Tis the Season

I started out yesterday morning on the wrong foot.

I was running on time to get out the door to leave for clinical.

I opened my car door and my finger got slammed between it and the car next to me's side mirror. My finger felt awful and then I looked at it.

I was missing a couple of layers of skin. I ran back inside the house and put peroxide on it and an antibiotic. I bandaged it up and put some extra band-aids in my pocket.

I got back in my car, now 10 minutes behind.

I jumped on 147 and the highway was blocked off to one lane. I sat on the highway for 15 minutes without moving a mile. My anxiety went threw the roof. I tried to keep my cool

Once I broke through the traffic, I floored it. I made it okay in my mind to go a bit over the speed limit. Being late to clinical is not acceptable. 

The good thing about my nasty finger booboo? Every time I washed my hands or rubbed alcohol foam on them...it burned like hell. Guess how many times a day I do one of the above mentioned? CONSTANTLY

I was in pain all day =(

Yesterday was the day after a full moon and it was 11-11-11. Guess what that did to the amount of babies that were born?

You can only imagine.

Lance and I stayed up last night answering Who Wants to Be a Millionaire and Jeopardy questions over the phone. Turns out I remember a lot of the Dr. Seuss books.

I woke up earlier than expected this morning-11 something.

I called Lance because I was supposed to wake him up to be productive. He was actually up. We both couldn't get back to sleep.

I decided to read through my mind map assignment for Maternity.

Then I studied the first lecture that will be covered on Wednesday's Maternity exam.

The highlighter that I have used all semester finally ran out of yellow staining power. I've had the worst luck with highlighters. They usually run out after a week. Looks like I got a good package the last time.

I started getting tired so I went for a walk. I wasn't going to let myself take a nap today.

I got the great idea to go to Target and buy Christmas decorations. When I moved out here, I had grand plans to decorate the crap out of my place when the holidays came around.

Now that the time has come, I've been really lazy. I wasn't going to do anything at all. I will be home in Texas for 9 days over Thanksgiving and then I will come back for only 2 weeks. It seemed like a waste of time.

....BUT, I just couldn't resist

That just isn't me. I need Christmas stuff.

I started out with the tree by the fireplace.

Alley couldn't resist getting near it. At home in Texas she sleeps under the tree almost every night over the holidays.

I decided to move the tree in front of the window so it could be seen from outside.

Notice Alley to the right of the tree =)

I bought a stocking holder.

Some wintery pillows.

I bought a throw and a wall decoration.

I switched out the orange lights with some rainbow ones on the fireplace.

I replaced the Halloween window decals with some Christmas ones in the kitchen. 

 Stesha called me up to go eat some Barbecue with her, her boyfriend, and her boyfriend's friend who was visiting from DC.

It was a place called The Original Q Shack. It was a Texas BBQ place.

I noticed they had the Shiner that I brought Lance last Christmas when we first started dating.

It's the one in the middle-Holiday Cheer.

I'm not big into BBQ, but anyplace that has mac & cheese and beans is okay in my book.

We ate in kind of a family style way. We ordered 3 meats and 3 sides. I also got a sweet tea.

I only ate the turkey.

I found the Texas memorabilia entertaining. Especially the stuffed armadillo that had fur sprouting from its belly by the ordering counter....

I am now cuddled in my bed, relaxing.

Bad-Ass Contractions

Please excuse more Fall photos. They will be sticking around on the blog until the leaves fall off the trees. They change everyday and I feel like I keep missing it!

I'm finding it difficult to squeeze in a run after my Wednesday classes. Class gets out at 4 and the sun set yesterday at 5:13. I had to jump in my car, drive home, jump out of my car, tie up my running shoes, and hit the pavement.

I had planned on hitting the books right away for my Peds exam, but my mind always gets in the way. No, I needed food. Stesha really wanted to go to dinner, so we did.

Once I sat down to study, it was already 7:30, yikes!

I put in around 2 hours of studying and then settled in for bed.

I planned on waking up early and studying, but my lazy side hit snooze for an hour.

I sat threw a lecture on gonorrhea and chlamydia for an hour in Community Health and then took my Peds exam.

It was harder than the last one, but I'm hoping my A test average holds up. I think I confused some of the acquired heart diseases.

After the exam, we had a guest lecturer who works in pediatric oncology. She spoke really fast and gave a lot of details on different kinds of cancer. My head was spinning and there was too much information being thrown at me on an exam day. My brain shut down.

I came home and cleared my head with a run. It was raining, but I didn't care. I put on my rain jacket and went.

I finished up my presentation on Postpartum depression that I have to give tomorrow at the end of clinical.

Then it was time to finish up about 70 pages of Pushed reading.

I'm sorry...I couldn't help but laugh when I got to this heading in the reading.

Guess what?

Bad-ass contractions from pitocin are not so "bad-ass". 

They can cause the baby to become hypoxic and the mother to literally not get a "breather". 

I finished everything up by 9 pm.

I got a call from Lance right before the end of that and had to call him back. He thought I was asleep...haha.

We talked for the second time today. He is in the midst of studying for finals and I'm impressed at how much we are still able to talk on the phone. 

Time for some rest.

I say a little prayer for you

I started my day off with a little bit of Peds studying.

I went for a run to enjoy the beautiful weather. It got up to 70 today. Does that count as an Indian Summer?

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that they put up some orange fencing that displayed a sign that read something about it being a tree protection area. I knew it sounded bogus. Today they were tearing the trees down. It looks like a mess.

I made myself lunch and realized there was a praying mantis perched on my porch chair.

He moved every time I moved to get closer. I didn't want to push my luck. I'm also terrified of these creepy things.

Speaking of praying, I watched some YouTube videos last night.

I went from watching this:

to this:

and that led to this:

Those are all some of my favs.

Moving on...

Stesha and I studied Peds together for an hour or so and then I headed up to school for a Honduras meeting.

The purpose of the meeting was to meet everyone that is going on the trip. It was short and sweet.

We will not meet again until January 17th for our first "class".

I studied more Peds when I got home and I just read a little bit of a Pushed chapter.

I'm all snuggled in bed and ready for some TV.

2 Weeks Until Thanksgiving Break

I woke up this morning to a man banging on my door. I ran downstairs and was happy to see two boxes sitting on my doorstep. 

I quickly opened them.

Christmas came early for this lucky girl.

My parents had sent me a wonderful package from Bath and Body Works.

I think I have enough to last me until I move back to Texas!

I started off my morning with a cup of coffee and took my Community Health quiz.

Once that was taken care of, I went grocery shopping. I've been out of food for days and I've been making bad fast food choices.

Once the groceries were put in their places, I went for a run.

I ran for 3 miles and then walked another half a mile.

My pumpkins seem to know that Halloween is over. They are molding and look disgusting.

We'll see how many days it takes me to dispose of them.

I made some pasta salad and soup for dinner.

I watched an hour and a half Research Lecture and read 3 chapters in that book. 

I started working on my presentation that I  have to give at clinical this Friday. Mine is on postpartum depression. I've just about finished it up.

I might read a chapter in Pushed to get one out of the way for next week's Maternity exam.

I will finally start studying for this week's Peds exam, tomorrow. 

I'm getting anxious about all the stuff I have to do.

One. Day. At. A. Time.

Case of the lazies

The cold and dry weather has left my poor hands cracked. Washing them constantly doesn't help either.

I had to pull out my handy-dandy Gold Bond lotion to survive this weekend.

Friday morning I was double fisting coffee on my drive.

driving up to WakeMed

I had the pleasure of being around miracle workers all day long.

I spent the day in one of these:

I was amazed all day.

On Saturday, I had the thought of writing a research critique hanging over me all day. I kept putting it off. My boyfriend and I used each other to procrastinate. We talked on the phone for over 2 hours and I'm sure it was because we both had so much to do.

Once I sat down and wrote the critique...it took me about 2 hours to complete it.

the finished paper

My plan is working.

Alley is becoming acclimated quite well to her carrier. 

I caught her resting in it.

I've noticed that I have been sleeping 12 hours a night on the weekends. I don't know if this is because of long clinical days, school in general, the weather...or if I've come down with something that is causing it.

I woke up after sleeping 13 hours last night and became tired 2 short hours later. It just doesn't seem normal.

My brain is exhausted. 

I wrote another paper today and I'm calling it quits until tomorrow. I have so much that is due in the next two weeks that I am stressing out. I hope I get it all done in time.

It's the Holiday Season

Happy Wednesday!

I started out yesterday morning afternoon with sweeping the back porch. The leaves looked very pretty scrambled all over my porch, but I know they will get all nasty and stick after the next storm.

I made some coffee and stirred in some Hazelnut creamer...mmmm!

I skipped breakfast... and lunch too.

I made the best/worst decision yet: moving my blu ray player upstairs to my room.

It is settled on my bed-the perfect distance between one cord going to the TV and the other to the power outlet. It's probably a fire hazard. 

I haven't gotten my DVD player to work since I moved here. The solution was to bring the blu ray player to my room. The thing is...it's hooked to Netflix and Pandora. Productivity will now decline.

I spent a big chunk of the day listening to a Christmas station on Pandora.

I already know I'm crazy for jumping on the Christmas bandwagon this early...don't try and change me.

I did a short run and walk. It felt good to get out and get some exercise after a weekend full of the lazies. 

My phone pictures look pathetic after posting the gorgeous ones from Monday.

I had to get to school 30 minutes early this morning for a review of last week's Maternity test. It always turns into a courtroom where everyone is pleading their case on why they chose a certain answer. I find it amusing when the professor tells them their thought process is wrong. 

The dynamics between Maternity and Peds is so different. The professors in Peds are very lenient on exam questions. I think 20% of the class got one of the questions wrong...so they threw out the question.


We had a midwife come in and talk for the first hour of actual class.
She brought up the video I mentioned in my post from the summer. She said she always starts out her lectures to med students with it.
I'll insert it again.
It's funny....only because it's true.

During lunch, we were given boxed lunches and a seminar.

The seminar was about applying for our license and the whole process. 

Guess what?

The process starts very soon-January.

The first step is getting our fingerprints done. haha 

It looks like the process will go much faster if I apply for a NC license and then have it transferred to Texas. Luckily, Texas is a compact state. That will make my life a little easier when the time comes.

I've got another YouTube video that a professor showed us during Leadership lecture.

It plays off the notion of having electronic records.

We talk about going to electronic health records that can be accessed by all your health care providers. 

Could you imagine how creepy the following would be?

I hightailed it home after class to come home and take my Maternity quiz. I completed that and got in a run.

I finally finished up last week's Research lecture and reading. Now I need to move on to this week's.

I have been chugging water ever since my dehydration headache this weekend. I got down a gallon today while I was at school. The only downside is I kept getting up to go to the bathroom. I barely made it to each break on the hour.

Today marked the last day I will register for classes in nursing school.
Can I get a "Wooooohoooo"?