But regardless of the way I feel, school begins in a mere two days, and my life will be consumed with schedules, classes, homework, clinicals, convos, and everything else that comes with nursing school. I have to admit that I'm excited about this semester... just reluctant to wave goodbye to all the freedoms that summer brought (like reading books for fun, cooking dinner anytime I wanted, and spontaneous naps). I'm thankful for sweet summertime though and all the ways that we were blessed through it!
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| Let me introduce you to my best friends for the next three months or so. |
I finished my last week of my full time job at Cox. I am now officially PRN (as needed), and I will probably work a shift or two a month tops during the school year. It will be nice to have during Thanksgiving and Christmas Break though to make some extra money! All-in-all it was such a great experience working in Neuro-Trauma over the summer! I came home one morning telling my husband I had the "best night of my life" after getting to perform CPR on a patient. I saw some intense things like gunshot wounds, open brains, open hearts, drug and alcohol OD's, the list goes on and on. There was always something to learn or something new to see...very few dull moments (except the nights that I had to "sit" with suicide patients and monitor them, which was usually pretty boring). The nurses were all SO great to teach me and want to expose me to as much nursing as they could. However, I was very surprised to see that the majority of our ICU was taken up with drug addicts, drunk drivers, or people who had done something dumb. It was harder than I expected to feel compassion for those people. I found myself frustrated that they are here, being waited on, with our tax dollars...when they had done something intentionally to be stupid. Obviously that wasn't ALL of the patients, but it was definitely a common theme. I'm thinking about trying out maybe the Pediatrics ICU next summer. Obviously the situations will still be sad, but I think I will be able to be softer towards the patients and offer more compassion when the child obviously didn't do anything dumb like overdose on bath salts. Also, I've discovered that I THRIVE in emergency-type situations....so maybe I'll try out the ER? Who knows! We will see what the Lord does with me over the course of this next year though. I will be visiting many clinical sites in the Fall...who knows what will trigger my passion.
I'm so thankful for where the Lord placed me this summer though. I've grown closer to Him, learned a TON, formed some great relationships, and planted seeds.
Besides work, we had time for a lot of fun over the last month. We made another trip down to Dallas for a long weekend. We watched Macy play "Cha-cha" in Grease, visited Tyler's, ate Tex Mex, watched Olympics, and swam. The next weekend we had a fun lake day with Jordan and BreeAnna. I also got to have my little brothers come swim at our apartment pool several times over the past month, which has been very fun. I've been able to have lots of "dates" with my girlfriends throughout the summer, which has been so nice! I've enjoyed getting to invest my time into them. I think Logan has even had some "man-dates," which is so good for him!
Speaking of Logan, he just finished his first University of Phoenix class and loved it! He has a couple days off, and then he begins his next class. He is also working as hard as ever at Greer's and Integrity. In fact, I can hardly get him to stop working for a minute so that I can spend time with him. I guess it's good that school is about to start so I will stop being a bad influence, asking him not to work and not to study but to have fun and spend money. Yes, I've been a little bored ;)
Now I hope you are bearing with me on my iPhone pics. We have a small snap-n-shoot camera, but we always forget to bring it along when we need it! The iPhone has been my best friend when it comes to preserving memories because I always have it! Plus, the quality of pics is just as good or better than our cheap digital camera. I think it will continue to be iPhone pics until we can afford a nicer camera :)
Pool days with the brothers. This particular day, Benjamin turned 7 :)
Supplies for a cookout on the lake with BreeAnna and Jordan. Later we went to Cantina Laredo on the Landing.
The last major events of the summer will be our birthdays. I will finally leave the teenage years and enter into my twenties (gosh I feel like I should be older than this haha), and Logan will be twenty-two! However, both birthdays fall on weekdays this year, so I'm sure we won't be doing anything too crazy. Oh well, it still gives us something to look forward to, even though summer's end is near. A nice dinner out with the husband is always a treat :) We'll probably celebrate next weekend.
Sooo...my husband loves Chinese food. I, however, do not. MSG's simply don't settle well with me. Anyways, I was looking for some homemade Chinese food ideas (without the MSG's) and stumbled across a yummy honey chicken recipe. You can make it in the crock-pot and slow cook it, or you can do it in the oven for a quicker meal. I've done it both ways, and both times it turned out great! I serve it with white rice and broccoli. I thought it was yummy to let the chicken slow cook and then add the broccoli during the last half hour or so. Then I served it on top of the white rice. This also makes a great leftover meal....I'm thinking it will be a go-to meal this school year!
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| Picture and original recipe came from http://mmmcafe.blogspot.com/2010/01/honey-sauced-chicken.html I made a few tweaks though :) |
Honey Sauced Chicken
3/4 pound chicken (of your choice)
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. black pepper
1/2 cup honey
1/4 cup soy sauce
1/8 cup chopped onion (or 1/16 cup onion flakes) --( I didn't add this either time)
1/8 cup ketchup
1 Tbs. vegetable oil
1 clove garlic, minced
1/4 tsp. red pepper flakes
Season both sides of chicken with salt and pepper. Cut chicken into bite-sized pieces, then put into crock pot. In a small bowl, combine honey, soy sauce, onion, ketchup, oil, garlic and pepper flakes. Pour over chicken. Cook on low for 3 hours or on high 1 1/2 hours.
To bake chicken as a 30 minute meal:
Dice chicken and season both sides with salt and pepper, place in 8x8 pan. Pour sauce over chicken and bake at 350 for 20 minutes, stirring after 10 minutes.
Serves 2. (If you do it with rice and a veggie, it should serve more like 4)
