Tonight I am thankful for:

1. a healthy little girl lying so sweetly asleep next to me.
2. all the new friends I believe God has placed in my life at just the right time when I needed them the most.
3. the opportunities to meet up with a couple of these new friends and get some scheduled walking done every week!
4. a new baby coming in our family.
5. a husband willing to work so hard for us - he's been putting in some long hours.
6. the chance to learn and stretch the old comfort zone.
7. hopefully a chance to connect with an older (one I've had longer- not old! well older than me...snicker...) friend once a week or so.
8. family that is so good to help me with Anna and getting her to school and picking her up from school and watching her so I can study...or sometimes just so I can remain sane. (I think we all know that line is almost crossed daily).
9. good memories
10. that it's time to go to sleep :)

good night!

Just checking in

Clinical week 2 was uneventful. Had a wonderful patient. Orthopedics is a nice floor- everyone is mostly well, mostly going home soon, and mostly cheerful. :) Got to change another dressing, do some discharge work, give some meds and not much else. Ah well... there's always next week! I sure love working with the patients though. I can't wait to get some time at the nursing home. I like the nicely aged adults- esp the crazy ones! Adam is horrified by my desire to work with older adults. Well, I guess really, he's just horrified at the thought of any and all nursing activities.

Anna's doing fabulously in school. She can't wait to go every morning. I get to read to her class next Wednesday. I worked for the school this weekend and did an impromptu garage sale. Got to spend some time with the head of the school so that was fun. I think I've heard that the kids call her "Dumbledore". The school does have gigantic wooden front doors. :) My kind of school!

Anna and I are both very much anticipating the arrival of her cousin. She just can't understand why its taking so long for that baby to get here! She told me the other day that Aunt Stacey needed to have 13 babies. I texted Stacey about that and her only reply was "well...that seems a little excessive...."   :) I think Aunt Stacey is going to regret (well perhaps I should say that I'm going to regret.....) the fact that she asked Anna what she should name the baby. We've had names like Morty, Max (not that I don't love the name Max cause I do in fact think it's an adorable name- its just that when Anna says Max she would be naming it after Goofy's son....) and other equally funny names that I can't currently recall. I'm about 99% sure Anna actually thinks that she gets to name the baby....

My dog and cat are driving me out of my mind. The cat got out the other day and I made the mistake of looking for her... cause we found her and since then she's peed on something of mine like 5 times even though her litterbox is perfectly clean. Molly still treats my house like her personal toilet.... I really don't know what the heck is wrong with that dog. ARGH!

I am completely behind on my homework due to the whole "having balance in my life" crap. No just kidding. Kind've. No seriously - balance is good. Great even. It just makes me a little crazy in the head to have so many things sitting around needing done. Balance.... balance....

I'm attempting to learn to cook at the ripe old age of ...how old am I? 33? I think? I'm tired so shut up. I've never been much of a chef- I like to bake but only if there is a clear recipe. So I figured I'd tackle the fine art of cooking without a set in stone recipe. It's been interesting.... I rather hate screwing things up so that's been great for the self-confidence.

Did I already mention that I have a lot to do? Tomorrow and the next day and the day after that. Good times.

Clinicals..... for real this week

Last week was what I would consider my first "real" clinical experience. I had a wonderful wonderful patient- I wanted to keep her! She is exactly in my favorite age group (around the 60-80 age), in for a simple surgery, and CHATTY!! Seriously- best patient ever for my very first one. Last semester I felt like I learned very little on the actual floor- this week I felt like I learned LOADS in two short days. Nothing terribly exciting- but still exciting for me! I got to pull her IV- I felt like I was pulling her skin away with the bandage. Those just come right off the dummy arms at school but man this one stuck onto her like a layer of skin. Plus it was sticking to my gloves...geez. Note to self- use tighter gloves next time! I got to admin her oral meds- so nothing super hard there but still great experience. Got to do my first ever dressing change! woo hoo! The things that get me excited these days- sad. :) We also did all the documenting- man that system is like some crazy other world of data that you have to go blindly fishing through to find the exact right spot and hopefully the exact right words. Of course, hopefully in a few weeks of using it, I'll be flying through there like its the easiest thing in the world. I can see how I'll just love it in the future. Maybe you all didn't know this about me but I sometimes, kind've, a little bit, like paperwork and lists and over analyzing everything to find exactly the right description. Nah, I don't think anyone knows that about me- I keep my crazy pretty well hidden. The clinical paperwork I turned in this weekend took me at least 4 hours to complete. All told, between the actual clinicals, paperwork, homework, and lack of the ability to go to sleep, I'm feeling quite tired. I have a test tomorrow that I haven't studied for much. In my (hopefully)admirable attempt to be more balanced, I think I have put everything off a little too long. Yikes. Guess we'll see how badly that bites me tomorrow at about 8:30am. I'm definitely starting to feel the sacrifices that have to be made to "do" nursing school at this age and where I am in life. Last semester was such a whirlwind. Now I'm looking up and starting to wonder where some things went and how and why exactly they're gone. I can't say I really blame nursing school entirely for the losses, more for the concealment of the loss as my attention was focused elsewhere. Ugh, sometimes rebuilding sucks! I am however, very happy with some of the new friendships taking shape as I get further in and am thrown together with different people. I think the stress of the program tends to foster relationship growth as we lean on each other for support that can be hard to get from people outside of what we are doing. I have made some friendships that I hope to keep for life.

Life at 6:06 pm on Sept 8, 2010 outside my house

We are enjoying the outdoors right now. It is so nice out! Maybe most wouldn't agree with me because it's rather gray and cloudy. But it's also cool and the wind is blowing just a little bit. I'm sitting in a nice comfy chair in my nice clean garage (seriously- thanks Adam for helping me with that - it gives me great peace of mind). I'm watching my daughter play happily with her bike and scooter and chalk and the various outdoor things she can find to enhance her imaginations- you know, grass, berries, walnuts and the like. Last I paid attention she was pretending to be an Indian and putting out house fires - maybe we should review how most of the Indians lived? :) Mollydog is on her leash and we discovered she is small enough to throw her leash over a metal shepherd's hook so we can enjoy her company and she can get some playtime without anyone having to hold her or chase her. I just finished another test in my correspondence class and scheduled another. I have 3 emails to myself as reminders of things I need to do or remember for tomorrow or the next day. Adam is on his way home. I have my laptop and a few minutes to mess around on my farm and my frontier and my island. :) I have a nice accomplished feeling from finishing (another) a pot of soup a few hours ago and getting it all divided up and in the freezer for easy dinners in the coming weeks. It was cooked to perfection. Yum! I'm sitting here thinking about my first patient of the semester and everything I need to do to prepare for tomorrow. Clinical prep sheet, getting all my equipment together, reviewing drug cards, reviewing skills, and perhaps redoing a few cards as well. Anna just brought over several pieces of "wheat" aka our tall grass in our landscaping that I hate. Molly is shredding the pieces she discarded. I can hear a cricket chirping and the leaves rustling and Anna calling to me that she's "right here Mom!" Adam just drove in and "ground up" Anna's wheat by driving over it. :) I guess it's time to sign off.

Catch up blog

Anna is sitting/laying on about half of me right now so I'm having an interesting time typing this. I have to keep my head at just the right angle so her head will stay up and I can't really see my left hand at all because her entire body is on top of it. She climbed up here saying she "just wanted to be with me" and then promptly fell asleep. Everyone said preschool would wear her out- she's so stubborn she won't lay down for an actual nap (she outlasts me every time) but if you make her comfortable enough and refuse to let her watch any tv (we are having tv cutbacks around here and she is NOT happy with me) then she'll sometimes actually go to sleep.

We've been busy girls with school for both of us. She is doing GREAT- loves her class, the teachers, "run around class" (PE), and all her new friends. She has a boy as a best friend right now and daddy has been unable to convince her to switch to a girl best friend. She insisted that she was going to love him forever and there was nothing daddy could do about it. It was like watching a conversation about 12 years in our future!

School for me has been uneventful so far. I've just had orientations mostly so far- only two regular class periods so far. At least this semester we seem to be learning interesting information. I've already learned a ton of things just from orientations alone. The hospital has some really cool new IV pumps that we had to learn to use. They also have a machine on the pumps that can measure the patients carbon dioxide output so you can tell whether the pain medication are depressing their respiration too far.  I'm on a better floor this semester too- ortho and med/surg so I should be able to see some post-surgical patients. I actually start seeing the patients this Thursday. They are really throwing us in to sink or swim- we are actually THE nurse for patients this semester. I keep thinking that seems like such a BAD idea! I have to keep someone alive for an entire 6 hours by myself? I just don't know about that at all. I think they think I know more than I do.... maybe my cousin will read this and send me some advice on how to keep people alive!

Here's some pictures from the last month or so.

Showing off her animal posters we worked on all summer. We still have mammals, fish, and bugs left to do. She LOVED these projects- we devoted whole weeks to the animal type- reading books, coloring pictures, making these posters, learning facts about them, etc. The posters are tacked up in her playroom- doesn't do a lot for the room but she likes it. 

 Anna got ahold of my camera one day and took about 30 pictures before I realized what she was doing. She arranged a bunch of her favorite toys and took their pictures. This is Goofy and Mickey- two of her favorite "boys".

We couldn't find any cute folders for her school so we picked out plain ones then put huge butterfly stickers on over them. 

I

  I put a heart and the time I'll see Anna after school most days before she leaves for school so if she gets lonely for me she can look down and see the heart and remember that I love her. 

 Trying to get a good picture the first day of school. I adore this dress. 

Preschool girl with all her school stuff

Being silly before school one morning

Candy Art we made one day this summer- this is a flower made out of m&m's, a gummy worm, a gummy lifesaver, icing, and a graham cracker. Anna loves to do special projects like this- we also recently made dirt cake with a bunch of gummy animals in it. We went to Mr Bulky's and especially picked out certain gummies - a big old spider, a snake, worms, dinosaurs, and frogs. 

Anna and her cousin Ande riding the tea cups. 

Her special first day of school books. 

With daddy one morning before school.