Officially a Graduate

Well hey now!  Sorry for my brief interruption this weekend, but as a I said earlier, it was my graduation weekend!  I graduated from UIC's College of Nursing with my BSN, as well as from UIC's Honors College.  Now all I have to do is pass the NCLEX-RN exam and I will be an official nurse!  Let me tell you...I cannot wait for this exam to be over.  I still have appx. 4-6 weeks before I will be able to test, so right now I am taking a review class to prepare.  School the week after graduation=no fun.

Here are some pictures from the weekend:

Before the Honors College graduation

After the nursing graduation

The fam :)

I will be back this week with more beautiful design photos.  I hope you all had a wonderful weekend!!

Graduation

Pardon my absence for the next few days....I'm GRADUATING tomorrow!! woohoo

I will be receiving my BSN tomorrow at 1:00.  These past four years have literally flown by, I can't believe its almost over.  I had the Honor's College graduation tonight, and it literally felt like I was just there as a spectator.  When will this sink in that its real?!

So I will be off celebrating the next few days!! Congrats to the Class of 2011!!

Nerves

Wishing I had a peaceful bathroom like this tonight where I could hide out and soak in the tub for hours.

Via Windsor Smith via DecorPad

I have my graduate school interview tomorrow, and I am beyond nervous. Seriously, my stomach is in knots.  The interview is at 3, and I am going to be a ball of stress until then.  I tossed and turned all night last night...I can't even imagine how tonight is going to be.  So hopefully all will go well, I am really dying to get accepted into this program.  Please be sending good thoughts and positive brain waves my way tomorrow around 3:00, I could really use them!

I Need Some Help!!

To all you moms out there...I need some help!  This week I start my pediatrics clinical rotation, and as part of our paperwork for the class, I have to do a teaching project on a child.  I'm using my boyfriend's neighbor to teach, and I'm teaching him about the importance of brushing his teeth (as identified by his mom...he hates brushing)!  He's 7 years old...and I want to make it fun so that he actually will want to brush his teeth.  Here is where you come in...any suggestions that you have done in the past to help inspire your kids to brush their teeth?  I have been looking online everywhere, and I'm not finding any great ideas!  Let me know if you have any!!

October!

Happy October (I know...one day late)!  Time is flying, I'm already almost halfway done with this semester!

I don't know about you...but I wish my table could look like this all the time  I really love that silver pumpkin centerpiece.  I really need to do some Halloween decorating in the apartment, maybe next week after my dreaded exam on Monday is over.  I'm off to study my brains out for the rest of the weekend, hopefully I'll still be alive come Monday afternoon.  Have a wonderful weekend all!

Image via HGTV

Needing to Study

Today I could really use a room like this and a big comfy chair so that I can curl up and actually get some studying done. I have my first exam of the semester tomorrow, and I'm totally unmotivated right now! But I think this little understated library is quite the beauty...maybe it would inspire me to get something done. So for now, I'm off to work, but I hope to have pics of a DIY project up tonight :)

Enjoy your sweet Sunday.

Image via Traditional Home.

Plan for Tonight

Its only Wednesday? This week has been seriously exhausting! I'm still not totally used to being back in school, and then having two days of clinicals kicked my butt. Like I said before, I'm on an adult psychiatric unit this semester, and its very tough to deal with. We've all heard about people with diseases such as schizophrenia or bipolar, but I've never actually known anyone with these disorders. Talking to these people and listening to their stories at the hospital is really eye-opening, and has given me a whole new perspective on things. So tomorrow is Thursday, meaning I don't have class! woo! Here's my plan for tonight:

Take a trek to UPS to pick up my package since I missed them early today. I finally bought:

Yes, yes, I finally gave in and bought it. For some reason, I usually don't buy books, but I couldn't resit any more. Can't wait to finally get my hands on my own copy. After the trip to UPS will follow:

A delish dinner. I get almost daily emails from Kraft with dinner ideas, and this one has been sitting in my inbox for a few weeks and I've been dying to try it. It's called Capellini Caprese and you can get the recipe here. I'll let you know how it is tomorrow!

And finally, my roomie and I planning on having a totally lazy night and watching my favorite movie ever.

Titanic! I can't wait. I hope everyone else is having an equally relaxing night!

Back to Our Regularly Scheduled Program...

So...school starts tomorrow. WHAT?! I'm in serious serious denial. Normally I am all planned out, have my folders ready with my syllabuses printed and highlighted, my planners marked with everything, lunch made...set to go. Fast forward to this year...and nothing. My syllabuses are printed, literally that is it. Not even stapled together or anything. Yikes. I don't even know my whole schedule tomorrow. Class at 830 and I think I'm done at 3. Ouch.

But being back in school essentially needs being completely back in the blogging world. It gives me a great excuse to procrastinate everything, and since my computer is literally on and by my side all the time, its much easier. In my posts early I was talking about all the big changes and events that were coming up, so here are my quick recaps.

1. Moving. ALL MOVED IN! Well, almost. I still have a small piece of furniture to bring down and the last bit of unpacking and setting up, but we are essentially all moved. All my DIY projects from over the summer and completed and set up, so I will have lots of exciting posts this week!

2. 21st birthday! How exciting this was for me. I had a wonderful birthday night at Carnivale in downtown Chicago with my family (and plenty of drinks were had by all) and a get-together in the new apartment the next night with friends. Feels great to finally be legal.

3. Mom's surprise party...it was just last night, and it went FANTASTIC! I could not be more thrilled with how everything turned out, and I cannot wait to share my pictures and everything. She was completely surprised and honestly today was still in shock, she just could not believe it. And I'm so relieved that it is all over.

So now I'm off to maybe staple some syllabuses together, make a lunch, and hopefully hit the hay. I have to be up at 630 tomorrow which is going to be a major shock to this girls system, so wish me luck! Lots of exciting posts to be shared, hopefully starting tomorrow if I survive the day!

D.a.d.

I have a secret. I had my final in my women's health class today, and I was a bit nervous about it. I was borderline with my grade, and before class I figured out I could only get like 6 wrong to keep an A. Out of 70. And going through it I was getting nervous because there were some tricky ones I wasn't sure about. But then on the last page there were three questions. And the answers spelled out dad. I knew then I would be okay, he was going to make sure. And I was! I got a 95% on the rest and kept my A in the class.

So thanks daddy...I miss you everyday!

Almost...

Just wanted to give yall a quick update. In less than 24 hours it will officially be summer!! Three finals done, one more to go. We start tomorrow at 9:00, so I'm hoping to be done by 9:30 at the latest. And then it is time for some serious celebration!!

Finals

And this is where you will find me this week...until Wednesday :( Oh how I love finals. I hope you can detect that saracasm. But I just have to get through four exams and it will be sweet sweet summertime. So I am saying farewell to blogging and most other entertaining things until Wednesday after, but after that, I have a fun new A-Z blog idea that I am going to be doing. See you then!

It's A Boy!!

This semester, I am in my Women's Health clinical rotation. Normally, we spend our time on the postpartum floor, which is a little boring to say the least. For the most part, its full of healthy women who just want to be left alone to spend time with their new baby. But for the last two days I was fortunate enough to be able to go to labor and delivery and see two babies born!! Both of them were healthy baby boys! The first day it was planned that I was going to go (we get to go to L&D once during the rotation and see a C-section once), but the second day was pure luck. I had a patient who was admitted to ante-partum for observation, and then they decided to move her over to L&D. So while my patient was sleeping, I got to go observe the birth of another patient. It was amazing. I want to be a midwife in the future, so these were the two best clinical days I've ever experienced.

Clinicals, Day 1

So...it was back to clinicals today. I'm not gonna lie, it was nice having a break from them during winter vacation, and it was hard having to get up at 5:30 this morning to start going back. BUT, I managed to force myself into bed around 12:30, and after a restless night of sleep (because I am paranoid that my alarm is not going to go off, so I wake up all throughout the night), I made it up and out the door by 6:15. Yuck. Clinicals this semester are at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, and what a hospital it is. If you live in the Chicagoland area and need any sort of surgery/medical procedure done...that is your place to be. All private patient rooms, state of the art everything...its wonderful.

I had a stresfull day today though. Our computer login's wouldn't work, so we basically spent the first hour of the morning standing in the hallway like lost children trying to figure out where to go and what to do. I've never felt like more of a student who knows nothing before. Finally, we were able to get started, and the day went by fairly quickly from that point on. Bed bath, hanging IVs, vital signs, assessments, medications...the usual for a nursing student. The biggest suprise of the day was that I was told my patient was a man...and when I walked into the room, there was a woman patient sitting in the chair! Oops, looks like a little mix-up by the instructor.

I forgot how uterly exhausted being in clinicals makes you. My friend said that other day that each time we go to clinicals is like starting a new job, and the more I think about it, the more I see how right she is. It's very stressful to feel like you don't really know what you're doing, I just feel so out of place sometimes. But we are learning a lot, and it is something that will definately become more comfortable in the future. Also, how many nurses are with just one patient for the entire day? ZERO!! So having only one patient can make for a long day sometimes, I think my patient was as worn out as I was by the end of my shift.

Highlight of my day... my patient saying that she "didn't order any nurses." She didn't understand why we were there, she simply didn't order us. I forgot hospitals are becoming the new restaurants...

:)

All in all...it was a good day. Now its time to start on the dreaded clinical paperwork, when all I really want to do is curl up in bed and sleep. Grey's and Private Practice is on tonight, might have to be my excuse for not getting everything done. We're back tomorrow morning bright and early again...and then its the weekend. Let's just say, I can't wait!