The Reception.

If you have a sudden urge to feel mushy-gooshy, romantic, smitten, lovey-dovey, want-to-smooch-my-lover kind of a mood: watch this.


Callie+Caden {reception} from Jesse Felter on Vimeo.

Internet. Precepting. Husbands. and Graduation.

Ohhhh, computer. Here I am juts blogging away at home on the couch with good intents of posting this as soon as we have some form of internet connection.   Soon, hopefully.  Real soon.

These past two to three-ish weeks have been madness.  I started precepting, which in nursing world is like an internship.  I am supposed to follow one nurse for 135 hours.   Luckily, I got a nurse who I knew before and he is pretty laid back and relaxed.  So, I pretend to be a nurse and he makes sure I’m doing everything correctly.  It’s comforting having him there, and I wish that I always had a nurse to double check my work.  One wrong move and I could kill a person.  That’s a little scary.   

On top of precepting 39 hours a week, I’m also working 24 hours a week and going to class 8 hours a week.  So, from Sunday to Saturday I’m putting in 80 hours of some sort of something related to nursing.   Plus, each shift begins at 0500, which leads me to wake up at 0330.  So, I have been going to bed at 7:00pm.   The worst part of going to bed early is that I miss my cute husband.  He has been working nights, so he rolls in around 9pm and comes to snuggle me in bed for a minute.  We talk about our day briefly with sleepy eyes and then he tucks me in before he goes to watch a movie on the couch.  

That makes for one sad Callie.   The first week or two I would go to bed crying because all I wanted to do was spend time with Caden but all I really could do was sleep.  Nursing school has officially taken over my life and it makes me cry.    Thankfully Caden is SUPER supportive and he reminds me that, in 135 hours, this will all be over and I’ll be a real nurse working only 3 days a week with no homework.   Who knows where I would be without Caden.  He keeps my little engine trucking along.  Toot-Toot.   …That’s an engine noise.

For those of you who blog-stalk me, you’ll remember that we were originally going to be married in August.  Thank my heavenly stars that we decided to move the day up.  Had we waited until August, I truly never would see Caden.  The only time I see him now is when we go to bed and sleepovers didn’t happen when we were just dating.  Good thing we got married in May, folks.  Prayers were answered with that decision.

Speaking of getting married, married life is incredible.  Cade is such a good, good, good husband.  He takes very good care of me, especially during this precepting business.  He cooks dinner, cleans the house, folds our laundry, waters our little garden, and always makes sure that I’m happy.  What a gem.  I can’t wait for the day that I can be a wife, instead of a nursing student.  I look forward to dates, romantic nights, snuggles, traveling, making babies, and being able to stay up late just being silly.    It’s so close I can taste it.  Eeeeek.  So close.   

So, there you have it.  That’s our life.   I plan for some good blogs in a few weeks, when I’m a little more sane.  31 days, 4 hours, 38 minutes until graduation.  And counting.

…now 37 minutes.

Setting Goals.

Goals for after graduation (which is in 40 days, by the way):

Start yoga. 
Start running. 
Find a job I love.
 Make a difference. 
Spend way more time with my husband with way less worry about school. 

There.  If I say it outloud, now it must be done.

...to be continued.

Clinicals in Rehab.

This week I got the opportunity to do a clinical at a rehab and detox center.  Woah, that was an incredible experience.  I saw things from the eyes of an addict and it was such an eye opening experience.  There were moments when I cried, moments when I laughed, moments when I was afraid, moments when I hopeful, moments when I felt discouraged, and lots and lots and lots of moments when I truly was touched emotionally.  

As a student nurse, I was able to sit in on their group therapy sessions and the things these patients were sharing was such an “aha” moment for me.   I’ve blogged before that my dad was an addict.  He was an addict for several years.  For my whole life I’ve heard stories about drugs and addiction from the sober eyes.  Stories of how drugs affected the life of my mom, my siblings, my grandparents etc.  Not once did I hear stories from my dad, the addict himself. 

So, when I was able to hear these stories at rehab it was such an incredible experience for me.  The reasoning for starting drugs,  the reasons for trying to detox, the effects of their family life, the way they got the drugs, the way they found a dealer, etc.  These people shared their most intimate details about their addiction with me.  It wasn’t only therapeutic for them, but so very therapeutic for me. 

Addiction is a scary thing for me.  I worry about my children being affected by addiction,  my husband, my siblings, my parents, and myself.  Anyone can be affected.  Everyone can be affected.  I saw patients of all ages, young, old, teenagers, mothers, fathers, rich, poor, successful, not successful. Anyone.  

It was such an experience.  Super emotional.  Super inspiring.  Super insightful.   And I still can’t stop thinking about it.  I pray the patients I met make it out of the rehab unit and I pray they never go back to their way of life.  But, that’s something they will have to continue to work at every single day.  Every day.  And I admire them so very much for just taking the first step, despite how absolutely difficult it must be.

Keep going.  Keep trying.  Don’t ever give up.
Beat it. Win it. 
Amen.

Heaven at City Creek.

For those of you who live in Utah: ever been to Lush in City Creek? Oh my lanta. It's like Bath and Body Works x 100. They make all their own soaps, shampoos, body wash, tooth paste, bubble baths and...my most favorite of all...massage bars. We bought one. Wanted to buy one million.

Side Note: The other night I went grocery shopping. And, because I'm very stubborn, I refused to make two trips from car back to apartment. So, I attempted to carry allllllll the groceries in one hand. And then I dropped my keys so I bent down with all those groceries on one side of my body and, what do you know, I tweaked my back.

So, my cute Caden rubbed my shoulders last night before bed with our new massage bar. Holy heaven. The smells coming from the bar, the warm icy-hot-feeling it left, my cute husband pampering me--that's what heaven is like. When I picture heaven, it's smothered in massage bars and Caden. ....and hamburgers.

Moral of the story: go to Lush. Get a massage bar. Make your husband/boyfriend/neighbor/friend/dad/mom/stranger from the bar rub your down. It's mind blowing.

Typing From Home.

I’m typing this post from our brand new laptop.   Exciting news.   This was our first big purchase together as husband and wife, and I would say we did pretty dang good.   Caden usually picks one he likes and I usually say “Perfect.  Lets get it.”  And that’s how we make choices.   Where he is strong, I am weak.  Where I am strong, he is weak.  We compliment each other well.  For instance, I’m horrible at technology.  All I know is if its pretty or if I’m able to facebook/blog/email from it.   Caden isn’t the greatest at decorating.  So, he buys something and I make it pretty.   It works out well.

Today I had the entire day off to study.  Guess what I did.   Everything EXCEPT study.   We cleaned our apartment, I officially changed my name, we made dinner, baked some cookies, vacuumed my car, visited my mom, played with her puppy, etc.   Around 9pm I decided to study, just for a few hours until our midnight showing of Permethius.   Guess I can’t be upset if I don’t do well on my test.  I had every chance in the world to study.   The test is on mood disorders and schizophrenia.  How hard can that be?  

Am I right?   J

Celebration.

Im blaming our no blog posts on our new internet.  But, we are alive!  And we are still married. Suprisingly, that silly boy has decided to stick with me. Something about..eternity and beyond. :) He is much too good to me. Just last week I came home from an 8 hour shift to dinner made and a bubble bath a brewing. Yep, my husband makes me bubble baths. Isn't he the greatest? 

I know people say this all the time, but married life really is the best thing. I was always so terrified of being married. I thought it consisted of fighting, jealousy and money issues. Well, I'm happy to report we haven't fought, been jealous or had money issues. I know it's still early in the game, but I would say we communicate pretty dang well. Thank goodness!

This summer has been full of festivities already, and it's only June. We just bought season passes to the local amusement park, plus we have season passes to the local soccer team, hockey team, indoor football team, water slide park and ski slopes. Yeah, we are awesome.

My only complaint about this summer is school. School. School and more School. I don't recommend summer school and I definitely don't recommend summer school when your husband isn't going to school. Oh man, it's hard. All I want to do is swim and play with my husband, not study or learn about being a nurse. Luckily, Caden is super supportive. Just last night he sat on the bed right next to me while I took a 6 hour test on our new laptop. SIX HOURS he sat and just watched TV and rubbed my back, kissing me for encouragement every few questions. That's pretty dang supportive. Never the less, the blasted test took me 7 tries to pass. Super discouraging. After the 5th time of not passing, I start to doubt my abilities as a nurse. It affects my self esteem pretty hard.

Also affecting my self esteem, I'm still looking for an LPN job. I've applied several times for several positions, all report back with a "try again next time" response. I've had meetings with my manager that have led to tears of frustration and led me to believe that maybe, for whatever reason, she doesn't want to hire me. It's hard and it's frustrating. As much as I love my job, I'm ready to work as a nurse. I'm trying to have a better attitude about it and I'm trying to trust in God. He's obviously got better plans for me and I'm learning to turn my plans into his plans.

So, there you have it. That's us in a nut-shell. We've almost reached our month-iversary. I'm almost graduated from the RN program. and I've almost blogged a whole entire post.

That's something to celebrate, friends.

C E L E B R A T E.