Finally!!

I haven't blogged in quite some time because this last semester has been such a busy time, but we are finally done! Actually we were done almost a week ago but I am just now getting to blog. Pinning and graduation practice was today and I have 2 days of review (for state boards) before the big day. It feels wonderful to be able to sit here on the couch without having reading or studying to do. But, at the same time I am a little saddened because I am leaving so many new friends. I am used to seeing these people at least once a week and I will miss some of them so very much! I plan on staying in touch with my closest, but I have to admit I will miss the after-class lunches, the laughs at clinicals, and all the support they all are so wonderful at giving. After all, who would better understand how hard nursing school is if not fellow classmates? They were all so great at one the hardest times in my life and I will never forget how supportive they were. And you know, it's not that I don't have other very close friends who mean the world to me, but not seeing these girls will take some adjusting to. I know I will make other friends in the workplace, but I have to say that the friends I have made in nursing school will always hold a special place in my heart.
I have to pass state boards and get a job now...I better enjoy this time on my couch...lol
I hope everyone has a great week!!

Arrangements

So many has been asking for arrangements, so I thought I'd post it here.....we have viewing tonight, but theres viewing tomorrow...Thursday from10am to 8pm...the burial in Fuller cemetry @ 2 on Friday. This is all @ Cornerstone.

Thanks to both your comments on my last blog. Your words were so kind ...I am blessed to have such family and friends.I will blog more later...love ya all!

Dear Lord....

Well, something I thought would never happen has happened. My dad (my real dad) died yesterday of a massive heart attack. I found out soon after I took my cardio test.(which I made an A on, btw) Ironic??
I really had so many people be so nice to me. Practically my whole family had found out and was trying to get someone to find me and tell me before I found out on my own. My family is so good. Most everyone knows that the relationship I had with my dad wasn't a very good one. I have called several times over the years, but he has never came through for me. I always thought that one day he would come around....after all, he does have 3 wonderful grandchildren. I thought that maybe when I graduated he would come, or maybe when we bought a house and moved. I always thought that one day...one day. Well, it's not gonna happen. He is gone forever. I know that I did everything reasonably expected from me and then some. But I can't help but wonder...why didn't I push a little harder? why didn't I try just one more time? why couldn't/wouldn't he step up and do the right thing? My feelings are all over the board with this one. I am angry, I am sad, I am hurt...I am so hurt! I have always felt like I am a strong person...it takes a whole lot for my feelings to be hurt. Not just anyone can hurt my feelings...it takes someone close. In the past when I worried about him dying I always thought I would be a little sad, but I would get over it quickly. All I can say is that's not the way this is happening. I am upset way beyond what I expected. Right after finding out he died, I found out that oh yeah, by the way, he got married last week. PLEASE!!! He gets married and tells no one in the family......no one. Not me, not my uncle. Did he lose his mind? Does he not care enough about this woman to introduce her to the family? Does he not care enough about her to introduce her to us? That hurts too. I know this woman is probably grieving for a lost husband, but she can not be grieving any more than I am. My dad did die, but I also lost the opportunity to ever have a relationship with him. So, Lord help me through this. I am in this last semester of school and am so close! I don't know how I am going to handle all this. We are making arrangements this morning and I wonder if I have the right to even be there. I mean I know I have the right, I am his only child....I know I have the right, but did he even care who makes these decisions? Did he ever really care about anything at all? Did he really even care if I have anything to do with it. Did I mention I am angry too??

How sad!

Oh my goodness, I guess most everyone has heard about the little boy from Henagar who passed away because of the fire. It just breaks my heart! Then the day before yesterday I found out that he is the son of a high school classmate of mine. Everyone say a prayer for this family...I can't imagine how this mother feels. Losing my niece was so hard...and I still have bad days. I can't imagine losing one of my own. It's something I don't really care to think about either. I am blessed with such wonderful children! Things like this makes me want to keep them close to me and never let them go. Unfortunately, that's not possible. We have to let them grow and experience new things. And we just have to pray God will watch over them. We can't always be there to protect them. That is such a hard thing to say!! Anyways, I have to precept today so I need to get ready. Everyone just say a prayer for this family...they are really gonna need it in the days to come.

Whew!

Well, today was my first day of clinical for this Spring semester and I am happy to report that it went really well. MUCH better than I expected. See..I got the instructor that just about everyone reports as being super hard and unfriendly. Well, that was not the case today. Don't get me wrong...she is going to expect a lot, but we will be so much better for it in the long run. I can't wait until I can say that I had her for clinical and I made it! She is very upfront about what she expects so we all know before-hand. I am excited about it!! And what a burden was lifted today when we had such a great day....whew!
I precepted Saturday in the ER @ Highlands and had an absolutely great day there as well. My preceptor is wonderful and is another wealth of knowledge. I am looking forward to my next shift...:-)
Both my boys had birthdays this last week. Daniel turned 13 then the next day Dawson turned 6. I am fairly okay with Dawson being 6, but I am not happy at all about Daniel turning 13 and being half-way through the 7th grade. I absolutely hate it....I HATE it! And for more than one reason, more reasons than I care to blog about. I realize he IS a teenager now, and we need to give him a little room to develop his own "self," but we pretty much keep him right under our noses. I am just not ready to let him go and risk all the bad things that can happen out there. Other children his age have many more privileges than he does. He is only allowed on the computer when we are right there in the room with him. His cell phone is an open book to me...that was part of the conditions when we got it for him. He knows the rules about it and he complies without argument. He is not allowed to go anywhere that I don't know the parents and not just any parents will do. There are parents I trust implicitly and he is allowed to go with his friends of these. But, these parents are ones with the same type rules at their houses that we have at ours. Daniel still has to ask our permission to do just about anything. But there is so much going on with other children his age at school that it scares me to death!!! REALLY...you wouldn't believe it if I told you some of these things. Well, some of you may, but it seems like I learn something new every day and some of it is quite disturbing. I know I can't protect Daniel from everything, but I am going to do my best to hold on to him as long as I can without messing him up for life...lol...after all, he really is just a child. I don't care if he is 13 or not. He is still a child. I still have to remind him to pick up his laundry, I still have to nag him about homework...so there! I do think that he would make the right choices if put in certain positions, but why risk it? I really wish I could say more so everyone would understand, but i don't want to plaster everyone's business on a blog. But Lord help these children...and thank God that Daniel is just as upset as I am about some things. I think we maintain a pretty open relationship where he can talk to us about anything. Lord knows he tells us a lot. I am glad he does, but I really wish I could protect him just a little bit more!
Well, since I have written a short story here I better get myself in bed. I have so much to do tomorrow: clinical paperwork (and there's A LOT), study for upcoming cardiac test, 4 little tests for our online Nursing class, and reading for upcoming lectures. I really doubt I will get it all done tomorrow, but I am going to knock as much out as possible.
Enjoy the nicer weather!! LoVe :-)

Spring Semester

Oh my word! We have a few things posted for Spring classes. We have an on-campus class, an online class, clinicals, and precepting this semester. Clinicals and precepting has paperwork that goes along with it that takes up a lot of time. And, we also have an NCLEX review class that is online...almost forgot about that! That starts the week of Spring Break. Anyways, our instructor posted a few things for our online class today....it has it's own reading assignments and TESTS! For some reason I was thinking this class was going to be a piece of cake...NOT! What in the world was I thinking? I also took an extra online class to boost my credit hours so I would get more Pell money.....I bet I will be up there to drop it in the morning because it looks like it will require a lot of work as well. I haven't decided for sure, but I am thinking it won't be worth the extra money. Jeremy says I should drop the class before I start it because I should stress myself out more than necessary and that it isn't worth it. I think he would pay me NOT to take it...lol...I just thought the extra money would come in handy.
I am just going to take this day by day and do the best I can. I was really wanting As this semester with it being my last...this is going to drive me crazy! Plus I am really hoping we graduate everyone who is left. We are down to 50 and that is a nice round number!
I hope everyone is nice and dry after the rain from this week. I thought we were going to have to pull out a boat! I would prefer to have a little snow rather than the rain....but, come this summer we will be wishing for rain!
I am headed to get a bath...I need to relax a bit...gotta decide about this class.

Anna Beth ...Rest in Peace

Everyone please say a prayer for the Dobbs family. Kathy and Sam both teach/taught @ NACC. Mrs. Dobbs was the speech teacher until her daughter got sick and Mr. Dobbs teaches computer classes. They are very good people and they discovered their daughter, Anna Beth, had cancer about a year and a half ago. I am thinking she is around my oldest's age and he will be 13 this month. She had a hard struggle, but she passed away yesterday in the hospital @ B'ham. Even though the Drs had told the family some time ago she was terminal, this has got to be devastating! They also have another child, Daniel, who is younger than Anna Beth. I have heard he is having an extremely hard time dealing with this. This was just on my heart this morning and I wanted to ask everyone to say a prayer for this family. This is just another reminder of how precioius our children are. The summer I had speech was 2006 and I remember Mrs. Dobbs and I talking about her children quite a bit....that was the summer before the diagnosis. No one could have imagined what was in store of them. So say a prayer for that family and go hug your own children....I know I am!
LoVe :-)

I have been tagged and have you!

Let's play a little game shall we?SCATTERGORIES.. it's harder than it looks! Link to this post, erase my answers, enter yours, and tag 10, 5 in my case, people including the one that sent this to you.Use the 1st letter of your name to answer each of the following. They have to be real places, names, things. Nothing made up! Try to use different answers if the person in front of you had the same 1st initial.. You CAN'T use your name for the boy/girl name question. And you can not use the same word twice

Your name: Sherry
BOY NAME: Steve
4 LETTER WORD: sh*t (couldn't resist!!)
GIRL NAME: Shelbey
OCCUPATION: sociologist
COLOR: salmon
SOMETHING YOU WEAR: socks
BEVERAGE: sprite
FOOD: steak
SOMETHING FOUND IN A BATHROOM: soap
A PLACE: Sydney, Australia
REASON FOR BEING LATE: sick
SOMETHING YOU SHOUT: Stop!



Okay, since I am new to this (blogging) and everyone I know have done this, Stephanie & Dana you are the only ones left!

HaPpY NeW YeAr!!!

I just had a moment and wanted to wish everyone a Happy New Year. I hope everyone makes the most of this new year. This will be a life changing year for me and my family so I am expecting a little excitement. I hope and pray Jeremy & I make the best decisions when the time comes....where to work, where to live, where the boys will go to school??.....all these things should change after I graduate. I am so looking forward to graduating and getting a job, but knowing we have all those decisions can be a little scary.
On a lighter note, Jeremy has 4 days off in a row! I am so excited! He has worked so much the past few months. He only had 1 day off for Thanksgiving and 1 day off for Christmas. He has been working tons of overtime. Which like he says, I am thankful for the job when so many are without. It's best to just save the extra money when you have it because you never know what's gonna happen tomorrow! Plus, he knows this is my last semester and we have to make it through it.
I am going to school tomorrow and meet some girls to help them with drug calculations. They are coming back in the program and need to brush up on their math. After that we are going to some friends of ours house to watch the game and enjoy ourselves. My kiddos love going there and playing with their daughter, so we will all have a good time. Did I mention we are going to cook and eat some good food?? Who can watch a game without a good menu...lol
Other than those 2 things, we have no plans!! It is so NICE to just spend time together. I have a few little things to do today like a couple loads of laundry and cleaning up a bit, but Jeremy will just relax today anyways. I want to get everything out of the way so I don't have to worry about it.
THEN, next week will be back to normal....Jeremy returns to work and my boys go back to school. I don't go back until the 13th so I will spend next week getting ready to go back. I have lots of reading to do. I have already started so it won't be that bad. But our first test is all cardiovascular. Every single question, all forty something is CV. GAH!! I hate tests with less than 50 questions anyways, but every single question all belongs to Mrs. Gentry. On our last cardio test I only missed 1 of her questions, but she only had 20-something. I hope I can do as well on this next one. I really want an A in this class....have I mentioned that before? lol
One more thing: I have a wonderful friend who just got a new job. CONGRATS to Stephanie!! Love ya girl!
Everyone have a great day/weekend! I plan on it :-)