To contract or not contract; that is the question

Well I'm glad that's over with! The interview went extremely well (if you can even call it an interview anyways). With nursing agencies, you can basically show up in sweatpants because all they look at are your qualifications and drool over the fresh meat they can send out. They first thing that made me happy was when they handed me a stack of timesheets and said, "and you don't need a physical." Sweet! Then they said, "but you will need a drug screen." Shit! lol As you probably remember back in July when I took my drug screen for this past job, some of the medications I take made it come back positive for marijuana! Yeah, I know--ME. Ha! But anyways, it was a huge ordeal and I almost didn't get the job because of it. So, this time I go in all prepared to give them my list of medications and they say, "No. We don't take them. If there's anything wrong and your employer has a question, they can address it with you." *blink, blink* Um, okay.

So, now I sit waiting for my drugscreen and my background check to come back. They tried really hard to convince me to take a contract at one of the downtown hospitals not too far from my house. I OCD-needs-security-in-her-life freak wants the contract part, but the bitter and cynical afraid of commitment person inside of me doesn't want to be locked into ANYTHING for 13 weeks right now. Especially not through the holidays and the snow. Oh well, in the week or so that it will take to get these results back maybe I will be more settled one way or the other.
They said they also have a few other contracts at other hospitals that are a little longer drive and they as far as per diem, they don't have much but what they do have is at the major heart hospital downtown and it's for a strong cardiac nurse--which is what I am. I think I'm going to go in this last direction for a few months and see what happens.

As far as the pay, it's not horrible by any means but agency pay sure has come DOWN in a big way. When I worked agency several years ago I made anywhere from $37-52/hour and now they're all in the mid 30's. Still nothing to sneeze at, but I wish it was like it used to be!
Well, at this point any money is good money I suppose.