January 2012

Since it has been so long since my last post, I will do a little catching up over the past couple months. January was spent mostly housesitting for my co-worker, Roni, and also for our usual 2 Beagles. We celebrated a few birthdays of friends, starting with our friend Patrick (left), who is someone we knew in CA, but recently moved out here and is also going to BC.

Brian took me on a surprise date night to a Catholic worship event called Lift Ministries. It was held at a school about 45 minutes away. It was just like old times! There was an amazing pro-life speaker, adoration, and praise & worship (right). I was in tears within minutes just by being there because it brought me right back to our youth ministry days, reminding me so much of the retreats and events we were involved in. There is something so powerful to me when I hear Christian music being played and the feeling of singing along, praying the words as loud as you want. We haven't found anything like this in Boston yet and I realized that night how much I missed it. (Although, one of the churches we attend regularly has 24-hr adoration, which is definitely awesome, but that's the closest thing we've found. -picture to left). It was the perfect date night!

There were a few snowy days, but this winter has been very unique in that we hardly had any snow on the ground! I was a little bummed, especially since I didn't get any pictures on the days we did have some snow. Brian, on the other hand, was super happy that it barely snowed and wishes every winter was like this one. We have now experienced the extremes of winter in New England!!

4 jobs?!

We've been so busy - Brian's working on papers for the end of the semester and I have been working a lot. I started orientation at Whidden Hospital in Everett on April 4. The first week consisted of classroom style nursing orientation to learn the computer systems, policies and procedures, etc. After that week, I began orientation on the unit and have worked 4 days there. I am orienting to the unit with a nurse named Dawne and she is a really great, fun nurse.

There are some similarities to the Arbour Hospital, but also a lot of differences. From what I have seen the Whidden population seems a little bit less acute than what I see at Arbour, but I am sure that varies. The nurses at Whidden get about 8 patients and we have about 13 at Arbour. So far the commute to Everett hasn't been too bad either.

I've only worked 1 day at Arbour in the past couple weeks because I have been busy with orientation at Whidden, and I am working shifts at Bay Cove here and there when I can.

On April 5 I interviewed for a summer full time paid externship at the VA Hospital and I got it! I didn't prepare at all for the interview, which probably was helpful actually because I was way more relaxed. So, my externship starts May 9 and will be on a surgical floor (in neuro I think) - I am really looking forward to it (especially for the hands-on experience)! They hired 15 new graduates and there is a possibility of being hired at the end of the externship (maybe per diem or part time, depends on what's available).

So, things are good and I am very grateful for these job opportunities! I am going to try my best to keep the 3 per diems while doing the externship, hoping to work maybe a couple per diem shifts a month just so I don't forget everything I just learned in my orientations - haha. We will see how it all works out. I continue to put this all in God's hands!

I was beginning to feel a little overwhelmed on Monday after my first day orienting on the unit at Whidden. I had thoughts of letting that job go since I had just started, but I really like that it is part of a hospital and I can move to other units later on as an internal employee. I also really like the staff I work with, which is huge. So, I am going to stick with it, but while I was on my way home, feeling overwhelmed, I decided to pull out my Lenten prayer book and do my afternoon prayer, which was this:

"Living God, I don't know why it keeps surprising me
that I can always endure more than I thought possible. ...
God, my friend, let me understand that - to live -
I must break myself up, or be broken, to share the pieces."
from More Daily Prayers for Busy People by William O'Malley

I felt it was so perfect for me that day and it reminded me that God has me right where I am supposed to be. And even though I have been wanting to have just 1 full time job for ease and convenience, God has provided me with 4 jobs to allow me to share myself with them all. :)

Thanks be to God

These are the beautiful lyrics to a Lonestar song called "Hey God" that I have always loved - such a wonderful prayer and reminder.

"You have your ways, you have your plan Sometimes mysterious and hard to understand. I am humbled by your grace and everything you do. Hey God, Hey God - I just want to thank you! Sometimes I forget to stop and bow my head, and remember that I have been blessed..."

So, I just wanted to take this time to Thank God for a wonderful year and blessing our lives in so many incredible ways!!

Also, Fr. Peter (at St. Clement's Shrine) recently wrote this "I think God's unpredictability can sometimes unnerve us. But, if we follow him, it will be an adventure. I can tell you this - you will never miss out on the best things in life."

We're moving!

For those of you who haven't heard the news, Brian has been accepted to Fordham University (in the Bronx -eek!) and to Boston College!!! We are thrilled, but still waiting to hear from the other 5 schools he applied to. Although we can pretty much say at this point that we are for sure moving this August - wow! I will keep you posted, but we should probably know by March where exactly we will be going. I know we will end up where we are supposed to be, where God wants us to be, but this is a big decision for us and we of course are both excited and nervous. Please keep us in your prayers - thanks!

The Purpose of Christmas

This month I have been reading The Purpose of Christmas by Rick Warren. It is the perfect way to prepare for the birth of Jesus. It's a really easy, short read and the "chapters" are really short - a perfect book to read right before bedtime.

There were a few good quotes that I wanted to share with you - just little reminders. :)

I don't know what difficulty you feel you're drowning in right now or where the heat is on in your life, but I do know that whatever it is, God knows about it, cares about it, understands it, and is going through it with you. You're not alone.

God is waiting to save you. He wants to save you from sin and self, save you for his purpose, and save you by his grace, through faith. But you've got to relax, quit trying to save yourself, let go, and trust your savior to do it for you.

It is astounding that so many people have celebrated Christmas every year of their lives without ever having opened their greatest and most expensive Christmas gift. Jesus Christ is God's Christmas gift to you.

Have a very Merry Christmas, remembering the true meaning of this blessed holiday!

Happy Thanksgiving!

I am thankful for so many things, but most importantly I am thankful for my faith in God because He gets me through everything. Although I thank God daily for these things, I want to specifically thank Him in writing on this special day. So, thank you, God, for my family, friends, health, food and shelter, education, and every blessing you have bestowed upon me (the list could go on forever!). I give thanks for Brian because he stands by my side every step of the way. I am also very thankful that I got my RN license this year and to be almost done with school, since my nursing journey has been long and arduous, but also full of blessings and wonderful memories. In addition, I want to say a special prayer today for those who are alone, hungry, sick, cold, and/or suffering in any way.

Even though today is Thanksgiving, we should be thankful for all the blessings in our lives throughout the entire year. It can sometimes be a struggle to give thanks, especially for the littlest things or during times of stress or anger, but when you do, I feel it really helps brighten your spirits and makes you realize that you have SO much to be thankful for. I am definitely going to try to be more thankful for simple things that can often go unnoticed.

I hope each of you has a wonderful Thanksgiving, surrounded by the love of family and friends.

My 1st RN "job"

Friday morning I received a call from Dee Dee who was going to be the Confirmation 2 Retreat nurse, but she was feeling ill and ended up needing to be home with her kids for the weekend. So, she asked me if I wanted to do it. I did not think that it was just a coincidence that I had no assignments due over the weekend and I was feeling very called to do it. After thinking about it all day, I decided to go. Dee Dee was preparing me on what to do and expect, but she started freaking me out with all her stories, but I remained prayerful. While I was babysitting, but once all 4 kids went to bed, I looked up some med information for the teens' prescriptions and then left at 10:30 pm, picked up Brian and we headed up to Running Springs (arriving at 1 am).

It was a lot of fun being on the retreat this weekend, but at the same time, so strange being there in a different role (and also only knowing a couple dozen familiar faces). It was a wonderful experience and I am very thankful that nothing bad happened. Nothing occurred that a little advil, benadryl, pepto-bismal, or a band-aid couldn't handle. :) I was really scared to be there working as an independent nurse for the first time, but I knew God was there with me (and also Brian). I definitely think this experience has increased my nursing self-confidence and I look forward to using my skills to help like this in the future.

I included a couple fun pictures from today, hanging out with Jon and Megan. We missed our photographer, Dick, though...

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Well, I noticed that it has been a month since my last post, so I thought I should write something. I really don't have much to say except that school is still crazy! Schoolwork is really all that I have been doing these days. We are at the half way point in the semester!!! Very exciting...and I am really looking forward to our Spring Break in a couple weeks!

Since it is St. Patrick's Day, I thought I would add an excerpt from St. Patrick's "breastplate" prayer:

I bind unto myself today
The power of God to hold and lead,
His eye to watch, His might to stay,
His ear to hearken to my need.
The wisdom of my God to teach,
His hand to guide, his shield to ward,
The word of God to give me speech,
His heavenly host to be my guard.

I love what this prayer says and should probably read it everyday! I hope you enjoyed reading it too. :)