Thankful

I know, Thanksgiving is over, but I just wanted to blog about the past few weeks of my life, and this seemed like an appropriate title. I'm taking a break from my usual light-hearted tone of my blog, so bear with me for a few paragraphs...
The past few weeks there have been a lot of changes at work. Because our patient census in the ED has been down over the past 8 months or so, the nursing staff had to do a rebid. What's a rebid, you ask? Basically, what happened was they wiped the slate totally clean and restructered all the shifts and start times to better fit the daily patterns and census of the department. In this situation, that meant fewer day shifts and more part time positions. New shifts are awarded based on seniority, so, every 10 minutes, every nurse goes in behind closed doors and selects the shift they want based on what is left; basically, what the more senior people haven't taken before you. I was really bummed about this, seeing as how I'd only been on days since April before all these changes started happening, and I was pretty far down on the seniority list.
Blessing #1: by the time I went in, I was able to secure the last 2pm-2am slot-the next shift down was a 5p-3a. This was good for me, in that I was able to keep a full time position in the department, and it wasn't full on night shift. The bad was this: as a full time employee, I am required to work every other weekend.
As background, I knew when I went to days, this might be a problem, mostly with church, but the shift I got on days was a major blessing, in that I worked a split weekend (worked Sunday, Friday, Saturday in a week) and did not have to work any other weekend. I only had to miss church once/month (when I was on nights, I worked every other weekend, but I could get out of bed to attend church). Being able to attend church is extremely important for me, and I try to work as few Sundays as possible, but in the medical field, there is not much you can do about working Sundays-you can't tell people to not get sick just because it's the weekend. Anyway, because of the rebid, the weekends are hardlocked into the system, meaning I knew I'd be working every other Sunday. I began thinking I might need to pursue other career options, because I did not want to do this. Each shift has a group who covers the other days of the shifts: so in my group, there are 2 people that come in to work every day at 2 PM. Between the 6 of us, we had to figure out a schedule rotation that would work in our lives and cover the needs of the schedule. As my coworkers can attest to, this was a hideous task to undertake, as one of the members of my group was less than willing to be flexible in her days she would work. At one point, she was offered a shift with absolutely no weekends, and she still turned it down (what?! who does that?!)  because it didn't work with her family needs. To make an even longer story shorter, and to get to the point of my "being thankful", one of my group members who works part time actually *wanted* to work every other weekend because she is going to NP (nurse practitioner) school. She took one of my weekends and so it's worked out for me to only work 1 weekend/month with my new schedule as a FT employee. I can't tell you the gratitude and sense of peace this gives me so that I can go to church more than 50% of the time. Mostly because, this just does not happen-full time employees are expected to work every other weekend-it's just how it is. To have my shifts work out that way twice is amazing (that I was able to do it with my old shift, and now again with my new shift). I also only will be working 1 Saturday/month, so I can have some semblance of a social life. I also don't work any Mondays, so I can attend FHE every week. My heart is full, and I'm so thankful for prayer and for God's hand in my life. Although I am sad to lose the current shift I have and am bummed to be working swing shift, I can't complain because I think things have worked out as well as they can. For as difficult as it was during those few days this past week for my group to figure out a schedule we would all be OK with, I am so thankful for the way things worked out. And so, January 8th I begin my new shift and schedule. Sorry for the long story. If you didn't read it, I understand. This was mostly for me, anyway.
So, let's round out this post with a few other things to be thankful for. As always, I'm thankful for family-I'm pretty sure I have the best family around-I love ALL my siblings so much, and I'm so glad we all get along so well. They're my best friends. Love all my in-laws, too. They're all great, and glad I can get along with all of them so well, also. And my neices and nephews are awesome, and I can't wait for the 3 new ones to come and join in on the fun!
I'm thankful for friends, old and new. So glad I've been able to stay in touch with my college friends-and even though most of them are married, I still get to have fun with them when I visit! I'm also thankful for my roommate, Sarah, and my new friends in my ward. Earlier this year, I switched wards from the Bellevue ward to the Sammamish Valley ward, and I'm glad I did. I feel very much a part of the ward, and I have some great friendships I've developed-I hope we'll remain friends for a long time.
I'm thankful for the priesthood, and I'm thankful for all the May and November issues of the Ensign.
I'm thankful for my parents. They're amazing, and have been my greatest role models.

There are so many more things that I'm thankful for, but that could get boring for you all to read, so I'll stop here! Props to you if you've read this whole post. Happy Holidays!