2009 in Review....

I started doing this a few years ago, and looks like I skipped it last year.. so, I think I'm gonna start it back up!

Year in Review: 2009...what year.....

-Celebrated one year wedding anniversary on May 13 with Ashley. Amazing how quickly that first year went by (and how quickly the second anniversary is coming up!)

-Discovered many ups and downs of marriage. Marriage really is work...but rewarding when you are married to your best friend. Things are going well and I'm realllly looking forward to our future and future plans. :)

-Graduated Nursing School (FINALLY!!!!!!!) AND most importantly, passed my board exam!! Woot!

-Resigned as CMA from the clinic at UK and began my new job as a Cardiac Nurse with UK. WOW, what a difference!

-Learned that being a nurse is one of the hardest, yet most rewarding jobs on the planet. Perhaps I'm biased on this one, but I strongly believe it.

-Celebrety Death's galore! RIP Patty, Farah, Brittney Murphy, Billy Mays, and of course Michael Jackson...and all the other twenty celebs I'm probably forgetting.... Wow. What a year!

-And yet, further discovery of who I am, and better yet, who I want to be.

Hopes for 2010:

-Continued furthering of my comfort level as a Nurse. I know I'm still new, but I feel like a terrified little kid when shit hits the fan at work. I carry things home with me, and I cry quite a bit in the comforts of my bed at the end of a hard shift (emotionally, that is). Part of me hopes that that will chill with time, the other part of me hopes I never lose that compassionate side.

-I hope 2010 is a better financial year for myself. 2009 was rough with the decrease of work hours in the begining to accomodate school, and the lovely added school loans *yuck*. I can't wait to file taxes and get myself set on a budget plan so I can work on our future and what that may bring.

-I need to get myself more organized at home and more motivated for home chores/projects. I feel like I give 200% at work, and am so tired when I get home that I just want to sleep (working >40 hrs in 3 days really makes a gal tired!). I hope to find a better balance as I further adjust to night shift and the field of nursing.

-Weight loss. Do we need to go there?

-I'd love to have peace and closure with some things of the past. This is one that I know will never happen, but I'd like to at least hope maybe this year will bring some opportunities in many areas to obtain the peace and closure I'd like to have.

I know I'm forgetting past events and future goals, but that's what I have for right now. :) 2010...Bring it....but be nice.

Where does the time go???

I seriously cannot get use to writing "2010"... and the ongoing discussions of the "proper" way to refer to the year.... two thousand ten, or twenty ten. All I can think of is that if my math is correct, this year I turn the big 3-0. YIKES!!! I am DETERMINED to simply skip it this year... I'm working on research on that one..... I'll keep ya updated on it. ;)

Well, as always, Christmas came and went way too fast. Christmas was nice. The morning after Christmas we headed to Nashville for the weekend and on Sunday went to the UK Bowl game. It was a FUN weekend with some good friends. We went out on the town Saturday night and just had a blast. We walked so much and I am almost convinced we went in almost every bar in Nashville. I have always LOVED the town, and always have such a good time. Sunday was tailgating in major cold temps on the river with the wind prior to the game. It was soooo freakin' cold, but fun. Again, UK lost so that sucked, but it was still a fun game! Now only 8 months til kick off of a new football season for the CATS!! :)

Work is still going as well as it can. I love my coworkers and am starting to enjoy work....for the most part. Of course I just jinxed myself and tomorrow night I will have a group of crazy patients...lol.

Tonight I am sitting on the couch watching Home Alone, fighting a cold. Yes, I am aware Christmas is over, however I like this movie. Plus, the second that we deleted our HBO/Showtime package, all the other channels stopped having anything worth watching on. I guess I could clean off the DVR, but am catching up on some internet blogs/facebook/etc. It was suppose to be a girls night out, but my cold had plans to worsen causing me to not be up to going out tonight. I must say, with as much go go go as I've been doing the last few weeks, it's really nice to have a night at home with the girls (despite the massive runny nose and cough) just relaxing with the house alllll to myself.

Well, I hope this finds everyone out there in bloggerland doing well and hope you had a wonderful holiday and new year, wherever you celebrated it! Cheers in 2010.... will post my annual "year in review" soon...may do that now even!

Christmas Tree. (check)

Well, it seems that every year I get later and later on putting up the tree. I use to be very much of a black friday tree put'er upper. Now, here we are just a little more than 2 weeks and I *finally* put it up. Yes, at 2am. Hey, when you work nights, this is my day! :)

My husband and I started dating late June of 2004. Our first Christmas I had an ornament engraved at Things Remembered. We like it so much, that we decided to begin that as one of our "traditions". Every year I go and pick out our ornament. The last few years I have been purchasing at Santa's Pen which has a stand in our local mall. I go there first, pick it out, shop, go back in a few hours and pick up our annual ornament. Although, at last glance, I think we are running out of selection as they don't' seem to really update much of their inventory from year to year...may be time to search elsewhere... bummer. Anyways, once we expanded our family with our furbabies, I started getting family ornaments each year (in addition to an ornament for the year we adopted our furbabies)..... getting ahead of myself...

So, tonight I continued my own Christmas tradition once the hubbs went to bed. I fixed a nice little Woodford Reseve and coke, put 2 movies in the dvd. (1. The Christmas Story, and 2. Christmas Vacation) and began the battle of putting up the tree. Mission accomplished.

Now, I'm up with a *few* more hours to kill before hitting the sack in preparation to return to work tomorrow night. I have always loved our ornaments and thought I would post pictures of them and share with my blog family. :) Enjoy. Now to put a check mark by the Christmas Shopping (which I haven't started.... list is partially made though!) Next years goal: tree up and shopping DONE by this point. I think I said that LAST year too??????

Note: these pics are in total random order, because blogger is acting up tonight. KILLS my OCD, too!

Attempted at posing #1.

I know this one is in the box, but it still always makes me sad when I open it..... miss you bud.

Engraving is hard to see. This was the first one, 2004.

My "helper"

"No more pic, momma. lemme sleep!"

Success at a cute pic in front of the tree. Sis is sleeping in bed with daddy. We'll harrass her later! ;)

Great movie!

of course this is one of my FAVS!

Are you SERIOUS?!?!

Well, it appears I go ages without a post, and now have a bazillion things I need to blog about...all in a 24-48 hr period. Sometimes this is an awesome sign of awesomeness going on in my life. Sometimes, it's like THIS post, in which I'm just pissed. If you are on my facebook, some of this is not new to you, since I've been bitching on FB about some of it...some of it is new.

For starters...let's talk careers. Not just jobs. Nursing is a career that has many jobs within it. I LOVE nursing. I cannot imagine doing anything else. Period. The JOB I want is in Pediatrics. Once again, I was in the running for a position. Everything was going well until I got "the call" stating I didn't get the position (yet AGAIN). I missed work in my current position due to illness. *****Side note: if you are sick you get an occurrence. if you have a drs note, it doesn't matter, still an occurrence. If you play hookie, you get an occurrence.... no way around it. Come to work sick, you will get sent home..and even THATS an occurrence. So, now you are familiar with my crappy attendance policy.***** Because I've had a couple of occurrences, I can't transfer for a few months. Well, there is no rule stating this, it's just the peds manager's decision. They really emphasized "this is NOT a no, never.. this is a no, not right now... they are REALLY interested in you, but want to see if your attendance will improve before they offer you a position." Well, lovely. Therefore I'm stuck in the job I can't stand...cardiac.... doing an intense mandatory online class. I'll end this one with a positive and say that I'm just very glad I really enjoy my night shift coworkers.

Annnnnnnddddd now. We come to an issue that is unresolved and has me super pissed. When it came time to schedule holidays at work (we are open 24/7/365) we were told we had to work 2 out of 3 of the holidays. I worked the night before Thanksgiving, meaning I got off at 7:30ish on turkey day. So, I signed up to work New Years Night (1/1/10). This meant I didn't have to be there until 7pm...plenty of recovery time, etc, etc. Schedule was printed and released and it was allllll fine. Until. Today. I get an email stating my schedule has been changed, and to check it. I am now scheduled to work 12/25, 12/30, 12/31. I'm being told that the 25th isn't a holiday since I don't go in until 7pm. Umm. WHAT?!?! *****More policy info... you do not get any additional pay for working a holiday. We are all given X number of additional vacation time that has to be used up by June 1st. Working a holiday does not affect this set number of hours.. no time and a half... not even a freakin' free meal. Bullshit.****** I feel violated, and I don't feel that the proper amount of lube was used.

I will update as I know more..... pleassseeeeee cross your fingers. I want to see my hubby at some point, and I'm super superstitious about New Year's Eve. And who will I kiss at midnight? :( This is shaping up to be the worst holiday season EVER!!!!!!!

Blog about Blogs.

I've done this in the past...shared some blogs or sites that I enjoy passing time with. Time that I SHOULD be doing housework, work required classes, sleeping, exercising, enriching my mind with literature... you know, all the non-essential crap. (haha). If you know me well, you know that I spend a LOT of time on facebook. (Not a word, Ashlely..not a word.). But I know you are just dying to know what else I do, right?!?! So.. here's some recommendations.

I'm NOT saving the best for last... gonna post best site first. My Husband Is Annoying. This is hilarious. The woman loves her husband, but is annoyed by a lot of things he does, so she blogs about it. They've even appeared on the Today show (the blog is not a secret to him). Most women will easily read and giggle and think of some similarities to their s.o. I highly recommend at least a little reading.

Next, Lamebook for those who love Facebook. I will admit, some of the things on here I don't find the humor in, but there are a lot of things that make me LOL. Some things I've seen on here remind me of things MY friends have said/posted...lol.... ok, things I'VE posted...tomato tomaTOE..lol.

PassiveAggressiveNotes is a submission blog that is mostly pictures of things submitted. A lot of them make me nearly snort when reading/looking at the pictures... I'm pretty sure I've got some pics on my iphone that would fit right in. lol

Lastly, Sorry I missed your Party. This also has a few that I'm more worried about the people than entertained of their video/picture. I think it's that Nurse instinct??? But, still has some pretty funny/wild pics (and a few vids) of some parties. Worth a look, at least.

So what do you pass some time with?

2 months..

Wow. It's been exactly two months since my last blog. I figured that once I got out of school and adjusted to a new career, that life would slow down. Based on my blog frequency, I guess it's obvious that...well. I was wrong. Life continues to stay busy. With what you asked? Let me give the random update.

I've landed myself as captain of a dart team. Like everything it has it's highs and lows, fun and frustrating times. Mostly it's busy.

Work has improved. I'm off of orientation/training and a regular staff nurse! I'm still not crazy about cardiac, but hey it's a job until I can get on in the children's hospital. I've switched to night shift which I actually love. It's less stress, less physical labor, much more pay...everyone's asleep for the most part, and my coworkers are awesome. I have a new boss who is also awesome, so I really can't complain about much...except for the fact it's not peds. For now, it'll do.

Being a "staff" nurse is a little scary. Ok. A LOT scary. I never really thought of the stress that goes into this career. Now, granted, I never thought it was gonna be a walk in the park. However, knowing that I am responsible for a patient surviving the night is just terrifying at times. I don't mean that towards my skills or knowledge..just scary in general. And it's not like you only get one patient. Heart monitors going off, meds to pass, assessments to do, oxygen levels dropping.... and when it rains, it pours. It's not like all of this is stretched out over the 12 hrs. Ohhhh no. When one heart monitor goes off, I'm convinced they call or text message each other and time it so that numerous monitors go off at the same time.

With a new shift comes a new lifestyle. The girl who the night before work was in bed by 10, is now the girl that the night before work, is up all night until 4 or 5 am. And it's hard to be quiet. Even the simple tapping of the keyboard right now seems super magnified and I'm convinced that when I breath too loud it will wake up the whole neighborhood. I seem to get in a cleaning mood around 2am...dishes, laundry, vacuum.... but I dont' want to wake the hubbs up. I know when I'm sleeping at 2pm after a night of work (2pm is a night shifters 2am), I certainly wouldn't want to wake to the "lovely" sound of a vacuum.

It's also football time in the bluegrass!!!!! For the past two seasons it's been hit and miss on my availability to attend games, and games I could attend..... tailgating was super limited!! This season, we've tailgated and been to every game except the very first game... the UK vs UL game tickets were so expensive so we had a cookout/party at our house and had a blast. The weather was perfect, the food was awesome, and the company rocked... and the CATS won. Needless to say, that win thing hasn't happened as much as I had hoped. There are 5 games left, and 2 of which are home games. We will be at the game this coming sat vs EKU. Surely to GOD we will win this one. The last home game is vs TENN (booooo rocky top!!!!!!!!!!!!!!). It's on the weekend of thanksgiving so our attendance to that one is up in the air based on weather, tix, and what we are doing for the holidays since I have to work the Wed night (7p-7a) before thanksgiving.

In new and developing, and worrying news, my mom received a call late tonight from her dr's office that her mammogram came back bad. We don't know anything other than that at this time and will hopefully hear from the dr for more news on this soon.

Well, not much interesting stuff going on in this post..... guess I shall catch up some DVR shows and try to stay awake for a few more hours.

Another Birtday!!!!

Yesterday was my hubby's Bday!! I'd like to wish the man I married, the man I am spending forever with, and my best friend the greatest bday ever. (I'm late blogging it, but still). We went out and celebrated all the way until nearly 3am this morning. SHEW. I'm pooped. Guess I really AM getting old????

In past on Ashley's bday, I've posted poems, songs, etc.... this year it's gonna be a song.. and it's one that he probably has never heard as he isn't much into country. It came on my ipod last night and just seemed like an appropriate bday lyric blog!

My Wish- (rascal flatts)
I hope that the days come easy and the moments pass slow,
And each road leads you where you want to go,
And if you're faced with a choice, and you have to choose,
I hope you choose the one that means the most to you.
And if one door opens to another door closed,
I hope you keep on walkin' till you find the window,
If it's cold outside, show the world the warmth of your smile,
But more than anything, more than anything,

My wish, for you, is that this life becomes all that you want it to,
Your dreams stay big, and your worries stay small,
You never need to carry more than you can hold,
And while you're out there getting where you're getting to,
I hope you know somebody loves you,
and wants the same things too,
Yeah, this, is my wish.

I hope you never look back, but ya never forget,
All the ones who love you, in the place you left,
I hope you always forgive, and you never regret,
And you help somebody every chance you get,
Oh, you find God's grace, in every mistake,
And you always give more than you take.
But more than anything, yeah, and more than anything,

My wish, for you, is that this life becomes all that you want it to,
Your dreams stay big, and your worries stay small,
You never need to carry more than you can hold,
And while you're out there getting where you're getting to,
I hope you know somebody loves you,
and wants the same things too,
Yeah, this, is my wish.

My wish, for you, is that this life becomes all that you want it to,
Your dreams stay big, and your worries stay small,
You never need to carry more than you can hold,
And while you're out there getting where you're getting to,
I hope you know somebody loves you, and wants the same things too,
Yeah, this, is my wish.
This is my wish

I hope you know somebody loves you
May all your dreams stay big