I am old

So I just celebrated my birthday. I have to admit that I didn't really expect that I would really turn 30. Though I imagined getting old and gray with grand kids running around, turning 30 never really played into my imagined world.
I am not so much upset about being 30, it just doesn't seem like a number that fits ME. Plus kissing my 20's goodbye is... well... just weird!
Not long ago people in their 30's were these very old people, they were practically over the hill. I am definitely no where near over the hill. I feel nearly the same as I did when I was 25, and that isn't very old.
My sister tells me to look on the bright side, I am in a much better place professionally, financially, and romantically than I was when I turned 20. That is very true. I am happy with my life and where I am. But frankly, I liked that life better when I was 29.

Facebook

So I caved. I joined Facebook. I have been resisting for a very long time, then about a month ago I was sitting in Relief Society, after the announcements someone raised her hand and announced that a new baby had been born in the ward. The woman at the stand replied, "well that was on facebook so I didn't think that I needed to announce it." I sincerely thought that others in the ward would resent that a little, not even the old ladies (70+) were with me. They all had facebook pages and were friends with everyone in the ward.
Seriously, I am more technologically backward than the old people?!?!? It was then that I knew that I couldn't hold out much longer.

Well, I have been spending a lot of time not doing much, I can't move around well enough to make the bed, sweep, mop, vacuum, or put hardly anything away (having your hands full of crutches is very limiting). So I spend a lot more time reading, on the computer, and trying to clean (it took me almost an hour unload the dishwasher, how sad). It was during that, "what am I going to do now" time that I signed up for facebook.

It is not all that I thought that it would be. I didn't realize it was a small-blurb kind of thing. I thought that it would be a little closer to blogs. It is not. It does though connect you to lots of people. I don't know how it does it, but people that I know kept popping up on the right of the screen asking if I wanted to make them my friends. That was cool.

I also like that since I am incredibly slow getting on, I know tons of people and found lots of people pretty fast. There have to be some perks to my tardiness. :)

Little Mishap

Well, as most of you know, I am the epitome of grace. In fact, I think that I may add my picture to the definition on Wiki.
I have managed to break my right distal fibula by tripping over laundry. I am myself impressed with this feat as it seems nearly impossible to fathom. And yet it is.
For those of you (I imagine most people) who don't know what this is, I have an x-ray (this is not mine, the orthopedic surgeon that I saw had the gall to keep the x-rays that I was given in the ER, ha ha). The fibula is the smaller of the two bones in the lower leg, I broke mine right above where these bones join with the foot bones which means that my ankle currently has little stability.


What that means to me is that I am limited in my ability to do much, I am on crutches for a while. I also am not able to work which leaves me with lots of free time. I thought that this might mean that I would have a really clean house, but it turns out that it is really hard to put things away when both of your hands are always occupied with crutches.


And for all of the curious out there, this is what your foot looks like when you gracefully trip over laundry and break your distal fibula. It swells up and turns all sorts of pretty colors.

On the very bright side, if you happen to be moving furniture that day, your family shows up moving all of said furniture and lets you sit in a chair and supervise. Also, if you happen to be a nurse who is supposed to work Thanksgiving, you get that off. In addition, your very sweet (and sometimes over protective) husband, takes good care of you, doing all of the laundry, dishes, and most other house cleaning.

Vacation to St. Thomas

These are pictures from my vacation to St. Thomas in the US Virgin Islands. We went with my Aunt Carol, Uncle Jim, cousin Peter, and my parents. It was super fun. These first pictures are when we first got to the hotel, this is the view from the balcony of the hotel, amazing huh! I have a sad face because my sunglasses broke while they were in my bag on the plane, bummer!


This is Greg and me on the water taxi to St. John.

This is one of the beaches on St. John, how beautiful is that, Amazing!!! And then my adorable parents. Aren't they so cute together. I love it!

This is Greg and my cousin Peter in the back seat while we drove around St. John (it was Greg's favorite pic of him from the trip so I thought that I would include it. The other is of my sweetheart snorkeling which turned out to be a huge success. It was hard to get him out of the water. Below is of Greg and I snorkeling, it is a little blurry but I still loved it. Just don't make it any bigger than this and it is ok. :)



This is an island called Lovango (it was love and go previously because it was the home of lots of brothels, they shortened the name though, and now there are no more brothels). This particular lot is for sale, thought you might want to know, it is selling for a very reasonable $5 million. If you decide to buy let me know, I will want to visit.
If any of you can tell me how to get your pictures and text placed where you want it I would love to know, it is something that I struggle with.

I passed my exam!!!

In order to become a real nurse practitioner and not just a registered nurse with a lot of school debt I had to pass a certification exam. I took that test today and PASSED!!! YEAH!!!! I can't even express how excited I am. When I got my results I called my entire family screaming and did several you-belong-in-a-mental-institution dances in the middle of the University of Utah campus every time I said the words "I passed". Then when I was thinking by myself in my car I just started to sob. This test is the culmination of 9 years of schooling. Right now I feel very validated in all that I have done to get here.
What does this mean now? Well, first it means that I get to dish out a bunch of money to get a Utah State license (which somehow really does seem like an opportunity and privilege), then it means that I can go look for a job with some authority, and hopefully find something that pays me more than I make now and allows me to work normal hours instead of all night shifts (a huge bonus).
I am just so dang excited! I was so nervous about this, I have been praying like crazy and am so grateful that the Lord took such good care of me.
YEAH, Nurse Practitioner!!!

New Favorite Website

So my very cute neighbor,Chrisitne, told me about this website yesterday and I think that I have now spent about 4 hours reading it.
www.thepioneerwoman.com
I highly recommend it. It is written by a woman named Ree, she was a city girl who married a cattle rancher and thus became a pioneer woman. She talks about her life, posts amazing looking recipes (with step by step pictures), has a photography section where she posts her photos as well as tips, and she even delves into the joys and difficulties of homeschooling (terrifying if you ask me).

But really it is her witty banter that has kept me reading for hours on end. She is hillarious.

I do feel an obligation to warn you though, if you look you may need to set aside some time. I didn't and somehow the time passed and then there was no dinner for my sweet husband when he got home from work.

Blogs

So I saw Julie and Julia tonight, I must say that I recommend it highly. Even my movie-phobic sweetheart was into it, a very rare occurrence. The story was well developed and the actors were all in great, Meryl Streep was really amazing as Julia Child and Amy Adams did a good job keeping up with Meryl's talent.
Really I was reflecting upon this because half of the movie is about Julie blogging about cooking and she gets all excited the first time that she gets a comment which is followed by the realization that if 53 people comment it is likely that a lot more are reading the blog.
I am not dreaming that 53 people read my blog, but I did get some comments that are from someone that I don't know, a Jhon. Who knows, this person may be reading this post right now.
The thing is that the thought that someone else would care enough to read something that I say on the internet is a little amazing to me. I mean really, who am I? I thought that my friends would read it (though there are probably far fewer that do than I would hope) and that my family might care but certainly no one else.
Really I do this for me, to give voice to thoughts, to feel important by posting my pictures, to celebrate victories, to be bigger than I really am.
And yet here I sit tonight whether anyone reads this or not, I am just me, no more important, no bigger. But happy none the less, that someone does read what I have to say, and hopeful that they still will, especially those friends and my family who matter to me most.

Graveyard Shifts

It is on nights like this that I realized that working graveyards is a serious bummer. Most of the time it really isn't that bad (except for the part where I leave for work about 30 minutes after my husband gets home from his job). But then there are those nights that for no good reason at all my body says, "Well, I am often up at this hour, lets do it tonight." On those nights I lay in bed thinking, "Maybe if I don't open my eyes I will just go back to sleep." Soon it becomes painfully obvious that I am not going back to sleep and if I toss anymore I will not be the only one laying there awake. I then get up and try to come up with something semi-productive to do.
This can be challenging because of the quiet factor. I don't want to watch TV too loud (and I don't know if you have ever tried to find something worth watching at 3 am, the selection is meager at best), I don't want to bang dishes or run my loud dish washer, you can't vacuum, I don't want to start the washer or dryer (not to mention the hamper is in my bedroom with my lucky sleeping husband). Tonight that leaves the internet.
Sadly as I attempt to pass the hours before dawn (or better yet until I become tired again) I realize, I don't know how to aimlessly surf the net.
Oh well, perhaps the boredom will get me closer to returning to my bed.

Family Vacation

We just got back from California. We spent some time at my parent's timeshare in Ventura California. We hung out on the beach and playing in pools and made a trip down to Disneyland. Most of the time was spent together but we went our own ways too. Greg and I drove down to San Diego so that he could play disc golf at his favorite course and then ate dinner at the best restaurant, Indigo Grill. If you are going to San Diego I highly recommend it. We had a really good time.
I was a little worried because it was our first vacation with all of the new brothers-in-law. It is a little bit of a change in dynamic but it worked out just fine, no fights and everyone still likes each other. I believe that this is the very definition of a success. :)

My 1st Anniversary

I have heard many times that the first year is the hardest. All I can say is that if that is the worst life has for me, bring it on!!!! :)
I really hit the jackpot in my sweet husband. This year has been a ton of fun. We have, of course, had a few conflicts but nothing that would make me say, "wow, that was the hardest year!" Instead I find that I am blissfully happy. I love waking up next to my sweet Gregory, I love that when he gets up ridiculously early (like 5:00) he covers me up and kisses me goodbye and lets me sleep in later. I love that the other day when I came home he came charging up the stairs as soon as he heard me just to hold me. I love that no matter how many times I want to hear about how he loves me he never gets annoyed or tired to saying it.
I told Greg that he was in charge of our anniversary because I planned Valentines Day (that really wasn't fair since Valentines Day is also his birthday). So he got us a reservation at the Tuscany, the restaurant where we were married. It was beautiful. We sat outside in the wonderful evening air and enjoyed each other. There was a wedding that night also, so we watched their wedding and asked if they would be as happy as we are.
I hope that this time next year they look at each other and think, "life, if that is the worst you have, bring it on!"

I AM FREE!!!

So when I moved into my ward I was called to work in the nursery. It should be noted that my older sister's response to this was to nearly fall off her chair in laughter and exclaim, "What sin did you commit?!?" For anyone that does not know me well enough to know, I do not particularly like children.
Upon beginning my time in the nursery I realized that it wasn't so bad, most of the kids were cute and the leader kept a respectable order (considering the 20 toddlers in the very small room) but a few months ago she was released and replaced with someone that thought that the perfect treat for all of these kids was peeps. (Yes really, those sugar cover marshmallows)
Really.... why not bring in some Mountain Dew and get them really jazzed up???
Anyway, to sum things up, this new leader and I did not exactly see eye to eye on anything. I thought that it was fine to discipline the kids (not beat them, but use the dreaded word 'no') she strongly disagreed.
So yesterday when the primary president pulled me aside and told me that I was being released from nursery it was difficult to curb my enthusiasm. I was so excited that the minute church was over I called my mom to celebrate, and announced my exciting news over dinner so that my whole family could celebrate with me. YEAH!!!!
I AM FREE....I AM FREE!!!!!!!

Spare time

Firstly, I am a graduate! I can't believe that I have a MASTERS DEGREE!!!!!! Oh my heck! I am done. I am not sure what to do with myself without having homework.

Well what I did decide to do was change my sad and bare dirt patch into an actual garden. It is still a little sparse but leaps and bounds better than the ugly little dirt patch. Any of you that know me know that I am not very good at gardening so this was a big task for me. :) I must give credit to the local nursery without whom my garden might still be limiting my neighbor's property value. YEAH!!!

The end of school

So I am almost done with my degree. I just have to finish my thesis. It took a little longer than expected. After my computer got toasted I was working on it from a thumb drive. I was so excited when I finished it, I sat the laptop down to grab something, as I turned I heard the computer fall and looked at the computer on the floor with my thumb drive broken in to two pieces. I stood there in shock!!!
I really didn't fall apart until I called Greg and tried to tell him what had happened. I began crying so hard I couldn't even talk. Poor Greg is on the other end of the line thinking that some life threatening event had occurred. When I finally got out what had happened we decided to try a data recovery company.
The data recovery company had me send it in and said that they would fix it for $500, that seemed worth it to me to get back my nearly 30 page thesis. Unfortunately after they saw the drive the realized that they couldn't use their usual methods to recover the data; I was then informed that if I had three weeks and $2700 they could rebuild the circuit the board and there was a chance that I could get it back that way.
Really??? What kind of document must it be for someone to be willing to pay $2700? I can't imagine anything that valuable. It was a stretch for me to want to pay $500. Are they rescuing the cure for cancer? Maybe the finalized peace agreement between Palestine and Israel?
Well in the end I just rewrote the paper. It took a while but now it is done. Hopefully it will be ok, it is now in the revision stage. I have a few weeks to get the bugs worked out so that I can defend it on May 1st.
I will be so glad when May 1st is over. If anyone is looking for me that day, I will be celebrating!!!!

My computer

So my computer is toasted. I have been without for over a week now. I am in complete withdrawl. I have been working on a rediculously long paper for my synthesis project (this takes the place of a thesis for me, but still involves tons of work and a currently 24 page paper that is destined to be longer) and so not having a computer is particularly troublesome. During all of my free time I am to be found at my mom's house having confiscated her computer and furiously typing or looking through my stack of research for what I will type next. It is a not so fun experience that I will be thrilled to be rid of.
The moral of my little story is that I have been a slacker and not posted anything for a month though I intended to post pictures of my Vegas trip which was tons of fun.
Opps, I am supposed to be working so I better get back to it.

Tax time

Yeah!!! We filed out taxes. I was not so fond of tax season last year when I had to pay a whole boat load of money due to a small miscalculation on my part. This year was significantly better. We are getting a nice juicy check from the IRS. We are so excited to be able to pay off the last of our credit cards (which by the way now only exist as very small plastic pieces), but not before we take a little off the top to go to Las Vegas. Yeah for tax returns!!!

linoleum experiment

I love these kinds of experiments, I just had to laugh :) Greg was heating up a sandwich in the microwave this afternoon. I smelled something funny and looked up and saw smoke outside of our door. I started walking closer and realized that the smoke was not coming from the outside, it was drifting that way from my microwave. Apparently the sandwich was wrapped in foil which did not get along with the microwave. In Greg's haste to save the microwave he pulled the flaming sandwich out onto the floor. It was not until we tried to clean it up that we realized that linoleum melts into a black goo when caught on fire. :) I thought it was completely funny, Greg, not so much.

Introducing my new niece!!!

I'm so excited, my older sister, Amy, and her cute husband, Dustin, had their first child together. Her name is Chloe Isabell Duncan, she is 8 lb 7 oz, 19.5 inches long (which just happens to be the exact size I was when I was born). She is beautiful! Her little head is even perfectly round.
Mom is doing well, I was actually a little surprised when I saw her and she look so rested and put together, not at all how I would feel after being in labor all night long, getting no sleep, and having a not so small baby.
Greg and I stopped by to see how they were doing and spent some time with everyone. Skyler and Emily (Amy's son and Dustin's daughter, both 10 years old) are very excited about their new little sister. While Dustin was giving Chloe her first bath they watched at the window and proudly announced to every passerby that "our baby is in there". Most just walked on by ignoring the kids but one young resident stopped and talked to them. Asking which one was their baby and being excited with them. It was so nice of him and completely adorable on the kids part.

Growing Up

So I was at my clinical (basically an unpaid internship) seeing patients and doing my thing. I saw a woman whose blood pressure was through the roof and I realized that I could do anything I wanted to do with her. I could send her away, I could admit her to the hospital, I could prescribe pills. It was up to me.
I have known for a long time that I would be a nurse practitioner but it really hit me that it is getting very close. In a very short four months I will graduate. If all goes well I will have passed my licensing exam by the end of the summer and will be working with my own patients by then. That means that I will be able to treat my own patients, write my own prescriptions, and have my own practice very very soon.
Wow, that sounds so grown up!!!

Our new pets

Greg has wanted a big fish tank for a while. Well, we got one. It is huge; as long as a couch! Setting it up took a little longer than we thought. It turns out that Greg's idea of getting river rocks from a river here in the city doesn't work so well in the winter time. My idea of buying gravel from Home Depot also wasn't so hot, apparently not a lot of people need gravel this time of year. We did eventually find some gravel that Greg deemed worthy of his tank and then added the rocks that he has been collecting and saving for years. We got some fish yesterday, they are tiny little things. They will grow to be big though so we didn't want to over populate the tank, but right now it looks a little funny with just seven tiny fish in that huge tank.
It is fun to watch them though and see how they interact, I also enjoy the sound, it is soothing.

Greg's new toy

So Greg got a new toy. It went a long way to make his nose feel better. He got a new 52 inch Samsung LCD TV. He did a lot of research into what he wanted and now there is a very large television set in my house. The delivery guys even brought it upstairs for us, all we had to do was take it our of the box which was not so bad because it was surprisingly light. I would have taken a picture of our TV except that I am not thrilled with the cleanliness of the room.

Greg got a nose job!

So Greg has had a crooked nose all of his life and he decided to get it fixed; he thought that it would be cool to breath easily out of his nose for the first time in his life. So on Thursday we went to the hospital to have it done. Everything went pretty well until Greg realized that he couldn't feel his right arm. It was completely numb, apparently he was laying on it funny and compressed a nerve. The doctor didn't seem very concerned, he said that the feeling would come back within a couple of weeks. Greg did not think that sounded ok at all. A couple of weeks without being able to feel his right arm!!! Greg thought that that was an awfully long time to not be able to play his guitar. Fortunately it only took until Saturday for the feeling to come back.
From my perspective I thought that all went very well, Greg only has three stitches in a small triangle on the underside of his nose, all the other stitches are inside and hidden. The stitches are also so small that they are hard to see, if they weren't blue they might be invisible.
Now he is just working on healing. He still hurts quite a bit and is feeling a little sick to his stomach but otherwise much better. His nose is still swollen so he can't breath out of it too well but our hopes are high that soon he will have a new straight and functioning nose. :)

I am addicted

So I must confess, I have an addiction. I am addicted to HGTV. I love it! I started watching it because I was looking for something clean to watch (that is the great thing about HGTV and the Food Network). Anyway I have come to realize that they have all sorts of great ideas. I particularly enjoy the show Design on a Dime. That is the perfect price tag for me.
That is not the end of my addictions, as I become more interested in decorating I also have become a KSL.com geek. I would highly recommend it to anyone needing almost anything. It is fabulous!
So my addictions got me started thinking about my living room, which really needs a makeover, and I decided to do something about it. I was so excited about the makeover I couldn't sleep. I thought of many different scenerios and various possibilities. Some of the ideas were a little wacky, some were too pricey, a few were good.
So I have started redoing my living room. I have come a long way, I sanded and stained a table that I had, got a cover for my loveseat, bought a great bench and some rugs (from KSL), made a cushion for the bench and some pillows for the loveseat and bench (that was really my mom), painted a wall and the mantel (with help from my sweetheart), stripped sanded and stained the bench that I bought, and then hung some decorations (luckily I had some help from my sister for that)
Though I am not done I do love sitting in my new room and just looking. This morning Greg and I were sitting just looking at the wall we had painted. After a few minutes he thought we needed to get out more, I thought we were admiring a hard days work.

School

So School is back on. This is my last semester. I can't even tell you how happy I am about that, I have now been doing this college thing for a total of 7 1/2 years. Wow, that is much longer than I had originally planned. This semester I get to write a ridiculously long paper; tons of research into a topic as yet to be determined. I also am doing my residency (essentially an internship, paying the university for the privilege of working) and taking what I hope will be a very easy online cultural competency course. Though it is a lot to do I am pretty happy about it. I can't wait to be done (I am not sure what I will do when I can come home and not have any homework) and move on to the next phase of my professional life. Becoming a nurse practitioner. YEAH!!!!
As for Greg this is his first semester returning to the world of students. Getting in the grove had not been as bad as he would have thought, though he was a bit shocked to see the cost of tuition. One of his favorite things is that his class begins at 5:45 and parking is free after 6:00. Boys find such funny things to be happy about.

2009

Well New Years for us was probably not what it was to most of you. I worked that night so Greg and I bid farewell to 2008 over the phone. I did my best to have some time at midnight so that I could spend some long distance time with my sweetheart. Though it was not ideal it was much better than nothing.
On New Years Day Greg picked me up and we headed to Bear Lake to join my family and some friends at my parent's cabin. We played games and went snowmobiling (not me, I don't like the cold). It was nice and relaxing. It was also good to spend time with people we care about. Not to mention it was beautiful.