A Little Vacation

Well my break between quarters is almost over. We went to California over break. My son and mother went to the Midwest, so it was just my husband, daughter and I. We went to San Diego, Big Bear Lake and L.A. We did a lot of eating on this trip basically. We hit The Fish Market, Portillos, Pink's Hotdogs, and Roscoe's Chicken n' Waffles. We did some relaxing as well. We returned this weekend as well as my son and my mother and things are starting to move along again. I'm not ready to go back to school just yet. But on the upside this quarter will be lighter, as I'll be taking only one class. Hopefully it will fly by. I'm ready to be done.

Movie!

So PBS is airing Little Doritt right now in 5 part series. As of now all 5 parts are available online. Thankfully the quarter for school is coming to a close and I can watch it!

The System Was Down

Well my computer crashed out...completely. But now it is up and running again.

There was an upside and a downside of not having the comp running.

I'll start with the negative first:

Downside:
-Tons of school work that had to be put off or time spent at the library in order to do the work.
-Not having information at my fingertips for a recipe, directions, etc.
-Having a ton of email when I did have time to check it at places other than home.
-Time and money spent in fixing the thing. Boooooooo!

Upside:
-Information freedom!!! Just not being able to check email or news or anything else for that matter can be really freeing.
-Harsh realization of how much time is spent on the computer...which is an upside because I can do something about it.
-There was life before the Internet...(and after for that matter) ha!
-I really don't need to be on top of my school emails as much as I thought I should.

Hanging On

I'm still hanging on right now.

I had a school-related meltdown this week, that hopefully won't reemerge again. (Or at least for a while).

Contentment

An encouraging sermon I needed to read about contentment from Grace to You.

I hope it may help someone else, because that's exactly what I need to focus on.

Heavy Heart

I already know this post is going to be rather depressing, but I feel I must get this off my chest. Right now I feel completely and utterly overwhelmed with the decision we made about me going back to school for nursing. I am halfway through to program right now and I should be so happy to get this far but I'm really not.

The thing that is pressing on me so much is that I'm not sure if I'm cut out for this profession. Actually, it's not even a matter of being "not sure" of it...it's a deeply rooted feeling that this was a horrible mistake. It feels like a tremendous burden on my back and it's not because of the schooling aspect. It's the whole one-mistake-and-you-can-seriously-hurt-or-kill-someone aspect that I'm having a terrible time with. The thing is, I constantly hear that "you will make a mistake at one point". Hearing that just makes that burden even heavier.

Worst part about this is that I've worked in the medical field before in the military. I've been fully exposed to many potentials of this career path (both positive and negative). Even once I got out I was fully intending to not pursue a career in the health field ever again. But then the financial belt got tight on us. I put myself out there to look for some sort of work while managing the kids and got nothing but slammed doors in my face. The door to nursing school swung wide open and I prayed that this was the right decision.

So far I've been doing fine in school. I haven't really been on the edge of failing out. And despite my inner turmoil of not wanting to pursue this, I've hunkered down and having been trying my best.

Being in the classroom environment has been extremely challenging, spiritually. No, not just challenging, downright hard. I've found myself in old habits and behaviors I thought were gone. Part of me wonders if God is allowing me to go through this to show me that despite all my efforts to do "what is right", I am still completely rotten, dead and full of sin.

It's even gotten to me physically. I'm so stressed both with doing my best in school as well as having this fear that I'm not really cut out for it, that I have had horrible manifestations from it. Honestly, when nobody is around I do cry about it, and sometimes I feel so numb that I can't.

So this is where I am at right now...and I feel rather alone because of it.

Grilled Goodness

I've been grilling a lot lately. Mostly because it is super hot here and the thought of turning the oven on does not sound appealing. This is what I've been doing with leftover grilled veggies/meat for a nice quick lunch (this can be used for steamed veggies as well):

Use any type of cold grilled veggies (grilled corn, asparagus, zucchini, tomatoes, eggplant, potatoes, etc) mix it with cold grilled meat (or crack open a can of tuna, salmon or chicken) and mix with an oil-based dressing (such as Italian or Balsamic). Lunch!

I'm not quite sure if this would work with leftover hamburgers or hotdogs...but you never know LOL.