Preparing for nursing school

This last year feels like a blur to me. I took all my pre and co requisite classes for nursing school. I applied, and was accepted. I shouldn't have been to surprised since I have a 4.0 gpa. Then the stress started. The company my husband worked for closed in Feb. We had officially known it was closing for a few months. Fortunately we had been planning for it for over a year. He was offered a lovely severance package that included company paid COBRA for 4 months. The day his final paycheck and the severance package was due to arrive in our accounts is when it started getting crazy. The final paycheck came, but not the severance. The company's initial answer was that we were confused on when it was supposed to be paid. A few days later we received a letter saying they were out of money and it wouldn't be paid and neither would the COBRA. TERRIFIC! I needed to have a nursing school physical and dental exam, and some new immunizations. That was going to be great fun with no insurance.

Fast forward a few months. My husband is still out of work. He has gone on lots of interviews and has been told more times than we would like that he was one of 4 or 5 finalist out of over 100 qualified applicants. Yet, we still don't have income or insurance. My mother is unable to find my immunization records and as a result of this I need to have titers for the MMR and chickenpox. My doctor has told me that they are very expensive. The chickenpox titer is around $300. I went to a low income clinic for the physical, which did save me some money, but they said they couldn't do/order the titers. Another friend who has used that clinic has told me they could. This is all so frustrating!!! I wish my mom could find my records, it would take some of the stress off. I keep hoping soon I will catch a break and the records will appear, or I can find someone to do the tests for free or low cost. That is probably just wishful thinking though. For now I will plug away on what I can handle and try to relax for the last few weeks before school school starts again. Wish me luck! TTFN, Miki

Free Tupperware

I grew up in a house full of Tupperware. I am sorry to say that my house is not. As a child I remember attending or being the child of the hostess of many Tupperware parties. My cereal bowl, cups and toys were Tupperware. We also had many other pieces. One our family nicknamed the "popcorn" bowl. Obviously by the name you can guess we used it for popcorn. It was a large mixing bowl and held lots of popcorn for our family. It was used almost every day. I would love to have more Tupperware, but haven't been inivited to a party in years, and haven't bumped into anyone selling it either. Now, one of my favorite bloggers, Jessica Gottlieb, is giving away Tupperware. Yea!!! You can try to win some too. Just visit Jessica's blog Good Luck and I hope to blog again soon. -Miki

quick catch up and funny story

Sorry its been so long since blogging. School and kids and life in general really keep me busy. The good news, finals are next week and then I have a few off. Better news, right now I have pretty solid A's in all of my classes.

A few weeks ago after lots of pestering from my sister, I read the first book in the Twilight series. After that I was addicted and read the next 3 in a few more days. I had planned on reading the first book between Anatomy subjects so as to not distract from study time. Unfortunately this addiction cut into a little study time. Fortunately I still got an A+ on my bones exam. My older kids then began reading the books. We have a rule in our house that if they are making a movie about a book, you have to read the book first, because the movie will never do it justice, and you won't read the book after. With Twilight coming to the theaters at the end of November the kids really had to focus on getting it read. My oldest daughter finished Twilight as the previews began to roll. I enjoyed the movie, as did she. It did make me a little homesick. Much of the movie was filmed in northern Oregon and southern Washington. I miss the green of the forests, but not the gloominess and rain that makes it. Long story short my oldest two have now moved onto the next books. My daughter is nearly done with book 2, and my son has just started book 3. I won't give away story, but suffice it to say, they were upset at just the right times, at one point my daughter not sure she wanted to continue reading. So here's the funny story... Last night at dinner, she didn't want to stop reading to come to the dinner table. She told us that she really wanted to finish the books because they were so good. I agreed and ask her what she was going to do when she was done reading them. She answered that she didn't know, because she had never found any book to read that had interested her in such a way. I then told her that I was sure that there were other really good books out there that she would enjoy. Her younger sister, my middle daughter then replied, "Yeah like my diary, because it is all about me." Needless to say she has a rather large ego.

One another note, I have recently done a product test for Ghiradelli chocolates. I sampled their milk chocolate with peanut butter. It was quite good. I am not sure if I would purchase this myself, because I rarely indulge in good chocolate, but they sent coupons, so maybe I will. Try some for yourself, you might like it too.
TTFN, Miki

Catching up real quick

Whats new in our house...My husband will most likely be out of a job after the first of the year. We are stuck in a frustrating limbo as a result. If he leaves early, he forfeits the severance package, and a bonus, leaving a large sum of money "on the table". If he waits it all out, he might beat the rush of others in the same situation and get a job, but most likely at a significant pay cut. I don't think there is a right answer to this one. Right now he is looking all over the country for any employment. I don't want to move. I like the life we have created where we are, and I hate moving. I will move, although I joke with him when he tells me where he has applied, or where he has an interview that I will miss him. I just hope it doesn't have to come down to trying to sell our house and relocate once again. I am still plugging away at school. I only have a few weeks left in the semester and still have all A's. Let's keep our fingers crossed and hope it stays this way. I have having so much fun. I wish I had figured out 20 years ago this is want I wanted to do. Not only would I be done by now, but this layoff wouldn't matter as much, as I could pick up a few more hours at work. Oh well! I should be appling to nursing school in Feb., of course that is if I don't move. Moving may just throw everything off as each state/school has their own pre and co recs. Again lets keep our fingers crossed. The girls' cheer season ends today with States. We have not done as well this year, but the squad is closer this year than years past. We have practiced less which makes the parents happy, but it makes them frustrated that we aren't placing...which we might do if we practiced more. We can't win for losing. Well I am off to States, wish us luck! TTFN,Miki

Dogs and the Military

So today I learned that soldiers are not allowed to befriend an animal, and if they do they can be court martialed and the dog can be killed. The SPCA supports a wonderful program that helps Iraqi dogs find homes stateside often times with the families of soldiers that befriended them. Please read the following story to get the whole story of how far the military is going to destroy the morale of their soldiers.http://www.spca.com/press/item/56 This needs to stop! Please pass this info along to everyone you know.
TTFN, Miki

Tank Girl finished

I finished the knitting of tak girl. Yes I finished a knitting project. I need to stitch the sides closed, and add the straps. Then it will be ready to wear. Of course I should also block it. I usually don't block things...maybe I will this time, it might make it look just a teeny bit nicer. As soon as it is wearable, I will post a picture. Today should be a boring day spent inside as Tropical Storm Hannah is here, the back yard pond has now connected with a large part of the back yard, and it continues to rain. TTFN, Miki

Health Warning

Do not quote 70s Santana lyrics to your children at the dinner table when they want to hear you say a sentence in Spanish. Your husband may choke on his French bread, and you may think about performing the Heimlich on him. I really wish it had been the wine, that would have been SO funny.

Side note...I took 5 years of Spanish in high school, and scored a 5 out of 7 on my IB test. I am now taking Spanish for a humanities credit toward my degree. It is pretty easy, but easy is good when I am busy with kids and coaching and A and P.

Anatomy and Physiology Fun

As we prepare for Tropical Storm Hannah to hit, I am bored and ask my husband if I can label him like the anatomical man as practice for my A & P test. He declines and tells me I'm wierd. I think I should maybe be worried that my son so readily agreed. It was great fun! I will add that there were several regions left unlabeled, not because I didn't know them, but because I didn't need to label those regions on him. TTFN, Miki