surprise.

I blog stalk on occasion, but who doesn't... right?

I saw this and thought of how AWESOME it would be to surprise Lance...one day.

But I doubt it will ever be as good as this because I SUCK at keeping a surprise secret.

Preface:  He's been wanting an Ipad but thought it wasn't worth the money...

What to expect...

Last night Lance and I went to go see "what to expect when you're expecting."  While it wasn't the greatest of storyline, the actual moments each soon-to-be mother had was so realistic.  In hopes to not ruin the movie for you, each scenario that COULD happen is showcased in the movie with a different couple.  Some struggling to have children of their own and others surprised by the + on their pregnancy test.  There were numerous moments when I felt as if the movie was portraying exactly how I felt- sad, longing, confused, and hopeful. While there were other moments I prayed that my pregnancy or entrance into motherhood would exemplify- love, gratefulness, overwhelming joy, happiness, a glow.

After the movie and as I was getting ready for bed I stumbled upon a "wavy hair tutorial" on pintrest.  It was linked to a lovely blog and as I scanned the blog for more interesting post and tutorials I came upon this post.  A Latter-day Saint mother who has three children of her own, but suffered a miscarriage a month ago.  She expresses the story of what happened along with how she felt about the entire situation.  Many of the words expressed were exactly what I've been feeling while others are feelings I hope to never have to endure.  What am absolute amazing woman for handling such a difficult struggle with such hope and faith.  Her perspective of relating it to Jesus Christ and his suffering had me in tears as I read the entire story aloud to Lance. 

heres a link to her story:    Dear Emmie's Story

** I guess I should note to those that don't typically read our blog that no, we did not have a miscarriage. We've just had some fertility problems and are in the process of intrauterine inseminations.

If interested. here are the links to posts about our Journey TTC.

From top to bottom... blog post.

Just a Quickie

Mother's Day... Blot post.

-Thanks again for all your support!

1 week down 11 weeks to go....

I can't WAIT for AUGUST!!! My month of NO school and just traveling and playing and (working).  I have officially finished week 1 of 12 weeks.  How crazy it already has been.

** I have NOT finished all of my reading homework yet, but everything else is done.

• 2  (3 page) papers. Check.
• 17 chapters of vocabulary (22 typed pages). Check.
• 2 Quizzes. Check. 
• 4 chapters of textbook reading (100 pages). Check.
• 100 pages of reading in another book.  Check.

Whats left?
300 pages of reading..... or 13 more chapters.  I think my eyesight will be shot by August. 
.... and that's just for one class. 
I haven't even started on the other class, but hey it isn't due until next Wednesday!

Oh how I'm coveting the day when I can stop reading textbooks!!!!!

Spr-ummer Break

Here's a better picture

The one pro as well as con to nursing school is how compact it is. Only 5 consecutive semesters and boom there's your RN license.  However, these 5 consecutive semesters don't give your mind the much needed BREAKS that traditional school would provide.  Our school thought they were thoughtful by giving us a 1 week spr-ummer break (the week between spring term and summer term not to be confused with spring break or summer break).  So naturally I had planned a relaxing trip to California with tons of shopping, tanning, and beaching.  I even scheduled myself at work so I could have 6 consecutive days off, but with the increases in plane tickets I figured I would just stay home and do what I do best... Do-It-Yourself Home Projects.   Many of you remember LAST summer when I destroyed and remodeled my bathroom during my final finals week at BYU and our completed basement?  
So what was the project this time??  
#1) Regrouting the bathroom upstairs- from dear sweet little Winston's "accidents" the grout had been stained an assortment of colors. 
#2) Rug Doctor clean the basement and stairs carpet.  Winston not only likes creating little messes on the tile, but he LOVES the carpet even more.  I was super glad I planned to clean the carpets when I did because the day before Winston was  super sick and had a few accidents while in his kennel.. which got onto my carpet. ewww.
#3) Buy a new bed frame- when we got married we had a beautiful queen bed with frame, but just this last October Lance's aunt gave us her king mattress for FREE! We were so excited for a bigger bed we have been sleeping on it with the box spring resting on the floor until just the last week.  I drove in my little Mazda to Ikea and magically fit an entire KING bed frame inside- doors closed and all. 
#4) CLEAN CLEAN CLEAN- with finals, school work, and regular work my house had been seriously neglected.  It took me 4 hours just to organize mine and Lance's bedroom. Needless to say, since then I have been pretty good about "keeping up" with cleaning so I don't end up with a tornado of a house and needing to take an entire day to scrub one room.  
#5) Paint the exterior- Lance and I have been talking about painting the outside of our house for nearly 2 years and I finally got the time to do it. Our house was built in the 60's as an orange brick and yucky colored (cant even describe the color) metal siding.  So I went to Home Depot and picked out 6 shades of grey and this is the end result after numerous days of painting, and painting, and painting. -Thanks to Lance's cousin, McKenzie for helping!



Step one. Determining what colors.  We chose the top right and bottom left. (I forgot to take a "before" picture, but from here you can see the color difference.



after priming the entire house we began the painting process.  My sprayer broke so we hand rolled the entire front of the house as well as one side.  Getting all the little dots off the brick took 3 coats! (luckily our renter, John, had a sprayer that allowed me to finished the rest of the house)

From THIS......

Before we bought the house... ivy in the front.



To this.......



The (almost) finished product.  Grey bottom, lighter grey top, white trim.

A close up so you can really see the color change.



My shopping companion being so well behaved while the paint was mixing.





What a GREAT break I had doing what I do best.  Keeping extremely busy.

Mother's Day

I started out viewing Mother's Day as just the greatest day.  A day to celebrate all of the amazing female examples in my life- those that have made an extraordinary impact on the person I am today.  I was extremely happy and content even though I had to miss church to go to work.  I didn't mind because I was giving those mother's who had children time to celebrate with them- it was their day.


As the day progressed at work I was just excited to go home and spend the day with my husband.  I was also anticipating Mother's day (or the day after to be more specific) because it would be on the day after that Lance and I could possibly find out that I will be a mom.  What a great Mother's Day present! Right?   For whatever reason, however, I did find out that I will not, be a mother, at least 9 months from Mother's Day. 


While at work I tried to compose myself enough to not start bawling at my little corner cubby computer. I tried to be the happy and optimistic self I had been just a mere few minutes before, but all I wanted to do was curl up in a ball (partially because of cramps) and cry with a big bowl of ice cream.


I spend the next 4 hours of my shift staring at facebook looking at the posts dedicated to mothers, and soon to be mommys- angry.


Since everything that was wrong with our fertility situation seemed like it could be fixed with Intraunterine Insemination I was THRILLED to do it.  I was so excited and wanted to talk about it to everyone because I thought it was going to work.  I didn't think I needed a few months of IUI's to make it work- I just thought in 2 weeks. I'll be carrying my baby. But I'm not, and it didn't work the first time.  


I understand that this wasn't guarenteed to work the first time, and that it might take 3-6 times for it to work, but after KNOWING it didn't work I'm a little bitter thinking about the medical bill associated with the 'failed' procedure (that isn't covered by insurance at all).




-- Today while at Target I saw this beautiful black curly haired baby wrapped up in the arms of a beautiful brown haired white lady. It was then I thought, maybe that will be me one day. What will Lance and I do if we continue with IUI and it doesn't work? In vitro? Adoption? and when and can we even afford it? --


I started Femara (my fertility medication) day one today.  4 more days, then wait another weeka and I guess we will see if round two of IUI will be successful.

Finally.

Finally Finals Are Over....for now.
I took my last final today for this semester and leaving school I was really worried as to whether or not I passed.  My med/surg class for whatever reason has been a little difficult for me this semester (partially due to a non-interest teacher and one who takes off points for fun... literally). 


One time this semester I submitted a 9 page paper and she only have me a 93% because the outline that SHE made had some parts missing (so therefore I had the same parts missing), but it was on the grading rubric so for HER mistake.. I got a 5% deduction on my paper.  Lovely.


Within our nursing program you have to have a 77% overall in the class to pass onto the next semester.  One student who was in the first cohort got a 76.5% on our Pharmacology class last YEAR and was dropped until he retook the class and passed!!!!
With such stringent guidelines I've been boardering a 82%. Luckily I pulled through and ended up with an 83% overall in the class. Yay for me!


Moving onto this summer semester it will not be a typical "let watch movies outside and get snowcones" kinda summer.  It will be more of a "I'm stuck at clinicals EVERYDAY" kinda summer.  It should be fun and rewarding to be in Psych/OB/Pediatrics this summer. Yay for babies, kids, and crazies!


At the end of the summer I will OFFICIALLY be a Nurse (Licensed Practical), then exactly 1 year from now I will be a Registered Nurse!