Poll

Ok, I’d like to take a poll as I was looking people up on Facebook today. Does anyone else find pictures of their ex-boyfriend (or girlfriend as the case may be) to be just completely and utterly repulsive now?

Blech!

Swiffer

SSFB: “…as you walk across the freshly swiffered floor. I even dusted the tops of the door frames.”

Hubbin: “Aww you love me.”

SSFB: “I just want to get laid.”

Hubbin: “I’ll settle for that.”

I’m a real RN!

I finally broke down this morning before work and paid the $8 to find out my results. All my other friends had their results posted on the verification site the next day but I must have checked 30 times at work the next day (yesterday) and NOTHING! So when I got up at 10 this morning and saw I was still just a graduate nurse I was not happy at all. So I broke down and paid the $8 to find out I passed! What a racket! Anyway I couldn’t do that another day plus I had no way of knowing they’d be up this afternoon, oh well. So I’m done! Horray!

NCLEX

I took it this morning. I either really passed or really failed because the computer turned off at 75 questions. (there is no grade only a pass or fail, so it doesn’t matter, but you catch my drift)

We joked in the hallway before the let us in that they should provide barfbags in addition to earplugs because more than one of us commented we may vomit. (myself included)

I was photographed, finger printed (4 times to be exact) and stripped of all belongings. (I was glad they stopped short of a full body cavity search)

I checked my pulse twice during the test and on both occassions it was hovering around 110. I tried to control my breathing and read s-l-o-w-l-y and read each question twice and each answer once. I’m pretty sure my heart actually quit beating while I was trying to answer #75.

It took me less than an hour to do the whole thing, I hope it’s for the last time! And I don’t have to quit my job from embarassment. Or be demoted (not just cause I got rid of my aide colored uniforms already). Or confess to snidey coworkers I failed.

*crosses fingers*

My grandma broke her hip. My dad took her to the ER last night. Could have been as long as two weeks ago. She has moderate-advanced alzheimers disease so we don’t know exactly. She lives at home with my half-blind grandfather still but weighs about 80lbs soaking wet so who knows where this will go. She’s supposed to be in surgery now (scheduled to be anyway) I’m heading to the hospital with my dad and g-pa in about an hour.

Severe Brain Death

I’m currently experiencing severe brain death. I can feel my brain cells slowly dying off one by one due to the repetative and boring nature of preparing for this damn NCLEX. The past, 6?, days off I’ve had I’ve spent literally hours either studying something I feel might be important (peak insulin times, childhood vaccine schedules, DKA, normal ranges of common lab values, arterial blood gases) and taking practice tests.

The books tell me I should prepare for the NCLEX as though I’m taking the NCLEX. In other words, sit in a quiet room at the computer with no beverage or food and answer 265 questions in a row without looking up the answers.

I maintain that is no way to learn, I still feel like part of doing practice questions is looking up the answers and see why you missed it or why you got it right, and if I’ve gone on to answer 150 questions after, I can assure you I will have totally lost my train of thought about why I picked that answer incorrectly. So I’ve been taking short little 20-odd practice questions at a time instead.

But now my brain is dying.

And I know I can’t have anything to eat or drink during the NCLEX, but I’m fairly confident during the actual examine my adrenaline will be enough to keep me focused, where as right now, I require sips of diet coke or McDs iced coffee. mmmmmm, sugar free vanilla…

I came downstairs to bake some enchiladas I’ve had sitting in the fridge for three days before they totally spoil and I’m to the point where I’m taking off the foil while stareing intently at a kitchen tile without blinking.

*mind blank*

*stares*

And Right to Sleepless Nights

So one of the rules we set when Stu moved in was that he couldn’t take a computer into his bedroom as Hubbin and I both have laptops. My computer has Vista and Hubbin’s has whatever was before that, so we set him up accounts on both computers. Vista has pretty extensive options for parental controls but hubbin didn’t get quite so many options. Hubbin has an big tv that he hooks his computer up to on the computer desk in the living room, and mine stays in my office.

So the other night when I was about to hop in the shower hubbin bursts into the bathroom and dissolves into a fit of giggles. He then proceeds to tell me that he noticed his computer wasn’t there so he went up to Stu’s room and knocked on the door and asked him if he had the computer. He said “yes sorry” hubbin took it downstairs and immediately went through the web history.

That’s why he was near tears with giggles. Stu had been looking at porn and hubbin thought it was hysterical. He said he wasn’t sure what was the funniest part: that Stu was bold enough to do it, that Stu was dumb enough to NOT clear his web history, or that the third porn site he went to was Japanese cartoon porn.

Hubbin said “I’m not mad at him or anything, because I think it’s normal behavior but I am incredibly tempted to make the cartoon site his new homepage when he starts the Internet the next time” LOL

I encouraged him to not do that because if he doesn’t know we looked then who knows what gems will show up next time.

Skipping the Potty Training

I know I have a TON of studying to do, but I am falling a bit far behind with posting, so maybe one quick post and I’ll get back to my practice tests (the NCLEX is a week from right this minute! And I have 3.5 days left to study!)

So we skipped a whole lot of parenting stages with Stu, but stumbled right into the next big one. I was in the kitchen casually chatting with Hubbin about Stu and I made some comment about him looking for American girls and Hubbin said “Hmm, I don’t know if he’s ever had a girlfriend?” and I spit out “Well he brought CONDOMS with him from Germ” Hubbin nearly exploded “WHAT?! How do you know that?” “Because he left his toiletry bag in the bathroom and they were right on top”

When Stu arrived we were in the middle of repainting the bathroom and making a few other adjustments, so I came in one morning to find that Hubbin (as usual) had finished painting for the evening and not cleaned the bathroom back up. Stu has one of those travel bathroom bags with a hook for hanging on the back of the door and it was laying on the floor of the tub. So I picked it up and hung it back up, and what did I see….

Aside from that, I am a snoop and (he’s living in my house ) I’m not ashamed.

Hubbin of course thought this was all absolutely hysterical and immediately decided he was going to go up to Stu before the next time he went out in the evening and pretend like he was going to give him “The Sex Talk”… LOL. (Do keep in mind we had known this kid for maybe two weeks at this point) AWKWARD… I was giggling quite a bit, poor kid. First he clogs up the toilet, now his host dad is going to sit him down for a sex talk. LOL

Anyway, so Hubbin did. The next time Stu made plans to go out for the evening Hubbin went up to him and said he felt like he needed to explain a few things about men and women to him, and then goes “I’m just kidding, I saw you brought condoms with you” and you know what Stu said? He said “Well you have to be safe”….

Aside from “Not in my house!” What do you really say to that? It’s true? With all those STDs and unplanned pregnancies I see at work? Hubbin said he actually felt a little better about the situation knowing Stu actually knows how to properly use a condom rather than just winging it.

This is just one more example of how it’s kind of strange having someone else’s kid living with you. Because I do realize Europe is generally much more liberal about things like that than I know I am, and I know hubbin in many respects is very European. So while you can make restrictions, it’s still not your kid, you didn’t raise him, and he doesn’t share your value system necessarily. In a follow up conversation a week or so later Hubbin was asking Stu about his parents and what they were like and Stu told Hubbin his dad was just like Hubbin, that his dad told him if he brought a PS3 back from the US with no condoms gone unused he would buy the PS3 for him. A joke really, but still, gives you more of a picture that his parents know what’s going on with that stuff. -and he only brought like 3 or 4 anyway, so don’t get too up in arms-

Married and Boring

What the boring married (with fauxchildren) are doing on Saturday night

Saved

Saved by the Hubbin! Hubbin just returned from Starbucks with a gift of iced coffee, bless his little soul!

I’m taking practice tests on my computer right now with my Mosby’s NCLEX CD. I can feel my brain slowly shriveling up and dying. I don’t know if it’s because I was up too late last night (1:30am), had a glass of wine after work (we were swamped and I barely sat down all day at work so I deserved it), or if its because I overslept (is that even possible?) til 11:30am. Anyway…

I’m not doing so well on the practice tests this morning, there’s part of me that feels like these practice tests are almost counter productive because they make me stressed like “holy shit I just got 50% on that section, I’m going to fail the NCLEX for SURE” or “The lady said to regularly get over a 75% before taking it and I’ve only been regularly scoring 74%, should I cancel the test?”

It’s a weird combination of being terrified of failing and at the same time not really honestly believing I would….

More questions.

Internets…

I miss thee…

Approximately the same time as student’s arrival (We’ll call him Stu from now on shall we?) Hubbin decided he was fed up with Comcast raising our bill every month so he decided we’d get dish network.

So now we have dish network.

I haven’t noticed a difference yet really, but that could be because our remotes are all up in the air now and I haven’t taken the time to master what settings every appliance needs to be on yet… Or maybe because I’m diligently studying for the NCLEX? I’ll leave that up to you.

I am studying (taking a break right now, I swear) which is a good thing because D-day is fast approaching. The 16th to be exact.

Anyway back to the original story. So we switched to dish network and Hubbin signed us up to get Verizon DSL for Internet instead but because we don’t have a home phone line hooked up it apparently becomes quite a production. SO Hubbin was going to keep the comcast internet while we were waiting for all this verizon nonsense to unfold. So he called comcast to discontinue our TV stuff but the lady cancelled the whole shebang. So here we are now without Internet since I last wrote! Thank god for my iPhone or I would have been all “Hurricaine? What hurricaine?” because god forbid we watch the evening news in this house….

I have many exciting ER stories to share from the other day I’m just waiting till I can type with a full sized keyboard again!

The big news around here is 16yr old Stu? Yeah he’s staying with us now. (as I predicted before he even moved in) he’s not too much trouble so other than I don’t really want a teenager I didn’t have complaints. He does the dishes too, which helps his case.

So I’m a soccer mom now, or so we’ve been joking, which is awesome! I always liked soccer (never played) without any real reason, but now I have one. Soccer keeps my kid at school until 530-600pm nightly and I can only assume there will be weekend games?! Perhaps even out of town travel overnight?! I love soccer!

My only other commentary about being a parent to a teenager all of a sudden is “holy shit does he eat a lot!” hubbin and I used to go to McDs and each get a cheeseburger split a fry and drink for maybe $6? Now it costs like $16 to go to McDs because he gets a double cheeseburger and fillet of Fish, large fry and large drink. He regularly eats more than both of us together at a sitting. And some parents have mocked me for being surprised at how much he eats, so I remind them that they’ve had their own teenager it’s whole life to get used to the increasing intake and adapt whereas ours just showed up at our doorstep able to eat two full helpings of dinner and large sides.

I suppose I need to get back to studying now. I can’t update my “NCLEX Accountability” on the side bar from my iPhone app either!

9/3: 74/100 = 74%
9/3: 35/47 (peds) =74%

So that will have to do! Hope our Internet gets setup soon!