Worst Day of My Life

About 20 minutes ago I got of the phone after having a telephone conference with 3 PhD Nursing Professors at the U of A. Part of my requirement for graduation is to write a Master's Thesis and defend it to a "committee" (the 3 nursing professors) and today was THE day. One week ago I presented them with a 42 page paper that has taken 3 months to research and write. I created a PowerPoint presentation for our meeting today to highlight the important aspects of my paper. This has been a VERY time consuming process!!!

My chairperson started the conference by saying,

"Thank you for preparing the PowerPoint presentation but you won't be presenting it today."

That was not a good sign. The rest of the conversation consisted of each of the 3 woman ripping into my paper left and right. Their final suggestions changed the 1.) Purpose of my paper 2.) Focus of my paper 3.) Research included in my paper. Basically, toss out this piece of crap and start over!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I don't know why they had me write this paper in the first place, if they have all these grand ideas of what my paper SHOULD be, then they can write it.

I am beyond frustrated, overwhelmed, and totally pissed off.

Drum roll please...

It has been a little high stress here in our home for the last several months. We've been trying to live normal lives but there is nothing normal about relocating every 3-6 months. As you all know, this is Greg's last rotation in his company program. We have been anxiously awaiting news about his "permanent" position.

We have pretty much left our fate in the hands of Chicago Bridge and Iron and finally, on Friday, we got some news. Greg has officially been offered a permanent position here in Chicago! Wow! I am so proud of him! The economy has been so awful lately that we were both a little nervous about our future. We can finally take a huge sigh of relief and call Chicago...HOME :)

We are surviving our first winter, one for the worst winters in over a decade, and I can't wait to see this place in the spring! This is great city for us at this point in our lives and I am so thankful we did not end up in Texas! Maybe some day we'll make it back out to California but for now we're officially Illinoisans...lol...what a funny word! Let the house hunting begin!!!!!

Engagement Pics

Ok, I had a request to post our most recent engagement pics on our blog, so here are just a few! This is round 2 of engagement photos. We weren't exactly thrilled with our first photographer so over Christmas we found a new guy and took some more :) I think we're going to use the last one for our signing board...which one is your favorite?

The final 500...

Last week I started the final 500 hours of my internship required for my FNP. I am working at the Joliet Doctors Clinic a multi specialty private practice near Plainfield. My designated preceptor is a young female family physician but I'm also spending quite a bit of time with an endocrinologist who is also the owner of the practice. I've become very comfortable with treating primary care patients and my time spent on the family practice wing is pretty much a review of everything I encountered last semester. Diabetes, hypertension, thyroid disorder, osteoperosis, upper respiratory tract infections, tendonitis, the occasional fracture, lots of well woman exams...primary care stuff. But, on the endocrine wing, I'm seeing some very interesting and rare cases.

At first, I was really nervous about being completely "on my own" there is so much responsibility assumed with this position. There is so much room for error in ever assessment, diagnosis, and treatment plan. I am constantly checking and double checking my every move. Did I forget any labs, did I check for ALL possible drug interactions, is my prescription complete, is my documentation complete...this list goes on and on. It has been a little nerve racking. Still, the feeling of finally being competent enough to know what steps need to be taken, what questions to ask, and what needs to be ruled out, is a good feeling.

It's all starting to come together and I know I'll be ready to practice in May. I'll always be a student because a good physician preceptor explained to me, "you can never know everything...it's impossible!" Medicine is constantly advancing and guidelines are always changing. I have to update my Palm on a weekly basis to make sure I stay current with all the medications on my Epocrates program! I don't mind, in fact this is what I enjoy most...there is always something new to be learned.

This is my little wing, if you were one of my patients they would put you in one of these rooms :)

My little corner of the world, this is where I do all my charting.

Ketchup

I know I have a lot of "catching up" (maybe you got this from my title, maybe not) to do...so much has happened in the last couple of weeks! Let me just give you a little run down. First, I turned 24 on Christmas Eve, then we celebrated Christmas with my family in Mesa, then we went to Tucson and celebrated Christmas with Greg's family, then we got on a plane and flew back to Texas and "celebrated" (I use this term loosely) New Year's Eve, then we got in our Uhaul and drove 1000 miles to our (new) new house, I'll explain in a minute, in Chicago. AND we made this all happen in a matter of 9 days! First let me provide some promised pictures to capture all these events and then I'll explain some of the craziness we experienced!

Here is a little moment from my birthday/Christmas celebration in Mesa

Now we're in Tucson for Christmas

There is the clock being opened!

Now we're back in Texas, and yes, this is me on New Year's Eve cleaning the stove!

Our (new) new house! This picture can be deceiving (it was taken in the summer), our lawn is not green, it is brown and white with snow.

Sadie making herself comfortable in the new place :)

Now I have to explain why this is our (new) new place and not simply just our new house. We had a house lined up to move into weeks ago in Romeoville (sounds nice huh?), but the day before we were supposed to move our landlord calls and says the house did not pass inspection (in was just remodeled) and we can not move in until they "fixed a few things". This could take a week or longer!!! Well Greg had to start work on Monday (today) and we were not about to wait that long. Soooo...we ditched the new house and several phone calls later got in touch with a realtor that said she had a nice house 3bd 2.5 ba for rent in Plainfield. Sounds great! I asked her to send a few pics and the lease so we could rent it. She sent this picture above of the house with the green grass. Looks good we thought! We didn't ask a lot of questions because we just needed a place to live.

When we pulled up to the house we were very pleased, just as we had expected minus the green grass. When we walked in the front door, we were shocked. The house is...well the best word is, ginourmous! I did not ask about the square footage in my mad rush to put a roof over our heads. This 2200sq ft monster is all ours and we don't even have enough furniture to fill 3 rooms. But, I do not start work for 2 weeks and I have made it my mission to fill this house with bargain items from craigslist :) So...if you find yourself in Chicago and need a place to stay or if you want to come visit us, we have a guest bedroom and a basement big enough to fit a small class room of children.

24 on the 24th!

Today is my golden birthday!!! Pictures to follow :)

SOLD :)

When Greg and I moved to Tyler we rented our house while we were still living in California (before we actually moved to Texas) so we never actually saw the house (only in pictures) until we got here. When we showed up at the house we were very surprised to find that our house did not come with a refrigerator! What's up with that?! I've never rented a house without a refrigerator, that's just standard...right? Anyway, I went straight to Sears and purchased a very nice and fairly inexpensive plain white Kenmore refrigerator.

Well now it is time to move AGAIN, we already rented another house in Chicago and this one does come with a refrigerator (a very nice one). So I've been trying to sell the one I bought for the last few weeks on Craigslist. I love Craigslist! A very nice family came to look at it last week and told me they wanted to buy it! I was so excited! I told the family that we wanted to hold onto the refrigerator until December 22nd because we needed it in the house until we were ready to move. This was not a problem for the family. Then, they called two days later and said it wasn't going to fit in their laundry room and they didn't want to buy it anymore. AHHH!!! I was so annoyed...and stuck with this stupid refrigerator!

This morning I got a call from a cute little old lady named Barbara. She just moved here and her son was going to buy her a refrigerator for her new house. They just came over to check out the fridge and I could tell this little old lady was so excited! I wish I could have taken a picture of her. Her son gave me a deposit to hold the fridge and they're going to be back to pick it up on the 22nd! Hooray!!!! I'm so relieved and Greg is really glad he doesn't have to haul the fridge all the way to Chicago! That would have been a nightmare.

SOLD!!!!!!!!!