So it has been way to long since i have updated. I have been inspired by all of those crafty blogs out there, plus a few craft plans i had before hand to do some craft/decorating around the house. Within the last few days I've mod podged a lampshade with some super cute napkins from target, hand painted a cupcake/bible verse sign for the kitchen, and practiced my crocheting. My husband and i also found the best deal ever on our way to take Barbie to the vet the other day. The most beautiful head board and foot board outside of an antique shop for super cheap! I'm still trying to decide whether to leave it it's original gold color or paint it white....hmm. The gold doesn't go with our current duvet or some of our decorations, but i kind of like that it's the original color, plus it looks like a king's bed. Pictures to come...

Needy Greedy

     Let me start out by saying that I have been very blessed all throughout my life. I was blessed so much growing up in fact that it was a very hard transition going from living at home and having disposable income, to living at college with an allowance and no income, to being married and having my own income but having to pay bills for the first time, think about someone else's needs above my own, and our needs as a couple before my own. It has been a very hard transition, a long one, and one that I am realizing that as more time goes on, I need more time to grow! My family can testify that I have never been the best steward of money, however, I am struggling every day to change that. The reason I am going on about this is because I got to thinking about it today and a huge question came to my mind; Am I greedy? It seems the less money I have the more I want, and when I have more money, I still feel that it is little. Part of this I feel is to blame on comparing myself to other people and couples. I look at other couples our age and say to myself, "Look, they both already have good jobs, a house, etc, and we are far far from that." Deep down i know a few things: 1) I do not know that couple's current or past financial situation, for all I know, they could be living off of their parents still, or be thousands of dollars in credit card or loan debt, 2) Maybe no matter how much anyone ever has, it never seems to be enough, 3) Each couple is different, and God will do different things with the financial situation that he puts each couple in (hope that makes sense) and 4) God will always provide what you really need.
     Having said all that, here are my thoughts on the subject. We may always stay where we are now financially, and we need to make the best of it. As Vicki on the Real Housewives of OC said, "It's not the amount of money you have, it's what you do with the money you have." Honestly, we really have been given all that we need and more. We are able to pay our bills, have a place to live, have two cars, never go hungry, have plenty of clothes, etc. I really just need to focus on that and not all of the extra "stuff" out there that I want. We have all of the furniture we need, I need to focus on that instead of the fact that we don't have a beautiful leather sectional couch, or a beautiful white shabby chic bed. I have way to many clothes in my closet, so I really need to be thankful for what I have and not think about the new spring line that is coming out at Ann Taylor or how all of their beautiful winter clothes are going on sale. I don't need it! And lastly, maybe God does have something bigger and better financially planned for us and is putting us through tighter times right now to prepare us to be good stewards of our money when we have more. Even if that doesn't happen, I need to focus more on the above stated and being more responsible with the money He has given me.
      One of my dreams has always been to have lots of money and just give it away to people in need. Obviously God knows me better than I do and He knows Rene and I as a couple better than we do. He probably knows that really, we are not responsible enough yet with the money he has given us to trust us with more. He probably knows that if He gave us more now, we would probably just spend it on eating out, decorating our apartment, clothes, or other "stuff" that we already have more than enough of and don't really need. So I am committed now to work on being a better steward of our money, and to stop being greedy. As the preacher said in church today, "Everything is God's, we own nothing". In the end, we don't bring anything from this earth with us to heaven. It doesn't matter how cute our clothes were or if we owned a house or rented an apartment or had all of our loans fully paid or had thousands of dollars in the bank.

Great is Thy faithfulness, O God my father
There is no shadow of turning with Thee
Thou changest not Thy compassions they fail not
As Thou hast been thou forever wilt be
Great is Thy faithfulness, great is Thy faithfulness
Morning by morning new mercies I see
All I have needed Thy hand hath provided
Great is they faithfulness Lord unto me.

Snow Day

     Today had alot of surprises in store. When we woke up this morning this is what we saw.

So we went and cleaned the car off....

Notice I'm repin' Mesa all the way in TN

So after we dropped Barbie off for her surgery we ate some brunch and this is pretty much how we spent our time waiting. P.s. we had no heat thanks to lovely Dermon Warner until about 2pm. Just when you decide to give them more business they let you down; again.

looking out the window at the snow

and laying in bed trying to stay warm. When we went to pick Barbie up from her surgery we had another not so fun surprise waiting for us. They told us they would spay her, repair her umbilical hernia, and insert her microchip during the surgery. Apparently someone didn't get the memo and all they did was spay her. So when I asked about it they said they would insert the microchip then because she was still recovering from the anesthesia and they would have to do another surgery later! Soooo frustrating because #1 I don't want her to have to go through another surgery, and #2 we don't want to pay for another surgery that was their fault. We shall see what happens. I have a feeling they were more focused on getting home early than on her surgery. Which is kinda scary. But she made it out ok and we brought her home to recover with this beautiful collar on. Hahah, she looks so cute but I can't help but laugh!

and the spot where her IV was. She's kinda shaved like a poodle.

Poor baby! This is the calmest I've ever seen her! It's kinda a good thing it snowed today bacause we wouldn't be able to go out anyway so we can stay home and take care of her. Needless to say it has been a loooong day and I'm starting to get a little stir crazy!

Busy Bee

My husband has been such a busy bee lately. I thought I would show off some of his work! We decided we are going to stay in our apartment a little while longer to save money. So in order to make it more bearable, we decided to paint-something we've been talking about doing for a long time but hadn't gotten up the guts to do yet. So here are the results.

    

The hallway turned out waaayyyy more yellow than we had originaly planned. It doesn't look like it in the picture but it is really yellow! I like it though because it makes me happy! The bedroom we painted a light lime green and I really can't decide which color is my favorite of all of them.

The living room is a tiffany blue and really pretty! It makes the crown moulding stand out even more! Note the coffee table I am still working on. Someday my work of art will be done! And notice that Barbie just had to be in every picture. Everytime she saw the camera go up she ran in front of it!

And here's the yummy pozole Rene made for lunch! Mmmmmmm! He's such a great cook!

Here's my baby. She loves it when I hold her like a baby. I think she thinks she's a real baby.

And here she is the night before her surgery. She'll be NPO after midnight, awwwww! Say a prayer for her and her big day tomorrow!

Go Live!

     So today is Go live day at work...a.k.a. going from paper charting to all computer charting! Yikes! They call it go live so it sounds all cool but really it's just a scam to try and get people out of hating it. So far it hasn't been so bad. Dr. Ferguson though is cracking me up walking around the unit toting his computer cart and diligently trying to put in orders himself. Wow! I never thought I'd see the day when a Dr. puts orders in himself! Crazy! The most annoying things so far, how slow the computer is running so it takes forever to chart, and the billions of people on the unit!
    On a lighter note, I was thinking that since I am in the NICU now and will have some interesting stories about crazy people, I should share the vast amount of crazy stories about crazy people I aquired in the Medical ICU. So here's the first of many...
    Just a few weeks ago I admitted a 23 year old patient coming in with heroine overdose. He was so out of it and in pain (because withdrawing/coming down from heroine is reported to be very painful) that he was yelling and screaming from the moment he came through the door. As soon as we touched him he started yelling profanities at the top of his lungs. I will not repeat word for word exactly what all he said because I'm sure you can guess. It involves many words consisting of 4 letters and especially one starting with an f. So anytime I would go into his room he would start yelling things like "Doctor, doctor help me! I need a hug. Come hug me! Would you give me a hug?" which later progressed to, "Doctor, would you make me some spaghetti? I want some spaghetti" and "I'm not supermaaaaannn!!!! I can't do this!! It f****** hurts!! I'm gonna fly above this and overcome this! I'm not supermaaaaannnn!!!" Imagine all of this at the top of his lungs! He was on the end of the unit which happened to be next to Surgical ICU and he was so loud that people from SICU were coming over to see what was going on. There was only so much I could do since he came in with an opiate overdose I couldn't give him any opiates for pain or to shut him up! He didn't have ativan ordered. It finally got to a point and had gone on long enough that we all knew he was just faking half of it for attention. I told everyone, "As long as he's not getting out of the bed, I 'm fine with letting him scream. He can scream all he wants. I already told him he's being offensive and inappropriate and the more he yells the more we will ignore him." so that's what we did, oh but man it was a long night! Around 5am the lab tech came to draw his blood and when he stuck the patient the pt. said, "You douche bag!!! You're a doooouuucchhee bagggggg!!!!" I started laughing, I couldn't hold it in, and told the tech, "that's a new one, he must think you're special!"

New Year, New Beginnings

     So it has been forever since I have written a post but I really feel like the effort is kind of futile since I know only my sisters will be reading this. Oh well. I really need to spend some time and get familiar with the 'blog world' so I can add some friends.... friends would be good. I read everyone elses blogs but am not officially a 'follower' so I think I need to rectify that situation. So anyway, another year has come and Ruth said to me, "What have i done this year?"; at first I thought I hadn't done anything of any significance either in 2009 but then I got to thinking and this is a list of all of the fabulous things I have done in 2009:
-Passed NCLEX and got my RN license. Woo Hoo!!!
-Spent a year in the Medical ICU
-Bought a new car all by myself
-Payed real bills for the first time
-Made new friends
-Made it out alive!
     So yeah, I guess I have done a few good things this past year. As for this year, 2010, I already have some goals in mind. I hate saying resolution because I feel like that just sets you up for failure. Some of my goals for this year are: loose weight (ah yes, the age old struggle), become a wonderful NICU nurse at my new job, get financially fit, buy a couch (kinda weird, I know, but I hate the junky hand-me-down footon we have now), and of course, get into blogging.
     As for my new job, I love it so far. It's always hard to tell when you're in orientation because orientation just sucks no matter where you are, but so far I love it and it hasn't been as horribly devistating as my last orientation. So far the people are nice, the job is easier physically and emotionally, and I love that i get to work with babies now and not have to turn 500 pound patients everyday. So so far so good! I hope it just gets better!
     As for family, Rene is good, and Barbie is such a big girl now! She is scheduled to be fixed next Friday! I can't believe she's old enough to get her period already! I really feel like a mom sometimes even though I know it's nothing like being a real mom. But i'm amazed that time has passed so fast and she already almost 7months old! And I really think she just get cuter every day. Well, I guess that's it for now. Hope to write more frequently.
p.s. Where is the spell check on this thing?! I know I probably spelled so many things wrong!

     Today was my friend from work Manju's birthday. Ruth and I (another friend from work) cooked a big Ethiopean meal for her (Ruth really cooked it since she's from Ethiopia, I just cut and peeled vegetables) and all of us ate sooooo much! It was a true feast! After dinner we all just sat on the couch in silence because we were all sooo full!! Hahah!
     I've been so tired and I know I've been grouchy all day. Sometimes working nights really does mess up your sleep schedule. I was able to sleep when I went to bed last night, but I woke up at 5am and couldn't sleep. Really weird for me since I'm usually more dead than King Tut in the mornings! Oh well, there are good and bad things about everything.
    We took Barbie to the vet on Friday and I cannot believe how big she has gotten. Here's a little bit of an idea; when we took her to the vet for the very first time she weighed 3.8 lbs. Not even 4 lbs! and now she weighs 15lbs! She used to wear an x-small collar and now she wears a medium! I can't believe it! And she's only 4 months now! Crazy how my little girl is growing up so fast! Tear. Below is a pic of her when we first got her. It is one of my favorites of her!
    I know this blog has be so boring, I feel like I live too boring of a life for anyone to want to follow my blog but here goes. We'll see if it's a hit.