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.