summer reading....

Please feel free to give me suggestions for my summer reading list.  If I don't work on a list now, I will be clueless when I actually have time to read something for fun.  I like all kinds of books but I particularly love fast paced brainless suspense books for summer.  I also love good historical fiction.  Can you tell I'm a student at the end of the semester?  Perhaps I should be focused on finishing the semester rather than what I'm going to do when it is finally OVER!!!!!

I can't believe I did it

I made my Weight Watchers goal on Monday night!  I have lost 14.8 pounds which is almost 10% of my total body weight.  I am officially within the normal weight category for my height using the BMI, although I'm at the very top of it.  People ask me regularly if I've lost weight or say I look great etc.  That is very satisfying.  I've noticed though they also ask what I did.  I usually shrug and say, "Sounds crazy but I ate less and exercised more.  Weight watchers helped too."  They often look disappointed when I say that, like they really wanted me to give them the magic secret vitamin.  Whatevah!  I am a weight watchers believer now.  I am so happy with my new size that it is just crazy!!!!

I also have a definitive understanding of my cholesterol issues.  I have a VERY strong family history of high cholesterol.  My mom was in the first group of people to go on cholesterol lowering meds because her cholesterol was over 300.  At the time, she was the Jane Fonda of Dallas, teaching exercise classes every day and weighing in at about 110 pounds.  So the deck is stacked against me.  Eighteen months ago, when I was heavier, my cholesterol was 229.  My cholesterol last Thursday, with a 10% body weight reduction, significant dietary changes and a steady exercise program I have dropped my cholesterol---- drum roll please---15 points!!!!!!  Pretty lame.  Guess I get to blame it on my genetics for real.  My midwife says I can wait another year to decide on taking meds because my triglycerides are good and my ratio is pretty good.  I know I'll have to take them eventually, I just want the eventually to be as far away as possible.  

I wish I had before pictures but I never got around to taking them!!!!!  Oh well!!  

Oh One more thing

Watched this movie last night...

Here's a trailer for it...

GREAT MOVIE!!!!!!  Captures all the ranting about birth I've done over the last 10 years in one well photographed 90 minute documentary.  How convenient.  If you watch it pay attention to the difference on the faces of the women who birth with no drugs vs the woman who sees her baby for the first time from the c-section table.  WOW!

Kinda got me fired up about L&D and all nervous again.  I can't imagine not giving L&D at least a chance as a nurse.  I know that I could make a difference at least for the families I work with.  

What song do you love that everyone else hates?

How embarrassing to even admit this but I have always loved the song "My Heart Will Go On" from the movie Titanic.  didn't even like the movie that much.  But I can't help it, I really like the song.  I know it is whiney and obnoxious.  Still like it.  What is your most embarrassing fav song?

Wrapping up the year in nursing school

Well, the light is definitely bright at the end of the tunnel but there is still soooooooo much to do before the year is over!  I finished clinicals last week.  That turned out well over all.  I was very discouraged by my med/surg clinical at the beginning of the semester because it was sooooooo boring and I thought my instructor was going to be really difficult.  But by the end of the semester I found myself figuring out things to do and actually be productive on my thursday nights and I came to really appreciate my instructor.  She had an air of aloofness about her but she was a good instructor.  She balanced throwing us to the wolves with micromanaging us really well.  On my last night the nurse I was following around wrote that I was "to be trusted" on my evaluation.  That's pretty high praise!

OB was difficult as you can see above.  My last day there I was in L&D and saw all the things go wrong with hospital maternity care that possibly could and still have everyone at the end say, "All that matters is a healthy baby!"  It is hard to describe what happened that day because when I write it down it sounds, well, typical.  And in some ways it was.  But when  typical leaves me crying and unable to sleep for 24 hours, something just ain't right.  I still think L&D is a likely place for me to end up after graduation but I'm more open to other options than I was before.  I know that I could make a difference for the families I care for, I'm just not sure how much "typical" my heart can take.  On a high note, when I was talking to my instructor about what happened she said I was by far the best student she's ever had.  I love affirmation!!!!!!

Still lots to get done, 2 projects to present next week, research assignments, an 8 essay take home final, and of course regular finals!  Then when all that's done I'm signed up for a 2 week intensive medical spanish class.  Oy Vey!  One day at a time.  Remember the elephant!

Oh the irony

How in the world is it possible that a person who is a bit of a birth junkie, who has delivered two babies of her own with out drugs, has read many many books on the subject, is seriously considering a career as a midwife, has looked forward to her OB clinical since before nursing school started, has test grades of 98, 96,90, & 95 in her OB lecture, how is it that this same person can get through an ENTIRE OB clinical and never get to see a vaginal delivery.  How How How?????!!!!!!!

So Teri and Sarah thank you for letting me be your doula because with out you two I would have never seen a delivery EVER!!!!!!

(I'm a little frustrated and disillusioned with L&D nursing and this is my quick attempt to get it out before carpool driving!)

I found a week!!!! A whole week!

So I thought that the last module (which is like four written assignments and a quiz) for my internet class on The Aging Adult was due next thursday.  BUT Its not!!!  Yippee!!!  It is due the next week!!!  So I have a moment to tell my blog friends my happy happy news.  You really have no idea how happy.  AND I got one of the assignments DONE before I realized my mistake so now I'm ahead (a little).  Before I start on either the research assignment due Thursday (definitely this thursday) or my OB care plan which is due Wednesday or to study for my OB test which is Tuesday.  You can begin to see why not having a major project due this week would be a HUGE relief.  (Happy dance happy dance!)  But all will be preceded by lunch because it is pointless to try to focus on an assignment when you are thinking about food!

Rumors of a recession are greatly exagerrated

AT least if the stimulus package I pumped into the economy last week has anything to say about it.  I've now lost about 13 pounds.  I am .6 pounds from my Weight Watchers goal weight.  I'm running like a fool, about 15 miles a week or more.  You've seen my measurements so I've changed my shape pretty dramatically.  All this adds up to the fact that my clothes were looking a little ridiculous.  I had a few things that were really tight before that look good now but almost nothing to wear to church.  So my mom and I went shopping.  I stimulated the economy to the best of my ability.  Man, was it fun to have to ask my mom to get me a size 4 because those darn size 6s were just too big!  I got two new pairs of jeans 

(on sale at Macy's whoo-hoo) Levi's size 6 petite and they don't need to be shortened!  Love it.  I got a couple outfits at White House Black Market for church.(I had a gift card there from Christmas that i was saving for just such an occassion).  It really was a lot of fun.

I still have this nagging fear that all the weight is just going to magically appear back on my thighs.  I think part of it is that I've got some new habits for eating so it doesn't seem like i am following the plan as much because it has gotten easier to do without thinking about it so much.  I also don't get a ravenously hungry anymore which makes me think I must have over eaten at the last meal.  However, the scale keeps showing lower numbers each week so I really think it m

ust just be in my head.  On Sunday I took the girls to IHOP for breakfast and ordered a spinach 

and mushroom omelet made with egg beaters without hollandaise sauce.  I only ate half of it and at one pancake from my stack of 3.  It really wasn't hard because honestly, as hokey as it sounds that old Weight Watchers saying is true for me.  Nothing tastes as good as being thin feels.  Some goopy hollandaise and a plate load of syrup and butter just wasn't even close to being worth it!