The hooker isn't lying

I'm working tonight and bored so while I was flipping through the April 2011 issue of Good Housekeeping, I came across a story written by Amy Finley, one of the cooks from The Next Food Network Star show.
She writes about the difficulties of marriage and while I didn't read the whole story, I did notice a quote that made me laugh out loud and totally made my night at work not seem so bad.

This was the quote:  No four words are more direct or lethal to any marriage than "I want a divorce." (Except for, possibly, "The hooker isn't lying")

I think I’m going to have to see if she's really that funny on TV.  That quote was great, lol!

admission of defeat

After today, I feel like I have a learning deficiency.  After today, I have come to learn that I am an extremely visual learner.  Set me in front of a book with a pen and paper for hours and I’ll prove to you that I learn very little that way.

 

Set me in front of a partner explaining things either by talking or acting them out and I am set on fire with the amount of information I absorb.  What took me hours to try to wrap my head around yesterday studying on my own from my notes and book, took all but a half hour for me to get by having a wonderful co-student show me what I needed to know. 

How am I going to survive the next two years with this visual learning style?  It’s not like my co-students are going to want to reiterate before each test for me. 

After receiving an average score on my Pharmacology exam today this is the text I wrote my husband:

“I feel completely inadequate and dumb.  I wish I wasn’t the student I am.  I am not made to be a nurse or anything productive.  I should go back to loving my kids and doing housework, and even that I wasn’t very good at.”

Now keep in mind, this was written after my exam and I was on my way to my car.  I finally was able to let my guard down from being around the other students, the tears flowed and I was hoping my husband could heal me with his words of encouragement.  He was at work and talked with me briefly but in a way only a husband could. 

It’s funny how I am an honors student feeling such meagerness, that all I want to do is quit.

Irreplaceable

I had another disturbing dream last night, this time I was lovingly staring into my husband’s eyes and we were having a serious talk.  He told me he couldn’t handle the stress of being both dad and mom to our kids and putting in all the hours at work that he does.  He told me he loved me very much but couldn’t stay married in this arrangement anymore.  He needed someone who could give him the same amount attention that he’s capable of giving, more evenly.

Instead of dropping out of nursing school, I obliged his requests and let him leave the marriage.  I was devastated, because instead of moving far away from him, I just went next door and we swapped spouses with another couple.  All the while I was seeing him getting acquainted with another woman who was willing to do all the things I use to do for him, including cooking him supper, sitting on the front porch and smiling while chit-chatting, but most importantly just the lovely little things that make a couple complete.  Which include having conversations about the positive and negative parts of their day and confiding about desires and dreams of their futures.  In this dream, MY husband was doing all of this without me, all the while I was sitting by the wayside next door.

 

Every once in awhile I would sneak over to “their” house when the other women was out, so I could talk to my husband and see if things were working well.  He would tell me that things were slow in coming along with this new woman.  He said he would never stop loving me and things would never be as good with this woman as he had them with me, but wasn’t willing to come back to me.

I was crushed and devastated and when I woke up this morning I had a hard time believing this was just a dream, I was nearly shaking while brushing my teeth because I was that upset.

I know I’ve been a studying fool lately with the amount of tests and school work, and the inadequate amount of sleep is wearing on me.  I know I haven’t been to church in what seems like forever even though I promised myself I’d attend more with having my Sunday’s off from work.  And the correct dosage of Holy Spirit each week is important to me to stay balanced which I obviously am missing.
 

But I can’t help but wonder am I irreplaceable in this marriage?  You hear all the time, at work that people are always replaceable and you’re never as important as you think, but does that ring true in marriage too?

What happens when help is declined

Yesterday after my partner and I presented our 12-min spiel on Protein and its benefits, I looked to her and asked “are you ready for the exam”?  To which she said she knows just about everything possible for the heart.  I reminded her that only 21 of the 50 questions were on the heart section and that 17 were on the respiratory and that was the second priority during my study time. 

And then she had the deer caught in the headlights look on her face and she said “what do you mean respiratory stuff; I thought we weren’t covering that chapter until the next exam”. 

Then I turned my whole body towards her and said (in an Elaine style only seen on Seinfeld kind of way) “SHUT UP, did you not study the respiratory stuff?”  Then her look said it all no, she hadn’t studied the respiratory chapter and yes she was screwed! 

Then in split second, I could see it coming next with her face getting all red, and I said “Don’t cry!”  I looked at the clock and saw that she had little over an hour to cram all that she could into her head about respiratory; I even suggested that we get a small group formed to fill her brain with the needed info.  She chose to go home and watch youtube videos to help her cram during that hour instead.

When she got done with the exam, her score was 68%, not good for her, not good for anyone. 

Now what kind of upsets me is the fact that at the beginning of the last week I went to her house and supplied her with a copy of the exam review and popular possible questions that were suggested to be studied.  I know that I included the respiratory chapter, so now I’m thinking she didn’t even look at that paperwork I gave to her when preparing for this exam, otherwise she would’ve known that respiratory was going to be tested. 

Ugggh, I can’t stand when you try to help someone out and they don’t take your help.  I really feel like she could have done a great job on this test if she would have looked at that paper. 

Increased by 14

Woo hoo people, after taking my big exam this morning that I studied for during my "spring break", I have officially increased by 14 percentage points from the last exam!
Oh boy it feels so great to get a better grade indeed!  Thank you Lord for helping me stay focused on what's really important and not worry about the small stuff.

Also not to forget to mention, that my partner and I delivered a stellar presentation on Protein to our fourth grade classmates, which included making "ants on a log" and was received well by everyone.  We got an A on that presentation and lesson plan!

Break Time

Is it true that nurses don't get their breaks during their work shift?  Is this the exception or the rule?

So often I hear that nurses are expected to work long shifts with 5 minutes here and there to wolf down their lunch or supper.  If by law, a nurse is suppose to take a 30 minute unpaid "lunch", then why is there so much complaining? 

It's confusing to me because of the overweight nursing population, and seems kind of contradictory with the shortages of break time.

Teaching/Lesson Plan Done

My partner and I had to create and type up a teaching plan about the importance of eating protein and how it helps the body, our target audience are 4th graders. 
Our objectives are easy and attainable using a cognitive portion, an affective portion, and our demonstration shows the psycho-motor portion including assembling "ants on a log".

This awesome poster board was created by yours truly:

We rocked the creation of this project and will follow through with a 12-minute demonstration on Monday morning.  I'll update again on Monday afternoon to fill you in on how the demonstration worked out, along with how I did on that terribly scary exam I've been talking about the past week.

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May

Is it possible to have physical problems from too much studying?  I feel so tired, grouchy, my neck hurts because I slept on it wrong, I have a headache, and the muscle in my upper right bicep keeps twitching. 

I wish my summer break was here already...  Can anyone fill my head with summer thoughts and ideas to take me away from all the fresh snow we just received in the past two days and the heaps of stress I'm under?

Finding precious time

My spring break hasn’t been very springy nor has it been much of a break.

Worked 10 hrs on Saturday

Was with family on Sunday

Worked on Ethics Paper w/ partner on Monday

Finished Ethics paper and started studying for 240 Test – yesterday (also celebrated anniversary with a Swiss roll {dessert *yum*})

Work 10 hrs today – Wednesday

Work 10 hrs tomorrow – Thursday

Teaching/Lesson Plan paper w/partner – Friday

Marriage Conference – Saturday

Church and more studying - Sunday

Humm, better reorganize my priorities and get my studying in gear!

Check out the picture of my note cards for my upcoming 240 test.  I’m not sure I’m a note card type of girl, but something has to work better than my last attempt with testing and I think this may be it.  Five days until the big 240 test, I’m sure I’ll find more study time within my schedule but where is the question??

a story about a girl and a guy

                There was a girl who was seventeen years old, looking for love working at a retail store alongside her sister.  This girl worked in the Electronics department and loved it.  While working, every once in awhile this girl would hear an overhead announcement with a guys voice smooth as velvet.  This guy wouldn’t just make a short and sweet announcement; he seemed to like to hear himself speak.  What normally would take just a few seconds to announce turned into minutes for this guy.  Intrigued, the girl took a break one day and walked over to where her sister was working and asked “have you heard the guy overhead who likes to hear himself talk”?  The girl’s sister said she had heard the guy a few times and thought he was new, but chalked it off as him being overconfident.  Just as the girls sister was saying that another overhead announcement happened and it was the guy.  So the girl and her sister glanced in the direction of where the overhead was happening and couldn’t quite make out who it was.  The girl was so curious that she walked up to the guy to get a closer look, and everything had grown quiet, and imaginary fireworks were shooting in all directions around this guy.  The girl was awestruck only for a moment, and then the guy glanced at her and smiled.  The girl blushed, looked down and walked back to the Electronics department thinking all the while what this guy was all about. 

                About a week later, the girl had asked her manager if she could be transferred to work up at the front of the store on the cash registers, admitting only to herself that she wanted to be closer to where this guy worked at the return desk.  Once she was working at the cash registers she could see this guy a lot more, but only from a distance.  Eye contact was existent but rare, and the guys return desk area kept him busy.  So within a month of working up at the front cash registers the girl asked her new manager if she could be trained in at the return desk and was granted permission. 

                The first time working at the return desk the girl was nervous and unsure what to think, until the guy she had her eye on walked in and said he was suppose to be her trainer.  The girl nearly dropped what was in her hands and she awkwardly stared at the guy in shock and horror because although she was excited to finally be near him, she didn’t want to screw it up by being in competent.  The guy was sweet and gentle and took his time explaining the procedures of “returns” all the while generously giving lots of compliments to the girl along the way.  This made the girl ecstatic and giggly throughout her shift and just working near this guy made her crave more time with him. 

                Throughout time the girl had gotten to know the guy, she found out that his love was to be a radio broadcaster and was in college to fulfill the dream of being on-air.  This made sense to her as she pointed out to the guy that he may want to “trim the fat” when making overhead announcements because he was taking so long to complete the task.  He laughed and thanked her for her honesty, and agreed to tone it down a bit.  Banter back and forth between the girl and guy came easier over time and they both seemed to enjoy working together.

                One day the girl started her shift expecting to work with the guy at the return desk, only to find out from other co-workers that the guy had quit his job.  Stunned and broken-hearted the girl finished her shift that day destroyed.  She had thought they had experienced some kind of chemistry being together, what was she going to do now that this guy was no longer working at her same job? 

                Weeks went by and while the girl went back to working on the cash registers instead to take her mind of the memories she had with the guy in the return desk area, she thought of him often.  One unusually slow night, while the girl was ringing purchases up for a customer, she glanced down the aisle a bit and was caught off guard when she made eye contact with the guy, he was in her aisle.  Oh goodness, what was she to do?  Questions ran through her head of whether she looked okay or did she have something in her teeth, all the while trying to finish with her customer so she could greet the guy.

                The guy got closer to the girl and made small talk briefly explaining why he quit working there because of a better job opportunity that came along elsewhere.  He smiled frequently, while the girl rang up his purchase of a music CD and asked what she was up to later that week.  Playing it cool, she said she didn’t think she had much going on, and then the guy took his receipt and wrote his number on the back and handed it to the girl.  He said he would like it if she called him so they could maybe go out for a movie and dinner.  She couldn’t help the smile on her face from ear to ear, knowing the guy was interested in her, as she promised to call him in a few days.

                The girl and the guy dated for six months and after she graduated from high school he asked for her hand in marriage.  A few weeks later at the end of June the girl moved across the country to live with the guy and start their lives together.  One and a half years later they were married on a pleasantly warm spring day down south vowing to cherish, love, and respect each other always. 

                On this day fourteen years ago, I vowed to love, honor, and cherish my husband and I love him more today than I did on our wedding day and we still chuckle about how we met and his infatuation of hearing himself speak on the overhead system where we once worked.  I love you my hubby more than you’ll ever know, happy anniversary!

BOOK RENTAL HELP NEEDED!

I remember reading somewhere that you can go to a website and rent textbooks instead of buying them from amazon, can anyone help me out?  I have two summer history gen. ed. classes I have to take and looking at buying 5 books, what's the point if I can rent or check them out somewhere instead.
Thanks ahead of time!

Laughter and Giggling

Yesterday I was up and on the road by 9am to travel to Eau Claire to visit with my mom and two sisters.  We met at Olive Garden and the giggle factory started from there and continued throughout the day.  There was one point where my middle sister Dominique was slicing part of cheese filled puff bread thing so my mom could try it and while she was cutting the puff her finger slipped and gravy juice went splattering onto my older sister Karla's all white shirt.  The messy gravy even got in her hair and we all just had a big laugh about what happened.  It makes me chuckle to myself just thinking about it now.

Then we headed on over to the mall and walked around a bit.  I stopped off at the jewelry store to have my tennis bracelet fixed that my hubby bought me 10 years ago, that I've been meaning to get fixed but have been putting it off.  It is absolutely beautiful and I don't know why I was so lazy not to have it fixed before now.

My mom baked some cookies and fudge that we indulged in while sitting in the food court.  

It was a great beginning to my spring break to be able to hang out with just us girls and no husbands or kids that I wish we could do it more often.

After we were done eating our treats, I quickly got a set of vitals on all three of them to add to my list of (40) that I need completed by April 1^st for school. 

Then we said our goodbyes and went to our separate cars, I had to fight off tears on my way back home because I miss them so much and wish I could meet up with them every weekend. 

But then as I was driving home telling my mom that very thing she said it wouldn't be as enjoyable, so it’s better off that we just save these times to once-in-awhile, and I agreed.

One of God’s greatest blessings is to have a supportive and loving family who you can turn to when you need them and they encourage and give you positive things to think about.  Thank you Lord for my family!

What's in a name?

I took an idea from Estelle's blog (thanks lady) and decided I would check it out too.  I'm highly impressed.  What a great way to start my vacation!

1. Go to urbandictionary.com [check]
2. Type in *your name* in the look up any word spot. [check]
3. Read the definition of your name. [check]
4. Think it's cool. [double check]
5. Think I'm cool for telling you to do it. [triple check]

My name's definition:

A smart, sassy and sexy young woman who knows things from fashion to film to literature, from Manolo Blahniks to Mahatma Gandhi.

Awesome thanks Estelle for boosting my day!  **:-)**

Freedom Is Mine!

Free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty I’m free at last, at least for the next week from school that is for spring break :-)

I have such great plans, and part of what I’m planning to do is catch up on reading all the blog entries from my peeps that I’m following and the other excitement comes from being able to blog a few entries of my own this week.

Tonight the plan is to watch some college basketball on tv with my hubby, super exciting.  I have to work an 8hour shift tomorrow but that won’t be too hard.

Next weekend I’m thrilled to be going with my hubby to a love and respect marriage conference at our church, sounds really therapeutic.

I don’t know if you people have noticed the ticker on the right side of my blog page here but I am technically now 799 days away from graduating!  Wow I can taste the freedom of school now.  I can actually start seeing the slow glow of a light at the end of the tunnel.  Woot woot!

So this week we wrapped up the Cardiac and Peripheral Vascular assessment today which included being touched skin-on-skin for the 5 points on the chest for cardiac sounds, including palpation and inspection of the PMI.  Here’s a word for the wise, for all of you beginning nursing students who haven’t started taking classes yet, if you think that during your class you will be feeling a manikin for assessment time only, think again.  Nursing is not for the shy or timid, but like most things if it doesn’t break you it will make you stronger.  I completely enjoyed my partner because she is cool (aka the one I blogged about earlier that I have a girl crush on that’s totally non sexual) and I like her sense of humor and we get things done well, great chemistry if you will!

I have a great big bunch of studying to do over spring break but that’s okay because I’m choosing to do it.  And like I said before and I’ll say again that I’m going to rock this big test on Monday the 28^th for my foundational class along with rocking out another big exam on Thursday the 31^st for Pharm.  By the way I received back a near perfection paper that I wrote for the foundations class and have gotten some of my dignity back and it feels fantastic. 

Have a fabulous weekend to you all out there in blog-land because I know I’m going to have a great one!

Over the moon

I cannot wait until spring break next week, because I have a project called "operation get a better grade on my next Nrsg-240 class on Monday the 28th". 

If you're following along with my blog you would've read that I got a bad test score and felt so deflated and humiliated after that test that I asked for advice. 
Thankfully to my rescue rnraquel and It's just me :) told me of a book I should check out from Amazon called Test Success Test-Taking Techniques for Beginning Nursing Students.  So I bought it used for $.66 plus $3.99 for S/H.

I have to say that I'm thinking this book will tell me of common sense techniques that are really going to help me. 

I'll also be studying for an exam in Pharmacology and two papers that are due the week after break as well.

I'm ecstatic about not having class and I took a few hours of vacation from work too, so outside of this school work that I'll be working on, I'll also be doing some of the following:

-Reading other books for fun

-Watching one movie per day for all 7 days

-After my daily run at the gym, I'm going to treat myself to sitting in the hot tub

-Paint my nails different crazy colors

-Sleep in

-Driving to eastern Wisconsin to meet up with my mom and sisters for lunch at Olive Garden

-Eat "some" junk food (ok maybe more than just some :-))

This is just to name a few, but most importantly I'm going to charge myself to get a better grade on this next exam, I'm shooting for middle to high 90th percentile. 

If I get 100% then that would put me over the moon!!! 

Brackets

I've going to fill out my March Madness brackets today and I don't know who I should pick.  Usually in the past I've gone by mascot, but I don't think that works so well.  As much as I've been watching basketball with my hubby lately I still have no clue who will win, there is way too many Cinderella stories that always throw a monkey wrench in the mix.

Any suggestions?

Ethical decision paper coming right up.

I have an ethical paper to type up and the length has to be between 6-10 pages, due two weeks from today.  My ethical dilemma is going to be about a drug seeking women, who visits her local ER often for narcotics.  She will make another trip to the ER but this time her illness is for real, she's in extreme pain with an ectopic pregnancy and the staff isn't taking her seriously.  The ethical decision lays with the nurse who believes the women is truly in pain and her decision of having to go against the doctor and nursing supervisor to get tests run on the patients serious condition and deciding on whether she should be reporting her co-workers for negligence. 

My problem is the fact that I'm not motivated to write the stinking paper.  It's another partnered paper and we have to include the steps in the Ethical Decision Making Model from our textbook.  My first paragraph has to explain the decision making model and the provisions of nursing, then I have to write up the fake scenario.  I'd rather be reading my blog than doing school work, oh any my spring break starts next week, I'd rather work on it then.

Captivated

Is it possible to meet someone new in your life and want to totally submerge yourself with them?  I have found a girlfriend at school who is totally cool!  She is smart, funny, and beautiful and I think I'm in love - like a friend duh - and I'm enamored by her indeed.
 
We've been sitting by each other and buddying up during assessment times, we've gone to lunch together, and I even called her two nights ago to chat. 

This first week of school I totally pinned her as being obnoxious, young and annoying, for goodness sakes she's 10 years younger than me.  But then in a moment of humbleness she pulled me aside and asked if she could practice bp's on me and then and there I saw her differently.  She totally seemed human and okay but just in a young, vibrant, loud, kind of way, some would see me the same way, just in a more mature shell. 

Now I can't tell you why but fireworks ignited and I've been hanging on every word she says and I just think she is amazing -again in a friend kinda of way.  I don't want this to fizzle out because I could suffocate her but I'm really enjoying her friendship.  I also don't want her to think that I "get around" - as far as making friends with just about anyone, because that just isn't so.

In a friend way-would it be moving too fast to ask her to come over to my house to study or is it too soon?

Haha after reading this it sounds like a conversation I would’ve had with my girlfriend when I was younger regarding what to do when wanting to date my husband.  :-)

Flashcards and French competitions

I'm a flashcard making machine this weekend to cover 5 chapters including physical assessment, integument, cardio, pv, and respiratory.  I'm including all vocab, because the smarties in class think this is helpful so I will too!  I've read on a couple of internet sites to put the term on one side and definition on the back side, but when it comes to making flashcards for other topics within the chapter to form the flashcards in a Q and A format.  By putting the question on the front and answer on the back this helps you learn better. 

Also if you're going to learn the process of something that takes more than one step to list the amount of steps in parenthesis like this (5) on the front along with the name of the process and then on the back list the five steps. 

This keeps things easy and clear, unlike how I use to make flashcards by listing so many things on the back that I could never memorize anything because there was too much info listed.

On a lighter note, my daughter had a French speaking competition with her junior high class today where she had to wait in a line outside of a classroom door with 100 other kids and one by one they all competed for state.  Guess who is going to state...that's right my daughter!!  What an impressive child my husband and I have, she amazes me day after day.  She is super thrilled and earned an award, which we’ll be framing and hanging on the wall.

Why can’t we as students have awards of completion of each semester we go through?  I’m such a visual person this would help a great deal for me.

Partnered Assignments Are No Fun

Glad to have turned in my health history assignment, but it was hell to say the least.  My partner was crazy annoying and spent too much time nit-picking the mechanics, before we even had the darn thing written.  So I continued by finishing the 15 pager and really gave her something to edit.  J

She spent more time on complaints about my way of doing things that when I asked her for a better way she didn't have any, she lacked initiative.  That was so annoying, which is why I'm glad we were expected to do a peer evaluation, that only went to our instructors and this gave me the opportunity to let them know what didn't work between us.

On a different note one of the students in our class that I signed up to be her partner for our next big paper (Ethics), her husband got into an accident while at work last Thursday night.  He was filling air in a big semi tire but the company didn't have a cage and it exploded.  Part of the tire ricocheted off the wall and hit him in his right hip, knocked him out. 

Come to find out later his pelvis and right hip were fractured.  He was transported to a bigger city hospital and no orthopedic surgery was needed.  He is working on PT, but no weight bearing for the next 15 weeks, the big medical supply company is coming to fit their house with a hospital bed, walker, wheel chair, and shower chair. 
Wow, I bet that place he works for is going to install a cage to keep things safer for future air fillings. 

I’m just happy he’s alive, for a minute there I imagined what my life would be like if one minute I was coasting through my life like normal and the next minute I’d become a widow, very devastating. 

The positive side of it all is the Ethic paper is due this Friday for the class, but my partner and I have an extension until after spring break during the 21^st-25^th!  Yippee!

To-do List

What's the BEST thing about finishing a 12 page paper today???

Finishing a 12 page paper and getting paid while doing it (I worked today and got massive school work done all while under the watchful eye of my boss who encouraged me not to give up)!  Ain't life grand when things work out and you complete a few tasks on your to-do list? *smile*