Hooked

Well, its official...I am completely hooked on the "Twighlight" series by Stephenie Meyer. I Had put off reading them because I had heard they were addictive and I simply did not want to put off school work and other important things to read. Being sick for 4 days has had one plus side... I finally could start reading this series without feeling guilty, cause really, what else would I do?

When I first heard about these books, I really wasn't sure what the hype was all about. I would ask what they were about, and people always would say something along the lines of "Its a love story about vampires." Not quite my type of reading. I really wondered if I would find them good. After starting the first one, I couldnt put it down, and once I finished it (in less than a day I might add), I couldn't wait to start the second. I am now starting the third. Although the first one remains my absolute favorite, I am enjoying the progression of the story. I do have to admit that because I was out of the loop, I didn't realize the author was LDS, which really suprised me when I found out. Not that the books are crude or explicit, but sometimes the context of the book suprises me with the lack of morality. (which seems to worsen with each book). I understand that being an LDS author doesn't mean she has to portray Our Church's standpoint on every subject, but I would like to think that being in such an influencial role on young girls minds would encourage Stephenie Meyer to send signals of morality.

The movie for the first one comes out November 21st. I am so excited to see it, although the actor they chose to play the heroic Edward is not near as perfect as I had played him up to be in my mind. I am sure it will still be good though. It actually comes out the day Devry's brother is getting married. His fiance Danizza is also very into the twighlight series, and wants to go to a midnight showing the night before. If there is one, I will definately be there, and if not, I may have to skip out early on their reception. Just kidding.

Sick of being sick

I got into the Doctor this morning, and he first looked at my throat and said "so you are on antibiotics already?" When I said yes he told me he was worried I have a viral infection......most likely Mono. So he ran some blood tests and it came back that it was actually bacterial.....just a type of bacteria that the antibiotics I was already taking didn't fight. Convenient. So the solution? Another series of a different antibiotic. Of course this antibiotic is a lot more expensive, and since they dont carry it at the hospital I dont get my employee discount, so I have to pay the whole amount. So I am absolutely thrilled that I am taking 32 pills a day for infections and pain. Hopefully this doesnt last long. So after waiting in the Dr.s office for a while because I was so lightheaded from being sick and then blood being drawn, I got my pills and headed home. Well of course I stopped for some movies and jello.

So while I was sitting in the waiting room at the Doctors office, I realized I had brought the book Twilight with me. I have been carrying it around with me for the last couple weeks, but havn't started it. I have wanted to, but everyone tells me once you start it you cant put it down....and there are 4 in the series. I knew school and work were more important so I put off reading it, until today. I am already 60 pages in...and hooked. The movies I rented may not make it into the DVD player until i finish my book. Oh well...isnt reading so much better anyway? So i will be lazy the rest of today...then the Dr. said i should be feeling better and not contagious by tomorrow so hopefully we will get to visit with family.

Stuck in a "Rut"

Well my simple dentist appointment to get my two fillings did not quite go as planned. On my left side, everything went fine, but he got to the right and within a few minutes says to me "Chelsey, I hate to tell you this but I either have to do a root canal or pull this tooth out." (Except because we are in Idaho, he pronounced it "rut canal" like everyone else around here). Well of course since my insurance doesnt cover dental my first thought was how much it was going to cost me. An extra $900!!! And that is if I dont need to get a crown, which would add another $700. Wow.....so since i really didnt want to loose my tooth, I went ahead with the "rut canal" :). He didnt put me on antibiotics because he didnt think it would get infected....I wish I had remembered my horrible infection experience with my wisdom teeth and requested I be put on it. He told me the numbness would wear off and the pain should be mild and only for a day or two, nothing that a couple Ibuprophen wouldn't cover. So I took a couple pills before the numbness wore off to prevent it from hurting. Well...the couple Ibuprophen didnt do too much. Within 6 hours of having it done, I had so much pain and pressure in my mouth It hurt to talk, swallow, and breath. Chewing was not even an option. I upped my dose of Ibuprophen to 600mg, which didnt even touch the pain. After a day, with the pain getting worse and worse, I started taking 800mg of ibuprophen every 8 hours, and 2 extrastrength tylenol every 4 hours. I had never taken that much pain medication for anything, and I still had a lot of pain and pressure, which was spreading up to my sinuses and giving me a bad headache. I worked my 12 hour shifts, and finally after 2 days of trying, my wonderful co workers convinced me this wasnt normal and I needed to call the dentist. I did and told the secretary what I was experiencing, and after talking to the Dentist for 10 seconds, she comes on the phone and says "he wants you to come in right away." Well, since i was at work i said i couldnt, and i work every business day until tuesday, which was when my follow up appointment was scheduled for anyways. She called a prescription for antibiotics into the pharmacy and told me to start them right away and call The dentist at home if it gets worse.

So shouldn't my adventure be over by now? I thought so to. Well...on my way home from work last night I felt my throat start to hurt. By the time I got home, it was bright red and pretty swollen, and kept getting worse throughout the evening. I had a fever and just felt absolutely rotten. Finally it got bad enough that I called work to let them know I wouldnt be in today. So, after not eating anything that I had to chew because of my tooth, I now am having a hard time swallowing anything at all. I really dont know if the tooth and sore throat are related, but I didnt want to risk having something contagious and being at work with all the newborns. And of course my dentist is out of town today..now that I can go to his office. So i have an appointment this morning at the student health center with my regular doctor. We will see how that goes.

I hope it is nothing contagious and I start feeling better because Devry's brother Ted and his wife Shayla are coming up for the weekend and I was really excited to see their little boy Kaden. Devry and I were gone to Vegas the last time they came, so we havn't seen him in 5 or 6 months. He was very premature and had to be in Primary Childrens NICU for quite a while. We were all worried about him, but he made it through and is now 2 years old and doing great! He didn't talk alot the last time we saw him, but everyone is telling us how much he has started talking and how big he has gotten. Hopefully I can still spend the weekend with everyone.

Officially an Adult

Although I turned 21 in February, I officially got the "i'm an adult feeling" when I got my first real paycheck, and almost a third was taken out in taxes. I knew because I would be making more, more would come out, but I didn't realize exactly how MUCH more. Its somewhat depressing really. 20 hours of work all gone before I ever saw the paycheck. The really new thing for me is health insurance. Because I'm from Canada, health insurance isn't something we ever had to go buy. It was just there. Of course I never saw the huge tax deductions from paychecks that my parents have, but it seems so silly to me to pay an insurance company tons of money when they hardly cover anything. I finally had to bite the bullet and go to the dentist today. My teeth have been hurting for a couple months, but since dental isn't covered at all on our health insurance, I put off going until I was making enough money to afford it. I went to the dentist every 6 months of my life until I got married, with only one cavity ever. Its been a long year and a half with no dental care. The outcome wasnt the rotting decaying teeth I had anticipated, only 2 cavities. One is very small and the other is a little bigger. But still....it will cost me almost $400 to get them fixed. Can I just go back to being 16,care free, having no taxes taken from my paychecks, and having my parents insurance cover anything I ever needed? This "adult" thing isn't all its cracked up to be.



On the other hand....

I love having a "real" job. I am really enjoying the mother baby unit. My boss asked me the other day if I will orient to do labor and delivery. I had to hold myself back from jumping up and screaming "YES!!" I have always wanted to do labor and delivery. It is the main reason I went into nursing. I thought I wouldnt have the opportunity to orient to L&D for several years, but my boss needed someone sooner, and so I get to do both! I calmly told her that I would absolutely love to. She walked off and I called Devry right away to tell him the great news! I start orientation in January for L&D. I can't wait!



Other exciting events....

Well, other then work and the few classes I am taking, not much is new. I was very excited to find out that I won an IPOD at work. I had entered a drawing for attending a meeting, and was one of the 3 that won! I was going to get one for Christmas from Devry, but now he can find something else to get me. :)



I am officially an Aunt of six now. Devry's Brother Joe and his wife Lisa had baby #3 today. A little boy they named Nolan. Devry's other brother Dan and his wife Rachelle are going to have their 3rd in February, which will be grandchild #7. Here is a picture that was taken in May. With new baby's coming all the time, family pictures will never be up to date.

Loving my Job!

I made it through my first week of work, and absolutely LOVE my job! I was a little nervous about it, but I was put with a preceptor to show me around and mentor me for the first 2 months of work. She is a great nurse who has taught me a ton already! I am catching on really quick, and can ask all the questions I need to. I love taking care of the new moms and their babies. I have to confess that holding those sweet babies all day makes me a little baby hungry...but I will have to get my baby fix at work for now:)

I got my license in the mail, and maybe because Im just a little to excited, I took a picture of it, along with my name tag.

So now Devry and I are both working out butts off..trying to make some money to survive while he finishes school. I am doing school this fall parttime, to continue working on getting my bachelors. Life is fun right now. I am trying to get lots of things done and organized around the house, so I feel a little more in order. Our dogs are growing everyday. They are a ton of fun, but make more mess then any kid! They drag all of their toys out of the basket and leave them everywhere. Dash always steals socks. He never chews them up which is good, but he will just grab them and walk around the house with them. They are cuddle bugs, especially dash.

I was cleaning my bedroom this morning, and when I came out to the living room, I found Daisy and Dash laying on top of the pillows from our guest room. I had just made the bed a little while earlier, and I guess they decided they wanted the pillows, cuz they had dragged them out. I had also cleaned this room, but as you can see in the picture, they dragged pillows, toys, and blankets all over the place. At least with kids you can eventually teach them to clean up after themselves! Not with dogs though.

I survived!

We are back from Las Vegas and had a very fun, exciting, yet stressful trip. We drove to Utah the first day, and stopped in Salt Lake City, where I got to have lunch with a good friend who graduated from the nursing program a semester before me. It was great to see her, and a comfort to know she made it through boards and is now a confident and competant nurse. Maybe I have a chance! We then went on to spend a night with the Brooksby's. It is so great to visit them and see how much they have all grown. The next day we took off and drove to Vegas. We stayed in the Brooksby's condo, which was nice except that there was no power, so no Air conditioning. The power was off because they are selling it next week. We bought a battery powered fan and enjoyed the luxurious spa and pool that all the condo residents get to use. We did a lot of shopping! I found some great deals on clothes at out let malls. They even had an outlet scrub store, where I bought 6 new sets of scrubs! Very cute ones too! We relaxed, and tanned. I also studied every day for boards. We stayed in a hotel the last two nights, at the stratosphere. We had booked the hotel for monday and tuesday, when the price was less than half of what it was on the weekend. We enjoyed the air conditioned room! We went and saw the show "American Superstars" which was an impersonation show. It was really good! After a relaxing and fun time in vegas we drove back to Utah on Wednesday and stayed with the Brooksbys one more night. I began to get very stressed, knowing I had to take my test the next morning. I eventually got to sleep and had nightmares all night about my test. At 11:30 wednesday morning I got to the testing center and the worst 4 hours of my life began! I could have gotten anywhere from 75 to 265 questions, and I got 240. As I read through each question, I felt less and less confident with what I knew. I tried to stay calm and concentrate on the questions, but it was so hard! By the end, I left with absolute asurity that I had failed. I began planning out my next steps to retake it and try to find another job. Devry kept saying "you passed, I know you passed!" I tried to believe him. I was told I could go online and pay a fee to get my test results after two business days, or wait 3 weeks to get it in the mail. Who in their right mind would torture themselves for 3 weeks waiting for those results??!? I woke up at 1202 saturday morning and went online to check if my results were there. They werent so I thought I would have to wait another 2 long days until monday. Luckily I checked later that afternoon and saw that my results were available. I called Devry to come into the kitchen and demanded he give me his credit card. He probably thought I was nuts! I was shaking so much I couldnt even tell him why i needed it. Finally he came over and saw and immediately handed me his card. I spent the next few minutes trying to type in the credit card number with shaking hands. That was hard! Finally I got there...I clicked to open my results and all it said was - "status: Pass". I read it 4 or 5 times to make sure that it really said pass. Then I made devry read it to make sure. When I was absolutely sure it said pass, I started crying! Devry was like "Chelsey, you passed, why in the world are you crying?!?!" I was just so overwhelmed and relieved I didnt know what else to do! He was so sweet, he came over to me and gave me a hug then said..."guess what...you are an RN." Then of course he threw in "I told you so". Anyways.... Finally...the 2 hardest years of my life paid off. I went to the hospital today to set up my schedule and I start my three 12 hour shifts a week on wednesday! I am so relieved to be done with school and big tests like that, yet so excited and nervous to be entering practice. I am so glad I am in the post partum unit. I wouldnt want to start my career anywhere else.

A Few Favorites

Now that I am out of school, I have a little more time on my hands. I have many projects completed, and many more on my to do list. I have been trying to make an organized menu so Devry and I avoid having the "what do you want to eat? I don't know, what do you want to eat" converstation every day. I have found a few items that we love and thought I would share them.

Devry isn't much of a breakfast eater, unless it's muffins. I found these great Betty Crocker muffin mix's that are quick and easy, and just as good as if made from scratch. His favorite is the blueberry mix, which has a can of real blueberries inside the box. They are simple to mix up and throw in the oven.

Another great find was gossner's milk products. This great company processes their milk at higher temperatures, which makes it have a shelf life. The problem Devry and I have run into is that we are sporadic milk users. Neither one of us drink alot of milk, but we will have it on cereal and in baking. If I happen to bake more one week then another, we run out very quickly, and I have to run to town to get more. If I don't bake at all, we often have 1/2 gallon or more expire. Gossner's milk is pretty much the same cost as regular milk, but you can leave it on your shelf for up to 2 years without it spoiling. Once it is opened, it is like any other milk, and will expire quickly, but it comes in smaller containers so you do not have to use a gallon at a time. It also comes in small "juice box" sizes, and has many different flavors. A few favorites are Hershy's chocolate, cookies and cream, banana, and root beer. And yes...it does taste like regular milk!Great for food storage!

Another easy and delicious meal! Green Giant frozen stir fry. Basically, you pick a meat, cook it, add the bag of veggies and package of sauce (included in the bag), cook a few more minutes and eat! I am all for easy meals, and this is definately one of them. It tastes great and saves time. Devry doesn't eat many vegetables, and he will eat this, and likes it! You can make some rice to go with it, or I have been using Rice noodles.