Relay for Life - Season 2

Once again, I am doing the Relay for Life in May (May 30th into May 31st). So I am sending out my message to all my blog buddies that I am looking for donations. Last year was the first relay and I absolutely had a ball. It was great weather, with great company and we walked all night long. I pooped out a couple times throughout the night, but being that I am getting more in shape already this year, I have a goal to walk the entire night with only small breaks for food or potty breaks. I think last year, one of my team mates "clocked" the mileage we walked and it was something like 30 miles during the night.

I don't want to do a whole "repeat" of exactly why I'm doing this walk ... if you'd like, just go see last year's post. But I do want to say who I am doing this walk for. My grandmother (cervical cancer) and aunt (lung cancer) had lost the battle along with a great-uncle (colon cancer). I have another great-uncle (colon) who had battled and is so far "cured" along with an uncle (prostate) who is also "Cured". Then this last February one of my uncles was diagnosed with Bladder Cancer. He had surgery and, so far, is battling hard against it.

Below are some pics of the Luminaries we created for my grandmother and aunt which was placed along the walk way. It truly is amazing to see all these luminaries lit at dusk and they continue to burn right up to sunrise when the walk is over. I am gonna try to snag some other pics that my mom took and post them here as time gets closer to show you last year's walk. I do have to say that if anyone gets a chance to do this walk, it is one of the more powerful ones around. There are many "fund raising walks" but this one is one of the only ones done overnight and will have the powerful effect that this one does on a person.

So, that being said, if you'd like to donate to my endeavor ... please visit my page. All amounts, big or small, will be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance for all of your help in this fight!

Loving the down time

So classes are done, final grades are in, and I've been living the "down time." The hospital's been slower this week, and not many call-offs so no extra hours for me right now. I knew it was possible to happen from time to time and I'm ok with that. It's giving me time to catch up on movies that I have but never watched, and when it's not raining I've been going outside and just enjoying the nice weather with a good book (another thing I've been needing to catch up on). Next week is my last week to have the relaxing time before my summer class starts so I am just really enjoying my free time. It kinda feels like I really am on summer vacation ... something I can honestly say I haven't felt since I was in high school.

Last night I went to the college's graduation. 1) cause I sing with the college/community chorus and the president asked for us to be there and 2) to see some of my fellow aides get their degrees and become GPN's (graduated practicing nurses). It was really cool and made me more anxious for my "day across the stage." I also had the realization that I will be getting my Nursing degree exactly 10 years after getting my Travel & Tourism degree from the same college. That was a little freaky and really shocked me when I thought of it. It doesn't feel like it was 10 years ago that I went to Disney and did my internship, but come this September that's exactly what it was. I really don't feel like I'm 10 years older then I was then ... I still feel like a young 20-something. So yes, last night I was hit by the cold hard truth that I am getting older (yuck). But there's nothing I can do about age creeping up on a person.

Ok, gonna run. It's kinda sunny out right now and I'm not sure how long that will last. I wanna take a good walk today and enjoy this wonderful weather. Later :-)

Big whopping sigh of relief

I am so relieved this afternoon. This surgical class was my hardest class yet. The teacher taught lots of stuff, her tests were confusing at times, and with my work schedule for the first 2 tests I was really on the line of having to repeat the course. Well I went to the college today so that I could see what my final grade was and I got exactly what I needed on the final so that I won't have to repeat this class. I am so happy. If I had to repeat this class, then I would have had to push back my graduation and that would have not made me very happy at all.

After I had found that out I went right over and paid for my summer courses and checked out the books needed. Now mind you, I only bought the lab book that was written by our teacher cause I can get my text books cheaper through Barnes and Noble so that's where I'm getting my main text books.

Now the rest of my day is going to be spent resting, relaxing and just enjoying the day. The rest of this week will be very busy, and so I'm happy that I can actually relax without worrying about my grades.

Mom's Day

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I hope everyone has time today to celebrate mom. Have a great day :-)

Great start :-)

This weekend has started out wonderful. I took my Surgical Final yesterday, it was a hard test so I'm not sure how I did on that. I went shopping for some new scrubs (some of my pants are falling off my tail when I'm at work and that just isn't good) and found a great sale cause this week is Nurse's Week ... sales are always good. I also went and got some new jeans. Same problem there, when I can pull my jeans down with out unzipping and unbuttoning it can cause issues at times.

I worked some extra hours for staffing last night and got some more "experience" on a med/surg floor and got to put into practice some of my "nursing" skills cause I worked with a nurse I had worked with during my nurse classes. Then I went back home and opened my "online class" email and discovered that I have an A as my final grade. I am very, very excited.

Then we get to today. I woke up this morning to find I lost another pound (yipe) and so that made me very, very happy. I also woke up to discover that my 2 brothers (my favorite brothers in the world) are getting together this morning and bringing up my washer and dryer ... FINALLY! This means no more needed trips to mom and dad's or continuous walks to the office to do laundry. Now when I have smelly clothes, I won't have to wait until I have a large load and spray them with Febreeze (how ever that's spelled) until then. I can just go downstairs and throw them right into the wash. It's a great feeling :-)

Tonight I get to work some more hours for staffing ... not sure where yet, maybe I'll be sitting. Tomorrow my bro and I are going up to mom and dad's to celebrate mother's day by taking mom out for pizza but also to celebrate mom and dad's anniversary (which is today) and mom's birthday (which is next weekend). Then after that we head to my brother's house ... and we have our semi-annual "Survivor Finale Party". Ok, not so much a party. Just the 4 of us hanging out and placing "bets" on the final results, having subs and chips and drinks and just really enjoying our time together.

Speaking of Survivor .... GO CIRIE! Out of the final 4 ... she's the one I'm rooting for. She has played a very smart game and has done "suggestions" when it's needed but played them low so people wouldn't realize how she's playing them. And if she doesn't make it to the final 3, then I hope Amanda wins it cause she's my 2nd favorite.