Recent Happenings

 You guys, I'm on a blogging roll! Three posts in one night, haha. That probably breaks some sort of unspoken blogging rule but who cares.

I'm in my FINAL SEMESTER of my RN program! Absolute craziness. I started precepting (it's kind of like an internship for nurses) in the ICU and I LOVE it. I'm such an OCD, detail oriented person as it is so I really thrive in that environment. In the ICU you only have 1-2 patients because they are so critically ill. But the great thing is you get to really focus in and learn about the disease processes that are going on and learn in detail about the medications and interventions used to treat them. I just find it all very fascinating. I used to be so intimidated by ventilators and arterial lines and sedation, but I feel like now that I am becoming more familiar with it it's not as scary as it used to be. Don't get me wrong though, I still have sooo much to learn. Really when you're a nurse the learning process should never stop though. You should always be learning and growing. That's what I love about it.

It was my grandpa Greene's birthday last week and we went over to my grandma's house to celebrate. I love my grandparents so much, they have been such a support to me in all that I do. Also my grandma calls me almost every day to see how I'm doing which is awesome. I grew up down the street from them, so we have always been close. It's hard to watch them grow older, but that's all a part of life, I suppose.

In January my mom took a travel nursing position in Hawaii! Isn't that awesome? It's only for three months so she'll actually come home in like 8 weeks but I still have been missing her a lot! I am so proud of her though for pursuing a dream she had. With her absence my parents house has been left to the care of my two younger brothers and my dad which has been a little 'iffy' to say the least. I don't think any of them knew how to do laundry prior to this actually... but they seem to be surviving ok.

Well friends this concludes tonight's blogging binge. Till next time, old chaps.

Petunia Felt Company

I've discussed this on here previously, but my mental health took a serious hit with beginning my nursing career and now that I've watched other friends on their own journeys I've realized it's not so uncommon to feel anxiety, depression and burnout, when beginning really any sort of career!

After many, many tearful episodes and horrible, hopeless days I realized I had to come up with some sort of coping mechanism to help me deal with the insurmountable stress I was feeling.

In fact one of my nursing school friends tells me all the time that the only difference between me and you and the people at the nut house is that we have better coping mechanisms than they do! Ha!

It really is so true. It's a fine line between sanity and craziness and the only thing keeping you from crossing that line is how you deal with life's stressors.

My coping mechanism of choice was to immerse myself in different hobbies and interests so that NURSING wasn't the only thing that defined my life. I needed other pursuits to help me realize that I had more purpose than just being a 'nurse'.

I think that goes with any type of career or life situation. Stay at home moms get burnout too and I think it's because they become so immersed in being 'mom' that they lose sight of all the other aspects of their life!

Each of us are individuals that have MANY talents and passions and interests and 'hats' to fill so to speak. We cannot be defined by one singular angle of our lives. There is so much more to us than "Oh she's a good..."fill in the blank". It's oh she's good at "fill in the blank" but also great at this, this and this!

So I'll hop off my soap box now, but just saying, the way I found best to cope and deal with my anxiety was by pursuing different hobbies to help me take my mind off of work.

It kind of happened randomly, but I stumbled across different tutorials on Pinterest on 'needle felting' and kind of fell in love with the idea of it! I also made little felt gardens for my nieces for Christmas and realized felt was such a cheap and fun material to use to make things with.

Thus Petunia Felt Co. was born (follow me along on instagram @petuniafeltcompany).

I want to open an etsy shop once I get some more inventory to stock it with, but here are some of the projects I've been working on :)

Farm animal baby mobile!

And little felt baby shoes! Go to my instagram to see more, if you're interested :)

Recent Bakes

Despite the fact that I may have already watched all the Great British Bake Off episodes available on Netflix, my passion for baking has not yet diminished. I have had so much fun exploring all the recipes I can find on Pinterest and attempting to make them!

Here I present to you my 2018 bakes!

My interpretation of lemon meringue pie! With colored meringue.

The next day I bought a blow torch and so decided to make lemon meringue pie AGAIN, just so I could test it out on toasting the meringue. A nice look I think :)

Since the purchase of the blow torch I've pretty much been looking for all sorts of excuses to use it, so here we have a smores tart with toasted marshmallow topping. The chocolate graham crust is filled with chocolate custard.

Tagalong pie (yes, based off of the girl scout cookie).

I made a very unsuccessful attempt at mirror glaze back in like December I think and so I had to attempt it again, and this time I felt pretty successful! You've probably seen those 'galaxy' mirror glaze cakes if you're ever on Pinterest and it is rather trendy at the moment. You use gelatin and sweetened condensed milk to help it stick to the dessert and shine.

When my best friend Shelby was in town visiting we decided to try our skills at making macarons and I was quite pleased with the result! The recipe Shelby found is amazing and seems to make full proof macarons every single time I've attempted it. I've used other macaron recipes and none of the others seemed to work out quite as well as this one.

That of course sparked a bit of a macaron obsession and I made three batches of three different flavors in one week after that. These were my favorites, raspberry lemon :)

Back in jr. high I had quite the passion for baking, I remember I used to pull out my dad's Betty Crocker cookbook and try out all the different 'fancy' recipes like biscotti and chocolate souffle. Then once I hit high school I became immersed in other hobbies and sort of forgot about it. Then of course Great British Bake Off appeared and the rest is history.

I find baking to be such a stress reliever, and it's also a fun way to challenge yourself and learn new skills and techniques. It's also a bonus for family and friends because of course they get to be the taste testers.

My goals for this year are to improve my bread baking abilities. It is always something I've felt quite intimidated by and I would love to learn to be more confident at it. Hopefully I can practice enough that by the end of 2018 Paul Hollywood will be proud.

5 Year Anniversary

On December 29th Nathan and I celebrated our 5 YEAR anniversary!!! 5 years people! I can hardly even believe I'm old enough to have been married that long.

But I am 25 now, so yup, definitely old enough.

We've been through thick and thin together, and have had our fair share of trials, but overall life has been rich and full of joy and good memories.

And each year life keeps getting better with you, Nathan. You are definitely my person.

Here's to many more years to come!

2017 In Review

January

Snowshoeing with Melon and Nate up AF canyon! Melon was still soooo little.

February

Nate's Valentine's Day gift!

Chilled at the dog park with Mel.

March

We had sooo much fun in March. Starting with fulfilling my lifelong dream of going on a PCH roadtrip! Our first stop was Disneyland, where Brittney and Buck joined us :)

We had a lot of fun stops along the way... Monterey, Carmel, San Francisco... and lots of places in between. 

April

St. George trip with the girls.

Got waaaay into baking thanks to the Great British Bake Off!

Also got accepted into the RN program :)

May

Said goodbye to Nate's little sister, Hannah before she left on her mission to Arkansas.

June

Lagoon with the Abbotts.

Visited Antelope Island for the first time and got eaten ALIVE by bugs.

And of course couldn't miss the Strawberry Days Rodeo with friends.

Did the flowers for Maggie and Reese's reception.

July

4th of July party at Grandma and Grandpa Abbotts'.

Maggie and Reese got married in Kauai.

We spent two weeks in a beach house with all our family, and went to the beach every single day.

August

Our annual Disneyland girls trip!

Went back to school!

September

Road horses on Uncle Gary's farm.

 Nate hauled potatoes.

Went to Boone's football game.

October

Enjoyed the fall leaves.

Picked pumpkins with Nate.

November

Thanksgiving dinner at Mom and Dad's.

December

Annual gingerbread house making party.

Luminaria with the fam.

Got accepted into an ICU position for my preceptorship!

Christmas in Idaho.

And Nathan and I celebrated our 5 YEAR anniversary!!!

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What a year 2017 has been. It definitely has been full of fun and adventure, and good learning experiences as well. Here's to another year! I hope 2018 is even better.