Back to Nursing

So the reason I started this blog was so I could document my journey through nursing school. I'm not good about writing in a journal so I figured this was an easy way to do it. But I've been horrible about giving updates but I'm hoping to change that. This post might not be that interesting just FYI!

I can't believe how fast the weeks go by. I take my first semester finals in 5 weeks! Kind of crazy since I feel like I still don't know a lot. I just hope I can pass all my classes...errr. I love learning about nursing! This might sound shocking but I kind of enjoy studying. I like it cause I'm learning stuff that is going to be useful and I'm trying to retain as much information as possible. Taking all the pre-reqs for nursing wasn't my favorite. I liked learning about Anatomy and Physiology and all the other classes but I was so ready to be done with those classes and finally be learning about things that is going to be applicable to my career. Not that A/P isn't applicable but it just wasn't geared towards providing care to patients. I'm so happy that I have had my CNA experience cause it has helped me so much this semester! I would be totally lost if I wasn't familiar with hospitals and certain procedures. But I am missing my job at Primary's. I miss taking care of little babies. I loved it there. Despite all the yucky CNA stuff I had to do, I always found myself saying how much I loved my job and I knew that being a nurse is what I wanted to do. Just thinking about it makes me happy. I love taking care of people (preferably little babies and kids. I really dislike old people). I feel good about myself and feel like I'm accomplishing something when I'm helping others. Ohhhh life is good. I have no complaints right now. I'm so lucky to have a healthy body and my family is all healthy. I know that isn't always the case for some and it truly is such a blessing.

Ok back to Semester 1. I'm starting to enjoy my clinicals a little bit more and it's fun being able to deligate the yucky stuff to someone else. :) I like my classes, I don't like all of my instructors, I like my friends, I like learning new skills, I don't like all the clinical paperwork, and most importantly I like that in almost 13 months I'll be done with nursing school! Holy cow, I never realized how taxing this was going to be. I'm looking forward to having a normal life again.

Insanity

I started Insanity this week! And I've been really sore. Like I can barely walk up and down the stairs. My body isn't made to do this much jumping so I'm just hoping that I don't break my ankle doing this like my sister in law did (3 weeks after she had a baby and with a 4 and a 2 year old). Poor girl! Wish me luck.

Merry Christmas

I just love Christmas! Here's what went down at the Chatwin's this year

Christmas Eve, family and friends came over for soup and yummy treats and the kids did the nativity scene.

Christmas morning opened presents and ate a delicious breakfast.

Isn't little David such a doll?

Emma and I have matching headbands now! 

This year I decided to make the kids blankets for Christmas with matching pillows. With a little bit of guidance from Stacie and my Mom here is how they turned out. I'm pretty proud of myself.  I usually don't have a lot of patience for sewing.

This was my first big sewing project but not the last cause I also got a sewing machine from Santa! I'm so grateful for a wonderful family and good friends to spend these holidays with. 

8 weeks

I've made it through the first 2 months of nursing school!!

Here are some things that I've learned so far:
I'm not as smart as I thought I was
Nurses in Nevada aren't very nice or helpful
I don't like old people
I'm paying a lot of money to teach myself

And now for the positives:
I still want to be a nurse
14 more months
And now I get to enjoy 12 days of winter break

Musicals

Sometimes I wish my life was a musical. I wish when I was walking down the street or in my car people would start dancing and singing along with me. I'm slighty obsessed with Glee these days although I shouldn't be cause it's getting kind of raunchy. But the music is awesome! I love musicals. Hairspray, Grease....love them! They are happy movies that just make you smile and want to sing and dance. So if anyone wants to

choreograph a little musical number with me let me know. :)

I love treats

I have a problem. All I want to do lately is bake and drink diet coke and not work out. I made peanut butter popcorn yesterday....delish! I crave mint oreos, haagen daz chocolate peanut butter ice cream, peanut butter chocolate chip cookies (Nestle has the best recipe), brownie/cookie dough bars, oh my gosh I'm getting hungry. Any sort of chocolate and pb combination is pretty much amazing to me. I think baking is my stress relief from school. I can't wait till I'm on break so I can do some holiday baking!! In the meantime I'm going to force myself to work out so I can do all that baking!

In other news

For Thanksgiving this year, my family and I went to California to visit Grandma. I love going to visit my Grandma. I wish I could convince her to move to Las Vegas. While we were there, she pulled out some old pictures for us to go through. I just love old black and white pictures and I love seeing what they wore back then. Here are a few...

This is my grandpa. My grandma keeps this picture of him on her dresser.

This is my Grandma's family. She is the bottom right with those red hot lips.

This one is my favorite. My Grandma in a cute little bikini and toned arms and legs! Classic! Everytime I brought up this picture she would blush. I told her she should have this framed but she just kept rolling her eyes at me.

1st week down

It's official. I have completed my first week of nursing school. And let me just tell you that this has been by far the longest week of my life! If this is how the next 16 months are going to feel than I'm in trouble. But really I'm so happy that I'm doing this. This had been a dream of mine for forever and now it's becoming a reality. A reality that now my life is consumed by textbooks, lectures, modules, labs, clinicals..blah blah blah. And don't worry, you know that picture I posted of all my textbooks, well I've added to that stack. Turns out some books were left off the list. Everyday after school I come home and read, read, and read some more. But I really like my classes so far and all my professors are really nice and helpful and I've made some fun friends. And a lot of the things I'm learning about now are sort of a review for me because of my CNA experience so I can't really complain.

But I will complain about how much I miss my roomies and my bf. I went to McDonalds the other night to get a diet coke and it just wasn't the same. Stacie and Whit weren't with me and to top it all off, Bowen wasn't either. And when I told the guy who took my order how bummed I was that Monopoly is over he didn't seem very amused. I just know that Bowen would have given me a funny remark.