The birthday weekend of endless excitement!

I went home the weekend after my birthday to celebrate with my family! (And to relax before HESI on Monday ). But my parents have this new cat...

Max, the battle cat

Max belonged to my cousin Donny. He found Max as a kitten of barely 2 weeks old while working. Donny raised Max to be a healthy 14 pounder. But Donny is in the Army, and will be training all this year to prepare for his second tour in Iraq, so we took Max to give him a good home. As some know, my parents already have a cat...

Napoleon

And how do they get along? Well, after an intense night of hissing and swatting, this happened...

They became best friends!


And where is Bella in all this?

Somewhere by herself. She has nothing to do with this male bonding.

So my house is cat central! It's pretty fun now that they are all getting along. But it's just a lot of cats!

On a different note, Eric gave me my birthday gift.

This little book contains all kinds of fun things. Like nights at home, nights out, movies, ice cream dates, back massages, and even a coupon for anything I want (within reason). But the biggest surprise was the end of the book. It started with a page that said "and from me and my family for graduation..."

OH MY GOSH!!! I'M GOING TO DISNEY WORLD!!! I'M GOING TO DISNEY WORLD!!!

Eric's sister works for Disney and lives in Orlando with her husband. So she arranged for us to come down over Spring Break and go to Disney World! Yes, I am 22 years old, but I am Disney CRAZY!!! I am glad Spring Break is in 2 weeks, or I would go NUTS waiting!


Saturday we celebrated my birthday at my grandparents. I absolutely love the cake my grandpa makes for me every year! Not sure what's in it, but it's DELICIOUS!

Some sort of sport typically happens whenever Eric and Luke get together. I made them let Dad play.

Of my birthday gifts, this was the most special. It is a Precious Moments nursing doll with my name monogrammed on the coat, from Grandma and Grandpa. Too cute!


It was a wonderful birthday!!!

The Big 2-2

Today was my 22nd birthday! I am well into my early 20s and flying fast towards being in my mid 20s. Other than getting dropped from my parent's health insurance, there is not really any other milestones attached to 22. But that's not going to stop me from having a great day!

As my alarm went off at 5:20 this morning I told myself "the earlier I get up, the longer I get to enjoy my birthday!" Whatever does it for you, right? So I headed to my first 12 hour day of my nursing career. Yes, I worked a 12 hour shift, on my birthday! My clinical group decided to work overtime today so we can be off tomorrow to prepare for our test on Friday. All in all, it was a great plan. I got to work with my favorite nurse in Cardiac Intensive Care at Princeton Baptist in Birmingham. I also got the opportunity to fly solo (with Mama Bird Collins never too far out of reach) for a little while. It gave me a little more confidence that maybe I will actually make it as a nurse. But after a crazy morning, the afternoon was quite dull. 6:00 could not come fast enough. But at 5:45 what do we hear...

CODE BLUE...

What was that?

CODE BLUE...

Did we really just hear that?

CODE BLUE...

Oh my goodness! An actual code!!! For those of you who are not familiar with this term, a code blue is a cardiac arrest. This is the point in Grey's Anatomy when everyone runs down the hall, pulls out the paddles, yells "CLEAR", and shocks the patient back to life. Except that is not how actual codes are run.

Codes are organized chaos. Two of my fellow students and I arrive at this room with a few doctors, a few nurses, and one patient that needs our help. I took over on chest compressions (I actually got to keep this patient's heart pumping). Doctors are calling out orders, and everyone is doing their part to try to get this patient's heart beating again. After all of us students (by now there are 5 of us) have rotated through compressions (these are tiring, you wear out in less than a minute) the doctor finally says...

"Hold compressions"

Silence, eyes glued to the cardiac monitor

"We have a rhythm!"

The patient survived! It's pretty satisfying to know you helped a patient live! So now a patient with airway, breathing, and circulation (nursing ABC's) can be left with the real experts...the intensive care nurses! These men and women work HARD and are ridiculously smart!

After clinicals I was able to have dinner with my friends, Whitney and Anna-Leigh. I returned home to cupcakes from Jen! This was my first birthday I have not spent with my family, but I will be able to celebrate with them this weekend. All in all, this was a great birthday!

Deal hunting=good grades....take notes, kids!

Mark this down: February 22, the day leadership can take a hike! I took the final for that class this morning and said "holla leadership!" on my way out the door.

By far, my favorite thing about test day is not feeling very guilty if I don't study any the rest of the day. I call these days "brain breaks" to "regroup" and "catch my breath". Well today the "regrouping" equaled lunch and retail therapy with my wonderful best nursing friends (shout out to CFSF!!!). All sharing a love for T.J. MAXX, we headed there to seek out some deals. I like to think that the test-powers that be take into consideration mad shopping skills and that helps out test grades. So of course, the more deals we found the better our grades got (don't burst my bubble)! Side note: We also found where stores go to die, McFarland Mall. That "mall" has no more than 6 open stores, with "going out of business" sales in most of those! Poor stores.

But, I found a really fun dress. And was pleased by my leadership grade. So I will still hold to my theory that the more I shop, the better my grades will be!

Cue happy dance

Could this be what spring is like?

It was 65 degrees today! 65 DEGREES!!! And sun! THE SUN!!! I haven't seen this combo since...well...I can't remember!

So what did I do to enjoy this wonderful weather?

I studied. Why? Because I'm in my last semester of nursing school. However, I can't complain. I am two finals and (hopefully) one HESI away from being FINISHED with the academic part of nursing school. Over the past 4 years I have looked at many a beautiful day through my window, knowing that I needed to stay glued to a book. Days like that are quickly coming to an end, and I am beyond excited! But what will my study buddy do...

This is how Bella tells me to take a break

On a more fun note, I went shopping today with the roommate! Jen is going to her cousin's birthday party, so we went shopping for a 3 year old. Some things I learned today:

1: Eric and I will need to have lots of money, because I will go nuts buying baby clothes, even if they are just going to wear them for a few months. That's where the "lots of money" comes in to play!

2: Onesies are no longer just cute, they are educational.

Just in case you need a refresher of how this little human got here

3: I have a complete OBSESSION with baby bikinis! Why does a baby need a bikini? What else is it supposed to wear to the pool?! I had a babykini, and I was so darn cute. Maybe one day I will post a picture, if I can find it. But here are some of the cute babykinis I saw today. (As I post this Jen is sitting here saying "Are you still looking at baby bikinis?!" She knows my sickness!



Maybe one day I will have a little baby girl to buy a babykini for. But until that day comes (a LOOOONG time from now), I will just be obsessed from an outsiders view...

2/27/10
As promised, I found a picture of my babykini. Note that hot beach body. Unfortunately I still have the same tree trunk thighs.

Me and Grandpa at Little Blue Pond in Panama City, Florida. This is where Grandaddy Cooley, my great-grandfather, lived until he was nearly 91 years old.

I know who holds tomorrow....

It's no secret that I am a Christian, and that I strive to be like Jesus...but never quite get there. So when I sat down to start my blog (thanks to Lauren) I began to contemplate... "Well, what's this blog about? Me, what I do, what I want to do...scary." My mind went to one of my favorite inspirational songs, "I know Who Holds Tomorrow", by Ira Stanphill. So I knew that no matter what would come to be of the life written about in this blog, I know who holds it! So that is how "And I know He holds my hand" was born.

Even though I know the future is out of my hands, that doesn't mean it's not scary! My graduation countdown says I only have 77 days left in my college career...whew! Hard to believe that all the work of nursing school is about to come to an end. Today was my last class of nursing school...THE LAST CLASS!!! I still have some hurdles left to jump, like finals, the dreaded HESI, and my preceptorship, but the end is approaching FAST. Like I said, SCARY!

Something else scary, in 9 months I'm going to be someone's WIFE! Eric and I are closing in on our wedding date, finally. It may seem like 9 months is still a long was away...and it is...but when you have been engaged for 9 months already, it's nice to be half way there! We are getting very excited, just ready for November to get here!



So stay tuned for the ramblings of a soon-to-be graduate-blushing-bride-but-still-studying-like-a-maniac!