And then some days, I feel like this.

I have been accused multiple times of being irrational when I am stressed out. So, if you will, a word of explanation.

Nursing - The Story So Far.

Give me ten words that make you think of your experience as a nursing student so far.

Ready... go.

Challenging

Beautiful

Introspective

Vocation

Dirty

Health

Stress

Overwhelming

Unlimited

Human

So far, my experience has been a mixed bag. On the one hand, I have learned that:

a) commuting mostly sucks

b) the days off on Fridays thing doesn't really count, because you could spend 12 hours studying and still not do everything

c) the professors expect that nursing is your one priority in life. Anything else must be shuffled to the side for that email they will send you 14 hours before your reading is due updating the assignment

d) there is a LOT of dirty work involved. Ever heard of a fecal ostomy?

However, on the other (more influential) hand, I have learned what nursing really is, and it has been eye-opening. In my mind, nurses worked for doctors. The doctors were the bosses, and the nurses did all the dirty work. There were subtle hints of my ideal ideas of what nurses also did, obviously, or I wouldn't have chosen the career at all, but the stereotype definitely hung heavy in my mind.

In reality? What nurses do is beautiful and all-encompassing. We watch the body for reactions to medical treatments and new problems, as well as the return to health. We watch the mind for uncertainties and confusion. We watch the soul for ways to steer it back to more health-promoting states. Today on the bus, the older gentleman next to me said, "I assume you are studying to be a nurse?" (judging from my scrubs and pharmacology textbook, I imagine). When I nodded, he said, "What a noble profession." I felt the fuzzies from that comment for the rest of my 6 block walk to clinical. Ever since I've switched to nursing, I've felt the need to defend my decision, to explain to everyone that it wasn't a step down from pharmacy, even though no one has come out and told me they thought it was. Still, it was nice to get some external validation for the decision, and I think it was a perfect echo of what has been going on inside my head for the last four weeks, underlying the stress and the frustration with due dates - I have found the right profession.

Taste of France

Photo source

Three years ago this week, I said goodbye to my favorite city in the world, the place where I had to stretch myself, speak a different language, and discover the world. I also had to say goodbye to one of the most delicious desserts in the world, the macaron (not to be confused with the macaroon). I have had macarons twice since returning to the United States, but each attempt was insipid and mediocre, nothing compared to the burst of flavor I experienced at world-renowned patisseries like Laduree and Pierre Herme.

However, this week I discovered a little French bakery on 500 South in Salt Lake City, and as I have clinical only 6 blocks away, I decided today was a good time to investigate. I marched there in my scrubs with my frizzy unwashed hair and oversized backpack and asked if they had what I was looking for.

For a second I was disappointed when the friendly, overly cheerful cashier asked, "You mean macaroons?" and gestured at a display. However, after quickly remembering the bakery's own term for macarons, "buttons," (maybe to avoid the confusion with macaroons?) I bought two pistachio confections and left for the train, feeling victorious, and as sophisticated as a girl in scrubs who has been up since 4:30 this morning can feel.

Were they worth the journey? I think so. I haven't found the perfect burst of flavor I experienced in my first macaron (citron) at Laduree, but Laduree did invent the cookies in the first place, so I can't expect a little Salt Lake City bakery to have attained the same level of culinary perfection. The cookie was just the right level of crunch and ganache, and the nutty pistachio taste is still lingering on my mouth. And I am staring at my husband's cookie, wishing I hadn't told him that I'd bought him one. :)

101 Goals - 1001 Days

I came across this little project at my blogging friend Jillian's blog and I thought it sounded like a great way to motivate myself to try something new and improve my life. So starting today, June 5, 2011 and ending on March 2, 2014, I will be trying to accomplish these 101 things. Some of them are serious and some are more important, but I am hoping I will really be able to do them all.

1. Read my scriptures for at least five minutes (hopefully usually more than that) every single day for a year

2. Be able to run 5 miles without stopping

3. Read 5 Shakespeare plays

4. Be able to do 15 "man" push-ups

5. Visit the Spiral Jetty

6. Go to Moab

7. Journal every day for a month

8. Complete a 365 photo a year project

9. Learn to make my dad's wheat bread

10. Re-read Les Miserables

11. Read Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman

12. Have a baby!

13. Become a registered nurse

14. Read Walden outside

15. Perform on the piano in public (other than in sacrament meeting)

16. Go to two temples I've never been to before

17. Be published on something other than a blog

18. Write a poem that rhymes

19. Finish a short story

20. Reach 250 followers on my book review blog

21. Get through a rough draft of the novella I'm working on right now

22. Finish my wedding scrapbook

23. Make cinnamon rolls

24. Buy vegetables from a farmer's market

25. Have an herb garden with at least three herbs in it (I'm thinking basil, rosemary, and chamomile)

26. Learn to like bananas without throwing up

27. Go to the temple three times in one week

28. Eat five fruits and vegetables a day for a month

29. Work in an oncology unit

30. Learn how to French braid

31. Memorize the Chopin nocturne I've been working on

32. Master Liszt's Sonetto 104 Petrarcho (those little trilly parts... so difficult!)

33. Go to Alcatraz

34. Read The Book of Mormon in French

35. Make my own herbal tea

36. Make my own face scrub

37. Fly a kite

38. Finish my wedding thank you notes

39. Go camping

40. Take a picture in front of a state sign

41. Make a pie

42. Write letters to my high school friends that I've fallen out of touch with

43. Meditate every day for a month

44. Watch the entire Harry Potter movie series in a less than two week period

45. Eat lobster

46. Visit The Booksmith in San Francisco

47. Write a fan letter to an author

48. Learn to play and memorize "Someone Like You" by Adele

49. Join a writing group

50. Feed the ducks

51. Visit the Bean Museum

52. Hike Stewart Falls

53. Have a bonfire/guitar night at Vivian Park

54. Go to a state I've never been to before

55. Learn to cook a meal with fish (I love fish, but I've never cooked with anything but tuna!)

56. Do something crazy to my hair (either dye or cut! It's bee pretty much the same for years!)

57. Give lunch to a homeless person

58. Eat an orange right off the tree

59. Make fresh-squeezed lemonade

60. Make a snow fort that I can go inside

61. Go to the zoo

62. Go to Birds of Prey with Scott-face.

63. Go on a picnic

64. Floss every night for a month (If I'm going to be a dentist's wife... I'd better start flossing)

65. Watch fireworks

66. Go on a boat in the sea! (Because I go on boats in lakes a lot, but only once on the sea)

67. Make out with my husband on Squaw Peak

68. Hike Squaw Peak in autumn

69. Watch a meteor shower

70. Go to a rock concert

71. Go to a symphony

72. Hike to the top of the canyon whose name I don't know but that I've hiked almost to the top about 4 times

73. Make homemade gelato

74. Make a photo collage for above our kitchen table

75. Learn a new song on guitar

76. Bear my testimony without crying

77. Go star-gazing

78. Make a rainbow-layer cake

79. Learn to conjugate in two tenses other than the present in Italian

80. Finish the temple cards I have printed out

81. Index 10,000 names

82. Give away a Book of Mormon

83. Make a mormon.org profile

84. Get enough water for food storage

85. Make a wish at 11:11 on 11/11/11 (But what will I wish for? What will be epic enough?)

86. Review all my NetGalley and review copies

87. Give back to BYU

88. Go to a book festival

89. Go a week without chocolate (This is pretty dang ambitious of me)

90. Slow dance with the Hubs

91. Go out to dinner in a pretty dress

92. Beat Scott at Racko

93. Go out for crepes

94. Go to Spark with my sister

95. Try Moroccan food

96. Put on my wedding dress again

97. Buy something vintage

98. See a play

99. Make macarons

100. Go bird-watching

101. Explore a city with no destination in mind

So... here goes nothing, hmm?

Home

I feel like I've always been attuned to the overall mood of a place. Certain songs or books always have given me a sense of where I am, a sense of atmosphere. Even when I haven't read the book or heard the song in years, it only takes a few seconds to bring me right back to where I was before. I also think I've always been affected by the atmosphere of a place. Despite the fact that I can be a pretty messy and cluttered person, the atmosphere of my home affects my ability to accomplish anything. I feel like I'm fairly sensitive to the beauty or lack of beauty in my environment.

For all this, I've never thought too much about home. I look forward to going home, but in the past it hasn't been because of the place. Home to me is more a function of the people around me. If my family comes to Provo to visit me, I'm home.

But this weekend, I've been overwhelmed with appreciation for the beauty of my (now past-tense) home. I love the flowers and the quiet street on which my parents live. I love the painted, not white walls. I love the picture frames with my siblings and grandparents. I love the surroundings that gradually changed around me as I grew up, sometimes shifting but always in a way that was comfortable and everyday.

Now, my Boise family is probably rejoicing and my Modesto family is probably worrying that we are going to end up here. I have no idea where we will end up - there are pros and cons of each situation, and the fact that it is at least five years ago means it is not really on the radar yet. I'm just grateful for the awareness in the moment of how blessed I am to be in such a beautiful, peaceful place in this short respite from school.

puggles

This is a puggle. Aka a baby echidna. Scott came across these in his animal diversity class. He thinks they are the cutest things in the world. He wants to call our children puggles when they come into existence.

When he's feeling really cute, he calls me a puggle.

Am I missing something here?

Because I think that is the ugliest animal I have ever seen.

Just sayin.

April Updates

I have graduated.

Scott is studying for the DAT, which means I come home and see him staring at images of pieces of paper folded in weird configurations and then hole-punched. This is a true story.

I have three days of work left at Borders.

We are going to California on Friday.

I have two weeks left before U of U Nursing owns my soul.