Finished.... well for now!

Jeff is officially finished with his Nursing preceptorship…. That means no more 4:00 PM-5:00 AM!!! Hooray!

While his preceptorship is finished, he still has to do a onetime two day psych clinical rotation in Wyoming. I don’t understand why he has to drive all the way up to Wyoming, pay for a room, spend two entire days working on the psych unit (with us paying all the “trip” expenses) when we have perfectly good hospitals and clinics where he could do his psych rotation. I guess we just do what the University tells us to so he can get that piece of paper (graduation certificate)…. which by the way… after his two day psych rotation and his semester classes… Jeff will be finished, yep that’s right come April 23 to be exact (save the date!), Jeff will be graduating from Weber State’s Nursing Program!!! Well I guess I should say finished for now… Jeff just received the application packet for the bachelor’s nursing program & he should be turning it in within the month…. so fingers crossed he is accepted and can start in the fall!

I thought our life of being two ships passing in the night were over, I thought wrong! Jeff will be leaving for Wyoming two days before I leave for Nationals in California so I guess the morning I leave… we will be passing each other as he is coming home and I am leaving on a plane, well hopefully we will be able to see each other before I leave… I guess that is all depending on when and how quickly Jeff drives home!

Family Home Evening

Last night for Family Home evening with my entire family, we talked about Emergency preparedness. With the recent earthquake in Haiti, it has had us thinking what we would need or do in an earthquake.

My dad had a make a list of items we think we would need in an earthquake/disaster, he then turned off all the lights in the house and gave us a scenario (earthquake just happened, emergency 72-hour backpacks are smashed under the beds and can’t get to them… you have 4 minutes to collect anything and everything you can from the list we just created). It was complete chaos as we all ran around the house trying to grab anything and everything we could from list we just made. We then met back at the dinner table and reviewed the items we collected and compared that with our list… we talked about things we didn’t grab, things we didn’t list, items we really didn’t need… etc.! What a wakeup call!

Then, we talked about where we would meet as a family after an earthquake/natural disaster especially if we weren’t home… where we would go, how we would communicate… this SCARED ME TO DEATH because when I was little we always talked about meeting in the back yard by the tramp but since I have been married we have not set a meeting place at all…. It was insightful to see what my nephew would do if he was at school… would he go home? Stay at school? We were able to come up with the plan that my nephew would stay at school till someone came to get him… we would try to make it to our houses and wait a day… if no one showed up after a day we would go to the nearest LDS church.

While we do have back packs full of food, medical supplies, emergency items, etc., we still have a lot more we need to put in our bags and that is even if we can get to our bags in an earthquake (bed/roof didn’t bury them). There is one thing we thought about: address and phone numbers. They have found that in a crisis you forget important information so it helps to have it written down, so today, I have been working on a phone number & address list of family members, out-of-state numbers, hospital & school numbers/addresses… I just need the family to review it to see what needs to be added/ deleted and then I will make copies and have it laminated for the family!

I hope that an earthquake/disaster doesn’t ever happen in my lifetime and as much as it scared me to discuss, it is good to know we have a family plan on what to do in an emergency!
In the next few weeks we will be going through our emergency backpacks and adding much needed items to the bag! Wish us luck!

Craft

Here are the pictures from the gift I was working on.... I gave it to Amber on Wednesday... even though her birthday isn't until May I wanted her to be able to use it this year.... since we are going to Disneyland in a month!

Domestic Stef!

While Jeff has been away at night for Nursing, I have been trying keeping myself busy by being domestic! I was able to get a jump start on a friend’s birthday gift and plan on giving it to her early even though her birthday isn’t for a few months… I will post pictures after I give it to her! Jeff’s parents Larry and Virginia both have birthday in February. While their gifts aren’t much to celebrate about, I was pretty proud of myself! For Larry’s gift I purchased a glass jar and etched the words “Papi’s Treats” (Papi is what the grandkids call him) on the glass and filled it with candy for him to give out to the grandkids/neighbor kids (something he does quite often)! For Virginia’s gift, I purchased a cake stand (that also turns into a punch bowl) and gave it to her with a beautifully decorated strawberry cake that I made myself! Again, I was very impressed with myself! This weekend I was also able to go to the University of Utah gymnastics meet… oh how I look forward to my Friday’s I get to go (Shelby and I switch off each meet)!

Larry's Treat Jar... The words are hard to see with the candy in the jar!

Virginia's cake and cake stand

Opening Gifts

Blowing out the candles... look at that amazing cake!

The "gang" at the gymnastics meet

Two ships passing in the night!

Jeff and I are like two ships passing in the night! Since Friday I have seen Jeff for a total of 7 hours and that wasn’t all in one day! I have figured out that the next time I will see Jeff for more than a few minutes will be on Thursday. Between his 4:00 PM-4:30 AM (more like 5:30 AM) on Monday… I have a basketball game I have to supervise on Tuesday along with practice on Wednesday… Thursday looks like the day I will actually get to see him after work, just in time to start this crazy schedule all over again! WOW! We will be SUPER glad when passing in the wee hours of the morning is over!

Here are some pictures of Jeff just in case you forgot what he looked like! :)

Update/ Mini Cheerleader

Well, Jeff is in his second week of his preceptorship and he loves working in the ICU. I am so glad he is enjoying his time there because working the graveyard shift would be tough for me! I get super lonely but I am grateful to family for letting me tag along with them on evenings where Jeff is “working/in school” and also friends who keep me busy so I don’t think about it! It is hard to keep the bed warm at night and often find myself awake because my leg has reached out to his side which is FREEZING cold! But it will all be over soon I just can’t wait!

I went to the doctor on Monday for my heart and guess what… I still have one! I am doing OK… while I don’t like the medication I am currently taking (because I am blowing up like a balloon a.k.a getting fat) he would like to keep me on it for a month more to see if I make any more progress with the little tweaks he made… I told him I would give him one more month and if I am still blowing up then I am done! Other than that I am hanging in there!

On a different note… the Syracuse Cheerleaders (where I coach) are holding a mini cheerleading clinic. If you have a child between the ages of 3 and 12 who would like to attend it is being held on: Saturday, January 23rd from 8:45-1:30. The cost is $20.00 which includes a t-shirt. The mini cheerleaders will be performing at half-time at the boy’s basketball game on Friday, January 29. I will try to attach the registration form…. If you have questions feel free to e-mail or call me!

2010

Well now that the holidays are over it is back to reality!

I am back to work and while I wish I was at home relaxing, I am extremely grateful I have a job…. Especially since we just paid Jeff’s tuition!

Jeff is starting his last semester before he receives his RN! Although he will be continuing on with his Masters in nursing, his RN will seem like a big stepping stone to being finished with school!

This semester we REALLY won’t see much of each other, Jeff is doing his final clinical rotation which they call Preceptorship—Jeff is teamed up with one nurse and he follows him around for a few months (same schedule, same bathroom breaks, etc.)!

Jeff is interning/Preceptoring with a male nurse at Ogden Regional Medical Center in the ICU. His working hours are 4:00 PM to 4:30 AM! Yikes! So basically, I will see Jeff around 5:30 in the morning… this is about the time when I get up to get ready for the day ; his day will be finished and will be ready to sleep! Monday will be the worst day for him because he will be finishing up “working” (I don’t know if you can call it working cause he doesn’t get paid!) at 4:30 am and will have class in Ogden at 10:30 am…. So if you would like to offer up you house or cot so he doesn’t have to drive home to Bountiful and then back up that would be appreciated!!!

Hopefully this semester will be over quickly! We are already planning to celebrate when his clinicals are over!