october highlights

'S been many moons since I've posted -- a little indian lingo there -- and I suppose I have an update or two I can share about the past month.

School is almost over, which I keep saying, is just surreal.  Most excellent, in a Bill and Ted way even.  :)  3 more lectures.  3 more quizzes.  1 HESI.  1 final.  96 hours of preceptorship, which I'll be doing at Thunderbird Hospital in the post-partum unit.  Graduation December 14th.  Readying for State boards.  Lovin' life. 

My patients the past two weeks have been so interesting and so real.  Yesterday my gentleman was 28 and had ARDS (Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome) among other things, pericarditis and viral pneumonia to name a few.  Basically his lungs were filling up with fluid due to increased permeability surrounding his alveoli.  Completely sedated and on a respirator, this poor man is not likely to make it.  He had two young kids 18 months and younger.  Last week I worked with a neonate born at 25 weeks.  He weighed 680 grams which is about a pound and a half.  He was the size of a Beanie Baby!  I didn't hold him, but I did get to rock a 4 pounder for a bit.  Such a sweet little guy.  I'm torn between wanting to help birth the babies or work with the babies afterwards!  Both such rewarding jobs.

We had Trunk or Treat a few weeks ago, Trunk or Treat at the high school, a Halloween party at Grandma's, and of course Halloween tonight.  We are Halloweened out for sure, but we definitely got some use out of our costumes!  We spent all of $5 this year.  Another *most excellent* fact!

We tried a couple different ways of doing make-up, but by the time Halloween came around, Cameron wasn't interested in face paint any more.  These are tattoos.

Which reminds me of Modern Family's Halloween episode last week.  Anyone see it?  Genius.

Danny starts a new job next week!  After 6 years of working as a Paramedic for Southwest Ambulance, he has accepted the job of Paramedic for West Valley Hospital.  He'll work in the ER.  He's looking forward to it, to the ease of scheduling work around school, to having a foot in the door once he's ready to find a nursing job--any maybe a foot in the door for ME come Feb/March when I'm looking for a job.  Of course it's hard to leave the unknown for something new, and he is in a really cushy spot right now, but he's working 72-84 hours a week right now so we can pay the bills.  We'll see him a lot more under this new schedule.  It's exciting, but scary!

I haven't been keeping to my diet at all, but I'm still doing an average of 5-6 Zumba classes a week, which are hard and puke-inducing, but I love them!  So fun.  A couple of times a week I do back-to-back classes!  Craziness.  Now that we have 300lbs of chocolate in the house, I'm not sure the diet's gonna get any better, but I always have a goal!

Here's our pretty Tallie girl.  10 months old.  Still hyper as heck.  We really need to get her in obedience class, but who has the time.  She's just learned how to play frisbee and she loooooves it.

I made these witch hats for the Trunk or Treat.  So easy, right?!

Dan got released from Cub Scouts and is now in the Elders Quorum presidency.  I'm still plugging away on the organ for sacrament meeting.  No brainer (and sometimes it shows!).

Cameron recently won the spelling bee for his class. . . tomorrow he participates in the spelling bee for his grade level.  This from the kid who seriously can not spell to save his life.  I don't know where he pulled that from!  He just participated in his Gifted class project of developing/writing a screenplay from a book, making puppets, and then performing a play for the kindergartners.  He rocked it!

I'm so happy right now. . . school, career, family, it's all good.  I've been a little too busy to socialize and make friends, and I miss all of you, but I feel that when we do get together, we'll pick up right where we left off.  :)

What were the highlights of your October?