Day 156: January 30, 2010

Quote of the Day: "A goodbye isn't painful unless you're never going to say hello again." ~Author Unknown

I had a really great day today! I was able to finish a lot of my homework and am now almost completely caught up for a while, and will be able to do some serious studying.  And then I got a phone call from my sister-in-law to ask for my help with the family genealogy. My nephew was assigned a genealogy project for his class, and the really great thing is that she thought of ME first! And it made me feel so good to know that there is FINALLY something I can contribute to the family! I know, it's crazy to think that way, but that's the way it is. I really appreciate the fact that she thought of me. And I did have all the information, so I was more than willing to pass it along. EVERYONE should know their family history, right? I just wish that I had more to offer. Like the family stories, which seem to be lacking. But that's okay. I've been trying to make sure that future generations won't wonder what went on in OUR times.  Somewhat. But that's a whole other story, right?

I still have some groceries left to put away. I was going to do it this morning, but I got up and started working on homework, and before I knew it I looked at the clock and found out that it's nearly 10pm. I'll try to put some of it away, but I'm not sure how much I can handle doing tonight, because I am literally drained from staring at the computer screen and books all day long. UGH! I think I need a new pair of eyes. Or the fountain of youth. But at least I did get to talk to Ron on messenger tonight, finally. The internet has been down on his end for nearly a week now, and it has been horrible not having that extra time to share with him! I can't wait until he comes home!

I also did a little research today on alternative power sources, thinking that it would be really great if we can come up with a way to save money on our electric bills. There HAS to be a way to do it. We have a lot of wind here, so I was thinking it would be nice to make a homemade wind turbine to generate some power, but Burk won't let you put them up if you live in city limits. Or, not the ones big enough to generate enough power. So I started looking into perpetual magnetic motors, and am thinking that when Ron gets home we really should try to build one, even if it's just to create enough power to run the pool pump. That would save us around $100 or more a month, and you can build them easily from parts you can find in any salvage or junkyard and items from the local hardware store. From what I've been able to find they are relatively cheap to build. HOWEVER, I can't seem to find the plans for one online, or testimonials from people who use them, or even the amount of power they can potentially generate. So I'll have to keep researching, I guess. If I can ever find the time again with all the studying I'll have to do. It sure would be nice to get rid of the $600 and up electric bills!

Day 155: January 29, 2010

Quote of the Day: "Never to suffer would never to have been blessed."  Edgar Allan Poe (1809 - 1849)

My student loan money was finally, FINALLY in the bank today! So I did what I have needed to do since... well, since Ron left, really. I went grocery shopping. And not just grocery shopping, either, it was GROCERY. SHOPPING.  LOL I was running so low on everything that I had to stock back up again. What was the bill, you ask? Only a measly little $643. Now I know, it sounds really really bad. But according to my receipt, I bought 275 items. And when you multiply the price by the number of items, I only spent an average of $2.34 per item. Not bad at all, right? But we were nearly completely out of everything: canned foods, meats, frozen veggies... so I bought some of everything. And Ron will be coming home soon, and is dying to BBQ steaks almost as much as I am to EAT his BBQ steaks. And I figured, well... the meat's on sale right now, why the heck not? So I bought rib eyes, and New York strips, and some others as well. Oh, and of course the top sirloin was on sale, so I got some of that too. He'll be plenty happy when he comes home. Right?  I had to laugh, though. Cody was so impressed with the size of the receipt that he actually pilfered it and took it with him out to his friend Nathan's house, where we left for after carrying in all those groceries and leaving me standing with a ton of groceries to put away. SIGH. He even had to text his girlfriend and tell her that the receipt was as long as she is tall (she's shorter than me.) And I kid you not, I held the receipt up to the wall and then measured it... that thing is 4 foot 3 and a half inches long, so it's not too far off the mark!



I saw the strangest thing today. In my opinion it was strange, merely because I've never seen it before. It may happen, but I've never seen it.  I was driving down the road, and right there on the side of the road was a flock about thirty cardinals!!! They were soooo pretty with the light dusting of snow in the grass! I've never seen more than two of them together at one time, so it really took me by surprise. But I was really, really wishing that I had my camera at that very moment, would have been one heck of a picture.

Day 154: January 28, 2010

Quote of the Day: "You are a part of me… a part that I could never live without. And I hope that I never have to." – author unknown

Okay, so I missed the midnight deadline... again! I was busily working along on my school stuff and did not realize how late it is. I'd better be careful or I'll get my night-owl syndrome back, and right at the beginning of a semester is NOT the time for that!

I realized today just how long it's going to take for this semester's homework. For just one class, one day's homework, I took four straight hours. And we have three classes with homework! Gimme a break, people! WHY do this to nursing students when they have so much riding on one single semester???  I almost can't wait to be done just to be done with homework.  Am I going to go to school for my bachelor's degree right out of ADN school? Um, no. I think I'll take at least a year or so off to get a feel for my new job and to actually ENJOY LIFE for a little while before I start up again with the whole school mess. Or better yet, maybe I'll just be a happy little Associate Degree nurse the rest of my life!  Who needs all that money anyways?  With a higher degree comes a higher degree of accountability and of potential lawsuits. I'm not sure I'll be any better off with more education. Have to think about that one.

We had a good amount of rain today, and some ice.  They say they're expecting more overnight, and the schools are on a 2hr late start schedule as of right now.  Me, personally, I think everyone is totally paranoid after the blizzard and they are overreacting to every little storm that comes through. I KNOW it won't get bad overnight, things are going to be fine, and there are going to be a lot of really embarassed people tomorrow when they realize that they changed all the schools in the area to a late start for no reason. Okay, well maybe I don't KNOW, but I sure do suspect it.  I just don't have that "worse weather is coming" feeling. Oh, well... I'm sick of cold anyways.  I wasn't, but that week without heat really did me in.  BRING ON SPRING!!!! (Not to mention my very own selfish reason to look forward to spring... that's when my love of my life is going to be coming home!)

Sadly, I did nothing but school work all day, so I don't have very much to say other than to gripe about how excessive that was.  But to be honest with you my eyes are really red and itchy from staring at the computer and the books all day, and I really just don't have it in me to complain very much tonight. So I'm going to bed, and I'm sure that for tomorrow night's blog I can come up with something halfway intelligent... I'm going to try and get to blogging earlier before I'm totally worn out!

Day 153: January 27, 2010

Quote of the Day: "A simple enough pleasure, surely, to have breakfast alone with one’s husband, but how seldom married people in the midst of life achieve it." –Anne Morrow Lindbergh

I am soooo unbelievably tired right now! I started out my day with a bang... went out to get into my car to drive to class, only to turn the key and hear "clickclickclickclickclick" instead of my engine starting. As it turns out, the truck battery dying wasn't enough, so my car decided that its battery wanted some attention as well.  So for the first and ONLY time in the entire time my husband has been gone I was thankful that he was not home to have driven his truck to work, or I would have been up a creek. I had to literally run over and get into his truck and drive IT to class. I barely made it in there with like a minute or two to spare, thankfully.  It was a very interesting lecture, a topic that I am always interested in... pregnancy and childbirth! I think that this part may come easy to me, because during both of my pregnancies I read every single thing in sight about what was going on with my body and the baby, and most of what she lectured on sounded familiar to me.  My hope is that some of that information from soooo long ago stuck in my long-term memory and I will have an easier time. No guarantees, but I am sorely tempted to go buy that book that I used to live by. You know. "What To Expect When You're Expecting." That book was my bible during both pregnancies, and it really did lay everything out for you perfect, in a timeline fashion. I think that I must have spent hours each day reading it.

After class we had to drive out to Vernon to get our photos taken for our graduating class portraits. Mine turned out really crappy, but that's okay. At this point, I am just happy to have survived this far! And who cares if that crappy picture is going to grace the Vernon College wall in the nursing department hallway for years to come.... not me. I don't really care who sees it, because for right now there are so many more important things to worry about. Like the fact that I may have to buy TWO new batteries now instead of one. And the fact that I really need to get started on my homework but am so tired that my eyes want to take three times as long to blink than they normally do.

Cody ripped his shorts during church tonight, playing football. He did a great job of it, too... from waistband almost to the knee! HAHAHA Thankfully a friend of his had been thinking that the weather was going to turn cool tonight and had brought a pair of jeans with him. Gotta love that kid! LOL Wish mine would plan that far ahead. So now we are one pair of shorts, um... short. And have a heck of a story to tell his children when he has them.  Everything else is pretty much at a standstill right now, because when I get up tomorrow I have some serious work to do on my school stuff. And I'm going to be starting my monster study sessions again, too, so I'll have even less time. Sigh. Only four more months of this, right? Easy as pie.  Well, for me, anyways, because I always learn better when I have something interesting to learn.

Day 152: January 26, 2010

Quote of the Day: "Is it fair that you occupy so many of my thoughts- and so much of my heart?" -Gayle Lapekas

YAY, it's been 152 days now since I've seen my favorite person in the whole world.  Not quite half a year, but man, it sure feels like a lot longer than it has been. I can't wait to get him home and have our lives get back to normal again. I miss so many of the goofy things, and so many of the better ones. I really miss having someone to talk to and share things with. I miss arguing over whose turn it is to order pizzas becase "I ordered the last time, it's your turn." I miss laying in bed getting irritated because he HAS to have the water running to shave, and HAS to bang his razor on the side of the sink when he's shaving, right about the time I get used to the running water and am almost back to sleep again. I miss getting frustrated when he's in a bad mood and being grouchy. I miss so many things! Not all of them the bad things, though. I miss being able to jump up when I hear his truck enter the driveway and meet him at the door, I miss being able to reach out and hug him. Aw, hell, I just miss him. I can't sit here all night and list every little single thing or we'd be here for days. Probably until he lands in Dallas!

I worked on the backsplash today, and I think that it's really looking good, finally. I definitely know what color I DON'T want when we get around to redoing the backsplash, though... anything that looks white or cream, or even yellowish. Because that's what it is now... and I hate it. I need COLOR in my life,  people! Lots and lots of color! The plain and boring does nothing but make me feel depressed, and I'm SO TIRED of feeling depressed. It's great to walk into the family room or my bedroom, because they're both just so colorful. Well, the bedroom is kind of a dark and dreary mix of turqouise and chocolate, but that's okay, they're not sad colors, just relaxing ones. But I tell you, the room that I can't stand now is the one room that I am working on... and I sure hope that we have the money to get the floors, windows, and doors done soon so that I can move on to redoing the stupid kitchen. UGH! Well, let me rephrase that... the backsplash and counters. The floor that I hate will be gone when we do the rest of the floors, so those are the only things I'll have left that I'm not happy with.

Damien had his friend Drew over today, and they sat in the living room for awhile and played Monopoly, so I took what was probably one of my last few opportunities while he's still living with us to take some pictures. It's going to be strange not having him living at home, but that's if he can ever find a job. We'll see how long that takes... in this economy it could be a LONG time!

Other than that, Cody is spending a lot of his time with his girlfriend, Mika has a little bit of a kitty cold and is walking around sneezing all the time, Tiger is feeling much better and has been playing with his kitty toys and leaving them all over the house, Tiny is also not feeling well and has relegated himself into the dogbed in my bathroom floor and has been hiding there the last two days, and Chloe and Mocha are being their normal, happy-go-lucky little doggy selves. Life's just one big picnic! Did I mention that I am now taking donations for the "Save Carmen from Boredom" foundation? hehehe

Day 151: January 25th, 2010

Quote of the Day: "Few delights can equal the mere presence of someone we utterly trust." - George MacDonald

I had my orientation for the mother/baby portion of my clinicals today. I will be assisting with  births during this rotation. That's not the scary part. The scary part is that we are to give the newborns their Vitamin K shots.... and those shots have the potential of being fatal, as we have had pounded into our heads since day one! Still, I am really excited about it. Having never seen the "miracle of birth" from the end that doesn't involve pain, maybe I will be able to appreciate it more this time around? You would think, anyways. They went over all the things that we are expected to do, and it is a LOT. We have to assess the mother and the newborn, so anyone working on an L&D unit automatically has two patients per room. Wow... who would have guessed. And they will be soooo different, with different norms and everything. There isn't a lot of homework for this rotation, thankfully, but the homework we do have seems to be really different from any we have had so far. Still, I'm thankful that whether I pass or fail, at least I am getting there. Graduation is within 4 months, and if I can pass the HESI test (which is the Vernon College exit test) then I'm home free until the NCLEX exams. Which terrify me!

I put the red onto the backsplash tonight after class so that it would dry before tomorrow. I want to do the almond when I get up in the morning so that I can get the epoxy onto the dang countertops before anything else happens to them.  I really have to, because not having the kitchen sink is amazingly crippling in the kitchen. I can deal with the rest of the counters being out of commission, because the stove and microwave are still usable, but the sink is desperately needed to do dishes. AS IN DESPERATELY!!!!!!

I can't wait to see what it will look like once I've got the almond paint on there... hopefully it'll look a lot less like I've been slaughtering chickens in the house. I'll put more pictures on here tomorrow once it's on there, and it'll be time to decide whether it's good enough, or whether to go to Lowe's and buy some wallpaper to put up on there. Right now, it's hard to tell what it's going to look like.

Day 150: January 24, 2010

Quote of the Day:

"What shall I do with all the days and hours

That must be counted ere I see thy face?

How shall I charm the interval that lowers

Between this time and that sweet time of grace?

~Frances Anne Kemble

Well, if I had a penny for every day that Ron has been gone, I'd have enough to get a few cups of coffee. Or maybe a soda, with tax.  But if I had a hundred dollar bill, then.... man, the options would defninitely increase! LOL

I started on the backsplash today that I've been planning to do for a year. And bought the paint for a year ago. But now, I'm not such a happy camper.  First of all, I wore latex gloves from Lowe's to paint with because it's oil-based paint, and you have to have hand contact with it if you want to sponge paint. I taped everything up all great, and had everything protected. Even my hands!  But guess what I learned the hard way?  Cheap latex gloves from Lowe's rip REAL easy, evidently. Without you knowing they have done it.  So now, three of the fingers and the thumb on my right hand look like I've dipped my hand into the paint can, the fingers on my left hand are just a little better,  and there are various other spots on my hands that have little spots of oil-based paint on them. And tomorrow is a clinical day!!!! Thankfully, it's not one where I will have to do patient care, so I therefore won't have to worry so much about it. Unless it doesn't come off by Thursday, then I'm up a creek without a paddle.  So once I discovered the glove problem I started wearing four pairs at once, and it worked much better.  But now.... I just don't like the way the paint actually looks on the tile.  It gets good coverage and all, but it was really difficult to do because the paint just wants to run and run, and the sponge starts drying out after a while and it doesn't do as good a job.  Sigh.  Not sure what to do with it, because I don't like the way the paint looks, but I can't take it off because it's oil-based. GRR! At least it was just a temporary fix until we have the money to redo the kitchen. And it's only the first of three colors, so maybe it will start looking better once I start messing with the other layers a little.  Here's hoping, anyways. But in the meantime, here are some in-the-process photos for you to look at. See if you can see what I mean about how bumpy it looks!

I also decided today that it was time to trim the dogs' toenails, which was a fiasco in and of itself.  Chloe wasn't so bad, because I'm used to doing hers and she's used to me doing them.  Scaredy-cat little Mocha, however, was a totally different story.  She just did not want me having anything to do with holding her little paws!  She let me trim her nails, but it was definitely a fight to keep her from yanking her paws out of my hand. And of course, she did her typical little constant whine that drives me crazy. I'd have thought that she'd have gotten over that little personality quirk by now, but she hasn't. Oh, and let me tell you ... that damn dog sheds more than any cat I have ever seen! I'd have thought that a short-haired dog wouldn't shed so much, but she is the exception to the rule. If you pick her up when you're wearing black it's all over... you'd better have a lint roller in your back pocket.

Tomorrow I have orientation for my mother/baby clinicals, which I was looking forward to until I learned that we are supposed to take our clinical calculations books with us, which means we'll be working on drug problems. UGH! I really hate math! I understand that we're going to have it on the state board exams, and that we will have to practice them all the time in order to remember how to do them properly, but that does NOT mean that I have to like it! LOL 

Day 149: January 23, 2010

Quote of the Day: "Everyone faces challenges and problems. Success lies in dealing with them promptly and thoroughly."

Well, I guess I didn't make the cutoff to have my post actually show up on here on the 23rd, but that's because I lost all track of time, as usual.  I got up this morning full of the intentions to clean my kitchen up. And I grabbed a really heavy-duty cleaner/degreaser and cleaned my countertop and tile backsplash, scrubbing the grout with a brush. Then I decided, what the heck. I'm really tired of these ugly countertops, but we aren't going to be replacing them any time soon, so I'm going to do something about it.  And I started painting. And painting. Until finally, eight layers of paint later, I have one completed countertop waiting for approval from the Big Man before I add a coat of the epoxy sealer.  Until that's on there I can still scrape off all the paint and take it back to what it was, just in case Ron doesn't like it.  But I really do, so I hope he does! It's definitely a LOT better than the outdated countertops that came with the house.

BEFORE

AFTER

Had a great talk with Ron today, too. We talked a bit about some of the things that we want to do to the house, some of the things we HAVE to do to the house, and just some things we want to do. It is always great to hear from him, but I sure can't wait until it's in person. That way, I can playfully smack his arm when he's being goofy, or I can just smile at him when he's being cute.  MAN, I miss that. But we're getting real close to the end, so at least it'll all be over with soon.