the happiest

Well, I had a busy day!

No sleep (because of Tango...) and then I went on a cleaning rampage to eradicate these little flea bastardos that have been inhabiting on my couch and my cat. I sprayed all the baseboards, and bombed the house and washed and vacuumed everywhere with flea powder. I am PRAYING so hard that I have finally killed these things.

After that I went to the gym and realized how out of shape I am, and then Nate came over and we made stuffed peppers, and went to Menchies and cuddled and just hung out at home and sang and laughed and it was the most perfect. I love nights like this one. Just being with him makes me realize what a lucky soul I am to have a wonderful man like Nathan. He's selfless and wonderful and just does his best to make me happy, and I try to do the same for him, but wow. He knocks it out of the park! He's just the sweetest and I love nothing more than looking at him and just taking it all in while we are just relaxing.

He's got my heart!

questions & such

     Is it weird to be put off by marriage talk even though I really want to be married?

     I know that it's because we have been talking about it for so long that I just feel like it's just a topic of conversation and not really ever going to happen. So, talking about it makes me sad and automatically get apathetic, where it should make my ovaries hurt and yearn for children and to be an old married couple. I think when I actually get engaged one day it will finally hit me. I'll get that fairytale wedding brain and butterflies in my stomach and see it happening. For now, it just makes me sad. How I yearn to have a husband share my bed with me every night and wake up to that same face every morning for the rest of my life. I see so many of my friends and family living this fantasy of mine and I feel so left behind and old. It's dumb and pointless of me to compare, I know. I don't even necessarily want The Day. The expensive, pretty, day where everything is supposed to go picture perfectly and families join as one. I want the aftermath. I just want the husband and the house. So do I stay apathetic and talk about it, or just pretend like it's not ever going to happen, which will in turn make the relationship pointless if I'm not thinking about marriage? This just seems like a never-ending cycle of sad.

encrypted elabortion on marriage questions/frustrations.

     Also, What is "happy" in a relationship? To me, all relationships need work and are not going to be butterflies and pony babies with kittens all the time. I understand that, and I have no problem with that, and that's pretty much reality.

(more encrypted text, but this time about happiness)

     I think I need to go to pre-pre-marriage counseling. Or hypothetical pre-marriage counseling. I need to make sure that whoever I marry is The One and I don't end up divorced. I need to be married for life. It is what I believe in, and what I was built for. I'm like a turtle dove. Or something.

 

     That song, Why Should the Fire Die by Nickel Creek makes me cry every time I hear it. It's just wonderful. The lines "Why should the fire die? My mom and dad kept theirs alive" makes me cry and makes me fast forward in my head and see myself with my husband in our 60's still so in love and working to make it wonderful after many years. I love it.

I have blogged two long blogs today.
I'm spent.

soup for breakfast

It's weird and all, but it works when you're sick.

I'm going on day 7 (Nathan is on day 9) of being sick. Everyday there is a new symptom it seems, or at least, things are getting worse. I can breathe out of my nose now, but my cough has reached croup-like status, and i have terrible cramps and and and... it's just awful. And if Nathan is any indication of what this thing will be like for me, I have at least another 2 days of this mess. It's terrible. All I can be grateful for is that I am not in nursing school, or doing an externship. I feel like I would have failed out by now and gotten fired. It's heavily debilitating. The day before yesterday I slept for 4 hours during the day and then slept all night. It's ridiculous.

I had the biggest breakfast yesterday! Nate made me a waffle (which I haven't had in year and years) and I had a sausage, egg, and cheese biscuit, and fruit. It doesn't seem that huge, but those carbs had me going ALL day. Then we sat in the bed and drank tea and cuddled. It was wonderful :)

I've been thinking a lot about what I want to do while I'm "young". I really want to travel. I have never been past West Virginia at the furthest, and I would love to go see Oregon, Colorado, Washington, California, even Texas! Just anywhere! I would love to see everything and take everything God has made! Why should I be limited to one coast? I shouldn't! Waking up to these different places would be wonderful and an experience of growth I believe. Like you leave home to find home. How can I know where I'm happiest if I never look?

Ahh. I would love it!

I also want to hike at least part of the AT, preferably with Nathan. You would super get to know each other better, that's for sure! I know at times I would hate it. Absolutely hate it and want to give up. But having encouragement and knowing how far I have hiked and knowing how awesome my legs would be at the end of it might be enough to keep me going!

I want to super travel oversees too. I'd love to just backpack across Europe for like a month, just taking in everything. Italy, Ireland, France, Japan, Germany, Greece, Spain... all of it! The architecture over there would be amazing to see, and I feel like it would be really moving. Just to know that hundreds and thousands of years ago these things were built for their beauty and not for their efficiency like over here. The top place I would love to go would be Israel. It really sucks that things are dangerous over there because I feel like that would be the best moment of my life. Seeing where my Savior was born and walked and taught. It gives me shivers! I'd probably cry the whole time like a baby.

There are SO many things that I even want to do here! All those times that Nathan and I just sit at home when we could be walking the Greenway, or visiting the botanical gardens, or exploring Athens, or Madison, or going to the Aquarium, or the World of Coke, or the Renaissance Fair, or visiting our coffee shop, or having a picnic. I just want to explore!

I am a very torn person. A lot of me is a homebody, and then there is a part of me that just loves to travel and run away from everything. I'm afraid that if I didn't have Nathan I would live my life as a nomad, taking crappy part time jobs everywhere just so I could save up enough money to go go go go. Life gets overwhelming and I want to escape. It's bizarre. Why would I want to run from everything I know to somewhere that I know nothing about? Maybe the newness of it all would be more overwhelming and would take my mind off of it. I don't know.

Enough of my ramblings.

trust/anxiety/issues

I'm having issues again.

Show encrypted blog post

the sickness

It seems that I have "the sickness".

And I'm not down with it (pun).

You know the one. The one where it creeps up on you overnight and gets you when you're least vulnerable. You wake up with a slightly stuffy nose that seems to get better throughout the morning. Then you hit exhaustion like a wall. After your nap, and really weird dreams due to fever, you wake up aching all over, you definitely can't breathe out of one nostril, and your throat is starting to scratch. Your head feels like an over inflated balloon, and you are filled with the weakness of an 80 year old. In fact, your head feels so full that you feel drunk. Your reaction time sucks, you can't think, and all you want to do is go back to bed. But that's impossible because you can't sleep because your nose decides that it doesn't know which side it really wants to stuff up, and your fever makes you hot and cold more than 15 times over an hour

That's the one.

No nausea yet (thank goodness).

What I feel like I look like.

What I feel like on the inside.

Nathan came over yesterday and hugged me and made me feel better before I went to school to take my first communications class. My teacher seems cool, so hopefully I'll pass this time (I have no choice: I have to pass).

On another note, I find myself really attached to Nathan lately. Like a whole lot. It's a weird thing. It's not the attachment where I feel like I can't trust him so I want him near me all the time. It feels more like I don't want to let him go. I just want to be near him all the time. Maybe it has to do with the passing of Mama Lou, realizing what I have and I don't want to lose it. I don't know. I just want to spend all of my time with him and just never let him go. When we got back from our trip I was so "moved" and just tearful because I wasn't with him anymore. I don't know if it's because he's my best friend and I just want to be with him, or what. I think I'm just so ready to be married and live with him everyday and wake up to him and see him and breathe him in everyday. Who knows.

Well I guess I'll just Pinterest and watch Law & Order until I can fall asleep.

nothing goes as planned

     This was a very hard week/weekend.

     I went on a trip with Nathan, as he had to go to Florida on business anyway, so we were going to go to the beach! Nothing really went as planned.

     The beach was cold and windy, we were both in foul moods, we got sunburned, and other issues arose.
And then the worst happened: Nathan's sweet grandma, Mama Lou passed away this morning.

“Death opens a door out of a little, dark room (that's all the life we have known before it) into a great, real place where the true sun shines and we shall meet.”- C.S. Lewis

     She was one of the sweetest people I have ever met, and I am glad that I knew her while I did. I wish that I had known Nathan longer, because I love him, but also because I would have known her more. She was just so genuinely nice and wonderful from the moment I met her. Nathan would tell me stories of her that reminded me of my own grandma, and I loved her as if she was my grandma. Mama Lou was really strong, especially in the end. She knew where she was going, and she wasn't afraid of it. She embraced it! She kept her sense of humor and so alert and oriented to everything around her until her serious decline. I am glad that I got to see her and talk with her and hear stories about her from Nathan. I am so sad for Nathan and his family because I know for sure how hard it is to lose someone you love, but at the same time I am relieved for Mama Lou. She is in Heaven and watching over everyone, and I find peace in that. I am sad though that I didn't get to know her more. It's sad that it's human nature to not realize what you have until it's gone. I do realize this with some people (my immediate family, and Nathan), and I spend as much time as I can with them. I know what it's like to have a sudden loss, and a gradual one. I can't imagine living with Nathan for 50 years and then losing him. He is already my best friend and I hate being even one day away from him now. I just can't even fathom the connection that you would have with someone that you lived with and were still in love with years and years after you first met. The person that you went through everything with, raised children with... just gone. The heartache must be incredible, and I am praying for Papa Sam.

"No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear." - C.S.Lewis

     Death is never fun, but I can say that every time a life is lost, especially one that I knew, it makes me realize just how much I have in the relationships with people in my life. I don't know that I would do if I lost Nathan. He's my everything! Everything I do, I have him in mind. I get pretty for him in the morning, I laugh with him, I tell him secrets that I have never told anyone, I pray with him, I talk to him all day, every day. I can't imagine never waking up to hear his voice again, or old his hand, or rest my head on his chest. Never smelling him again, or hearing his laugh, or feeling his hugs... ugh! It makes me cry just thinking about it. The loss of that would devastate me, and I pray that I never have to go through that. It seems so selfish to wish to pass away before your significant other so you don't have to deal with the loss of the other half of yourself, but I am not too big headed to admit that I am too fragile and weak to recover from that.

     I am just praying for peace of mind for his family, and comfort and support for his grandfather, and good memories of Mama Lou for her children and grandchildren.

"For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord." - Romans 8:38-39

the beach

With a heavy heart, I cannot take my externship position for the Summer. I hope maybe I can work as a technician there or somewhere to get SOME experience.

In better news, I am going to the beach.

I'm gonna tan in my bikini (chunky monkey!) and drink Coke's out of glass bottles, and read books, and hug my boyfriend, and enjoy life. I can't wait.

mother's day and photos

Happy Mother's Day to all of the wonderful, fantastic, loving mom's out there. (Mine's the best, but I guess I'm partial).

I got my mom flowers, took her out to dinner, and the kitten that she had been eyeballing for weeks! He is the most adorable, and he almost squeals when he meows because he's so tiny! I call him The Ewok.

His name is Scout, as in To Kill a Mockingbird.

He is so adorable, and only weighs about a pound and a half! So tiny!

 My boyfriend wrote me a letter while I was gone and I got in the mail yesterday! It was so sweet! I LOVE getting letters in the mail! Old fashioned, sit down to write, ink and paper letters. It just shows you that they were thinking about you enough to take the time to write something. I love it!
So, this is me now, on this rainy day, sitting at my jewelry making desk, re-reading my love letter, over and over:

<3

I seriously have the sweetest boyfriend ever. He is patient, kind, sweet, funny, thoughtful, and just perfect for me! I can't wait to marry him someday! Besides the sweet handwritten note, he made me a little picture card thing of us when we were kids, and a mushy message (but that part is just for me).

We were messy children.

Nathan could have possibly been the cutest kid in the world. We were watching videos of when he was a kid, and he was so adorable! AHHH! I want to go back in time and pinch his cheeks!

Also since I am trying to keep track of my hair growth, I took another picture to show how much it has grown in the 2 weeks since I got it cut!

Mehhhhhh

The front is getting long, and the back is almost to the point where I could let it grow and not look like a mullet. Grow hair, grow! What I wouldn't give to have a long long braid right about now. I also am starting something that some will think is gross. It's been known as going au natural, no-poo, or just lazy.
I quit shampooing  my hair.

What I used to feel like.

Well, that's a lie. I wash it with real shampoo maybe once a month. I started doing this when I cut my hair off. My hair, although always pretty long, was greasy at the root and super fried and dry on the ends. No matter how much hair product and oils I put on the ends, they would just soak it up and still look fried, but feel ultra greasy. That in turn, made my face break out and me a very unhappy camper. So, I cut my hair off, mostly to start over with virgin hair, and partially because I wanted something new. I noticed that with the healthy hair (I had been growing out my roots for months), I didn't HAVE to wash everyday. Then I went to 3 days. Then 4. By the 4th day, things can get a little unruly. Instead of washing it with shampoo I thought, what if I just wash it with conditioner? It wouldn't strip my hair, but it would gently clean it and make it smell good... or it will make it a giant greaseball and I just wash it again with shampoo. No biggie.
To my amazement, it turned out wonderful! Shiny hair that wasn't greasy, stinky, or gross. It just looks healthy! I washed it with shampoo a week or so ago just to get it completely clean again, but after looking online, apparently people just wash with baking soda and apple cider vinegar (or make their own shampoo). I'm going to try the baking soda one, just because it's cheap. But I want to grow my hair out this time healthy and not brittle or dry. I'll let you know how it works out! I'm trying to get boyfriend to do it too, since he has the coarsest, thickest hair ever (and I'm really jealous because I have a lot of fine hair that gets damaged if you look at it wrong. Also, Nate has the prettiest eyelashes in the world. I want them.)

Well, I'm going to go do things today. Maybe give my cat a flea bath. And then maybe go celebrate Mother's day with Nate's family. (That sounds awful that I'm not with my mom, but I was just with her and my brother for a week to celebrate today and her birthday!)

Cheers!

i want

This is what I think about when I get stressed out:

I want it to be Summer.
Like, no worries or concerns and everyday on the beach, sunbathing and cuddling with my boyfriend. I want to hear the ocean and drink Coca-Cola out of glass bottles and read a book and listen to good, happy, carefree music. I want to take in all that God has made. Clear skies, windy beaches, the hot sun, the freezing cold, salty water. I want it all! Hammocks, BBQ's, hiking, lazy days by the pool! Sun tan lotion on my nose, natural sun bathed highlights in my hair, popsicles, and playing in the water!

I want it to be Fall.
Except for no nursing school, and crisp mornings and sweaters and jeans and boots and leaves and hats. Flannel! I want to be a kid and roll around I leaf piles and have a bonfire and get lost in a corn maze with my love and laugh and laugh and laugh. I want to carve pumpkins and roast marshmallows and breathe in the cold air. I want rosy cheeks and long hair! I want to just lay on the cushioned ground and look at the bare trees and see the sky and forget about everything. I want to go on a gorgeous bike ride and see all of the colors of the leaves that are left.

I want it to be Winter!
Snow, snow, snow, snow. I miss it. I want snow, and fireplaces, and the smell of burning wood and marshmallows and hot chocolate and Christmas. I want to build an igloo and throw snowballs and get bundled up and then warm myself by a fire. I want to cuddle up with my Nate and drink hot cider and eat stew and tell each other stories. I want to go outside and see the snow falling in the woods at night, and around the street lamps and secretly long for somewhere like Narnia!

Spring.
I want the green, and the flowers, and some rain, but not all of it that we usually get. That's about all for spring. ;)

I want the best of all 4 seasons all the time. I wish I could do that. It'd be a weird power, but it would make me a very happy person. BOOM! Snow. BAM! Leaves and pumpkins. Actually, more realistically, if I could find somewhere where it was Fall year round, I'd be the happiest woman in the galaxy. I have a feeling that is what Heaven will be like for me. Fall all the time. I can't even describe it. It just FEELS different! The air is cool, but not freezing, and the smells that come out are clean and deep and pure and at the same time like clove, and cinnamon, and woodsy. Warm sweaters and colors and family. It's just the perfect time of year! I want all of that right now.

Hand holding with Nate, open window car rides and bike rides and perfect weather. My smile would be infinite.

in the woods

I can't sleep normal hours anymore for some reason and it makes me sad! I was exhausted at 11 last night and slept until 3. So awful. It's like 4 hours is my cap, and then I'm exhausted all day! Meh.

Well, I had an escape this weekend to a little old cabin in the woods with my love. It was a perfect cabin surrounded by trees and nature and quiet and rain. I loved it! Everything was so much cooler up there, both literally and figuratively. It was like 60 degrees at night and 70 during the day, thunderstorms at night and no rain during the day, and a hot tub in the middle of the forest with the fireflies! It was wonderful.

We cooked a big breakfast with pancakes and maple sausage and hashbrown casserole and orange juice in fancy glasses and listened to jazz music and held hands. We caught up on sleep and watched Star Wars and my Nate when he was little and SO ADORBS. We ate pizza and ice cream and junk food and wrote in the guest book and laughed and and and it was wonderful!

We ventured out to look at antique stores the second day, but most places were closed on Mondays in that little old town :) The ones we did find open were more of a catch-all of homemade gifts, thrift stores, and had little to do with antiques. But we laughed at things and held hands and probably told each other hundreds of times that we love each other. It was fun!

We drove back and stopped at a mountain center and saw all of this real cool AT hiking stuff and it reaffirmed how bad I want to just quit life for 8 months or so and hike it. I'd be in real good shape by the end if I made it to Maine! It would be a real bonding experience for sure! With both Nate and nature :) Maybe after I graduate and before I have to pay back mountains of loans :)

The rest of the time I was perpetually tired. We grabbed sandwiches, went thrifting for a VCR for Nate, and then I had to get my brakes fixed because it sounded like I was dragging the Tin Man behind my car when I drove. At the time I was irritated that I had to spend 2 hours in the repair shop and 150 dollars on brakes, but looking back, Nathan and I talked a lot about a lot of things. At the time they seemed like just regular old conversations, about everything and nothing. But really, it makes me realize how lucky I am to know and be with my best friend. He knows me inside and out. He calms me down when I get heated, he knows my heart, we both are on the same page. We talked about getting married and all that goes with that, along with fibromyalgia, somatiform disorder, autism, wheat (apparently people think it's evil), etc. Just everything.

The thought of marriage is scary. I used to be so ready for it, and now that I feel it is approaching soon (I don't know when, but I know he's the one), it's so scary. I've been burned a few times, and had my share of serious heartbreak, more than the average young lady, and it's compounded into a big ball of good/worry/panic. I never want to lose Nathan. He is my rock and my best friend and I am absolutely in love with him. The thought of something happening to him is something so overwhelming that I can't even describe beyond that. Yet, the thought of being bound forever to one person and trusting them with your being is so scary! I know marriage is hard, and that's scary too. Also coming from a household of divorce is looming over my head as I do not ever want that! I know that I'm just terrified of hurt, and I'm going to have to get over that. I know God has placed me with the best man for me, and I have to trust that. But there's that word again... TRUST. Trusting is hard to do when you have a panic attack when things are out of your control, ex: nursing school. I'm still suffering from PTSD after last semester!

I want to be his wife, and although I'm scared, I'm not unsure. I know he's a wonderful man, and while not perfect human beings (since there is no such thing), we are perfect for each other. I am just going to have to seriously work on letting go of my worry and past and stress. Easier said than done, but you have to start somewhere!

Man, this weekend was full of revelations.

Also, I have known Nate for a year and 3 months today. I love him so!

plaid

Lately, I have had the irresistible urge to buy everything plaid. Like, flannel, mountain, lumberjack plaid. Not bro, hot pink, plaid.

I'm getting these:

I know it's not plaid, but it's so cute! And on sale!

I can't wait to see my boyfriend on Sunday! :)

i'm a senior!

I AM OFFICIALLY A SENIOR NURSING STUDENT!

I never thought I would see the day.

Things I learned and did during my first year of nursing school:
1. Cleaned wrinkly old people in a shower, and was totally cool with seeing them naked.
2. C. diff poop smells... different.
3. Hot and dry = sugar high
    Cold and clammy = needs some candy
4. Nervous breakdowns are a weekly event.
5. It is very possible to have chronic IBS during test weeks and finals.
6. It is also very possible to diet in nursing school, mostly due to stress.
7. Anxiety r/t nursing school AEB IBS, failing med surg test grades, not being able to keep nurse face when irrigating a pressure ulcer, and chronic fatigue.
8. Self diagnosis is popular.
9. Mental health is grey; there is no black or white.
10. Health assessments are the most thorough in nursing school, taking upwards of an hour to complete. In real life, almost non existent. 
11. APA format sucks.
12. ABC's are not what you think they are.
13. If airway is an answer for a priority question, pick it.
14. If hand washing is an answer, pick it.
15. Lab values must be memorized, when in reality there is a chart for everything.
16. Buy stock in highlighters.
17. If your textbook is not yellow, you're not highlighting enough.
18. Clear before cloudy.
19. Pregnancy is terrifying.
20. MAGNESIUM SULFATE.
21. In the case of postpartum hemorrhage, massage the fundus.
22. Diabetes will mess you up.
23. Drug dictionaries are priceless.
24. ATI SUCKS
25. Nursing school makes you hate everything/one, especially people with free time.
26. If you don't know it by 2 AM, it's not happening.
27. Doctors and anesthesiologists are mean.
28. You really DO see EVERYTHING in Mental Health clinical rotations.
29. Friends can bring you the most support.
30. You cannot study effectively while sitting on Facebook, Netflix, or playing Bejeweled.
31. Gossip is plentiful.
32. Crying is essential to survival.
33. Boyfriends and kittens make it do-able. Barely, but it works.
34. FHT's
35. Scrubs, pen, paper, stethoscope, and ID badge always at clinical.
36. What's free time? Or friends?
37. Tabatha's Salon Takeover is not conducive to studying.
38. Hard, rigid, board-like abdomen = peritonitis.
39. Manual blood pressures are hard to do when you have ADD.
40. Give digoxin only if pulse is > 60.
41. Endoscopy is probably the cleanest place in the hospital.
42. Suicide notes are creepy to read.
43. IV's ARE SO FUN!
44. ACCUCHECKS ARE FUN!
45. Care plans.
46. Drug cards.
47. Diagnostic labs and test are important for your tests.
48. Pick the rightest right answer.
49. Therapeutic communication.
50. MED MATH.

In short, that's nursing school. Poop, naked old people, vital signs, heavy books, stress upon stress upon stress, medical math, trick questions, raised grade bars, unneeded competition, schizophrenics, and nervous breakdowns all for the price of a new car. It's amazing. How am I alive? I don't know. God pulled me though, family helped, and Nathan carried me through a lot. The last month of nursing school I went catatonic; alienating my friends in class and basically living in my books just to pass my final for Med Surg. I passed all of my classes, and now I am a senior. Wow!

I have 3 months nursing SCHOOL free. However, I start an externship on the 21st, Public speaking the same day, and Spanish 2 in June. I have a feeling that this Summer is going to be bittersweet.