"Woohoo!" said the RN!

Ok. Once again it's been awhile. Since I was last on here, I have passed the NCLEX, gotten a job, went through an 18 week orientation, an started working on my own. Woohoo!! Finally! It felt like forever! The NCLEX was the worst! I got about 128 questions, and I was totally convinced I failed. I was planning out next semester in my head all morning waiting for my name to show up on the AZBON site. Ugh how frustrating! I am SO GLAD it's over! So now I am "RN Mommy". Yay!!

Just a little fun

This is actually a meme that I stumbled across here, and I thought it looked fun.

1. YOUR ROCK STAR NAME: (first pet & current car),
Dusty Odyssey

2.YOUR GANGSTA NAME: (fave ice cream flavor, favorite cookie)
Rocky Road Chocolate Chip (not exactly threatening-sounding)

3. YOUR “FLY Guy/Girl” NAME: (first initial of first name, first three letters of your last name),
A-Bud

4. YOUR DETECTIVE NAME: (favorite color, favorite animal),
Red Dog

5. YOUR SOAP OPERA NAME: (middle name, city where you were born),
Renee Canton

6. YOUR STAR WARS NAME: (the first 3 letters of your last name, first 2 letters of your first),
Budam

7. SUPERHERO NAME: (”The” + 2nd favorite color, favorite drink),
The Purple Margarita

8. NASCAR NAME: (the first names of your grandfathers),
Clyde Anton

9. STRIPPER NAME: ( the name of your favorite perfume/cologne/scent, favorite candy),
Lovely Starburst

10.WITNESS PROTECTION NAME: (mother’s & father’s middle names ),
Ann Franklin

11. TV WEATHER ANCHOR NAME: (Your 5th grade teacher’s last name, a major city that starts with the same letter),
Cooper Chicago

12. SPY NAME: (your favorite season/holiday, flower).
Spring Gardenia

13. CARTOON NAME: (favorite fruit, article of clothing you’re wearing right now + “ie” or “y”)
Apple Shorty

14. HIPPY NAME: (What you ate for breakfast, your favorite tree),
Pancake Oak

15. YOUR ROCKSTAR TOUR NAME: (”The” + Your fave hobby/craft, fave weather element + “Tour”),
The Crocheting Thunderstorm Tour (probably the weirdest one on here)

Preschool day

I took Peyton to preschool this morning. During the summer, they have a "water day" every Friday where the kids wear swimsuits to school and do water play outside. Peyton really looks forward to this. Actually, she looks forward to preschool anyway because she gets to go to school like big sis. Plus, she likes the interaction with other kids, an area that I fall a bit short on as a mom. I am not the most social person in the world, and my kids kinda suffer for it. My bad.

Anyway, as I was saying, today was "water day" at school, which she was really excited about. We showed up at school with Peyton in her cute little red swimsuit, sprayed her sunscreen on in front of the car, grabbed her lunchbox (One of her favorite things about going to school is carrying a lunchbox), and as she was walking up the sidewalk to her class, Peyton threw up all over the sidewalk. No indication of being sick, no fever, just stopped and upchucked right in front of the classroom and her teacher. The teacher quickly got something to clean it up and promptly told me that Peyton had to go home. What, really? No kidding? Um yeah, I know that, thanks for pointing that out to me. They did at least let me use the bathroom in her class and clean her up a little.

Here it is, about 5 hours since then, and no more upchucking, no fever, no tummyache, nothing. I personally think it was just an upset tummy or something. She isn't sick. Now I totally understand that she couldn't stay at school, but it really sucked for her. I had to pry her away from the school kicking and screaming after that this morning. She kept trying to put her stuff in her cubby as I was taking it out. She cried for at least 20 minutes after we left. Poor baby.

Silly birthday girl

Peyton on her new tricycle from Grandpa for birthday #3. I love this picture. It just shows her personality so well. She is totally in love with that bike.

Water Stuff

We are one of the few people living in Arizona that does not own a pool. Hubby insists that it would be way too much work. I tend to agree with the upkeep part, but this is the time of year that I would almost kill to have a pool in our nice big backyard. So we have a sprinkler instead. The kids love it. Especially Riley. You'd think she swam like a fish the way she runs through it and sticks her head in the streams of water. But she doesn't. Doesn't like getting her face underwater or anything of the sort. Peyton, my younger and more adventurous child, is not really interested in the sprinkler. Oh she loves to wear her bathing suit, but she'll get herself a tiny bit wet in the sprinkler, then move on to other things in the backyard like her umpteen riding toys.

So, since we have no backyard pool, this week I took the girls to the public pool. We have several pools in town , and they are all super cheap to use. I haven't taken the girls to a pool here before, so I figured it would be an adventure. It was, the lifeguard must have blown her whistle at Peyton 10 times for running. She was running away from me. I think her ultimate goal was to jump in the deep end and walk on the bottom of the pool. I was so worn out after being at the pool for 90 minutes, and I was sure they would want to nap after we got home. But of course not. Peyton did because she naps every afternoon. But Riley would not, she was a bundle of energy.

Riley did take the time that afternoon to write me a note to thank me for taking her to the pool and that I was her very best mother. Aww, I take my kids to things like that so rarely lately that when I do , my poor kid writes me a thank you note for it. I suck.

Finally Got My ATT!

Got my Authorization to Test today, which means I was finally able to schedule a date to take the NCLEX. D-Day is Wednesday, July 23 at 8am. Now, I have a time frame. So far, it's been kinda difficult to study for an exam when I didn't know when I was taking it. Now I can manage my time a little better. I can dig out my Kaplan stuff and follow the syllabus for the 5-week plan. I had been doing 50 questions a night until about a week ago. I wasn't doing as well as I should, so I dug out a content book to go over stuff. So far I think it's helping. I was pretty worried that I wouldn't get a date in July at all because of my fingerprints being redone. But the phone lines were a buzzin' today between all of us that got our ATT today, about 2 weeks later than many of our classmates. We are the ones that had to retake the HESI exam. Yuk, did I hate that exam! It's supposed to be an indicator of how we will do on the NCLEX. From what I have heard from alot of nurses, though, it's crap. Way harder than the NCLEX.

On a related note, the first person from my class to take the NCLEX took it today. I'm really wondering how she did, but not really. I'm almost positive she passed.

Bible School for Riley

Riley is in Vacation Bible School this week. Wow, is she loving it! I almost didn't sign her up because it is 30 minutes from home, and I have become a bit of a hermit since gas prices has gone through the roof. Which is so not good for the kids. But I did end up taking her, mainly because one of the volunteers at VBS called me after the first day to invite Riley to the VBS at her church. It's kinda becoming our church, too, I guess.

We have been shopping around for a church for awhile now. We have been to this particular church a couple of times, one of those was Easter Sunday. It's not a super big church, but not so small that it doesn't offer activities for the kids. That is important to me. I don't want a church that has the congregation size of a small city, but I also don't want one super small either.

Anyway, Riley has been having a ball at VBS. I'm glad I am taking her; she really needs lots of social interaction. I think she is making friends as well. They are performing during service Sunday, so it looks like we will be going there for church Sunday.

Let me update you...

Geez, it's been awhile!

Okay, well, I totally forgot about this blog so I figured I would go ahead and get up to date. I have graduated from nursing school. Yipee!!! However, the big big BIG hurdle in front of me is the NCLEX exam, which I must pass in order to work as a registered nurse and get paid the big bucks lol. Until then, I am a Graduate Nurse. I have a job, at a hospital on the Oncology Med-Surg unit. Totally not what I was planning to do. My plan was to work on the couplet (mother-baby/postpartum - depends on the hospital as to what they call it) unit. But I discovered that it's not exactly easy to get a new grad position in this oh-so-popular, coveted area. Which made me realize that going into a specialty area fresh out of school may not be the smartest move for me. I don't want to pigeonhole myself into a specialty right away. Suppose we move out of the area and all I have is a few months of couplet care? What if where we move doesn't have the nursing shortage that Arizona does? I want to be as versatile as possible for awhile. Maybe after a year or two, I'll look at those specialty areas. But for now, I want all the experience I can get. Other than clinicals, I have never worked in the healthcare field, so getting experience is of upmost importance to me.

I really like the hospital I was hired at. I've done 3 clinical rotations there, including one on the unit I was hired for. My position is nights, which is good for me...I think. I am a night owl so it should be okay. Nights means not too many distractions, like doctors and family and such. More time to work on organizational skills. Not to mention the night differential lol. I start work the 2nd week of July with computer training, hospital orientation, and CPR class since my card is about to expire. Then the following week my RN training starts. It's an 18-week residency program, which I am totally looking forward to and am totally nervous about.

Of course, all of this hinges on my passing the NCLEX. Heck, I don't even have a test date yet! My stupid firgerprint card came back last week saying that it was illegible and I needed to redo it! Oh great. Well, it was redone and overnighted that same day, so hopefully I should be getting a date sometime next week. Until then, it's study, study, study!!!