I think it’s the slippers doing a triple axle in the air over his head. . . .
I think it’s the slippers doing a triple axle in the air over his head. . . .
Fall has fallen and with it so too has my resolve to eat more healthily. I have been steadfast in drinking my 8 glasses of water a day and incorporating my 6 servings of fruit and veggies, too. I am about to turn into a stalk of broccoli. However, when the leaves turn and then leap off of the trees, all of that goes out the window. Seriously, the weather turns a little cooler, I turn into Betty Crocker.
Oh, I can’t wait to start baking.
I was cleaning out the pantry, looking for cans of forgotten veggies and fruits to donate to the local food bank when I found a 16oz can of pureed pumpkin. Awwww, yeah! I can’t believe I had forgotten about this! And once October rolls around, you can’t turn a corner without tripping over an orange gourd! I love pumpkin – pumpkin bread, pumpkin cookies, pumpkin flavored coffee-drinks, pumpkin scented candles, pumpkin and bacon sandwiches (kidding, kidding).
I decided Mo, Co, and I were going to make some pumpkin walnut glazed cookies. Mo had no school on Friday, so I took her for some quality mommy-and-me time at our local Starbucks/Target combo to pass our morning. Miss Mo was easily placated with a kiddie cocoa and a vanilla scone. She’s very much into Fancy Nancy, so when I told her a scone is a fancy breakfast treat, she all but Hooverized it. For me, I kicked off the fall season with a pumpkin frappuccino. I have to say though, I was left wanting. It was as if they just took some pumpkin essence and waved it over the top of the coffee. I think I could have gotten more pumpkin flavor dropping in a handful of mellow-cream pumpkins!
After we picked up C0, we headed home to fire up the oven. I was so excited to bake with the girls, the night before, I got all Martha Stewart-y and pre-measured the dry ingredients, set aside the wet ingredients so that all we had to do was pour, stir, roll and bake. So much easier, so much more fun. The girls were excited and 3 dozen cookies later, we were in pumpkin bliss.
My neighbors have come to realize they are going to be lucky guinea pigs recipients of this baking bounty and were only too glad to give me requests for more baked goodies. Last year, I made some rum balls that gave my one neighbor a two-day hangover (I am totally making those again!). That 16oz can of pumpkin puree enabled me to make 3 dozen cookies on Friday, make an additional pound of cookie dough for freezing, AND allowed me to make some pumpkin walnut pancakes for breakfast this morning. Incidentally, pumpkin walnut pancakes also make for an excellent brinner! For someone who is a notoriously finicky eater, once I get a hold of a recipe, I am ready to challenge Tom Colicchio to an Iron Chef match.
And let’s not even talk about Halloween – okay, well for just a minute.
Every year I tell myself to buy the candy that I don’t like – Almond Joy, Skittles, Starbursts that kind of stuff. Every year, I buy Snickers, Reese’s Cups, and Kit Kats. Last year, I bought Reese’s Fast Breaks and holy mother of pearl, I was eating those things like Tic Tacs. This year, DH had gotten some World’s Finest chocolate bars to give out, but, as I gently reminded him, we live in a kid heavy area and Halloween is K.O.B.D – kind of a big deal. So, off to the Rite Aid I went, with every intention of coming back with Sweet Tarts, Dum Dums, and Tootsie Pops. Well, we all know what happened. I think if I sneeze, a Reese’s cup will fly out of my nose,
I got my Thanksgiving issue of Real Simple in the mail the other day and had paryoxms of glee at all the recipes I can try. I made this one recipe of ravioli, spinach and bacon (cue “My Favorite Things”) and by the time I was done, the recipe page was smudged, splattered, dog-eared, and greasy – telltale marks of a cook hard at work. For as much as I enjoy cooking, though, I doubt I will ever tackle a Thanksgiving turkey. I prefer my turkey from the deli, thank you very much. Besides, I much prefer the side dishes (green bean casserole, anyone?) to the main event. My family eats Chinese food for Christmas dinner; it’s highly unlikely a turkey is going to get introduced to our oven any time soon.
Even with all of the impending holiday eating that is bound to occur between now and New Year’s Eve, I am still mindful that while my pants hang low on my hips now, they can easily succumb to the crazy phenomenon that shrinks my clothes every time I leave them unattended in the closet. Seriously, one size goes on the hanger and a smaller size comes off the hanger. I think it has something to do with the my carbon footprint or something, but that’s another topic for another day.
If your everyday attire consists of lace, tulle, tiaras, long flowing dresses, and woodland animals perching on your shoulder when you belt out a song in the midst of your routine activities, is it still considered dressing up when you wear it on Halloween?
Yes, I should be studying, but this is short and I miss you guys!
So we are driving to school the other day listening to the radio. “The Way You Make Me Feel”, by Michael Jackson comes on and we’re just bopping along. From the backseat, Co says, “Why Michael Jackson fall down?”
Ummm. . .is this a joke that you just made up or am I missing something?
“Why Michael Jackson fall down?” she asks again as we continue snapping our fingers, rolling on down the street. I turn to Mo as we glide to a stop light. “What is she saying?” I ask my little translator.
Mo rolls her eyes so far up into her head, I’m sure she can see where the two halves of her brain come together. “Michael Jackson didn’t fall down,” says Mo. “He just likes to say, ‘Ow!’ a lot.”
Out of the mouth of babes I tell you.
I didn’t count exactly how many times he says “Ow”, but I’m sure it’s up there. I’ll save that for the next study break!
I’m supposed to be studying and I’ve got dinner on the stove, but I had to get this down before I forgot. Week 3 of nursing school is in the books and my brain is thumping against every bone that comprises the skull! I’ll spare you the names of the skull, but suffice it to say, there are quite a few. In any event, each passing day has found me a little less weepy, still just as stressed, but still getting up and putting one foot into my nursing uniform at a time — and no, there won’t be any photos of me in that finery at all.
I have asked for prayers of perseverance, peace of mind, fortitude, courage and determination from everyone I know. I have a great support system in DH, in my parents and brother, in my dear, dear friends and family. My 87 year old grandmother told me to go ahead and cry out my stress because, “that’s what I do, and then I feel better, and then I just keep it moving.” I refuse to have a pity party for myself because I’m tired or because I’m a mom or because I want to be doing something else. What I really want is to be a nurse. It took me some time to arrive at this conclusion; it’s going to take me some time to arrive at my goal. I just have to keep telling myself that.
I’ve put a lot of request out there for folks to send me positive energy and to think of me and hold me up to the light and all of those things. Truly, I am so grateful. What’s more is that I see how diligent everyone has been with their support. It’s overwhelming and humbling. It make me want to do even better than I already plan to do.
There have been days in the last three weeks where I have really wondered what I’m doing getting up at 4:30 in the morning to study and then be out the door by 6:15am to spend the whole day in the lab and library. I was getting Mo ready for school the other day and was telling her that I had school that day, too. I mentioned how I was nervous about school and she asked me why. I said, “Well, there are a lot of new things to learn and I’m a little scared.” She looks at me and says, “Mom, don’t be afraid to try something new.” Out of the mouths of babes, right? But that’s what I mean — just when I feel like I’m about to hit a wall or fall flat on my face, I get a message. It’s an off the cuff remark from a 4 year old or an encouragement card in the mailbox from a friend a quick thinking of you note email from a buddy.
When I verbalize to myself (yes, I talk to myself) what my anxieties are, what keeps me up at night, and whether or not I can suck it up and just keep pushing, I get a message — a phone call, a card, a text, someone is thinking of me, thinking that I am the bee’s knees and am capable of so much more than I give myself credit for. It’s like being re-charged and I’m able to keep moving forward.
My train of thought is getting derailed (probably because dinner is going up in smoke), so what I really want to say isn’t coming out as fluidly as I’d like. Ultimately, I am working harder than I have in a long while, exercising my brain in ways that I haven’t before, and balancing a number of responsibilities on my shoulders. Still, my support system is immense, incredible and indispensable. My drive and desire to do well and graduate in two years is strong. Having that knowledge and power on my side, there is nothing I can’t accomplish.
School has started and I am up to my eyeballs in reading. I have a hot second to give an update. Suffice it to say, things have changed since I was in undergrad. I’m a lil’ stressed — no, I’m a lot stressed, but I survived week one. Just 15 more to go until the end of the semester (which is probably when I’ll blog again). I gotta put my nose to the grindstone, but I’ll miss you guys, of course. See you then!
So, this week I have been at orientation for school. Every day from 8am to 12pm, I’ve been bombarded with expectations, available resources, best practices, course scheduling, long-lines at the bookstore and fractions. Yes, fractions. I knew that there was some degree of mathematical knowledge involved with nursing, but to be slammed with the addition, subtraction, multiplication and division of fractions at 8am on a Monday morning is cruel and unusual punishment.
Now, I’m a Type A personality, an endearing character quirk that has consistently served me in good stead ‘lo these 30 years of mine. Before going back to school for anatomy last year, I invested in a teach-yourself-math workbook. Notice I said “invested in”, as opposed to “opened and used”. Yeah, that joker sat pristine for the past year on a shelf in my closet until about two weeks ago. In the orientation packet, there was one brief line about a math assessment and seriously, I saw my life flash before my eyes. And then I remembered the work-book. So I pulled it out, blew the dust off of the cover and started Chapter 1, Basic Mathematics. Then Season 1 of True Blood came in the mail on Netflix and well. . .here we are.
Math and I have never gotten along. In fact, one of the lowest grades I ever received was in math. In more fact, aside from getting a violation for talking in Chemistry, the only other mark on my school discipline came from my algebra teacher. I had long come to the realization that I had a bad attitude towards math. I didn’t get it, therefore, I didn’t like it, therefore, I chose to just eke out passing grades and deal with it later. Shocking, I know, but truly, I couldn’t stomach it. So, having embraced that mentality, I thought nothing of sticking whatever fiction book I was reading into my algebra book and reading that during class. Of course, the teacher had been calling on me, I hadn’t been paying attention and the charade came crashing down like my test scores over the semester.
How bad did it get? How about in sophomore geometry, when we were learning proofs, I put CPCTC for every answer on a test. Every. Single. Answer. I just looked at those proofs and knew absolutely nothing.
Fast forward to my A&P class first semester last year. My professor was talking about how tough the course was going to be, how the attrition rate was astronomical, and so on and so forth. She then went on to say that if we had a good attitude towards the class, if we acted excited when we opened our books, we’d basically trick our brains into retaining more info because we’ve been telling ourselves that A&P was the shiggity! Can you say, “skeptical”?
That little nugget of info remained with me. This past week, as we’ve continued to work on fractions, percents, and ratios, I’ve tried to get happy about it. I’ve tried positive self-talk. I’ve admitted to myself that while Math and I have agreed to disagree, we will make a truce for the sake of my impending nursing career. I will open up desirable accommodations in my memory bank and decorate it any which way Math wants, so long as the concepts move-in for an extended stay.
As the week draws to a close, I can quite honestly say that I have become quite oriented to what the next 24 months of school will be like. Seeing as I already broke the seal on my 60 pound Concepts of Nursing book, I guess I’ll be staying, fractions and all.