Winding down the semester...

I haven't really written anything since my last day of break before the semester started. The course load was much more do-able and less stress inducing. I only have about a month left of this semester. My birthday is next week. I have one year until I graduate with a nursing degree. I'm taking the bulls by the horns this summer and taking three classes so that my course load senior year will be a little more manageable. I am hoping to get some sort of student nurse tech job after fall semester. By then, I will have gone through all the different hospital areas of nursing, and I will finally find somewhere that I would really like to be in nursing. This semester wasn't so bad which was maybe in part due to the awesome spring break I had.

I didn't go anywhere special unless you count Chesterfield as special. I think most would agree with me that it is indeed NOT special. Although that is where I hung out with the ever awesome JW. We watched Daria and had margaritas. Then moved the party of two three (because PC showed up) to my house. Her husband met up with us there. Then my husband, my kids, JW's kids, and SF joined in. While the kids were playing in the bedroom and the ladies were having more margaritas, I heard a tiny kitten mewing. It turned out the foster cat that was pregnant with kittens decided to have her kittens.

When I first opened the door to the room she was in, she looked up at me looking like she was thinking, "What in the name of tarnation is going on here? I just pooped out this thing...and it's making noise...and my belly hurts...AND I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT EXACTLY IS GOING ON!!!!!" So long birthing story short which most people won't want to read every detail of anyway She ended up having six kittens while four nursing students and three children went into the room and oohed and aahed over them. It was an awesome start to spring break. Why I started this post in the first place...

I am relieved that this sudden burst of energy (that happened today) is happening right at crunch time (in the semester), as opposed to right after (which could prove disasterous). I almost have my house tidied up to where I can think straight. I am getting some of the little homework assignments out of the way so that I can focus on the papers (four to be exact), AND I've decided to recycle the paper I do in Psych for Adult Health because one of the things that I learned this year in Adult Health clinicals is that screening for depression is important step in adult health assessment (which brings the final tally for paper writing down to three). Take that second semester of junior year!

Work smarter not harder...

Why, oh why, is my neighbor shoveling the sidewalks already? It hasn't stopped snowing yet. Dude also owns a snow blower so it's not like he needs to keep up with it or anything. I suppose at least he isn't using anything gas powered, which is his typical way to go about things. It's obviously distracting to me though or I wouldn't be updating my blog. I would be reading the second chapter of psych that I need to read before tomorrow's class. He's stopped. It's quiet again. Back to reading. Resume your normal activities.

I will ground you from chocolate cake for the rest of your life...

I just threatened my children with this, because they brought chocolate cake away from the table and into the living room area. Yes, I used a threat. Yes, that threat was completely preposterous. How on Earth would I ever keep away ALL chocolate cake from both of them for the rest of their lives? I just had my first mood swing of the semester apparently.

Squirrel this and squirrel that...

As long as I can remember living in this building (over 10 years at this point) there has always been some critter or another making it's way into the unfinished third floor. Most of those times the critters have been squirrels. Although the time when The Oldest was still a baby, barely a toddler, we had a kestrel that had gotten in, while chasing another blackish bird (that I don't feel like looking up the name for).

The squirrels have gotten bad, especially in say the last year. I've told the landlord (Dirty's step-mom) in the past and she's kind of glazed over it with a, "I always had problems with animals getting up there, but for me it was the pigeons." Okay, well as our landlord, how shall we all move forward and get rid of these stinking squirrels. We tried poisoning them. Then we learned that when you do that, the sick and dying squirrels go out and get eaten by predator birds, like the kestrel or even more exciting a red-tailed hawk, and then the predator dies. I like kestrels and red-tailed hawks. They are awesome! AND they eat squirrels! Not enough of them in my opinion or else we wouldn't have the current infestation in our third floor. Where was I? Oh, yeah we poisoned the squirrels. They disappeared for a bit. They are now back. Their numbers are growing.

They are branching out to the crawlspace at the back of the building, which is where, I might add, we've had squirrels fall through a space in the wall, to the basement where they scare the living bejeezus out of us and the poor, older lady who lives downstairs. She's scared of our cats and they're domesticated. Imagine how she feels about the nasty squirrels. Their scratchings are starting to sound like it's right up against the plaster boards...THAT ARE OUR CEILINGS!!! The cats are quite eager to find out what they can hear scratching our ceiling. I don't want the filthy squirrels near my lovely cats. I've contacted some critter removal companies and hope to hear back in the next day or so with ranges of price quotes. I haven't really been anxious all winter break, but with school assignments already starting and dang squirrels trying to get into our apartment, the anxiety is starting to build. I may be just a bit dramatic since I watched the Hoarders last night where the guy had well over 2000 rats in his house that were his "little buddies." He said that the rats would pull his hair out for nesting materials (SQUIRRELS MAKE NESTS TOO!!! AND WE HAVE LOTS OF HAIR BETWEEN THE SIX OF US!!!) and lick at moist areas of his face (WE HAVE MOIST AREAS ON OUR FACES, TOO!!!)

Okay, I've officially worked myself into a tizzy. This was all going to be a facebook status update. This never would have fit into however many characters they let me update with.

I've come to the conclusion...

My facebook status updates are just a smidge too long. Pair that with my new phone puts a quota cap on how many characters I can use in said status updates=me editing like I'm updating through Twitter. So I may just start posting relatively short blog updates. This is all a bit lofty as far as goals go. I'm finishing up my winter break after my first semester of nursing school. I passed all my classes, got taken down a notch by the twenty-something, over-achievers, and came to the conclusion (on that particular topic) that I'm okay with B's and if the class is really tough for me to grasp a C (insert a very loud and dramatic gasp here). The testing that they have us do at the end of each semester predicts that I'll, more likely than not, pass the NCLEX. So, guess what, that's all I need and I can't let nursing school consume me, as unfortunate as that may be to my cumulative GPA. I was pretty happy with the balance I had of family, friends, and school.

Now, the original reason for this post...I need to purchase a shop vac. I tried with much frustration to vacuum up the remnants of Christmas with my current Bissell and decided that that was futile. Since I don't think Dirty will let me use the remainder of the Christmas money to purchase a Dyson (which we really need in the House Full of Boys and me and a new addition, but I digress) I need to baby the Bissell and use a more equipped machine to pick up the pine needles.

Okay, one more update about the House Full of Boys...it's not just me in the girl realm here anymore. Well wait, I need to rewind a bit more. In August, we lost The Old Man. I have another post in the works. It was supposed to be a R.I.P./Memorial type of thing that I wrote when we lost him, but then I was sidetracked with nursing school. So I'll just make the statement that I'll edit that post held in cyberspace and if you want to read a sad portrait of when we lost The Old Man you can. Okay, where was I...We are no longer just a House Full of Boys and, of course, Me. On October 24, 2010, we adopted our new addition, Ida B. She, on her own, had a sad, challenging beginning, but now she's happy and healthy. It was a bit of an adjustment for all of us. She and Max didn't exactly "get along" to begin with. Now, they play and sometimes she even lets Max cuddle with her. That's not all that often, but Max has a new daytime companion, which is why we added her to the family to begin with. Okay, this quick burst of a post has turned into a slow, lingering post, which makes this new conclusion I've come to seem more abstract than ever.

I can't just sit down and write out a bit of what I'm thinking. It just starts to spew from my fingertips into the computer like proverbial word vomit. I guess maybe that's just what happens when you don't post for months. So maybe it's not so abstract?

Okay one more bit of word vomit for you. As I was finding links for the post, I wanted to say something about Tenth Life Cat Rescue, which is where we got Ida B. This is a small, local, no kill cat rescue. If you need a cat or kitten, check them out. If you don't want a cat or kitten, they have a trivia night coming up in February. I think last year the tables sold out. If I can find a website to link the info for the trivia night, and remember to follow-up, I'll do that later.

UPDATE: If you click the "adopted" link where I talk about us adopting Ida B., you go to the Tenth Life website. On their home page you will find the link for their Trivia Night coming up in February. Help the kittehs!

Goodbye Woobers...

Here's the post I mentioned in the previous post today about The Old Man passing. I'm not going to alter it. It pretty much sums up what happened. The whole thing happened so suddenly after having the dental surgery. We thought we would have longer with him. Sometimes I still think I can hear him barking to come inside, out in the yard. We miss having a dog sometimes, although I'm more partial to cats. :D

08/27/2010 A month or so ago, a friend posted a status update about how her friends' pre-baby dogs' health were starting to decline. At the Old Man's last vet visit, I was so relieved that he was not having any of the geriatric complications that I would have checked off of an assessment sheet for the vet. I knew he was old. It was his ten year appointment, but, at the time, he just seemed so healthy for his age. A while back, a bump appeared on his right mandible (that's his top jaw for you non-medical field folks. ;) We thought it may be due to an abcessed tooth. We took him in. They performed surgery to extract the possible suspects. The bump went down a bit. Then it started to grow out of control. The vet pulled fluid off and said it didn't look like the fluid that is in either cysts or tumors. We let it go. We did what we could to make him comfortable. The tumor grew and grew. He was still able to eat and happy to see us. He wasn't quite as able to keep up the way he used to. The tumor grew so big it pushed his eye shut and was protruding from his mouth. This last week, the tumor had developed lesions. Those lesions started to bleed. By Wednesday night/Thursday evening, he was bleeding...so...so...much. I stayed up with him much of the night. Then Dirty took over. We'd hoped to take him to Laumeier one more time. We'd hoped to get pictures with him one...more...time...He was bleeding too much. He was weak. We couldn't keep him any longer. We didn't want him to be miserable. Dirty took him Thursday on that final car ride. I had to go to class. I failed my first real nursing school test. Thank goodness they'll let me retake it. Now we're miserable. I go from composure to complete and udder tears. I was feeling better today. Then I came home and unlocked the door. I was waiting to hear him come to the top of the stairs and start sniffing to see where I'd been and who I'd seen. That didn't happen. I miss him. We all miss him. Goodbye Woobers. I know your spirit's somewhere out there in the Universe. I hope there is reincarnation and you can come into someone else's life who will be an even better pack leader to you and take you on more walks and not care if you lay on their couch.

Wordless Wednesday...

Not! Ha! Not really. When have I ever been wordless? If anything I'm too wordy. So the boys started school Monday. The Older has jumped right in. He is more confident about his school situation this year, which is very good. I think his teacher is a good fit and I'm hopeful that her influence will help him become a bit more organized. Monkey was worried before school started because he remembered his teacher from this year last year, and he thought she was mean. However, he learned that she isn't mean, she's actually nice. This year, I've been dropping off and picking up both boys. In doing so, I've been able to observe his teacher and I think that she is on par with his first preschool teacher at Stix. She has a real even temper and her way of keeping the class calm is speaking quietly and closely to the kids. I think his class is a really good group, meaning the class is manageable, read no intensely bad trouble makers. I know that's awful, but even the best teachers can lose control over their class when there's even just one trouble maker. Out of control classrooms leads to not much learning because there are so many disruptions. They're still getting settled though.

Our routine is not quite in place, it's only been two and a half days after all, but we're working on it. I just wanted to give a shout out to our President, Barack Obama, for not allowing tv during the school week for his kids. We had a bit of opposition from The Older about no tv/electronics/video games when we told him the rule before school started, until I told him that the President doesn't allow his children to do those things either. Since that conversation, The Older has only pondered how he'll use his time with those devices this weekend. There hasn't been any whining or even asking for those things either. Soon though our extracurriculars will really kick in and we won't have much time for electronics anyway.

Now it's time for me to go. I have five chapters of reading for when my classes start next week. I went to the bookstore today and I had a box of books...AN ENTIRE BOX...AND IT IS HEAVY!!!!! I'm so proud of myself for getting to this point and, for now, I'm excited about this new journey. The community college one was fun and, now that I've moved on, I'm really looking forward to all the work that I'll have to put into the four year university journey. Time to get reading.