7QT

1) I find out this week if I got a job at the hospital! I feel like I'll at least get a job, but maybe not the unit I want. Honestly, I will be happy with anything because both have their pros and cons. I know starting med-surg will be incredibly helpful and will have a greater chance of working days, so it's really not a big deal if I don't start out ICU. Either way, I just want to know if I have a darn job.

2) Devin is teething and growing two inches every night, or so it seems, and because of that she is just wanting to be held and snuggled all day and all night.

When I put her to sleep she has to have her arm around me, even if it makes her uncomfortable. So sweet! But it also means that when I try to sneak out, she wakes up. After nursing her and snuggling with her a bit I've been having Vince come in and lay with her until she falls asleep after a few minutes, and it's worked well.

Which brings me to...

3) We're transitioning Devin to her own room! I'd be happy if she slept in our bed util she was 40, but it seems as if she wants to be alone. She'll sleep solidly until we come to bed, then she'll wake up every hour still wanting to nurse. Then we're all tired the next day. We've had her in her own room for this week, and so far it's gone well. Last night I slept with her for half the night because she had a rough day and just needed extra time with me, but other than that she's been fine alone and has woken up 2-3 times. Not bad, compared to before! So we'll see how it goes. If it doesn't work out, that's fine and I'll know it's not time, but for now lovvvvves the (coral, not pink!) room.

4) Devin is doing pretty good at her solo table. I do have to sit with her for each meal so she doesn't just wander off, but she really likes eating there. It's so fun to see what a big kid she is, getting on and off the chair, pushing herself back, etc. Mostly she wants to eat any and all meals outside, though.

5) Two of my close friends just had babies, and they are both SO beautiful and lovely. I can't wait to snuggle them! We're hoping to try for another kiddo at the end of the year, but until then, they'll be good substitutes.

6) Vince and I have switched over to shampoo bars and my goodness, they are amazing! So so amazing! I bought the three pack from Aquarian Bath on Etsy and got different ones (dry hair for Vince, greasy hair for me) and we both really like them. I did the recommended ACV rinse and I think it helped. My hair is so soft and bouncy, even Vince noticed it. The bars are also nice because they are really foamy/soapy feeling, which I didn't realize I missed with the organic shampoo I use that doesn't work well with my hair. Overall, great purchase.

7) Oh, and I graduated! No big deal. We had a BBQ at our house after and it was a nice way to celebrate and end the previous 5 years! Devin made sure to round up the hard cider cans the next day.

 

Today I am...

A blog? What's that?

Ok, but really. My track record for posting this year has been terrible. And the hardest part about getting back into blogging is feeling like I have to do an update on everything, which is just too much effort for me. So instead I'm going to act like I've been blogging three days a week for years and you know all the important details. I figure if I just start again, all the important things will come out eventually!

To ease into, I'm stealing a fill in the blank from Sara via Grace and showing you a picture of my 14 month old daughter who is not longer a baby but a walking talking human being.

Today I am…

Celebrating my first week of my new 24 hour a week position! It's still the same job I've had for almost three years now, but I'm actually budgeted hours instead of relief. I'll only be doing it for a couple months in the hopes of starting a nursing job in July, but it's awesome because Vince will have insurance and he gets to work less to stay home with Devin.

Reading Yes Please. And my gosh, it's so great! I just finished The Martian, which was just absolutely fantastic, and then read Binge after that, and it was also good. I've been on a reading kick am loving it.

Wishing I knew if I had a nursing job. The applying/hiring process can be soooooo long and drawn out!

Feeling like I'm never going back to school ever, ever. I have always said I'd get a Masters and now I'm like "If I have to do one more discussion post or format a reference in APA ONE MORE FUCKING TIME I'M GOING TO KILL SOMEONE." I'm sure that will change, but for now I'm so over it.

Wanderlusting over owning our own house with our own garden and our own farm animals. (Vince is content with chickens and only chickens, but we'll see.)

Eating an apple and raw milk.

Watching Nurse Jackie and Parenthood. Well I just finished Nurse Jackie and both Vince and I are like WHAT?! That's it?! And we just hate Jackie. But I love love love LOVE Zoe so much and wish she had a spinoff. I had started Parenthood and only got a few episodes in but have started it again at the recommendation of a friend and I just love it.

Anticipating dare I mention school one more time? You guysssss, I just can't wait to have free time and not worry about the homework I have to do.

Deciding nothing. I am not at a point in my life where I should be making decisions.

Sewing (Sara, look away, look away!) little baby carriers for Sara's kiddos....for Christmas. Oh my gosh I am the worst friend ever. I have had one done since before Christmas, and the other halfway done. Awful, I tell you, awful! But they are going to look so darn cute wearing their baby dolls/stuffed animals.

7QT

I should just never say I'm going to post something soon, because I inevitably will jinx myself and that won't happen. Too much has happened over the past many months to catch up on, so I'll do a 7 Quick Takes post a la this blog and move on. I post daily on the 'gram, so head over there if you really want to keep up to date with me! (Or my baby, I know that's why you're all here.)

1) Devin is no longer a baby. She is a crawling, standing, clapping, eating, vocalizing little chunk of joy that is so insanely opinionated already, at almost 9 months old. That comes from the Powell side of my family, so it's a good thing her middle name is Powell.

2) I am in my second to last semester of school, and senioritis is reallllll. So. So. Real. This also happens to be the busiest semester of the program, so if you combine that with having a baby, being the Student Nurses' Association president, and moving, things are cray cray.

3) Speaking of moving, WE HAVE MOVED. Into a house 5 times the size of our itty bitty apartment.  To say we are happy about it is an understatement! Devin has room to move, she has toys to play with now, Roxi has a yard, I have space to exercise in, and we have a giant garden. The house has already been more upkeep than I'm used to, but it's been good and we are less stressed. Oh, and the most exciting thing I almost forgot to mention - we have a washing machine and dryer! No more hand washing cloth diapers. I have no idea how I did it for so long.

(Don't worry, we have a gate up to block of the fireplace now!)
4) Related to the house - my grandparent's have gone on a mission to Mexico City for 18 months, and we are renting it from them. So while I am so excited about the house, it is also very bittersweet because we already miss them. They watched Devin on Monday's while I was in class, and she so loved being here with them! It will be sad that they'll miss so many fun times, but 18 months will go by pretty quickly and we have Skype.

5) I really feel like nothing else interesting is going on. Hmm. I took some fall pictures of Devin, and she is just the cutest ever.

6) I am still not able to eat dairy or eggs (and gluten, which neither of us can have) because of Devin's reaction through my breastmilk, but I've been able to add in almost everything else that I love! I have to restrict the amount of tomatoes, but overall she is handling things well. She likes to eat everything in the world as well. Update: I have been able to add small amounts of dairy back in! Hello, chai tea.

7) Reallllly struggling to think of a number 7. I have really been enjoying eating Justin's Chocolate Hazelnut Butter, I just got these leggings from Old Navy (in size tall!) and they are awesome, I won these pants and these pants in a Prana giveaway and love them (also in size tall!), wool diaper covers have been our new favorites, and this ketchup recipe made with our garden tomatoes was delicious!

Pumping for school or work soon after birth.

Due to having Devin mid semester, I was only able to take two weeks off of school before I had to go back. Some people say it's terrible timing, but it actually wasn't as bad as I expected. She slept a lot (though she did nurse every hour around the clock for the first few months!) and I was able to nap with her, I was out of the house for 24 hours of the week so it wasn't full-time, I could come home at times during lunch to nurse her, and I was also able to have the entire summer off during her extremely fun months! 

 

One thing that did cause me stress in the beginning was pumping. It wasn't that pumping was hard or difficult, I was just so worried about nipple confusion or her not wanting to nurse, thus ending our breastfeeding relationship. Aside from her being placed on my chest immediately after birth, breastfeeding was the thing I was most looking forward to and I didn't want to mess with it! Luckily, I had nothing to worry about as we had no problem and she still loves to nurse constantly, and will hopefully continue into toddlerhood.

 

When I was scouring the internet for advice on pumping really early, I found nothing. 'Early' to most people meant going back to work at 6 or 8 weeks. The advice would be to start pumping 4 weeks before going back to work, and to start bottle feeding two weeks before going back to get the baby used to a bottle. That would have meant I should have started pumping two week before I delivered, and started bottle feeding the day she was born! Obviously, that would be impossible and not ideal. 

 

So here is a rough outline of what I did, in case you are one of the lucky few who has to go to school/work after a very short period of time and you want to continue breastfeeding.

 

Nurse on demand. Devin, like most babies, nursed for nutrition as well as comfort. For the first two weeks, we basically sat on a recliner with her attached to my boob about 90% of the day. She would nurse, and then taper off to little suckles while she slept. This signaled to my body to make more milk, and helped increase my supply. While at the hospital she would nurse for hours straight and all through the night, and even though it was really uncomfortable at times in the beginning, I just let her do her thing. 

 

Do NOT use a pacifier. As I said, Devin liked to comfort nurse. Many moms choose to put a pacifier in for this, but I was adamant about no paci. One) it took away her ability to tell my body to make more milk, and two) it would likely mean that I would set her down to do something else, decreasing our physical contact, and decreasing my milk supply. We started her on a paci around 6 weeks because the comfort nursing was making her acid reflux worse by never allowing her food to digest, but we made sure breastfeeding was well established, I had a pumping routine in place, and I had a solid amount of milk.

 

Start pumping once your milk is in. My milk came in very quickly - while I was still in the hospital - and continued to increase in amount. Around day 7, once my milk was 'completely' in (it would continue to increase over the next many weeks, but it was changing from colostrum to regular milk), I started pumping a few times a day after Devin finished nursing. I was nervous at first, thinking I was 'stealing' the milk from her next feed, but really it just helped increase my milk supply after a couple days. I would get about a half ounce to start with, and it quickly increased to 1-2 ounces per pumping. I was trying to stock up enough milk for at least the first two days of school, in case I didn't end up pumping enough while I was away for a total of 16 hours. I was following the 'baby eats one ounce per hour' rule, so 16 ounces was my goal. I froze the milk in 1 ounce portions, since I assumed she would stick with her eating every hour routine even though I wasn't there. 

 

Introduce a bottle. Three days before I was supposed to go to school, I had Vince try to give her a bottle. I heard good things about breastfeeding mothers using the Dr. Brown's bottles with a preemie sized nipple, so the baby still had to work hard to get the milk out. She kept refusing it with Vince and he was stressed out about it (he also got little amounts of sleep that first week!) so I ended up trying to feed her. I was still so distraught about how it could effect our breastfeeding relationship, so once she got a hang of the bottle and started eating, I cried! And then sobbed! It was awful to be the one feeding her from a bottle. Vince realized how upset I was and took over from there. I had him feed her one time for those three days while I pumped so they could both get used to it, and then I would nurse her immediately after as well so she wouldn't 'forget' how to nurse. I could definitely feel a difference in her latch, but after a minute or so she would correct herself and remember.  

 

Relax. When I went back to school, I was able to pump more than enough for her. I was lucky enough to have Vince or my grandparents be home with Devin, so I was confident she was in good hands getting the love and attention she needed. Had I been stressed out about her situation, I'm sure it would have had an impact on my milk supply. She didn't have any issues with nipple confusion, and she would nurse even more when I was home because she missed the physical contact. We bed-share, which I think also has a huge part in our success because she had full access to my boobs, and I could get enough rest while still feeding her constantly. Every situation is different, though, so you'll have to see what works for you!

 

My next post will be pumping tips, so be sure to look for that.  

SOS

Today is day 4 of post-vaccine reaction. Send help!

The nights are getting a little better, but the days seem to get worse! Yesterday she didn't sleep longer than 15 minutes at a time, often just staring off at the same spot for minutes. She wouldn't nurse longer than 5 minutes either, so she was up a lot wanting to eat last night. I didn't mind that part, I still love holding her little body to me, doing a job no one else can do. I don't like that she would wake up immediately screaming, though. 

One of the vaccines had egg in it, which she has showed signs of intolerance to through my breastmilk (even chicken!) and I think that's what is making everything so bad. Her belly is in constant distress, her poops are bad (a little better today) and she was spitting up a ton (also a little better today).  

Also, two days after her last Hep B shot at ten days old, she started having really rapid breathing. Her respirations were in the high 70s constantly instead of the normal 30s-40s. Her doctor did many tests to find out why this was happening but found no reason. After going on for a month, it finally tapered off the last two weeks and has been totally normal...until two days after this last Hep B shot on Wednesday! Her breathing is now rapid again. Needless to say, we're re-evaluating this whole vaccine schedule.

I have a big assignment due Monday morning that I of course haven't been able to work on, so I plan on camping out in bed with Devin and my homework hoping the extra cuddle time will be good enough to get work done while I lay next to her. Fingers crossed! 

Late night.

It's almost midnight and I still have hours left on my homework assignments. It's such a magical thing to look down and see the silhouette of my nursing babe, her tiny ear perfectly lit up by the glow of my computer, and hear her gulping down nourishment. Time to push off doing homework for yet another day so I can embrace her cuddles and sweet milky smell in bed.

26 weeks

26w1d - the lazy shot. And no stretch marks yet, luckily! Just the indentation from my shirt.

25w2d

Weight: 152 pounds (-30 total/+ 6)

Sleep: Has drastically changed this past week. I am definitely up about every hour, whether it's to change positions or go pee. I was able to do a partially on my belly, partially on my side sleep for a while that was great because I'm normally a stomach sleeper, but that's now gone. So the side it is. That leads to things like major neck aches and my arm falling asleep! And I feel like I use my other hand to support myself somehow so my wrists get really sore. I was never told about this part of pregnancy. ;) I sleep with a body pillow on both sides which is way helpful, and I'm thinking it's time to add a second one under my head!

Cravings: Hard boiled egg sandwiches are still all the rage (rave?) and healthy foods in general like salads. 

I've been thinking a lot about BBQ chips as well, but haven't eaten them. I bought some the other day and thought I'd bought them before so assumed they were gluten free. I sat on the couch to eat one and as I was bringing a chip to my mouth, I realized I hadn't checked the bag yet. So I read the ingredients quickly and look at the little area that says 'Contains:' and it didn't say anything about wheat. So I put the chip to my lips and thought, 'Hmm, I should probably read the ingredients one more time, just to be safe.' Sure enough, there was malted barley syrup which is not gluten free! I was so bummed, but so happy I caught it before I ate it or I would have been one sorry pregnant lady. (But at least I would have pooped!)

Movement: Never ending it seems, which I love! Even though it is really uncomfortable at times, especially after I've had a big meal, it's quite an amazing feeling. There have been some really big movements happening so it's been fun to watch it beneath my skin. She'll sometime do multiple punches like a punching bag, so my stomach will just look like it's seizing or something. 

Wedding Ring On or Off: Still off.

Best Moment of the Week: Having my nursing clinicals for school end for the semester. They'll be quite rough next semester since we have two days instead of one and I'll be way bigger, but I'm happy for the break.

My clinical carpool ladies!

Looking Forward To: Taking our baby moon in a few weeks! We'll be heading up to Jackson Hole so Vince can ski and I can cozy up in a luxury hotel, then visiting a friend who is a few weeks ahead of me in her pregnancy (our belly's are going to be so cute together), then heading to a condo in southern Utah for a family reunion of sorts for Christmas. 

Incredibly flattering, I know. ;) This was after a simlab day for school, and this is what I wear under my scrubs! My 'slimmer' belly band, compression socks, and a long sleeve shirt. Vince kept telling me I looked huge and wanted a picture. 25w5d

What I Miss: Getting out of bed normally. I feel like a bug stuck on it's back sometimes because I have to put my arms and legs in the air for momentum to make it over my body pillow and sit up!

Milestones: Not fitting in my bras, except a nursing bra I bought. I've been wearing sports bras for a bit but they were getting too snug so I reached for a 'real' bra. It was quite hilarious when I put it on because my boobs literally squished out the top, bottom and sides and I couldn't breath. While not a milestones for already big chested ladies, it's a little fun for me not to be an A-cup any more! Except now I am down to one comfortable bra...

(Read about week 14 weeks and 25 weeks.)

Emotions with nursing. There are just so many.

I've written before about my fears surrounding death within my role as a nurse, and now I'm dealing with something that may be harder: emotional people! It seems so silly.

A brief explanation of how the nursing program works: we have classes in person, online classes, and clinicals. Clinicals are the days we go to a facility (hospital, nursing home, etc) to do hands on nursing. At the beginning of each semester we are taught various skills in a lab, and clinical is our chance to 'practice' on real people. This semester our clinicals have been at a long term care facility, which is basically a nursing home, but the area that we are in mostly has older people there for rehab after some type of surgery.

I've done clinicals for my Certified Nursing Assistant class at a different nursing home here in town, and there is such a difference between those clinicals and the nursing programs. I am now in a nursing student position instead of CNA, so I do more meds, injections, and wound care as opposed to the CNA, who takes care of things like brief changes, feeding, bed changes, etc.

So for most of this semester I've been performing a lot of the nursing duties, which doesn't give a lot of time for patient interaction. We interact when we give them meds, check glucose levels, and administer insulin, but it's for such a short time because there are 20+ other people to give meds to within a certain time frame. A couple weeks ago the state inspectors were at the facility so everyone was on high alert, and the nurses were hesitant to let us students do anything. That led me to doing a lot of CNA work, which also meant a lot more time could be spent with the residents. I fed people, got them up to use the restroom, and changed a lot of briefs (A LOT).

Despite doing the 'dirty work', I loved it because I was able to interact more with the residents. This was also extremely saddening. A partner and I were changing a ladies brief and she was completely unable to talk or move herself and was just wanting to hold my hand. I crouched down next to her bed and held her hand and she instantly made eye contact and wouldn't look away. It was one of those moments where I felt like I could see into her soul and I felt so much fear and confusion coming from her. There wasn't much I could do in that situation except assure her that we were just cleaning her up and we'd be done soon, but of course didn't feel like that was enough. It's such a hard thing to look at someone who is scared or hurting and know there is nothing you can do to get rid of it.

Recently I was assisting with a resident who had been in WWII, and in the middle of our conversation about something unrelated, he casually mentioned that he had killed 87 people, and said, "I bet you didn't think this morning that you would be taking care of a murderer," and my heart just broke in two. I can't imagine what it would be like to be in a war and to kill someone else to save yourself and your countrymen, and all at once I just felt all the sadness, guilt, and pain that this resident has been living with for most of his life. All I said, in a tone of understanding, was, 'You had to do what you had to do," and gave a weak smile. Obviously that probably didn't do anything to help him, but again, there isn't anything I could have said to make him feel better.

The hard thing about treating patient's like this is that I am so sensitive to how people are feeling. I am a cancer sign through and through and a complete people pleaser who loves to help in any way possible, so it's really hard to not be able to help. I totally get it now when nurses say they take their work home or when a nurse gets burned out so quickly - it's hard to get rid of an emotion.

So that is one really important thing I'm learning about nursing, how to deal with my patients emotions as well as my own, and to find a way to separate the two to a certain extent. I know my ability to cope with it will evolve over nursing school and into my career, but I wish there was a quick fix. SO MANY EMOTIONS!

I haven't learned a thing!

At the end of every semester in college, I have felt like I didn't learn anything. Like I was so crazy busy during the semester just trying to get an A that everything left my brain after taking the test. Now that I am further into college I still feel that way at the end of every semester, but there is the realization that I did learn something in previous semesters.

This afternoon I was reading a chapter in a textbook and in just one simple paragraph, it went over a months worth of learning in Anatomy & Physiology I. In eight short sentence it summarized all the hard work I put into a topic that I remember being so extremely difficult and studying so hard for it only to feel like I still didn't understand it. But as I read the paragraph I realized I knew everything I was reading and could even expand on it by a whole lot. I actually remembered something! It seems silly that something so small could give me such encouragement to keep trudging on towards the end of this semester, but it really does. I often feel like I'm lucky getting the grades I receive and that it's just a fluke, but this helps me realize that the hard work I'm putting in now really does help me in the future, which will include more than just good grades - it'll be real live humans! That's not a scary thought at all.

A little word vomit for you.

So I'm just going to start typing and hope I word vomit all over the place for your entertainment. I feel like I haven't posted in a long time and even Vince mentioned how long it's been when he went to check my blog last night. If your husband is telling you your posts are few and far between, you know you need to write. But alas, I do not know what to write about.

I guess I can start with the biggest part of my life: the nursing program! I feel like I'm jinxing myself by saying this, but it seems to be way easier than everyone told me it would be. I expected to be doing homework every night and to never have time to hang out with Vince, but that hasn't been the case! I know it's only my first semester and I've heard the second is the hardest by far, but still. I expected tears by now and I've hardly even been stressed.

Last semester was a very pivotal turning point in The Mind of Steffani in the sense that I totally chilled out. My microbiology lecture was kicking my ass hardcore in the beginning and I for sure thought I was going to end up with the C in the class and would not be able to get into the nursing program. After stressing about it for a few weeks and talking with my teacher who recommended I 'chill the hell out' and that passing is passing, I stopped caring! Well, I stopped caring in the sense that I didn't need to get a perfect grade and that as long as I passed, I wouldn't care.

After not doing as well as I wanted on my first two test (well, I got a low B and a mid B which isn't bad at all, but I considered it to be at the time) and talking to my teacher (see above paragraph) I re-evaluated what I was doing. What was I doing that was helping, and what was I doing that wasn't? I noticed that I would take a lot of notes throughout lecture, almost everything he said, and that I wasn't actually listening. So I stopped taking notes! The first half of the semester I took about 5-10 pages (front and back) of notes and the second half I took NONE. Not a single note. I had a friend who sat behind me in class who actually asked me if everything was ok because I was just sitting there! I also noticed that doing physical activities like riding my bike and working out helped me relax, so I did more of that.

Going into the third test I was like, WHAT WAS I THINKING OH MY GOD I'M GOING TO FAIL AND HAVE TO TELL EVERYONE THAT MY ACCEPTANCE TO THE NURSING PROGRAM WAS RESCINDED ALL BECAUSE I WANTED TO RIDE MY BIKE. But guess what? I got a fucking A that I previously thought was unattainable. (I can't stress how hard this class was. On our first test we had like five As out of almost 200 students, and that was with him giving us 6 or 8 extra points.)

After that third test I continued not taking notes, took my final, and ended up getting a 98% in the class. Yes, that is almost equal to 100%. In microbiology class, which is known as the 'make it or break it' class for all medical/science majors. Needless to say, I was pretty stoked.

So bringing that knowledge of 'chill the hell out' into the nursing program has been beneficial to me. I feel like I absorb so much more information when I'm relaxed and just sitting there listing to what the teacher is actually saying. Going into my first big test for the program I was somewhat nervous, but at the same time I had this calmness about me knowing that I didn't need an A. An A would be fantastic and that is ideally what I wanted, but if I didn't end up with one (which is so much harder to do in the nursing program because 93+ is an A, instead of 90+) it wouldn't be the end of the world.

As luck would have it (or reading 18 chapters and doing hundreds of NCLEX review question would have it) all of these little changes have been beneficial as I was one of very few who got an A on the first test! And no only that, but I feel confident in what I've been learning, as if I actually understand everything. (i.e., I'm not BSing myself into an A) Needless to say, I was excited, and really think that without my realization last semester, I wouldn't have gotten such a good grade.

I guess I wrote this post to tell everyone to chill out. Go take your dog on a walk. Climb a mountain. Read a John Grisham novel. Watch an entire season on Netflix in one day. Just chill out and don't feel guilty for not spending every waking moment studying! And lastly, even if you don't get an A, grades aren't everything. I know I won't get an A on every exam I have. I do not think people who have good grades are always smarter than someone who fails. Some people are better at taking tests, some people just don't want to apply themselves to a test but know all the information, and sometimes tests are just hard no matter how much you studied. In ten years I can promise that the A I got on my test will mean nothing to me, but the hours I'm able to spend outside camping and going on trips with my husband will mean a lot more.

So there you have it. Word vomit that was somewhat purposeful. A little. Now I'm off to study. ;)

Update Shmupdate.

Some life updates from January/February followed by an Instagraham picture. (Well, some I actually didn't post on Instagram, so just a photo.) I'm @iffyinklings if you want to get instant access to my exciting life!

// Do you know how stressful it is that an A in the nursing program is a 93? And that a 78 is failing, as in you can not pass go into the next class and must go straight to the jail that is the same class all over again? No thank you. As a straight A student (almost, save for the damn the Spanish class that I got a B in THAT I DIDN'T EVEN NEED TO TAKE but thought would be fun (it wasn't)) I am used to working hard, but now the information is even more hard so I have to work harder and that is just too many hards in one sentence. No.

Me riding to orientation the first day, not realizing how cold it was, and me on my first day of lab wearing my pajamas scrubs.

// I made this for my bestie's birthday and lurve it.

// This is a reminder to myself to make time to work out during stressful weeks because it totally helps. It's so easy to just shut down when so many things are happening and going wrong and even easier to just sit on my couch reading Harry Potter or watching Netflix, but then I get sucked into the dark hole of doom that is so hard to crawl out of. Working out during bad times makes things so much more manageable and even though I love love love being physical, I still forget!

My post-workout smoothie after finally getting out of my funk.

// The color gold is growing on me bit by bit. But I still hate gold jewelry. I think. As I said, it may be growing on me.

// I managed to paint three whole walls in my kitchen before I started classes again, so that means my kitchen is half beautiful white and half ugly yellow off-white. I'll just stare at the wall that has this shelf and tell myself I'm satisfied for the next four months until summer break.

// Vince and I went on vacation to the beach in California. Hopefully more pictures will be posted to please your eyeballs soon. I of course took like half a million. Which reminds me that I never even posted pictures of my trip from August (?) that I took with my friend to a different part in California, so maybe you shouldn't get your hopes up.

// Food, food, and more food.

//The House of the Lord, if you are Mormon. Which I am not, but I still went and enjoyed the beauty.

// Homegrown eggs are so much cooler than store-bought, and not in a douchey 'I'm cooler than you' way. Just look at the print and texture on this egg! I wish I could raise my own little chickens instead of having to pay a guy here in town.

// In honor of my New Year's goal of enjoying life and doing exciting things, I climbed in the tree tops at Flagstaff Extreme Adventure Course. I was one of the 20% who are able to finish the course, and it was awesome. I used to think I was afraid of heights, but I was surprisingly not nervous so I guess I can't tell people I'm afraid anymore. I'm thinking it's because I have really bad depth perception and didn't actually realize how far up I was because when I look at pictures I'm like, 'HOLY SHIT, YOU ARE SO STUPIDLY HIGH WHAT WERE YOU THINKING WOMAN?!'

We also rode a new trail in a town we've never ridden in before, Prescott. The trail was all sorts of awesome and probably one of my most favorite trails, but it was so windy that my ears ended up hurting really bad. We'll go back soon, though!

Good god my genetics are fantastic, my teeth are perfectly straight and I never had braces. Now if only my smile could be straight.

// Baybee sitter 4 lyfe.

Nursing + Making Friends

So I need to start this by telling those of you who don't know that I got into the nursing school! I got accepted to NAUs Bachelor of Science in Nursing program and start in January. I didn't expect to get in because it's known for being extremely difficult to get accepted your first try (they only accept 30 students a semester and usually have a few hundred applicants each cycle, and have had up to 650) so needless to say, I am excited. Anyways, to the rest of the post.

One thing that might come as a total shock is that I am an introvert through and through. When I tell people this they always seem shocked for some reason, but seriously, I am. I hate hate hate small talk so I don't like being in a situation where it's needed (i.e., parties!), I hate being away from home, and sometimes I even hate being around Vince. Fortunately, he understands when I say, 'Will you just stop talking and let me be so I can be alone with my brain?!' That especially happens when I come home after a long day at work/class and I haven't had some down time.

For the most part, I'm fine with being introverted. It saves me time because I don't have to sit and talk to someone I don't know about how their boyfriend is being super annoying and it saves me money because I don't need to go out and spend time with friends. I leave all that to Vince, who is one of the most extroverted person I know.

At the same time, you can imagine the drawbacks. I may seem disinterested in someone, especially if I'm at a party or in a class, and it makes it really hard to make friends. In reality, I really do want to talk to you but I'd rather hear about things you are actually interested in instead of the weather. I'm probably the worst friend maker there is! This is one of the things that makes me nervous about nursing school: I'll be with the same 30 people for two and a half years. THAT IS FOREVER. And what if I don't make any friends at all? I just read this post on a nursing forum and now I'm convinced I'm going to be that girl that everyone thinks is weird.

But in reality, I just need to take a chill pill. I know I am AWESOME with patients based on my CNA experience and I know that I get along well with coworkers. I have no doubt that my introvertedness will not be a problem when it comes to being a nurse and everything it entails, it's just being in class! Which seems like a totally weird thing to be nervous about. How am I ok making small talk with a patient or a coworker, but not a classmate?

When I sit in my classes now and hear the things people talk about, it seriously drains all my energy just to think of having a conversation like that. I don't care what color your new shirt is or that stupid thing your friend did in the middle of the movies. Tell me about how your parents got divorced or how much you really love nutrition and then we'll get to talking for hours!

Is it a bad thing if I don't make friends? I am there to learn, right? Maybe I should just give them a piece of paper with a link to my blog telling them to read it and find something we're both interested in to talk about. Ha! ;)

Educational Crisis and Further Proving My Nerdiness

A website? That I type about my personal life on? WHAT IS THIS?! I don't recall ever having such a thing. Ok, maybe I remember it a little bit.

So let's start with 'Hi.' and 'How are you?' I've missed this little world of mine and wish I had more time to write, but c'est la vie.  I'm hopefully getting back into a more set schedule since the semester has started, which will maybe leave me with some more time. Like I always do when I start blogging again, I'm here to give you a little 'update' on my life! But at the moment it's only school update because I started typing and realized I had a whole post. Sorry if it's booooorrrrriiiinnnngggg.

School has been the "huge change" recently in my life. For those that don't know, I've been at community college the past couple years, and finally received my associates. I couldn't take any more credits at the community college, so have switched over to the university to take one last semester of classes before I hopefully* start the nursing program in January. I turn my application in next week but won't know if I've been accepted until November.

I started classes two weeks ago and they are SO different at NAU than CCC. The science classes at CCC are combined, so your lab and lecture are together. At NAU they are separate so I have an hour and fifteen minute lecture two days a week, then have a separate almost three hour lab another day with a different teacher. Then I have a separate hour long writing lecture that gives me my assignments for the lab with yet another teacher, where I turn homework in only to get it sent to my original lab teacher anyways. I do like that it caps the lecture out at a certain time, as opposed to CCC where many teachers lecture the entire 2 1/2 hour class time! At the same time, I really like my microbiology lecture (NERD ALERT) and would like to hear him continue talking. Ha!

Spanish class is also a weird one to get used to because it's so short. I go to a fifty minute class four days a week. It seems like we get there, she does introductions and talks about homework, takes attendance, and then class is almost over! We get hardly any time to practice (maybe fifteen or twenty minutes tops) so it's frustrating. It seems like it would be better to just have it in longer sessions twice a week. I'm also a visual learner so it's hard for me to hear stuff then to go look at the book later, because the book isn't really that helpful. Thanks to the interwebs, I play children's learning games which seems to help! I have never taken any Spanish class before, so any help I can find is useful.

As for my other classes, Humanities and Medical Nutrition, they seem simple enough! They are both online and I do pretty well with those kinds of classes. For one of our nutrition assignments we have to keep a food journal and then do some analyses and break it down into what we should really be eating, and I can already tell my diet will be totally 'wrong'! And sadly I'll have to waste time making up a new diet I 'should be' following, according to the good ol' USDA. Clearly a paleo lifestyle does not ft in with their GRAINS, GRAINS, GRAINS mentality!

And this is where the * comes in. I'M HAVING AN EDUCATIONAL CRISIS. When I was planning to go to med school (before I decided raising a family is a better idea) I got insanely stoked on all the science classes I'd have to take. So much chemistry and biology and genetics! Most people would want to avoid that, but honestly, I love it so so much. Then I decided to do nursing, and all those classes screeched to a halt. This is my last semester taking a science class and last week as I sat in lecture, with my heart pounding from excitement when my teacher said we'd be learning a lot about genetics this semester, I got so incredibly sad that this would be my last semester with classes like this. Like ridiculously, embarrassingly, sad. And then my teacher talked about all the fun things he does in his lab and I was so jelly. I want to do that! And then (another and then) I babysat for some friends whose baby has a certain medical condition, so I was reading up on it and once again realized how much I love genetics and everything that goes along with it.

Which leads me to this: Is nursing right for me? Is a more science based field right for me? (And duh, I know nursing is science based, but you know what I mean, right?) I know I would love being a nurse and don't doubt that, but on the other hand I love science a lot. And if I pursued a science degree, what would I even do? This is too many questions to ask myself when I haven't even had time to think about what I'm making for dinner.

So there's that. Maybe I should rename this blog "Steffani can't decide on anything", ya?

To end this, I felt like I needed a picture, so here. This guy was taking pictures of other people in white suits acting like swimming fish when I went on vacation a couple weeks ago. So weird. More vacation pictures to come!

Heading to the big leagues with a career change. Again.

The end of the semester always has those couple weeks of panic as you question whether you've learned anything that semester, or at least enough to pass the final. You always feel kind of stressed out and the need to study, study, study. Well my miscarriage happened about a week and a half before finals and I had NO motivation to study. So I didn't. Sure, I stressed about it, but I can honestly say I studied less than an hour for all my classes combined. You can imagine my stress as I sat in class getting ready to take finals with my brain screaming, "WE'VE WORKED SO HARD ALL SEMESTER FOR AN A AND I'M PRETTY SURE WE'RE ABOUT TO LOSE IT. WAY TO GO, DUMBASS." Fortunately I did not lose my A's and passed with a 4.0 semester, leaving me with a 3.92 for my overall GPA for my associates degree. This also means that since I did absolutely no preparation for finals, I feel like the semester is not over, like I'm still dreading the long week before finals that is filled with studying.

But it's over! I won't have to do that! My brain doesn't understand that though so I'm in this perpetual state of anxiety in a way. I think I feel this way every time a semester ends and then I start summer school right as it's starting to wear off, but this summer I don't even have classes. Hot damn, it's going to be a good summer.

So this is where I stand with school: I am joining the big leagues (why is there a u in that word?) next semester and am finally at NAU. I will be applying for the nursing program in October (yes, nursing, I'll get to the explanation later) with the hopes of being accepted into the undergraduate program to start the nursing program in January. Then I have two and a half years of that and I have a bachelors in nursing! I'll probably work for a fews years, pay of loans, then go back to school to get my Nurse Practitioners license and do a lot of doctor stuff without having to actually be a doctor with hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt.

You may question my sanity at this point, wondering why I've gone from teaching, to nursing, to med school, to possible naturopathy school, then back to nursing. In the short version, med school is not worth it to me and I'm not passionate enough about it to make it worth it to me. Now for the longer version.

Before I was pregnant, when I thought about going to med school I knew it was going to be tough with a child, but didn't think it would be that big of a deal to have Vince essentially be the sole parent for a few years while I made it through the tough parts. He was fine with that and was willing to compromise knowing that it wouldn't last forever. Then I got pregnant and was like, 'Hellllll no, I'm not having Vince be a single parent. I'd like to raise our kid together, thank you very much.'

I read a lot of forums with women who were in med school who decided to have children, and almost all of them said being a doctor was ultimately the most important thing in their life and that they would make it work in any way possible because it was a lifelong dream. They were ok missing years of their children's childhoods because in the end, they'd be a doctor. Unfortunately, I do not feel that way at all. My family will always come first, no matter what, and I feel like that is not an attitude you can have and successfully make it through med school as a female. How can I say I won't be in class because my child has a kindergarten play coming up? It just wouldn't work.

I lived with my grandparents for a few years growing up and would go back and forth to my dad's house, depending on his work schedule. He didn't want to miss out on our lives so much, but as a single parent, he had to. He had no other choice but to work 24+ hour shifts or overnight shifts. Luckily us kids turned out just fine, but it's not something I have to do. I don't have to go days without seeing my children so I can put food on the table. I'd be choosing to do that, and for what? To say I'm a doctor? That title isn't that important to me and I know I can me a much more useful person as a nurse and make just as much of a difference in this world.

"Why don't you just postpone having kids," you ask? Simply put, I married an old guy and I want babies. Lots of babies. If I were to wait until I was out of med school, not counting residency, that would be at least six years away. Depending on what field of medicine I go into, I have a minimum residency of three years but if I do pediatric oncology, up to six years. So total time, I have 9-12 years of hard work left. That's a million years in uterus time and Vince will be in his mid-late 40s. I've got nothing against older dads, but I'm not going to choose to have my kids have an older dad if I can avoid it because by the time we got to kid two, three or four? Let's get real, he'd be grandpa's age.

So that's that. I'm happy with the decision, though not happy I've taken so may extra classes towards a different major. Ya, I now have an associates, but that doesn't mean anything except extra debt at this point!

Clinicals: The Nursing Home

One of the requirements to enter the nursing program is to have a CNA license, so I took the Certified Nursing Assistant class this semester. As part of the class, we have to do 20 hours of clinicals (aka training) at a nursing and a hospital, with a 40 hours total. We did two 10 hour days on weekends a few weeks apart. This post is about my weekend at the nursing home, and later I will post about the hospital.

The first place I went was the nursing home. Honestly, I was dreading it. My teacher worked in a nursing home for a few decades before she became a teacher and was always ranting and raving about geriatrics. Every time she would say, 'Oh, they are just so cute, it warms my heart!' I'd want to kick myself. How could old people be cute in the sense that you'd want to be surrounded by them all the time?! Sure, when I see a little old man holding a little old ladies hand, it melts my heart because it's so darling, but working with them all the time? Didn't sound very fun to me.

Right off the bat the weekend started out rough. At a nursing home it's basically just CNAs that work there and do everything. There are a couple nurses and physical therapists and whatnot, but they don't really interact with the residents like CNAs do. Well, the CNAs that were working the 2 days we were there did not want us AT ALL. We were supposed to be paired up with them one-on-one and shadow them the first day to learn everything, but they ignored us the whole time and talked about personal stuff. Finally I jumped in and said, 'Just tell me what you need and I'll figure it out. I'm here to learn.' So she told me what she normally does and said I could do it if I want. She said it laughing and thinking I couldn't do anything but I figured everything out on my own because it's basically common sense. Honestly, that's how I like working anyways!

As the day went on and I found my energy after waking up at 4:30 am, I realized it wasn't as bad as I thought. The 'little old people' were super sweet and some of them were SO funny. One lady would just sit there speaking in Navajo and laugh at you! On the second day there was a nice CNA from another hall (so I didn't work with her) that was passing thru and told us some of the things she says. One of the tings she said that we should pay her to see her naked butt! It was busier than I thought it would be because everyone needed something all the time. Sometimes it would be a bathroom, and other times it would be someone escaping out the back door!

It was also fun having one-on-one time  like when we gave showers. Sometimes they would just tell you stories while you cleaned them. A couple people were in their 90s! I can't imagine living in the early 1900s and being around with all the changes that brought us to today.  It was also cute because after showers, all the ladies would tell you to brush their hair and 'push really really hard'. I felt like I would hurt them, but they kept saying, 'Harder please!'

Having that 'bond' with the resident though was super important, or I would not have liked the rest of the stuff I was doing. When I wasn't helping residents with 'regular problems', I was changing dirty briefs (diapers), wiping bums, walking 40+ people to and from the dining hall, doing bed pans, and changing beds. Mainly lots and lots and lots of brief changing.

One thing that was hard was seeing how sad some family members were. A wife of a resident came in and her husband needed to be in the assisted feeding room because he couldn't feed himself. I saw her look around the room and I could tell she was comparing her husband to the rest of the people in there. Some of them were just totally 'gone' and didn't talk or anything and some of them were mentally handicap. Her husband had just gone into retirement after having a respectable career but broke his hip and went downhill after that. I knew she was thinking, 'My husband has to be in a room with people like this?' and I just felt how sad she was about it. I started talking to her and at first she didn't want to talk, but after a while though she became much more calm and distracted and was really into our conversation. It's moments like this when I help someone that really makes me happy.

It's definitely not something I could do for a long time, though. I could see myself working in a nursing home for a day or two a week while I get through the nursing program, but I wouldn't want to be a CNA or nurse there. It's just too calm of a place for me. I thrive in an extremely busy and stressful environment, and getting people to and from BINGO just isn't too stressful! The only stress I could see happening is dealing with rude coworkers!

So there you have it, my experience 'working' in a nursing home! Keep an eye out for my hospital experience.

Happy Happy Joy Joy

Things in life that have been making me happy and thankful:

Class - I have clinicals for my nursing assistant class on Friday and Saturday and I'm excited! What are they, you ask? Well, basically I go to a nursing home one weekend and the hospital another weekend and I do hands on experience as a CNA. It's not the most fun work, but at least I'll get my first experience in the 'medical world'. And I get to wear some ugly SUPER white shoes. (And ignore the less than awesome quality of the pictures, they're from my iPhone and somewhat poorly lit!)

Books - I am reading Jodi Picoult's book 'Perfect Match' and I love it. I've been reading a few other books recently but just haven't really gotten into them. But, as usually, I'm completely infatuated with anything Picoult writes!

Dates - I went on a date wih my man last night and it was fun! We went and saw a movie at the university here in town and there was a great discussion afterwards. More on that to come!

Salads - Vince and I have been eating massive amounts of sales the past few weeks and we've been loving it. I figured it that if I just prepare a huge salad at the beginning on the week I'm way more likely to eat it than if I just made a 'new' salad each time. It totally makes sense, I've just never done it before!

Christmas - Figuring out Christmas presents for people. I'm basically doing the same thing for everyone, but I'm personalizing it! I wanted to keep it cheap since I'm quitting my job soon, but still personal and nice.

Validation - Having people tell me they love my blog. I know I shouldn't need validation, but honestly, it's super awesome to hear every so often!

Love - A dog and a husband that love to cuddle each other.

It seems like the easiest post of the week is Thursday, because I have a 'specific' topic to post on! I really need to get back to specific things on specific days like I used to so I can get in the groove of writing/blogging again...

I was born to do this.

I forgot about this post that I wrote...5 weeks ago...and I'm posting it now! I'm sitting on my couch sobbing because I just had to say goodbye to my grandparents for TWO YEARS while they are on their mission. I don't have a normal relationship with my grandparents; they raised me for some years growing up and I've always always always leaned on them for all types of support and it breaks my heart knowing I can't see them whenever I please. I'll write more about them soon, but until then, here's a post that I still feel strongly about. (Probably even more-so than 5 weeks ago!)

So I'm going to get all gushy here and tell you how amazing it feels to know that what I'm doing with my life is completely what is perfect for me and it feels so right.

Last night I was studying for my medical terminology class and I just started laughing and told Vince how amazing my mind is and that I'm awesome. I was sitting there, on my couch, reading about the heart and the circulatory system, and I was easily understanding everything I was reading! I quickly picked up on what valves were in the heart, what things did, and what all the crazy words meant. I couldn't believe that I was excited to even be learning about the heart!

When I was in high school, I barely passed health class because I didn't care about what we were learning. Why would I ever need to know about cholesterol or how the heart works? I can most definitely say that I learned the bare minimum when it came to how the body works and was not interested one bit. So now it's hilarious to me that I am learning about all the parts of the body and thoroughly enjoying it; I mean, how many people know what the jejunum is and what O&P, ABG, and PTT stand for, and how to pronounce 'serum glutamic-oxaloacetic transaminase'?!

When I sit down to study, I'm actually excited about it. Ya, it's hard to learn SO much information in so little time, but I am so in love with it. It's like a game to me to see how much I can learn about it and it makes me so antsy to start the actual nursing program. I'm still nervous about taking hard classes such as chemistry, but at least I'm motivated to get through it!

I'm hoping next semester to be able to go to school full time and work part time. Yes, that means quitting my job with amazing benefits and saying goodbye to my retirement fund. (Well, I'm actually going to withdraw my retirement fund for backup savings!) It's scary to know that I won't have a guaranteed income or regularity like I have now but it's so exhilarating to know that I'll be able to get through school sooner and finally be a nurse.

I can't wait to start the next step in my life and I feel so incredibly lucky that I've found what I want to do. I have a supportive husband who tells me that I shouldn't be surprised about learning quickly because I'm incredibly smart and he's a great support system to have.

S.T.R.E.S.S.E.D. For real.

Whew. I haven't been around the blogosphere much lately, but I have some good excuses. Well one, mainly: STRESS.

It's been a healthy stress though. It's not one that's keeping me up at night, or one that makes me eat tub after tub of ice cream. It's a good one that makes me realize that life is upon me. It feels like up until this point I was just...here. I wasn't doing anything spectacular with my life, nothing life changing. I was getting scared that I'd be like this forever.

I got my GED when I was 16 and moved out when I was 17. I started taking classes at the community college and I was working full time between two jobs, so compared to my 'peers' who were still in school, I was kind of living the life! I got to pick my schedule, didn't have parents to control me, and I had somewhat disposable income. I was way ahead of them with college classes, so if I wanted, I could have graduated college early.

BUT. That didn't happen. I realized that rent and groceries and gas money cost a whole lot. I realized that it's a whole lot harder to work and go to school at the same time, and I wasn't ready for that. So, because we live in a money-central world, I chose to work instead of go to school. I still felt cool that I had a full time job with the city with full benefits and was making WAY more than my friends did when I was 18, but that coolness is starting to wear off.

Some of them are going to graduate next year, and where does that leave me? At least two years behind them in school. But hey, at least I have my high paying job!

But now I realize that I want to go to school and work. It's worth the sacrifice to me. Ya, I may not have a social life, but I don't care much about that. I'll still make time a few hours here and there throughout the week with friends, but I'm not the type to go hangout and party for hours anyways.

On Monday I am starting school. I haven't talked about school since this post, but things DID fall into place! I am taking my Certified Nursing Assistant class at the time I wanted, and then I'm taking AHS 131, a medical terminology class, online. So total, I am taking 9 credits, in addition to working 40 hours a week and watching my neice for 8 hours every Friday while my sister is in school. That accounts for 57 hours of my week, NOT including homework time. That's a lot, and I'm kind of nervous about it. I'm still in the midst of planning a wedding, and then in the middle of all this I'm going to HAVE a wedding!

I've realized that I have to come up with some kind of schedule for how my days are going to be. I'm finding it increasingly difficult to clean my house, do the laundry (at the dreaded laundry mat) cook dinner, and enjoy time with my fiance. Luckily Vince is going to do his own laundry now! A lot of the time we do it together, but he always has twice, if not THREE times as much laundry because his clothes are bigger and he has his riding gear for bikes.

The most important thing out of the list is my fiance, but after that it's food. I don't care if I have to wear the same shirt twice or if I have to wash a dish in order to eat some cereal. I just need to have healthy food that will sustain me throughout the day. If I don't have that, all bets are off and I will lose my shit.

So I'm going to start planning my meals again and have somewhat scheduled internet time, exercising time, friend time, etc. Once I figure out what I'm going to do over the next few days, I'll share it with you. I know I like any kind of scheduling tips, so I figure I'll share mine! Let me know if you have any good ones, too!

This might just work...

So think might officially being falling into place with me with school. It seriously seems like I can never catch a break when it comes to school!

I was hoping to take the CNA class this semester so that I could start working in the medical field next year, but things have been wonky over the summer. See, I applied for financial aid, and I guess I don't qualify. I then applied for school loans, which I was fine to take out because it's less than $2000 a year and I could pay it off before interest starts accruing because they would be subsidized loans (meaning interest free until 6 months after I stop taking classes, which I did not know...). BUT I didn't know it takes over a month to process the application so I didn't make the deadline. The CNA class alone is over $700 and I have to take a medical terminology class at the same time which adds another $300. So since I don't have that kind of money laying around and I'm, ya know, PLANNING A WEDDING IN TWO MONTHS, I kind of gave up hope on taking any classes this semester.

Enter: loving family who wants me to go to school and gave me some money for the wedding, which I am putting towards school instead. I figured that if I survive off of refried beans and tortillas until the wedding and not spend an extra cent, I will have enough to cover both classes and be able to feed guests at my wedding more than chips and salsa. (I'm going to give them a real treat: shish-kabobs!)

But wait, I wasn't planning on taking the CNA class, which means I didn't have any of the important 'things' I needed to qualify for the class!

Well good news, I'm somehow pulling it off. Here's what I've had to do so far:

TB Skin Test- I was already at the doctors today, so I asked them to give me a TB skin test to prove I don't have TB. (Wouldn't I kind of know if I have TB...?) Know I just have to go back Wednesday morning and get it 'read'.

Immunizations- I have to have had 2 MMR vaccines and have gotten a TDAP vaccine within the past ten years, which I know I got in high school. I have no idea where the info would be, so I called up my dad to see if he had my immunization records and yay, he did! The TDAP wasn't on there though, so I'm going to call my old school tomorrow or just go get another shot.

CPR Certificate: The last and most important thing that I wasn't sure I could get away with quickly was taking a Healthcare Provider CPR class. They fill up extremely quick and all the places I called today had almost a MONTH wait list which would put me like 2 days before school started. Ya, not going to work. Luckily one of the ladies I left a message for called me back today and she is doing a test on Wednesday and can squeeze me in!

So those were the main obstacles in my way. I am already signed up for the medical terminology class and I filled the LAST spot in all 6 of the classes. Score 1 for me. The only thing I have to worry about is that the CNA classes are all full.

This is where you guys come in. Send all your positive thoughts and cross your fingers for me in hopes that a couple of people drop the class or don't pay their tuition fees by August 12! I'm on the wait list with only a few people in front of me so I'm hoping some of them don't want to take the class. The lady at registration said that as long as I have everything ready to go and pay for the class, the instructors are usually willing to take on a few extra people if they talk to them. I'm hoping this is the case and that I can take the CNA class this semester.

If not, I'll be bummed, I won't lie, but I'll still be able to take classes! If I don't take the CNA class I'll still take the medical terminology one and I'll add on another class like Biology of Algebra, so it's not like I will be set back or anything.

So, I hope I don't jinx anything by writing this all up, but wish me luck!