what I've learned...

1st...this is my Daddy wearing his scarf!

 

For reasons we don't even need to talk about...I've learned to be very careful with which posts you want to delete when you are cleaning up the blog.  Dear blogger...make a "retrieve that post" place.  please!!! 

 

I have learned a lot of other things over the past week as well!

 

I learned that nursing school is a lot like grade school (and sometimes kindergarten).  Do you remember those little pills you had to chew after you brushed your teeth to see if you did a good job?  Well in nursing school, it is a neon orange liquid that you rub on your hands before you wash.  Then you get to hold your hands under a black light to see how you did.  It feels a bit like a contest, but I did good!  Instead of your mom timing your brushing time, it is the professor or your classmates (at least 15 seconds).  Instead of it being about cavities, it is about staph.  It's not about allowance...it's about grades!  Pass or fail.  Did your shirt touch the sink counter?  You are either a good hand washer, or you aren't.  And did you know your wrists were part of hand washing?  yeah...me either!

 

I practiced (hate to say learned yet) making a bed with someone in it.  This would have been good knowledge for when the kids were teens! :)  I apologize to my classmate for making you roll over the wad of sheets, and I will strive to remember to move to the other side next time before rolling you over.  And don't shake the pillow.  Or forget the toe pleat!

 

I learned that there is no possible way on Gods' green earth to read and comprehend the massive amount of assigned text/journal/online reading that is assigned every week.  no. possible. way.  I also wonder if the professors have had hidden nanny cams installed in our homes to record the look on our faces when we get the weeks' assignments, write them down and can SEE how much we have to do.  I think they have, and I further believe they play the footage at staff meetings and laugh and laugh!!  Then they eat cupcakes.

 

I have come to believe that camera phones are one of the greatest inventions ever!  You can be hours into homework, reading until your eyes are blurry, and get a picture of one of the grands sitting nekkid on the potty chair!  Suddenly, your perspective is changed...day made!  Or you can get a picture like the one up top, and your heart is happy/full while your eyes leak.  Perspective changed.  Use your camera phone to make someones day...it matters more than you think!  applying "good nani" boundaries by not posting the nekkid little picture!!

 

Facebook is a fun place on your birthday! :)  Except when you don't hear from someone you wanted to...that can be sad.  Just being real.  Facebook can also be ugly.  I don't like it when people repost those candid pics with kids that have profanity on them.  Is that really what you want to use cute pictures of kids for??  Honestly, I used to believe the "innocence of youth" was being lost outside the doors of the home...but now I believe it is being lost too often inside the home.  Another good thing to remember...facebook is part of your resume.  As is Pinterest.  But I won't mention those 10 minute turned to an hour study breaks on Pinterest!

 

I have learned that some people are taking life much too seriously.  There are people all over the world at every minute of the day that are facing life & death experiences.  For all that is life...SMILE!!  Uncross your arms, shake off the attitude and just get on with living in all the blessings you have!  moving on...

 

I came to realize that I am sometimes one of those people. 

 

I developed a deeper dislike (hate really) for the word "judge".  I am a Christian.  If you are too, please judge my actions (not my heart) if they are out of line.  Please.  If you aren't...let's talk.  :)  I am going to mess up every single day.  I don't like it, but I will work on it and move forward.  I am a work in progress.  If you tell me you are a believer, and I point out something that you are doing that isn't right...I'm not "judging" you.  I'm loving you the best way I know how.  And if I am talking to other people about how I think you messed up...that's gossip.  Call me on it.  Please.

 

So I am 3 weeks down with nursing school, and 53 years down with life.  I feel like I am reaching a point where I can finally say that I am good with the "who" I am part.  There are all sorts of parts of me that I want to work on...make better.  Why are we so determined to fight to stay the same sometimes?  I think the hardest thing for me right now is fighting the "things that must be done" and holding back the "things I want to be doing".  There are SO many things I want to be doing right now.  I am finally at a point in life where I get what is most important...and it isn't me!  So I'm just going to continue living my life for an audience of One...and that is all.

 

first day in scrubs :)

I don't know what is more amazing,

that I took this picture...

or that I'm posting it!

 

 

 

 



it's a colorful life...

it is finished :)

 

I've spent quite a bit of time over the last few days working on my "year in stitches" scarf.  It was hard to stick with it yesterday because I had volunteered overnight at Ronald McDonald house, and sadly, I really can't sleep while I'm there.  So I find myself needing a nap most of the following day.  Sitting on the couch with knitting needles in hand led to a couple of unplanned naps :) 

 

I was keeping one eye on my knitting, one eye on the clock and one eye on the Hallmark channel!  Yes...I did have to backtrack and fix a couple of mistakes because I had my eyes on one thing and not the other at the right time!  About 11 p.m. I was just starting into that last blue row on the right side.  I had a "sort of" plan for the ending, but was making it up as I went along.  I had started the year with 20 rows of a K4/P4 pattern, and planned to finish with 12 rows of the same.  I wanted a transition into the last 12...kind of a reflection space (that's the tweedy whitish block after the blue), and I decided to make that part of the pattern as well.  When the last stitch was cast off, and my needles were free, I looked at the clock...12:02 :)  I think that worked out very well!

 

I still had most of the ends to weave in, and I had thought I would just leave that for today.  But...I tend to put things off, and I wanted to finish this project.  I ended up weaving in until almost 2:30 a.m., but in looking at my effort this morning (late morning), I am glad I stayed up to get it done!  That was the easy part.  The deeper part was the reflection of looking back at it, and then in looking forward for it!

 

It is such a testament to the last year of my life!  I started out the year focused on my goals and ready to make them happen.  I like how in looking at the scarf, that is the time the knitting is random.  It moves from one color to the next without a pattern...don't think, just do.  Then things started getting crazy, and I put the scarf aside.  I was still jotting entries in my date book to go back and catch up.  As I previously wrote about, that lasted until May 31st when life got really crazy!  I'm not sure of the exact date I put the project aside, but it was sometime in April.  I didn't go back and "catch up" when I picked it back up in November because that somehow seemed wrong.  Yes, I know it's "just a scarf".  But it's not really, and I can't explain that if you don't get it :)

 

Now the question became...what do I DO with it?  I have mulled that around a lot!  I went to sleep with it on my mind last night, and it has occupied my thoughts a lot today as well.  There is a part of me that wants to keep it.  But the spirit of the project was to share my life with someone else.  It came to me about an hour ago...which made me cry, and now makes my heart sing :)

 

My Dad will be 81 years old on the 16th of this month.  There were times back around November that I wasn't sure he would make it until Thanksgiving (when we were planning a trip there). Then, as he has done many times, he got a little stronger.  He was even able to get out of bed for a time to join us for Thanksgiving dinner!    Then he got bad again during finals week, and the call came from my Mom that she had called in hospice care.  Then he seemed to stabilize a bit.  Now we are in a new year, and he is still hanging in there and I wish I could be closer so I could just sit and read the newspaper to him again (it's hard reading the comics to someone...makes them even funnier!).  I want to be able to give him a hug and let him know that I love him.  I can't do that right now...but I CAN send him a colorful birthday gift that he can wrap around his shoulders.  And that is what I will do.

Life can be messy, and my life & relationship with my parents has not been a smooth sail.  But in the end, when you get to be a growed up person, you realize that people do the best they can with what they are given.  You decide that you don't live in that part of your past any longer, and you keep your eyes looking forward.  No one is more proud of me and my achievements at school right now than my parents.  It means a lot to my daddy, and no matter what has come before...I am more his little girl now then ever before.  He needs a warm, colorful hug for his birthday...and that is what he shall get!  that is all!