Ah I have been so busy these past few weeks I am surprised I am still sane. I actually should be spending the night cleaning so I am just giving a quick run through what we here at the Page house have been up to. I will do another post more detailed with some after photos of projects hopefully tomorrow or Sunday. I have finals next week so obviously I will need to do something to keep me from studying. So… where did we leave off… Oh! The floors! I actually had to go into my Mobile Uploads on Facebook so I could even remember when we started that.
May 28th- My Dad finally was able to take some time and spend it on me and my flooring. What a wonderful man he is. Oh and my brother Travis too, he’s a saint J Love you Travy Boy. So, did I mention my dad’s time was limited, and Todd works what seems like all the time, so I had to do some serious grunt work. I had already taken up the carpet in a fit which I had mentioned before so that was one thing off the list I then needed to move all the furniture out (Thanks to Ben for that one), remove all the baseboards, pull up the vinyl in the kitchen, and bust up the tile in the entry way. Ultimately I ended up with several blisters, an aching back, and a whole wealth of knowledge. Let me know if you need some tips, I will save the details for those who care. This was a project that had to be done over several weekends because my dad travels during the week so we camped out on the living room floor with the pups a few weekends in a row. In the end the floor looks amazing!! I squeal sometimes when I come down stairs and see how pretty it is. The only problem, we still haven’t gotten around to putting the baseboards up which I know will make it even ten times better. I guess once you live with no flooring at all for over a year, baseboards are the least of your worries.
These two activities...
made my hands look like this...
Throughout that process I decided to grow sunflowers. It was my first time growing anything! I assumed it was going to go really bad due to my track record of forgetting to feed and water things (sorry little fishies). Actually it went really good, I think. I am not exactly sure how long they are supposed to live for but they grew and grew and grew some over 6 feet tall!! It was awesome, they were beautiful, then the haboob came and their heavy heads were no match. They started to droop, and droop some more. Finally they died. Todd just dug them up. We were going to harvest the seeds to eat but I ended up only taking a few for replanting and left they rest for the birds J
Germination
Growing...
Tilting :(
June was a long month full of lots and lots of homework. Todd and I both ended up with strep, not fun. I was thrown up on in the puppy store. Don’t worry she’s only a human baby and I love her so it wasn’t so bad. It happened shortly after her mom had just told me about the incident last time they came to the Dairy Queen. We had ice cream right before the puppy store, and I was informed at that time that Audra (the slightly older sister) had peed in her pants on one of the chairs on their last visit. It will be one of my favorite memories forever. I am so excited to be a mom, one day, many days away ;) Or maybe one of my sisters can have a baby.
July started with a bang!! Fireworks that is, cheesy I know right. Todd actually had the day off so we spent the day with my parents barbequing and hanging out by the pool. That night we went to Nan’s (Todd’s grandmas) for some dinner and finished the night with some fireworks at Joel and Ashley’s. Did I mention in one month I will have a little niece! Hooray for baby girls! I am so, so, so excited.
On a totally different subject, during my clinical rotations this semester at Chandler Regional Hospital I learned so much. I was on and Ortho/ Surgical floor which I actually liked. We had a really nice mix of everything. I was able to see firsthand the severe need for diabetes education on the reservations here in Arizona. It is amazing what that disease can become if unmanaged. I actually had a patient who lost his foot after stepping in a puddle of hot oil and not noticing it for the whole day until he tried to remove his shoe. Needless to say he took off more than his Nikes. I also gained confidence concerning the little things like giving someone a bath, changing their sheets, maneuvering a person in pain in bed and so many other things that can take some serious time if you don’t have a system down. I recited the pledge of allegiance in Spanish to my non-English speaking patient and her family (they loved it and commended my awesome accent). I also experienced my first patient demise. After a perforated diverticulum lead to severe sepsis, I spent the day providing comfort care to the patient and her family. I was so nervous for “it” to actually happen. My nurse had never had a patient pass away so I didn’t really have much support there because she was even more afraid than I was. We got a page from the family and I knew right away she was gone. We walked into the room and performed three checks to confirm she had passed. One of those checks was to listen to her heart for a whole minute to listen for any activity. As I counted the seconds on the clock I got to 42 and over the loud speaker a lullaby started playing. At Chandler, that means a baby was just born. It was amazing to me that one a few hundred feet apart, in the same building, at the same time, one family was celebrating a new life coming into this world and the other was grieving the loss of life. Both would be crying, but at complete opposite ends of the emotional spectrum. This is where if you are a little squeamish I would skip to the next chapter. I understand how strange this may sound but after she passed and the family left, the nurse delegated me the task of postmortem care. I was so anxious when I walked into the room, it had been two hours since she had died and it was apparent. As my amazing friend Jackie and I started to clean her up it was the most amazing closure. I felt like taking out the lines and tubes, cleaning the crust from around her mouth, and fixing her hair were all things that she and her family would really appreciate. She didn’t look dead she looked peaceful. I was so surprised. I was also surprised by the fact that I actually wished I could go to the morgue to watch the next process she would undergo. I know it sounds sick and twisted, I know, but I had spent the entire day observing the outward manifestations of what was going on inside her. I could see her amazingly low blood pressure, her fast respirations, her increasing abdominal distension, her complete cessation of output. I wanted to be able to see what was going on inside. You know like in house when they do those shots where it looks like they are zooming into the body and you can see the problem. I wanted that. When we left for the day I was sad for her family and their loss but I was glad for this 90 year old woman who wasn’t sick or suffering anymore and I was excited I had been able to be a part of it all. I understood why when I went to my instructor that morning and informed her that my patient wouldn’t make it through the shift (so could I please, please have a new assignment) her response was, “I know, it will be a great experience for you.” She was right. Every day I am more and more excited to be a nurse.
On a less emotional note, I found an old dresser at Good Will for 10 bucks! It was dirty, and smelly, and messed up but this girl had a nice figure J I brought her home, took out the top three drawers and divider, painter her white, did some moderate distressing and voila! A perfectly adorable entertainment center so I could move the bottom half of my hutch back into the guest room with its top. In addition to that, I painted a large frame yellow (it was left over from a dresser I am working on for a friend’s nursery) I made my first chalk board, and dyed a chair slip cover from peach to blue to green.
We bought the dogs new harnesses and they walk like angels now! That was so exciting for Todd and I. I have gotten to spend a lot of time with my mom lately which has been really nice. She’s my bestie J I signed up to be a bone marrow donor. You should too, it’s easy! Go to marrow.org. I co hosted a baby shower for my friend Chelsea. I was in charge of games and the cake, well Todd was in charge of baking the cake and I was in charge of decorating it. I had never used fondant before but I hoped it was similar to clay. I took three years of ceramics in high school (thanks Mrs. Fox) so it was nice that it worked out in my favor. I was really proud of my first attempt at cake decorating. Also, Todd took me to KATY PERRY! We had pit tickets and were right in front. I actually made eye contact with Katy Perry several times. We were so close I could see the stretch marks on her butt through her tights. She was amazing. She sang the whole time and was even better in person. I danced, sang, got sprayed with foam, and covered in confetti. Successful night! Todd is awesome J I am so thankful for him. And I dyed my hair blonde!
Just becasue I think they are adorable
This is me :) just blonde... I am still surprised when I look in the mirror
I started applying for nurses aid jobs at hospitals here in the valley and it seems like with no real experience, all I get in return are those depressing “you are no longer being considered for the position” emails. I wish I could just find out who is in charge of hiring, explain to them how adequately and maybe over qualified I am combined with how cheery and dedicated I can be and make them hire me there on the spot. But I guess in this modern world I am just another young white girl with no real relevant experience who is just another file in their online database of hundreds of applicants. Bah!! I am still deciding to stay in good spirits, have a positive attitude, and trust that God has a plan and it will all work out.
What adventures are in store for the Pages you ask? I have my LPN HESI Monday and finals the rest of the week. Those finals will be followed by the removal of all four of my wisdom teeth one week from today and lots of pampering from my Toddy Boy which will then be followed by a quick trip to California and the beach and visiting with some of Todd’s family, hopefully meeting the first parker baby (would that be my second-cousin-in-law?) and dreaming of the day I will be a beach buddy and reside in that wonderful state. That sentence was far too long! Oh I am also in the process of finishing a dresser, making a nice little mail holder my sneaky pups can’t get into, and making an awesome sign out of a pallet!! I think that’s it for now. Sorry for the lengthy post and stay tuned for a short and sweet before and after photo entry!
And I will stay positive even though my oven of a back yard killed all my plants.
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