cars and coupons

So another thing I miss about my saturn - snow donuts!! This car has things like anti-lock brakes, traction control, and snow tires- which put a serious damper on my parking lot fun. We have an amazingly large parking lot at work that gets some "snowy conditions practicing" from a certain worker as she leaves the lot.

I've completed my first hospital rotation! Woohoo! So today I have some time to do stuff like make granola, bake muffins, read my book club book, and go to the doctor, before I go to Bible study tonight. We are starting a video series for Easter and I'm really excited about it. The lady in charge was talking about it last week and said she was supposed to preview just the first video but it was so good she said she watched the first one, then another, then another, until she watched them all. So I am really intrigued after that review.

I stopped and got some groceries after school today, and by no means am I one of those excessive coupon people, but I found good deals:

All this stuff for $18.50. My receipt said i saved $23. I can't believe it would have been $41 regularly, what do I look like a millionaire?? And good for you Meijer for your no high fructose corn syrup ketchup.

Another future house must have would be one of those big freezers. We always had one growing up and mom would make jam and freeze a lot of her garden veggies. I love putting stuff in the freezer for quick lunches and keeping stuff from getting moldy. To make a joke at my sister's expense: let's hear it for freezers! ;)

Substitute Teacher

Today we had a sub in our nursing class. He was a pretty attractive middle aged guy. Not nearly as cute as this professor:

But I still kinda felt like this girl today:

first cupcakes ever?

My study buddy had her birthday over the weekend so I made cupcakes. As I'm baking them I started thinking that it might be my first time making cupcakes..?! crazy! I know I've made plenty of muffins in my day, but not much cupcakes. I like cake, but I'm not that crazy about frosting.

A taste for me

A taste for my homie

Cupcakes from the recipe on the back of the cocoa

Topped with delicious peanut butter frosting. As a frosting non-fan, this frosting was amazing!!

Topped with a cute little peanut butter m & m. Yum. But trouble. These needed to leave the house asap!

People at school liked them, and my study buddy was excited.

So I noticed when putting away the cocoa that the lid didn't really fit that well after you removed the thick "new tub paper liner part", and when I went into the other room to do something, a few minutes later I hear, "Becks!!" and then "Aaaannnnnnneee!" and I come out and see

what a little rascal! Dogs aren't supposed to eat chocolate- doncha go dying on me!

Luckily he survived his brush with death

weekend update

This weekend was a weekend for laying low, studying, and watching movies.

Love this movie!! One of my favorites.

The next night I watched this movie that made me wish for 3 hours of my life back. I l-o-v-e-d the book, but this movie was so terribly cheesy and took such crazy liberties with the story. They just completely made up an entire scene of the movie, and my favorite part at the end of the book, they didn't do at all. BOOOO!!!!

Sunday after church I went up to my parents, had lunch with them, talked, and watched this. It was pretty good.

The visit home was nice. As always. Mom was telling me how when she was in nursing school they practiced everything on each other. Which I first thought was a good idea, until she started talking about NG tubes (a tube down your nose to your stomach) and enemas. Um, that would be so awkward, "here classmate, let me stick this tube up your butt." Later mom and I were sitting talking and I was mentioning how the one year I failed to ask for socks for Christmas, sure enough, I only have 10 pairs and not enough to last between laundry days. So mom is telling me about some socks she has that she was going to give to me. And she's talking about them and says, "you know, they go in your shoes..." I was sitting there thinking, is my mom describing to me how to wear a sock?? And then we both just sat there a second and burst out laughing. Apparently she was trying to describe those no-see-um socks, not just regular socks. Good times. I'd hope at 31 I'd have socks down.

Anyway, church was crazy. We've been doing a series for women called Eve & Adam, it's been mostly good, some things hard to hear as they brought up painful things I've been going through. This sunday was a complete cryfest. They interviewed a couple from our church, I knew them from our life group. First I cried imagining if I'd see Andrew up there on screen, and then I cried thinking about how that will never happen. Then I cried thinking about how good God is and how He moves and changes peoples' lives, and as I sat there crying the couple was invited on stage and he proposed to her! It was really neat to see.

trying again...

Look at that sweet wittle paw

So for Valentine's day I spent the evening with Jill and we ate popcorn and watched Modern Family and ate chocolate covered strawberries and it was good. A big improvement over last year! She had commented on how she liked the grocery bag holder I had made for another friend, so I surprised her with one too:

Measuring, ironing, pinning together

Putting fancy stiches on the edges

close up shot

sewing up the sides

finished with a handle!

She was surprised and liked it. I thought the fabric was perfect to match her yellow, blue, and brown kitchen and I loved the little birds that kind of go with a bird tablecloth she uses sometimes.

So I had another hospital day this week, I got yelled at again. This guy was being fed through a tube in his stomach and I had to inject his meds through a syringe that went right into his feeding tube. So the tube that comes out of his stomach has some sort of cap on it and I pulled it off and stuck the syringe in there, and my instructor told me that I pulled the wrong thing off. (I was supposed to pull the plug on the cap) I must have nervously laughed or something, because she said, "don't laugh, you could have killed him." Um, okay. There was no way I could have killed him by doing that. But I felt stupid all the same. She told me a story about a nurse who confused the feed lines with the IV lines and she injected the food into the bloodstream, killed the baby, and is now probably in jail. With my thing you could obviously see it was the food line. Apparently the lesson to learn was, "if it seems hard to do it probably isn't right." Which doesn't make complete sense since there are plenty of things that are right and still hard to do, but I wasn't about to tell her that.

I did want to see how it felt for the patients when I gave them an injection, so I brought a syringe home and gave myself a shot.

It was just a quick poke going in, but when I starting injecting, YOOOOUUCHHH!! I had to rip it out of there after only giving myself 1cc. Oh man, and I'm injecting 10cc's into people when I do it to them :( It definitely hurts them more than it hurts me.

stupid blogspot

RRR!!! stupid blogger changed its format again and now it won't let me add pictures and is publishing things without me even hitting 'publish'. So annoying. Just leave well enough alone!! And I was all ready to blog today. >:(

More Crafts

The other craft I worked on at craft night, I couldn't blog about until it had been received by it's intended. My sister-in-law Michelle is running the Disney Princess half marathon this month and when I saw her at Christmas she told me her favorite princess was Ariel, but that she wasn't dressing up for the marathon. NOT DRESSING UP!?! I thought of poor Michelle in her regular running gear while everyone else was all princessed out.

So I made her an Ariel running outfit.

Enter some exercise clothes picked up from Salvation Army (I hope you don't care Michelle, but I didn't want to spend a lot in case you didn't like it! :))

This shirt must have been a golf shirt because it had a collar. Lame! So I cut it off and sewed it under. But the fabric was nice and wicking. I had actually tried to dye it cream/brownish with some black tea bags since Michelle is on the tanner side, but it looked streaky and terrible, and got bleached back to white :)

Soffe exercise shorts, I have like 5 pairs of these in different colors so I know they are good for exercising.

Add a little sparkly puffy paint in consummate V's for scales:

And glue on some shells made of craft foam decorated with more puffy paint for the bra:

Ta-Da! Ready to mail off. Although I realized after I sent it I forgot to do the green puff paint to be a seaweedy shell bra bikini strings. Those shells don't stay on there by themselves! (Michelle, maybe you can draw on with a marker??)

Anyway, a few days later she wrote and said she got it and was happy. So I was happy too. She said she was going to test run in it- which later I thought about and thought... hmmm a girl running in a shell bra Ariel costume totally normal in Disneyworld, totally not normal on the snowy streets of Colorado. So I'm not sure how that went. But it was fun to do that and I hope she likes it.

Crafty Weekend

Friday my co-worker brought in bagels.

I love you cream cheese on toasted sesame.

Driving in to work on a chilly morning I had this brilliant idea:

yay! now my gearshift won't freeze my hands off, and my fingers are free for texting. (while at stop lights of course) I should take out a patent or something.

Friday after work I went to my friend Leighann's house. She hosts a monthly craft night and this time my craft was a grocery bag holder. My mom made me one for Christmas, but it is packed away for future kitchen use, so I googled and loosely followed this blog, I would have followed the blog more closely, but my sewing skills are pretty basic.

I didn't really take step by step pictures because I didn't want Leighann's friends to make fun of me, so here it is almost done. Mostly the steps included bothering Leighann to abandon her own craft to get things for me like her sewing machine (after mine kept plugging up with the fabric from craft #1), her iron, scissors, etc. (sorry!) Then lots of measuring, cutting, ironing, sewing, asking for advice... But I think it turned out pretty good.

Here is the bottom where it cinches up to keep the bags in

The top on the blog girl's bag had this really pretty decorative stitching, mine did not turn out as great, but worth a try.

The last step was putting in the eyelets for the handle. Mine were too small so I had to pick up some more at Joann Fabrics. Luckily these ones came with a tool because otherwise you had to buy some pliers thing that was like $25.

lining it up

Putting the tool thing on there

trusty icecream scoop hammer smashed the two pieces together

Viola!!

I think it looks pretty good. And my friend seemed to like it when I went to her bday party on Saturday.

While I was at Joann's I picked up some more fabric so I can make one for my roommate since she was now wishing for a bag holder. It makes me feel bad for the first friend since usually my projects get better the next couple tries, but oh well, I guess that's the way it goes.

Last Divorce Class

Last night was my last divorce class. The session was "Moving On, Growing Closer to God". It was actually the third time I heard this lesson, SO good.

Since I was 'graduating' the class the leaders asked us to share about what this program has meant to us. So I shared. This program has been an amazing resource and so helpful as I have unfortunately had to walk down this path. I started going right after he filed, and now here I am 6 months later. I survived! I look back and I see someone who was fearful, hopeless, full of misery. I remember one night after some really cruel things were said, I just left the apartment sobbing and walked to the train tracks. (and then walked home obviously) but I just remember just feeling utter hopelessness and despair.

The class was always focused on Jesus. How much He values and loves me. (Lk. 12:24/Zph. 3:17/Gal. 2:20) How He is still in control. (Is. 45:7/ Mt. 10:29) How He has good plans, plans for a hope and a future. (Jer. 29:11) How He can use what is meant for evil - for good. (Rom. 8:28) I really loved last night's class. I know I talked about it before, but I love some of the wisdom from the video, "my purpose in life is not to be married, that is just a stop along the way, God has a bigger purpose for me". And, "don't let your spouse take your purpose out the door with them."

I just really love how this group has encouraged me to keep my eyes fixed on Jesus. To let Him heal me. To make Him the center of my life. And to forgive.

I don't know what it is. The year+ of counseling, the 9 months of divorce class, the love and prayers and support of amazing friends and family, or just the power of Jesus to change lives. But I do feel changed. I feel hope. I feel peace. I feel joy. And I am so thankful.

I will exalt you, O Lord, for you lifted me out of the depths and did not let my enemies gloat over me. O Lord my God, I called to you for help and you healed me. O Lord, you brought me up from the grave; you spared me from going down into the pit. Sing to the Lord, you saints of his; praise his holy name. For his anger lasts only a moment, but his favor lasts a lifetime; weeping may remain for a night, but rejoicing comes in the morning. Psalm 30:1-5.