The Day I Never Thought Would Come

Last year around this time, the Chair of my graduate program sent out an e-mail to the MSN students declaring that they were initiating a Graduate Teaching Assistant (GTA) position and any grad student could apply. The job would entail 20 hours a week as a lab assistant and clinical instructor for the Accelerated BSN (ABSN) students. The perks were free tuition and a small stipend.

I was two classes into my Master's program, and I thought free tuition sounded awfully nice. So I applied on a whim, thinking I was far too unqualified to even be considered. But lo and behold, they called me for an interview. I left that interview feeling like an inexperienced nurse, incapable of being in an authority position over the extremely driven ABSN students. I was so shocked when I got an offer letter two days later that I accepted without thinking. I felt so lucky that I was getting free tuition for a whole year!

Oh, self. Didn't you know? Nothing in life is free.

But this launched my PLAN. A plan that quickly grew from a rough curriculum outline to a lifemap that I could not stray from, lest I non get what I want out of this life.

It didn't take long for the anxiety to set in. I could stand apart from myself in moments of clarity and laugh at the irony that I may not have watched all of those Mosby nursing skills DVDs when I was an undergrad, but I sure as heck had to sit through them now if I wanted to have a clue what I was talking about in skills lab!

But overall, to say that I felt an impending sense of doom by late February would not be an exaggeration. I knew there was no way I could survive the year with my sanity intact: the bouts of panic, the tears, the 60-hour workweeks + homework...

I was already unraveling when I received unwelcome and unexpected news in March. In one instant, I crumbled beneath the weight of all the things. One small mercy of that situation was that I had to got to let go of the plan. I was struggling to function from day to day and it only took one brief, embarrassing meeting with my advisors for all of us to see that a summer spent teaching intense ABSN clinicals in an unfamiliar unit was out of the question.

So I took 8 weeks off of school and teaching. I went to work and came home and read my Bible and journaled and went to counseling and got into a workout routine and God poured peace on me like I'd never known.

Literally the day I finally laid aside my delusions of playing catch-up on my meticulous plan and decided that I was okay with not finishing grad school any time soon, I got a phone call from my advisor, asking me to come back to my GTA position this fall. I was terrified, but I said yes because I had signed a contract in January and I wanted to fulfill it. Of course, to be a GTA, you also have to be a grad student. So I started classes again.

That means this fall brought busy and crazy and doubtful and heaping doses of humble and inadequate right back into my life. Thankfully, even though there have been a lot of tears and not a lot of sleep, I never quite reached the epic levels of panic I was dealing with last March. When I think back to my heavy heart last spring, my today heart hurts for that lonely girl looking for hope in all the wrong places.

This morning, I helped another teacher with one last lab checkoff. Then I walked out the doors of the nursing building into the welcome sunshine and just like that... a whole year flew by. Done.

If those walls could talk...

It wasn't pretty. It wasn't easy. I won't pretend I did this on my own strength. I also won't pretend that I was wholly surrendered to God every moment of every day. It's been more like a long game of tug-of-war! Yet somehow, with everything that I've messed up and all the selfish decisions I've made, I can't deny that God has been kind to me. In pain and in peace. He's instilling confidence in me slowly, carefully, and deliberately. He's teaching me to place hope in the right places and not in myself or my situation or in the opinions of others. 

He really drove this point home yesterday at our clinical wrap-up meeting. I finished up some paperwork with my students, all the teachers and the other GTA and I had a little dedication ceremony for the students, and then the students headed to the computer lab to fill out a program survey. I asked my advisor what I should do, and she said, "we're done, see ya!"

Um. What? No, Thanks so much for your selfless service. We couldn't have survived without you? No, Oh, remember that time you bawled your eyes out in my office? How's that situation working out for you? I was a little offended.

In one blinding moment of clarity, I saw my pride. As if that program was about me. As if. And even though I've said the words and seen it in my actions, I finally felt it: I really do think the world revolves around me. God knew he had to break me to show me. And what better time of the year to celebrate my need for a savior? It took me a year to see it.


----
P.S. The last two weeks have been fueled by sugar and coffee and I feel like I've aged 6 years in the last 6 months. But. As of today, I'm also halfway done with my MSN! 18 credit hours down, 18 to go. Now I would love to celebrate by sleeping for 18 hours!

Turns Out

Turns out, November feels a lot like fall.

Turns out, it's been 3 months since I've been to Zumba... I've missed my favorite instructor!

Turns out, I don't mind daylight savings time because even though I don't like the early sunset, I do love seeing the sunrise.

Turns out, research papers can be somewhat fun to write. If only I had more time and a better rubric to follow!

Turns out, it doesn't take long for accutane to dry my skin out, but the pimples are still there.

Turns out, Ross likes sweet potatoes if you bake them in wedges, add seasoning, and call them fries.

Turns out, when you put first things first, you can find joy in every circumstance, not just hope in an ambiguous future circumstance.

P.S. My friend Melody wrote the best post-election words I've seen. In the end, the President does not determine the laws I live by. The King does!

I (can't) do all the things

On the elevator at work Sunday morning, a medical resident I've never met before was puffing himself up by complaining about how long his night had been. He mentioned that, unlike nurses, residents don't get compensated for working the extra hour when time falls back every fall.

I humored him to his face, but really I was thinking, "Dude, that's why I went to nursing school and not medical school. You chose to do this. Didn't you know what you were getting into?"

Boom. Sanctification station. How many of you all have thought this about me every time I complain about busy-ness this fall? As Nichole Nordeman says, "I wonder now if the choice was mine. The door was open and I walked inside. Nobody had my arm twisted. I lost myself in small pieces; it happened over time."

My friend Jessi is fond of the statement "all the things." As in, "I thought I had to do all the things." She used this phrase a lot in a talk she gave last month about how to fail well. And I really needed to hear it.

I have too many things on my plate. While I appreciate those who have told me to back off, I know it's not that season. I had that season this summer. This is the season for digging in and following through on commitments and learning things the hard way.

I just wrote and then deleted a detailed paragraph about all my time commitments this month. Suffice to say, the details don't matter. The point is, it's too much. In order to sleep and take care of my physical self, I've cut out things that actually mean something to me: getting to know women at church, initiating outings with potential new friends, reading books that don't have to do with nursing research. Because I can't do all the things. I don't know how to be a good wife, I don't know how to make good friends, but I do know that I'm not doing it right.

My tears have already given me a glimpse at this crumbling facade. I like to think I can do all the things. I complain about how much I have to do, so that when I do it you know just how hard that was. I am starting a new job soon so that I can learn to do one thing well, but until mid-December I'm going to be doing a lot of things very poorly. And I pray that God will give me the grace not to burn any bridges along the way. Because I can't do anything right outside of Him.



Stand by Britt Nicole

I wake up to another day
I don't know if I can face
All the fears that are staring me down
Yeah, I'm trying to be brave
But I'm a thread, about to fray
I wanna stand but I don't know how

I look up and all I see is
Your love holding me
When I feel like giving up
When my heart is hurt too much
Feels like I've reached the end
No, I won't turn and run
This battle will be won
When I've done all I can
I stand stand stand

Some days I lose my place
It's a fight to keep my faith
But You are with me, I am not alone, no
But all around my world gives way
Tossed like an ocean wave
You are my rock and the storm clouds blow

On Your promise, I will stand
All other ground is sinking sand
On Your promise, I will stand
All other ground is sinking sand

Currently: November

Location: The big brown couch in our apartment.

Watching: Big Bang Theory.  I love nerds.

Eating: Dates with sunflower seed butter. Our debit card got stolen recently and we've been waiting for our negative bank account to normalize. Meanwhile, the grocery situation is getting a little ridiculous.

Drinking: Actually limiting my water intake since it's bedtime...

Wanting: Simultaneously desperately wanting December 14 to be here, but hoping it won't come too quickly because I have a bajilion things to do between now and then. Why December 14? Because on that day, I will go from The Great Juggling Act of November 2012 involving 4 part-time jobs + school to ONE job and Christmas break!!!!!!!!

Needing: A good night's sleep. Always.

Loving: The short run I went on in the sunshine this afternoon. My nervous energy needs a physical outlet. When I forget that, the anxiety just builds and builds and I lay in bed at night exhausted but with my mind racing. No bueno.

Creating: A mess. 'Tis the season for stacks of papers.

Thinking: That we often misread Philippians 4:13: "I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength." The questions is, What does GOD want to strengthen me for? Not, To what selfish end can I rely upon God's strength today? 

Feeling: Relieved that a big decision is behind me: starting mid-December I will be a full time RN in the Center for Advanced Fetal Health and High Risk Pregnancy. This comes with the dreaded 8a-5p schedule I've avoided for 5 years now. But no weekends or holidays! And it's going to be a great opportunity for patient education (to see if I can do something with this Master's degree I'm struggling with.)

Wondering: If I'm up for the huge learning curve my new job will entail. And wondering if I could possibly love any other job as much as I love those precious NICU babes.

Discerning God's Will

Emily Freeman reminded me last weekend, "sometimes you have to say 'yes' to the wrong thing to know you should have said 'no.'" I feel like that's the story of my life. I'm so tired of making the wrong decision. In the last year, I've mad a lot of them. Sometimes they're framed in the light of a 'greater good,' yet they still met the ends I desired, as part of my 'master plan.' I said yes to the things that don't matter and no to the things that do.

In hindsight, this sounds just ridiculous. But I was building my kingdom and it was imperative that the bricks were placed just so. Yet the foundation? It was rotting from the inside out. When things fell apart, I saw that everything I'd been doing and working toward was in vain. Temporary. Bitterly fleeting.

For a brief time, I was able to live in the freedom of close communion with God. Then slowly but surely, my heart started to harden again. Priorities shifted, plans changed, life happened.

Today I repent that I've let busy-ness get in the way again. In enjoying a renewed friendship with my husband, I've developed a false sense of complacency and faltered in my attempts to purse friendship with others. I've let my goals sneak higher and higher in my list of priorities to the extent that I lost sight of the present. I didn't think I was holding that tightly to my plans again, until a new opportunity challenged me to feel the weight of them. I repent of trying to do things out of my own strength and trying to make decisions out of my own wisdom.

I look down and see my white-knuckled grip, and I'm embarrassed.

Last week, I turned to journaling, I turned to desperate prayers to God, I turned to my Bible, I turned to conversations with my husband for discernment, and then I turned inward. Deeper and deeper. Like I was watching from the outside as my husband tried to communicate with me and I didn't respond. I saw myself being the person I didn't want to be, but I couldn't silence the conflicting voices in my head. They exhausted me, they kept me from sleeping, and Friday night, they even took away my appetite. (That's when you really know something's wrong with me)!

While I was looking in the right places, I was still trying to apply Godly wisdom to my earthly framework. So Sunday at church, I did what I was always too afraid to do, and I went up to one of the pastors to ask for advice. Of course, he didn't have a concrete answer. It wouldn't be right if he did. But he did give me some great resources and an awesome analogy borrowed from Tim Keller that's too good not to share.

In a nutshell, the three elements of a call are: ability, affinity, and opportunity. Ability is endowed by God as well as life experience through which your skills have been or can be developed. Affinity means you have to want to do this thing. You are acutely aware of a human need and you have a desire to fill that need. This desire shouldn't rise out of immature motives, such as a pay increase you don't really need, a desire for glory, or even a need to be needed. (I definitely struggle here. Are my desires the right desires?) Finally, you must have an opportunity to do this job.

Keller notes that when ability, affinity, and opportunity are all present and pointing in the same direction, a person can discern God's call.

Like so.

(source)

When I think about my life, I can see that ability and affinity without opportunity leads me to rush God's timing as I try to force an outcome that I want. This often ends up with me taking an even longer way around to the original destination (or, you know, a one-way ticket to an entirely different destination than the one I thought I wanted).

Ability and opportunity without affinity can feed selfish desires but leads to burnout really quickly. These opportunities are the ones I'm most likely to say yes to and then regret. I think, "well, this presented itself to me, so it must be a sign that I should take it." Ummm no. Case in point: grad school. Untold benefits and a great number of lessons learned, but man those classes are like pulling teeth. My middle brother just started law school and he freaking loves it. Why don't I feel that joy?! I think to an extent, it's okay to do something you don't necessarily love if it leads to an end result that you do feel affinity toward, but I'm not sure what I'm getting this degree for at this point. I digress. Basically, when I'm facing a decision involving ability and opportunity without affinity, I need to remember: just because you can, doesn't mean you should.

(source)

Finally, affinity and opportunity without ability is going to be endlessly frustrating. For example, I would love to run a marathon. I really love running, it's easy enough to sign up for a race, but my body just cannot handle that mileage. I've tried three times, and every time my body just breaks down halfway thorugh the training cycle.

Emily and me after a half marathon (2 years ago already?!)

In the face of a lot of opportunities, I'm praying for affinity for something... anything... right now.

Clinical Teaching {Check}

Today was our last day of clinicals and my students all passed with flying colors. I, on the other hand, woke up in a cold sweat at 4am because surely over the last 5 weeks I've done something terribly wrong. Clinicals have been going too smoothly to be true. (Of course, we did have a small "incident" this morning involving a rude nurse and an overly-anxious student, but it was a personal problem that wasn't handled professionally, and it didn't affect patient care.)

My students swear they learned a lot. What they don't know is that every time they would say, "Therese I have a question" I would not and smile and think ohmygoshIhopeIknowtheanswer.

On our last day, several nurses between the NICU, mother/baby, and labor and delivery told me that this was one of the best clinical groups they've ever seen: the students were helpful instead of annoying, they were smart, they were eager to jump in... I wish I could take credit, but I can't. The school must've taken pity on me and given me the best students.

I am eternally grateful to a handful of nurses on each unit who taught my students more than I ever could. I'm privileged to have worked alongside such wonderful ladies! And my students... man. I think I'm stressed? That Accelerated BSN program is not for the faint of heart. Then they were so sweet to thank me with a generous gift. They said Ross and I should go to the movies for a belated anniversary celebration!

The past two months have been tough. I'm 27 years old with a college degree, but I have a deep-seated fear that someone will "discover" that I'm just an imposter in this life. That I'm not qualified to do any of these things. I mean, I can't even remember to get new license plate tags when they're due. Who am I to teach nursing students how to do sterile procedures and what qualifies as a post-partum hemorrhage?

I still don't know what I want to be when I grow up.

A Day

Oh. Em. Gee. Large chunks of time have gone missing from this month already. I am averaging well below my happy place of 8 or 9 hours of sleep at night, I haven't worked out in a week, and my right eyelid has been twitching every day for the past 14 days. I can practically feel the cortisol coursing through my veins and my acne has never, ever been so bad. I'm a hot mess. Today I can't help but wonder: When do you stop saying, this is just a season, and start acknowledging, this is my life?

I want to shout, "I'm not really like this" every time I complain to someone about how busy I am. While that may have been true for a while, I have to face the facts. For now, at least, this is my life. This spilling-over-at-the-seams-and-not-necessarily-in-a-good-way modus operandi appears to be here to stay. I want to be reasonable about it, but it's really hard for me to admit this as I face the reality that I'm about to turn in a really, really half-assed paper.

Let me clarify, lest you think I'm some straight-A stick-in-the-mud. I'm not. I'm so not. Nursing school wiped that notion off the board entirely and my middle name became Avoidance. I've been treating grad school as a way to redeem my undergraduate academic habits, even though I know that's placing unreasonable expectations on myself given two jobs and a marriage that are now part of the picture.

I'm now 5 classes into grad school and, for the first time, procrastination is my true and real foe. Until this week, procrastination had the happy side-effect of somehow brute-forcing a high-quality paper. But today? This sheer and utter exhaustion and nonstop schedule has left me scrambling to write a literature review at the last minute (well, I'm about 8 hours in and I have 2 hours and 3 minutes until the literal last minute). And you know what? After all that, this paper is going to be sub-par at best. I can barely focus my twitchy eyes on the screen. My butt actually hurts from sitting for so long today. Even my customary snack breaks (which will be the death of my jeans this winter, by the way) have lost their allure.

It's hard to settle for less than perfection, to just feel overwhelmed when it gets to the point that I couldn't do anything about it even if I did muster up the energy to try. For all my complaining over the past 10 months, today was the first day I really and truly thought about dropping it all. Screw grad school. Try as I might, I just can't seem to reset myself for a higher capacity just because life starts demanding more of me!

Today while I was driving across town to and from class, I was listening to a sermon on my iPod. This Kevin Cawley quote hit me: "If the entirety of your life isn't about God's glory, the entirety of your life will disappoint you." I feel this truth in the depth of my soul, but I'm unsure about how to respond to it minute-by-minute. Can I just hide in my closet and read books about God all day? (Because that sounds amazing). I don't think that's the answer. I think the answer lies along the more practical lines of something as simple as keeping my journal and Bible right next to my bed so I can do Bible study before I roll out of bed and face the assault of 1,000 temptations and distractions.

And because I did start my day in the Word (and I plan to end it that way as well), I'm going to count it as a success. Everything in between was a train wreck. Today, simply Not Avoiding was an achievement in itself.

One hour and 38 minutes left.

The second week

I tell you what, I'm learning just as much as my students this semester. Labor inductions, fundal checks, and Rhogam shots galore. I think I've done more now than I did in my own clinicals! There's a lot more to having a baby than just the baby. (Duh. Humor me, please.)

I'm out of my comfort zone in a big, big way. And I think... I think it might be stretching me to grow in a painful, stressful, but satisfying way.

Re-claiming and Re-focusing

Re-claiming the office

Two years ago, we traded up from our beloved one-bedroom apartment to a one-bedroom + study. Since we're both in grad school, the study has been a godsend. It's sunny, colorful, and a little crowded. But it's our space.

This past spring, I spent one miserable day sobbing on the floor of said study. Then I calmly got up, closed the door, and pretended it didn't exist.

But now, homework beckons. When I shut myself in the office with my school work, I'm somewhat free from other distractions in the apartment. It's time to re-claim this as a happy space and not a painful one.

Re-focusing on school

My mind wants to be elsewhere, but pretending that my homework doesn't exist is a terrible way to live. The weight of procrastination is miserable and completely self-inflicted. Today is my ONE DAY OFF this week. Do I have to spend it writing a paper? Why yes, yes I do. But this paper is a tiny one, really only requiring several hours of dedicated work. It would be better to get it done and then ENJOY the last few hours of my Friday before working all weekend, no?




Here we go!

Breathe

Two things.

1.) Who knew being back at work work today would be such a breath of fresh air? I was stretched further than I relized in the last two days and familiar faces and routines were a sweet relief this morning.

2.) Back in college, my favorite song was called "Breathe (2am)." The line that had me listening to the song on repeat crooned, "There's a light at each end of this tunnel, you shout. 'Cause you're just as far in as you'll ever be out. And these mistakes you've made, you'll just make them again. If you'd only try turning around."

I was struggling a lot during those years-- yearning for control yet not knowing where my life was going to go. Except I couldn't put my feelings into words back then and I just felt general teen angst for lack of a better term.

If I start thinking too hard right now, that familiar angst tries to come creeping back. I spent the last 2 days working very long 12-hour clinical shifts in charge of a cohort of students and yesterday around lunchtime, when I realized I was actually going to survive those first two days (thanks for all the prayers), it hit me that I still had to go to work work this week and my heart sank. Five 12s in six days doesn't leave much time for reading and writing the paper that I have due on Monday. It also doesn't leave much time to hang out with my husband who's also busy with school.

Really, the point I'm trying to make here is that a.) I'm surprisingly not drowning in panic like I was this past January when I was equally as busy, if not more so. I am exhausted, though. And b.) there's a light at the end of this tunnel. I finish my current class and clinical rotation mid-October and conveniently (more Providence than coincidence) the Influence Conference falls over my fall break. I bit the bullet this summer and bought a ticket. A friend even set me up with my roomie: the lovely Emily from Country Roots and Cowgirl Boots.

Influence is a Christian women's conference that stemmed from the conversations of several women and their desire to make much of Jesus. I was sold when I read this description:

"If you’ve ever wondered how or why the Lord was going to use you in your home, work, community, or online – Influence is a fantastic place to connect and learn. We believe that God has given you influence right where you are, for one purpose: to make much of Him. At Influence we’re going to dig into the common thread of all of us – the Good News. We plan on doing a little teaching, talking, sharing, and celebrating concerning the ways He might want to use you on the individual platforms He’s given."

Since the conference is rapidly approaching, a few bloggers thought it would be fun to link up to some other women attending. I'm linking up to Jessi's post over at Naptime Diaries. The prompts for the meet and greet are pretty simple:

3 get-to-know-me things
2 things I'm looking forward to about the conference
1 thing I can't leave home without

get to know me

...I desire deep friendships but between being introverted and hearing impaired, I fear I often come across as rude. If I don't talk to you, please come up and talk to me! I'm just waiting for an icebreaker. Also, if we're talking and I don't reply or if I have a confused look on my face, I probably didn't hear you. I'm not ignoring you. I love listening!

...Completely on a whim, I changed my major to nursing at college orientation. I wanted to change majors every semester thereafter, but for some reason I stuck with it. The minute I graduated, I realized choosing nursing was one of the best decisions I ever made and I can't take any credit for it!

...I'm the oldest of 4 kids and the only girl. Consequently, I tend to mother people. It works great for my babies at work, but not so great for the ever-loving people in my life who don't want to be treated like they're 5 years old. Oops!

what I'm looking forward to at Influence

...Meeting like-minded women and making lasting friendships with women I seem to have a lot in common with.

...Exploring a new city and taking a vacation without the weight of homework hanging over me.

can't leave home without

...A water bottle and a snack in my purse. If I do leave without these things, I'm often cranky a few hours later!

p.s. 

...I'd love to learn how to blog less about myself and more about God's glory.

{my first day on the other side of clinicals}

This Master's degree I'm working toward? It's a Master of Science in Nursing with an emphasis in Education (it was either that or Administration and I would be a terrible manager).



I'm a teaching assistant at my school right now and I kind of got shoved into the role of clinical instructor this semester, which I wasn't really prepared for. Yesterday was the first day and oh. my. gosh. It was so stressful!

I mean, I wanted to alternately throw up, cry, and quit right this second all morning. I kept praying it would get better and eventually, once the unit census picked up and the students had something to do, I felt a bit of relief.

But JEEZ I was exhausted when I got home. I mean really, I wasn't even thinking straight or making conversation with Ross even though I was so relieved to come home to him at the end of the day.

I did get one of the best compliments of my life a few hours before post-conference, though. I was walking down the hallway and as I passed a nurse practitioner she said, "I've heard nothing but good things about you and your students today. Sometimes students just get in the way but not you guys!" I was walking on air after that. But this morning, I'm back to panic. Now I have to uphold that standard.

I could keep rambling, but I need to go do some quiet time before the crazy starts all over again. I'm still not sure I "have what it takes" to be a nurse educator per this video, but I'm chugging along.

If you're so inclined, please pray for my students and me today!

Cornbread 'Quiche'

Since school has started, the next 5 weeks find me doing school work + working four 12-hour shifts every week (2 as a clinical instructor, 2 as a NICU RN). In my life, that's Busy with a capital B. I still feel best when I'm eating my vegetables. I don't have time to prep a nice dinner most nights, and I can't afford to buy a bunch of prepared salads and cooked dishes, so I'm trying to get creative. This recipe is inspired by one Caitlin posted a few weeks ago.

Crust
(based off of my gluten-free cornbread recipe)

1 cup finely ground corn meal
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp xantham gum (optional) 
1/4 tsp salt
1 egg (or a flax or chia egg)
2 Tbs. olive oil
1 Tbs. honey
1/2 cup milk of choice

 
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

Mix the corn meal, baking powder, xantham gum, and salt well in a medium bowl.

In a small bowl mix the oil, honey, and egg.

Add wet to dry and stir until just incorporated. The mixture will seem dry and crumbly.

Coat a round pie pan lightly with cooking spray. Press the dough into the bottom of the pan and bake for 10 minutes.

Quiche 

4 eggs
1 cup fresh veggies (I used 1 zucchini and threw in some leftover black beans)
1/4 cup liquid (Milk, cream, or salsa would work. I used leftover enchilada sauce this time.)

While the crust is baking, saute veggies on the stove (I used 1 zucchini today and threw in some leftover black beans). Then whip eggs + liquid of choice in a small bowl. Remove the crust from the oven and layer the veggies over the crust. Then pour the egg mixture on top.

Place back in the oven and bake for 20 minutes. Makes 4 servings.

Spring Semester 2011

Ross is back in school this week. He's working 30 hours a week and taking 6 hours of grad classes this semester. It actually sounds like a good balance for him. He loves work (he calls it his "big kid job," which is true, but decidedly not the adult way of saying he's employed). Anyway, he certainly has fun looking the part:

New clothes and new shoes

His classes just started Tuesday but he's already in school mode:

computer programming

electronic mumbo jumbo

And what does he do on his first day off? Drive to Lawrence and build a new desk frame since apparently the one he built a few months ago is too tall. (Yes, he's getting rid of the original frame he got into the front door, couldn't get into the office, then couldn't get out the front door to take back to the shop. So he sawed it down, drove back to Lawrence, and eventually made it into a desk. Which lasted all of a month before he decided he didn't like it.) 

new greasy metal framework

I miss him on my days off now that he has a job with normal hours, but I'm proud of him! And speaking of days off, any ideas how I can spend mine now that studying isn't hanging over my head? 

(I'm serious: any and all ideas are welcome!)

Lessons

I do not learn from my mistakes. I complain about working too much overtime, yet I picked up a shift today. I hate it when I let people walk all over me, yet when a co-worker approached me yesterday and asked if I'd switch a day next week, I said yes! It wasn't even for a life or death matter on her part... it was a social event. It puts me at 4 shifts in a row, and I still said yes!

This morning when I was between sleep and awake (you know, when your dreams and thoughts get jumbled together) I started thinking beating myself up about the fact that I never follow through. I never take chances. I so rarely push myself to my potential.

My sister-in-law just finished grad school and Ross is in the process of doing so. My dad is an M.D. My mom has a Masters degree in special education.  My 23 year old brother just finished his first year of med school. My 21 year old brother want to go to law school. And my 18 year old brother will succeed in whatever he chooses once he decides what he wants to do!

I'm a Registered Nurse, for crying out loud! I have a BSN and one of the best jobs in this market, yet I feel inadequate. I loved my exercise physiology class in college, but I dropped it several weeks into the semester. I didn't finish my Spanish minor, even though I was just 6 hours short. I didn't study abroad, partly because I wanted to spend summer vacation with my long-distance boyfriend at the time! And even without all those luxuries (working on a Minor degree, studying overseas) I still graduated late! It's pretty pitiful.

In addition to all the personal bridges I burned in college, I also managed to bungle up one of the best oppurtunites I had to make something of myself. I barely tried.

I realize that this is a "poor me" post, and a little voice in the back of my head is telling me I should really be grateful that I have a college degree because that alone places me in an elite category as a citizen of this world. I understand that.  And I am so grateful for my parents and the way they raised me and the opportunities I DID have growing up. Because I had a lot of them. I don't mean to minimize that. It's just that when left to my OWN devices, I am an underachiever. And it bugs me.

As much as I love to dwell on the past and kick myself over and over again, the only thing I can change is the future. And, of course, give my two cents to every college student I know: go to the campus gym more often. You'll be a better student and feel better about yourself if you're active and healthy. Plus, you won't realize how nice it was to have access to a great gym for free, until it's gone. Study abroad. Even if it means leaving your college boyfriend for the summer. Even if it means taking out a loan. Even if it means graduating late. You may never have another chance to LIVE in another foreign city and (from what I hear) it's so different from being a tourist. Take classes outside your major. While I dropped my exercise physiology class and some other random classes here and there, I did take an honors class almost every semester and I LOVED them. It gave me a chance to get away from the school of nursing, read philosophy, and write papers instead of care plans.

But there I go looking backward again... if I knew then what I know now.

Looking forward, I still have my RNC to achieve by my 3-year nursing anniversary in January. And the Cowtown Marathon in February. Both of which scare the pants off me. But I need to push throught the fear for once in my life. The thing is, both of these goals require waking up and doing something to make something of myself. It won't just happen because I want so badly to achieve both of these goals. And the DOING something is the hardest part for me.

Beyond February, I would like to coach Girls on the Run and go abroad on some sort of medical mission trip for 2-4 weeks. But first I have to get out of bed every morning with an good attitude and a plan of attack.

I heard this song on my (terrible, slow, exhausting) run this morning and had to share. I first fell in love with this song right before I fell in love with Ross 3 years ago, but a lot of it can apply to life in general, not just love.

...I've been leavin' it up to fate, but it's my life so it's mine to make

I ain't settlin' for just gettin' by
I've had enough so-so for the rest of my life
Tired of shootin' too low, so raise the bar high
I ain't settlin' for anything less than everything.

With some good red wine and my brand new shoes
Gonna' dance a blue streak around my living room
Take a chance on love and try how it feels
With my heart wide open now you know I will
Find what it means to be the girl
Who changed her mind and changed her world

-from Settlin' by Sugarland

Oh what a beautiful morning...

I made homemade bagels this morning and before you start to think, wow, she's gone carb-crazy because of all the bread pictures on my blog, let me explain. I got a bunch of awesome books for Christmas, but most of them have to do with gardening and will therefore have to wait until spring. The book from my Grandma and Grandpa Schekirke, though, can best be put to use right now! It's called The Bread Baker's Apprentice by Peter Reinhart and it's amazing!

I first heard of this book when I took a bread baking class at Central Market and once I looked through it, I had to add it to my Christmas list. Since the cold weather has really been getting to me lately (snow was fun, but can it be spring now?!) I thought I'd bake my way thorough the book, a la Julie and Julia. This gives me something to do on my days off and warms up the apartment. Ross, of course, is fully supportive of this goal.

I also harbor a (not-so-secret-anymore) desire to own a bakery/coffee shop one day like the one I fell in love with in Canada. They had organic, healthy, and mostly local food... that tasted GOOD! I can make cakes, cookies, and muffins all the livelong day, but this is good practice for more complex "artisan" bakery offerings that require patience.

Yes, there's actually a picture of this bakery in our honeymoon photo album from Banff. It was that good!

Today was doubly great because boiling and then baking the bagels at 500 degrees F really warmed up the kitchen AND the sun was shining outside! I could almost pretend it was Texas weather. In fact, the sunshine so cheered me up that I was actually able to drag my lazy bum to the gym!

Back to the bagels... I'm afraid to put the actual recipes here for copyright reasons, but I still took nerdy pictures! This was the stiffest dough I have ever made. I still don't think my wonderful Kitchen Aid mixer has forgiven me. Once the dough rested, it was much more friendly.

The shaped bagels after resting in the fridge overnight

Apparently, people who know bagels say that if you don't boil them, it's just bread with a hole.

With poppy seeds, sesame seeds, dried onion, a little sea salt, and a pinch of garlic powder baked on

Look at that crumb structure! Reinhart would be proud.

Mmmm... the cinnamon and sugar caramelized in the oven

Bread Note: Next time, I won't boil the bagels all at once since I had to bake them in three rounds due to my non-industrial -sized oven. The ones that had to sit around between boiling and baking got soggy, lumpy, and flattened a little. They still taste good and don't look too bad once the toppings are on them, but you can tell they're a bit more dense.

In the meantime, Ross was also enjoying HIS Christmas present today! My parents and my mom's parents gave him Best Buy gift cards and he bought a really nice computer screen last week. Apparently in the design world, nice computer screens make all the difference. He then ordered the desktop tower from Dell, personalized to his "designing needs," and it arrived today! I don't think he got much sleep last night with all the anticipation!

Like Christmas morning all over again

Also, Ross said the day he ordered the desktop, the "Y" key stopped working on his laptop. I think it must know it's about to be replaced and wants to know the reason! After seeing the shiny new computer, though, I'm starting to understand "why" it's so much better.

We are pleased to inform you...

Ross finally heard back from the University of Kansas and he's in! He will officially start the MA in Design Management/Interaction Design program this January. He called the admissions office Monday morning (as usual) and the guy in charge said the design department was having their meeting at noon and Ross should hear by 1:30. Of course, he had no e-mails at 1:30 and he sat anxiously in front of his computer all day refreshing his e-mail.

At 5pm he had something in his inbox from Admissions and we opened it together. As soon as he read, "we are pleased to inform you," he slumped over and breathed a huge sigh of relief! It's been a long wait considering we were supposed to find out by the end of October. I can't imagine the stress he's been under and the mind games he's been playing with himself. As for me, I had given up on the department altogether and resigned myself to the belief that they weren't going to meet in time and NO ONE would be starting the program this spring. I'm so glad I was wrong!

In other news, we just got back from a long, relaxing Thanksgiving vacation in Omaha. It was so great to see my family. I hadn't seen a lot of them in over a year!

School Update

Ross and I have been waiting on tether hooks for his grad school acceptance letter. They were supposed to be out by the end of October. Fifteen students applied for the Interaction Design program and they are only accepting 7. This week has been stressful waiting for that, knowing I have night shift looming in front of me, and trying to manage the fact that even though I started work at my new hospital October 19, I don't get paid until November 13!

Today, Ross got an e-mail saying that things are going "slower than expected" and we should hear by the end of next week now. I guess there's nothing to do but wait some more! He's also getting antsy because while he got a job offer last week to work 35-40 hours a week, the manager has yet to call and put him on the schedule.

Needless to say, our little apartment has been fulled with stress and we're getting on each other's nerves. Please pray for peace in our household!