WAIT! I'm still here. :)

I have no excuse for not keeping up on my blogging. I am sincerely just enjoying not having to do anything. For not really having anything to do I still feel like this break is flying by much too quickly. Here are some things that have been going on:
What started as a innocent pastime that would take my mind off of RJ leaving is now a full fledged obsession. I can't stop knitting. Literally. I've become one of those 80 year old ladies who always has a ball of yarn and knitting needles in my purse. And you know what? I'm not embarrassed. I really like making things and since my crafty skills are seriously lacking in other categories I'm happy to have found something crafty that I'm good at. I'll post some pictures after Christmas. Can you take knitting needles on an airplane? I would be seriously erked if security took them away from me. I would probably cry. This is what I've become.
On that thought, I'm flying to Utah on Christmas day. I'm so excited (minus the flying part). I'm really anxious about flying alone. I don't like flying. RJ always calms me down. With every bump of turbulence I'm the one who thinks we're going to die. Not to mention that in my head I feel like the airport itself is going to be a nightmare. RJ flew the day after Thanksgiving and got through security after 5 minutes. I'm hoping that will be the case this trip. I can't wait to see RJ. I've really missed him. I'll be there for a week. Which means I'll also be there on our anniversary and new years and that makes me happy. I feel like I have a million things that I want to do while I'm there. Most of it revolves around food. :) Texas Roadhouse, In-N-out, Qualberto's, MOOCHIES, Five Guys... I could probably think of more. I really want to meet up with my friends Kyle and Faith. We tried to get together with them last year but the weather was not cooperative. I'll cross my fingers for this year. I finally get to meet my new neice Kaycee while I'm there. They've been there for a couple of days and RJ's been sending me pictures constantly. I can't wait to be around a baby!
I just got back from house-sitting for the Cook's house for almost 2 weeks while they were cruising the Caribbean. It felt like longer than that. While I was house-sitting I went to my friend Jenny's craft night, where I successfully knitted an entire scarf, I went bowling with some of my nursing school buddies, went and celebrated my Grandma's 72nd birthday, finished my Christmas shopping and crafting, and hung out with my Mom a lot. Obviously I was really really busy.
The closer that this break gets to being over the more that I get to thinking about school. My last quarter. My LAST quarter! LAST LAST LAST! I like the sound of the "last" part. Not really the "quarter" part. I'm not ready to go back to school. I keep thinking that I only have one day of class a week and two days of clinicals. That's encouraging, but I still don't feel like thinking about it. :)
Here are some pictures of the last few weeks:

Jenny and I at bowling. Thank goodness for her. I've really needed a good friend to rely on since RJ's been gone. She's amazing.

The whole group of my buddies. The best of the best (minus Marian who had to work). Top row: Amy, Emily Morth, Me, Emily Harper, bottom row: Lashonda, Jenny, Dena, Angie. I suck. I wanted bumpers but I was overruled. :)

Dena, Me, Gissela, and Marian at our test remediation after-party. (Yes I do have yarn in my lap. And YES, I was knitting)

Heidi, Mom, Grandma, and Me and my grandma's birthday party. Happy 72nd birthday Gramma!

Here we gooooooo!

I'm happy to announce that I'm done with my fifth quarter of nursing school. Ah, it feels good. It actually FLEW by, which is good because if it was another drawn out boring quarter that feels like it lasts a year and a half then I'm sure I wouldn't have lasted! My mind hasn't switched over to "vacation" mode yet. It seems to take longer and longer to recover from a quarter the longer that I'm in school. Thankfully after this break is over I only have 3 more months of school! That's so wierd to say, but I'm definitely ready to get used to that idea!
Thanksgiving was a hard one this year. RJ left the day after, and I was kinda stuck on that the day before. He's working and doing good down in Utah with his family. I miss him a lot. I wasn't prepared for how lonely I was going to be having to come home to an empty house. I was also not prepared for how long it was going to take me to pack up our entire place by myself. I don't know what I was thinking... I totally procrastinated because I was sad, and then the night before I was supposed to move over to my parents house I started packing things up. Bad idea. It took MUCH longer than expected and then I was up all night, had to get up early to finishpacking, got some of the stuff to my parents, went to work, went to bed, went to school, went to bed, went to school again, and now I'm at work again. Goodness. It's been a busy week. After tonight I have a week off. As in I have NO work or anything else until next Thursday. I don't know what I'm going to do with myself. Actually I do...
Last week my good friend Jenny came over to study. I ended up getting an impromptu knitting lesson for like 2 hours! It's kinda addicting, we started to find really cute patterns for hats and gloves...and now I can't stop. :) She was like, "You know what you need this December when RJ's not here?? Knitting." haha. I do kinda feel like a 90 year old when I'm doing it, but I really like it. I'm wierd. I can accept this. :)
There's an update for now, I'm on the last hour of my shift and I'm DRAGGINGGGG. I can't wait to go to sleep!!

Where did this kid come from?

...I realize I'm a happily married woman (AND the fact that he's still just a baby). But my goodness...

I'm pretty sure when Twilight came out the word that I used to describe Jacob was "Goober". ...obviously I was wrong.


RJ, David, Kelsie, and I went to go see New Moon on Friday night. I love the theater in Monroe because we didn't really wait in line for very long and there were still a ton of open seats in the theater. On a FRIDAY night at the 7:45 showing. Awesome. I hate crowds and David actually had to convince me to go see it on opening day. (I like to admit that because I think it knocks me down a few on the "crazy Twihard's" board.) None-the-less, I gave in, and it was so worth it! This director did SUCH a better job. I wish that the first one was the same. Anyhoo, enough of that. Sufficeth to say that I want a Team Jacob shirt for Christmas. :)
I have a 6 day stretch of days off. ...I don't think this has happened since school started. Hallelujah. Seriously! I'm glad I've had a couple of days to decompress before RJ leaves (which is Thursday). I've gotten our place in good enough shape to just do some of the deep cleaning things before I move out. That alone is a huge amount of stress off my shoulders! It was getting a little ridiculous. On Wednesday I have my LAST LAST LAST day of clinicals (Hallelujah, Amen). And then the next Monday I have my last lecture test (raise the roof). And then after that I just have the AIT's which are these dumb tests that are supposed to prepare you for the NCLEX (the nursing state board exam). ...I dont' believe it because everyone fails these tests. So if they are really preparing us maybe it's just to learn some humility and make us all feel stupid and incompetent. And it's ok because you can retake them as many times as you want to in order to pass. Therefore, I don't count these on my countdown of last things I have to do for the quarter. :) I'm so excited. Clinical groups were picked for the last quarter and mine are EVENING SHIFT. If there is anything that I've learned from being in school it is that I KNOW I don't want to work the day shift. NO FREAKING WAY! I hate getting up early. I'm hoping I sign on with a hospital that I can work evenings at. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE. :) ...graduation is getting closerrrrrrrrrrrr! Yay!

Ahhh, it feels good.

Last day of lecture! ... Hallelujah! I'm so close to being done with this quarter ... and then only ONE. MORE. LEFT. Oh my. I remember when my mom was going into her last quarter of nursing school and it seemed so far away! Also, I get a month off until next quarter, which I'm delighted about.

This past weekend I spent a lot of time with my friend Elaina who left for the MTC this morning. I'm so happy for her, even though I wish she could have just stayed a little closer...or close enough to do our regular bubble tea runs. :) She got RJ hooked up with the institute's turkey bowl. Bless her heart. RJ has been looking forward to this since last year. He had a lot of fun. Our team was better than last year, even though we we eliminated after our 3rd game. It was still so much fun. I love being in Husky stadium, I think it's so cool that they do it there. I played... I mean "played". I actually am not as terrible as I thought I was. Surprisingly, I can actually catch the ball most of the time. It was very last minute because one of our girls bailed so we needed a replacement. Ta-da! Me. Anyways, I'm glad I did it. The night before the turkey bowl I got together with Elaina to get some bandanas and then get Red Mango as our last "hurrah" before she left. The people of Pheonix sure are lucky to get to have her around. Here are some pictures of The turkey bowl and Elaina's open house:


Elaina catching a ball at the turkey bowl... right in the face.

This was a part of our team waiting to play.

Elaina! I'll miss her. She's been my best bud for the past few years.

This was at her open house on Sunday. She left this morning for the MTC! Watch out Pheonix!


There's my update! I have one last lecture test, one last day of clinical (for which I don't have to do a prep sheet...YESSS!), and then the end of the quarter tests we always do. So the count-down is officially on! Whoop whoop!
-Katie

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes.

I've been procrastinating on this update because I was just trying to avoid dealing with it.
RJ's job has officially pooped out on him. I think they're trying to get him to quit instead of firing him so that don't have to pay unemployment. Last month they cut his pay in half in a very manipulative way. They told him that they were going to start paying him commission, but because of that they were going to cut his pay down to minimum wage. But insisted that he'd be making more money this way. After doing that they stopped giving him jobs that would pay commission. So basically they just lowered his pay to minimum wage. At that point we knew we were in trouble. The panic didn't really set in until we actually got his check and it was 1/3 of what it normally would be. We were already stretched really tight because essentially I've stopped working since the quarter started. We put together a plan of action really fast, and I guess I'm still sad about it. RJ's leaving at the end of the month to go work for his Dad at his uncle's company. This is what he was going to be doing when we had planned on moving in April or May. We're actually really lucky that his Dad's work was looking to hire someone before January. I'm going to be moving back into my parents house to finish my last quarter of nursing school while he's down there getting our feet back on the ground. So that means we'll be apart again until I'm done with nursing school. It doesn't sound that bad when I write it down, but I really am not happy about the situation. At first I was actually excited to not pay rent for a while and start building a savings. I really like my parents and felt like it would actually work out well living there since Spencer was the only one there. And then something awesome happened. My sister broke up with Jon, her boyfriend, who she's been living with for a while. My parents were so excited about it that they decided to get everything out of his house and bring her to their house that same night that she decided to break up with him. That's the awesome part. The not-so-awesome part is that she's planning on staying for a while... which means...I'll be living with her for a while. I love her. But we have learned from past experience that we don't get along when we have to live together. I know that it's only for a little while, but thinking about all of the stuff that happened the last time we lived together and then thinking about being in close living quarters again kinda makes me want to cry. It will be fine. I will be fine. I'll be busy anyways. So at this point the only thing I know is that I'll be living with my parents, presumably in their work out room, I think I'll have room for a bed, and that's probably about it. Not as great as the first option, but I'm grateful that I have a place to stay. I wish I could feel more grateful about it, but the truth is that I'm not looking forward to it.
Ok, enough of that. School is going fine. This quarter is really hard. My grades are fine. I finished up all of my "extra experiences" yesterday for the quarter. Which means that I only have my regular clinicals, and then lectures left. I don't know why they insist on shoving so many things in thist quarter. Along with all the regular stuff we also had to do a dialysis rotation, wound care rotation, O.R. rotation, and a psych rotation. Because we normally have a ton of extra time on our hands, right? I'm glad that I'm getting close to the end. It's been a tough one.

Introducing...

My Halloween pumpkin!!! Isn't it amazing?!!! David did Spock! HA!



Seriously. How legit is this pumpkin?!?!?! haha!


I totally miss Adam today! Last year we carved pumpkins together. :( I'm going to send him a picture. My cold got even worse today (is that even possible?). I'm totally getting an ear infection. SO LAME! I don't have time for this now!

My neice!!! So cute!

RJ and I skyped with his sisters yesterday because they're babysitting our neice Kaycee while his sister and brother-in-law are on a cruise. We got some pictures, she's SO CUTE!!!






Isn't she adorable!!! :) I can't wait to see her in person!