Birthday month update

36. Hm. I don't feel one way or another about it. I think the next few will be harder as I creep towards 40. I spent the weekend with my friends that are all two years older than me. We compared hands. In two years, my hands will begin to look older. I compared my hands to my oldest sister who is 10 years older than me. We also looked at her aging neck and chest. When her oobies come together, there's a wrinkle pit. So, yuck. I'm not going to fight it, but I'm not going to be pleased about it, either. 2012 was an ok year. Chris and I are doing well. We have fun together and have worked out some communications issues. He's dealing with his anxiety issues better, and I'm learning how to prevent a full blown anxiety attack if it is anything I can help control. I felt slightly "emotionally numb" last year. Feelings almost took too much work and I sometimes half-listened to things coming out of people's mouths because I sincerely didn't care. I'm trying to crawl out of that in 2013 and pay more attention, feel more. Career decisions are looming for me. I work as a long term care researcher and program manager at a major university, but it's not where I want to be forever. My boss will retire in the next 5-8 years, I think. I would like to embark on something new when she's getting ready to slow things down here (a lot of faculty sloooowly retire in the last few years, which means less work for me to do). So, I'm going to study to become a nursing home administrator. I've worked with nursing homes for the last ten years, so it's a good fit for me. The first step for me (which isn't required, but will help with my current and future jobs) is to become a CNA, even though I never plan to work as one (aside from my required clinical time to become licensed). I'm traveling a lot for work now, so it wouldn't be until fall. I'm still trying to decide on the best course of action for studying to become a nursing home administrator. I'm looking at certificate programs since I already have my BS and MS in other fields. I then have to figure out how to get 1,000 of on-the-job-training in, but I'll have time to figure that out, and the industry has been creative with helping candidates get the required number of hours. On other fronts, I want to bike more this summer.