Update

I just wanted to thank you Matt, Rhia, and Alison for your support.
Everything worked out well. Now all I have to do is graduate!

Life

Sometimes life bites you in the butt when you least expect it. Back in 2003 I did something very bad and had to be fingerprinted by the police. I moved to Omaha, went through the difficult repentance process and moved on. The prosecutor decided not to press charges or whatever, so I never went to court or did jail time. I was able to go back to the temple, I met Matt, got married, had Will, and started nursing school.

This semester I am taking Critical Care as one of my last nursing classes. I ended up in the group going to the VA medical center for Critical Care clinical. As part of the VA orientation you have to get fingerprinted and they do an extensive (it turns out) background check. This "thing" in my past popped up. They apparently called the school. I had to have a chat with the Human Resources director of the VA and as of Friday he is probably going to give me computer access to the VA.

I got an e-mail from the assistant dean of the nursing program at Graceland and the title was "meet". First of all, I think that is a rude title. That isn't the point though. The point is that she wants to meet with me at 7:30 Monday, before class. I think Graceland University got it's panties in a wad because their background check didn't turn up anything bad about me and now the VA is telling them there is something wrong. My first thought was that I am going to get kicked out of nursing school three months before I graduate. I hope not, but that is my big worry.

The seniors had a "How to fill out your paperwork for your license" class a week ago or so and I realized that the State Board of Nursing was going to need a letter about the previous indiscretion before they would grant me a nursing license. I don't have any worries about getting a nursing license because I think my explanation will be sufficient. If not, I am willing to go and talk to the Board face to face and explain everything so I can be a nurse. However, If they kick me out of school I guess a nursing license is a moot point.

Why do things you have repented of and put in your past have to reach up and bite you on the butt every once in a while? I know it's a learning experience and the Lord doesn't give you more than you can handle, but I'm feeling a little overwhelmed.

Oops, I DId It Again...

What's the saying? Something about doing something more than once, shame on me? Well, shame on me. After Will's birthday party on Saturday (picture and blog to follow later) my mom and I were unloading the car and Will locked us out. I forgot to unlock the door because Mom was standing in the door with Will. Then she came out to help and Will shut the door on us. I called Kathi and she came and saved us. It was funny, but way embarrassing. I won't (hopefully) be doing that again. Here are some pictures for your enjoyment (Will wasn't nearly as cute this time because he was inside playing with his new birthday toys and not worried about Mommy and Grandma at all):

How Will Locked Me Out

William and his book on the inside.


This is a story about a mother named Emily and how her son William locked her out of the house. Emily promised herself that she would never get locked out of the house. Emily and her husband Matt have a house with a front door that locks behind you. You never have to get out your key when you leave. You just pull the door shut and it is locked. That is great when you have your hands full and are trying to get out the door. Emily found out that it isn't as great when you have a son who discovered it is funny to shut the door when Mommy is outside. This is Will and the cat Jasper on the inside while I'm on the outside.

Emily usually remembers to turn the lock so that it doesn't lock when you shut the door if she is going outside when Will is inside. However, yesterday Emily was on the phone and in a hurry and forgot. Will's shoes had mud on them that needed to be scraped off before Emily and Will could go get icing for a cake, deliver the cake to Relief Society, help set up the Relief Society dinner that the cake was for, and then go visit her friend Michelle who just got out of the hospital from a tonsillectomy. Emily was outside scraping the shoes when William shut the door and ran off. Emily remembered that she didn't have her keys with her. Thank goodness she was on the phone. She called Her mother-in-law three times without an answer. Then she called her sister-in-law, who also didn't answer. In desperation she called her husband in tears. Matt called his mother and she answered and said she was on her way. In the mean time, Will brought books to

Emily and she read them to him through the front door.
45 minutes later help arrived and Emily was rescued, was late to Relief Society, but enjoyed a great evening at her friend Michelle's house. Emily learned a great lesson.

The moral of the story is don't be on the phone when you really need to be paying attention, and never, NEVER underestimate a two year old.
This is Will reading to me.

Why Group Work Stinks

Today, in my community health class, instead of having a lecture with
notes we did group work. Sometimes I like group projects. When we have
something like a health fair it is nice to have several people.
However, when you break up the info in class to make us do your
teacher job, I just don't learn. For example, today we were put into
groups and given some objectives and we had to find the info and then
present it in class. This is why this stinks:
1. I'm not getting paid to do your job
2. I only learn the things that I looked up
3. The info presented is not exciting and I have a hard time focusing
4. I'm going to have to look it up on my own later because it is going
to be on the test
5. The info comes (often) from
books that we don't have and so I can't look up later what I didn't
understand

If group projects are necessary, please don't use other books that we
don't have access to later for study. Use the super overpriced books
we had to purchase for the class. And please tell us what you are
going to test over.

Can you tell I'm frusterated? This happens often and I don't learn.
Today we were given questions and had to choose the objectives to
cover and then find the info. The problem was several people choose
the same objectives and others were not covered, but we are
responsible for the info. Grrr.

Some Videos of Will I Found

I found some of these old videos of Will I tried to post to blogger a year ago or so. I thought I would try again since I read the tutorial this time. Wish me luck. This first video is Will at age one or so. He is eating a kleenex. Stacie, my sister-in-law, was living with us and it is her cat you see.

The second video is of William's first birthday party. It is his first cake eating experience. Enjoy!

I Hate Politics

I'm not sure if I have blogged about this before, so I'm sorry if this
is a repeat. Before I got married I was a registered voter who was
conservative in my political views. I voted for Bush twice and was for
Bush Sr when we had a mock election in junior high.
I never really paid attention to local politics and didn't usually
vote in the local elections.

Then I got married. I should have paid better attention to the signs
of political knowledge and awareness in Matt, but I was blinded by
love. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. The point is that all I
listen to in the car with Matt is conservative talk radio. I even
enjoy it. I like listening to Rush Limbaugh, Glen Beck, and local guys
Shanin and Parks and Chris Stegall. The problem comes when I get
freaked out because of all the junk that is going on. I used to not
know about how our country was falling apart, but now I know and
knowledge isn't always the best. I worry more about my family, our
finances, and the state of our economy and country. These truly are
the last days and I worry we are not ready. Knowledge is power, but it
also brings fear and worry. Sometimes I wish I didn't know.

NICU

I was at clinicals last week and was assigned to the NICU or neonatal intensive care unit. I don't like ICU so was not real excited about my assignment, but I went because it would be an interesting learning experience (plus, sometimes in Maternity there isn't much to do. At least I would have something to do). For HIPPA reasons, I won't tell you what hospital I was in, what day it was, etc, but I can tell you it was a neat experience. I saw two emergency C-sections. One of them scared me because the baby was not doing well when it came out. It's heart beat was 8 and breathing was 3-4 or so (a baby's heart beat should be 140 and breathing 30-40). I thought the baby was just dead. Thanks to modern medicine and amazing nurses the baby lived. They brought the baby around and got it's heart rate up, but the breathing wasn't great so they had to help it through a c-pap (what Matt used to help him keep breathing due to sleep apnea). It was possibly one of the scariest and most heart breaking things I have ever seen. The baby wasn't moving, was very floppy, and was blue all over. I thank Heavenly Father for modern medicine and the miracles it works every day. I told the nurse later on that they had saved the baby's life. She said that she doesn't really think about it that way, she's just happy when the babies start to breath again. I'm so glad I am studying to be a nurse. What an awsome thing to be able to save peoples lives.