I think my room exploded

I've always had some trouble keeping the household organization level high during nursing school. You'd think with so little space to keep clean that I'd be doing a better job this semester. But alas, I am not. Our little apartment looks like Anna's toys, my school supplies, clothing, and some random weird things that just never found a home here all got together while their parents were out of town and had a wild party. And the closet holding all my "someday I'll want this" stuff has overflowed all the shelves and Anna can't get to her books. Don't even get ask about her room. Mom won't hardly even go in there anymore. ;) This mess is driving me crazy!!! And it tips my mood from good to evil. I am at a loss to explain how things get so freaking messy in the space of a week! I'm hitting some garage sales the next few weekends to see if I can find some good storage solutions and see if I can find a better way to keep things at least shut away from my eyes. Wish me luck as I wade into the piles and try to make some sense out of things. I might not come out with my sanity.

Nursing school instructors are funny

"Tell your patients not to take their nitro tablets with erectile dysfunction drugs because the blood pressure will drop and then its hard to get it up"

hahahahaha! listen... nursing school is stressful- you take your laughs when you can get them!

Rainbows

I'm sitting here at my desk thinking that I need to get organized so that the second half of my day is as productive as the first half. As I went to grab my little "to do" pad of paper that I keep handy I happened to grab a stack of notecards Anna had drawn on and then given to me. (she loves to use my school supplies to do her "work"). All five of them are pictures of her interpretations of rainbows. One with trees, one with skinny lines and the exact rainbow colors, two with great big thick lines of all different shades of rainbow colors drawn horizontally across the page, and another one with skinny lines with all sorts of different shades of rainbow colors and the colors are backwards. I love my little girl. She is my rainbow. She is the reminder after the dark and scary storm and sometimes the reminder while the rain is still gently falling but the sky is getting lighter and then sun is starting to shine through again. My rainbow is sometimes exactly right, sometimes crazy, sometimes just all turned upsides down! But she is always colorful, always popping up in smiles even after her own storms of sadness. She colors my world with happiness and purpose and love. She is what makes everything in life worth it.

Balanced comments

First week of 4th semester clinicals done!!! I had a good day yesterday. Enjoyed my time on the floor, like my new instructors. Slightly overwhelmed by everything that has to occur in the next 16 weeks....but that's ok! I'll get through it. I was called out on oh so wonderful facebook by my Uncle who apparently feels that I post too many negative things about how tired I am.....  which was hurtful to me because I actually make a huge effort every day to get up and keep going and smile as much as I can and complain as little as I can. I have tried really hard to stay as positive as I can and keep my complaining to a minimum and realize how blessed I am with family and a healthy little girl, etc and how much worse everything could be. I feel like I've really learned how much difference changing how you look at things and what you choose to dwell on can actually truly change how you feel about things. I don't always succeed at that and I've been particularly tired the last few weeks with ups and downs and lots of schoolwork coming up, so perhaps I did post one too many "tired and overwhelmed" statements on facebook. I've deleted them if that makes a difference. However, in my defense, I will also tell you that one of my co-students in my clinical group said something really nice to me yesterday that was great to hear. We were all asked by our clinical instructor to give a brief summary of what is going on in our lives at the current moment so she has an idea of how best to help us this semester in clinicals so I gave a very brief overview of what all has gone on this summer (Very brief as its awkward to talk about) and I tried to emphasize all the positives like great family, etc. Later on that day, this nice, good looking, young guy that I was in a computer class with at the very beginning (he's the one that had me laughing absolutely hysterically one day because we were learning how to use the computer system at the hospital and I look over at him and he has changed the font on his computer to take up almost the whole screen) told me later that he thought I was a really strong person to be dealing with so much and still handling school and a kid and looking for jobs, etc and that most people would be falling apart in my situation. Which, while I don't particularly feel all that strong... was really nice to hear. So, anyway, lesson learned- time to use facebook a little more wisely. And now, perhaps I should be working on a little of my definitely not hard or overwhelming school work. :)

Back to the Future

I finally sat down to do my prep questions for tomorrow. I got an immediate feeling of relief... like oh, good... back to something I can control and understand and that holds no sadness or loss for me. Back to a steady schedule- I know where to be and when to be there and can methodically do the work without having to analyze every aspect of what I said and what I heard and what it all meant and what it all means to my life! I'm so tired of the stress and worry and crashes to the ground. I HATE not having the slightest clue what comes next. It is so not my personality. At least this I feel like I can work hard at it and get somewhere! I just want to feel like I can rest my brain a little bit. Which seems crazy to say seeing as how I'm starting 4th semester of nursing school and brain rest is nowhere in the syllabus. But it's a different kind of stress and thinking so maybe it'll distract from the emotional. Man, I really try not to be too much of a downer on here but I'm just down today. Feeling unwanted and lost and uncomfortable and unsure of myself. Blah.

Just a whine

I feel like whining.... and maybe burying my face in a pillow and screaming. Just thought I'd share that.

uh oh

I am suffering from a startling lack of motivation... I've lost most of my fear of clinicals (don't worry - that will come back day 1 when I realize how much more they expect of us this semester). And I lost my fear of the classwork after second semester. So I am completely unmotivated to print and organize the thousands of papers waiting on me. Actually, my lack of motivation started when I opened up my class folder and saw that even though I have already opened and printed everything that was available earlier this week, I still have about the same amount to do before Monday.
And I am completely unmotivated to clean up our spaces. I did go through Anna's clothes and moved things around and started to clean out the clothes that are too small but I quit that about halfway through when I saw the growing pile of clothes and realized I was going to have to figure out what to do with them all... Right now, I'm staring at a desk that is actually mostly clean, but has a few things like a school hoodie for my SNA board I'm on and Anna's monarch hat thing she made last night and a small stack of papers, etc. Anna's room is picked up which is great but it needs organized so BAD!!! I think this might call for a general quick sweep through pick up so I can get away from the horrible "what a mess" feeling. Then I'll make myself feel all organized by making a new list that includes everything else that needs done. ;) And now that I've announced to the world what a pathetic lazy I am today, I think I'll sign off.

Where rainbows never die

I always told Adam he had a beautiful singing voice...he never believed me til now of course....

give this song a listen- he really does sound fantastic. That's Rhett- the lead singer of Adam's band playing with him.

I love the words to this song too.

Oh the insanity

Life has continued its interesting path- never gets boring here ;) I wink and laugh so I don't throw myself on the floor and throw a downright tantrum! Wouldn't that be a funny sight? Life seems to knock me down the second I get myself standing up and steady so maybe I'll just stay on the floor this time.

Anna started school on Wednesday- it kinda snuck up on me and I was a terrible mother and didn't make a huge deal of it. We did take pictures and went and got her Daddy so he could be with her as well, but I normally would've done something super special. I suck, yes? I can only plead this crazy summer and bad news the weekend then also the day right before school started. One of these days I will learn how to excel under bad news instead of just getting through it. Actually, scratch that- let's just have no more bad news for the rest of my life. That suits me much better. I'll post pictures of my beautiful kindergartner later when I stop being busy and get them downloaded. So.... maybe around December after I take my NCLEX.

Yes, that's right, 4th semester is officially upon me. Due to said bad news affecting my ability to remember stupid rounding rules and that trailing zeros are apparently the devil, I have to retake my da*n math test tomorrow. I cannot even express to you my irritation over this fact. At least both my skills went just fine. Even though I did complete one with tears streaming down my face... good times. I will say that I have the best instructors. The one testing me said I could take it later which I declined then prayed with me after. Nice nice people. I will be sad to be out from under their care. My 4th semester instructors also seem very nice so I am really looking forward to getting started.

Let's see... what else? Oh Anna told us all yesterday that she prayed that a boy in her class would disappear... then when we all gasped in dismay, she quickly assured us that it was ok because she prayed really softly.

Adam is beginning to follow his dream of playing music for a living. I don't really know where he and I are at... complicated times are these. He has what sounds like a really really awesome opportunity coming up in Nashville (on my birthday coincidentally) so I am sure hoping that turns out as he wants it to. If anyone is interested in hearing them play go here.

I guess that's all the news for now. I'll be spending my weekend working prep questions on cardiac things that sound really hard and trying to wrap my brain around the fact that I really need to get in gear and get myself together for school. 

Looking forward

It hit me the other day that I am actually really looking forward to this semester. For the first time, I feel really confident with all the skills we need to know and I am ready to get some great experience in. In all these previous semesters at the hospital, we've had one patient who usually already has whatever IV, catheter, or other necessary tube in place. So when we got a chance once or twice a semester to actually perform a procedure on a patient, it was a BIG DEAL!! This semester, during the second half at least, we will be working with a nurse and having 6 or so patients a day. Which ups our chances of getting some consistent experience greatly. Which makes me excited! I just really want to be a fantastic, efficient, compassionate nurse and I think that nurse exists deep inside. She just needs some confidence to make her appearance. I'm tired of being a student who knows nothing. I'm ready to move on to being a "new nurse" who also... knows nothing... at least its a step forward! Plus, actually bringing in my own money will help my self-esteem and confidence in so many ways. The last few weeks have been tough for me. Really really tough. So much has been taken away- I'm ready to experience some better days. So Anna starts school again next week, I have my last skills fair EVER- woo hoo!!!, then my classes start the week after that. The next year will be a whirlwind I'm sure. I just hope I have the courage and strength to do well, learn a lot, make sure Anna stays healthy and happy, help Anna through the transitions of Daddy moving away and Mommy working full time, get a job, do well at my job, KEEP the job! Should be an interesting semester and an interesting year. Everyone pray for me!!!