Ahh... tonight, my boy Mo Williams couldn't even save the Cavs. I knowingly got ripped off in a desperate attempt to attend the Cavs season opener game (lol) but I donned my new Mo Williams jersey and went to Cleveland with the fiance to see the Cavs take on the Boston Celtics only to LOSE 89, 95. Come onnnn. We have LeBron, Shaq, and of course, my boy Mo Williams! No excuses, guys. Absolutely pathetic. We started out the game completely on fire and then it got pretty intense... until we lost. :( Well, at least my hot dog was delish, I had a night with my fiance, and it was free t-shirt night! Ohhh, and I looked pretty schhhweet in my new Mo Williams #2 jersey!! :)
Here's a few movies from the night, mostly the beginning like intros, tip-off, etc.
I have lots of pictures, too, but I'm having issues with my new camera... they will be up soon. :)
I absolutely splurged and bought floor tickets to Taylor Swift's 10/3 concert at the Q for my little sister's 20th birthday. (Man, doesn't 20 sound so old?? She used to be 2 you know...)
The concert was much better than I thought it'd be, and the seats were way better than I had ever imagined.
Gloriana opened for Taylor, and they were really great. We knew them from their single, "Wild at Heart." Here they are...
Then came Kellie Pickler who seems like so much fun in real life! She was wearing super-high-heels absolutely covered in glitter and had a matching microphone. So fun!
When she sang "Red High Heels," someone actually held a red high heel on stage, which she of course autographed. It was so cute.
Then, among a screaming, cheering crowd and posters of Kanye West with his head crossed off and saying things like "Why'd you have to be so heartless?" Taylor came out to to begin her show.
Completely amazing...
I have a string of YouTubes, too, but this one, you absolutely must see. Taylor is even more humble than she looks to be on TV, and Cleveland, well, we obviously love Taylor! Check out this video!! (Oh, and keep it on because White Horse is afterwards - one of my faves!)
Here's a playlist of all my my YouTube concert videos... scroll down for the set of Taylor. I have Kellie Pickler and Gloriana on there, too. They were great!
I hope my little sister enjoyed herself at my wallet-breaking concert! ;-) She seemed to have a great time which was all that matters.
I cannot stop watching this video and wishing I was there! Nikki emailed it to me. :) We're a mildly obsessed with Disney World and the Magic Kingdom.
Next up, do you realize Christmas is less than 12 weeks away? I have no idea how I'm going to pull it off this year, you know, while I'm busting my butt in nursing school and trying to even just barely maintain sanity. I have a feeling lots of you are feeling the same way, and I'm loving Simple Mom who has a plan. 12 Weeks to a Peaceful Christmas. (Yeah I laughed too at first, but I think she's onto something!) First up, Week 12: Prepare Your Holiday Budget and great topics each week until Christmas. She has plans and downloads, and I think I might just be able to pull it off. I love you, Simple Mom!
For some cute pictures of pets in Halloween costumes, you have to check out Good Housekeeping's 3rd Annual Halloween Pet Costume contest. I won't enter Haylie seeing how much she loathes any form of clothing, but I wish I could! She was a ballerina one year, a pumpkin another... but she just hated it so much. People like my cousin (Hi Heather!) will love this site so check it out. A great time waster too. You know, when you have a huge nursing exam in the morning... yeah, perfect for that! ;-)
Well last week was nuts, this weekend was packed (I took Nikki to the Taylor Swift concert - got floor tickets for her birthday), and this week is going to be no calmer! I'm excited though because on Friday at clinical, instead of working on the floor I get my "alternate experience" which is outpatient oncology. That means I get to hang out with the nurses there all day and see what I can learn. It should be really fun, and I'm excited about it. Then the following week is our last week of peds! The remainder of the semester is Maternal-Newborn Nursing, which honestly, I'm not looking forward to. But we'll see, maybe it will be better than I think. Hopefully so. So today I'm studying, tomorrow is class and an exam, my first experience with acupuncture (not even kidding), and then Wednesday I have my girls. Their mom made L Bug's 2 year old and Baby's 1 month appointment to be at the same time which means double shots, double screaming, double the fun. Good thing I have Thursday to recover, wait, scratch that, I have Thursday to finish my 12 page nursing paper which is due the following week. The fun doesn't end!
... I entered this world! To celebrate, numerous things have occurred...
First of all, Mom and Nikki surprised me with a huge batch of these lovely birthday cupcakes!! Then there was the cell phone. I was doing homework most of the day so I had the ringer off, but I got a zillion birthday text messages and voicemails from everyone who matters most! But it was the email inbox, I'll have to say, that was most annoying because almost every website I've ever been to in my life had some kind of message to send, whether it was a boring "Happy Birthday!" or an overly peppy "Happy Birthday! You're our #1 Customer! Use this coupon to save 20% off your next purchase!" The real mailbox had a plethora of similar coupons all week long, and hey get this one - Hallmark actually sent me a birthday card (with a coupon inside, of course). (And as a sidenote here - that's the least they can do since I reached platinum last year. Yes, I spend that much at Hallmark!) But anyways, my favorite part of the day, as it is every single year, was the cards. I'm a letter-handwriting, card-giving, day-making kind of person and for some reason I've always loved the cards more than the gifts. They mean more, and they last forever. :)
I've been so busy lately, but so much fun (and drama...) has been going on!
Nannying, as usual. Little M has stolen my heart - as I knew she would. The girl who would throw tantrums and scream at me now tells her mommy I'm her favorite babysitter ever. On Sunday I found out that I wasn't the only one sad about her going back to preschool in August. Mom told me she couldn't take me away from Little M and asked if I could keep her one afternoon/week. I think you know how the rest of the story goes. The list of kids who have stolen my heart is getting pretty long. Logical? Probably not. Predictable? Most definitely.
No new breaking medical news to report. Surprising, right? Just working on some big, tedious projects and lawsuits that involve record sifting and brain cramming and all kinds of fun like that. My insurance company owes me money, my car wreck has to be taken to court in less than 2 months (or otherwise it's too late to claim), my specialist and I are fighting my insurance company to appeal their denial of my transplant, and I have a few other similar things going on. Oh and there was yesterday. It started innocently enough... some lady on eBay decided she was going to go a little insane with the packing tape. Good packing isn't bad, I guess. BUT In my efforts to get through the tape and into the box with a big pair of scissors, I somehow managed to slice them into and across my left thumb. [Sidenote: Keep in the back of your mind that with my liver disease, I have an extremely low platelet (the stuff in blood that helps it clot) count, meaning when I bleed, it doesn't easily stop. Also because of the platelets, when I get a cut of any sort, it takes many weeks to heal. Because I have a very low amount of white blood cells, I'm at high risk for infection.] I hate to sound all exaggerating, but this cut was most literally just pumping out blood. Of course I applied pressure, and after a few minutes when it wasn't stopping, I called my mom. I was able to get a look at it through the blood, and it was a big half-oval kind of thing meaning there was a deeper gash underneath the flap of skin. I didn't get the impression it was going to stop without putting on a fight, but I didn't want to go to the ER over a tiny cut, so we called my primary care doctors office. They said they couldn't get me in for just over an hour. (Seriously.) They also said they didn't know if they did stitches there or not. (Seriously again.) So we called my insurance to see where we could go since they changed all the urgent care rules. After a disconnection and about a half dozen transfers, we finally reached a lady who gave us the name of an urgent care facility 10 minutes from my house. To make a long story short, we finally got the bleeding to stop (and with no extraordinary measures! yay!) and the doctor cleaned out my cut with betadine and then put Dermabond (a "Super Glue" for skin) all across the cut to seal it closed. He bandaged it up and I was good to go! I've never had real stitches in my life, and I'm thankful that there are so many stitches-alternatives for minor lacerations these days. Right now, my thumb is quietly throbbing a nice aching pain, but it's bandaged well, and I'm relieved I have Dermabond on it because my skin doesn't just heal on its own. Gotta love happy endings. :)
I've spent the last couple of weeks getting in touch with my great-uncle who has been hooking me up with all kinds of genealogy goodies, and last week, my grandma revealed her basement-full of albums that I'm scanning for her. I'm so excited about all of this since I've been meddling in genealogy since Nanna passed away. Plus I just love pictures! :) I must say... my dad was a pretty handsome looking young boy... (snicker snicker)
I'm SO missing my Nana. I think my mom is too because she's been talking about her constantly lately. Poppop comes over for dinner a few nights a week, and without fail, Nana comes up each night. Not that I mind - she has a beautiful legacy - but it still hurts so badly to even say her name. I especially hate when they talk about her last days on earth because I wasn't there. I had a flight all ready to go but my dad wouldn't pay for it thinking Nana would be gone before I got there. Well, Nana lived a few days after that and I never got down. If I had the money, I would have paid it anyways just for a chance to talk to her one more time. To see her face one more time. To touch the lines on her hands one more time. To tell her I loved her (and not on the phone), to tell her that her Mandy Mine was there with her.... one more time. Each day is getting harder, too, because her birthday is 5 days after mine... August 7th. My mom is wanting to make birthday plans for me, but every time I even think of my birthday, my mind instantly goes to Nana. When I see flowers, I think of her. When I go to Macy's and see an outfit she would have worn, I think of her, want to buy it, and then remember she's not here to wear it. Poppop was hoping her headstone would come in by her birthday, and I hope so too. We spent so much time making sure it was the perfect one for her, and as inappropriate as this sounds, I really am excited to see it. Nana deserves to be dignified in that cold ground with a lovely headstone on her birthday. It's really all we can give her, other than flowers. But trust me, there will be flowers. Lots of tear-stained flowers.
On a happier note, last Saturday I threw a graduation luau party for my bestie, Jen! I was trying to make it a surprise, but well, that didn't go over so well so I let her know at the last minute. It all worked out though and was so much fun. I am thrilled that she earned just enough gift money to cover her NCLEX fees! I was hesitant to throw her a party because of my health but all I could think of was how extra hard she worked for this degree, how huge an accomplishment this is for anyone, but moreso for her. She sacrificed everything to get to here, and she did it in 4 years and didn't give up once. I walked the journey with her and knew full well that she, of all people, needed to be honored. Plus, money was an issue with taking her NCLEX, and I wasn't about to let that happen. I figured if all of her friends gave a few bucks, she'd be well on her way to taking the licensure exam. And lastly, parties are just fun. Of course, the biggest reason here was honoring for her for her amazing drive and commitment and sacrifice though, so I talked with my mom and she agreed to help. She said we'd get catering and buy a cake, and my cousin Heather offered to help. A nurse at our church who knows Jen well offered to make food as well, and a few other friends pitched in. For the location, we were able to use (free of charge) the wonderful "clubhouse" at my Poppop's condo facility. Before long, we had a wonderful event coming together, and all of the pieces just fell into place. The party was a hit - everyone who came had fun, and I know for a fact that Jen was shocked and grateful and touched by what we were able to do for her. All of us are blessed to have amazing friends, and I love how we're always there for each other ... even when "being there" just means coming to have fun at a parrrr-tay! :)
On Tuesday, Jonathan and I went to the movies. 3rd time in a month or something, which is beyond a record for us. Before this run, we hardly ever went to movies! Anyways, I scored some advance passes to see "Orphan," and well, neither Jonathan nor I recommend it. It was slow and boring, predictable, and more of a thriller than a horror film. Oh well, screeners are always fun anyways, and who turns down a free movie?
You know what we did on Wednesday? Cleaned out his closet! We fought over a few things and had to do some item trades but overall, it went well and a lot of his out-of-style, have-way-too-many, and too-worn clothes are now being donated to our church yard sale. The Abercrombie & Fitch shirt from like 8 years ago is finally going away!! Fiancee is very excited about all of this. Here's the pile... And the run-down? 15 pairs of pants, 26 sweaters, 20 dress shirts, 15 tshirt, and 1 polo! Hooray!!
School started in full force on Monday. I'm in 3 online classes which are ending up being more like "busy-work classes." Since nursing isn't working out for me at the moment (but it will be... just not at this time), I'm working on Integrated Health Studies, and there's a few dumb classes I have to take to fulfill that - like Health, for example. It's my 5th year in college, Nursing major, and I have to take Health? Give me a break. Then the other 2 are Human Sexuality (it's actually more of a sociology class than anything) and Medical Sociology - 2 upper level classes. You have to have a certain number of "upper level classes" to graduate, and those were the only 2 that were online and applied to my major, so there you go. It's going to be a long 5 weeks!
Today I had Little M and the finger-cutting ordeal. I did have my first-ever chiropractor appointment, but I had to reschedule as I spent my appointment time going to the ER. It might have been a good thing I missed it though because my massotherapist did some intense fascial release on Tuesday and I'm still extremely sore from it. Tonight I have Baby L... my colicky screamer. Then Sunday I can breathe and Little M is going on vacation and my new nanny family (that I have yet to start with) is on vacation too, so Nanny gets a break!! (Aka, a few extra hours to do homework) Hooray! :)
Next week, lots of appointments, helping out at Shannon's VBC, a possible baseball game, then loads of babysitting over the weekend. Oh and school. Forgot about that. Blah.
But it's SATURDAY! No worries on Saturday! Happy Weekend & here's some funneh kittehs....
Jonathan sent me this next video... I told him the answer was NO!!
Last week, the weather was nice and Little M and I had cabin fever. I mentioned the zoo and she was so excited! I thought it was a great idea. The Akron Zoo couldn't be that big, and it wouldn't be that crowded since it looked a little overcast. It would only be a couple of hours, and we'd just have a relaxingtime walking around and seeing the animals. Yep, great idea! So I convinced the defiant 3.5 year old that my stroller was a "Big Girl Stroller," we packed a picnic lunch, and put sunscreen and other necessities into my Vera Bradley baby bag. We got Mom's zoo membership passes on our way out the door, and off we went!
So yeah, about that great idea...
The zoo was a chaotic nightmare!! I forgot it was Friday of the 4th of July weekend, so it was packed. Pushing a stroller bigger than myself uphill, downhill, and all around got to be quite a task. Little M wanted in the stroller. Out of the stroller. In the stroller. Out of the stroller. Then we saw the Animal Show that I bought tickets to, and of course they didn't bother opening the doors and removing the "Private Party" signs until 10 till, so we walked all around the area asking all of the zoo employees, and no one knew where it was. Finally I just waited by the sign since that's where the map said the show would be, and sure enough, the obscure location with misleading signs turned out to be where the show was. Little M wouldn't get off my lap for the entire show, and she grabbed me every time a snake or tarantula or bird came out. Then she had to go potty. 10 minutes into the show. Because that's what kids do, you know. I asked her before the show, and nope, she did not have to go potty, she assured me. Right. So that was the show.
Then we decided to go to the picnic tables and eat our delicious lunch of sandwiches, juice boxes, and munchies. We would have gotten a zoo snack, but smart nanny here didn't even think about bringing cash... (Note to self for next time!) So anyways, then we went all around the zoo using our misleading map seeing every type of animal possible with the ultimate goal of seeing jaguars. I have no idea why this child wanted to see the jaguars so badly, but when I read the list of all of the animals on the map, she told me that she had to see the jaguars. And of course, the jaguars were not well described on the misleading map. But we got there. We got to the mama and baby jaguars in a tiny habitat behind glass, and I felt sad for them. But Little M stared into the glass with amazement, excited to see what a jaguar was.
Then it was time to go home. Little M told me she was tired, which she never ever does, so I told her to just relax in the stroller. She was asleep - and I mean completely out - within 2 minutes. It took us about 10 minutes to exit the zoo and find my car, and when I carried her into her carseat, she didn't even stir. I buckled her in and she was still asleep - quite abnormal for the little girl who hates to miss a thing!
We went back to her house and told her mom allll about our very fun day (albeit a little stressful for Nanny!) We told her about the show, the animals, our lunch, the jaguars, the stroller, and how much fun we had. After I left for the day, Little M's mom sent me text message, "Just so you know, Madeline keeps saying you are her 'favorite babysitter ever'." The next 2 days, Little M's mom told me that the first thing she wanted to know each morning was whether or not Amanda was coming today. All this from the little girl who liked to cry and hit and throw temper tantrums and tell me she'd take care of herself and I could leave. She's finally adjusted to me. Ironic, since I only have 2 more weeks of regular nannying with her. After that, her family is going on vacation and when they return, she'll start back at preschool. Her mom assured me that I'd be their regular as-needed sitter though, so I'm very happy about that. Otherwise,
I am 22 & currently spend my days nannying my itty bitties + going to college (working on my nursing degree, goal: pediatric oncology) & am honored to be a published writer in a nursing anthology & a contributor to many scrapbooking publications. i love hanging with my amazing friends, sister & family. i love my baby puppy haylie brooke and our silly doggie ri-ri. in my rare spare time, i read & get crafty. i thrive on organization, my mac repertoire, learning & absolute fabulosity. my favorite place in the world is paris. my favorite color is pink. i love being a nurse & i believe each one of my patients is precious. i'm a night owl & wish my lifestyle promoted such habits. i like lazy jammie days. i believe in god and am thankful for his hand on my life. i believe that life is too short to be anything but happy, & i’m thankful that a chronic liver disease + the effects of a car accident have taught me important values that most people learn far too late. i hope that the world will find hope, and my idea of a good day is one in which i made someone smile :)
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