.stay at home wife.

It is a luxury to be able to stay at home, for sure.  However, I think that there are other people who would probably be better at it than I am.  Something happens to me when I am at home alone for days on end, I wind up spending way too much time on the couch.  I believe the scientific name for the process is "lazification."  This is, of course, in addition to fact that the more time I spend living with just myself the bleaker things around me look.

This is all to say that although I appreciate the fact that Leif has a job that pays well enough for me to take my time in finding a job (although this grace period can only last until December, when my loans are up for repayment), I miss working.  I miss seeing patients.  I miss waking up in the morning and having a purpose to my day that doesn't involve checking my Google Reader a dozen times or organizing spreadsheets for our vacation.  I miss the satisfaction I get from focusing on someone else's problems and working toward finding a solution for them.

Of course, for all the things I miss about working I can't say that I miss the anxiety that comes with the responsibility of handling someone's health.  That is no small thing for me.  In fact, I would go so far as to say that the responsibility I feel when taking care of patients is a huge defining factor of who I am.  My job will never be one that I don't carry home with me every night.

Right now I am in the process of obtaining my license to practice, which, after all the hoops I've had to jump through to get my degree because of my pregnancy (they were seriously going to make me wait an entire year to graduate because I missed a one-day seminar when I was in the hospital getting cardiac medication in the attempt to slow George's heart rate down...one day I will write a post about that nightmare), is surprisingly straightforward.  It does, however, take a few weeks to go through so my hope is that by the time we get back from Honduras I will have my license in my hot little hand and I can start the journey toward finding a job that suits me.  That is a process that I am not looking forward to, simply because I've learned that it will take some hard work and a lot of patience to find a job that is the perfect fit (if there even is such a thing).  And I simply will not compromise on that, considering how much time I will be spending at work the first year of my practice.

No matter how much I dislike the lazy, self-pitying person I am when I am not working I know that in the not too distant future I will look at this time with, not fondness that is for sure, but something akin to wistfulness.

By far and away the best part of having so much free time are my lunch dates, like the one I had today, with the apple of my eye.