Hi there sweet baby.

Remember when you were a kid and you wore your [ballet tutu/soccer uniform/whatever] for a week straight? I'm doing that now with my new riding boots.

Except I'll be taking them off shortly because leather is painful before it's broken in.

The lady at the tack shop gave me an earful about caring for my boots and half-chaps and tack I don't even own yet. "When you start riding every day you'll need to do this and this before that and after this." Wait, what? I walked out of the store with a business card for the Central Texas Hunter Jumper Association feeling a little bit dazed and stressed about all of the work I had ahead of me.

No no. Nevermind. I'm taking lessons once or twice a week. I don't even have a leading rope or a brush to call my own. Stress: gone.

Why do people always expect all or nothing? In spring semester of 8th grade I asked my private lesson teacher for clarinet if I could switch my lesson day from Wednesdays to Tuesdays because I was going to be riding Monday/Wednesday/Friday. The next day during band class I had a letter sitting on my chair from her. She "really enjoyed teaching me" and "saw such potential in me," but she "could not continue our lessons if clarinet was not my top priority."

In retrospect, WHAT?!

I quit band after that year literally just to spite her.

I guess obsession loves company. Like when you are looking past the stomach ache to conquer that second round of cake/pie of the day, and your sister says "I'll do it if you do."

Something like that.

Happy trails. Don't fence me in. Snake in my boots. (Or something)

If any of you have talked to me in the past 6 months you know that I've been in serious need of a hobby/something-besides-work to do.

Idle hands are the devil's tools.

...But I guess that doesn't really apply here considering all I've done with a large majority of my idle time is watch TV and create random errands to waste time. Although sometimes I think those errands are from the devil, and I think my bank account would agree.

Errands. That word really puts a responsible spin on "shopping," doesn't it?

Anyway, the point is, I was always busy in school. If it wasn't with class/school itself, it was with clubs and friends and parties and who knows what. There was always something going on, and there was never enough time to do all of it. Then in the blink of an eye UT gave me the farewell boot, I went to the Seton administrative offices for orientation, had my hands blessed by a chaplain, stuck my purple thumbprint on a welcome posterboard, and the rest is history. On the days I work, that's all I do. Work, eat, shower, sleep. It's a long day - so much can happen in 12+ hours.

On the other hand, 3 days of nothing-but-work still leaves me with 4 days completely off of work. They usually aren't in a row, and they don't always include the weekends, but they're there somewhere.

And I've been bored. Really bored. What should I do when I'm at home and the rest of the world is at work? Join a gym? Find some volunteer work? Try a new sport? Try to jump back on the running bandwagon? Learn to freakin knit? Shop like I need more things?

Last night Emily told me her friend started taking tennis lessons for a while and enjoyed doing that, and something about that conversation brought up an obvious solution that I should have thought of sooner.

And, with that, I did some google searching, made some phone calls, and I'm officially going to start getting back into horseback riding lessons. I used to ride hunter/jumper in middle school and part of high school until I just got too busy to keep up with it. I wasn't big into competition and showing like some of the other people I rode with, nor was I some equestrian prodigy by any means, but I really loved it. I'm really excited to do it again. I'll have to start back with the basics, I'll probably even need help remembering how to tack up a horse, and this will probably make for some sore legs - (slash) arms, back, entire body - you'd be surprised - for a few weeks.

But man, I'm so excited.

To seal the deal after I spoke with the trainer I went out and got a general lesson helmet (for fear that my old one has a shelf life and would crumble into dust or something) and some boots and riding tights, and I've got some half-chaps and gloves at Mom's that should still fit. Word.

Dare I say I'm even excited to pick a horse's hooves?

(I'm sure that part won't last long)

So here we go people. I was bitten by the puppy bug a year or so ago, and I have a feeling this is going to be much, much worse.

It's been a long time since I've felt like myself. It's a weird thing, especially on what is quickly becoming a long-term basis. If you aren't yourself, who the heck are you?

Is this part of the "real" world everyone speaks of? I think I must prefer my fake world or whatever it was I lived in before.

Just sayin'.

You can imagine my excitement last week when I realized I already had all the ingredients to make brownies. All of them! Half a bag of chocolate chips in my pantry?! My eggs weren't broken or expired?! Emily's coming over for dinner later?! Let's do this thing.

If you're messy like I am, make your counter mess-proof. I like to wrap up my mess in wax paper and throw it away at the end.

Feel good about yourself by eating an apple in hopes that you won't eat all the batter.

A bowl pretending to be a double boiler. Boil some water, put a heat-proof bowl on top, and melt the chocolate chips with the butter. Stir a lot - chocolate burns. The non-stir-ability of doing this in the microwave is what keeps me doing it on the stove-top.

Hellooooo chocolate-y goodness. Feel free to eat it now before the salmonella issue comes up in a few steps.

Stir in the sugar once the chocolate and butter are melted and smooth.

Get your eggs and your vanilla, then pause wondering if the heat in the chocolate mixture is going to accidentally cook your eggs. Mix up your dry ingredients while you wonder. Don't take a picture of it because no one cares about white powder in a white bowl.

Decide you've waited long enough, and stir in the (lightly beaten) eggs and vanilla. Switch to a whisk after you realize the wooden spoon isn't doing the trick. Wish you would have done it in a bigger bowl. Be happy you didn't slosh it everywhere during the mixing process.

Add the wet stuff to the dry stuff. Switch to a spatula so you can scrape up all the dry stuff on the bottom.

Pour it into your prepared 8x8 with the bottom already greased. Go to put it in the oven (at 325), then put it back on the counter for a picture. Put it this close to the edge of the counter because you like to live dangerously.

Be annoyed that this took three stirring utensils. Wait 26ish minutes.

Resist.

They cut prettier when they're cool, and you want them pretty when people (in my case, just one) come over later.

Why yes, two of us DO need an entire pan of brownies. What of it?

I hate brownie edges, so I eliminated them.

Blurry picture, delicious brownies.

For this occasion, I found and used this recipe. For a special occasion, I have a brownie recipe that might kill you. No need to risk death on a random Thursday, but maybe next time.

Tweet Tweet

What's the point of Twitter?

People ask me that all the time. The answer obviously is to follow John Mayer. @johncmayer, if you will.

A little preview:

johncmayer: Smucker's Uncrustables peanut butter and jelly sandwiches are to be thawed and not microwaved. But I'm high now!

johncmayer: Mom says I can't wear my new Air Jordans until the first day of school, but I'm walking around the house in them.

johncmayer: Why are some bottled fruit drinks filled so high that they inevitably splash on you when you open them? I need an acceptable miniscus.

johncmayer: Fact: 87 percent of all negative replies sent to me contain the misspelling of the word "you're."

johncmayer: I like to check iTunes every week to see if I'm featured on a celebrity's playlist. When I'm not, I spread vicious internet lies about them.

johncmayer: I'm so full of myself, every time I read a book I blurt out "wait, can I just tell you my story?"

johncmayer: Worst idea for a room scent holding stron

g at ketchup.

johncmayer: 30 minutes to showtime. Finishing lyrics to "Perfectly Lonely" in the dressing room. I love this game.

Other common question: Where the hell have I been?

-I don't know. In a cave? Drag me out.

-(so probably watching tv)

-making homemade granola but being disappointed that it didn't form little clusters. How do you get it to form little clusters?

-Jupiter Island. Gamma turned 80. It was pretty wild.

-shopping in anticipation for my birthday in (less than) 2 weeks. Thanks in advance, Mom!

Classes started at UT this week, and I wasn't a part of it. I'm so ridiculously glad to not be walking into the ugly ugly nursing school this year, but I'm feeling pretty jealous of everyone's college-y lives that are going on without me. Facebook statuses about being hungover in class and other fun things while I'm sitting here preparing to go to bed at 9:30 for work in the AM. I hope tomorrow doesn't suck. Fridays can suck. But maybe if tomorrow sucks it'll be quieter on Saturday.

Or maybe I'll just need a margarita Saturday night? Likely.

Kristin & Julia

....doesn't have quite the same ring to it. Moving on.

Obviously I recently saw Julie & Julia. I went with Dani, which was ultra appropriate. She had a fajita party during my freshman year during which I was clueless as to how to chop an onion (or anything else for that matter). Now things are a little different, but she still owns an apple corer (corer?), so she wins.

Anyway, after the movie I wanted to make Julia's Boeuf Bourguinon asap, but the recipe would require me to use every pot, pan, and utensil in my kitchen. I was kind of ashamed later that night when I used Prego to make pasta. You can't watch Julie & Julia and use Prego later! I'm making up for it tomorrow with Emily's and my* FAJITA FIESTA** and an "I have blueberries and buttermilk that need to exit my fridgie" blueberry coffee cake (for work? probably).

*again with the awkward "____'s and my" that came up in my last post.

**I wrote all that yesterday and didn't post it. Fajita night was a success. If you're interested, this is the marinade I use. As for that coffee cake, I didn't do it. But hey, the buttermilk is good til the 19th, so the possibilities are endless. Watch me end up buying more blueberries in order to make something even though the point was to get rid of my leftovers. Typical.

Other news: I attended a "Booty Boot Camp" last night. I'm sore. The instructor was not amused by my dumb jokes during the class. Apparently there's nothing funny about squats, and after today I think I would agree.

I'm working tomorrow, Saturday, Monday, Tuesday. My booty boot camp accomplice (referring to her first year as a new teacher in a teach-for-America district) shed some light on being the new/overwhelmed/stressed/dumb one at work: all you can really do to reach that elusive "point" that feels so far off is to show up for work every day. Show up to work, do what you can, and eventually things fall into place. So I'm going to do that, hope for the best, and try to acknowledge more than just my mistakes from the day at the end of the shift. Being hard on yourself can push you towards improvement, but after a certain point I think it will push you right past improvement and on towards insanity. Or alcoholism. And I don't have the time for insanity or the liquor collection for alcoholism.

Chunky Monkey

So here's the deal with bananas. I like having them on hand for breakfast, especially on work mornings (plain oatmeal + banana + honey is the formula for survival from 0600 to 1300, mark my words). In that case, though, I want them yellow. Bright yellow. Not spotty. So I only buy about 3 if I'm at the store in order to finish them before they get too brown, which means I have to break them off from the giant bunches. You know what that means? That means I end up breaking open the peels on the bananas I plan to put back.

...And then put them back on the shelf with their broken stems hoping no one saw me.

The point is that last week at HEB I went a little crazy craze and just threw the whole bunch in my cart and planned to deal with it later.

What do you do with brown, spotty, gross-looking bananas? And one single egg left in the fridge? And the chocolate chips leftover from these cookies? And half a little jar of peanut butter? And a long shift coming up on Friday?

Chunky Monkey. The Chunk Monk. The Monk of Chunks.

Baker friends are looking at this ^ picture and wondering how these bananas became so wonderfully perfect for baking. Non-baker friends think I'm trying to poison them. On Wednesday night while Lora and Dirk were over, they taught me the trick of putting the brown spotty bananas in the freezer til I wanted to use them the next day. So I did, took them out in the morning, and found them like this in the afternoon. Something about the ice crystals breaking down and making the bananas super mushy and sweet. THEY. WERE. READY!

An added bonus of the freezer trick is that it took literally no time to mash them up.

This step smells like my favorite smoothie. (Cut up a banana and freeze it in a baggie, then blend it with a cup of milk and a spoonful of peanut butter. You're welcome.)

The dry stuff was boring-looking, so here it is blended with the good stuff.

I forgot to take a "before" picture of the muffin tins.

The "after" picture is making me wish I'd had enough bananas to double the recipe to keep more for myself.

Baked goods (and chocolate in general) make nurses and hospital staff happy (sane). There's a reason my manager Mary keeps a giant jar of candy in her office. So I brought 20ish of these muffins to put in the break room for a little Friday pick-me-up hoping everyone would love them as much as I do. And, I decided (after someone asked if I was going to give them a heart attack with these), these muffins are good for you. In 20ish muffins there's only a few tbsp of oil and one egg, the peanut butter has good fats and protein, and bananas are bananas. I used 2% milk (can't rock the skim milk in baked goods, though that's what I usually drink, and what the crap would I do with the leftover whole milk?), the amount of sugar in these is comparable to what a lot of recipes have in just 12 muffins, and chocolate chips are good for the soul.

I watch crappy TV.

Look at those smiles. Could there be a better show to watch on your mornings off? It's comfort TV. The mashed potatoes of TV. Except mashed potatoes are delicious, and this show technically sucks. But now that I live alone, I'm not torturing others with crappy TV - only myself. Some walk around naked; I watch Full House.

For my own self-justification, I loved it as a kid, and true love lasts a lifetime. There's something about brainless, predictable, hug-filled TV that just feels so right. It doesn't matter that Bob Saget would later go on to make stuff like this. Wake Up San Francisco? Comet the dog? Life lessons queued to music? Gag me, but you just can't beat it.

Full House was also probably the start of Kori's and my Olsen twin cult following (what is the correct way to say that? It's not "Kori and I's" is it? Irrelevant). We wrote them a letter circa 1995 saying (lying) that we were twins also, so we should be pen-pals. We also owned and/or rented all of their videos (featuring the Olsen & Olsen Mystery Agency, I Am the Cute One, slumber parties involving coordinated song and dance and staying up til midnight, etc etc), bought all of their movies (plot summaries: exotic location, boys in love with them, wardrobe changes, and a plot-line for the last 15 to 20 minutes of each movie. After they kiss their respective boys), blindly defended them against all of the cocaine accusations (we're kidding ourselves), and made a last-minute Walmart run to buy accessories to dress like them for the Spirits/Iron Spikes Lifestyles of the Rich and the Famous mixer.

...or maybe that last one was just me.

and Emily. The Ashley to my Mary-Kate.

I'd like to post a picture, but those pics would be from my pre-Mac days. I don't want to hunt through my giant folder of old disorganized documents. None of the pictures have thumbnails, etc. I digress.

Incase you were wondering, the episode I caught today was the one where Joey was Mr. Egghead and accidentally breaks Stephanie's nose. Classic.

On a similar note, if The Wonder Years ever comes back on TV, I might have to quit my job to make time for it.

Tho-mas Jef-fer-son! Tho-mas Jef-fer-son!

Horrible picture quality. I never said I was a photographer.

I forgot my camera (!!! fail!) when I went to Emily's in Rockport for the 4th, so this is the best my phone (plus brightening from iphoto) could do.

Incase you're wondering, the title of this blog was absolutely chanted during the fireworks. It didn't flow as well as Emily's original "U-S-A! U-S-A!," but it got the point across. We love America. You can tell by our glowing headbands. I had 24 hours of sun, fun, margs, bahama mamas, hot dogs, hamburgers, and dancing with Emily's conservative aunt. Magical.

Work update (because "how's work?" seems to be the question of the day every day): Each shift gets a little better, I've already learned a lot, I hate having to ask 900 questions (but appreciate the 900 answers!), and I still cannot ever figure out who I need to call (or if I even need to call them!) when the patient is being seen by all these different teams of docs/residents/interns.

Other life updates: I'm going to Colorado to see Andrew tomorrow! Exciting! A little bit of a bummer that weather.com says thunderstorms all weekend, but that's why I have my handy dandy men's water-resistant windbreaker. With a hood. Bring it.

Other other life updates: I need to learn Spanish. TEACH ME!! I can't survive off of "tiene dolor?" forever.

...No I didn't eat two of these and end up feeling too sick for lunch. That would be childish.

These are multi-purpose cookies: mostly as thank-you cookies I promised (several times) months ago, partly as future thank-you cookies to whoever will help my brother and me lift my old desk into his truck tomorrow, and slightly as experimental cookies because last time I made them I didn't like the way they flattened with smooth tops.

That's also why I found it necessary to eat two despite their colossal size. Experimentation. It's science.

I solved the flat/smooth top problem. I could tell you how, but then I'd have to kill you.

All Grown Up?

Better late than never... I graduated, studied like a madwoman, took the NCLEX, passed the NCLEX, started work, and here I am. Dani told me she missed my blogs, so, on this lovely Monday that I happen to have off, I thought I'd update.

I gotta tell you, that RN label on my badge feels pretty good. The downside? I'm realizing that working as an RN under a preceptor (as it will be for the next 18 weeks) is preeeeetty similar to being a nursing student. But I have a lot to learn, no doubt. I'm looking forward to getting to know the nurses on my floor better and hoping that they end up being fun people! :)

I worked (well, shadowed) on the floor for an 8-hour shift Saturday to round out my 36 hours from orientation the week before, and I started the new week with a 12-hour shift yesterday. Shadowing for two days is really, really boring, and I'm looking forward to having my log-ins so I can start taking my own patients. But, based on what I've seen so far, here's my impression of the floor:

My badge says oncology, but my nurse and I had more of the "neuro" side of neuro/oncology this weekend. There are lots of head injuries - some with few symptoms that get to go home the next day, and others that have been there for weeks with trachs, PEG tubes, disorientation, the works. We had a lady who had just had a crani for her chiari malformation (which I had to google later), a pneumothorax/chest-tube kinda patient (spillover from the trauma floor), a random cholecystectomy admit from the ER, and one patient with lung cancer and superior vena cava syndrome getting chemo over the next few days. So after my first two days of work I've seen some familiar things, some new things, and some things so new I had to google them. This first year is all about getting experience, and it seems I'll certainly be getting it.

So, I guess despite my aversion for med-surg kinda floors during nursing school, I really do think I'm going to like a lot of things about this floor. On the flipside, it makes me nervous realizing that I most definitely won't have the answers to a lot of the questions the patients and families are going to have or to the situations that come up. I think all of us, as we're starting out, know the kinds of nurses we want to be, and it's rough knowing that it's just going to take a while until we have enough experience to be those great nurses.

...But the paycheck in the meantime will be nice.

In other news, I went for a jog first thing this morning after I slept in til 7:00 (felt like noon after this weekend!) - my first physical activity in weeks and weeks! It's easy to get busy and do nothing but watch TV in the downtime, which is what I've been doing, but this morning reminded me that I'm much more pleasant to be around if I take a little me-time outside.

In other OTHER news, I'm finally reading My Sister's Keeper, and it's fantastic.

Alright, that's it.

Someone asked me the other day (referring to being done with college. done. forever. etc) "Well, did you learn anything?" Somewhat of a rhetorical question, but all the free time on my hands got me thinking about it (It also got me watching excessive amounts of TV - in my last post I mentioned how much I do not enjoy doing that, so that gives you an idea of how bored I've been while everyone else is finishing up with classes). Did I learn anything? I've learned a lot of "things." I think what I'm most grateful for going into the future involves all the face-time we've (sometimes unwillingly) had with people the past few years. A lot of what I believe to be true about people in general is reflective of what I've seen in the hospital, and the same is true vice versa. A lot of these things are also obvious but not really something I've sat down and thought about until now. 

(Again, the whole "free time" thing. It's like having your picture taken by yourself and not knowing what to do with your hands - that's how I feel. I'm at a loss for things to do. Everyone would really be doing me a huge favor if they'd finish up tests and finals already.)

So if I could talk to my pre-nursing-school self, I'd go ahead and say up front that the scrubs are not something you get used to - they are as ugly on the day you graduate as they were the day you started. Then I think I'd talk about people -->

1. When it rains, it pours. And oh boy, does it. The first example that comes to mind is a patient that had just had a total knee replacement, and the pain meds ordered weren't cutting it. At lunch o'clock I went into her room to bring her something and somehow walked out of there with the knowledge that her current husband is a nice man, but just not the same as her ex husband, who is a surgeon that left her for an OR nurse. When people can no longer tolerate one problem, their tolerance of all their other problems bottoms out. They melt. We all do that. This is probably why, during one of my peaks of job-search frustration over spring break, I cried over the miscommunication with Kori over who the heck was driving to Corner Bakery. And also over the traffic I sat in later. Once a person reaches an emotional threshold and crosses it, you're going to start hearing about her ex husband. I believe a similar tactic was implemented in Mean Girls to crack Gretchen Weiners. 

2. Taking the tape off is the worst part. I sometimes dread taking people's IVs out for this reason. Getting ready to do what I went into the room to do causes the most stress for the patient. My routine "I bet you didn't know you were getting a wax today!" helps sometimes. Old men think this is hilarious - until I pull off the next piece of tegaderm/tape/whoknowswhat that people have slapped on there over the past few days. Anticipation is the killer. In the case of the IV, I think the tape actually is the killer, but in other instances - anticipation. So if you're a little scared of pulling out someone's long gunky NG tube for the first time, and thus stalling the process, the person is going to have time to wig out while you re-arrange the towel on their chest for the 3rd time. Kind of like how we nearly wet ourselves waiting outside the skills labs for our J1/J2 performance tests when they were running late. How many times did Mom tell you to just rip the damn bandaid off and get it over with? With graduation in a few weeks I imagine we're all about to be in some new scary situations, and I know I'm going to need some frequent reminders to "just do" some things that I'm nervous about doing.

3. A little urine never hurt anybody.

(But I won't go there)

4. Control is a big deal. The other week out in New Braunfels I had a 2-year-old with a pneumonia-y (very technical term) illness, and with that came a mom requesting tylenol around the clock for his "restlessness". That isn't what tylenol is for, and every time I walked in the room the kid was snoozing and quiet, but tylenol was something she could give her baby that, in her eyes, helped him feel better. Was it medically necessary? No. Did we give her some tylenol to give him anyway? (After plugging some numbers into the calculator to confirm the past 24-hours worth of tylenol wasn't going to kill any livers) Yes. Of course we did. 

5. The small things are the things that matter. We all know that about life in general. It's harder to remember that, however, when you're a brand new nursing student freaking out because Mrs. Patton stuck her disapproving face in your face for forgetting to check the diabetic's feet. But really, your patient does not care that you successfully administered all their daily meds within 30 minutes before or 30 minutes after the due time. They don't care that you remembered to check their pedal pulses. They don't care that watching them wiggle the toes on the leg they just had surgery on is actually more important than it sounds. Not that those things shouldn't be done, but they're in the job description. The biggest thank you's I've gotten were after hunting down a cherry popsicle to replace a grape one, washing a lady's hair when it hadn't been done in a few days, and giving a family from out of town some directions to Target so they could buy some clothes to get out of the ones they'd been wearing all week. I'm willing to bet that, as we all go off into our respective careers, doing some things that aren't listed in the job description will be the biggest contributor to satisfaction (i.e. warm fuzzy feelings) at the end of the day. I never want to be the burned out nurse that has lost sight of the little things, and I hope you guys find ways to prevent burning out as your future professional selves also, whatever that might entail. 

I can't think of a better way to round out (and cheapen) another touchy-feely graduation-related post than with Miley Cyrus's "It's the Climb." Unfortunately my blogging capabilities are limited, and I don't know how to do that. But I hope it is now stuck in your head, as it is probably going to be stuck in mine.

Done.

Last night at 7pm sharp I walked out of the hospital in New Braunfels (for the last time) in my ugly, ugly student scrubs (for the last time). I had worked on Friday also, so all of my patients on Saturday remembered that it was my last day as a student. They gave me many congratulations and a lot of warm words for the road - one lady even gave me a big bag of BBQ (that I didn't eat, in the end, after finding out it had been offered to her husband - my patient - and he didn't want it. Food that's been in a patient's room? Can't do it). More than anything else during my last shift I was reveling in the fact that I'd never have to wear my student scrubs again. My preceptor brought up the good point that the next time I'm giving patient care, I'll be getting paid for it.

Oh, on that note, I accepted my offer from Brackenridge for the neuro/oncology unit on the 9th floor. I am really excited about it, which has almost surprised me considering the course of the semester. I started out wanting to do pediatrics and only pediatrics. When all the limited job availability (or lack of availability completely) in the children's hospitals got in my way, I decided adult nursing would be okay to start, but I wanted something like ICU or IMC (typical nursing grad answer, am I right?). Well, my ICU/IMC interview at Brack was cancelled a week before it happened - once again, budgets were cut and there were no spots for new grads. Okay, well now I guess I want the trauma floor at Brack, I'd decided, since I'd been there for clinical and knew nothing about the 9th floor. Well, as it turns out, that manager hired people before my interview day, and her budget was also cut. So while my interview went "very well," and she "would really love to offer me a job," her spots for GNs had already been filled.

In other words, had someone told me in January where I would be working in June, I wouldn't have believed them. But it's funny how your preferences will adapt to what's available, and I'm finding myself really incredibly excited at the opportunity I've got. I have a job at a great teaching hospital, a county (crazy) hospital at that, with a friendly manager, right in downtown Austin. Within the year I'll be certified to administer chemo. And, you know, there are the other truly important things like being located in the penthouse of the hospital - great views make for a therapeutic environment. I think Florence would approve ;)

I called my mom on my way out to my car last night to celebrate the moment of being done with college, and she asked me what I was going to do with all this free time between now and graduation. Relax? One would think. I've been up since 6:30 this (Sunday) morning. After crashing around 10 last night being used to waking up at 5 AM, there's no way I could have slept longer. Today I've been really aware of something I've always known about myself - days off, to me, mean days I can fill with all sorts of random activities. In the hours I've been awake today I've already decided I'd like to completely clean out my apartment for my future move into a new one, figure out some new recipes I want to try this week, read The Last Lecture, do more NCLEX review, go for a run, set up lunch/dinner/drink dates to celebrate my re-entrance into society after my weird capstone schedule, and maybe do some unnecessary shopping.

...Not all in the same day, of course. Why can't I just sit and not think about what I'm going to do next?

I think my constant desire to stay busy and inability to enjoy a day on the couch truly confuses people. I remember when Kori went off to college, she would complain when she came back home to visit because she felt so bored and useless. After four years of college, that feeling of uselessness when I'm not doing something with my day has been taken to the extreme. And I do just sit, I suppose, like I am right now. I like to eat breakfast/drink coffee in the morning while I stalk all of you on facebook, and then I like to do things. It doesn't matter what things in particular, just things. Nothing makes me grumpier at the end of the day than if I didn't do things during the day.

Well, I've reached that point of blogging where I have abruptly decided I'm done updating. This point in my other blog posts has resulted in a bulleted list of other updates I don't feel like expanding upon any further, but today I think I will just leave you with this. See you kids at graduation.

As promised...

The cookies. This series of pictures is super reflective of how impatient I got with this whole process. I forgot how long it takes to make rolled sugar cookies, much less mix 900 (or like, 4) different icing colors for each plastic baggie I was decorating with. They weren't a professional job by any means, but they were gone on both sides of the unit before 11 AM. Mission: accomplished.

Woof. 

Mix it up quickly. No one will notice that 3 sticks of butter.

My first reminder that this was going to take approximately forever should have been when I had to split the dough into two sections.

Why yes, I do own a silicon mat. And yes, I have used those measurements to roll out 12 inches of pizza dough.

Haha okay, sooo their feet are a little bit chunkier than their bodies and heads. I just wanted to get all these guys rolled and in the oven, let's be honest.

I found this miniature cutter about half way through this whole process, so I thought I'd make some bite-sized ones also (plus, more of them fit on one cookie sheet! The time-saving efforts continue...)

She's got the whooole world. In her hands.

The ones I just outlined the scrubs on ended up being my favorite - no coincidence there that they were also the quickest to decorate. I filled in some of the others more than this, but it got kind of messy.

Meh, a somewhat half-assed attempt at a hospital gown and bandages. I know I said I was going to make amputee cookies, but in the end that just felt kind of morbid. Some of them broke in transit to the hospital, though, so I guess some were amputated in the end. 

donedonedonedone. I was eating those miniature ones like it was my job this whole time. Nothin like a good icing-induced stomach ache.

I have a lot more I could talk about, but I'm also getting up at 5 tomorrow morning to be on the road in time to be in New Braunfels before 6:45. Suck. First 7a-7p shift, yikes. I was welcomed into NB with a speeding ticket yesterday when I went to meet my preceptor for the first time. I feel like that can't be a good sign? Should've saved some cookies to bring the new unit like a true suck-up. Next time, next time...

Zooma Zooma Hey

Get it? Like the "numa numa" song?

Whatever.

I ran the Zooma Half Marathon out in Bastrop on Saturday morning - training for it has been such a regular part of my semester that I can't believe it's over. Mom and Kori came to Austin for the weekend to see the race, and it was really nice to have the support. It was motivating around mile 11-ish - when I had juuust about had it with the millions of steep hills, not to mention the crazy woman complaining to her husband right behind me "I think I'm crashing again, my body is starting to feel cold, whinewhinewhine" - knowing that I had people waiting for me at the finish line a few miles down the road. 

The course was set up to run about 6 and a half miles out, then it turned around to come back the exact same way. It was nice on the way back because I was able to see almost everybody from my training group so we could cheer each other on. Spectators were only able to go to one spot on the whole course, and man, those 

final brutal miles are even harder when there aren't any spectators to cheer you on. I kept my mind off of it by listening to the aforementioned crazy woman talk about her body going cold and such. I don't think she realized that she would be less out of breath if she just stopped talking so often, but what can ya do. 

My official time was 02:00:57. My "predicted race time" based on a 2-mile time trial one or two months ago was 01:55:58, but I had no expectations of actually keeping sub-9 minute miles on such a hilly course. My average pace per mile came out to be 9:14, and I couldn't be happier with it.

....Despite how miserable I look crossing the finish line (but remembering to stop my watch, for once).

Heyyy here's a smile.

...And here's my plug for Horizon milk boxes as long-run recovery drinks. I usually roll with chocolate, but any of the flavors are quite delicious. 

So, my quads feel kinda trashed from all the downhills, my hips are really sore, and I've got some blisters and such, but it was a great race and a fun day. 

Oh, and the REAL exciting news from the weekend is that my sugar cookie dough has been chilling in the fridge all night, and I am about to go roll it out, cut out the people shapes, and bake them. I'm going to start the decorating process later today I think. I hope they turn out in real life how they have turned out in my mental image of them... :) 

Hope everyone had an excellent weekend!

I just deleted a post I'd started a week ago but never finished. Now it's too irrelevant in my brain, so I don't want to continue it.

Tomorrow I take my last college test ever, Thursday I go to my last college class ever, and next Tuesday I go to my last clinical ever. I still don't know my capstone preceptor's exact schedule yet, but somewhere between April 8 and May 8 I'll have ten 12-hour shifts (day shifts, thank you Jesus) in the New Braunfels (ugh..) hospital on the med-surg (UGH!) floor. My preceptor said there's a lot of variety on the floor - emphasis on the "surg" part of med-surg - ortho patients, CV patients, (sometimes) pediatric patients. Hopefully that'll keep it interesting. Interesting enough to have me excited about adding 1.5 hours of commute time to a 12-hour shift? Pending.

I never thought I'd be the girl saying "I really, really, really can't wait to just graduate already," but after the past few weeks, I've had quite enough. Thanks school, it's been real. But I'm done.

Besides the obvious, the most exciting part about all of this is that I'm baking sugar cookies (sugar cookie people, actually) for the Brack 8th floor nurses as part of our end-of-semester student gift, and I'm going to decorate them to look like they are wearing scrubs. I am also going to put some in casts and break (eat) off some of the cookie people's limbs. Nothing says "thank you!" like a sugar cookie reflective of traumatic injuries and diabetic amputations, eh eh?

Obviously I will be posting pictures.

Other news in quick, bulleted, easy-to-read format:

• My half marathon is this Saturday! Bright and early in the AM. Mom and Kori (possibly David/Dad/Cyndee?) will be in town for it, should be a fun weekend.
• Nail-biting is back and in full force. Worse than ever. Can'tstopwon'tstop.
• Koriente on 7th across the street from the court house. Go. Eat. Thank me later.
• Positive things seem to be happening in the job realm. Stay tuned.
• The entire nursing school abuses Benadryl for clinical days. There's no sense in trying to resist.
  

That's good enough for now. Look at this. A whole post with no pictures.. how boring of me. Next time, however, will be full of amputated cookie people, so that should cover it.

Salsa adventures

I'm not going to say any names here, but the brand of salsa I bought at the store the other night almost ruined the uptown adventure at Kori's new place Saturday night. 

Nevermind. There's the name. 

I hate you Joe T Garcia.

What do you do with a new apartment in uptown with no furniture? You bring over some sleeping bags and go out to the bars. Anticipating our needs like a good sister, I went out and got some chips, salsa, goldfish, and wine to have on hand for the slumber party. So what's the problem?

I'll show you the problem.

TRY. HARDER.

This is starting to get ridiculous. There are 4 or 5 more videos after this, but let's get straight to the point.

Let them eat chips.

For the record, it wasn't even that good. You really dropped the ball on this one, Joe T. That's what I get for trying to buy local.

After all that we slept the slumber of manual laborers, and we rewarded ourselves in the morning with Breadwinners for breakfast and shopping at Northpark. Granted, that was the plan before the distressing salsa incident, but shopping dates are better when they're well-earned, obviously.

On a completely unrelated note, I hate to complain, but I'm going to.

1. I'm in New Braunfels for capstone. Random, right? The syllabus says unit placements are based on GPA, so I thought "well they must be sending me there to do pediatrics like I pref'd because there aren't any preceptors in Austin." Except today I discovered that I'm dumb, and the children's hospital that I thought was in NB is actually in San Antonio. So why am I being sent to random NB for capstone?!

2. I strained something in my leg in the back of my knee. This happened literally the day my foot started feeling better. Typical. 

3. Whine whine whine, complain complain complain.

4. Dell Children's is hiring zero new grads. The two spots I mentioned last time are going to internal hires. And with that, my dreams to stay in Austin after graduation have been shattered. (dramatic, isn't it?)

5. ...So I applied to Cook Children's today since none of the other children's hospitals I've applied to have even started scheduling interviews yet. They've already emailed me to say all their GN (graduate nurse) spots have been filled.

Not to mention that the PICU, according to Kori's manager, would be a no-go regardless. Siblings can't work in the same unit because we would steal narcotics (because, you know, co-workers and friends couldn't do that. Only blood relatives).

I'm glad it's spring break so all I have to do is sit here watching 900 re-runs of J&K+8 and look forward to Thursday when Andrew is coming to visit me in Austin. I'll be driving back tomorrow to clean the apartment and such before that happens. In the meantime I'm trying to warm up to the idea of living in Dallas if I get a job at Children's - Kori has been trying to win me over by pointing out fun facts like the close proximity of not one, but two Whole Foods stores near uptown, and the pizza place down the street apparently will deliver to you if you're at the wine bar a few doors down. 

But really, I just want a job. Whoever keeps saying "they always need nurses" was not referring to pediatric nurses. Or maybe they weren't referring to new grads. Or new grads that want to be pediatric nurses. Bummer. We'll see what happens.

Thursday Thursday Thursday! Get here.

warm fuzzies

STRESS! Everywhere! If it isn't about school, it's about the job search. I hate eating lunch at the nursing school these days because there's always at least three or four conversations going on around each table about applications and interviews. And we're all applying to the same hospitals, it seems. Whoever keeps insisting that nurses are in demand clearly are not talking about children's hospitals, and are DEFINITELY not talking about Dell in Austin. Last I heard there are t.w.o. available spots for new grads in the entire hospital (...and I really, really want one of them.) Anyway, to illustrate what's going on in my brain, we have exhibit (picture) A.

<--- A few nights ago I found my bag with all of my career fair goodies. It's unfortunate that my camera frame isn't wider. 

That orange pen is a monster. Lucky for that hospital that my career decisions are directly related to the size of the pens they offer. 

So. What do we do when we're stressed? We stab ourselves with giant orange pens.

No.

We make a list of warm fuzzy pictures to remind ourselves that life isn't that bad.

Guatemalan Worry People: "There is a story that when the Maya Indians of Guatemala have worries, they tell them to worry people and then put them under their pillows at night. By morning, the worry people have taken their worries away."

A good gift from a good friend on my 21st birthday (which, for the record, was 1.5 years ago exactly, more about that later).

Come to think of it, it's been a while, and I don't remember the exact details of where this little guy came from. What I do know is that he's a goofy, awkward-looking monkey that has belonged to Andrew since 2005-ish, and he's fabulous.

He snuck him into my bag sometime before I came home from Boulder a month ago.

And here he is, sitting on his desk throne, as it should be. Ha.

Obviously there's a baking picture. What do we do when we're stressed? We bake. I saw this recipe last week on this blog and decided there just isn't a better way to use raisins than this. And I believe her about chilling the dough to make the cookies thicker. It works with the chocolate chip cookie recipe I usually use.

I froze the rest of the dough in balls to bake whenever I want them, making me a great candidate to be best friends with your grandmother. 

...and on that note, over on the saltier end of the baking spectrum, I made these fries in the oven last night, and they're my new lovechild. Canola oil, rosemary, black pepper, kosher salt. 40 minutes at 400 degrees. Or was it 425? Might have been 425.

Spray/oil your pan better than I did and give em a shake/stir/flip every once in a while. The stuck ones just don't look as pretty once they are un-stuck :)

I've been biting my nails. FAIL.

I ran 10 miles this morning with the running group. Success! 5 weeks to race day!

And also, I'm now on twitter. Big surprise there. Ha.

Kisses.

Could someone tell me how to post pictures on this thing? The little icon on my toolbar only puts pictures at the top of each post. I want to know how to put one

HERE (**EDIT: I figured it out. turns out you just move it around with your mouse. Doh.)

or maybe HERE.

(I was going to just test adding a picture and then delete it, but why would I deprive you of meeting this kitty with a hitler 'stache?)

etc.

I accomplished a few things this weekend: Finally lounged in Cookie Lounge and caught up with Dani, laid out on main mall, saw The Reader and understood why Kate Winslet won the oscar, ran a ridiculous, hilly, windy long run, made blueberry pancakes, watched Titanic for 4 whole hours on TBS, napped, coffee'd a lot, and boat partied with Iron Spikes. <--- it's after about this point up until a few hours ago that I stopped accomplishing things and started doing the opposite. The most important things in life, however, don't come without the occasional opposite-of-accomplishments - how else would we know how much those things mean to us? 

Also, I really like The Fray's newest CD. It's been nice background noise. Background noise to all the important things I've done today, like surf facebook and strategize the best way to make miniature layer cakes (stay tuned). I did get my easy run in despite my mood, but I miss my ipod that has somehow disappeared since the week after I went to Boulder. I didn't bring it to Boulder, so I'm not sure what happened there.

Alright I'm done. I'd still like to know how to post pictures, however, if someone wants to throw that out there. Gracias.