Guest blogging... CHECK ✔

I recently was asked to guest blog for Faydra Rector, America's Divorce Coach. I have to admit, I'm not the best at being consistent with my blogging, but when asked there is usually an abundance of topics at the tip of my brain (that's all the space I have remaining, btw) to pull from.  Not to mention, Faydra inspires me.  She is the kind of person who you can glean so much from by just knowing her, even if it's not all that intimately. She's faced some beasts in her life, some common and not-so-common ones.  The thing that sets her apart is that instead of becoming a victim she not only wrangles the beast, but she makes it sit down and give her some pointers on how to come out on the other side more equipped to either avoid a future run-in or how to overcome it forever.  And she does so not only for herself but for everyone else too, and then she selflessly shares the process and those gold nuggets with us. Can you say "Blessing"?!?

She uses humor and in-your-face honesty to get you to either accept things as they are and learn to live better despite them, or demand of yourself and others change.  She goes out of her way to encourage and acknowledge people who make differences in the lives of those around them, and she tirelessly devotes herself to educating people, giving them hope, and helping to ease their pain.

I am better for knowing Faydra, and I am grateful for the opportunity she extended to me to share a little run-in with a beast of my own, which you can read here if you'd like:  Single Mom's Struggle To Manage College and The Gift of a Good Teacher

~me

Unmatched Socks: Their Hold On Me

So today was fall back day!  Can I get a woot, woot!?!?  Love having an extra hour!  After today though I think maybe I am more in love with the thought of an extra hour that the extra hour itself.  I get giddy over the imaginary ways I could spend that hour-if I wasn't me of course; then I resort to making grandiose plans for those 60 minutes in order to utilize every second; this then turns into sitting down at the end of the day dumbfounded and wondering how every other day you could have used that hour for a million and one things but today, when you have the hour, it's just too much to do anything with and the day comes and goes and the hour just disappears again.

Some people might make decent use of that hour though: sleep, I suppose, is probably a popular option?  I mean if you do it right you could technically sleep an hour longer.  But that's not really prime utilization in my sleep-deprived opinion because you can do that any day - just go to bed an hour earlier.... right?  Some people might spend it studying, like I should have, like I had intended on doing.  I woke up this morning all jazzed up at the thought of being more efficient and actually having the one thing (among many, mind you, and definitely not in order of priority) I wish for on a daily basis: more.time.  The extra nursing care plan I could type up; the 73 more flash cards I could make; the 3 more loads of laundry I could finish; the tack room I could seal off, the half a movie I could watch with my kids or the walk we could take - oh the possibilities!!  Till, of course, Unmatched Socks sunk their stinky, stained, holey seams into that hour - into the WHOLE hour!

We all have our pet peeves about unmatched socks, don't we?  How'd it happen? Where'd it go? Implementation of the best laid plans to prevent paired-sock estrangement.  Blame - then we start blaming people: the kids, the kids' friends, whoever helped with laundry last, the cat, the dog, the sock fairy, the dryer - you know the drill. Well for some reason I think I have an unhealthy obsession with not losing the battle of single-sock excess to, well, socks.  In order to prevent this I have a plastic grocery bag of single socks that I have packed around with me for approximately 8 years now.  Believe it.  8 years of adding, subtracting, pairing up, and sorting through lone, separated socks. 

A few weeks ago, when the weather started cooling, I had all three of the older girls go through their dressers and closets and clean out too small, worn out, and clothes that I made the mistake of buying them without their presence/approval and subsequently NEVER left the closet due to my uncool/old-mom taste.  Needless to say an abundance of single socks showed up in their piles. 

Dear Inventor of the fade that swept through every little girls sock drawer a few years back which involved wearing two completely difference socks, You Suck. 

Also,

To The Department Stores Who Actually SOLD Mismatched Socks, You Owe Me $!

So now not only are there socks that don't have their pair, there are socks that do have their pair but don't match their pair so it's virtually impossible unless the socks have been washed the exact same number of times and worn under identical circumstance as to avoid uneven fading, wear and tear, or stretching since you have to match by color themes for the most part.

Today, in an effort to clear the walkway by the front door I decided I would sift through the collection of discarded clothes to see where they should go from here; this is where I unfortunately stumbled on a large bag of socks.  I thought to myself, "Self, DO.NOT. start sorting these."  So the next thing I do, naturally, is head to the laundry room where my now 5-lb plastic bag holding my 8-year collection of sock rebels is located and decide I will quickly see if there were any matches in there.

And, folks, there you have it - how I spent my precious-as-gold extra hour today.

The silver lining?  I matched 12 pairs of socks!!!!  Only 71 more rouge partners to find!!

Proud Supporter of:

A Four-Fer!!

So, since I don't ever really have time to write as much as I'd like, I am cramming four stories in this one post.  But, brace yourselves for the cuteness, four might just be overload status.  ;)  Hope you enjoy.

Well, I knew the day would come.  Miss Abigail has decided she is going to bless us with full on complete sentences. Even more impressive is the discovery, through this newly acquired communication ability, that she has quite the thinking process, advanced far beyond her age really. Before now she could communicate, but seldom did she need to be terribly detailed about it. Now there is so much more in her little world that she comprehends that she has finally felt it necessary to be able to express herself.  And boy is it amusing!!

Earlier this morning we were sitting by the window looking out into the field, watching the trees blow and the cows staring back, when she spotted the two goat houses that Savannah and Addie and Dion spent a tremendous amount of time on last week and over the weekend.  Completed, it is a little “fort/community” play-area with a freshly raked and swept dirt driveway and a picnic table for eating.

“Me p’ay [play], Mom?”

“Oh you see the fort the girls built?”

“Yeah, Mom! Me p’ay?”

“You wanna get dressed and go play in that?”

“No, Mom come. Mom pay me ‘side [outside].”

“Oh man, Abby!  I wish I could, Mom has to take a shower and get ready for work.”

“No Mom work. Me…” *insert extremely convincing fake cry here* “… Mom go work.”

“What??  You’ll cry if I go to work???”

“Yeah, Mom no work. Me tye [cry]. Mom p’ay me ‘side.”

“Oh Abby!!  You’re so cute!  But we need money, don’t we?”

*MAJOR thinking occurred here for at least 20 seconds.*

“Yeah, money Mom. Me work Mom.  Me no tye.”

I burst into laughter immediately!! 

“Whaaaaaaat???  You wanna come with mom to work so we can make money but so you won’t cry??”

*huge grin on her face*

“Yeah, Mom! Me help mom work. Me no tye. Yeah money.”

No joke peeps.  This is the though process of a 2-year-old.  Haha!

10 minutes later I sat down at my desk to try to finish 9 million things in 2 minutes.  (Yes, I need some help being more realistic sometimes.) And it goes without saying that Abby is attached to me at the hip, so she tries squeezing into my office chair next to me to do her own “homework”. Apparently she wasn’t too fond of my big butt taking up so much of the chair, cause here is a rundown of the events that followed.

“Me homework Mom too? Me not touch Mom homework.”

“Okay, Abby, if you wanna sit and do homework with me you can, just don’t touch!”

“No touch Mom homework. Yeah.”

She found some sticky tabs.

“For, Mom?” as she holds them up for me to see.

“Oh those are stickies, you put them on paper or in a book to mark your place.”

“Me one, Mom? My own, Mom?”

“Sure!  You can use one! Where is your paper I gave you earlier?”

“Know, Mom? My paper at?”

“I think it’s in the kitchen on the counter where you left it. Go look.”

“Mom yook. Mom doe yook my paper.”

“What!?!?  It’s YOUR paper, you go get it!”

She sighs, yes sighs… then climbs down and heads out to the kitchen.  From the kitchen she hollers,

“Me no fine paper, Mom!  No see!”

She comes back into the room and I get up and head out there.  And I see the paper sitting on the bar stool.  Now I know that the paper was on the counter, so this means that she FOUND the paper and moved it and then decided to have me go find it anyway.  I wasn’t sure what was up so I called her to come out to the kitchen.

“Hey Abby! Come here!”

“Wha’ Mom? Yeah? Wha’ Mom?”

“Uhm, your paper is right there.  How can you not find that?”

 “Oh. Oh, Mom. There paper. Silly Abby.”

Here’s where it comes together… as I start walking back to my desk she snatches up her piece of paper and runs past me at warp speed laughing!!  Laughing and making a bee line straight for my chair!!!  She dives in my chair just as I approached it.

“HA! HA! Mom!  Me Mom’s chair!!  Mom no chair! Abby’s chair! Ha! Ha! Mom!”

Yep.  For real.  She just stole my chair.  And not only stole it: she plotted and staged and then executed a plan to enable her to steal it!!  All inside her two-year-old little mind.

“What?!?!?  You stole Mom’s chair!!!”

And the tickle fest ensued. 

…

…

Just to be clear though…

I went and got myself a new chair from the kitchen table.  Lol.

Not long after that the neighbor went driving by on her Rhino/golf-cart thing with her 4 dogs following behind her.  Abby shouted, “Me doe say hi! Me pe’ [pet] dogs!” and out the front door she went… in just panties. I hollered at her as she was booking it down the driveway,

“Hey Abby!  Where are you going??”

“Me he’p [help]!”

“Oh I don’t think she needs your help, sweatie!”

“Me see. Me ask he'p.”

“Well wait, come get some cloths on and then ask her!” lol

“Oh, yeah!” she says, and stops and turns around and starts booking it back.  Lol.

She got dressed and went and stood at the end of the driveway waiting.  When the neighbor stopped on her way back by she greeted Abby with a hug.  Abby promptly ask, 

“Me he’p you? You nee’ me he’p?”

The neighbor just looked at me with the biggest grin on her face!  “Oh sweetie!” she says to Abby, “that’s so nice.  Maybe you can help me later?  I have to hurry and go meet someone right now.”  Abby looked at her slightly disappointed but seemingly encouraged enough by the thought of later that she didn’t fall apart, and instead said, “Yeah. Me he’p yater.”  How thoughtful is she???

Later at my mom’s house, after kissing Abby and giving her loves, she hollered to me as I was leaving out the door for work, 

“Mom hurry! Come home! Mom hurry come home now!”

“Okay, Abby!! Mom will hurry and come home as soon as I’m done at work!”

Lord have mercy!

The Perfect Little Hybrid

So in routine evening style Abby and I are snuggling in bed before I get up to return to my homework and leave her to go to sleep.  She has quite the arsenal of evasive tactics in attempting to avoid actually falling asleep. One of these tactics is her need to have complete silence, and if she thinks anyone is up doing anything she needs to know.

“*gasp!!* Mom!  Noi. Noi, Mom!”

“I know, Abby, I hear the noise, it’s okay.”

“Oh, Mommy. Tb, Mom?””

“No, Abby, it’s not the tv. I think you hear the radio cause the girls have K-Love on.”

“Oh. Not tb, Mom?”

“No, Abby, it’s not the tv.”

“Oh.” *lays back down*

About 15 seconds later she sits straight back up:

“Mommy, righ ba, Mom; tay here, Mom. Me doe yook tb, tb on.”

“Uhm, no Abby. You DON’T need to go look and see if the tv is on, it’s not. It’s the radio.”

“Oh. Not tb, Mom? Tayyub?”

“Yes, Abby, it’s KLove.”

“Oh.” *lays back down*

About 2 minutes passes and one of the girls drops something in the kitchen:

“*Gasp!!!* Mom…”

…“Mom?” “Momma?”

“Shhhh…”

“Noi, Mom.”

“Be quiet, Abby. It’s okay. It’s just the girls.”

“Oh.”

…

“Tay here, Mommy, righ ba, Mom. Me doe yook – te girl tiet.”

“No, Abby. You DON’T need to go look and tell the girls to be quiet, they’re fine. You be quiet.”

…

“Oh. Me, tiet, Mom?”

“Yes, Abby. Shhh. Go to sleep.”

“Oh. Nigh Mom. Wuv you.”

“Night, Abby. Mom loves you more.”

Lord, help me.  This girls reasoning skills are through the roof!  She is a hybrid of Shane’s persistence, Lacey’s smarts, Savannah’s humor, and Dion’s sass.  Thankfully they’re good kids!  Cause she is in full-blown imitation stage and what a mess I would be in if her examples were poor.

I signed all the kids’ parent/teacher conference appointment notices for next week. Can we say giddy in anticipation? Love parent/teacher conferences. :D

Well, I have so much more to update.  Multiple times a day I find myself wanting to sit down and put things on “paper”, so to speak, because I know I’ll forget them all; then I forget to write them down… yes, it really is that bad. But hopefully I will get some more time soon.

Love to those who take their time to read our menial stuff.  xo

43%!!!!!!!!!

So, it happened: I majorly bombed my second quiz in Adult Med/Surg. And as you can see by the title, I do mean bombed.  So frustrating.  It's not like I didn't study, trust me.  It's just that there is SO!MUCH! content that really all it takes is missing one table, one set of lab values, one slide in powerpoint after powerpoint, or one paragraph amongst the 200+ pages in three different books that are being covered and bam, there's your F. Especially since the quizzes are only 10 questions, there is no wiggle room.  And actually, that brings me to this, they are 10 questions and you have 10 minutes.  While I understand the "theory" behind this... once we graduate with our bachelor degrees we will take our state boards, the NCLEX, and they allow a minute per question on their test... so they are trying to prepare us.  But there is no autonomy to what we are doing yet.  It's all just being imputed and programmed - the reflex knowledge that usually comes from experience, repetition, and practice is just not there yet.  When I see a drug in a question I have to backtrack and figure out the class and then figure out what it's action is and the therapeutic effects, and hope that triggers the side effects/adverse reactions and then deduce using those to figure out contraindications and precautions in, and forget about normal ranges of doses depending on the route it's given! It's just not like I can look at a drug and see it and pull up this chart in my head with all the info.  What's not very encouraging is that I think there are students in my class that can do that - they read a drug, it's info, and it's there ready for filing and eventual retrieval.  The teacher lectures about a disease process and it all just clicks; it gets transcribed in cute little curly calligraphy and filed in some kind of elusive and elite filing system that I'm just not privied too.  If I want to put new info in my "vault", I have to purge first.  I have to struggle to get old, rusted shut, covered in cobwebs and dust filing cabinets open.  Cabinets that I lost or intentionally threw the key away to a LONG while ago.  I have to toss out piles and stacks before I have room for new stuff.  Sadly though, this method, or lack there-of I suppose, is so destructive.  My short-term and long-term memory are shot.  I'm tossing out my girls' volleyball schedules, promised dates, to-do lists' in the midst of the chaotic purging and then miss out and forget things that are important. And that's only the first half of the equation, then I have to figure how to retrieve this new stuff I'm cramming in.  Let me put it this way, you know when you defragment your computer?  There are sections of your computers memory that are designated for certain things, and every once in a while you make the effort to clean it up and get it organized so it works faster.... yeah, that's what I'm TRYING to do but not performing so well on thus far.

Oh well, I'll try harder next time and do better.  I don't often share the ugliness of my academics with anyone cause really why let what I am blessed to be doing right now lose it's luster?  I post big accomplishment and things I'm proud of when I think to, but seldom the gross moments - the more than subpar grades, the exhaustion and tears, the moments when I am overwhelmed with grief and guilt over not being the mother I want to be right now.  No need to dwell on that much, just gotta push through it.

So, back to my point... go to college young!!  ;)
Don't wait till you're in your 30's raising 5 children on your own.
Don't wait till you will have to choose between reading, "I Love You This Much" to your 2 year old or reading some of the hundreds of pages you haven't gotten around to yet because you fall asleep before the bottom of the first page.
Don't wait till you have to ask your teenager to make sure she changes the laundry and gets her sisters in bed on time cause you won't be home from your clinical rotation in time to tuck them in.
Don't wait till you're so preoccupied with homework that your 9-year-old falls asleep before you remember to go in her room to watch her latest ballet moves she learned at the class you were almost late getting her to because you were in lecture late, even though she asked a dozen times and you said, "In a minute." - you still forgot.
Don't wait till you have to set a 5-minute timer to practice volleyball with your 11-year-old cause all you can think about is needing to get back to playing something that resembles catch up but isn't because catching up isn't even in the realm of possibility.
Don't wait till you have to live off three hours of sleep a night cause there just really aren't enough hours in the day ever.
Don't wait till the worry of failing, and loss of time with my kids nearly overtake the drive toward a more promising future.

Don't wait.  Even if you don't think you need it at the time, DO IT!  Get a degree to fall back on.  Cause although it's possible later in life it's not nearly as glamorous and doesn't come nearly as carefree.  And your filing cabinets are vast and just waiting for you to fill them!  And you won't have to worry about crying yourself to sleep from the sadness of thinking about what if's and should have's and if only's.

Anyway, we'll get through this.  We'll be fine; I'll be fine.  Savings accounts in place for college tuition for my girls who will be getting higher level education straight out of HS and even earlier if possible.

Prayers are always welcome.  :)
God Bless!!