A Nursing Student's Prayer

Dearest Father,

Our hearts are so full of gratitude today.

We are grateful to have made it to the completion of this program,

and for the careful guidance from our instructors along the way.

We are grateful for Mrs. K who answered every question,

patiently listened to every concern, and always offered encouragement.

She is an amazing cheerleader and first year instructor.

We are grateful for Mrs. Yarrish, she has been the perfect second year instructor.

She pushed us to go farther than we ever thought we could

and was always there with a smile to praise us for a job well done.

We are grateful for the countless lessons we have learned

about bodies, processes, and most importantly—relationships.

We are grateful for the friendships we have made,

and the unforgettable memories we have shared.

We pray that we can pay it forward to those who come behind us.

As we begin our journey into this field of nursing,

we pray that we can listen to everyone who needs to be heard,

notice everything that needs to be seen,

and speak clearly everything that needs to be communicated.

We pray that we can be compassionate with others,

even when they test our patience.

We pray for safety for ourselves and all we come in contact with--

especially those we have the privilege of caring for.

We pray for strength to continue on through

shifts to come that will be physically and emotionally draining.

We pray to have the ability to let go and forgive ourselves

when a patient outcome is not what we anticipated.

We pray to remember we have a voice,

when we see that something needs to be said.

We pray for perseverance when we are faced with great challenges at work,

and for careful hands when performing intricate tasks that have life-saving potential.

We pray to listen with openness of mind and thoughtful consideration

when others offer advice for our improvement.

Most importantly, we pray to never forget the reason why we chose this profession;

to have gratitude and show respect for life,

to be observant of our surroundings,

and always offer help when we see a need,

In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

Nursing School

Well, I am one week, two assignments and two finals away from finishing a Registered Nurse Program. It has been a LONG road. I decided I wanted to be a nurse in the fall of 2002, yes, that was almost 17 years ago! Then, life happened and just kept going. I put school on hold for so many other things--saving money to go back, getting married, changing jobs, and most importantly--having four darling children.

Three years ago, I felt strongly that it was time to go back to school. It has been an emotional roller coaster, for sure! I am so grateful to be this close to the finish line! I feel I am now walking proof that if you keep doing your best and never give up on your dreams--eventually they do come true. You just have to be patient and keep putting one foot in front of the other. 

My pinning is in a week and a couple days. My class wants a prayer, so I get to be the one to offer the prayer. I feel weird about pre-preparing a prayer to offer... but I have written down what is in my heart. Now I just need to edit it and shorten it a little. I will share my nursing student prayer in a separate post.

Never Give Up!

Well, I am ashamed I have gone a whole year without posting a single thing.
I will admit: I am better at typing than I was a year ago.
I am in my second semester of nursing school. Last semester I typed my very first 17 page paper. I have struggled with typing since I lost feeling and some movement in my left fingers, (fall 2010). It has been a long struggle. I think I am finally figuring out how to maneuver my fingers on a key board and bumping minimal extra keys! Yay!!!

Last semester, my first semester of nursing school, the focus was on the Fundamentals of Nursing and the Nursing Process. I practiced assessing people a lot. This semester I started my clinical rotations at the hospital. I thought I was pretty fast at assessing a patient. I shadowed a nurse last Saturday and realized I am as slow as cold tar in the middle of winter in Wisconsin. I need more practice! I also realized how nice it would be to have feeling in both of my hands... that is worth a prayer and some faith. :) I know miracles can happen! It truly is a miracle that I am still alive.

My point to this post is a reminder to never give up! I gave up typing for a while, but when I rallied and worked at it a lot, the skill is finally getting easier and coming back to me! After 15 years of dreaming of becoming a nurse, I am finally in a program! I almost gave up. I am so grateful I am married to a wonderful man who sometimes picks me up, puts me back on my feet, and encourages me to keep going. Life is a learning process. It is important to never give up!

Less Personal Philosophy, more life experiences...

This post was a long detailed explanation about a very small experience. I think I want to utilize this blog more as a record of joys that happen in my life. ill try and add pictures with events too. :)

It has been a while

I have had a hard time sitting at computers ever since my hand accident...
I have decided it is time to get over this issue that I have.

As I spend each day of life observing my surroundings and taking it all in, I have realized it is really easy to nit pick things apart and be negative. I do not want to be a negative nit picker. I want to start blogging again and post all things that are positive, uplifting and exciting from  my life as well as things I am thankful for.

I read "The Proclamation to the World: The Family" today. I am so thankful for clear wisdom from my elders. I am thankful for families and the great support system they are in my life. I am thankful for my husband and the support he is to me. When I get frustrated and have to put myself in a timeout, I am so thankful when he is home and can take over with our kids. I am so thankful for my children! They constantly keep me on my toes trying to keep up with them & on my knees trying to figure out the best way to take care of them. I am thankful for all of my siblings. I can call anyone of them randomly, and each of them will offer an ear and any free advice that I need at the time. I am one blessed woman!

I hope anyone who reads this will think of three things (s)he is thankful for.

Brycen's 7th birthday--first friend party

Brycen's birthday was last Saturday, but we were at a family reunion... So we held his birthday party today. When I sat him down to write his list of friends he wanted to invite, the first three people he listed were all girls. Then he decided on some boys to invite. We made the invites and passed them out. I laugh that he first wanted to invite girls because when we talked about what he wanted to do at his party, he said he wanted to do an "army theme". We ended up with 4 girls and 9 boys.
  Well, I talked him into having a "marshmallow war". I bought a stick of 1/2" PVC and Ryan cut it into 12" lengths for me. Then I measured about 3/4 C. of mini marshmallows for each kid and put them in a bag. I placed a dozen marshmallow blowguns and a dozen bags of "ammo" into a box. I wrapped it to play "pass the parcel"... When wrapping I lost count of how many times I wrapped it-- I ended up wrapping it 15 times. :P I had 13 kids come, including Tucker and Eliza. We played "pop the balloon" and I used balloons that had been blown up for a week... It was awesome! The kids had a hard time popping most of them. Some of the boys did full body dives trying to pop the balloons. After that we played "pin the deer". The kids had fun telling each other whether they were hot or cold as they got closer to the deer. Then, we watched Brycen open his presents, had cup cakes in an ice cream cone with ice cream on top. It was a nice easy clean up!
After cake, we passed the present and everyone got to unwrap a layer, including grandma Nay, and Brycen got to do 2 layers. During this time, Eliza got stung by a huge black bumble bee on the back of her neck. It was very crazy and unexpected, but she survived! Once the package was open all the kids got their shooter and ammo. They spread out all over our homemade backyard "war zone" and they shot marshmallows for probably 40 minutes. We had two casualties. Grace Chamberlain got hit in the eye, and Sariah Heaton was attacked by too many people at one time. Thankfully the tears did not last too long, and injuries were not severe.

All in all, Brycen seemed to have a wonderful first birthday party with friends. :)

The Power of Prayer

This evening Ryan and I took the kids to move 16 large metal panels (they kind of make a quick, easy, and mobile fence wherever you align and build them...) from one location to another. We had all of them loaded in a trailer, them preceded to set them tightly side by side. This way, Ryan could use a fork lift attachment on a tractor to pick up all of them and move them at one time. That was the original plan... So, we put them all nicely together, then Ryan turned to me and said, "Hun, can you hold these while I go and grab the tractor?"
I replied, "sure!"
I proceeded to the center of the stack of panels, got what I thought was a good hold, then Ryan let go and walked off. As he let go, the weight forced me into a sitting position on the side of the dump trailer. After a few minutes my arms started shaking because the weight was so great, and Ryan still had not yet started the tracter. Around the time I heard the tractor finally start, I started really wondering if I would be able to hold the load until he got there, because I could hear him having tracter issues. Well, I bent one arm and started using my back, but it didn't last long. I started praying at the beginning of this experience, and asking for additional strength to hold this. I kept telling myself I am strong, I can do this, Ryan will be here soon! After a while I realized I would not be able to hold the weight because the tracter was taking too long. I just prayed that I would be okay... I knew I could not bail out of the dump trailer and the only option was to let them crash on my pregnant body. I am still not sure how it happened, but as I felt my body give out totally, my left arm got pinched/caught between a couple of the top panels, and the panels firmly pinned me to the side of the trailer right between my lower hips... Just below where my baby is. I don't think it could have landed any lower than it did because I was so far down holding the panels to being with. If it had been any higher, it would have hurt my baby. If my arm had not been caught in the upper panels, I would have been hanging off the side so much that I would have pulled muscles. I screamed for Ryan and he came running over. He lifted up the panels and helped me out, then made sure I was okay. I was startled, but I know that Heavenly Father heard my prayers and somehow helped me tangle up just right to keep myself and my little baby safe in that situation tonight. I am so grateful for the knowledge I have of prayer. I find great peace of mind in my life knowing that I have a Father in Heaven who knows me, listens to me, and loves me! Thank you dear Lord for helping me so much tonight!

Peppermint Divinity in the microwave!

Today I tried making divinity for the first time. I used THIS recipe. It was super simple! I added a little twist to it... After whipping the egg whites, you add a 260 degree sugar mixture to the mixer bowl with your whites. Just before I added the sugar mixture I added a few drops of red food coloring, and about 5 drops of peppermint essential oil. I don't normally like divinity, but this divinity is DIVINE! ;)
Super simple too! If you try it, good luck!

Happy Halloween 2012

The kids and I dressed up as some of "The Avengers, Earths Mightiest Heros". I should have taken a picture this morning... Brycen was Hawkeye (He's missing his mask.) :( Tucker was The Hulk, Eliza was The Wasp (...with a broken arm...), and I was the Black Widow.

  I think we had a great turn out at our church building Trunk or Treat. We had a LOT of kids come through, and we ran out of chilli. :) I took about 80 pumpkin chocolate chip cookies, 36 apples, 60 small bags of cheetos, and had a huge bag of candy that someone else asked me to give away for them. There were a few times tonight when my entire tail gait was surrounded with indecisive children. Alas, I did give every last scrap of treats away to children. I ran out of cheetos first, then cookies, then apples, and candy was the last thing I ran out of... I think it is so interesting to see which item kids pick first. Some of my primary kids came back three and four times. I stated making them do a trick for each additional treat they wanted after they had received two. . ..
Overall, I think my children had a lot of fun today! Hope everyone else did too! Happy Halloween everyone!

Happy Second Anniversary Dear Fingers

I feel I should write a quick note about my anniversary. I think pretty much everyone who reads my blog knows about the accident I had two years ago. I just wanted to say I am so grateful I have a constant reminder in my life that hands are incredibly useful. I think I can safely say that everyone who has good working hand/stubs/any thing that can pinch an object takes complete advantage of what (s)he has. I hope everyone who owns two perfect and beautifully working hands will take a minute today and give thanks for your hands. One of mine is no longer perfect... but I certainly give thanks nearly everyday (if not everyday) that I still have almost all of it attached to me. Thank you to everyone who prayed for me or helped take care of me during that time in my life! I was taught so much compassion through example from everyone around me. I am so thankful for therapy and modern medicine. I can type around twenty-five to thirty words a minute these days. It may not seem high, but I think it is really great for having three fingers that can't really feel which keys they are hitting on the keyboard. I think I could add my ability to type to my bucket list of miracles that I have seen throughout this experience. I am also so thankful I had Eliza at this time. She will be two tomorrow. She has been such a joy in my life. She may squeal and scream a lot, but she is so darling, sweet, soft, and has very adorable big blue eyes! Two years ago it was so difficult to figure out how to dress her, change her diapers, feed her, and bathe her one-handed--But, she and my boys were great motivation to keep going when I nearly felt like I had nothing left to give. 
There is a saying from the Count of Monte Cristo that goes like this, "God sees you out of the corner of his eye". Sometimes I feel like my trials are not important, or I bear them quietly. I am so thankful to know that no matter how many problems other people in this great big world have, God is still mindful of me and my problems. He is always there to pick me up when I am down. To catch me when I fall short. To carry me when I am too exhausted to move on myself. To listen when no one else is there. . . I could go on, but this was supposed to be a short post.
May everyone give a little extra thanks for your hands today!

Our Foreign Exchange Student

Well we had a foreign exchange student for about two weeks. He just went home last Saturday. We had him from August 13-25th. We were supposed to get him on the twelfth, but his flight was delayed. He was a fourteen year old boy from Japan. It was an interesting experience. I now know how to make Miso Soup (a simple soybean based soup that Japanese people eat for breakfast). If you want the recipe I used, click here. My student's name was Reo. He and one of his Japanese friends ate some, they liked it and said it tasted pretty close to what they eat in Japan.
While he was here Ryan took him boating at the local Sandy Reservoir--He LOVED that. I got a "Thank you" phone call around eleven o'clock that night from Japan. His "Auntie" called to tell me they were really nervous to send him, and they were so happy to hear that he was placed in a good home. We also spent one of the weekend nights up on Kolob Mountain at my husband's family cabin. We repaired fences on our farm one night (the boys kicked around a ball while I helped Ryan). Ryan also took Reo to play indoor soccer one night (Reo is in a soccer club in Japan). We made a few trips to Walmart, he LOVED jumping on the trampoline with my two little boys. One night they got out the hose and soaked each other all over. Brycen kept spraying Reo (which Brycen usually does to Tucker), so Reo took the hose and SPRAYED Brycen back. It was about time fro Brycen to have an "older brother" figure pick on him a little for a minute. All in all, it was a pretty neat experience. I am not sure if I would do it again, if I do, I think I will ask for a girl (just to spice things up a little more). . .

Facebook

Over the last year to year and a half I have started thinking that maybe I should get a Facebook account. I have put it off because computer activities are toward the bottom of my totem pole of priorities. Well, I am in charge of my twenty year reunion, in nine more years. Today I decided is the day to get an account. I believe Facebook will be a useful tool in my life, so I have finally "bitten the dust".

For those of you interested look for me on Facebook now. :)

Cleaning our "Farm"

 In my previous post I mentioned that my husband and I made a recent purchase of some land. We bought about ten acres of land south of the town we live in. While we were in the process of the purchase, my husband showed me the land twice. . . at dusk. He also mentioned there were a few animal carcases on the property. So, the day we closed I finally saw it in day light. A few was an UNDERSTATEMENT. There were probably thirty to forty animal carcasses in one area. Mostly sheep, there were also a few calves and I even found remains of a couple of coyotes and I think someones pet dog.

After the purchase it took us a few days to come up with the best plan for the dead animals. We decided to spread them out and till them in. The day came, Ryan spread them out with a tractor and then took the kids for a tractor ride on the other side of the "farm". While they were gone I cleaned up all the garbage so we could disc the ground. Among all the garbage there was a lot of bailing twine. Some of it was buried, so I had to pull a little harder. This is what came with the twine (enough times that I finally thought, "this is gross, I should take a picture to remember this grossness!")

 
 Most everything was decayed enough that the smell was not too bad. There were a couple of times I saw a plastic ear tag on a calf, so I went to pick it up to throw it away and the dried up ear came with the tag.

All in all, ti was a disgusting, but successful day of work. Ryan and my dad went out a couple days after that and disced/plowed everything in. It is a nice dirt patch now. :)

We tell our kids that Grandpa Bramall has a big farm, and we have a really little one now.

Our next adventure will be putting up a fence once we have enough money saved to buy the materials. I'll keep you posted.