Hypodancemic

It's been a long time since I have blogged. I guess I haven't had the need or the time lately. Not that I have the time right now, but I really have the need. I know no one follows this blog anymore, so I am not going to take the time to catch anyone up, except that I will say that I went back to school to become a nurse five years ago and I am just now working on my second and final year of the nursing program. For any of you that have ever attempted such a challenge while raising a family and working, you and only you could possibly know what I am going through.

It is an extremely stressful and demanding program. I have managed to get through the first two semesters with a lot of hard work and support from my family, ok and the State too. This semester though, has been trying to kick my butt before it even started. First of all my financial aid was delayed, which meant that my books were delayed. I received my med surge book a day before my first test. My computer is 10 years old and desperately needs an upgrade so that I can watch the online lectures in real time instead of slow-mo. I waited until the last semester was over before purchasing a computer because I didn't want the set-up or transfer to interfere with school. During the break, I found a great deal on a refurbished computer from Walmart online. I set it up and transferred any important files over.

The semester started and I thought I could get by without needing Word and just use Google docs, but that was beginning to eat up a lot of time having to email files to myself in order to open them and some were too big, etc. Plus I can't attach assignments in Google docs because my instructors don't know how to open them. I gave in and purchased Office at a student discount of $80. Before I could get it installed, my computer started crashing as soon as it was booted up. Craig is a super computer genius and figured out that there is something corrupt with the wires and they are overheating and causing a connection to fail. The best solution is to send it back. Well there went several days wasted, when I could have been studying.

I am required to work at least 15 hours/week in order to qualify for daycare subsidy, which would be impossible for me to go to school without. My employer had a lull in business right at the end of December and they only had one days worth of work for me, which was even ok for a while because it was a long day. Then they split it with my arch nemesis and then I was disqualified for daycare. I spent some time trying to find another job, but came up empty handed. I kept procrastinating after school started because I was already behind with my studies. How was I going to look for work and catch up with school and then go to work?

Last week my employer asked me if I could pick up Sundays along with Saturdays. This was perfect. It would be just the right amount of time I needed. Then I was asked if I could see a patient 20 miles away every day at the same time that I am supposed to be putting my kids to bed. Because 8:00 pm is just too late for the other young, single CNAs who live 5 to 10 miles away from the patient. I agreed to see the patient three nights of the week, but they would have to work out the rest. Oh, and by the way, we have mandatory training on Monday and Tuesday of this week for a total of 5 hours. Oh, and by the way, the TC is going to take three days off this week to go out of town for a family emergency and can I fill in for her? Shit! I only wanted 15 hours not 60!

It was an exhausting week last week and I am just sure they are going to ask me to see more patients again this week because one of their full time CNAs just left the country for a week for a family emergency and their only other part time CNA just got fired.

I know this blog post is just a huge boo hoo rant. Don't read it if it bores you. It's already boring me. I just have to get it out of my head so I can move on and get back to studying.

Before I can do that I need to express my undying desire to go dancing.I am having withdrawals. It used to be my stress reliever. I went twice a week and that was before I had kids or went back to school. I have tried several alternatives like Just Dance on the wii. It is loads of fun and something the kids and I can do together. I took a modern jazz class through school a few years ago, but they wanted me to do school assignments and stuff and then it ended.

The reason I haven't been is because of Craig. When we met, he said he wanted to learn to swing dance. He even came with me to a dance ... once. Later we started going to dance clubs, which was almost just as fun, but eventually we stopped going there too. Craig got sick and we didn't go anywhere for a long time. He has been sick for the last five years, so I haven't bothered stressing the issue. The few times that I got the nerve to ask, he would give me a lot of excuses and started sweating jealousy.

I started telling myself that when I finish Nursing School I will just go and do what I want because I don't have time for distractions right now anyway. Lately, I am feeling like if I don't get out to go dancing, then I may not make it through Nursing School. It became an issue last month when I blew up at Craig and ripped him a new one. It wasn't totally ineffective. He re-evaluated his medications and stopped taking his blood pressure medication, which was the cause of 80% of his adverse side effects. He talked to his Dr. to ask him about an alternative. He has been losing weight and it's helping his diabetes. Not only that, but he has agreed to quit smoking. He even set goals to reduce the number of cigarettes before he received his smoking cessation medication. The medication increases over a period of three months before the series is complete. He is finishing up the first month. He was put on anti-depressants because the last time he tried he was almost done when he became paranoid and suspicious to the point that he thought the vehicle behind him was following him and he was preparing to run him off the road. Fortunately, he snapped himself out of it. He is beginning to have suspicious ideas already. I'm glad that he is able to recognize the reason for his thoughts and address them right away to alleviate any worry. Because of this, I have been even more leery of asking him for permission to go dancing.

Today, I failed my fourth test out of four tests this semester. I had a small breakdown in the library after the test. I am trying to press on but I have this ridiculous notion that if I could just go dancing, everything will be alright.

Ex-Mormon does not = Ex-Happy

This is a comment I received in response to my previous post...

"psalms 63 "Who whet their tongue like a sword, and bend their bows to shoot their arrows, even bitter words: that they may shoot in secret at the perfect: suddenly do they shoot at him, and fear not. They encourage themselves in an evil matter: they commune of laying snares privily they say, who shall see us? They search out iniquities... but God shall shoot at them with an arrow, suddenly shall they be wounded.,So they shall make their own tongue to fall upon themselves, all that see them shall fless away.. and all men shall fear, and shall declare the Work of God, for they shall wisely consider of His doing. The righteous shall be glad in the Lord, and shall trust in Him and all the upright in heart shall glory.." Show me ONE happy exmo, post mo, anti mo.. just One....I have yet in my 10 years on the internet met one, successful in life, happy exmo.. kitty"

Well, Ms. Happy Kitty... it seems to me that it is you who is "laying snares" at me. I was not judging you or anyone else. I was not even suggesting that I am unhappy, only extreemely busy. I am actually quite happy and consider myself fairly successful at life. Now, if you are meaning successful at earning a lot of money, no, so far I am not doing that, but is that the only way to judge one's success? I am a great mother and friend.

I do remember hearing the stories about how unhappy members become once they leave the church. It's a trick to scare members.

I have an aunt who left her husband and the church. I was close with her kids, my cousins. After many years of searching and when her kids started getting married, she became unhappy and killed herself. She was sorry for all the pain that she had caused her family. It was assumed that she regretted leaving the church, but if that is all she wanted, all she had to do was walk in the doors.

It's been a while since I have visited my blog. I was reading some of the old posts and realized what a long ways I have come recently. I concluded that this post is a bit dry and boring. I have spoiled some interesting stories with too much detail. I guess I love details.

I have been incredibly busy, as one might imagine with raising twin babies and caring for a 6 year old. As if that weren't enough, I decided to go back to school again to become a nurse. I started in August and I'm working on my pre-req.s for now.

I'm taking Biology, Int. Algebra and a flexibility class. The flexibility class is for me cuz a pregnancy with twins is hard on a girl. Algebra is going alright and I wish I could say the same for Biology, but it is proving to be a real challenge for me to memorize so much information with so little time to study. I have to stop myself from stressing out and remind myself that I can only do the best I can do.

Blues Rising

In February I was able to get away to San Francisco to attend Blues Rising, a blues dancing workshop that took place over the whole weekend. I drove out with a friend from Salt Lake. We left Thursday night and took turns driving through the night. We arived at 8am on Friday just when the other dancers were waking up and recovering from the late night before.

There were loads of great workshops taking place from noon to about 6 and then we all migrated to the evening dance, where they had fantastic live music to dance to. Dancing went all through the night and into the wee hours of 5 and 6 am. Then I got to be the one to drive one of the groups back to the house I stayed at in Half Moon Bay. I loaded up on Jelly Belly energy beans just before we left to help me stay awake on the drive back to the house. I think I got about 5 hours of sleep from Thursday to Tuesday night. It's a small price to pay for such fabulous dancing and music and....

Anyway, it was a marvelous weekend and wish I could go back soon.

Cinnamon

A friend of mine from work told me about this chihuahua that her husband brought home one day. The woman he got it from was about to take it to the pound. The story goes that her kids were abusing it such as hitting it with the broom and other such things. Why she felt like the only solution was to take it to the pound, I don't understand.

My friend told me how she just fell in love with the dog and how the dog became quickly attached to her too. The original owners named her Wild Thing but they chose the name Cinnamon for her. I told her that I have always wanted a chihuahua and how I would take it with me in my purse every where I went.

After a couple of weeks having the dog she called me up at home one day and asked me if I wanted to take the dog. I guess it had already pooped in her daughter's room and then she found an unusually large pile of fudge in the laundry room, where she began keeping her in the day.

I felt like I was a little unprepared to have a dog. Guy had been begging me for one for a year and I promissed him that once we had our own place where the dog could run around then I would be happy to get him a dog. We were still living in the basement who's owner already had three large, semi-trained attack dogs who ruled the back yard. Plus we are gone all day and she would have no way to go out to go potty. At least the whole place was tile floor with a few rugs.

I figured this was probably the only time that I would be offered a free chihuahua so I decided I could work around the logistics of it all.

We went to her house the next weekend and met the dog and brought her home with us. Her daughters had a hard time with it once we were gone. She had regrets about it too. So much so that when I had to bring her to work for an hour before taking her to Guy's daycare for show and tell, Cinnamon saw her and got all excited and she became emotional and wished she could take her home with her again.

Other people kept asking her how she could give away such a cute dog. I was questioning whether I should have taken her or not. Cinnamon and Guy seemed to have a rocky start already and I contemplated giving her back. When I told her I would talk to Guy about giving her back she tried to assure me that I should keep her (unless I am totally sure that I don't want her anymore). ...Greaaat...

I decided to keep her but not without continual threats to Guy that I would give her back. Any time I turned my back I heard her growling at him or I would catch him chasing her with a sword or crawling under the table after her, etc. She showed very little patience towards him and he didn't understand that he was scaring her and putting her on the defence. She is just a little thing and he was huge and intimidating to him. Not to mention that he hadn't really shown that he can be trusted.

I was tiring from having to always keep after him and separate them. Besides that, the times when Guy only wanted to cuddle with her she would still growl at him because he would get so close to her face. She even bit him on the face about twice. He would get his feelings hurt when I got after him for getting to close. He just wanted to love her afterall.

After doing some research, I learned that chihuahuas are known to not do well with children. One breeder would not sell to families with children under 7 years old. That would explain why the two of them got along like a dog and cat.

When the weather got warmer I also learned that Cinnamon was very protective of her owner. She loved to chase after the kids in the court, especially ones running, riding a bike or scooter. She even reached up and big a neighbor girl in the croch of her pants one time. Thankfully she only got a mouth full of pants and nothing more.

More about Cinnamon to come...

ULX 2007

To continue where I left off last time feeling sorry for myself... I did get to go to the Friday and Saturday night dances and even the late night ones too. It was fun to have a reason to dress up again like I used to. I ran into some friends from Sacramento. There was a whole gang of them that came out. Ha, even Burp was there. I think he was a little shocked when he saw me at the late night dance in a tank top, and I think he liked it. Not that I did it for him but it was fun to tease.

I even met a few nice Mormon boys, fancy that.

Why they picked THE coldest days of winter to have the exchange I'll never know. I was freezing my booty off walking through the snow to the dance at the Fair Grounds.

We had an idea to take old fashioned photos in the foyer at the exchance dances in 2008, in January. I think it will go over well. If it does we may travel to other exchanges and do the same.

What Else Is New.

My son is living with my parents while I am on bed rest and I am staying with some friends. It was time for me to enroll Guy in Kindergarten and I was having a dilemma about which school to enroll him in. I decided to open enroll him at the school nearest his daycare because they offer a ride to and from school, plus they started a full time program this year and I felt Guy could benefit from that.

As it got closer to the time when school began I ran into a bunch of red tape and it looked like I was going to have to enroll him in the school nearest our home which is also in the opposite direction of my work and would mean that I would have to find him a new daycare that would also provide transportation to and from school while I was at work.

It turned out that caring for Guy was taking more energy than I had and I asked my parents if there was any way he could stay with him until the end of my pregnancy. They had an equally challenging time getting him enrolled in school and finding transportation. My father ended up giving up his part time, late night security job that was draining his energy having to walk 10 miles each night. He decided that caring for Guy was more important and worth the sacrifice. We worked it out that I pay him what I would have paid for daycare if he was living with me.

Guy was behaving very well for a couple months but he's getting a little more comfortable now and allows himself to act out. Even so, I feel like it's been a positive environment for him. Of course he's been going to church with them on Sundays. He loves school and Grandpa is determined to help him learn the alphabet.

I visit with him for a day or more over the weekends. He isn't satisfied unless he gets to spend at least one night with me. Last weekend we went to Thanksgiving Point for the outdoor Halloween activities. I walked way too much and wore myself out, but Guy had a good time.

The weekend before last we decorated Halloween cupcakes with candy and such. We made graves, hairy monsters, mummies, jack o lanterns, spiders, and other silly things. Traditionally I make sugar cookies and Guy helps me roll them up and cut them out and maybe even decorate a few, but they are much more time consuming and I knew I wouldn't be able to slave over the counter to get them made and I am such a perfectionist that I would have to decorate them perfectly. So I opted for something simpler and allowed Guy to get involved and creative.

The Drama Hasn't Ended, I Just Haven't Shared It Lately.

Hmm, where do I begin. It's been some time obviously, since I have blogged. I think I haven't been comfortable enough to share some of the events that have taken place in my life recently. I'm sure I will still leave out some of the more personal details but I would like to give an update of the surprising events of the last several months.

To put you up to speed I am currently on bed rest being 7 months pregnant with twin boys!

Not even kidding this time either. I'm so ready to have these babies. I feel like an elephant. I have very little energy and can't do much for myself. I'm not complaining, or am I? just want to paint the picture of what I'm experiencing at this time. I am thankful that the boys and I are all healthy. I had a couple of scares that landed me in the emergency room but both times they were resolved quickly. At this point I am just waiting it out until they decide they are done.