Happy Weekend

Happy Mama's Day to all you hot mama's out there!  My sweet mom is here with me and I couldn't be happier!  She came Friday and will be here until next Sunday.  We are headed down to Fayetteville tomorrow to see my Gammo and aunt and celebrate with the two of them.  Aus plans to stay home and do some "man things..."  We had a fun day today, shopping, relaxing, and of course - Mexican for dinner!  

Happy Mother's Day, Mom!  We are so glad you here with us!!!

The Wake Way

Yes, I've been MIA this week, but...


I worked 5 days last week! I started hospital orientation at WakeMed on Monday and have been there every day since.  I am sooo not use to working 5 days a week. Holy-throw-off-my-schedule! I'm very glad to be finished with that and I'll be working Mon-Wed this coming week in one of the ICU's.  During orientation we had many many speakers come to talk to us - pharmacy reps, blood bankers, infection control peeps, consultants etc etc.  We learned about the "Wake Way" for hours and heard all the typical customer service spiels.  I took classes on the charting and physician ordering systems, how to administer meds and did a bazillion online tutorials.  We also had to take a ton of tests, several of which were super hard! I had to use some major brain power.  Good news is - all this is over and I passed all the tests and I'm all set to go Monday morning at 6:45am.  I'm super nervous.  It all feels real finally.  WakeMed does a lot of things very different from what I'm use to so I'll have some major adjusting.  I'll be working with another RN for all 3 shifts next week and then my manger says we will "see how I'm doing and go from there."  I wish I could get at least one orientation day in each unit so when I go there for the first time I have some clue to what I'm doing and where stuff is.  Sometimes I get really freaked out thinking about how crazy this might be, but then I tell myself - deep breaths and lots of questions.  I'll have nurses all around me to help and I'm sure I'll pick up all the computer charting and ordering systems soon enough.  I'll be blogging next week after my 3 shifts - fingers crossed I survive this! 

Katie and David's Wedding Weekend

First, I know I have been MIA. I'll write more about why on this later...




Katie and David got married last weekend (April 30th) in Danville and it was such a fun wedding!  She got married at 2pm so we had a full day and night of celebrating and dancing.  The ceremony took place at Sacred Heart Church and the reception at Tuscarora Country Club.


These pictures are from the Rehearsal Dinner the night before.  We had yummy Italian food at a new restaurant in Danville - Cugini's.

 Getting married in 14 hours!!!

I LOVE weddings.  I love everything about them.  Of course, when the bride is one of your best friends that helps, but even besides the obvious - seeing old friends, eating/drinking/dancing, I LOVE weddings.  If I could plan weddings for the rest of my life, even for free, I'd absolutely completely do it.  I love all the traditions, the rules and proper etiquette, the details, the choices, and how every single one is always unique and special.  I've always loved weddings and all the details that go into planning them but I didn't completely fall in love until I planned my own.  Stressful? Absolutely. Worth it? Oh, yes.  Do it again? Most definitely.  I have the best memories from our wedding weekend and hope to never forget all the butterflies I had in my stomach all weekend long and the exact feeling I felt right before I walked down the aisle to marry Austin.  I could seriously write a book about this but I'll spare you. :)  I feel so blessed to be a wedding photographer and to take part of such a special time while two families join together.  I love documenting them, witnessing them and taking photos of every single detail.  If I can ever help any of you out there, holler at your girl! :) 

Easter Weekend

We headed up to Aus' parents house at Smith Mountain Lake for Easter weekend for some R&R. We had a fun and relaxing weekend and some decent weather too.  Saturday was nice and of course Sunday, the day we had to go home, was gorgeous.  We spent Saturday hanging on the dock, riding on the boat and eating our hearts out! Austin's mom always has the best food for us and this weekend was no exception.  Our Easter brunch was especially wonderful with a spiral ham, deviled eggs, cheese grits, tortellini salad (my fav) and cottage cheese. mmmm! Oh, oh, oh and Saturday night our dinner was amazing - we had a Greek meatloaf that had a feta/tzatziki type sauce on top. Sooooo good! I will post the recipe soon, it is definitely worth trying!

We drove into Danville Saturday afternoon and saw Aus sweet Grandmother at the Stratford House. All is well in her world and I hope we get back to see her soon.  I took a few pics this weekend, most of which didn't turn out too well...

Swim little doggie, swim!

a few of the yummy beers Leila brought. We started with these around 2pm...we were all in bed by 10. :)

See ya SICU

This is it!  My last night in the SICU (Surgical-Trauma Intensive Care Unit).  I've been here for 3 and a half years now and this was my first 'real' job.  It is bittersweet leaving - but mostly sweet.  On to bigger and better things, right?  I will miss the peeps I work with but I'm excited to meet new friends.  My best friends in our unit left a few months ago to go back to school so now that they're gone leaving isn't nearly as hard. (love you Kris and Court)  I've learned so much here and I'm so grateful for having the opportunity to start my nursing career here, in such a prestigious hospital and unit. 

WakeMed will be so so much different. The biggest differences - its not a teaching hospital and it's private.  No more residents, interns, fellows and med students, oh my!  No more rounds, no more hour long A-line insertions, no more "doctors" asking me what to do (well, maybe that won't change).  I will miss it all.  I have hospital orientation next week Monday-Friday 8-5. Then the following week I'll start my nursing orientation for FOUR shifts.  I'll only work beside another nurse for four shifts and then I'm totally on my own.  Since I'm coming into a casual position they pretty much expect me to hit the ground running.  I got this!  I am a bit anxious working in the cardiac units especially since WakeMed is a huge heart center.  I'll just ask tons of questions and I'll get it - I'm hoping!  After all, critical care is critical care. 

They had a little party for me on my last night. It was all sooo delicious: chicken salad croissants, Mexican dip, pork fried rice, mac and cheese, queso sausage dip, brownies, apple pie, doughnuts, buffalo chicken dip, shrimp pasta, potato wedges, chips and dips! I am sooo stuffed! Bad diet day- check!

Sayonara, Duke! I'm thinking I may shed a few tears as I'm leaving tomorrow...you've been good to me.

Operation: Healthy Eating

 I'm guessing you've noticed I haven't had any dinner/recipe posts in quite a while. That is because all we eat anymore is chicken!  Aus and I are still doing our low calorie diet, and doing pretty well for the most part.  We definitely fail miserably on the weekends and have learned alcohol and low calories do not mix! I'll post our stats when we reach our 1 month mark next week. 

We pretty much eat baked chicken, grilled chicken or sauteed chicken for dinner.  We eat a lot of veggies and baked potatoes and branch out every now and then with fish, tuna or steak.  We grill just about every night, so Aus is loving that.  I do miss my glass of wine (or two) while hanging outside and grilling. For lunch we are eating sandwiches, soups or some type of a frozen meal. We are stocked up on 100 calorie pack snacks and keep our freezer stocked with Skinny Cows.

Here is an example of one of my days: (1250 cals)

 2 packets Cheese Grits

Marie Callenders' Smoky Cheddar Mac and Uncured Bacon (amazing!)

strawberry and banana yogurt

100 calorie pack cheezits

1 grilled chicken breast

1 medium baked potato with tons of raw onions, 4 tbsp fat free sour cream and 2 tbsp bacon bits

Example 2: (1240 cals)

cup of Easy Mac

small bag of Cheetos

Orange

100 calorie pack chocolate covered pretzels

blueberry yogurt

20 tiny twist pretzels

Cambells Chunky Baked Poato with Cheddar & Bacon soup

1 cup strawberries

Example 3:(1190 cals)

banana

grilled chicken sandwhich with 1  pkt light mayo- Chick-fil-a

medium fruit - Chick-fil-a

medium diet lemonade - Chick-fil-a

1 grilled chicken breast

2 tbsp BBQ sauce

1 corn on the cob

1/2 lb sauteed mushrooms

three berry yogurt

skinny cow

Our Sweet Girl is Growing!

Molly went to the vet today for her monthly checkup and booster shots.  She is 13.5 weeks old and weighing in at 22.3 lbs.  It really is crazy how fast they grow.  I miss her sweet little puppy body already! At her 9 week appointment last month she was 13 lbs and when we picked her up at 6 weeks she weighed 9 lbs. I guess she is about half way grown now since they say 45-55 lbs is the typical weight for a female GSP. I must say, everything is going a lot better with her - especially now that we have the fence.  It has made a huge difference in her daily routine and, most importantly, my sanity.  

She also knows how to sit, lie down, shake, and (sometimes) roll over.  We are still bell training her to ring the bell when she has to go out and she is getting better in that category too.  Although, she still has her accidents inside.  Last night, we were hanging out in the den and she stopped chewing her toy and started sniffing around. So, Aus jumped up, "come on Molly, let's go outside!" and she looked right at the two of us, turned in the opposite direction, jumped up on the couch and peed right on it and the remotes! What in the world, right?! So crazy.  She hasn't ever peed on the couch before, and if she was up there playing I would of understood it. To turn the opposite way and jump UP on the couch to pee?! We don't get it...does she hate us? It was so bizarre the way it happened. 

She knows her name, has for a while now, and her favorite word is "treat"! She is getting better about jumping up on us but she still chews everything in sight - which we will be expecting for the next sevvveral months.

Her relationship with Baxter is still, ehh, mediocre.  Bax doesn't seem to effected by her, which we were afraid of, so as long as he still does his thing and acts like the king of the house - I'm good!  Molly attacks him if he is ever sitting on the ground, so he pretty much stays on high ground.  He seems to enjoy watching her nonsense, especially if he can sit in his window seat in the AC and watch her tear it up in the back yard.

(This pic was several weeks ago - she is much bigger now.)

 This was on the way to the vet today and she actually sat in the seat about 85% of our drive over there. WHEW. Check out that tongue!!

 Meet Heidi.  Our next door neighbors (whom we are good friends with) got this cute pooch about a month before we got Molly.  She is about a year old and a boxer/terrier/husky combo special!  She is so sweet and she and Molly are BFF.  We got our fence with our neighbors and then split the cost of the side down the middle splitting our two yards.  Molly and Heidi play every day, often times several times a day so we take turns keeping them in each others yards.  We are so glad she has a friend!  Heidi wears her butt out and keeps up her social skills. :)

Taking a stroll...Hiii blog followers!!!

6 to go...

Only 6 more shifts left in the SICU at Duke...ahhh it's bitter-sweet. 3 night shifts and 3 day shifts.  Next Wednesday I will be saying sayonara for one last time.  I start hospital orientation at WakeMed on Monday, May 2nd.  I'm getting excited!!!