Friday, February 27, 2009

I'm my father's daughter

Behold: The Pocket Dump
(and not even any alcohol wipes today)

Who needs Etsy?

(psst- I do! But I can link two simple loops together too.)

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

A new craft

Somebody stop me!

A beautiful sight

They fixed our water with a temporary patch, and will look into a
permanent fix later. Hallelujah.

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Feeling dry and greasy

I had a great birthday weekend. Ben invited Mavi and Katie to come up from Grand Junction as a surprise. There was much eating and dancing and revelry all weekend. I might put up pictures later, but I haven't pulled myself together that much yet.

Monday was kind of brutal. I was able to work in study time during the weekend, but still got 88% on my first Adult II exam. I don't feel like studying more would have gotten me a better grade. Just tricky questions on nursing care, rather than straight-up pathophys. I hope to do better on the next test on Monday, which will cover Cardiac, Neuro, and Endocrine systems (eek!). After the test Monday morning I still had lecture, then a presentation in my other class, followed by a panal of new grads from Regis who did their best to stress us out. Ending the day worried about taking the NCLEX and getting a job is not a good way to go. And then I came home to find the water had been shut off because of a break. Yup, just like it did a year ago.

I came home from classes today to find running water. I might venture to take a shower later, if I think it'll be staying on. We haven't received any official word but there are a lot of trucks in the parking lot moving dirt around. Whatever that means. I'm just glad I was able to flush the toilets again.

I can't wait for Miranda to get back in town, I'm terrible about working out without her! For example, I could be at the gym right now, running and lifting and listening to music. Instead I'm dawdling on the net, with equal parts thinking about homework, napping, and doing dishes. I need someone to kick my butt into gear!

BTW, I seem to be slacking on this blog a bit, now that I post daily pictures on shotaday. I hope not to get too behind, but in the mean time be sure to check us out on that other blog!

Sunday, February 22, 2009

Friday, February 20, 2009

Thursday, February 19, 2009

At my mechanic's

The car is fixed, hurrah! It might have future trouble but he showed
me some tricks to get it to start. I love that when Paul recommended
this place he mentioned the mechanic's haircut but failed to mention
the two Giant Parrots. Ok, it's a gnarly crewcut, but Paul, the giant
talking birds didn't come to mind?

Awwww

My class just sang happy birthday to me :-) It's nice to know I've made some friends during this program.

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Hurrah, it's at the shop

Three hours later, but they made it.

Car curses

Is there a vehicular virus in the air? No sooner do we get the new Vibe, than my car decides not to start this morning. Great. Just what I needed. Luckily I have a great friend who was able to take me to school, so I was only 10 minutes late (thankyouthankyouthankyou Nate). Another classmate (see comments) was able to take me home, sparing Ben a 40 minute detour from his own drive home. The car still wouldn't start tonight, so I quickly arranged for a tow truck to the mechanic and a rental for my classes tomorrow. I wanted to smack my forehead when I saw it was a white PT Cruiser. What is it with these Cruisers and rentals?

Hopefully Paul's recommended mechanic will do a quick, honest, and cheap fix. I'm counting my blessings that this didn't happen the morning of a clinical.

Speaking of clinicals, I'm done with the horrid drugderies of Mental Health! After Med/Surg lecture all day M-Th this week (termed "Hell Week" by former students), I start clinical at a hospital next week which mostly serves the indigent population. I'm looking forward to diving back into the real medical stuff. Already this week we've covered GI, liver, pancreas, urinary, and cardiac systems. This afternoon's lecture was a quick and dirty instruction for reading EKG strips. Really useful stuff that I think should have been covered in Med/Surg I. I hope I get a lot of practice reading strips in clinical. At least I'll be sure to do them in my practicum. Oh, did I not mention? I found out that I landed my ideal location for senior practicum! I'll be in the MICU (medical intensive care unit) at the same hospital where I had my med/surg I rotation. I'm totally stoked about it. I don't have my exact schedule yet, but my preceptor generally works 8 hour night shifts, so I'll most likely have those. The downside is that I won't see Ben except on weekends for a month. The good side is that during the quiet later hours I'll have time to discuss patients and procedures with my preceptor and to do paperwork. My parents say they're going to get me mace or a taser. Or both :-) I found out that there's a lot we can park in, so I don't have to walk as far outside of the hospital as I did when I worked days in the summer. So, you know, being mugged isn't a SURE thing.

Still waiting for the tow truck . . . what else . . .well the vibe is working out great. Jem has taken to her trunk space nicely. It's so comfortable and quiet. We totally love it. My folks stocked my fridge with delicious Whole Foods groceries so even though it's been a stressful week, we've had fresh and healthy home-cooked meals every dinner and lunch. Even tonight, I have some pizzas that I'll pop in the oven after dropping off the car. I made butterscotch bread pudding last night in my new stoneware pots, an early birthday present. This week is New Beginnings for the Young Women. Since class only goes until 4:30, if I can take care of my car business quickly I can actually attend a YW event! Then Friday I'm going to take it easy to celebrate being 27. Some shopping in the morning, lunch with Ben, hanging with Amanda, then binge on good TV shows that Nate recorded while binging on Virgilio's pizza and garlic knots.

Still waiting . . .I should review EKG strips before I forget about prolonged QT intervals and all that jazz.

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

This and that

A couple weeks ago I caught Molly defending her sunspot from the Jemmer. I'm glad to see that she's starting to stand up for herself! (She won, by the way. Jem wandered back to snooze in the basement after this.)



Mental Health is almost over, thank goodness. I had my last test today. Just one small assignment left, then 24 hours of clinical and I'm DONE. Can't stand this class. Adult II starts Monday and it looks like a doozy. My teachers let us knit in class, so throughout Mental Health I worked on this scarf. I love the colors and the pattern shows them off very well.


Here's Jem checking out her new digs. We absolutely love our new car. It feels like we need to christen it by taking Jem for a hike or at least going through a drive-through.

Sunday, February 08, 2009

We bought a car!

Almost.

We have a deposit on this 2008 Pontiac Vibe. Had to wait for banks and paperwork, so we'll probably drive it home Monday evening. It looks like a great car. Only 24k miles from its previous life as a rental car. I love the Vibe design (which is made in the same factory and from the same mold as the Toyota Matrix. Pontiac just put their own flare on it). It's a small wagon, meaning the hatchback trunk opens to a large (beagle-appropriate) area. The back seats fold down completely so we can transport large things. The roof even has railings for a rack. It gets good mileage (about 24 city, 33 hwy) so it will serve Ben well as his commuting car. But it will be our primary vehicle, so we can stop taking my creaking sentra everywhere!

Monday, February 02, 2009

Things kind of suck right now

Sucks:
  • We found out this weekend that Ben's car only has a month or so to live. We've started looking for a new (used) car. Ugh, the hassle, the money, etc. At least we'll have a shiny new and improved vehicle at the end of it.
  • I hate my clinical. Seriously. I almost dread going there. The days are so long, there's so little to do. I can't stand my professor and I'm so bored in class (yet I have to study for the tests to get A's). I can't wait to be done with Mental Health.
  • I've had to act like a real student lately: doing homework on my Saturday, staying in on week nights, no energy to cook or clean, and the usual money woes.
Not so Sucks:
  • Things are not THAT bad. I'm working on a new scarf that I'm in love with.
  • My folks might be able to come visit the weekend before my birthday.
  • I got hooked on Animal Crossing again. Only bad thing is that I can't spend hours on it like I used to.
  • I joined a new blog, http://shot-a-day.blogspot.com/
  • My new phone is so so sweet. I love having access to email and internet when I have just seconds of time for breaks at clinical. I also love using Zenbe to organize my lists.
  • I've become decent friends with a lot of my classmates. I'll be sad to part with them at the end of the year.
  • Graduation is in sight! We had a short meeting today about the pinning ceremony.
Just counting my blessings here, trying to stop myself from being such a whiner. Also procrastinating studying for our exam tomorrow.