home inspection report, and we are so relieved.  Thus far, the house-buying process has been stressful, but it could have been worse.  Buying a 210 year old house is risky in a lot of ways, but so far there haven't been any horrendous surprises that have made us doubt our choice.  We are both so ready to walk into that house, take a deep breath, and say, "we're home".  Two weeks from tomorrow, it's going to happen!

The new chicks we ordered should be arriving right around Honeybunch's birthday in early April.  I can't wait to hear their tiny peeps... it's a sure sign of Spring.  All that's left of our little flock is Popcorn (Sexlink), Bambi (Araucana), Marie (Barred Rock) and Lady Jane (Black Cochin).  The other five birds in the backyard right now belong to Good Neighbor, who is adjusting to the idea of taking care of them all alone.  In our hatchery order, we are going for good egg production, but a bit of the exotic and colorful, too... so we ordered:

2 Black Australorp pullets
3 Araucana pullets
1 Araucana rooster
1 Buff Cochin pullet
1 Golden Polish pullet
4 Silver Laced Wyandotte pullets

...and McMurray threw in a "free exotic chick" of an unknown breed (I wonder if this post will be blocked on some people's computers because of that phrase!).  We met the minimum with Good Neighbor's order (Blue Andalusians, Buff Laced Polish, Light Brahma, White Capped Black Polish) and a couple for StitchyWitchy (Golden Polish and Barred Rock).  It is wonderful to see both my "real life" friends and neighbors as well as the many bloggers I read online preparing for the upcoming growing season.  It feels like we're all going into this together, scribbling our "To-Do" lists in some demonstration of solidarity and community as winter draws to a close.

As far as work goes... I'd honestly rather not think about it.  We aren't being provided with the staff or the supplies we need to give excellent nursing care, and we're constantly berated for not "raising our patient satisfaction survey scores".  The higher-ups don't seem to understand the direct cause and effect relationship between having unsafe numbers of patients per nurse (7 and 8 patients per nurse means chaos even if they aren't all terribly sick) and having unhappy patients and unhappy nurses.  I'm frustrated, angry, and looking for a new job.  I'm also sipping a margarita with my breakfast (dinner?) as I write, decompressing from last night's 12.5 hours of absolute frenzy as I scrambled to push meds, complete paperwork, clean up feces, and effectively care for my patients' many complex needs.  It takes a lot to ruffle my feathers... I'm usually a very steady hand when it comes to high-stress situations... and last night I was nearly in tears.

I'm going to choose to think about baby chicks, honeybees, and what colors we might paint our new bedroom... goodnight/morning everyone.