9 Days Left in Massachusetts!

Picture was taken in one of my favorite cities: Alexandria, VA

Good morning (or evening for me)! It's currently 5:30am and I'm writing from my apartment in Mass. I'm a night shifter, so these are my prime hours. I figured I'd write here since I left the blog on a "what are we going to do!?" cliffhanger last week.

We are definitely leaving Massachusetts early. Trevor's last shift is tomorrow night, and mine will be sometime next week. Last week we received the news that Trevor's contract was getting canceled 5 weeks early. That obviously threw a wrench in our plans because we hadn't really been thinking about what we were doing after this assignment. At first we were mad that we had to leave.. after all, we were kind of counting on those paychecks. These are our full time jobs and unfortunately, we don't have a large amount of money in our savings account. After we received the news, we knew we had to act fast on what we were planning on doing next. We both started applying for jobs, canceling our trips and obligations that we had up here, and started getting excited about coming home.

Low and behold, another annoying plot twist happened. After about 4-5 days of changing our mindset, our obligations, and furiously job searching, our agency told us that the hospital agreed to let Trevor stay until the end of October. Now we were upset and frustrated. After the initial shock of "oh my god we are losing our jobs and gotta find new ones ASAP," we finally settled into the idea that we were finally coming home and we were excited about being in our house again, seeing our family & friends, etc. After this news, our agency started being a pain in the ass to us saying that there was no way we could get out of our apartment lease, threatening us that if we left we would have to pay a $4000 fine, and basically not having our back even though they told us only mere days before that the cancelation was non-negotiable. You can imagine how frustrating and upsetting this was. All we wanted now was to get out of this shitty town and FINALLY come home, because in all honesty this assignment just plain sucked. I was so upset with our agency and recruiter, and this just put a bad taste to travel nursing in my mouth. (Don't worry, we made negotiations with our company and we actually are leaving next week without any penalties.)

I'm at the stage of life where I'm a newlywed and we have a house back home that we have barely lived in. After moving in last February, we left 6 months later to pursue traveling and really haven't had time to truly enjoy our house. I want to be home for the holidays, decorate for Christmas, settle into a routine, and be around my family more. I want to actually be able to use my new dishes, silverware, and other wedding gifts we received a couple months ago. This stressful situation we've been in regarding our jobs and our travel agency has only accentuated the fact that I just want to be home. I'm tired of "living out of a suitcase" so to speak.

We currently aren't sure what's going to happen next. I've applied to several jobs back home and I'm hoping to hear some good news about one of them soon. Trevor wants to continue traveling so if I do get a permanent job back home, he is going to continue to travel around PA and take assignments only a few hours from home. But who knows. If I don't hear anything from the jobs I applied for, we most likely will be back on the road. Only time will tell. Even if I do take a permanent job, that doesn't mean I can't pursue traveling again in the future. If you know me, you know that i'm the most indecisive person on the planet.

In an attempt to really soak in the most of New England as possible before we leave, Trevor and I are doing a mini road trip this weekend! The plans aren't definite yet, but I think they will include Rhode Island, Boston, a Red Sox game, the Freedom Trail, Portland Maine, and Acadia National Park. I'm excited to finally see more of the area! Stay tuned.