A new journey!

Since I have three finals in a couple of days, I really can't write for too long today, but I wanted to say a couple of things about the latest news... I have been accepted into the University of Utah college of nursing, and will be starting to work toward my nursing degree in August! I am very excited, and relieved... this will be a good thing for us.
For a while there, I was very worried about this whole thing, but Heavenly father was mindful of me, and sent many wonderful people my way lately to be kind and comfort me. The anxiety level was very high for me, for many different reasons, but I found that even the lessons that were taught at church in the last week made me feel better. I started school to ensure a better future for my family, and getting into this program gives me a great deal of peace of mind. In two years, I will be a nurse, and while the program is tough, I know my father in heaven will help me, just as he has so far.
I also want to enclose a picture of Doug and I. He always makes funny faces when I take a picture, so this is the best one of the bunch. I have now lost a total of 18 lbs since I first started, and have a long way to go, but I am confident I will be a lot healthier very soon.
So there it is, I am glad I have people to share the wonderful news with, and very happy that my family supports me in all of this, especially Doug. None of it would be possible without him. I am going to be a nurse!!!!

Recent events

First, I will talk about the mundane, and then I will talk about the exciting stuff!
Today I am at work, and I feel very self conscious because... well let's start at yesterday afternoon. I decided to work out, and used my brand new weight gloves (they have a 1/2 lb weight built in), and because they are rather tight on my hands, I decided to take my wedding ring off. I went to bed, went to work early today, and I feel almost naked without it! It is a very uneasy feeling not having my ring, and nobody else will notice it, I am sure, but this is the second time I have forgotten to put my ring back on after a workout. Hopefully soon, I will no longer need to take it off, if it is not the gloves, then the swelling in my hands do me in...
School has been going well, I had two exams creep up on me last week, and I only had 3 days to study, so everything else was delayed because of it... Next week I have my second pathophysiology exam, and I am trying to prepare for it now. I am also doing other stuff for my volunteer program. I will not run the program next year, so we are in a mad dash to get everything ready for the new program director. I have a person in mind to take it over, and she has applied for it, but we won't know the final decision until the end of March. What's more, I was supposed to let my coordinator know that she is the preferred choice, but as it turns out, the new coordinator will pick the new program director, and that person will not be picked until next week. In addition, I am almost to the end of my program funds, and I must buy more looms, then I can close the program to new people, and the next director will start over next year. I have enjoyed this experience, but in a way, I can't wait for it to be over...
Emma told me very proudly the other day that they had to take exams to assess their level of academic performance at her school, and that the teacher told everyone in the classroom that she was the only one to get 100%. I was very surprised, and almost didn't know what to say. Looking back, I wish I had made an even bigger deal about that, but I will talk to her soon about how proud I am of her.
That brings me to the exciting part: Emma was finally baptized (after many "issues" with the scheduling of the event), and it was a great turnout, more than 50 people were there! Most of Doug's family, and a lot of our ward friends were there, and I was very happy to see lots of kids that day. Doug's dad gave the most wonderful talk about the holy ghost, and it was truly an inspired talk. It was geared to the children, and he had props and visual aids, which made it really exciting for them. I hope that Emma remembers this day. She got a few gifts, and she loves the Book of Mormons we gave her, one in English, and one in Spanish. There was something very interesting that happened in the baptism, Emma has always had a fear of water, and she hates showering, bathing and swimming. It has taken us many years to get her to do all these things without screaming at the top of her lungs (if you are family, you know what I am talking about), and while I was not too worried about that, I think she may have been. When she came out of the water, one of the first things she told me, was that she was surprised that the water "didn't feel like water", and she said that when she was under the water she felt as if she was not in water at all. I knew that I would cry a lot that day, so I tried to stop myself and enjoy the day as much as possible, but I am a sentimental fool, so I did anyway. Most everything worked out just fine, so I was very happy, and exhausted at the end of the day.
This is one day I will always remember.

3 weeks

Well, I thought it was about time for me to post a progress report. It has been a little over three weeks since I started implementing my diet and exercise routine, and although the results have been rather slow, I have seen some changes.
1. I am no longer having breathing problems when I do light walking and exercise.
2. My blood pressure is back to normal, last time it was measured it was 115 over 60... YAY!!!
3. My clothes are getting quite loose on me, no need to get smaller clothes yet, but I am sure I will get there :)
4. I can put my wedding ring on ( it is a tight fit, so I will wait a little longer before wearing it again).
5. I am no longer in a constant hunger state, that was getting old...
6. I have lost 7 pounds since I started.
This is small but encouraging progress, and since I am using a program on my phone to count and track all of my food intake, it has become a lot easier to stop overeating. I am getting very excited!
Until next time...

What do you do with your gum when you are done with it?

Apparently, putting your gum on your hair and eyebrows, so that you look like the love child of Unibrow and Wolverine, is a great option!
You can probably imagine how awful it was to try and get that stuff off his hair, but we managed. However, despite washing his hair and face, he stills smells like a combination of gum and peanut butter... YUK!!!

Pirate ship

Two posts in one day is very unusual for me, but I had actually written the first a few days ago, and just had not posted it.
Well, today Logan went to the daycare for about an hour, and he had lots of fun drawing. I just thought his pirate ship was the cutest thing I have ever seen! He went through great pains to draw a skull and crossbones on the flag and I can't help but want to share his artistic talent :)
I also asked him about his name on the top left, and he said, "yes it's my name, L O G A N, Logan!"
He is a bright little rascal! Love my little boy.

Down to the wire

Life is changing very quickly for me... Or at least I hope so.
I had wanted to go to college for quite some time before I did so. I first applied to the University of Wisconsin shortly after I married, but became discouraged after continuous problems delayed my admission, and in fact, I simply made the decision to wait. When I prayed about it, I got the impression that it was OK to start my family then.
Fast forward 8 years, and I found myself with 3 kids, dirt poor and with absolutely no prospects. In fact, I was very lucky to have a good paying job doing translations for the department of defense, but only worked part time, so I was not able to make enough money anyway.
At that time, I prayed a lot to get an answer to what I should do, and received a distinct impression that I should go to school. I got everything started, and didn't look back.
It took a lot of time and work,It's not perfect, but despite being so busy, Doug and I are trying to be good to each other, which is all I can really ask for. I have been very successful in school so far,got good grades and I am truly learning about the world and myself which has made going to school a very fun experience (when I am not stressing excessively about all I have to do).
And now, here I am, at the eve of applying to the school of nursing. A very nerve racking experience, since I worry too much about what might go wrong in these kinds of things. I have had my share of disappointments lately, and I get a little scared.
I had to write an essay, which I started a long time ago. I was having a very hard time writing it, which is not really characteristic for me, but nevertheless, I could not write, or fix what was there, I felt utterly powerless. It took a lot of time, but finally I asked friends and family to look at what I had, and help me out. Everyone was so wonderful, giving me plenty of feedback, telling me what they thought was lacking. Thanks to Marco, Kike, Cory, Trina, Julie, Eli (James), Chelsi, Mary and Martha. You guys really helped get my essay where it needed to be. I have to say that I felt much better after working on it some more, and I feel confident that I have done everything possible to make my application reflective of my potential. Well friends, as of today, the application is in, and now I wait. I should hear from them by the end of March. Until then, I just wanted to share with all of you the finished essay, which actually tells a lot about some of my previous life experience and where I want to go.
Here is a small excerpt:

According to the Institute of Medicine, Medical errors are the cause of approximately 98,000 deaths in the United States (Kohn, 26). Of those, 34,850 patients would have survived if they had received appropriate treatment (Shojania et al., 2853). Although misdiagnoses have decreased substantially in recent decades (ibid, 2853), a development nurses played a considerable part in, they continue to significantly affect patient care. Unfortunately, I have experienced this firsthand.
My father suffered a stroke when I was 15 years old. When he sought medical help he was misdiagnosed, subsequently suffered irreversible brain damage, and has been permanently disabled since. After my father returned home, my family and I had to make adjustments to accommodate my father's needs, and I became his full-time caregiver. I fed, bathed and dressed my father everyday; I helped him do physical and speech therapy exercises, and went with him to his doctor's appointments. Through this experience, I gained a great deal of respect for nurses. It was emotionally challenging to take care of my disabled father, but also extremely fulfilling to see his progress and make a difference in his life. From that point on, I was determined to one day become a nurse... (I wrote a lot more, but have been advised not to post all of my essay, so here is the conclusion) As a nurse, I will have the unique opportunity and responsibility to do what is necessary to obtain the correct diagnosis for my patients. While it is not feasible to expect an error-free performance, I know that the personal experience I've had with my father will always remind me of the reason why I should strive for excellence in clinical practice. I know that the quality of education I attain will dictate the caliber of professional that I become. This is why it is my sincere aspiration to realize my dream of becoming a nurse at the University of Utah nursing school.

Temple!!

As mentioned earlier, I had planned to go to the family history library to do get names ready for the temple. Everything worked out so well, from the parking, to the children behaving so well throughout the whole hour I was there. I printed 4 cards for me to do, 3 sealing, and 3 male names. I still have to do a lot more, by the time I got all that done, the kids were antsy and started to fight, So I will have to go back and do about 15 more names, but I was feeling so great when I walked out of the family history library, so cool!
Then I went home and my cell phone alarm went off, today is the ward temple night, it said. I called the temple to make sure I didn't need an appointment to do my own family names, checked to see if I could have them do the male names for me (Doug let his temple recommend expire), and then called Doug to see if he would be OK watching the kids. He then informs me that he got his temple recommend last week, and would like to do my names in the temple. So, I arranged for carpooling, babysitting (Thanks Brigetta and Kayse!) and got ready to go!!!
Next we got to the Temple, walked the very long walk from the main entrance to the baptismal font (I needed to correct the cards I printed first), when we got there, there was a very large group doing baptisms. We asked about what we should do, and we were told we would likely have to wait until everyone else had gone through. Luckily, we were allowed to go through before them, since I had my own names. We went through, and it was so wonderful! When we were done, I had the distinct feeling that my grandma is happy now.
Awesome stuff!!!