absence makes the heart grow fonder?

I've never really believed that saying, to be honest.


I apologize for my absence in the blogging world to the two people who read this blog and depend on it to stay updated on my life.

Here is what I've been doing:

1) Cleaning our apartment on my days off
2) Doing laundry (does it EVER STOP!?)
3) Working. Working. Working.


How is it possible that I feel like I work more now that I work 3 twelve hour shifts than I did when I worked 5 days a week? I miss 8-5. I miss hour long lunch breaks (and lunch dates). I miss sitting at a desk instead of running my ass off for 12 hours.


I should have written this sometime OTHER than before I had to go work two shifts in a row.

All whining aside, nursing is pretty baller. There are days when it's slow, there are days when it is fast, and every SINGLE day I feel like I exert every brain cell I have in my brain. The patients & families I work with are pretty fabulous and that makes it pretty much worth it. Even on days like this: 

via Pinterest

Anyway, between items 1-3, this is what else I've been doing, through what else? Instagram.

my "morning alarm" set for when most people are leaving work for the day.

I made another "school spirit" wreath for my mom...

and then one for Sara.

We found a turtle in the road

and reunited for a home game in our beloved Columbia.

This "little one" turned ONE!

I bought a new car.

and spent some time with my pups.

And in addition to cleaning and doing laundry, I've been doing a lot of cooking.

What have I missed in YOUR lives while I've been away??

a return to the blogging world

Hello, world! It's me, Molly. Remember when I used to update this blog on the reg?

A lot has happened since my last post:

I successfully passed my nursing boards. Woot woot!

Said some goodbyes to some good friends (and some good family). 

Said hello to living with this guy. 

Traveled 1500 miles (each way) to watch my best friend get hitched. 

And started my new job (as a nurse, if you couldn't figure that out). 

Can you believe I've done all of that in 3 weeks? I can't either. Stay tuned for more details on each of those things (except my boards, I never want to talk about those again).

life through instagram: 5-21-12.

Since most of my pictures are from instagram, and I use it so frequently, I've decided to make "life through instagram" a running feature.

I promise they won't all be pictures of my dogs (even though those are always the best pictures).


This floppy beauty is just waiting to get packed away to head to Florida for A's wedding. So. Excited! It does get to stick along on an outing for another friend's bridal shower this weekend too. What a lucky hat.

I am blessed to have so many wonderful friends, and two of my best best best friends sent me this BEAUTIFUL flower arrangement to celebrate my graduation from nursing school. Seriously, how sweet are they? Thanks S & J!

I am officially DONE with nursing school, which if you're keeping track, means I'm now Molly, BSN. If I pass my boards (cross your fingers and toes!) I'll be Molly, RN-BSN. Seriously. cross your fingers AND toes.  This picture was from our pinning ceremony.

Remember when I told you I had wonderful friends? My nursing school savior Chelsea gave me a SNITCH for graduation. What a perfect gift. I am a little embarrassed that people know how much I like Harry Potter...but okay, not really. 

Like I mentioned, my mom and I graduated on the same day! She finished her Education degree. Go mom!

Remember how I told you S & J were so awesome? They also sent me this super sweet graduation gift...I am obsessed with all of it. Especially the blinged out graduation card :). 

I had to head to St. L to fill out some paperwork...for my new JOB and thus my new apartment! While I was there, Sam and I headed to lunch. I can't wait to make this a regular occurrence :). 

Sam's parents have a pool which I plan on taking advantage of...who wouldn't when it looks this peaceful!?

Bella isn't so sure of all this talk about moving, and such. 

Since I've been in the process of packing, my room was a mess. I did my favorite thing: throw everything on the bed and sort it out from there. I think it makes it so much easier to put everything in one big pile and pare down from there. 

I-70, how I loathe thee. It's a terribly long and uninteresting story, but I had to drive back and forth from KC to STL on this road twice in 48 hours. Let's just say do not let your TB test expire when you're starting a new job. 

I should also mention it is not any safer to take pictures while driving than it is to text and drive. So, don't attempt this. I never claimed to be brilliant.

motivation, or lack thereof.

The thing I don't like about being in school (or should I say, ONE of the things), is that when you think in terms of "semesters", it's easy to get in a slump. I feel like there is a point in every semester where I hit a wall, and it seems like every time I find that wall, it's harder and harder to get over.

I have two weeks until I finish nursing school. TWO WEEKS, people. A year ago today I was still living in Columbia, packing up my life and saying goodbye to my fabulous coworkers from the past three years. Now I'm getting ready to graduate with my second degree (in as many years). I find that to be insane. Most days I'm not sure how I survived.

Now I just need to get through the next two weeks of school and then a few more preparing for and taking boards and THEN I will hopefully:

*Get to start a job
*Actually see my family & friends for more than 30 minutes at a time
*Take Bella & Albert for daily walks
*See Sam for more than a weekend at a time (stay tuned on this one!)

Lots of exciting things are happening, and I just have to take a lot of some deep breaths and know that everything happens for a reason.


In the mean time, I'm going to leave you with this little gem:

...something to think about, isn't it?...

procrastination

Tomorrow is my FINAL final exam for the class I'm in. That's right, you  heard me. Three tests for the same class all crammed in to one final's week. Needless to say, I can't stand the thought of studying any longer. We get a 12 day break after tomorrow (HALLELUJAH) and I just need to make myself focus for about 15 more hours. 7 of which will be spent sleeping.

Regardless, for the next 10 minutes, I'm going to write down all of the random thoughts I'm having in hopes that doing so will alleviate my wandering mind of them and I will be able to focus back on diagnosing and treating pancreatitis and UTIs.

• One of my biggest pet peeves is someone telling you that they will call you and then failing to follow up on it. 
• Along those lines, if you DO remember to call me back..please do not talk to your friend, or your friend's pet, or the horrible driver in the next lane. I realize not all of these circumstances are avoidable (my mom is a HUGE fan of waiting until I'm on the phone with someone to ask me how my day was..really mom?) but let's be serious. I didn't call to hear you baby talk an annoying yippy dog. 
• My brother and his girlfriend got a Shih Tzu a few months back. Until they did so I didn't believe that any dog could be as wonderful as my little hot mess Bellsy. Gus is just slightly less cute than her though. And he likes to snuggle with me, whereas Bella does NOT.
• There are like a million and 5 movies I want to see in theaters right now. To name a few: Horrible Bosses, Thirty Minutes or Less, The Help, Crazy Stupid Love, gLee 3D!, One Day... the list goes on and on. I think this calls for a movie a day for the next 12 days. 
• I am officially going to Houston for my fall break! HELLOOOOO ANNA!
• I am still mourning the end of the Harry Potter series. Twilight, it's ugly stepsister, just isn't doing it for me anymore. I did watch the Goblet of Fire several times lately to say what's up to R. Pattz. I don't even know why I find him so attractive.
• A girl from my high school was my waitress at lunch the other day. I remembered my whole "cutting the friend fat" blog post and made very little eye contact. To be fair, we didn't really like each other so it's not like I was being THAT rude..And I did leave her a good tip. 
• Now that it is not 150 degrees outside, I'm resuming my running-outside-to-get-in-shape-for-Allie-and-Cortney's-weddings plan. Tomorrow, that is.
• I am a firm believer that the color purple stimulates your memory. Use purple pencils (not purple lead, people) and/or purple pens EVERY DAY, I say. 
• I get to see Sammy on SUNDAY. Counting down the hoursss!

Well there you have it people. 10 whole minutes of my random thoughts. I'm obviously not as fast of a typer as I thought I was...

light at the end of the tunnel

I haven't updated the blogosphere about school lately, so I guess it's time for me to do that. I try not to interject school into my blog because school is not happy and organization, crafts, and friends ARE happy. Regardless, it is a big part of my life right now, so I suppose it does deserve some sort of attention.


Anyway, this week marked my final week of actual class (lab, lecture, clinicals etc) for the summer, and it actually went well. I got a b+ on the exam I studied very little for (but WHO CARES it was wedding weekend!), passed my final test out with 100%, and played a very feisty 58 year old in a syphilis scenario. All in all, not a bad week! Next week is "finals week", which means I have 3 tests...all for the same class. How much sense does that make? After that, I get a whole TWELVE DAYS off. So excited for that! Then fall starts..and fall brings babies, and cute kids, and pregnant women (aka peds and OB). Too excited about that. The only thing I'm NOT excited about for fall are my thousands of pounds of books. My back is not a fan of the books.

Even though this summer has been really hard, I've really appreciated the intensity of it all. I think it has definitely made me realize this is in fact what I want to do, because it is so hard yet I love it so much. I just can't wait for the next 9 months to pass so I can start being paid to take care of people, rather than PAYING to take care of people :).

Food For Thought

I've been thinking a lot about the difference between a job and a career lately, mostly because we had to write a short story about what we thought it meant to be a career nurse. I've finally decided, after today, what I think it means.


I am not the biggest fan of gerontology. I much prefer working with kids, the smaller the better. I really loved the days where we had research families come in at the TC because that usually meant I got to play with the kiddos (either those w/ autism or their 'typically developing' [not a fan of that phrase] sibs). Anyway, getting sidetracked. I am not the biggest fan of gerontology. It's not that I mind elderly people. In fact, usually they're pretty darn funny, and you can tell by looking at them that they've seen a lot in their life time. No, the issue is that I can always find some aspect of my grandmother or grandpa in them, and then it makes me sad. Because let's face it, when you're 94 and you're in the hospital, it's not looking good. Too many times these patient's have little to no support. Their kids have kids and they're too busy getting on with their lives to come sit and hold their mom or dad's hand. It bothers me to have patients like this. It bothered me to have clients at the TC that I knew weren't getting the proper care at home.

My question is, how do you overcome that? Do you eventually become so desensitized that you no longer care what happens to your patients/clients after they go home? Or do you allow them to weasel their way into your heart day after day so that you go home feeling sad?

This is what I've decided: the difference between a job and a career is that you don't allow yourself to become desensitized with a career. You let yourself go home and shed a tear (or two or fifty, like I did today) over your patient that you'll likely never see again, because that's okay. It's not in my nature to not care what happens to someone that I've just met. It's not in my nature to provide sub-standard care to someone just because they're not MY grandfather or MY mom. I've been doing this already, but from this day forth, I will always remind myself that despite the fact the person laying in that bed isn't my relative, they do belong to someone, and it's my job to take care of them just like their daughter, or granddaughter, would.

a week in review

Ahh. At this weekend last time I was blissfully unaware how busy my life would become in just 3 days time. It was a better time indeed.

My first week of school was fine. I didn't answer anything wrong in front of the class (in fact, I got two questions right!), I didn't forget any assignments (at least none that I know of..), I didn't oversleep (which I had nightmares about). I did however get severely bruised up during a "team building" exercise, which consisted of each of us being hauled over a 15 foot wall, and I did trip up the same stair twice, resulting in a couple of severely damaged toes (those shoes will not be worn on anything but flat surfaces for a loooong time).

Some little gems from my teachers this week:

"This year is going to be hell, and you'll probably hit rock bottom during some point...maybe even a couple of weeks from now, but it's worth it."

"You may not feel like you have weekends for the next year...but it's worth it."

"I hope none of you lose any friends over this...although that has happened...but it's worth it."

"It's okay to cry, I know all of you will do it at some point. Even you, boys. But it's worth it."

How many times did I have to hear that "it's worth it" this week? Blah.

In summation, I'm so sorry if any of you feel neglected in the next year. I'm not trying to be mean, it's not that you don't matter to me or that I don't want to see you. It's the fact that I simply am swamped. I have a test on Thursday over 12 chapters of material, 9 of which we haven't covered in class yet. YIKES.


In other news, I have had a great weekend with Sam, because I'll go crazy if I don't have at least some fun. We went and saw Bridesmaids (with Kristen Wiig and Maya Rudolph) on Friday night and I HIGHLY recommend it. It's hilarious! Yesterday we went to the Cards v. Royals game and watched the Cards win 3-0! I only felt a little traitorous not cheering on the Royals. We also had a game night with my parents and youngest brother (plus his girlfriend), which was awesome. Turns out I'm not a great speller after 4 glasses of wine. We did however win Cranium, for which I am going to give all the credit to Sam. If it had been up to me we would have came in last place.