I passed! Whoopie! Whoopie!

Yes yes yes!!!

I passed my dosage calculation re-test with flying colors.

Thank you all for your super supportive amazing comments! You guys are the best community ever!

I hope you all have a fantastic Monday and hugs hugs hugs to everyone!

I will post more later in the week but I could not wait to update you since you have all been so super supportive!!

Hugs!

TikTok Sunday

Happy Sunday y’all!

I’m creating this post Saturday night to post Sunday. I will be studying all day Saturday and all day Sunday for my dosage Calc test on Monday morning. 

Fingers crossed I pass this time…!

I had some fun before studying and did a few TikTok‘s with the cats… I hope they give you a little chuckle on Sunday morning.

Enjoy what’s left of the weekend! Stay safe out there and stay warm! Hugs!

Saturday

Happy Saturday y’all!

As everyone knows I have four cats… I also have a lot of cat trees and cat furniture. Ever since they were all kittens; they love to climb these trees and hang out!

They use them as scratching posts also which I think saves my furniture a little bit… But only a little bit. 

As you can see in the picture below my chairs took a lot of the action too.

And this chair also… They scratched a hole all the way to the stuffing. LOL and Ugh…



My parents got new furniture so I asked them if there was anyway I could have their old stuff. It’s still in great shape and I think it will be perfect to replace my scratched up furniture.

My wonderful parents spent their Saturday morning packing the chairs into their jeep and driving them to me in Pittsburgh. It’s about an hour and a half drive each way so I really appreciate all the time it took for them to do this for me today. They also helped me take the old chairs to the dumpster. On a side note: it is also only 5 degrees outside in Pittsburgh, PA this morning so it was a frigid day to move furniture!

Here are their old chairs in place at my condo… I love them!



A huge thank you to my parents! I was blessed with amazing parents that are so helpful and loving in so many ways! I love the chairs and I appreciate them so much!

Oh , also, speaking of chairs….my good friend’s husband made this awesome hand chair with metal and rebar and she was going to throw it out! It is a great statement piece and I love it for my condo!!! All mine for free!!! It’s a great conversation piece!!!

Anyone else collect your families furniture when they are going to get new stuff? What is your favorite furniture pieces? How are spending your Saturday? Cold temps where you are? Or warm?

I hope you all have a safe, warm and happy weekend!!! Hugs!!!

Nermie likes to blog

As you can see here…while I am catching up on reading blogs; Nermie enjoys being as close as possible and hanging with me!!! 

Haha!!!

He was recently diagnosed with diabetes but he’s a champ getting his shots twice a day. I have to give him three units in the morning and three units at night. He appears to be gaining weight and getting better slowly. 

Anytime he wants to chill with me he’s welcome!

First OB Clinical

Happy happy Friday everyone! I think it’s gonna be a very interesting semester this year in nursing school

I was scheduled to have my first OB clinical yesterday. We were going to a Pittsburgh hospital from 2 PM until midnight. Around noon we got an email from our instructor that we were doing zoom from home. Apparently the school did not get the papers filled out in time so we were unable to be on the floor at Clinical.  Because the hospital is so far away from me (about 1 1/2 hours) I was already in the car on the way to a fellow students home to drive from there. So I was all dressed with my gear when she texted me and told me it was canceled in person and we would be zooming at 2 PM.

Needless to say it was a very long day being on a zoom clinical from 2 PM until midnight. The instructor let us go around 1130 but that was still a very long day.

Hopefully we will have better luck next Thursday!!!

in the meantime I will leave you with a picture of all my clinical gear that I systematically took off after I heard in person Clinical was canceled.

Our cute navy scrub tops and pants… and yes I am working on the weight loss… UGG I hate seeing that size on my scrub top but you can not change that which you do not acknowledge, right?!?! (I blacked out the school because we’re not allowed to put any kind of school names on any kind of social media.)

My awesome stethoscope… It was a gift for my parents the Christmas before I started nursing school! Love it!


My awesome bandage scissors… We have to have these with us for every Clinical. Mine are from Amazon!


Just like the scissors… We have to have our medical pen light with us for every clinical. I got mine from Amazon I think!


I got this adorable lanyard for my badge from my nieces and nephews.  It was a Christmas gift right before I started nursing school. They found it at Bath and Body Works…it’s has sanitizer built right in!!!

I also use these awesome pens I found on Amazon. I saw another nurse with them at my first Clinical and they are so helpful. They hang right from your badge holder so they are always ready and available when you need them! They’re perfect for writing vitals or labs and initialing IV tubes and the sharpie comes in handy when you have to label bandages.  I found them on Amazon and it was the best investment for nursing school!

I always have a little cash on hand… The instructor told us the cafeteria would be closed except for grab and go but they have vending machines. Usually these hospitals have vending machines for Panera soup. That’s what I was hoping for at least. I also packed a dinner of protein bars almonds and dried mangoes just in case the vending machines only had candy. Lol!

I always keep this little baggie in my zipper pocket of my scrub pants. I have Bayer baby aspirin to chew in case I start to get migraine lights ( if you get migraines you’ll understand.) and it also has some cough drops and some ibuprofen. You just never know when you’re going to need that. We can’t have any items on the floor with us so this is the easiest way to be prepared if you yourself have an emergency.

This is my best friend! I got it at a local health store and it is like a natural version of a Vicks inhaler! One thing I have learned is that nursing doesn’t always smell pretty. This is perfect you sniff it up both nostrils before you take care of some not so pleasantly scented issues. It has made Clinical life much better.

This is my nursing watch. It has a secondhand and the plastic repels germs. It’s fully waterproof too! This was a gift from my parents for Christmas before I started nursing school also.

I found this little gem on Amazon. Another girl in my clinical was using one and I loved it. It’s a metal folding clipboard. You can put all of your patient files and important information in this clip… Then you can fold it in half and it fits right in your scrub pocket. It is fantastic because it also gives you a hard surface to write on!


As you can see on the outside of it there’s a little cheat sheets for different lab values, needle gauges, eye millimeter sizes and shot locations, etc. 

This is one other thing I always make sure I take to clinical. Nurses are not able to hydrate throughout the day. You’re so busy that before you know it it’s been four hours. So it’s super important to stay hydrated however you can… especially when nurses work 10 and 12 hour shifts. This stuff has been a godsend! The swell bottle was a gift from one of my very best friends Donna. I fill it with water and then add 1 1/2 of the liquid IVs. They taste amazing and it keeps you hydrated and feeling good all day!


So that’s it! Just a little view of what prep is like for Clinical… And then just like that it was canceled. Ha ha! I guess if nothing else you have to be flexible in nursing school!

And as you can also tell nursing school isexpensive! Once I graduate and get established I’m going to figure out how to do a grant for new nurses. When I started I had no clue how expensive it was going to be. I knew how much school cost but you really don’t have a clue as books and testing software are more expensive than school each semester! I had no idea about that. Also all of the gear that you need for nursing school is unbelievably expensive! Between the equipment and the special embroidered scrubs it ends up costing a whole ton of money. 

I would love to help someone else once I graduate and get established!

That’s all for me! As you can tell, I think now that school has started up I’m going to try my best to at least post once a week. That should be doable. Monday is dosage Calc and I will definitely post after that to let you know how it turns out.

Have you ever thought about starting a scholarship for someone less fortunate? have you paid it forward lately ? How do you pay it forward? 

Thanks for all the well wishes and support! You guys are amazing! Hugs and stay safe out there!!!

Stress-free Weekend

Hi everyone! Happy happy Monday! I hope everyone is as blessed as me on this holiday and was able to stay home and just watch the snowfall. If you had to go somewhere during Snowmageddon… I hope you made it there and arrived home safely. I personally stayed home for the whole day today… soaked in the tub… and did a little studying.

So let me share with you a little about my weekend! I go on a retreat three times a year. It has been canceled for the past two years due to Covid. They started it back up again this year. So I just attended the spring Jacksons Mill round up. It’s held at the Jacksons Mill 4H camp in West Virginia. The camp is now owned by West Virginia University.

It was an amazing weekend filled with speakers, fellowship, spirituality and love. 

When there’s downtime from speakers and activities we go on little shopping trips in the West Virginia area. We have different little local stores we got to and buy jams and jellies, canned beets and tonics, sometimes we even get knickknacks and homemade pickles.

We always go to this store below… They have all kinds of really fun country knickknacks and gifts for people. When we stopped this time we heard that the owner is closing the store for good. I guess they’ve lost a lot of money due to Covid. They have this giant Sasquatch out in front of the store. The store owner said he was purchased and he will be moved to his new location in March. So this will be our final visit to the store and no more pictures of Sasquatch… Here’s our final couple pictures …

These two people are my absolute heart and soul! They are the most amazing friends on the planet and I feel so blessed to have them in my life. We normally all see each other every time we go to the mill. In case you don’t know I’m the one in the Steelers jacket.


Another thing we do every time we’re at the mill is go to the Jane Lew truckstop. They have a restaurant there that has this painting on the wall. The painting is of the Civil War. You can see the blue side and the gray side. The meaning of signed by what we think is a local artist Charlotte Gerstack. We eat here every time we’re here and we get a picture in front of Jesus. As you can see in the picture below Laura is pointing to Jesus. Right in the middle of the fighting there is a man in all white with sandals. He’s holding a gun and fighting right along with both the blue and gray man. Has to be Jesus right? This is a bone of contention for everyone except me… I know it is Jesus. I just don’t know why he is holding a gun.


And here’s a close-up… Jesus, right?


I received a few check-in‘s from my cat sitter. She came twice a day to take care of the food and shots for Nermal. He did so great for her - here’s a screen capture of some of her texting… 

So she texted me each time she came and said he was great with the shots every time. I am so blessed to have such a wonderful cat sitter! She definitely loves my cats (and my home) like they’re her own.

They have lots and lots of photo albums from all the years gone by at the Mill. One of the committee members is always in charge of walking around and getting pictures of most of the people in attendance. We have been attending 3x a year for about 24 years now. I found these great old pictures. This one is from about 20 years ago. I am using these to inspire my diet… Lol! I was so thin and young!



I really love this old picture below… It was the three of us that I told you hang out together plus a gentleman named Vaughn. Vaughn passed away last year and he is so missed! The guy smiling in the back row is another guy we see all the time at the mill. Vaughn brought everyone so much laughter and joy. Love you Vaughn!


After that weekend of so much relaxation… I came home hearing about a snowstorm that was on the way to Pittsburgh. We made it home before any snow fell and I hunkered down to get ready to watch my Steelers beat the Chiefs. As you all know that did not happen… The Steelers are out of the playoffs. We lost to the Chiefs… Actually they killed us! But it seems like we might have a shot because of this guy… TJ Watt! He was amazing! The rest of the team just sucked- ha!


And here’s the snow when I woke up. I think we may be got 6 inches? Like I said I’m super blessed because I didn’t have to go anywhere and I hope everyone else stayed safe as well!


The absolute best decision we’ve made in this condo building is the assigned parking spaces. Soon as it finished snowing I went out and shoveled my space and shoveled the hump that the snow plow makes behind the cars. I have a nice, clean, reserved spot just for me! Yay! Every year before this I would shovel a spot, leave and someone would take my spot. Finally, last winter I ended up shoveling the whole freaking parking lot. But I’m happy to report… I only have to shovel my spot now.


I also made a big pot of homemade chili. It was wonderful to watch the snowfall and eat chili. I had it for dinner last night and lunch today. I’m now heating a bowl for dinner today. I think I’m going to freeze the rest of it because how many days in a row and how many meals in a row can you eat chili? Ha ha


And finally… I’m going to spend the rest of my evening prepping for my first class tomorrow. On Tuesdays I have Nur210 -Nursing Leadership and Management principles. We have some videos to watch and some reading to do. Then later in the week on Thursday I will have my first clinical for maternity. We will be working on Thursday from 2 PM to midnight at a hospital in the Pittsburgh area. I’m super excited for this first maternity clinical- I will let you know how it goes!!!


I hope everyone had A great weekend and has an even better week!

Update: thanks again for all your supportive and encouraging comments on my dosage calculation test. The retest is on Monday January 24th and I will let you know how it goes immediately after. Thanks again for all the love and support!!!

Do you get sick of food you cook and have to freeze it before you can finish it? How much snow did you get? We’re you off work or school today?

Hugs everyone -stay safe out there!!!!

Good Cry Anyone?

Well not gonna lie…

Today is not what I would call the best day ever.

First thing this morning I realized that both my dermatologist and my medicine are not covered under my new insurance plan. So that’s lovely. I see a dermatologist yearly because I have psoriatic arthritis. The psoriasis piece has been really controlled with Stelara. Needless to say, Stelara and my doctor are both not covered under my new plan. So I need to research and find a new doctor, have all of my patient records sent to them and then find a new med for my psoriasis. 

Then I took the med dosage Calc test. You have to get a 92% to pass (you can miss two). It didn’t go well at all. Thank goodness they give us one more try to re-take the test. I messed up the simplest thing. The wording threw me off. The question was asking for a flow rate on an electronic pump and for some reason I labeled them gtt/min instead of ml/hr and there were three in a row. You can only miss two and I missed all three of those.  Pretty much spent the afternoon crying about that one. Now I’m over it and I’m ready to retake it because I know what I did wrong and as frustrating as it is it was, it was my own stupid mistake.

In the afternoon it started pouring down rain here in Pittsburgh. It was super dark outside and everything was just super gloomy all day here.

Around dinner time I took Nermal (my cat) in for his two week vet check for his diabetes. His numbers went down from close to 800 to around 420. The vet said that was great but he’s only gained an ounce. So we’re bumping him up to two units in the morning and three units at night. We will do that for a week and if I still notice he’s peeing a lot I’m supposed to bump it up to three units in the morning and three units at night.

Here’s the little cutie sleeping in his cat tree cube…

When I see it written here it doesn’t seem like it should have been such a great catastrophe but it certainly felt like one today. I was just super sad and super overwhelmed in waves. I don’t know if anyone else has had a day like this but it’s almost like waiting for the other shoe to drop.

I just wanted to check in because you’ve all been so super supportive about my nursing decision and although I really tried and studied hard I missed three stupid questions. I realize now it’s all good and I’ll do better on my next retake.

I need to go to bed now and hopefully I will have a better restart tomorrow. I am going to a conference tomorrow that I’m super excited about so I will send a whole bunch of pictures this weekend.  Thank us I have an amazing responsible cat sitter that I trust with my cats lives. She loves my cats as much as I do. She’s coming to take care of all my babies and Nermal’s shots over the weekend. It’s a lot of work so she is definitely a saint. So that’s a bright spot! 

Hugs to each and everyone of you… Thanks for being there when I need to talk these things out. You guys are another bright spot!! Hugs!

Ever have one of those days when things one after the other just keep going wrong? Ever have a day where you just feel overwhelmed? Ever have a day where the smallest thing goes wrong and it feels huge? Ever have a day when you just needed to have a good cry?

Stay safe out there!

Wednesday's Hodgepodge - First One in a Long Time!

I am joining in with Joyce today for Wednesday's Hodgepodge! I am super excited as I have not done one of these for soooo long!!!

1. What do you wish you'd done more of last year? exercise! That will happen this year as clinicals are much more frequent! Less of? I wish I had eaten less - way too much stress eating in Nursing school!! HA! 

2. What's the tallest building you've ever been in? I am not sure. I guess it would be the CN tower in Onatrio?? It is 1915 feet tall and there is a restaurant you can eat in that slowly spins around to see the city. Also they have a skywalk. The evening we had dinner there the Skywalker’s closed because it was too windy. Pictures below…  Do you have a fear of heights? I never did before I turned 50 but now at 50 my knees get a little shaky high up. 

3. Do you have a word for the year? I do not. Elaborate if you'd like to elaborate. 

 4. January 11th is National Milk Day...are you a milk drinker? Not really at all. What kind? If I use any at all is coconut or almond and I put it in a smoothie. I don’t drink cows milk ever.

5. What excites you most about the future? Graduating from nursing school at the end of the year and becoming a real nurse!!! Whoop! What do you miss about the past? My Grandmothers and Great-grandmothers. Mainly, family members that have passed on. Her they are …this

Picture happened to be sitting here on the table next to me. My mom took it out of her scrapbook because she thought I would like to have it.

On the left in the green dress is my Great-grandmother and on the right in the floral dress is my Grandmother. Two of my very very very favorite people! They’ve both passed and I am sure they are resting in peace!

6. Insert your own random thought here. I’m saying lots and lots of prayers for my dosage Calc test tomorrow. I just need to go slow and make my conversions carefully. That’s about all the time my mind for now. I was going to make a run to BJ’s for paper towels tonight but I think I ran out of time.

I’m off to go read everyone’s blog entries for the day and catch up with everyone.  Thank you again Joyce for hosting this… I’ve really missed participating!

 So many hugs to everyone and stay safe out there!

Dosage Calculation Rocks

Soooo….this happened! Lol! We have a really hard water in my Condo so the cartridges for water Fossetts go bad really quickly it seems. Thank goodness I watched my dad the first time he changed one so I don’t have to call him any more for it. I know how to do them myself. This time I was unable to get the tub to shut off. When you have to push really hard to shut your faucet off, you need a new cartridge. So I ran to Home Depot bought a cartridge and switched it out. The whole process now only takes me about 20 minutes since I do it so often. Ha ha! Most important thing is to remember to turn off your water. From there it’s super easy. One of these times I will document the entire process but I know I mentioned it in this blog post …

HERE

yesterday was fun getting ready for our dosage Calc test. We have to take this every semester in nursing school. Here is the prep work they send us to work through to practice the problems we will get on our test. You have to pass your dosage Calc test with at least a 95% or you cannot even complete the semester. I’m in my third semester and if you don’t get a 95% on this test then your classes are cancelled and you have to wait until next semester to take these classes again. It makes total sense considering a nurse has a patient’s life in their hands with medication dosages.


Here’s my scribble paper… Lol! My scratch paper is definitely scratchy!!


Here’s a sample question… The doctor orders propofol 350 mcg/min. The dose you have on hand is propofol 50 mg in 100 mL of D5W.  How many mL/hr does the nurse administer the propofol? Fun question right?!?!?

Last semester I got 100%. I’m seriously hoping I can re-create that test score!

I’ve been feeling super sniffling congested. I’ve been taking Mucinex and bear aspirin I went to buy soup at the store yesterday. I’m super happy to report I ran into this! My mother used to buy this when we were kids! Has anyone else tried this? I remember when I was little it had this little clear egg in it that had oil and bullion. We used all fight over who got to put the egg in the pan. I’m sad to say there is no clear egg anymore it’s just a packet of powder. I bought some anyway because I need a little comfort feeling!


Have you ever tried this soup before? Do you remember the egg? What did you get for the answer to the question above? 

I’m now off to read your blogs and see how everyone’s doing before I study some more.

Hugs and stay safe out there!!!!

Happy 15th Birthday Kyleigh

I don’t even know how it’s possible but my adorable niece and godchild turns 15 today. I love her with all my heart and cannot imagine not being her aunt! I cherish every second of the time we get to spend together.

Our little entertainer…


Had the pleasure of attending her first concert (Harry Styles) with her, her friend and her mother (my sister)…


Love her even when we are dangling over the ocean…ha ha!!! Thanks for riding with me (the chicken)…


Such a cutie…


She sure loves her aunt/dog Gracie…


I got to be her confirmation sponsor…#blessed


Entertainment at the campfire….ahhhhh…


She has so much love for her first second-cousin!! Cuteness overload…


I love you sooo many bunches with all my heart!!!! 

If you have a second, please send my sweet and kind niece a Happy birthday wish below!!! I promise I will be sending all comments to her!! Have a phenomenal day Kyleigh!!!!

XOXOXO