Update

Again, no single big event occurred to warrant an entry...so you get a watered-down, past-due, general update on my life.

My life has basically consisted of three basic categories lately: school, work, and socializing. :P

I have really enjoyed nursing (!) school so far. It hasn't been too stressful (although I'm sure it's coming) but it's kept me busy. I find that it goes in cycles--one week will be impossibly busy and the next will consist of almost no homework. It's fun though. It's amazing to be finally in a program and on my way for sure now. I also love my classmates; there are only 20 in my cohort so it's been easy to make friends.

Work has been pretty much the same... Love my employer but would really love to move up to a PCA position. Housekeeping is getting kind of old. My CNA expires a year from now (which I must keep current during Provo College's nursing program) but I will be able to test for my LPN next August and that will replace it. So staying in housekeeping is fine (I don't need the hours as a CNA to keep my certification current) but I would love to move up just to get that extra experience in a closer-related area than where I'm at now. And I'm sure it would be a lot more enjoyable as well. :) I am thankful for my job though--it pays decently, my employer is more than fair, and it's secure. It's amazing how with the economy going down the drain, what was once considered a horrible job looks better and better by the day.  ;)

And socializing is, well, socializing! :P I've just been having a lot of fun with lots of friends lately. A few of us got a group together to play games and go country dancing every 2nd and 4th Saturday night of the month and it's been lots of fun. It's a great way to meet lots of new people and get to know those I've already met better! (Everyone is welcome to come, just let me know and I'll give you the deets!)

General Update

Wow...so I haven't exactly been so great at keeping this updated. It's just there hasn't been one single event that seemed to warrant it's own entry.

Anyways...

So, my car wasn't totaled. They fixed it and although it felt a bit different for awhile, it was wonderful to be back in my own car. I had my car back for a few days when I randomly looked under the hood and saw pink fluid sprayed across the engine. I took it back into my body shop and they were able to fix it right up, although it meant another week in a rental car. (It turned out to be just a hard-to-detect hole in the radiator hose. It didn't take very long to repair, but apparently, radiator hoses for an '08 Yaris aren't easy to come by.)

The months of June and July were mostly consumed by The Music Man and work. The Music Man was a lot of fun, but also very time consuming so by the time it closed, I was very excited to have my evenings back. The day after closing, I went camping at Maple Lake with my family. It was a lot of fun just hanging out. We boated on the lake, biked, hiked, played games, built bonfires, and other awesomeness.

Since the camping trip, I've just been trying to fit in as many awesome summer activities as possible while filling in the gaps with shifts at work. My family didn't take an actual vacation this year so instead we're using my mom's vacation time to do fun things around where we live. This week my parents and brother backpacked King's Peak. They were gone for three days and during that time, the sisters had the house to ourselves. We went swimming, hiking, and like good children, threw a raging party. (Just kidding, we actually cleaned the house 'cause we're just cool like that.) Next week should be even more amazing: Lagoon, the county fair (including a demolition derby), the Alpine Loop, and hanging out with awesome friends are all on the calender.

Other mentionables of the summer include Owlz games, free smoothies galore, Boy Meets World nearly everyday, and lots and lots of hikes. Hikes I can now check off my list from this summer include: Battle Creek Falls, the Y, Red Lake, the Grotto, and Fifth Water. And there will hopefully be a few more to follow before the hiking season ends.

Oh, and I almost forgot the biggest news of the summer: I made the nursing program at Provo College. I'm SOOOO excited and at the same time SOOO nervous.

A CRAZY Day (5-14-10)

Today was supposed to be a good day. I took my writing exam, the last thing needed to complete my nursing application, and got it all turned in. In the evening I was going to take family names to the temple for baptisms with my sister Janessa and my Grandma and Grandpa Adams. It was in between those two really good things that I got myself into trouble.

I decided to take a spur of the moment trip to IKEA with Clint and Crystal in an attempt to buy these really cool vases for my sister as a graduation present. The IKEA website said the Draper store had the vases, and I took that as proof enough and proceeded with the trip. As it turns out, they had quit making the vases and had sent them to the "close-out" section just the week before. They had TONS just days before but by now had sold them all. I was pretty bummed.

And then we were driving home, sort of hurriedly, in rush hour traffic from a completely pointless, wasteful trip, and I just had to get into a car accident to make the trip even worse.  Basically traffic went from 65 to 0 in a matter of seconds and I failed to realize that we weren't just slowing down, we were screaming to a halt. I rear-ended the car in front of me and then was rear-ended myself. Five cars in all were involved, but we were sort of two separate accidents because the fourth car in the mess has been able to stop in time, but he himself was rear-ended. No one was injured in the collision, thank heavens. The car that I hit had minimal damage--I think they were probably the only ones who didn't have to be towed. The front of my car was another story though. It was pretty smashed. The back looked mostly normal, but the rear hatch couldn't be opened. My airbags didn't deploy though so that's one good thing. The car that hit me though, a mustang, was in BAD shape. Their hood was all bent, their airbags had deployed, and it wouldn't even run. It had to be shoved by an incident management truck to the side of the road and, later, by a highway patrol car onto a tow truck. It's most certainly totaled.

My car is currently at a body shop and I'm waiting to hear if they're going to total it. The original damage estimate was six-thousand and something but they've found a bit more damage. If it isn't totaled, it's going to be dang close. I really hope they don't total it because I love my car and I definitely don't want to start over again on payments. Ugh. Poor Yaris.

If they do total my car, does anyone have any suggestions on what kind of car I should get? Right now I'm leaning towards just getting another Yaris...but I'm not entirely sure.

Shooting at Smith's Saturday, 8 May, 2010

On Saturday, my sister Janessa picked up three hours of a shift from a co-worker (who had picked those three hours up from another co-worker). These three hours were pretty much the only three hours she'd worked for nearly two weeks. She was scheduled to be off at 7, but stayed two extra hours so a girl who wasn't feeling well could go home. So, she should have been off at 9 but wasn't because, just minutes before she was off, the shooting occurred.

It's amazing what led up to Janessa being there; so many little things that changed, and in many ways, were unusual. I'm just so glad she wasn't injured because each of those little pieces that changed could have become lifelong regrets.

Anyway, Saturday was a normal day at Smith's. Busy, but less so than everyone was used to because BYU had let out and the students had gone home for the summer. Janessa was busy on the front end, bagging customer's groceries, when she noticed a squabble between a man who was trying to shoplift beer and a non-Smith's employee who was there stocking shelves. The stocker was trying to carry out a citizen's arrest on the man and the man was totally uncooperative. The two were creating quite a disturbance so they went into a backroom behind the customer service counter and shut the door to work it out.

Janessa continued bagging.

Soon, the door opened again and Janessa heard something to this extent (with a few explicatives which I'm not including): "You've got a gun!" "No I don't!" "Yes you do, I just saw it!"

Everyone on the front end began to get a little nervous, but somehow just continued with their work.

And then there were shots being fired. Everyone scrambled to hide behind checkstands or whatever they could find. Alarms were ringing and announcements were being made over the intercom instructing customers with what to do. Most of the customers just ran out through the back doors through the back room though.

Then the store was evacuated to the parking lot where Janessa was held with the witnesses for an hour or two. Horrible rumors circulated that certain people had been shot, even down to indicating where they'd been shot. However these rumors started that were so far from the truth, I have no idea. It would be interesting to find out though. Anyway, the truth of the story, at least as far as we know, was this:

No shots were actually fired by the shoplifter, but only by the two policemen who had somehow arrived without Janessa seeing. (They would have had to walk right past her.) And the only injuries (not counting psychological ones) were to the guy trying to shoplift; he was shot and dead on the scene.

It's so crazy to realize that these things happen everywhere, even in our little bubble of Provo, where we think everything is so safe.

FFFFRRRREEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!

I am so excited. SCHOOL! IS! OUT!

I finished with my UVU classes a couple weeks ago and I made it through with all As. I'm pretty sure that's my first 4.0 I've ever achieved although the classes were pretty easy so it's not as cool.

I took my anatomy final at Provo College on Thursday and I found out my score yesterday: 91%! Nice! I will definitely take it. So, overall, I made it out with an A- in the class. YAY!

So, now I'm done with school until August which is pretty much the longest break that I've had since, well, probably before kindergarten. It's going to be a FABULOUS summer and I kicked it off with finding out I made good grades. :) The only stuff I have planned thus far for summer is The Music Man, work, and of course, fitting in as much fun in between as possible.

Ebay

So...I've been doing a lot of Ebaying lately. Probably not the best thing, but it's just too much fun. Today, while searching for journals, I came across someone selling some poor lady's journals comprising the years of 1966-1985. To make matters worse, the journals weren't being auctioned as one set; the twenty or so journals were being sold in sets of four. Now I don't know the author of these journals, but I can only imagine that, if she knew, it would break her heart. If anyone ever did such a thing to my journals, it certainly would. I wouldn't be too surprised if the author's ghost starts haunting the seller's home or something. Ugh, makes me sick just thinking about it.

Wisdom Teeth

April 2nd held a lot of firsts for me: my first surgery, my first IV...my first time taking heavy duty pain killers... All because I got my wisdom teeth out (which was also a first, of course ;) ).

The appointment began with a consultation. Dr. Park examined my X-rays and told me a little bit of what to expect. I had all four wisdom teeth and I had room to keep the upper ones but not the bottom ones. Of course, the upper ones would have nothing to bite on so all four had to go. The top teeth seemed to be the easier ones; they were both facing the right way, although still under the gum. The bottom wisdom teeth had grown some root so the chance of paresthesia was about 5-10% for one side and about 20% on the other side. Both bottom teeth were sideways and would require stitches. The doctor also predicted that some of the bone would have to be taken on the left side. (That kind of freaked me out. Well, I guess the whole extraction freaked me out so nothing new.)

After the consultation, I was taken back to one of the ORs and everything went very quickly from there. I was given some pills (ibuprofen and something for nausea) and hooked up to monitors (an EKG,  a pulse oximeter, and a blood pressure machine) and was put on oxygen. Dr. Park then came in and placed my IV. I wasn't too nervous for this part and I was right to not worry about it. I didn't feel anything at all because they used some kind of spray that turns cold on the arm. The doctor then asked me how I was feeling. I responded "Alright" and then, after a couple of seconds, "Actually I do feel a little weird". And that's the last thing I remember. I don't remember feeling tired or anything, I just went unconscious in a single instant. It's the weirdest/coolest feeling to think back on.

The next thing I know, I'm sitting in a wheelchair in a hallway and the assistant who helped with my surgery and my mom are there. I was involuntarily shaking all over. Through the grog, I heard the assistant tell my mom that the shaking can sometimes happen as a side effect of the anesthesia. I also remember the assistant asking me how I was doing. I told her that I was thirsty so she brought a can of apple juice and gave me some in a little syringe. This was way too much for my confused brain to comprehend so I grabbed the whole can and tried to drink. I didn't realize or understand that my mouth was full of gauze; everything was numb for Pete's sake! So I basically just succeeded in soaking my gauze in apple juice, dribbling it on myself, and creating the opportunity for the assistant to have to change my gauze. It was funny because I didn't link these events in a logical way at the time. In fact, it was a few days later that I actually pieced together what happened. I just figured that I needed fresh gauze anyway and I had no clue as to why I couldn't properly get the apple juice down. My mom tells me that at this time the assistant also relayed all of the post-op instructions to her (but I don't remember any of this).

On the way home, we stopped at Smith's so my mom could fill my prescriptions. The drive was all a blur; I don't remember much of it. I just waited in the car while she ran in. I alternated between dozing off and writing in my journal (I wanted to write the experience while I was still a bit loopy to see if I'd write anything funny).

By the time I got home, I was pretty alert. Time seemed to pass in weird ways for the rest of the day though. I had to keep the gauze in to stop the bleeding for quite awhile and it was the most annoying thing ever. It was uncomfortable and anything I said was very mumbled and difficult to understand.

Recovery hasn't been too bad. I'd say the worst part was the Lortab. It made me feel sort of light-headed, the kind of light-headed experienced when you've been awake all night and you're so tired your head swims. It (or something) only made me nauseous enough to throw up once which was probably due to the fact that I didn't eat very much with it that time.

Ok, so I really want to get back into blogging. It's a very satisfying hobby for me...

Anyways, so in the past year since I wrote, a few things have changed, but nothing too major. I still am just doing school (working towards a nursing degree) and working. I applied for UVU's nursing program last fall but I didn't make it because they changed the requirements while I was in the midst of taking them so basically, my grades weren't high enough to even apply. Part of the requirement changes also made it so you can only retake each prereq twice within a 5 year period. I found this out when I was in the middle of retaking a class... So yeah, I'm ineligible to retake anything for 5 years, which means 5+ years before I could even reapply. Kind of cold of UVU to do that. Anyway, I still really want to be a nurse so now I'm trying to get into Provo College's nursing program. I'm retaking Anatomy to get a more competitive grade at Provo College (where the course is MUCH easier) while finishing an associates Degree at UVU (just because I'm so close and I may as well have it).

Wow, that last paragraph makes me sound really dumb... I'm not a horrible student and my grades range from decent Bs to good As but it's the few Cs in the really hardcore science classes that burned me.  Ah well, I will get where I want to be.

Yup, not too much has changed...

Over the last year I've had a lot of fun. I've hung out with lots of cool people, seen lots of awesome theatre, acted in Singin' in the Rain and had a fabulous time, took a trip to Colorado (so cool), hiked Timp (that was a feat), adopted a new kitten (named Mr. Henry), and many more awesome things. Life can be so much fun.

Anyway, we'll call that a decent update. Hopefully I will blog more often so I can stop doing these lame entries. :)