If I had a nickel

for every time I have been tempted to post on facebook about how beautiful the weather and surroundings are here in florida...I probably wouldn't be rich, but I want to do that all-the-time. Today was especially beautiful, it was a perfect mix of warm, sunny, calm, and can you tell I am not much of a writer it was basically perfection.  To top it off after we got in from our moonlit walk it decided to rain for a time...which makes the nights, that don't cool down even better.

Well despite all this perfection I had to stay in most of the day because I have a test ugggghh... on Monday.  Sometimes, when studying for these tests.  I just want to stomp my feet, scream and refuse to study any more (which is ironic because I study less than anyone I know in my class), because life is passing me by out there and I am wasting it by sitting on my computer procrastinating (yeah I am not even really studying most of the time) feeling guilty.  But then I just tell myself that in a few short months I will be working three twelve hour shifts, have money and (the best part) not have any homework on the weekends.  This will be fabulous and there will be a beautiful day just like this one that I can go on the longest walk ever in and enjoy it without feeling guilty at all.  and hopefully I will be pregnant or have a baby at that point to make the day even better

....to dream the impossible dream (except this will totally happen)

Those are my thoughts at 2:05am.

3 *12

This is another reason why you want to be a nurse.  Many many nurses have the option of working a compressed schedule,  so basically they work three 12 hour shifts  and then that it.  That is full time.   So say you worked Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, well then you have the rest of the week off.  So if you don't want your life to revolve around that look at all those other days you have to do whatever else you want.  You can paint, sew, sleep, take a class, and pursue any other interest you might have.

Now as a disclaimer, nursing jobs are very diverse and not all nursing jobs will have this option, but because the jobs are diverse so are the scheduling options, so if you want to work at night (that's what I plan on doing), on the weekend, get overtime, work shorter shifts more often etc... all of these are options.  Seems pretty awesome to me.

 So if you are not sure what you want to do, why not become a nurse and support yourself while you figure it out on the other 4 days of the week.

                                                                        litte bit of downtown abby inspiration image c/o

Something sort of weird

about nursing school or people in it.

You know in nursing school we learn about all sorts of diseases and then memorize some of the medications that go with them.  So, health problems, we talk about them all day.  Some sort of weird phenomena exists in our class where people raise there hand to comment, and they just have to tell the whole class about their experience with such and such disease.  In essence it seems to me that people end up bragging about the medications they take, or the disease that runs in their family....and this is all sort of weird to me.
I'm not saying that you should hide your health problems, but using the fact that you can manage asthma, or that your grandfather takes such and such medication, seemingly for the purpose of getting positive feedback (the professor tells you to share your experience with the class) from the professor always makes me roll my eyes.
Oddly they are always the same people who's families seem to have EVERY disease we learn about...its drives me crazy.

So here's to being healthy, proud of it, and living life, praying and hoping that it stays that way and I may I never have health problems to share with the class (please please please!)

Clinicals

Tomorrow is my first early morning clinicals....I'll be up before I want to mention and it will be painful. In other news  I am in the process of making an orange dress (university of florida)...its going mostly well.  Also here is a picture of my awesome new sewing machine cover that I made.  Lastly, I love chips.

fancy outfit today

I wore a fancy outfit today (and decidedly everyday these days) so I'm sharing it.

isn't florida beautiful!

  

gold and green

We went to a dance on Saturday.  I went to a lot of stake dances as a youth, and I loved all of it, and danced like crazy (literally).  But I really like how our stake here does dances...not so often but when they have them they are big.  Decorations, food, activities, people dress up.  Well annually they have a gold and green ball, and its for everyone 14 and up, so that includes the adults.  People were dressed up , there was endless fresh fruit and other snacks, and best of all there was a live band.  I guess I have never heard of a mormon stake hiring a band but the band were not members and the stake hired them,  although I didn't know all the songs that they played, Paul and I were pretty excited to dance to a live band and had a blast.  Also I should mention that Paul is getting perpetually better at dancing and I am grateful that he is willing to humor me and dance, because my life is infinitely better when he does :)  Although the dance was a few days after Valentines Day, it was the best valentines day gift he could have given me ...  I guess getting married doesn't mean your dancin' days are over :)

I also love every time Paul wears that velvet jacket

more about nursing...what do you expect

Not much is going on here today, I had a seminar, we talked about Diabetes.
Diabetes is seriously scary, so scary that I am taking a serious look at my sugar intake.
I feel like if people knew how CRAZY bad diabetes is they would probably do the same.

cake =sugar=diabetes=death

I cannot think of anything worth the side effects diabetes causes...every organ system in your body, every single one is affected....not.worth.it

Then clinical orientation...not much to say about that
Then career fair(more below)...
Then HIV counselor/tester training....ok not boring, but waaay too long, but now I can test you for HIV
Then home to Paul (yay!) best part of day!

Another big reason why nursing is a good choice is that nurses.........get jobs!
Today we had a career fair and you know what there were lots of hospitals/employers interested in hiring us.

It seems to from a lot of the blogs I read that people aren't really worried about getting jobs etc... but this is something I worry about, this was a huge part of picking nursing.

 I really like to know that is something serious happened to Paul and it was put on my shoulders to earn a living for our family that I could do it...of course there are plenty of potential disasters were that would not be helpful, but you get the point.

And with a big chunk of nurses on the verge of retirement and baby boomers aging, nursing has a positive job outlook.  read more

Well,  you don't love nursing? you can't stand bodily fluids? you hate hospitals?
In the future I will address why those are not absolutes if your working as a nurse...coming from a not very neat, non-perfectionist, considers-herself-to-be-somewhat-artistic-person

and that is it for today except I am wasting way to much time of the internet and should be doing hw.

                                                                                          image from here

Valentines Day

Actually I did the night shift last night and even though it seemed to stretch into eternity, it was really calm, nice and not nearly as hard as it could have been.
I will skip the nursing post today to write about Valentines Day.
We made each other tenderly written cards
hung out,
ate,
 watched a movie (after I slept off the night shift that is)
...nothing huge, nothing grand,
 but with the limited time that Paul and I have together these days, it was nice to just say, HEY its Valentine's  Day lets not feel guilty about not doing homework
 and just spend some time together
and for me that resulted in the best day ever.
  I love Paul so much.

The first reason

The first reason is of course the most important (and after this the rest will be more practical)  but nursing is about caring, nurses spend time with there patients, nurses are always there, they are there in the hospital when almost everyone else has gone home.  They watch the patients at night, the address concerns, they have daily opportunities to serve and uplift there patients.  Of course many many times it is not so wonderful or touchy-feely, but it can be.
Nurses give essential care and can really do good for humanity.
if this is not enough for that is ok too (keep reading there will be more reasons), but caring is the basis of the profession and there are always people to help.
I will soon revise this to be more descriptive, but for now, you at least understand the reason in raw

Also speaking of relationships, things are heating up between me and the sewing machine, well more like it seems to be out and used enough that I decided that it should no longer be naked and exposed to dust, so today I sewed a quick cover.  I did so with just quick measures and rough estimates, but it turned out to fit the machine perfectly.  I used the left over fabric from our chairs so it even matches our apartment (I will post pictures of it soon)...it was a really fast project but, now I know my machine is safe from dust.

artwork 

Why I am so glad I am in nursing school.

When I first went to college I had no idea what I wanted to do. I liked art, and history, but I knew I was going to need something more practical as well, some people can make amazing careers out of those things, but I am not one of them.  I tried architecture for  few semesters and well, I made some good friends but pretty quickly realized that I am not a perfectionists, not even a little bit, which is a requirement for architecture.  So, I worked hard and instead finished a bachelors degree in history ASAP, and left on a mission a week before I turned 21.
 During my final semester I began to look at my options to see what else I could do.  If there is one thing that I learned at Berkeley is that I did not want to get a PhD in history, or really go to grad school at all....way too many horror stories.

My mom who is a teacher always wanted me to be a nurse, probably because a good friend of hers is a nurse and she is aware of how much more it makes than a teacher with more benefits.

When I was 18 I would rather die than be a nurse, nursing was for practical people and I considered myself more complex and artistic than to do something that ahem..made sense.

Well,  I thought about it on my mission, I did research, I took pre-reqs,  I saw a lot of people suffering from health issues on my mission and somehow ended up in an accelerated bachelors of nursing program.  Even though nursing school is quite hard, sometimes seems pretty stupid and frustrating.  I am definitely glad that I chose to be a nurse (just a few more months until I graduate), and I find myself trying to convince others who are unsure of what to do (career wise) to seriously consider nursing.

So every day (or every time I write in my blog) I am going to share a reason I am happy to be heading down this path, and something that is positive about nursing as a career.

This will keep me motivated to study hard and maybe it will give the idea to someone else as well.

Lack of sleep

Really I could write about this every single day, because I swear I never get enough but this week it has been poignant.

I had my big test on Tuesday, and I did ok, but it took the life out of me and I only got one hour of sleep that night, it also made me decide that I don't really need to become a nurse practitioner right away, in other words I am not interested in grad school for at least a few years after I graduate.  I am ok with 3 twelves, no homework and money, yes definitely ok with that.

Then the next day after that I worked the night shift, still not caught up on sleep and it.was.brutal. but I made it and thought I did pretty good as well.

Last night, I was feeling the need to do something fun, so I tailored this shirt I bought for $2, it took about an hour and a half,  but now I have a shirt that fits me perfectly, just in time for the nursing school career fair next week.

On a related note, I think I have been pretty crabby because I sense myself getting upset with Paul frequently which is because I am being crazy.

Unfortunately not much else has been going on except for a walk today in the beautiful weather, and I have another test coming up on monday in..."health promotion in the advanced practice role"yes, names of nursing courses are silly and they all are related to health promotion disease prevention, which is why when Paul asks me what class I don't even really know what classes I am in.

anyway, it is my goal to stop writing about sleep and writing about something else.

For example I am getting certified as a HIV tester and have to attend a looong class for it, or that my clinicals got moved back so they area no longer earrly in the morning...best thing ever! basically being in nursing school makes me want to post about bodily functions which is probably not a good thing.

Sad day for the niners :(

and paul is sick, but we did eat homemade pizza today so that was good
I worked two night shifts and my schedule is all wacky,
I still have not studied much, yikes, I am so ready to be done with nursing school. so ready.  And this semester is really just beginning as far as the projects go.

I am also doing community at a school for teenager/high school mothers, and talking to the school about the health and social consequences of tatoos, should be interesting.

I always have a ton of letters to write it seems like, which I like because it gives me a chance to sit down and break out the watercolors which is what I did while Paul was watching the super bowl.

its been sort of "cold" here so I finally despite the fact that it is February I wore this fall outfit around Gainesville and was happy for an excuse to wear gloves

 and we went to the temple, we had to be home in time for me to be able to get to my 11pm shift at work and it ended up being quite a rush on the way home, but it was so nice to go to the temple and remember all those blessings

                                                                          lake alice