Fall

I love fall...the colors change and the leaves fall and get all crunchy...there is nothing more satisfying then stepping through leaves and getting some good crunches. I love apple cider and caramel apples. I love pumpkin (pie, ice cream, carving them, pumpkin seeds etc...)...I love scarves and hats and coats. Probably one of my favorite things about fall would have to be my birthday though and this year was no exception. I woke up and unfortunately had to go to work but while I was there I got beautiful flowers delivered to me! I have never gotten flowers delivered to me before and it was a fantastic experience that I hope to be able to experience again...soon. My delightful friend Kylie and I went shopping and got some dinner and all that....I got some great clothes and it was a fabulous birthday! Still haven't had my rainbow chip cake (a tradition for me...) but Kenz is going to make it tonight. All in all it was a great day and I can't believe I am 22...wow I am so old :)


In other news...I start my night shift this week...I work Monday 11p-7a so...wish me luck. I will be staying up all night tonight and sleeping tomorrow to start getting my body in the mode...so if I post random jibberish at 3 am tonight..kindly disregard it.

22 Years

It's my birthday!

Halloween, Birthdays, and a Graduation!

So I must admit...I harbor some resentment towards Halloween. This stems from a childhood where my birthday has been 6 days before this ridiculous holiday. All growing up birthday parties consisted of costumes or witches brew (ok so that was actually pretty good...) and then as I got older I had to plan MY birthday party around the ghoolish parties that my friends had to go to. Seriously? So...I tend to try and forget that Halloween even exists...which is hard when your doorbell rings a billion times on October 31st. BUT when my Aunt Brita sent us a package filled with popcorn that turns orange and HOT CHOCOLATE that turns orange (in true Halloween spirit...) I had to try it. Bub was so excited he was dancing all around the kitchen while we made it...it turned out very tasty and we got to snuggle down and munch on popcorn and drink cocoa and watch a movie. What a great Friday night date!

Our poor Murphy LOVES popcorn and kept resting his head on my leg begging for a taste...it is just irresistable I suppose.




I graduated from the PSP program today!!! Yay! I got a 98% on my test and passed all my clinical stuff off too. It was bittersweet because I will miss my class...and George.


It was also the debut of my new hair color...I am still getting used to it...I like it but I will always be a blonde at heart...

Tomorrow is my birthday...woo woo! I'll be a fabulous 22 years old...yay me!
I am going to spend the weekend with some friends and I think we may be seeing the new High School Musical movie (obviously I am actually turning 12.)

Little Red Corvette...

I absolutely love Prince. I love him. And I love the song Little Red Corvette...which doesn't really have anything to do with this blog post but I just wanted to tell you....
and I did entertain my PSP class a couple times with my very own performance of this delightful tune...which does tie into my post today...

I love meeting new people and I love making friends and I was nervous going into this whole experiance that I wouldn't like it or that I would have no friends but I am so blessed because I made new friends with everyone in my class and they have a completely ridiculous sense of humor just like me so....that has been fabulous!

This is my class with my new love George...

Me and Kathie

I have more pictures to prove how incredible hilarious we all are...

We took George and put him up in this chair complete with stethoscope, coffee mug, pen, nametag...and our instructor didn't notice for a good 5 minutes that George was listening in on the class...it was so funny.

George and I had a photoshoot together....it's meant to be.

It is a little known fact that I have VERY long arms. One of my greatest talents is being able to be on my knees in front of the refridgerator and being able to touch the top. I can touch the ceilings in our house...and I pride myself on having longer arms than any guy I know. So one day in class we were talking about it and they said that your foot is the same length as the distance between your wrist and the crook of you elbow....meaning that I would have some very long feet. I was like "seriously guys....my arms are freakishly long...that won't work for me". Of course I had to prove it and we just happened to get a picture....there is still quite a bit of distance there. The one downside to this is that I can never find long sleeves that cover my arms...as evidenced in this picture...

All in all it has been a blast and I couldn't be more happy. Yesterday I had clinical and was on the Ortho side of the Ortho/Neuro/Spine unit and I loved every minute of it. We had some of the sweetest patients I have ever met. Sometimes it's hard and the shall we say...odors...are overwhelming but the look on these peoples faces or their families faces and they way they thank you over and over for what you do for them....really makes it worth it.

New Job by the Numbers...

#of days a week I wake up at 5 am : 5

# of rooms I work in at the hospital: 48

# of times I cried last week: 2

# of times it took me to finally get a correct blood pressure: 7

# of my PSP classmates: 8

# of new friends I've made: 8

# of questions I missed on my CPR test: 0

# of diet cokes it takes to get through the day: 7 (this is a rough estimate)

# of times I change my clothes: 2 (change from scrubs to professional dress for salon....tiring!)

# of times I cleaned up poop on my first day: 3

# of hours I clocked working last week (this includes hospital and salon): 72

# of times I laugh through out the day: too many to count

# of soulmates I've met since working: 1 (see picture below)

All in all it has been an incredible experiance so far. I only have 2 days of classes left and the rest are all clinicals on my actual unit. I will be sad to leave all the friends I've made but I'm excited about all the new experiances I will have. I won't lie...I've been exausted. I went to bed at 8:30 pm last Friday night (ridiculous right???) but it will all be worth it! I'll keep you updated! :)

Happy Birthday Bub!

Today is Bee Bop's Birthday aka Bub, Bubby, Kiki, Beeboperooni, etc...
I have many names for my brother.

Words can not express how grateful I am for Kian.

He has been the comic relief our family needs.

His laugh is contagious. He laughs, then I laugh, which makes him laugh harder...and we keep this going.

He LOVES playing hide and seek with me. He will randomly come up to me and say "ok you hide and I'll count...1, 2, 3..." and most of the time I can't resist

He says things to my dad like "I surely am not belligerent!" (my dad was using the word saying that he was acting belligerent and that was Kian's response)

He always asks "How was work" or "How was your day?"

He loves doing the "Bedtime Chart" with me.

He gives the best huggies.

He can take on anybody in the Mickey racing game for N64 and totally dominate.

He constantly amazes me with how smart he is. He writes his name, reads, spells, draws really cool golf greens, and the things he comes up with to say are just so intelligent.

He once told me that he knew who I was going to marry. When I asked him who he said himself which I promptly set him straight on...but it was still cute.

He can sing all the words to "These Boots Were Made For Walkin" and "SexyBack" which I SWEAR I had nothing to do with.

We sing other silly made up songs together.

We play basketball outside together and crack up the whole time.

He tells me I look "Beufital" which is his way of saying beautiful...and I love it.

Of course there are the times when he drives me absolutely nuts. Like when he claps or yells really loud or bangs on my bedroom door to wake me up. He yells at me and tells me I'm being a punk and then says "Well fine, we're not friends"...when I ask him when we can be friends he always says "On Tuesday"
(even though it is sooner than that).
Even though I can get so mad at him I think that I could stand to live without him...I have moments like I did last week...
Kian and I were laying in my parent's bed watching "Wow Wow Wubzzy" and we were having an in depth discussion of whether or not Wubzzy is a boy or a girl, and he put his arm around my neck and looked at me and smiled and said "I love you Nini"*pronounced nee nee which is what he calls me* and I started crying. Not bawling but my eyes did tear up. I can not imagine my life without him and the thought of him ever having to go through things that are hard or bad makes me cringe. I just want to protect him and baby him and have those moments with him forever. I don't want him to grow up. Hopefully as he does grow up we can be friends and buddies forever. Or at least on Tuesdays.
I love you Bubby!!!

Lifestyle of a PSP

Wow...what a week it has been and it is only Wednesday!!!

Here is a run down of the week's events...

Monday was my first official day at the hospital. I sat through 8 hours of orientation...listening to people talk...but I did bond with my table mates...2 RN's so I will never see them...but it was fun while it lasted.

Tuesday was just a nursing orientation so it was all the people who would be doing patient care. We listened a lot in the AM and in the PM we got to do these skill stations where we learned about code blues/crash carts isolation rooms moving and lifting patients AND tuberculosis mask fittings which were all very interesting and we got out really early. Let me tell you something though...both of these days started BEFORE 0700 (which is 7am for those of you unfamiliar with military time...which I am now VERY familiar with...) so I went directly from the hospital (in my HOT new scrubs that I bought...pictures to be posted later) to my other job at THE PARIS SALON and worked until 2100...got home at 2130 and then had a bunch of reading to do. I crashed right around 2245 and slept soundly until 0545 (you catching on now???)

Wednesday (today) which was really fun. We split into our acutal PSP class today. There are 9 of us and we had a blast. We started out the morning learning a lot of policies (yawn) and then learned about ostomys and emptying ostomy and foley bags (GROSS...if you don't know what that is...count yourself lucky). We breaked for lunch and THEN...the good stuff.

CHECKING GLUCOSE LEVELS

(aka blood sugar)

which we got to do with ACCUCHEC which is that finger prick thing you do at the Dr. office. I received one and gave one. I am happy to report that my glucose level was a 90 which is normal range. It was so cool. I practically felt like a DR.

Then we went over medical terminology/abbreviations.

Do you know what an MI stands for?

CBC?

b.i.d.?

FBS?

I do.

We had a little quiz at the beginning to see which terms we already knew and I was finished in like 2 minutes (before everyone else and I'm then only one in class with NO previous health care training). My instructor was really surprised when she was reading through it and was like "Vanessa...how do you know all this when you haven't even worked in the setting before? I'm impressed"...

My answer???

"Um..ER"

That's right DAD...one of my shows ACTUALLY came in handy for once.

So then I rushed from there today at 4:30 back to the salon where I will be until 9:00 or later...

I'm exausted.

Or maybe I just have S & S of exaustion?

Hmm...