EXCITEMENT!!

Ok, this is so lame I feel like I can't post it on Facebook...

I just turned in my first draft of my Capstone!!!

25 PAGES over preeclampsia DONE!

I'm so excited! I had set this goal to get it done before Seth got in tonight and I can't believe I actually met it!!

:)

That is all.

11 Random Facts About Me

As I'm trying to make myself write my capstone (I'm 7 pages in! 18 more to go!), I've been itching to write a blog post. Not that I have anything interesting to say (because I never do) but just because it's something that is not my capstone. So I thought that I would make myself thing a bit and come up with a random list of things about me. :)

1. Breakfast foods are my favorite. Not sweet things like doughnuts, I could never eat them for breakfast. More like eggs and pancakes and waffles (hold the butter and just a little syrup). I'm not really big on the meat involved with breakfast but I love to have bacon every now and then.

2. I'm really not a big dark meat person (I mean like beef and pork... as if you couldn't tell from #1). My family makes a living off of growing cows so that beef can be made, but I don't really like it. I like chicken ok and turkey sandwich meat and I like fish a lot, but that's as far as it goes.

3. If you give me spaghetti, you better have milk. For this reason, I rarely order anything with marinara sauce on it at restaurants.

4. I am the World's Best at procrastination. I always get stuff done by the time it needs to be done, but I push it to the last minute.

5. I cannot sleep when I'm uncomfortable. Funny thing is, Seth is the opposite: if he's uncomfortable, he sleeps. Last summer we went camping in July. I stayed up and thought about how miserable I was all night long while he snored away. I feel bad about this because Seth loves camping. Thank you Texas heat.

6. I motivate myself with restrictions, not positive goals. (i.e. I run so I don't get fat, not because I want to be healthy. When I need to study, my goal is to not get on Facebook or blog, not to get through my notes X number of times.)

7. In my free time, I would much rather spend time with people than watch movies, read a book, or other solitary-ish things. For this reason, I always want to talk during movies (not in the theater) and I don't really try to start books. Also, there are a lot of movies/books that I haven't seen/read. I promise that I love to read, I'm just a very social being.

8. I am a planner to the core. I'm constantly thinking about organization or booking our next plane tickets. It is good in a lot of instances (because plane tickets are generally cheaper early on) but I have 4 calendars, so it may be an addiction.

9. I struggle hardcore with what people think of me. It is strange because I actually feel comfortable with who I am, but I am always looking for ways to improve in areas in which I'm weak (like communication, judgement, being positive). So I look to the judgement of others, not because I want to be who they want me to be, but because I want to see if I'm improving in these weak spots I've identified. Kind of like opposite day. :)

10. I'm terrible at truly forgiving. If someone lies to me, hurts me, or angers me, I will never let them reach the level that they were once at in our relationship. I can be civil and still be friends with them, but I will never truly trust them again. This is one area that I've been praying God will help me with. I know how important it is to forgive as a Christian and I'm just not quite there.

11. I hate shopping. Pretty much all of it. I hate spending money and more than anything I hate the kind of shopping where you just look. It just makes you want things and then you don't get them. I think this violates some girl rule.

There you go! 11 random things about that you probably would never need to know but now you do! I guess I could add a #12. I blog way too much and too long. But I think that goes with out saying (which is why I just said it).

I hope you all are enjoying your summer! Only 5 1/2 weeks left if you are a TWU-er so live it up!

Build-Your-Own-Adventure Invitations

Oh how I love wedding planning! Well, sort of...

It's fun to choose things. I get so excited. It's our dream becoming a reality and it's amazing. But it sure can get frustrating!

One adventure that we will be participating in shortly involves our invitations. I was going to order invitations from David's Bridal. But stumbled upon Hobby Lobby during a 50%-off-wedding-stuff sale. They have beautiful "Do-It-Yourself" invitation kits and the sale made 150 of them come to a grand total of $40.59! Of course we cannot forget that printing is not included in this price. So if you are gutsy enough to try to print them at your desktop, it's really cheap (but scary!). We're going to have them printed. But even after doing so, it will be cheaper than ordering invitations!

So grand wedding tip #1 from me: Do-It-Yourself Invitations!

The part of this that I'm REALLY looking forward to is the cake tasting.. YUM!! Sadly, that won't take place until around Spring Break so I'll have to find joy in the other thrills of planning!

Really I just can't wait to see my groom! :) It's been too many days (30) since I saw his face last and it seems to be too many days (13) until I see it again . I'm going to need lots of consoling when he's gone on deployments. He told me the other day that I was not built to be an Army wife. I think it's the truth but obviously God has a sense of humor! :)

Happy Saturday!

What is nursing school?

Revised: 2/4/11

I have revised my nursing school document as I am now in my last semester!

Note: This will feel completely overwhelming if you don't know anything about nursing school yet. If you feel overwhelmed by it, save it or bookmark it. You'll want to look at it again once you start getting close to these semesters.

First Semester you are known as J1s (Big secret: Junior 1 students.. :) )

• You have 2 clinical sections. One is in concepts and one is in assessment. You are sectioned into these clinical groups by the nursing school's whim (as far as we could tell). We're pretty sure it was completely random, so no luck getting to pick where or when you'll have clinical!
• The concepts clinical is around 6 hours long. We started it in our 4th week (But some other sections were in lab for the first half of the semester and then were in clinical for the 2nd half). In the weeks leading up to starting going to the hospital, you have concepts labs where they will teach you what to do. In this clinical you give bed baths, do assessments, take patient histories, and learn the basics of patient care. You give medications with the assistance of your instructor once you have passed the medication exam which we took in our 5th week. We had 6 clinical days scattered throughout the semester. When we didn't have clinical in a week, we had a lab or a check off (which is a test of skills, basically).
• Assessment class is mixed in with assessment labs. So your class/lab day for assessment is one big day. Ours were scheduled for Wednesdays from 800-1530. Assessment is all about learning how to do a physical assessment on someone. We had a check-off in the 4th week, 8th week, and 14th week. Scattered in there were 3 clinical days which are 4 1/2 hours long.
• For both Concepts and Assessment, you also have simulation days where you get to work with these cool dummies that breathe and stuff! They aren't scary!
• Along with the Assessment class/lab/clinical and Concepts lab/clinical, you also have the Concepts class and Pharmacology. These are both on one day (our's were on Tuesdays) and you'll have one of them for 3 hours in the morning, an hour for lunch, and the other for 3 hours in the afternoon.
• For me, Assessment was way easy, Concepts was challenging in part, and Pharmacology was the most challenging of all (because I'm bad with words). With Pharmacology, the teacher Dr. Tapler tells you or gives you everything you need to know. So just pay attention. I didn't use the Pharmacology book during the Pharmacology class, but I used it quite a bit in my second semester to understand the inner-workings of the drug classifications.

[Note: This is how they ran our Assessment class. I have heard that they now do it online without a clinical component.]

2nd Semester-- J2

• Your two big classes this semester are Women's Health and Adult I. They are both clinical courses, as well. The lecture portion of these classes share a day. So on Wednesdays we had Adult in the morning from 900-1200 and then Women's in the afternoon from 1-4. In your second week you have a skills lab for Women's health and clinical orientation for Adult I. Adult I handles the basic disease processes that adults go through. Women's health is another way of saying Labor & Delivery and all things leading up to it and away from it.
• We started our Adult I clinical in the 3rd week. It's a 7 1/2 hour clinical day (which included the time spent in post conference talking about your day). We had 8 total clinical days. These were mixed with simulation days, labs (to learn the stuff), and check-offs to make sure you know your stuff.
• For Women's you go to clinical for 12 hours every other week. So we had 5 total clinical days. On your off weeks, you don't have clinical!
• If you are starting nursing school in the fall, you'll also have 3 online courses that go a long with this semester. They are Aging, Research, and Groups (well some people have groups in class, others online).
• Aging is a wonderful experience. There is minimal work involved each week. You have an interview with an elderly person you know who you aren't related to and an 8-10 page paper about the experience. You have a midterm exam and a final exam.
• I took Groups online. It involved quizzes and discussion board posts. My roommates took it in class and enjoyed it. They also offered an accelerated form of Groups where you were done in the first 2 weeks of class. I know this made the first 2 weeks harder, but then you were done and didn't have to think about it!
• Research was a disaster for our class. The instructor didn't tell you what she wanted you to do for the assignments and it really seemed like she tried to make it close to a graduate level course. I made a 78 on the midterm (And that is not anywhere near the ballpark of the grades I'm used to making). Apparently people cheated on the midterm so we had to take the final at the school. The tests are opened book, which seems like it would make it easier but most of the questions cannot be found on one single page of the book. There are like 5 critical thinking components in each question so you have to have read and know the book. I ended up getting an A in the course and that's what others who have gone before us have said: It sucks to take the course, but you end up getting about a full letter grade about what you think you will.

3rd Semester-- S1 (Senior 1)

• There are 3 big classes. Adult II, Child Health, and Mental Health. On Monday we had Child Health from 9-12 in the morning and on Tuesday we had Adult II from 9-12 and then Mental Health from 1-4. For the first 2 weeks, we had labs on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. Then you begin your clinical rotations.
• For 11 of the 15 class weeks, I had an activity for Child Health. I had 3 inpatient days at my child health hospital (6.5 hours/day), 4 alternative site(about 5 hours each), and 2 simulation days (about 3 hours each) PLUS the labs/orientations the first 2 weeks of school.
• For Adult, 9 clinical weeks where you are actually in clinical at your hospital for 8 hours each clinical. You also have simulations/labs for 4 other days during the semester. So you have a clinical component for 13 of the 15 regular class weeks.
• For Mental Health, 11 out of the 15 weeks of school you are in clinical or lab. My clinical days lasted for 5.5 hours.
• When you look at this, it looks like you have something just about 5 days a week for most of the weeks of the semester. I had my pediatric clinical on Mondays after pediatric class. This made for a long Monday, but I had 3 days a week off instead of 2.

• Adult II is the critical care stuff of adults. I had half of my clinical days in a Medical Surgical setting and then half in different ICU settings.
• Mental Health is the interesting class that most people fear. It was a good experience. The hospital I was at did not have acutely ill patients, only those with chronic conditions. With that being said, I was not ever afraid in the clinical setting and mental illness was not something I was comfortable with prior to starting this rotation.
• Child Health is pretty self explanatory. You learn about pediatric nursing and what it entails.

• This is an INCREDIBLY busy semester! You feel like you have NO time, but you need to learn how to function this way in order to be a good nurse. Figure out how to stay organized & you'll make it through.

4th Semester-- S2
This semester, you have Leadership & Management, Community Health, and Critical Competency Integration. Community Health and CCI have clinical attachments, Leadership & Managment does not.

• Leadership & Management is mostly online. We will only have in-class lecture 5 times this semester. There are 3 tests (one is the final). You learn about the laws of nursing in Texas and about the details of management in nursing like staffing & other things.
• Community Health is for learning how to think about health in a community setting (surprise, surprise). It is WAY different than how they have thought you to think about health in the case of an individual patient. You have 2 major projects in this class: A 10 page paper called a Windshield Survey and a Community Assessment Group Project. There are also 3 tests in this class (one of which is the final).
• CCI doesn't really have a classroom component. You have Case Study days where you sit through lectures about certain diagnoses, but you don't have a set day that you go to class.
• Community Health clinical has you precepted by a school nurse. You have clinical activities (either with your school nurse or at school) every week except for the week of HESI.
• CCI clinical involves you having either a preceptor (a certain nurse with whom you complete 120 clinical hours) or a group clinical experience where you have a set day of the week where you go to clinical like normal, still for 120 total hours. If you are precepted, it is up to you to get in your total number of clinical hours, you make your schedule based off of the schedule your nurse works.

• I cannot say for certain yet, but I think the trouble this semester comes from a mixture of strange things that happen this semester:

1. Studying for HESI (because you're scared to death of failing it. Ours is March 28th).
2. Looking for, applying for, and interviewing for jobs.
3. Senioritis.

Also...

You will take a HESI placement test each semester, and two in Senior I (Med-Surg & Pediatrics). The HESI you take in Senior II is the Exit HESI and you get 2 chances to pass it before graduation. You must pass this test to graduate. If you don't pass it in 2 chances, you take a remedial course & take it one last time. If you pass it this time, you graduate but with the next graduating class. If you fail it... I'm not sure what happens. I don't know if they have ever mentioned it...

Some closing words??

1. Nursing school is much more challenging than the prerequisite courses.
2. It is emotionally draining, but completely doable.
3. Each semester I take a look back and say "Oh that wasn't that bad."
4. To keep from being overwhelmed, figure out what your detox will be. Mine is Seth, my fiancé. He reminds me that it's not that bad. I make sure and set aside enough time to talk with him.
5. One thing that I'm going to try to do better this semester is give myself more days at home with my parents. It is so easy for me to say that I'm too busy to go see them and then 2 months go by.
6. If you have good time management skills, you will do great! I need to work on it!
7. I suggest making a word document that has all of the assignments/tasks you need to get accomplished each and every day at the beginning of the semester. If you want an example, let me know!

Oh Summer...

My summer has been amazing! I have rested and I'm almost to the point where I start getting bored with not doing much each day.. Almost.

I have to go back to Dallas tomorrow to officially start on my capstone. It's a 25 page research paper over preeclampsia. I'm due to turn it in September 30th but technically have like 40 weeks since I only have to turn it in a couple of weeks before my graduation. I'm going to try to have it done before August 30th so I'm not messing with it during the semester. We'll see.

Tomorrow I officially start shadowing (somewhat) a midwife. She was my Women's health teacher and is amazing. She is going to be on call at a birthing center every-now-and-then. So if a lady goes into labor during her call shift, I'll get to go! {Fingers crossed!}

I can't believe how much wedding stuff I have gotten done! It amazes me how many decisions I can make if I just put my mind to it! :) Hopefully it will keep moving smoothly! I'm trying to make myself realize that the tiny details will not matter. The most stress-free I keep this thing, the better! All that matters is at approximately 7:30 on June 3, 2011 I will be married to my best friend!

I also splurged on some new running shoes that I hope to try out tonight in the heat! I've been somewhat of a lazy bum these past couple of weeks and need to start running more days in the week. Hurricane Alex kept me from running.... Well I let him because I was too lazy to find non-muddy ground around here. When I get back to Dallas I'll have no excuse! Concrete doesn't get muddy and rain should never keep someone from running (but lightening should!).

18 days and 6 hours until Seth is home!

THE dress!!

So most of you have me on Facebook, too. But because I'm just way too excited: I BOUGHT MY WEDDING DRESS!! And a little warning: This is an extremely long post about my search for my wedding dress. It's boring unless you are me and really excited right now. So don't expect anything more than that!!

If you had asked me Wednesday night if I would find a dress that was obviously "the" one, I would have told you absolutely not. Wednesday my sister and I went to a bridal store in West, JoAnn's, which is amazing. I had been there before with my parents and found a dress that I liked a lot. Well this time I tried that dress on again and was less impressed with it and found another dress that I liked more. Then we went to David's Bridal and I found 3 that I liked a lot, but left the store frustrated with the fact that I could not figure out which one I liked the most (Not even after having my mother, brother, sister in-law, and father come to the store to tell me their opinion).

We went out for my brother's 23rd birthday dinner with me feeling sorry for myself (how dumb) at the fact that I had gone dress shopping 5 times and tried on 35 dresses and could not find the dress. I was convinced that I wasn't the type of girl to find "the" dress.

Thursday, I woke up a little more hopeful. I had to go to Denton and my sister and mother were coming along so that we could go look at Bridal Co. It's a store in Denton that has really beautiful dresses for really cheap. Needless to say, it was a bust when it came to what I want. NOTHING appealed to me.

You see, for some reason I really wanted to find the dress before Seth came back from his summer detail. That is 35 days away at this point, so there is no rush. In fact, my wedding is... I guess 50 weeks away, so there is no rush.

But I decided that I liked one of the dresses at David's Bridal and only needed to get a broach to go with it as my only complaint was that it was too simple. We stopped by Sam Moon's in North Fort Worth and bought a broach and were on our way to the David's Bridal in Fort Worth. I tried on the dress and liked it. Staring at what I thought was my dress. Then the consultant asked me if I wanted to try on a dress that she thought would look beautiful on me and be just what I wanted.

I consented and fell in love. It is nothing like what I thought I wanted. In fact, if you told me the details of this dress a week ago, I would have told you that a dress like that would never be for me. The feeling i got when I looked in the mirror at my reflection was one that I have never felt, and one I'll never feel again. I found it and it's mine and I love it.

Now the hard part will be to keep it in the bag in my closet until it's time to take it to get the bustle put on it in preparation for my bridal pictures. :)

So far..

Man it is crazy to think that tomorrow will mark the one month anniversary from my last final of Junior year. It seems like Summer has been here for so long!

Seth left this morning. He is off to training to learn how to train others. :) He will be a Platoon Leader at Buckner which is the training that transitioning Yuks (between Freshman & Sophomore year of West Point) have to go through. He'll be there until July 22nd which is exactly 41 days and 10 hours away at this very moment. I can't wait until he is back home! But we had a blast while he was here. We spent some good days with both of our families and went to TWO Rangers' games!


Oh and (drum roll)........... We bought our wedding flowers!! They are absolutely beautiful! I think this is the way I have to make decisions.. Just quick and painlessly. We went to a wholesale silk flower market on Harry Hines just to look and found these beauties and we bought them! Another decision DONE. :)


Next Tuesday, Sabrina & I are going to see Wicked!! I love plays, so I'm excited! Oh and I might just get to assist/watch at a birthing facility during the month of July!! How fantastic would that be???? :)