the fun stuff

I am shocked and appalled at myself. Not updating for almost a month? For shame. And it was a fun two weeks, too! I could have sworn I'd already shared my Colorado trip, but I guess I've been putting it off because I have no pictures. So this feels like a lame update. But still, it's better than whining about my school drama (don't worry, I'll do that later), so I'll just keep it short.

Last weekend I was planning a trip. Because I wanted to. I had the days off work... Brit has consistent 3-day weekends... I only have class on Tuesday... why the heck not? Originally we were going to go to California, but about the middle of the week I started really not liking that idea. So we went the other way instead.

Late thursday night we showed up at my in-laws house in Colorado. My brother- and sis-in-law knew we were coming, but the parents had no idea. Cynthia had already gone to bed, so we said hi to Gary and retired. Friday morning we appear in our pajamas as Cynthia is getting the kids' breakfast, all "Hi what's for breakfast?", and she predictably flipped out. I do wish I had a camera for that expression. There was hugging and crying and "What are you doing here?!" It made me very warm and fuzzy inside. I love surprises!

We spent the weekend just hanging out a lot. We went to the zoo on Friday with Cynthia, Cassie, and the kids. The zoo is always much more fun with little ones. Saturday we bought fabric for making scrubs (for me), and went to Women's Conference. Sunday we went to church and ... didn't do much else, actually. It was a very relaxed weekend.

I LOVED seeing everyone. I love my in-laws so much. I'm glad I can at least have SOME family close enough to go visit on a moment's notice. We'll have to do that again sometime. But maybe we'll tell them next time.... Or maybe we'll show up on Emilia's doorstep, instead....

The best secret ever!

I have discovered the secret to losing weight. And it is (drumroll please)....... NOT going to the gym!

I've noticed a distinct pattern in my weight loss efforts. And that is, when I'm super good about working out, I lose VERY slowly. As in, maybe .5 lb / week. Then when I've been super lazy about going to the gym, like these past couple of weeks, I suddenly drop 1-3 lbs without even trying.

I know in my head it's muscle weight and all that crap, and I should remember that I will eventually look fabulous despite the numbers on the scale, but numbers on the scale are something you can SEE. I don't see myself looking fabulous at all. I see myself hardly able to walk I'm so sore, not having any time because the gym takes my whole morning, and NOT LOSING WEIGHT.

I probably should stop whining about it and just go to the gym. /sigh

A Room for Improvement

I guess it's no secret-- anybody who knows me at all should know I'm jonesing for a baby. Pretty much have been since I got married. But Brit is keeping me in check. Lately, we've had an ongoing--er, "discussion" about whether that should happen sooner or later.

I'm pretty sure I'm losing.

But in the meantime, Brit makes a very good point (I hate to admit) when he says he doesn't think I'm ready to be a mom. There are a lot of things I need to work on, so I'm going to start right now while I wait for him to come around. I could have a lot of time to work on these things......

• First, and most important I think, is my spirituality. Or at least, spiritual habits. As in, I don't have many good ones. I need to start making those habits NOW before I'm responsible for the teaching of a whole little person. Those things don't magically appear when the kid's a toddler and it's time to start enforcing nursery lessons.
• Brit's biggest gripe, and it is a problem, is my temper. I have one. I tend to get out-of-control angry and moody at little things. A lot of this I pin to the hormones in birth control, but I don't think that will get any better when I'm pregnant. Or going on 3 months straight of broken sleep. So I need to learn to control it now so it will be easier later, when Brit won't be nearly as calm and forgiving either.
  
• I noticed yesterday, as I went from playing World of Warcraft to reading to taking a nap, that I waste a lot of time in the day. Housework and productive things mostly go undone because I'm "tired and stressed" from work and school. And then I realized that when I have a baby, and am probably still working full time, it's only going to be a million times worse. So I'm trying to fill most of my hours between work and school with doing productive things, like keeping the apartment clean and actually making dinners, and limit my "down" time. I'm hoping this will train some of the inherent laziness out of me. And we're off to a good start, blogging about it first thing in the morning. :)

These are probably good habits to get into regardless, and it will keep my mind occupied with goals until it's time. And that makes the waiting seem not nearly so bad.

Just Some Things

Coming to you today from Jen's brand new computer! Isn't it spiffy? That's the stock picture at the top. And yes, it is sunshine yellow. It makes me happy. I finally decided it was time to retire my 5 year old laptop. It's still functional for web browsing and writing documents, and I'll probably sell it to my sister-in-law so she can use it until it dies, but it's nice to have a somewhat up-to-date machine in my hands again. I can actually play games! Not that I ever take time away from studying to play games...

School is still going well. It's hard getting back into it, remembering that I have assignments to do. My days are mostly filled with work and school and clinicals; today is one of my few days off. I started my clinicals yesterday-- it was boring. Nothing to report. Work is down to 3 days/week, and I've started bunching them all together so I work 6 days in a row and have 8 off. I've put in a request for time off at the end of the month... nothing that should interfere with my regular days off, I just thought it would be fun to have a long weekend and take a trip. I don't take enough trips. Brit disagrees, but I like them. It would be nice if I knew my schedule, though. Our supervisor has been getting it out..... well, maybe an hour in advance lately, it's been causing problems. I'll go in and talk to her today.

Well that was a lot of randomness that probably wasn't very interesting. Enjoy another picture of my awesome new computer:

Skool!

It's been a long time since I've had to forcibly drag myself out of bed before I was good and ready to get up. I'm not sure I'm a fan.

School has begun again for me. My first day was Wednesday, and that was nothing exciting. Just the standard class orientation, going over the syllabus and calendar, meeting our clinical instructors. The nicest thing about it was having the afternoon off. The saddest thing about it was realizing that I have terrible, terrible people skills, I don't know hardly anyone in my class after 4 semesters, and when we go into groups I'm always the one left trying to wriggle into a group of close-knit friends that I don't know.

Thursday we had "orientation" at Utah State Hospital... it was interesting. I convinced myself that it started an hour later than we were clearly told, so I showed up an hour late to my extreme embarrassment. Luckily the instructor was very nice about it.

Right at the end of this orientation, we had the creepiest, most mentally disturbing little project I have ever experienced in my life. We simulated the schizophrenic "voice hearing experience" through CD players and headphones. Before we started, I was very cockily thinking "Ha. It's a voice on a tape player. How bad could this possibly be?" Well, it was bad. Something about having it so loud in your head.... saying those awful things... while you're trying to pay attention to what people are trying to do... Ugh. It was awful. Demonic. Click here for a small sample of what it sounded like (Rated PG-13 for language and creep-factor). I can't even describe what it really felt like... even listening at first, I wasn't really bothered, but afterward, as time went on, it bothered me more and more. I came home and sobbed for 10 minutes trying to get it all out so I could go to work without feeling emotionally frayed. It worked. Sortof.

I'll have Community Nursing clinicals at Baby Your Baby until October, then my Preceptor clinicals at American Fork Labor & Delivery until December. Very exciting. I'm happy I got BYB for the Community Nursing clinical, because it's rather special to me. I'm hoping I can really talk to some of these young struggling moms on a personal basis and really help them.

This morning we had another orientation at the Utah County Health Dept... and for the most part, it was the driest and most boring thing I've ever attended. Most of the speakers spoke in quiet, monotone voices, the slides were in muted colors, we got handouts of fabulous statistics... ugh. I'm so glad that's over. I'm probably spoiled by IHC orientations, where they almost always feed us. They didn't even have vending machines at this place.

Work today, and then I go down to 3 days/week. I'm excited to have more time to myself, which is what I tell myself even though i know most of it will be taken up by school. Oh well. It's gonna be a good semester!