Preface to End of Year Wrap Up

Awhile ago, I noticed that I made 12 blog posts in 2016, and I wanted to at least tie that in 2017. Well, this will tie them up, and as the title implies, there will be at least one more post this year!

This year has been good to me, and I'm excited for what next year has to offer.
I finished up my sophomore year of nursing school, I bought a car, I got into an amazing relationship and met a lot of awesome people.

My little brother started his senior year of high school, and played a full season of football. I attended almost every football game and was able to take pictures at most of them. It has been a lot of fun to watch him grow into a young man, and an incredible football player. He even made Dairyland All-Conference First Line Defense, and was invited to play football in Hawaii for a couple of days in July 2018. I am so proud of him for showing up for his senior year, and I can't wait to see what the rest of this year and the school year have for him! He has dedicated himself to Southwest Technical College in Fennimore, Wisconsin!

It's not often that I get a nice picture of my sister, or that she even wants to be in a picture, but she insisted on getting a picture with our brother after a football game. She is a sophomore in high school, which is crazy to think of. She has blossomed into a very nice young woman (sometimes). Her grades are crazy good and I'm very proud of her for her accomplishments. I can't wait to continue to watch her grow and see what she decides to be as an adult.

Tune back in before January 1, 2018 for a final wrap up of 2017!

$5 Savings Plan

Let's talk money.

I've always been pretty money-conscious. My mom taught me how to save and how to live below our means. 

This past year I tried to follow a $5 savings plan which started the first week of January with $5, and increased every week by $5. At first it was pretty easy. It was such a small amount of my paycheck that I didn't miss it. However, as the months passed, it became harder and harder to put that amount into savings. I was able to save about $3,000 before I had to stop because I couldn't make it work financially. I had to pay rent and my credit card bill, which is a month's worth of gas and a few random expenses, each month.

Being a college student tends to mean that money is pretty tight. At the beginning of the year, I was still living with my mom so I didn't have to worry about the cost of food or pay her rent. In May, I moved in with my boyfriend, so I started paying rent and pitching in on groceries. Things haven't been too tight, and I've been comfortable with were I'm at. I made enough money each month to cover my expenses and still have some money left over.

This past month, I bought a new car. It came with a loan that I need to start paying back in January. With my average monthly income, I could just barely squeak by with my payments. However, my hours are going to be cut back at work this next semester due to a rather spotty class schedule. This means that I have to find another part-time job to pay off my monthly bills without dipping into my savings too much.

In January, I will try to follow the $5 savings plan again; however, I'm changing things up this year. Since I hit a bit of a wall this past year, I've decided to take the initial amount to save and alternate it with the final amount to save. This way I won't be stretched at the end of the year and will have one "easy" week and one "hard" week. I'm excited to see how this goes, and I will update you sometime in the next year!

Turning 21

21

This past week I celebrated my 21st birthday. It's the "rite of passage" into adulthood, right? The time when you can finally drink, and don't have to worry about getting an "under-ager." Everyone seems to be so excited to turn 21, it's like they want to rush through their younger years just to hit the "golden age" so that they are able to drink. Now it was my turn to enter the age that everyone looks forward to.

This birthday kind of crept up on me, and I didn't think much of it. My boyfriend, Dusty, and I made a plan to stay up until midnight on the 6th so that we could go out to the bar for a drink. It sounded like a fun plan until the night actually came and I felt a cold coming on. I managed to stay up until 11:30pm, but then I turned into bed because I decided that I didn't NEED to go out drinking.

Dusty and I both took the day of my birthday off of work to spend it together. We got to sleep in and start the morning slowly. Once we got moving, we headed to La Crosse and dropped off my brother's senior picture book at the Studio on Main (where he got his senior pictures done). After that, we went to the mall and Dusty treated me to some shopping. We stopped at Spencer's and we got a couple of shot glasses, Dusty got a Rick and Morty one, and I got one that says "Just Turned 21" and another that says "Drunk Up B*tches!" I got a matching set and two free bags from Victoria's Secret. We then wandered over to Rue21 and Dusty got two bottles of cologne, and I got two bottles of perfume. Our final stop in the mall was Maurices where I got a pair of blue jeans and a water bottle.

After shopping, Dusty treated me to lunch at Red Lobster. I had to show the waitress my ID for the first time when I ordered a Sunset Passion Colada. She wished me a happy birthday, and so did the couple at the next table. Dusty and I got to enjoy lunch, and then the waitress brought out a free sundae for us to enjoy.

This caption (I think) is supposed to say "Her *first* legal drink"

On our way home, we stopped at my grandparents to talk to them and see what they were up to. After at least half an hour spent talking with them, we headed home and they headed to town. At the end of the day, my mom, sister, brother, and "other brother" came to Tomah to eat at the bowling alley with us. We all split an appetizer platter and two large pizzas. The bartender mixed me up a "Sex on the Beach," and Dusty later ordered two Jaegerbomb shots, which he insisted that my mom or I had to take with him. My mom and I compromised, she took a sip, I drank half, and we handed Dusty the rest of it.

In the end, responsibility got the best of me (as always) because I had my last day of classes the next day, so I was in bed at a relatively decent time. It's now the weekend after my 21st, and I've been working. I work again tomorrow, and the following two days, and then I have finals the two days after that. I may never "really celebrate" my 21st birthday, but I am perfectly happy with the way that I did celebrate turning 21.

My Boyfriend

Each time my boyfriend notices that I'm making a blog post he asks if it's about him, so here's the first post dedicated just to him.

This guy means the world to me, and we haven't even known each other for a year yet. We have come a long way since adding each other on Facebook in late December 2016, then on Snapchat, and then agreeing to meet on New Years Eve at the party at his house. He was so persistent that we were dating, even though I insisted that I wanted to be single until the summer. I finally caved in and on March 10, 2016 we began dating. One school finished up in May, I started moving in and was fully moved in by June. It's been a roller coaster as we navigate life and living together.

Dusty having a full time job and working anywhere between 40-72 hours each week, and myself spending up to 17 hours on campus and 10 -22 hours at work each week makes for a tough time. We both come home pretty tired most days, and we've been trying to cut back on our fast food intake. I recently made a couple of freezer meals for the crock pot and hopefully we will try them soon! We are also planning to get back into working out. I made a plan for December using 3 different workout plans that I found on Pinterest, and Dusty is planning to start T25!

And a final shout out for my amazing boyfriend, he handles my mood swings so well. This final picture is from Thanksgiving day. I had gotten my hair cut the day before, shorter than it's ever been, and I didn't anticipate on having to do so much to give it some body. I asked Dusty to help me straighten it, but he didn't come right away so I finished up by myself. Once he came, he started braiding it, but he didn't really have any plan so I got frustrated and we just left. He just rolls with the mood swings and I'm so thankful for him.

"What Kind of Nurse do You Want to Be?"

As a junior nursing student, I can confidently say that the most common question asked by professors is "What kind of nurse do you want to be?" There are typically two ways to respond to this question: the first, and most common response, is declaring a specialty such as pediatric, gerontology, or oncology. The second response, and the one most professors are looking for, is a description of qualities that future nurses hope to possess.

When the question is presented without warning, most nursing students laugh and say "A good one?" or "One that doesn't kill people?" At first, it seems like a dumb question. You wouldn't be a nurse for very long if you weren't good at your job, right?

Well, I'm about to tell you the answer that I would like to give, but have never given.

Being the stereotypical nursing student, I have watched (and re-watched) my fair share of Grey's Anatomy. Recently, I re-watched every episode in search of one particular scene, and the scene ended up tying into three different episodes. If you want to see the actual scenes, fast forward to season 5 episodes 11 through 13. In these scenes, with one specific patient, Meredith Grey resembles the kind of nurse that I want to be.

In episode 11, the show introduces William, a prisoner who was brought to the hospital. He told the doctors and nurses why he was in prison, even though he was not required to tell them. He had murdered five women. When he told Meredith that he was in pain even after he had been given morphine, she gave him extra morphine even when the other staff refused.

In episode 12, William's condition worsens, but Dr. Shepherd is adamant that William does not deserve to die in the hospital. Meredith thinks that William should be able to do whatever he chooses, and since she is his doctor she supports his wishes. She informs the patient that in order to kill himself, his brain is already exposed, so he just has to hit his head on the bed rail which will cause his brain to bleed and swell. When Meredith is questioned about her reasons for this, she states that "I'm the type of person who feels bad for serial killers."

In episode 13, William has attempted to kill himself by doing what Meredith instructed him to do. When his alarms started going off, Meredith turned them off and then prevented others from stopping him from bleeding out. Before William's attempt, Meredith went to find Bailey to see if she would consider him for an organ transplant. Once Bailey found out who this patient was, she immediately shot her down. As William was in excruciating pain, Meredith asked him if he wanted Dr. Shepherd paged to come and help him. William said no, but when Christina came in, he said that he wanted to be saved. Meredith continued to follow what her patient had told her, she told others that she was "following my patient's wishes." After Dr. Shepherd saved William, he laughed at Meredith and said that he was just playing her, Meredith didn't let that comment get to her. Once William had recovered from his surgery, he was sent back to prison and his execution was scheduled. He asked Meredith to come to his execution, and she agreed to. When the day of William's execution came, Meredith did go to watch it. Derek Shepherd met her afterward and asked her why she went to his execution. Meredith's response resembles the kind of nurse that I aspire to be, she said "I wanted to show him compassion, that's the reason I went...and it was horrible."

I want to be the kind of nurse that proves to people that they are all worthy of compassion. My patients' past will not change the level of care and compassion that I will show to them.

SOME People Make Me Lose Faith in this World

If you are one of my Instagram followers, you might be looking forward to this post. To make it easier to identify, I have used the same picture for both locations, and will post this same image on Instagram when this post is up.

So here's why SOME people make me lose faith in this world.

I get done with classes early on Fridays, so I agreed to do some grocery shopping for my mom after class. I was at Aldis in Tomah. I had been e-mailing my academic adviser about my schedule, and she asked if she could call me to talk things through. I agreed and gave her my cell phone number. Shortly after sending, she called me and we spent a little over six minutes on the phone. During that time, I got a phone call. When I glanced at it, I thought it said "Mom," so I decided that I would wait and call her back when I was done talking with my adviser. Once my adviser hung up, I hit "redial" and my phone started calling "Farm." I was confused so I hung up and checked my recent calls, it showed that the farm had called me. I wasn't sure what was up so I called the farm and my grandma answered and asked if I was okay. When I said yes, she kept asking, and then she asked if I was in trouble or needed money. I again assured her that I was okay and she said she had gotten a call from someone saying I had been in a car accident with a rental car and needed $4000 right away. "I" asked her not to tell anyone about it. They wanted her to go to Sam's Club to send money, but she told them that she doesn't drive in La Crosse. Once they heard that, they dropped the cash amount to $2000 and told her that she could get two gift cards from Walmart and put $1000 on each and that would work just fine. She had been on the phone with them for about 45 minutes, and she explained the situation to my grandpa. "It sounds like a scam to me," he replied, but grandma insisted that she needed to help me, so he agreed to drive her. Within the couple of minutes that I missed her call, she and my grandpa were getting ready to head to Walmart. Luckily, I called back just in time and saved her a lot of money. Once we hung up, she called the cops and told them what had happened and gave them the phone number that she had been given.

These strangers almost cost my grandparents $2000. It's money that they really could not afford to just give up. For me, it was terrifying because I would have blamed myself forever if the phone call with my professor would have cost them all that money. You see, small family farming does not make you rich, and they cannot afford to just throw money away. I am so thankful that I was able to call her back and stop her from going to Walmart. The people who come up with these scams are just horrible. They prey on the elderly because they know that grandparents will drop everything to help their grandchildren. We are just lucky that this happened and we were able to catch it. We have discussed the situation with everyone in the family and agreed that we would not keep secrets from each other. Spread the word about this new phone scam and save your grandparents from having this kind of experience!

Quick Update

I have about half an hour until my next class, and it's been awhile since my last post so here's a quick update on where life is at right now...

My classes are going great. Gerontology clinical is done. I have one test left before the "big tests" during finals week. I have two papers, two group projects, and two presentations due before the end of the semester. Gotta keep on truckin'.

I have registered for some of my classes next semester. Due to scheduling issues throughout the nursing program, a lot of people are not able to register for every class that they need. Right now I am registered for two classes, and one clinical section. I am waiting on openings in a lab, and a different clinical. One of the classes that I need doesn't currently fit into my schedule, but I can't take the other section offered because there are no open spots in the class that it would clash with. (I know that is wordy and probably doesn't make sense, but that is how I feel.) Right now, I'm just waiting out finals week and hoping people drop classes or change their schedules!

Work is going. One of my coworkers leaves for a month-long vacation in the beginning of December. Hopefully my schedule stays pretty consistent and I don't get scheduled for back-to-back weekends. Also, this weekend is opening gun-deer weekend and guess where I'll be? ...working. Oh well, we all have to make sacrifices sometimes, right?

Speaking of work, Hintzy Photography is getting some more publicity as I had the opportunity to take pictures at a gender reveal party for my very dear friend and his girlfriend. They will be having a little girl in March of 2018!

That's all for now, class is about to start!