Back to the Grind

Well, after experiencing a few days without blogging or twittering, I’m back on. I have to admit, it was actually kind of nice to not have pressure of tweeting a great tweet, or blogging a somewhat interesting blog. I learned a lot through my 4 day hiatus. I learned that not blogging and not twittering isn’t such a big deal. I learned more about what the Lord is teaching me through Scripture. I learned to appreciate long walks with my husband more. I learned that life isn’t always what you want it to be but it’s still amazing because God has mapped every single second out for us. I learned that my prayer life can always be more. I learned to love the city more deeply and fervently. I learned to love people in a more gracious way. I learned of how blessed I am with having some pretty amazing friends and family in my life. So what it boils down to is that I learned a lot. And I’m grateful. I’m grateful that the Lord is always teaching me. I’m grateful that the Lord doesn’t let us make the decisions in our life. I’m grateful nothing I can do can take God off His throne. I’m grateful that the Lord shows me unconditional mercy and grace. I’m grateful that I married someone with whom I still feel like we’re dating… even 5 years later. I’m grateful I have people in my life who are constantly encouraging, praying for, and loving Chad and I. So also, what it boils down to is that I’m grateful for a lot. I’ve been blessed with way more than I deserve. I’m extremely glad I took some time to appreciate, sort out, and live out my life. I’m so glad that I’m never finished learning.

Alright, onto being back to my normal life. I am surprised, to even myself, that I’m still biking to work. It’s running at around 40 degrees in the morning and it’s pretty pitch black and now with the time change, it’s even dark when I leave work. I’m definitely looking a little scary being all bundled up in my garb but hey, it keeps me warm. Kellie had to document this on film last night as I was leaving work.

Smiley biker.

I know y’all think my white nursing socks are stellar with my black capris. Need to wash my long pants ASAP!

I headed home to nurse my sick husband. Chad’s felt pretty badly since mid-afternoon on Monday so I came home to fix him dinner. Grilled cheese and tomato soup it was! A perfect cure to any sickness. Poor thing… I know how bad it stinks to be sick. I’m so thankful that I haven’t caught any of his sickness. I’ve never called into work and I don’t plan to, so no sickness for me please!

Yummy grilled cheese and tomato soup! So comforting.

That’s truly about it for us. Hopefully my days will start to get more interesting…. (Actually, I might be jinxing myself by saying that… I might should wish for them to stay this calm)

Hiatus

I’m going on a blogging and twittering hiatus x4 days. I need to take the next few days to spend time with my husband, pray, read God’s Word and seek His will for my life, so I’ve decided to abandon the cyber world for a few days. But I figured I’d get one last blog in before a shut it down for a few days.

Update on the H1N1 vaccine: I feel completely fine. I was pretty terrified that I was going to feel sickly while my body was trying to build up some antibodies to this new virus that was introduced to my body. Thank goodness I didn’t have any yucky side effects. It makes me feel much more at ease about my decision to receive the vaccine.

Ok, enough about that. Yesterday I enjoyed 6 hours of being called off of work and getting to sleep in a bit. I was sort of looking forward to having the whole day off (which is unusual because everyone knows how much I like to work) but of course that’s the day I get called back in. From the second I hit the floor I was running. It was crazy busy and there were too many patients and not enough nurses. At least the 6.5 hours I was there went quickly.

Following the craziness, I was able to look forward to having a Family Meal with the Community Group Chad and I lead on Thursday nights. Everyone prepared a dish from the last country they visited. We had quite an array of food. It was great to be able to fellowship and be relaxed. I’m thankful for God blessing us with the gift of being able to fellowship in His prescence. How awesome is He?

Here’s a glimpse of my plate. Yum yum. Chad made the kabobs and boy were they good!

The whole group.

Here’s Chad being sweet holding Martin, Ben and Amy’s son. I love that Chad is getting so comfortable with babies.

So sweet.

Me with the little man.

After we left, we went home and talked with our neighbors, Jack and Patrick for a few minutes. Upon seeing them, I squeled with delight! They had dyed their bichon frise, Marie, pink! I love it!

Here’s me with Marie.

Here’s Jack with Marie.

Well that’s it for me. I’m offline for 4 days officially. Hope everyone has a great weekend.

H1N1 and Me

Let me start off by saying, no, I do not have H1N1. But I did get the vaccine today. Two shots for me in less than a month? Yuck. I am a HORRIBLE patient. I know I should be all brave and calm since I’m a nurse but nope. I am terrible. Panic attack, clammy hands, tears… The whole nine yards. I was a little better this time around because I didn’t want my ugly cry face to be documented in pictures. I know that sounds silly but that’s me. And hey, knowing there was going to be documentation of this horid event forced me to act like a big girl. I blame this panic stricken fear of needles on my father. Growing up with a physician as a dad made me this crazy. I wasn’t too keen on the fact that he could bring home our annual flu shot every year. The one and only time I ever told my dad I hated him was immediately following him jabbing a needle in my arm. I’m just not all about it. But I am an adult and have to act like one sometimes. This was one of those times. Unlike the seasonal flu vaccine my arm wasn’t sore afterwards but it did sting majorly while being injected. Boo. So anyway… that’s my horror story for the day. I know what a big baby I am in this area in my life and I accept it fully.

Here’s me before the shot. Can’t believe I’m smiling.

Here’s the real action shot. I’m definitely blowing out a big breath of air on this one.

And this is the end. No more needle! I survived!

Not too much else has been going on in our household. We’ve been hitting P90X pretty faithfully. I took my measurements today finally. I’m anxious to see how my body actually changes. I’m not trying to lose weight though even though I think I inevitably have just from being on a workout routine and eating better, so whatever. We shall see.

Here’s our yummy meal from last night. Hamburger steak, mixed spinach salad, and pasta with veggies.

We are being a little bad tonight. We ran by Penn Station Subs to take advantage of Family Night with the Buy 1, Get 1 Free. Love it.

Delicious.

And I’ll leave you with a little happy. Ollie’s daddy is bad bad for letting him jump in the washer. But oh so cute.

Hope everyone has a great few days!

P.S. Happy Birthday a day late (Don’t worry, I did wish him happy birthday yesterday) to my dad! Chad and I love you. And your grandkitties too.

 

 

 

 

 

Fall is Here

I do believe it is officially fall here in Louisville. Thank goodness I found time yesterday to switch out my summer attire for the fall/winter clothes. I was way too excited to pull out several pairs of gloves, toboggans, scarves and sweaters. I love bundling up. And yesterday was the perfect fall day to bust out my first hoodie of the season. Love it. Hoodies go anywhere/anytime. I. Love. It. The leaves are changing colors and I’m changing wardrobe. I can’t believe I’m loving the cooler weather this much. I do have to admit, I love me some hot sunny beach but I’m appreciating the fall and winter more and more as I get older. Don’t ask me why this is, it just is.

Last night Chad and I had a fun night of getting together with friends from our Community Group to catch a movie at the dollar theater. Can you believe in all my life, I’ve never been to a dollar theater until last night? What a glorious thing this is. I’m all about saving some moolah and boy did we. Friday nights the movies cost $2 a person but compared to usually paying $9.25 a person I’m thinking I’m getting a great deal. Chad and I walked to our friends house to head to the movie theater and it was the PERFECT evening to have a nice walk down the streets of Old Louisville. I’ll leave you with a couple of pictures from our walk. Sorry this isn’t too long of a post. This is my weekend to work so I’m pretty pooped from working a Saturday shift and then doing P90X right when I got home. (P.S. Shoulders and Arms on P90X kill. I love feeling the burn.) Hope everyone has a restful and worshipful Sunday tomorrow. Peace be with you.

Loving the fall weather.

The hubs and I.

Gorgeous Fall Leaves.

Our Children

Our church, Sojourn, hosted their first ever adoption class last night and Chad and I were front row. This is so exciting that our church is now offering classes to educate people on adoption. All the things from why we’re called to adopt as Christ followers to how much it might cost. Our dear friends, Simon and Mandy, headed up the class and taught us so much valuable information about adoption and the process we might go through in the future. They themselves have adopted a little boy from Ethiopia and are in the process of adopting a girl from Ethiopia. They also have 2 biological children and boy are every one of their children just the sweetest. I have been immensely blessed to have such beautiful friends as these two people are to Chad and I. They have both been there through the ups and downs of my constant changing family situation and I couldn’t have asked for better people to shepherd us through this crazy and difficult time. I am forever thankful.

But let me not get too ahead of myself… (I find that I do that quite often as I’m trying to type the sporadic, ever changing, ADD thoughts in my head) Before I even met Chad (way before) I knew I wanted was called to adopt. I knew the Lord placed this desire on my heart without one single doubt in every ounce of my being. I love children. I’ve loved children since the day I was born. I’ve always said that I was put on this earth to be a wife and a mother. I love being a wifey and I know I’ll love being a mommy just as much. So when Chad and I met and started seriously dating, we talked about the thought of children. Chad knew that he had an urgency to explore it further and I, as already stated, knew I wanted to adopt. I didn’t want to adopt to seem like a saint or a “good” person. I want to adopt because I know that there are children out there that are ours. And that thought, standing alone, makes me beam from the inside out. The anxiousness and urgency I feel towards meeting them one day is overwhelming. But not only did I feel the pull of my children being out there, needing me, wanting me, but we, as Christians, are called to adopt. If not in a literal “this is my child, she/he is in our family, we are raising this child as ours and Christ’s”, then in a supportive fashion. Morally, we are called to support anyone who opens their arms to adoption. We had a workbook that we went along with last evening and here is a quote that was placed in the workbook from Russ Moore’s new book, “Adopted for Life”.

Adoption is, on the one hand, gospel. In this, adoption tells us who we are as children of the Father. Adoption as gospel tells us about our identity, our inheritance, and our mission as sons of God… Jesus reconciles us to God and to each other.

As we love our God, we love our neighbor; as we love our neighbor we love our God. We believe Jesus in heavenly things – our adoption in Christ; we we follow him in earthly things – the adoption of children. Without the theological aspect, the emphasis on adoption too easily is seen as mere charity. Without the missional aspect, the doctrine of adoption is too easily seen as a mere metaphor.”

-Russ Moore, “Adopted for Life”

How humbling… we are adopted into God’s family. We, as Christ followers, can all say that and we SHOULD say that and believe it. I’m just very excited of the possibility of Chad and I adopting one day. No, we do not know when we are going to adopt. But we do know it is something that the Lord has laid upon both of our hearts. So that’s the gist of that.

Moving on to today… not too exciting in my little world of nursing but I did help the nurses on our floor to get credentialed in different skills we have to possess on our floor such as blood transfusions, phlebotomy, fetal heart rate strips, blood sugar checks and crash carts. I am pleased to report that I made 100% score on our written fetal monitoring test. Yay for me. Even though we were there for work, we had to have a little fun too. There were about 10 bicycles in part of our room for a spinning class so Tiffany and I got a little exercise in on some downtime. I quickly e-mailed this to my manager to assure her that we were working extremely hard. Of course she e-mailed me back promptly telling me what a mess we both were. Tiffany and I are always up for a great time, no matter what we’re doing.

Here’s us burning off those calories.

At least I got a fiber one bar in for breakfast… I tried to resist the cookies they had sitting out.

Here’s me with my little model patient demonstrating central line placement.

The past few days I’ve been lucky because I’ve been able to bike to and from work. It had been so rainy and cold there for a little while that I was having to drive to work. I’m so glad to be back on my bike riding. I love this fall air and I absolutely adore the physical changes of the season. Here’s a couple of quick shots from my bike ride back home from work. I love biking through these streets… they help me appreciate all that God has given us… even down to the smell in the air and the leaves on the trees and ground.

Gorgeous.

Third St. is breathtaking.

Oh and of course I had to get a picture of my little boogers in here.  They hopped up on Chad today while he was studying.  Spoiled, sleepy babes.

Tomorrow is Friday and I’m pretty ecstatic about it… hope everyone has a fantastic day!!!!

Non-Stop

Well thank goodness I had a three day weekend to rest because the second I woke up this morning, my life was non-stop. It was back to work and my day was filled with c-sections. Not only did I circulate a “normal, routine, run of the mill” c-section, I received the privilage of having a 4 1/2 hour extensive maternity case in one of the main OR’s of our hospital. What a doozie. I’m not used to standing for quite that long during a c-section, maybe 1-1 1/2 hours tops on regular occasion. So I was pooped. It was quite strange not being in my own little Labor and Delivery envirornment where I know where things are like the back of my hand. You quickly learn to put trust in strangers and not be afraid to ask questions or for help. It was quite an experience but I am glad to say I experienced a case like I did today.

Here’s me after I finished up in the operating room almost 5 hours later.

I quickly had to get myself in check to receive a normal laboring patient. All in all, the day ran hectic but smooth. Glad it’s over though!

Oh here’s a chex bar I recieved at our benefits fair today. I decided this was healthier than not eating a mid-afternoon snack at all since I walked out of the house forgetting my banana and apple.

So after a long day, I rushed home to meet the hubs to eat dinner and get a P90X workout in.

Chad had this delicious dinner waiting on me when I got home. It’s really great that he’s putting in such an effort with us eating healthier. Organic mixed baby spinach, grilled chicken, sprinkled with cheese and fat free raspberry vinaigrette dressing. Fresh cut apples and spoonful of peanut butter for our side. Yum yum.

Oh, and I didn’t get to de-compress too much because I was a good wife and helped Chad study for a test. So if you think about it, please be praying for him as he takes his exam. I know he’ll do great but I understand how much anxiety people can feel over test taking. I was definitely one of those horrible test takers. Just ask my mom.

Here’s just one page of notes (of scripture verses) he has to have memorized word for word.

After several minutes of quizzing Chad between bites of food, we finally started our workout. It was chest and back today. I know we started P90C last week but Chad wanted that to be our warm up week just to get a feel for what we’d be going up against. So once again, I feel like we sort of pushed it back a week but we did Day 1 today and went full force. We did all the workout without stopping or compromising. We pushed ourselves and I feel good about it. Can’t wait for Plyometrics tomorrow!! Burn baby burn. Ha, ok, that was cheesy but you know what I mean.

I’m off to dream sweet dreams and let my body recover from the past 15 hours. See y’all later!

Fall Festival and Huber’s

What a full Saturday it has been. Upon my body waking up at 8 am, boo!!, Chad and I lounged around during the morning hours chatting, eating breakfast and watching a little TV. I do thoroughly enjoy mornings where I can wake up gradually versus being up and at ‘em immediately. Our church, Sojourn, had its fall festival today. Every year we plan this for our surronding community. We have an affordable art show, crafts for sale, free food, kids games, petting zoo, strong man contests, music and a cake walk. Our community group was in charge of orchestrating the cake walk from 12-2 pm. I sure did want one of those cakes. They looked so yummy. And boy was it chilly. I have yet to switch out my summer clothes for my winter clothes so I was a tad chilly. Thank goodness for North Face jackets and pashmina scarfs. I’m ready to break out my super warm winter clothes though! Maybe next weekend we’ll have time to make the switcharoo at our storage unit.

Here’s me at our fall festival!

Chad and I Sojourn.

Part of our Community Group serving at the fall festival.

Rocking the cake walk.

Following our time at Sojourn, we headed off to meet Kellie, Chris, Stacey and Brian at Huber’s in Indiana for a late lunch/early dinner. Huber’s is several things rolled into one. They have a winery, which is what they’re most known for, pumpkin patch, apple picking, restaurants and farmer’s market. We ate a delicious meal consisting of many comfort foods and entertained ourselves with pumpkins, apples and fudge. There is nothing like spending a fall day with your best friends. We keep ourselves warm by constant laughter and hugs. God had truly blessed me with two very best friends of which I know they’d be there by my side in one second if I needed them. Kellie’s family even invited Chad and I over for Thanksgiving dinner since we aren’t able to travel to any of our families due to my work schedule. That means so much to me knowing people are willing to have non-family over for a holiday.  We ended up walking away with chocolate fudge and pumpkin spice doughnuts.  I’m pretty sure those items aren’t on our nutrition plan for P90X but oh well.  I’ll leave you with a few pictures from the day.  Hope everyone is having a great weekend so far and staying warm!  I’m off to a work staff meeting that hopefully won’t last too long… until next time… Peace be with you.

My besties, Kellie, me and Stacey

Stacey and I in the farmer’s market.

Chad and I at Huber’s

Kellie showing off the pumpkin doughnuts.

I absolutely love this.  Little girls at heart.

Happy Friday!

What a fantastic day this Friday was. Nothing special happened… it was just a relaxing day off from work. Chad and I have traveled every weekend for a while so it was the first weekend home in several weeks where we were not committed to traveling some place. I had a quick 2 hour meeting this morning at work with our Unit Based Leadership Council. Those are always fun times as we’re hashing out ideas to make our Labor and Delivery and Antepartum units a better place to work. Our hospital is in the process of achieving Magnet status. You might ask what this particular title means to be attached to a hospital. It means we are staff driven and we are excellent nurses. This process can take an extremely long time. It’s a long and tedious road as we figure out how to work better as a staff and prove to the Magnet committee that we are qualified to possess this privilege. There are 5,764 hospitals in the United States. Guess how many are Magnet hospitals? Only a mere 350. It’s a small number in comparison to the number of hospitals in the United States and I’m very proud to be working at a hospital that is working toward this goal. And I love being a part of a committee on our Labor and Delivery unit that is working to make things better, not only for our patients but for our unit staff as well. Morale is such an important part of being part of a staff. If we are all united and supportive of each other, we only make our care better for our patients. So anyway… that was the gist of my quick meeting. But other than being at work for 2 hours this morning,

Chad went to Borders books to study while I attended my meeting and picked me up a copy of the latest People magazine because….. my best friend and her husband are in it! It’s the county music edition and David and Catherine Nail are on page 18 with their wedding being featured. I was her matron of honor for their wedding on June 6th and was so glad it was featured. It was a classic country wedding and Cat did all the planning. It was intimate and gorgeous and I’m so honored that I was chosen to stand beside her as her matron of honor. She is like my sister and I am so thankful God gifted me with a best friend like her. There is never a dull moment when we’re around each other, hence my road trip to spend all weekend with her 2 weeks ago. So sweet. I’m so excited for them. Here’s a little snapshot of the article. Last week David’s song “Red Light” hit #13 on the country music charts. It just keeps climbing so that’s great!!!

Chad and I ran some errands and ended up back at home around 11:30 am. I climbed into bed to catch up on my much overloaded Tivo shows and found myself waking up at 4 pm. I had fallen asleep! I must have needed a nap due to not having taken a nap in months. It was quite refreshing but at the same time I tried to fight the guilt I had for letting myself sleep. I know there are things I could’ve gotten accomplished around the house but Chad quickly reminded me that I NEVER have time to myself to even have the luxury of taking a nap anymore so I shouldn’t feel guilty about it. If I fell asleep, my body must have needed it. So I quickly brushed away the guilty voice in my head and hopped up to run to Sam’s Club to get some grocery shopping done. I’m proud to say that Chad and I are being very self-conscious with what we are purchasing. We are determined to eat more healthy foods, and quit the junk foods. I do have to admit we picked up a gallon of Blue Bell Cookies ‘n Cream ice cream but seriously, we can’t deprive ourselves of everything. That will just lead us to binge more. I don’t think a little one scoop of ice cream in a ramekin will really hurt anything. A whole bowl every night, on the other hand, definitely would hurt but that’s not our case. So we’re doing the best we can with just getting started on eating better to go along with our P90X workout.

Here’s our shopping cart full of our goodies.

Upon our arrival home, we unpacked our groceries and sat down to snuggle up on the couch in this cool weather. I love when it gets cooler outside. It means all sorts of things. It mean our kitties snuggle up to us in bed, Chad and I snuggle closer to keep ourselves warmer, I get to break out the heavier comforters and blankets, the UGG boots make their debut for the season, the North Face jacket comes out, I get to break out the gloves, pashmina scarfs and toboggans, the crisp breeze makes me feel like I’m in New York City walking down the sidewalk to the nearest subway entrance, and it means we eat more comfort food like soups and roast. I. Love. It! I’ll leave you with a few pictures… some are random and some aren’t. So enjoy!

Me sporting my pink UGG boots for the first time this season! YES!!!

My Nattie boy cuddling on my pink breast cancer blanket that my dad made me last year for Christmas. He loves snuggling on this blanket. It’s so soft and fluffy.

My Ollie boy chilling out on his back half-way in and half-way out under our living room glass table. Such a ham.

P90X

Well, tonight completed the second day of P90X for Chad and I. Let me tell you, this stuff is tough but so awesome! I think this is going to be just the thing we need to get our rears in shape. My goal is to be in the best shape of my life before I have children so I think this program is going to help me get there. The only thing that I’m trying to figure out is fitting the workout into my daily schedule in a better way. Right now my day goes as follows, wake up at 5:30 am, get ready for work, work from 7am-7pm, get home by 7:30 pm, workout with P90X for an hour or longer, eat dinner after 8:30 pm, shower after 9 pm and then asleep by 10 pm to get up the next morning and repeat. I feel so rushed when I get home from work. Chad and I threw around the idea of getting up at 4 am and starting the day off with our P90X workout on the days that I work. Obviously, on the days that I have off we’d have a little more leniency with our evenings. So if I want to get a run in during the evenings then I’ll be able to. Or if we want to do dinner with friends or whatever. So we’ll see. We’re totally open for suggestions. But so far it’s going well and I’m excited about it! Can’t wait to see the ‘after’ results compared to the ‘before’ results. Two days down, 88 to go!

Chad waiting for his instruction on the next exercise.

Me doing a serious set of squats.

My sweaty self after my hour of Plyometrics.

Our healthy dinner… egg whites, whole wheat toast and a spoonful of peanut butter for some protein. Yum.

Catching Up

Chad and I are on the road back to Louisville after a nice weekend in Memphis. Friday afternoon was spent eating lunch at Chili’s and running some errands around town. Have I ever mentioned how much I love driving around Memphis? Memphis is my hometown and when I come back to visit it feels like I never left. I know the streets, shops and area like the back of my hand. The only thing that is different is trying to get out of the habit of turning down the street I grew up on. It’s a habit that I don’t know will ever be broken but that’s okay. We’re all healing and moving and looking forward in our lives. Anyway, enough about that. Friday afternoon/evening, we settled into our pj’s to watch Tivo shows and waited for the pot roast to cook as our mouths watered from the overwhelmingly delicious smell enveloping the house. My mother cooks the best pot roast there is. As hard as I try, my pot roast never tastes quite as divine. Chad and I look forward to our fall and winter visits because we know we’ll have pot roast on the menu. We absolutely love it. My brother, Joseph Michael, also joined us for dinner and games. It was a great night all around.

Here’s the delectable roast.

Mom has her quiver full of kitties.

Birthday cake made by the amazing Pat Moore. She has made cakes for us for almost 20 years. Nothing compares to this goodness of flour and sugar. We were celebrating all of our birthdays since this is only the second time we’ve been in town this whole year.

Mom cleaning up after dinner. She looks so cute and comfy in her “I Love Lucy” pajamas that I bought her for Christmas one year.

Joseph Michael and Chad discussing computer things. They sure look interested in whatever they’re discussing.

Joseph Michael and I about to set up for a game of Aggravation.

My brother.

The board before the game started.

Mom and JM.

Lauren and Chad Take One.

Lauren and Chad Take Two.

Look who won!!!

Alright I’ll give you a hint on who dominated.

After I slaughtered my competition, we retired to bed. The next day I had lunch at Panera with my Memphis girlfriends. I am so blessed to have friends that are willing to make time for me everytime I’m in town.

This is Huddy, Allison’s baby that is 10 weeks old. He was born at 32 weeks and is doing so well. This is our first baby to be born out of our group and we just adore him. He’s going to grow up knowing that he has lots of aunts.

Aunt Lauren with Huddy.

My mom even got to love on him for a minute to get her baby fix in.

We ran a few errands following lunch and then headed home to watch the rest of the Alabama vs. Ole Miss game. Roll Tide Roll is all I have to say about that. Dinner last night was steak, baked potatoes and rolls and boy was it good. Chad makes a mean steak.

After dinner we watched the rest of the LSU vs. Florida game and retired to bed. Chad led worship at Living Hope Church this morning and then we grabbed a quick lunch at my favorite Mexican restaurant in town, El Porton. We went home, packed up and said our goodbyes to mom and hit the road which brings us to the present time.

I took a quick picture before we left of the towels my mom had monogrammed for mine and Chad’s bathroom at her house. She’s just too sweet.

Chad and I on the road. We’re so tired that we’re delirious with trying to entertain ourselves. We’re ready to be settled for a few weeks and not travel.

Three more hours to go and we’re home! Hope everyone has a restful Sunday!