Snowmageddon 2011

Or snowpacolyse 2011 but I like to rhyme so Snowmageddon 2011 it is :-D So far at 11:30pm and 8.5 hours into this blizzard, we've gotten 13 inches of snow. The blizzard warning is for 3pm 2/1 to 6pm 2/2 so we're doomed. I think those predicted 24 inches may actually be possible. The winds are 70mph and you can't see a single thing in front of you. The hospital I work at called a code triage so no one leaves. So happy I'm off tonight. We have thunder snow as well... thunder and lightening in the middle of a blizzard. What is that?! It's just nasty out there. We've had school canceled for tomorrow; first time in 12 years.

Fun and good spirits

Crazy weekend but it was fun. Thursday was my first OB clinical rotation. It was just orientation but it made me so grateful for the hospital that I work at. This hospital I'm at for OB is just crazy and compared to the hospital I'm at, it was like a dump. I'm looking forward to it but like all clinical (and school), I'm looking forward to being done and crossing it off my list. :)

Friday morning I had to retake my med calc test because the first one I took on Monday threw in a microdrip question and apparently I must have been sleeping when we learned what the automatic drip rate was on that one and at Harper, you must get 100%. So I retook the med calc at 0715 on Friday morning and even though she threw in a ml/tsp conversion, I passed :) See? I know what I'm doing. Pfft!

Friday afternoon I met Hope, we got our hair done (no comment on mine, seriously) for the OB/Peds holiday party and then went and had lunch at Woodfield. Hope got her makeup done at MAC and I went to Nordstrom. The lady kept complimenting me on everything and at first, I thought it was very sweet. After about the 500th time, I started to think 'this is a bit much... my freckles are NOT that cute'. When she was done, I felt like she did nothing at all. I told her I wanted a night look and she gave me a natural day look. WTF. I was not happy. This of course puts me in a pissy mood because not only do I not like my hair but now my make up is terrible. We go to Hope's house to get dressed and on the way there realize I have forgotten my strapless bra and with the dress I'm wearing, it's needed. I decide I'll just stop on our way to the party at my house and change. I put my spanx on (brand new, by the way) and as I put them on, there's a rip. FANTASTIC. Now I have nothing to hold my fatness in. I try like mad to fix my make up at Hope's, add some eyeliner and darker eyeshadow. Still looked a little pale but whatever. Got in the car with Hope to go pick up Joan and we get stuck in Hope's unplowed drive way. I had this image of Hope and I in our dress and heels pushing us out of the snow. Luckily we just laughed so hard (kind of like laughing to keep from crying?) and I kept trying to get us out of the snow from INSIDE the car. It worked eventually. Joan ended up not being ready so before picking up another girl, I stopped at  home to get my bra and put some color on my face so I wasn't so pale. The other girl we were supposed to pick up had broken her zipper so she wasn't ready either. Hope and I just went to the party and met up with everyone later. We ended up having a good time :)

Love my girls <3 

Saturday morning my parents and I went to Door County, WI to visit my grandma. I haven't seen her since her diagnosis with lung cancer a few months ago. Between work and school, it's nuts and I know that's a terrible excuse but it's the truth. I had a great time with her. She shaved her head a week or so ago so I was kind of scared to see her like that but she embraced it and had such a sense of humor. We were only there overnight but it was great. :) She's in good spirits and has finished chemo. Her scan to see if the tumor has shrunk is Feb 11th and she'll find out the results Feb 15th. Crossing all fingers and toes that it's shrunk and that she'll be able to have surgery to remove it. She's a tough ol' bird :) My mom made her a chemo cap so her head doesn't get cold.... isn't she cute? :)

Puzzled.

So I'm totally down with new experiences and new chapters in lives but I have to say, sometimes I miss the old days.

Sometimes I don't know what I want (yeah I know, such is life). Some days I feel like I give 110% to the people in my life and I get 40% back. Doing for others is an ironic weakness of mine. I don't do it to make myself feel good; I do it to see that I've made someone ELSE feel special. I don't understand how more people don't do this. It's the simplest things, like a compliment. It goes so far and will usually make someone's day. How is that difficult? It is the biggest mystery.

It has arrived...

So it is the eve of my first day of my second year of nursing school.... and that's crazy. What's even more crazy is I am calm about it. I probably should be freaking out but I'm not. I have my binder all labeled (yet another attempt to be ridiculously organized... maybe by the end of 4th semester, I actually WILL be organized ;-) ). I have my notebook, pens and text all ready. I am actually looking forward to seeing all of my friends that I haven't seen during break. I'm kind of excited to learn skills this semester too; phlebotomy, IV insertion and foley insertion followed by others. I see those all of the time and would like to know what to do when I see it at work. I may not feel this way when I'm getting ready for a simulation.... I know there's a lot of sweat, tears, stress and tension headaches ahead but it's nothing I haven't experienced before. This is really weird right? I bet you expected a dismal tone to this entry based on the first sentence. :-P 

School... and then some.

So school starts this week. Interestingly enough, I am not wanting to hit my head against the wall a million times over again like I wanted to do at the beginning of the last semester. I don't know if it's because I am just looking forward to marking off yet another semester (after all, this is 3 of 4 semesters and DAMN does that feel delicious saying that). It was funny because I had this plan to put up my FB status on New Year's Day saying '2011 is finally here; the year I graduate!!' but I am so scared of saying that because, God forbid, I do not pass this semester, it'll be 2012 that I graduate, not 2011. BUT, I'm not going to go into this semester with that attitude. 

I start this semester with 8 weeks of OB and I'm really excited about that. This is my element. :-) The last 8 weeks will be Pediatrics which will also be interesting. The whole semester will be 16 weeks of Med Surg 2 (can't forget that lovely class lol). I have school every day except Tuesdays.. then adding work into it as well. I must say, this break has been nice but I have kind of been at a loss as to what to do with myself. I know I will regret saying that in a few days when the chaos begins. It's been really nice though to sleep in (of course at the beginning of my break, I couldn't sleep past 7am... now I've been known to sleep until 10am, which to be honest, I am not a fan of. The whole day is gone!) and it's been SUPER nice to see my friends again. I felt like I had been on a 16 week trip and I finally came home. LOL 

These past few days I've tried to suck up every single drop of relaxation that I have left. I'm really excited about my work's Holiday party in 2 weeks. I bought a dress online so I'm crossing my fingers that it fits and looks nice. It BETTER!! I had wanted to go with the color red but I couldn't find one that I liked or that looked good on me. To be honest, the mere sight of my body these days is making me gag. I've been working out every day and watching what I eat but you know, it's so frustrating when you don't see any progress. I know it's only been a week but I am such a visual person, I need to see that what I'm doing is effective. I know some of this is from the stress and ridiculousness of nursing school but I hate using that as an excuse. I do not eat like a pig (at least I don't think). I DO eat in moderation (although it cracked me up to look at my mobile uploads on my FB page; a lot of it are desserts which is hilarious because I rarely order dessert at restaurants and when I do, it's shared. LOL I swear!!! :-P ). At this point, I think The Biggest Loser application is calling my name. :-(

Old Soul

I don't fully understand this term; old soul, but I've been called it many a times so I finally decided to look up its full definition. Here's what I found....

The key signs of an old soul

· Giving and caring often putting others first

· Had a difficult romantic life often with much pain and disappointment

· More than likely had a soulmate relationship

· Things just seem to happen to you and around you, often becoming very dramatic through the seemingly extreme reactions of others

· Events repeat themselves

· Have trouble connecting with your family

· Somehow know you're different

· Have some psychic intuition and 'just knowing' things

· Find that you have deeper emotions and passions than most people

· People have extreme reactions to you - some just adore you and some seem to really dislike you yet you behave the same to everyone

· Have an inner creative passion

· Suffer lots of jealousy

· Often perceived wrongly

· Feel your don't have much free will, like your life is being controlled by some outside force

· Often feel 'stuck' like events just keep on happening to you time after time









So here's my thought on this. For a long time, I've always felt out of place, like I don't belong in a 24 yr old's body. I feel like I should have been born during the 1920's or the 60's... you know, where morals and values still existed. Mainly I realize this in the choice of my friends or the fact that most of my friends are older than I am. It doesn't bother me in the least but sometimes I wonder 'do people wonder why they're friends with a 24 yr old when they're in their mid 30's or early 40's?' Not that it is anyone's business but still, I have to wonder. What 30/40 something wants to be friends with a 20 something? I just cannot stand most of the things the people my age do... and it's bizarre. People tell me it's normal to not like things like going to bars, clubbing, drinking until I'm drunk. The other night I went out with some friends from high school.... my one friend Tara had asked what I did for NYE. I told her I worked both NYE and Day. I asked what she did and she responded saying her and her friend who was in town went to the city and got so drunk, they could barely get back to their hotel rooms. The thought made me queasy. How is that a fun time? When I go out, I want to talk to people. I want to catch up. When will that be the norm? Don't get me wrong, I like having fun but I don't need a bar, music so loud Indiana can hear it and a buttload of alcohol to help me with that. I'm crazy on my own :-P Ugh, I'm just frustrated that I always feel out of place. :-\

You know when people are in jail for a long time and when they're set free, they have no clue what to do with themselves? Kind of how I felt today after working 9 days in a row. At 3pm today I was almost wishing I was at work. How wrong is that?! LOL After the first few days, it didn't matter. We were so busy and I loved it. I've caught up today on all of the Criminal Minds episodes I missed during the semester, Glee and will start watching Grey's shortly. :)

Tomorrow I need to get the bushes I call eyebrows taken care of. O_o 

By the way, the awesomeness that is my counter above for nursing school... LESS than a year!!!