I'd like to share my Snapfish photos with you. Once you have checked out my photos you can order prints and upload your own photos to share.
Click here to view photos

7 Months Later...

Really? It has been 7 months since I posted! Holy Crap! I honestly log onto to Blogger almost every day and read posts but never post myself. I feel like I have no time! Even now, I know that my laundry is done and waiting to be folded, and I need to start dinner, and tons more stuff. But, that's life, and the laundry can wait.

I just started following a new blog, one of my roommates from college, so I figured that maybe she would follow my blog! No one else reads this though, so who knows if she actually will... Hi Justine if you see this :)


Life updates:

House: We closed on our house on April 23rd and have been living in the house since the beginning of June. We pretty much lived at Home Depot for the first 3 months. We have already done tons of work including designing and building a laundry room, completely gutting the master bedroom and refinishing it, new windows in kitchen and master bedroom (rest of windows to be completed as we work our way through the house), lots of painting, refinishing of wood floors, new doors in the whole house, and lots of yard work.

This house is tons of work and we were not expecting all of it! We had a housewarming party in August and everyone was really impressed with everything we have done so far, especially our realtor! He was blown away!

We were so thankful for all of the gifts that we received at the party too, especially the Home Depot gift cards. About 2 weeks after the house warming party, our water heater, which had been slowly leaking, decided it wanted to partially flood our basement. So, thanks to all of our loving family and friends, we were able to go right to HD and get a brand new one!

It is sad how excited I got about the new water heater.



Relationship: BIG NEWS... Matt proposed in July! We are getting married in August 2011! I knew it was coming soon, and actually was pretty sure it was going to happen on our vacation to Toronto, but it was wonderful either way. He picked out my ring all by himself and we are so excited to start this portion of our lives! Wedding planning is hard though! We already have a reception location, a photographer, oh and being the shopaholic that I am, I already have my dress ;)


Jacoby: My baby dog is 15 months old! He is such a good boy. He is so smart and so snuggly. He weighs 75 pounds and loves to be held... He and Gracie are the best of friends. They are so funny together. He loves his new fenced in yard and the views that he has from it. He goes to day care 2-3 times and week and has tons of puppy friends that he hangs out with.



Job: Okay, here is where I could talk for days. Still working 36 hour nights. I actually have gotten into the groove of working nights and am no longer scaring my self by falling asleep at the wheel. Yes, it has happened, No, I didn't crash, and no one was hurt but it is so terrifying. I love the group of girls who I work with. We work so well together and can pull together in times of need.

Have had some amazing patients and some terrible patients. Have had horrible outcomes and miracles. Have made friends with patients, people who I know I will keep in contact with for a long time. I have learned so much in the last 11 months working at the hospital and even more in the 7 months that I have been on my own and working nights. I feel like I have so much responsibility and love almost every moment of my job. I know that we as nurses make such an impact on our patients, especially in this special time in their lives.

I can't believe it has been almost a year already. It is so shocking to realize how much time has past and that I've been an RN for 14 months!

That is all for now. Hopefully I will get in the groove of posting more and posting some HIPPA-friendly patient stories.

Life gets in the way of life.

Ever notice that your life gets in the way of your life? What I mean is, what is actually going on in your life gets in the way of what you want to do in your life.

It has been over a month since I have posted. Yet again, I have too much time but no time. Here are a few quick points about what is going on.

Job: Working nights is reeking havock on my life. I feel exhausted all of the time and sleep quite a bit. I actually am feeling quite depressed too. I know it has something to do with rarely seeing the sun and being so tired but I have been pretty miserable for the last few weeks. I was feeling pretty nauseated for a few days also. I heard that was a common symptom of starting working nights. Talking to some of the other nurses helps, as they all went through the same thing. One of them told me it took her over six months to adapt. I think it will be very similar for me. But, that is such a long time!

I am officially off orientation though! I have been on my own for about 2 weeks! It is nerve wracking and exhausting I like it!

House: The house situation is ridiculous. We are still under contract for our new house but the seller is being a jerk. His agent called our agent last week asking if we wanted to break our contract because he "didn't want to move any more." Matt and I were devestated and said that no, we absolutely do not want to break the contract. Now, our loan is committed and we are basically set to close. However, earlier this week, our agent got an email from the seller's agent stating that she had "good news! the seller found a place to live but couldn't move in until April 24th." We told them that the best we could do was April 23rd due to schedules. We had rearranged our schedules to accomodate closing on the 16th. Hopefully things will work out.

Family: My grandmother is doing horribly. She was admitted to the hospital at the end of February for an exacerbation of COPD and was discharged to a short term rehab facility to get stronger. PT at this facility was amazing. They actually had her walking. Everything was going great until one morning we got a phone call from the charge nurse at the facility that my grandmother had fallen face first out of her wheelchair onto the floor and that she was being transferred to the hospital. She ended up rupturing her eye ball due to a previous eye surgery and actually lost the sight in her right eye. She also broke her ankle. She had to have her eye removed and is healing from that. My mom is trying to get her moved home when she heals from the surgery so that nothing else bad can happen.

Dogs: Jacoby is a beast. I love the dog to death but he just won't stop growing. We weighed him a few days ago and he is 67 pounds. He is so good though. He knows all of his commands and is a huge snuggler. His main issue is chewing things that he should have. We are working on it though.

That is the summary of what is going on right now. I bet the next time I blog will be a while from now but I will try to get on here again!

Our New Home

:)

We are closing on our house on April 16th! We got the house we loved and at a great price. We also got the seller to fix quite a few things prior to closing. We are ecstatic! I have been shopping and we have everything we could ever need for the kitchen. We also bought ourselves a kitchen table.

When we move, there are a few things that I want to do. Both bathrooms need a lot of work and since we aren't desperate to move, I was thinking that we could do at least one before we move in. I already have the plans and even bought shower curtains.

Work is going really well. I finished orienting with antepartum patients and returned to a mother-baby assignment. A lot of our antepartum patients were long-term. During my orientation, we were able to send one home on bedrest at 32 weeks. Two others delivered though. One at 33 weeks and one at 24 weeks. They both have a long road ahead of them.

Then, last Sunday night I moved to nights! I was absolutely terrified of staying up all night and it was hard. I slept for a few hours before I went in but was still dragging. 5-6:30am was the hardest time. I was nodding off and tried walking the halls but that didn't work out. I was still falling asleep. I got a small second wind when I saw the day shift staff walk onto the floor. I also did pretty well driving home until I was about 2 streets away from home.

I am working another night shift tomorrow and the following night too. This is my first time doing two nights in a row so we will see how that goes!

Another week of house hunting

Shortly after I posted the last time, we went and saw a free standing condo that was really nice but $400 a month condo fees! That is ridiculous and wasn't worth the price. So, we went back to the realtor's office and put an offer on the first house that we loved.

We offered $40,000 below the asking price of the house because 1) it was overpriced, and 2) needed a lot of work. We found out after making our offer that there was another offer on the table and that the sellers wanted us to offer our best and final offer. So, we upped our offer by $15,000 and waited. The following day we found out that they accepted the other offer. It sounds disappointing but we honestly weren't because whoever put in the other offer is overpaying and it is there loss not ours.

So, we went back out house hunting on Saturday. We finally were able to see a house that we couldn't see on two different occasions. The house does not have a for sale sign out front and one day we saw that there was an open house. So, we drove there and didn't see the sign so were very confused. The second time we wanted to see it, the seller wasn't able to allow us in to show the house. We weren't sure why.

Well, yesterday we finally able to go see the house and loved it! It needs a new roof and new windows but we would be willing to do those things. SO! We put in an offer! We are definitely more excited about this house but not getting our hopes up because of the previous offer.

Update: house hunting

In the last week, we have seen "the house" 3 times. We brought our parents to it on Wednesday and actually found some major flaws that Matt and I didn't noticed the previous visit. Those flaws include old windows and a possible drainage issue in the backyard.

The house is definitely still on our list. Well, actually there aren't really any other houses on our list. But, we are going to see one more house tomorrow evening which will help solidify our decision. We were about to make a low offer but decided to check out other things first.

We are definitely really excited about the prospect of buying a house and our parents have started liking the idea. My mom all of a sudden has been helping me find things that I might need: rugs, curtains, sheets.

Hopefully we can go see the newer house tomorrow and can decide what to do next!

House hunting!

Matt and I have talked about moving in together for a few months. Actually, its been an ongoing conversation but more emphasis has been put on the topic in recent weeks. Last week, we met with a realtor (who happens to be my second cousin) and also with a mortgage broker. We have been pre-pre-approved for a mortgage. As in, we know what we can afford and we just need to get some paperwork to the mortgage broker and then we will be officially pre-approved.

We have gone to a few open houses and have started to go see houses with my cousin. We have seen approximately 10 houses so far. Well, today we went out and fell in love with one of the homes that we saw! It is honestly exactly what we are looking for. 3 bedrooms, 2 full bathrooms, and an attached 2 car garage. Plus, it has a front porch and a back porch, a cute backyard and is completely remodeled on the inside! It also has a finished basement. It is perfect.

I hope that this is the house for us, it is listed at the top of our price range but might be a little high for the house so we are hoping we can talk them down a little bit. Hopefully we can go back to the house with our parents this week and show it to them.

We definitely have had a little resistance from our parents. I am my mom's only child and she doesn't want me to leave her. But, this house is so loud all the time, especially with my 88 year old grandmother living here also. I am nervous about going to nights at work and how I am going to be able to sleep during the day. So, moving would be helpful. Also, Jacoby is growing out of control so he needs his own space where he won't bother my family.

Keep us in your thoughts that this works out for us!

New Grad Residency Week 12

So clearly I have been busy. I haven't posted in weeks! I honestly have been working my butt off and have been absolutely exhausted. I am just about 12 weeks into my new graduate residency program and am at the point where I am working on my own but still have a preceptor when I need her.

Something disappointing happened this week in relation to the residency program. The other new grad who started on my floor with me has quit. She had a very long commute and has a small daughter who she was having a hard time being away from. However, I was really upset that she just up and left with no notice. It sucks that they won't fill her position and that all those new grads who are still looking for a job are screwed.

I have been loving working on the floor. I have finished my Mother-Baby weeks and my nursery week. Next week I will be moving into antepartum patients for a few weeks. They can be more complicated but also less because they kind of just hang out all day.

I worked 8 out of the last 9 days. It was so draining! So, I am currently still sitting in bed relaxing and enjoying my two days off :)

Catie and Woody's NYE Wedding

Congratulations to our friends Catie and Woody! They were married on New Year's Eve in a beautiful ceremony and Matt was one of the groomsmen. My camera decided it wanted to suck royally so almost everyone of my pictures from the ceremony is blurry. It was a great night and we had tons of fun. Here are some pictures from the night:Us with the bride and groom

Us attempting to look good.

Happy New Year!