Holidays and Tests

Bring on the holiday cheer because I am officially done with my second semester of Nursing School.  I have been agonizing over today's practical exam since the beginning of November.  A nursing instructors sits and watches you perform skills...ahhh so nerve wrecking!  I have said many many prayers over this test and when I said my prayer this morning I could feel my Heavenly Father calming my heart.  However, keeping that feeling took some work!!  My instructor happened to be my old clinical instructor which was a huge relief.  It also helped that she was singing "I flit, I float, to CPE I go..."  She made me laugh so much it took some of the edge off. I took my written exam back on Thursday in order to be eligible for the practical.  Luckily I only needed an F on the test to pass the semester, (But if you know me you know all I could think about was "oh my gosh what if I do get an F"....ahhh!!).  Just so you know, Spencer just kept laughing at me, saying there is no need to stress, you just need an F.  But don't worry I got well above an F on the test.  It has been a long semester full of so much stress.  Every step of the way I am praying that I pass and I am always surprised when I do.  Not in a bad way, I put a lot of hard work in.  But I know that without my Heavenly Fathers help I would not be doing as well as I am.  He has blessed me so much, in ways that I feel I don't deserve.  Now it is on the 3rd semester....sigh.  We will be studying pediatrics, OB, and end of life care.  But not until the 13th of January, bring on the Christmas break!!

Since I have been neglecting this blog I will try and catch up on a few things.  Unfortunately I have been super bad about taking pictures so... sorry.

My work throws a huge All Employees party every November that is super fancy with a sit down dinner and an open bar (so you can imagine it is pretty popular).  A bunch of friends from work were going and Spencer is always up for a free meal.  Before the party my friend really wanted some pictures of us all dressed up.  We headed down to a park by  my house with a great view of downtown Tulsa.

 It was so pretty out with all the fall colors, best time of year!

This is my friend Samantha and her boyfriend Ethan.  She is doomed to suffer through nursing school with me and we work together.  Needless to say....she has to put up with me and my stress a lot!

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Here are some pictures of Spencer and I before the party.  He was making weird faces and we look awkward in some but hey it was fun to get outside and enjoy the weather!

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We had a great night with everybody from work.  Spencer hit up the bar for some free Dr. Pepper...oooo the hard stuff.

Of course later in the month we had Thanksgiving.  However, I have lived my life from one nursing test to the next.  And there happened to be a nursing test the Monday before thanksgiving giving me very little prep time for the holiday.  I also had been getting over being sick, again, I think my body knows that I don't have health insurance and it is trying to punish me.  Luckily enough I had Tuesday and Wednesday off of work for the last two weeks (because I was done with clinical, booya!!) giving me time to sleep and ignore the world.  Thursday morning came and it was time to attack the house. 

In order to fit everybody in the house to eat we literally have to move a majority of the furniture out of the living room.  Which means we also did some deep cleaning, a little too deep.  A while back I was stressing about one of those nursing tests and I woke up at 2:30 am and I couldn't go back to sleep.  So I jumped on my computer to work on a study guide.  Then out of the corner of my eye I spotted a mouse come out from underneath the guest bed.  The only proper thing to do was scream, there is a mouse in my house!!  I then ran for the broom to swoosh him outside but I lost him in all the...running.  So when Spencer woke up I told him about Gus Gus (he looked fat and brown).  There have been a few sightings since but we haven't caught him yet (yes we have traps but they are still in the store bag waiting to be put out...we are that on top of it).  Well amid the cleaning we think we found his way in and out.  Our old house has an old grate in the living room that was for heat.  Since the heat is through the central system now we sealed up the grate (hoping this also helps with how ridiculously cold this house is).

Thanksgiving was so much fun.  We invite our friends who also don't have anywhere to go for the holiday to celebrate with us.  Spencer fried up 3 turkeys and we had each family bring some food.  I was so grateful for that because I was definitely not up to cooking a whole meal this year.  The food was amazing and we sent everybody home with left overs.  Friday I spent the afternoon at work, which was not as bad as I thought it would  be.  Then I spent the weekend ignoring that nagging feeling about studying for my final exam the following week.  

Since we had already gutted out the living room, Spencer decided it was time to rearrange the furniture.  We got rid of the Gus Gus couch (at least I think he lived in it, Spencer doesn't) and moved almost everything one spot to the left (didn't plan it that way, just how it happened).  It is now my favorite room in the house, it looks so open and spacious (which is hard to do in a 1000 sf bungalow).  In order to avoid school work I put a few Christmas decorations up, just the tree and stockings.  I wasn't even feeling like doing that but the new living room arrangements made me feel festive.

The weather has turned drastically cold.  On the day of my final a big storm blew in with a few inches of snow.  Last year it melted by the afternoon, this year it is cold and is determined to stay put.  It is fun to just look out the window and see beautiful snow.  One of the fun things about Tulsa, you never know what the weather is going to do.  Some years we get snow and others we just freeze in the wind.  Just so you know, making dogs chase a laser pen through the snow is pretty hilarious, at least until that cold, wet dachshund snuggles right into you afterward.

Now we are counting down the days to celebrating Christmas with my family, literally, I might make a paper chain.