Quote of the Day

Overheard as I walked down my block, passing two girls who could not have been more than 14 years old, as they discussed the possible age of some poor boy they have a crush on. In all seriousness, Girl # 1 says to the other:

"Omg, could you imagine if you were, like, in love with a twelve year old?"

Omg,I know, like, the HORROR of it all. What could be more soul-numbingly awful than to discover you are in LUV with an eighth grader when you've already advanced to the ripe maturity of the ninth grade? It just smacks of Romeo-and-Juliet-style forbidden passion.

Or maybe not, judging by the way Girl #2 responded:

"Ew."

I love the way middle school and high school emotions are so casually discarded.I really do. I mean,it's sort of tragic to live through, but when your hormones have flattened out and you have the benefit of hindsight, that time of life is pretty glorious. You can kill all your crushes, flick away all your emotions, change your entire opinion, with a simple, "Ew." There's a reason that period is short-lived (can you imagine, if i like, did that to Joshua? EW), but I think it's good while it lasts. Personally, I took my 13 year old relationships way too seriously and the only thing it got me was grounded for a whole summer (for sitting in a tree! K-I-S-S-I-N-G!)

Today I started my last real clinical class. I'm not graduating until May, but that last semester is a whirlwind of an internship and community health nursing. But today we got right back into the gritty, heavy areas - heart disease and diabetes, otherwise knowns as What Kills You in America 101. This semester we're learning how to manage acute and critical care patients; how to perform blood transfusions, monitor chest tube drainage, care for people on ventilators. And then in 8 weeks, most of what I am expected to know as a new RN will supposedly be stuffed somewhere in my brain. I think this is terrifying.

Sometimes at work, I am so thankful to be "only" a nursing assistant. I am thankful to take vitals, to let the nurse know the patient has a fever, to take out IVs and catheters and help patients walk the halls or go to the bathroom. I am thankful because I don't feel ready to be THE nurse yet - to look at my patient's labs and assess why and where that fever is coming from, to jump when the tele monitors are beeping ferociously and see my patient going into v-tach or a-fib (you know you've all seen this on ER). There are nurses at work who graduated from associates degree programs and are 3 years younger than me, and I still don't feel old enough to have this kind of responsibility. I am excited to be a nurse and I can't wait to have a job (a REAL job! a grown-up job! a please-pass-the-dental-insurance-i-have-four-cavities kind of job!). But, sometimes it's intimidating to know that I've chosen the kind of career where I could easily call Joshua and say, "I'm sorry honey but I am going to be late. Yes, it is a LIFE OR DEATH KINDA THING," and mean it.

The other night I worked a double shift and left the hospital at 7:30am. The day shift had come in at 7, looking clean and caffeinated, and I was greasy and tired after 16 straight hours of patient care. And I wasn't the one who had to pass medications, do assessments, and call docs that night.

For all I complain about school and homework and clinical and getting up horrifically early and constant stress, being a nursing student is a pretty good deal. Someone always has your back, and you can always say, "I don't know." You can't really say that when you are a RN and your manager asks why you missed something crucial about your patient. I am excited for the day when I can say I am an expert in a particular field. But I am scared for the time that comes between being a student and becoming that expert...

Suddenly I'm enjoying school again.

Evidence That I Really Love Fall: My Apartment Edition

please note: i am new to photography and do not actually know anything about my camera other than how to turn it on and push that one button. but i want to learn!

an assortment of gourds in a beautiful wooden platter that says give us this day our daily bread in german (but,um, bread does not really handle being a centerpiece very well).



seasonally colored candle and farmers market eucalyptus that is drying (dying? can't tell). please also note: no window treatments. have ever. been in our apartment. because i am a Big Failure at decorating.


tiny supersweet vidalias...living it up on top of some big old red onions that should probably be used, maybe, yesterday?


do not walk, RUN, to target to buy this poached (maybe spiced?) pear candle. and yes, that is my laptop perched precariously on the arm of the couch. don't tell my husband.


i don't actually store apples on the armchair in the living room, but maybe i should - they look pretty happy there.



and finally...all the fall treats one could ever want, hanging out on the butcher block.

It...is...finally...fall!

After weeks of above average temperatures and one tragic record-shattering weekend that hit 90 degrees (OCTOBER 8th people), it has finally cooled down. To be fair, it dropped 30 degrees in one night and went from the record high to a below-normal low. But that's the fun of living in the Midwest I guess. Our bedroom is totally destroyed, strewn with flip flops and capris that I just buried with sweaters and scarves because I have no idea what to wear - Monday I overheated in a tshirt and last night I was underdressed in three layers of clothing. This psychotic roller coaster weather is wreaking havoc on what little organization I have in my house.

But I LOVELOVELOVE fall, and pumpkin-carving, soup-eating, layer-wearing, apple-picking season doesn't feel right until there is a chill in the air. It's hard to get excited about drinking hot cider when it's just as hot outside as it is in your mug, and really all you want to do is find your bathing suit and hit the beach (I resisted this urge, but it was hard). I am a dedicated four season kind of girl, so I get almost pathetically excited each time the weather changes, and kind of bitter when it does not. For example, I do not believe in things like pumpkin spice frappucinos. Besides being a cleverly disguised term for global warming, pumpkin spice frappucinos are wrong because no, you do not get to have the best of both worlds. Fall and summer in one syrupy cup? Ew. What is next, eggnog frappucinos? I am just thrilled that is now seriously fall, and I can take my HOT COFFEE DRINKS outside, wearing my jacket and crunch some leaves under my actual shoes (goodbye, flipflops! I love you and miss you already!). It is truly glorious.

In other exciting and new season type of news, we have been going to a new church and it is really, truly wonderful. We've struggled to find a church in the almost four (FOUR! i can't believe it) years we've been here. We went to the traditional church down the street, a big suburban church, a yuppie urban church...I think we've been searching for the kind of community we both had at our childhood churches. We have learned to continually adjust our expectations, which is a good lesson, and we've also learned what is really important to us in a church, which is an even better lesson. We've been going to Our New Church for about two months now, and all I can say is, God used all those detours and dead ends to lead us right to this place. We are meeting people, getting involved, and mostly importantly being FED by the teaching and the worship. And there is something wonderful about making this kind of change in this season of the year. It's like fall for me - comfortable and surprising all at the same time.

I feel like I've been hibernating lately. I think it's partly by choice, but mostly it's like an avalanche of everything I do just fell on top of me. School has been a non-stop parade of tests, quizzes, projects, presentations, care plans. Every time I check something off my to-do list, I have about fifty other tasks waiting for me. This week was the first round of papers for my 18 freshman writing advisees. So I had to fit 18 (yes, eighteen) 45 minute slots of time into my schedule. I also have my part-time job at the hospital, which keeps me busy until midnight one to two days a week. And then...stop it now...then there is the babysitting. Joshua and I have done two overnights in the suburbs in the past month, and I've been babysitting an average of 2-3 times a week. Add that to my night class, my clinicals, my internship at a senior center, and the previously mentioned job, homework and writing advising situation....

It kind of gives me palpitations to sit back and read this all in one paragraph.

I haven't even had time to have senioritis. What I have had time to do, apparently, is completely blanket my apartment in powerpoint handouts, homework, freshman papers, receipts, clothes, dishes - you name it and it is currently a) dirty b) in the wrong spot or c) dirty and in the wrong spot and I need it THISMINUTE and I can't find it. I definitely gave a presentation today wearing my black pants Formerly Known As Clean. I've had clinicals and an internship that have used and abused those pants, and frighteningly I have only one clear memory of washing them in the past 6 weeks.

I should say that I do like to be busy. I like to feel like I have accomplished something at the end of the day, I like knowing that I've learned something. I know I am guilty of complaining about being bored as equally as I complain about being busy. But I feel like the last two weeks have pushed me past busy into some other realm where I am just mechanically achieving some sort of "done-ness" in all my activities. At 11pm last night I was at work running around checking my patients' vitals, getting a new admit settled in, and trying to finish all my charting... and I actually felt overwhelming relief to still be there. Because there was nothing else to do, no homework, no household tasks, that I was responsible for until I left that unit. I felt like I was hiding from my life by being at work.

I just have to remember that at this time next year, my life will be happening AT work. And hopefully I will have enough perspective to look back at this season of life and be grateful for it being over as opposed to just complaining about the present.

Also, I hope that this somehow, someday, can be turned into a situation we joke about. Like, "remember that month where we never saw each other and we let half the food in the fridge rot because we didn't even have time to make salads and we both wore dirty clothes in socially unacceptable situations and we went broke because we went to starbucks EVERY.MORNING?" yes...the potential for humor is there...