Oh, hi.

Nathan and I decided to do a bit of exploring around the mountainside today. It was covered with tons of these blossoming trees! Pretty neat eh.

I must admit that I am embittered towards Old Man Winter this year. I mean I didn't even get to go sledding because hey, there was like zero snowfall, but after seeing these delicate signs of Spring showing up I am getting more excited for it to warm up.

I have been going through mid-terms for the past two weeks and I'm about to rip all of my hair out. I don't think I can bring myself to study one more flash card. I have a love/hate relationship with being a student. I love to learn, I hate obligatory before test cramming. Yuck.

Since beginning school again I have gone from a full time employee to PRN. Meaning I work on an 'as needed' basis. It has been quite the adjustment financially, and to be perfectly frank this has been the poorest year of my married life. With that has come its fair share of frustration and envy of those who seem to have it all together. I had a realization of sorts this week though - money doesn't buy happiness. Cliche as it may sound, it really is true. In a way I am grateful for this period of my life because I think it has caused me to put things back into perspective. Nathan and I have been working so hard for the past couple of years to get ourselves to a point of financial comfort and stability that it has kind of become all we have focused on! Perhaps I have become a little (a lot) prideful, haha and have lost sight of the simpler things in life that are truly the most important. I told Nathan that although this will most likely be the poorest year of our lives, we can choose to make it the happiest as well. Considering there is still another year left before we both graduate, we have plenty of time to refocus our priorities and spend more time working on our relationship with one another and with God, rather than spending all our time worrying about keeping up with the Jones'.

On a completely different note we are running a 10k in St. George this weekend! All of my family is going to be there, and even though I am vastly unprepared for the race, I am really looking forward to it! Wish me luck, my friends.

February Wrap Up

School has been, quite literally, consuming my entire life. 

I have come to determine the entirety of my existence at BYU-Idaho was more about the social aspects than it was about any serious educational pursuits. So to come from my prior experiences of a relaxed, social college life to nursing school has been quite the rude awakening. I feel like I have been really proactive in my education this time around though and it has been very rewarding, despite all the time/sleep/sanity sacrificing that has been done. I'm actually learning stuff, people! It is kind of cool. I like school. I'm a nerd.

Lounging on Sunday with the hubbs. He gets so enthused by constant picture taking.

This is my parent's dog Ripley. Don't let this picture fool you. She is a complete nuisance. Like 1 part cute, 9 parts nuisance.

My husband and I go through these weird kicks where we find something we like and we eat that same thing repeatedly for a while. Maybe that's just me and he just goes along with it? I don't know. Anyway for a while it's been Roxberry. We love Roxberry smoothies. Before it was the Slurp/Swig whatever floats your boat. Before that it was Sonic drinks/shakes, at one point it was Papa Murphey's pizza. Anyone else have this issue?

Whelp. I wish I could've formulated some sort of substantial, well thought out post for y'all, but this is about as exciting as it's been around here lately, and I have my doubts that anyone would want a recap of all my homework sessions.

So with that, I bid you all adieu.

A Lifetime Ago

That girl in the picture there, that was me once. A clueless eighteen year old without a care in the world. 

Sometimes I forget what it was like back then. Not that it was all that long ago, but it sure seems like a lifetime to me.

Time is a strange thing, isn't it? We wake up day after day, and slowly those days turns to months, and the months into years. Before we know it fine wrinkles begin gathering at the corners of our eyes. Smiling lines that crinkle up, to never smooth out again. 

People come and go, phases pass, opportunities present themselves. We change. Oh how we change. Slowly God takes our rough molds and if we allow it, smooths us into the beautiful sculptures he intends us to be. 

But all that takes time, and time moves like molasses, so slow that we hardly even notice we're moving at all. Until one day we wake up and realize just how far we have come.

"I've already lost touch with a couple of people I used to be." - Joan Didion

I think I've lost touch with that girl. She was much different than myself. Naive, carefree, dreamy, rose colored glasses type of a girl.

I still wear those rose lenses though, but maybe with a lot more caution. Truth be known I'm no longer dreamy - I'm realistic. Not naive, but anxious. Not carefree, but a perfectionist. The whimsical ways of my youth changed by the weights of adulthood.

I don't long to be that same girl again. No, I've learned too much, grown too much. I don't condone longing for what is passed and gone, and I love the person I am now. However there are some valuable lessons to be learned from our prior selves. I think I'd like to recapture that dreamer I used to be, not worry quite as much. Let life flow in its natural current, rather than trying to swim against it. Allowing the story to unfold as it may.

I'm old enough now to realize our lives don't fit the perfect molds we fashion in our minds, in fact things rarely work out as we plan them to. That's all good though. God watches over us, he's the real author to our stories after all, and I trust him more with the pen than I'd trust myself. 

Of course we always have our agency. We're not required to choose certain paths or go certain ways, but I believe there are better ways than others, and I do believe that God has certain things in mind for us. That's why we've got to learn to go with the current, and allow God to be the driver in our lives. He knows the way. Proud man says otherwise, surely I've been guilty of that way of thinking - that I know best! But I don't. Truly I don't, and neither did that girl in the picture there. 

Some Days

// Some days a large Diet Dr. Pepper is an absolute necessity. Oh wait, that's everyday (ha).

// After spending an entire week studying harder than I ever have in my life and then pulling a marathon 13 hour studying day yesterday, and then proceeding to only get a sub par score on my first nursing test.... I weep [insert crying here]. I've been trying to distract myself from my emotional distress by looking up funny memes of Pinterest. Heaven help me.

// Has anyone tried the new red velvet Oreos???? YUM to the E!!! They are delicioso and anyone who claims to be a red velvet fan or really just any decent target-going, white girl must try these! SO good.

// Valentine's is coming up. The hubby and I have decided to go out on Friday night as opposed to Saturday in an effort to avoid some crowds. Hopefully the rest of Utah County doesn't have the same game plan as us! I remember the first year we were married we lived in Idaho and were an hour and a half away from any type of chain, sit-down restaurant. So after driving to the Idaho Falls Olive Garden, in an attempt to have a decent Valentine's Day meal, we were told it would be a 2.5 hour wait. And guys, when you have to drive 1.5 hours to get to a restaurant that's name is NOT Frontier Pies, you don't just turn around. So we waited the 2+ hours just so we could eat some freakin zuppa toscana and endless bread sticks. Absolutely ridiculous! We learned our lesson and we are no longer newbies, needless to say.

// I wish I had something more substantial to say but truly I do not. My brain is totally fried. Peace out, my friends.

Thoughts On Nursing School

I will be totally honest, I never wanted to be a nurse.

My mother, who has been a nurse for 20+ years would always try to convince me to go to school to be one and I just wanted nothing to do with it. In high school I worked at a long term care/rehab center, and my experiences there only seemed to reaffirm my non-desire to be a nurse. I was recreation aid, and I thought that was a cool job because I just got to do bingo and what not, and didn't have to deal with poop and bodily fluids and that was about as far as I ever wanted to go in the health care field.

So I went on my merry way.

Fast forward two years and an associates degree later and I moved back down to Utah with my brand new husband and I got a job working as a therapy aid at a rehab/skilled nursing center. Somehow I had gotten myself back into a health care setting when all I wanted to be was a florist (whaaat?). About six months into working at this place I remember this strange moment when I went to the oral surgeons office to get my wisdom teeth removed and the RN came in to start my IV when this weird thought came into my head: 'hey, she has a really awesome job! that would be kind of cool to be a nurse like her.' For some reason in that moment I just wanted to be her. I don't know why. I guess I thought she was the real deal. Maybe it was the drugs they were giving me.

Anticlimactic I know, but regardless of the reasons my (albeit small) desire to be a nurse began.

Over the course of the next year or so I began talking a lot to the nurses at my work and asking them about how and where they got their education and if they liked being a nurse and other such things. The more I talked to them the more interested I became.

It becomes quite a long story after that so I'll spare you all the details, but after a lot of searching and God continuously tapping me on the shoulder reminding me this was what I needed to do I finally applied to a school.

Then I got an interview.

Then I got in???

I had gone from never wanting to be a nurse to being accepted into a nursing school. Talk about 0-60 in 3 seconds. It was a weird feeling.

When I started school I have to admit I felt SO out of place. Most of the girls there had 'wanted to be nurses their whole lives!!!' and 'this is my calling!!' type of deal. Holy cow I am such a misfit, was all I could think. Everyone goes through a moment of self doubt whenever they begin a new endeavor, though, am I right? It's like in the Hero's Journey (11th grade english anyone?) when the hero begins his quest and is in total denial that he is the one for the job and that he definitely shouldn't be doing this. We all go through that, I just felt exceptionally underqualified.

I have only been in school for four weeks, but my feelings of inadequacy have improved a little. I mean I did stick a 2 inch needle into somebody's arm this week and I only flinched a little bit! Haha.

Today was a real turning point though. I had my very first clinical following around a home health nurse today and I LOVED it. She was so great about answering all my questions and after spending the day with her I realized she is the type of nurse that I want to be. She was a great teacher and example to me. She made me feel really good about myself and made me feel like I could do this. She helped me to be more confident, and I recognize that not all clinical experiences are that good so I am so grateful this was my first one!

While I have a long way to go till I graduate, and get to where my goals are set, I finally feel like I am actually in the right place, and I'm really excited about this nursing thing.

If there's one thing I have learned in my short four weeks as a nursing student, it's that life doesn't always turn out how you originally planned it, but whatever does happen is for the best. God is mindful of us, and knows what our potential is, he knows our talents and gifts better than we do, and he will help us to succeed, no matter what path we end up on.

If you made it all the way to the end of this post, you are a champ.

Peace Out.

Flowers Abound

Long ago, before the days of nursing school, I worked at a floral shop and studied floral design at BYU-I.  I looove flowers, of all varieties, and for all occasions. Once in a blue moon someone will ask me to help out with a wedding or just an arrangement. I do not claim to be a professional by any stretch of the imagination, haha. Pretty much it's just a hobby! But hobbies are cool, right?

Since I don't get a whole ton of opportunities to arrange these days, I naturally jumped at the invitation from my lovely friend Tara to help out with her sister's wedding flowers! Pictured below is the bridal bouquet.

Ta-da!

Mah First Day

Last night my stress levels were through the roof! My head was filled with ridiculous worries that my car wouldn't start this morning and I would miss my first day of nursing school, or I would forget some crucial document and would be kicked out of the program. Ya know, absolutely ridiculous thoughts. I double and triple checked everything and I hardly got a wink of sleep last night because I was just so nervous. Is anyone else like that before they start something new or is it just me?

It doesn't help that my whole life I have had this reoccurring nightmare that I realize half way through the school year that there's all these classes I was supposed to have been going to that I somehow didn't know about and I end up being WAY behind all the other students and end up failing. I have no idea why I always have that dream but I seriously do all the time, whether I am in school or not. Anyone want to analyze that one for me?

Wouldn't you know it though, the stars aligned this morning and my car did indeed start, I got to school on time, I made it through orientation and I even got to know some of my awesome classmates. First day of nursing school was a success and I made it through relatively unscathed!

All my worries were for naught.

Now I am feeling more on the excited end of things, thank goodness.

I have to say that five years ago, heck - even three years ago, I would have never guessed that I would end up in nursing school, but I am really glad that it worked out that way. I kind of feel like I got led into it, ya know? I don't know which of you guys believe in a higher being, but this is definitely one of those moments for me where I feel like God nudged me in this direction, even if it wasn't what I had originally wanted, but I feel at peace that it is the best place for me, and I am quite happy with it.

Strange how that works.