To Stress or Not to Stress

Can you be stressed due to lack of stress? I think I can! That may be strange...but for a nurse's personality...maybe not?  If you know me, you know my job in Dallas was a very high stress, high acuity, extremely busy job. That job was extremely stressful. It literally exhausted me physically, emotionally, and mentally on a regular basis. And I loved it. I had a passion for it. I even enjoyed getting up at ungodly hours to do that job. I miss my transplant families every day and how wonderful they are. My new job? Not stressful. In fact, not stressful at all. I wouldn't say it's boring. There's plenty to do. It's just not life or death, difficult things to do. It's prior auths and refills. It's borderline easy. And I'm being paid more to do it! So why am I feeling stressed? Why am I complaining? Well...because I'm a sinner saved by grace for one. I should be thankful to have this job. And I am. But also in light of this situation, I have recently decided I might need stress to not be stressed. I think I thrive on busy, critical, mentally challenging situations. And not having them is stressful! I mean, I'm have acne like never before, and little things that shouldn't bother me lately totally do! Weird as it sounds, I feel like many fellow nurses will understand me.  And I maintain that it's ok to have that personality. The world needs us...right?

So what do I do to destress from my lack of stress? My new favorite Denver obsession. Look at houses - and dream about living in them. This city is full of old, historic, amazing houses full of character. Other than Cherry Creek, most of Denver proper is old, restored houses.  My neighborhood alone has tons of them. Every single house looks different, and most of them were built in the 1900-1920s and have been restored and redone on the inside.  Our house is that way, and although I could do without it's original front porch and window awnings, I love it's character. Our neighborhood is quite funny actually. All of the Highlands seems to be this way. On our street, you will either find young 20-30 somethings who are married and/or single with young kids, and old, retired 70-80 somethings who have lived in the same house since the 1940s or something. Our next door neighbor, Don, who is the neighborhood watchdog and informant, has lived there since 1960 and our neighbor Shirley, 1945.

So this is my new destresser. Every day after work, when I'm stressing about how unstressed I am, I take a different exit in my area and drive through the neighborhood streets on my way home, looking at houses. If I see one for sale, I look it up online when I get home, and drool over how much character it has and how pretty it is on the inside too. I have even gotten Grant in on it. A couple times a week we walk to Berkeley Park, take Sage on an excursion to the dog park, and let her "hunt" around the lake. Berkeley lake is full of big reeds and brush, and it's hilarious to watch her hunt for birds as we walk along the path, dodging bikers and baby joggers. She really thinks she's on a hunt, and behaves beautifully! She doesn't even notice the other dogs and/or small children, which is usually a challenge. After our lake time, we then take a different street back each day and dream of which house we would want to buy. My favorites? The old brick house on Tennyson, which much to my dismay, sold this week. The two story yellow house on Winona that looks like a barn, and the green house on Stuart with the big red door and screened in porch. I'll have to take pictures and post them for fellow house lovers to ooh and awe over at some point. I'm not sure if this new obsession is a diversion from baby fever, since so many friends have recently had babies (congrats to Annie and Jono, Luis and Regina, and Caitlin and James on your little ones!). Or maybe it's just my new therapy thing, but I LOVE house hunting. Obviously we won't be buying a house any time soon. We just moved to Denver, started new jobs, bought a car, and are about to pay for school. Plus, the houses in this neighborhood average 400,000. But hey...a girl can dream right? Or at least destress from having no stress. :)

Here's some photos of today's Berkeley walk....

At the dog park!

Sage is a frequent in the lake. But right now the water is too cold 

so she instead stands at the edge and whines. 

Sager on her "hunt".