Remember this.

I’ve been having some awesome conversations with Bradley lately and I didn’t want to forget them.  He is seriously SO smart and chatty and clever.  A few conversations we’ve had in the past few days:

Convo 1.

B: “Mama, where did God come from?”

Me: “Wow, B, that’s a good question.  I’m not sure.  Where do you think he came from?”

B: “Well, God was first, right?  And sometimes the first person comes out of an egg.  But I think God came from his own belly.”

Seriously.

Convo 2.

In talking about how he’ll be losing his teeth soon since he’s 5 now:

Me: “So B, do you know who the tooth fairy is?”

B: “I sure do.”

Me: “Oh yea?  Who is she?”

B: “Well, when God is putting people together, like he put me together, she’s the one who puts the teeth in.  Like when God was putting me together I opened my eyes a little bit and I could see her putting in my teeth.”

I couldn’t BEAR to tell him the truth. lol  It was too cute.

I love talking to him.  Sometimes he can get a little chatty and I’m ready to pull my hair out, but most of the time I just lOVE listening to him. 

Scared.

Wow you guys, I am so scared right now. Have you ever worked for something SO hard and sacrificed not only part of you but your family as well only to find out that maybe that something isn’t what you really wanted after all?

I am having a really difficult time at work. I don’t want to go into all the details or anything, but things aren’t lining up the way I wanted/expected them to. So now I have to sit back and ask myself so many questions. Is this something that happens to all nurses once they start their new jobs? Is this actually what I want I just happen to be frustrated and new? What exactly is it that’s making me so stressed out and depressed?

This is so hard for me. I feel like I come home from work crying, I spend my time with my family crying, and I leave for work crying. That’s abnormal, you guys. A-B-N-O-R-M-A-L. I have had the past four days off of work and the only thing I continually think about is the fact that I have to return to work on Tuesday. *sigh*

I haven’t been able to fully enjoy my weekend off with my family. I’ve been crying constantly and worrying my husband. I feel like I’ve been putting off my sweet little boy and that makes me cry more. I have no idea what to do.

Have any of you ever changed careers so early on? Am I the only one who thinks that maybe the career path they chose and spent so much time (and other people’s money on…*cringe*) just isn’t what they thought it would be? Ack. I hope this passes.

Oh, and p.s. here was the daily quote I found in my email: “The truth of the matter is that you always know the right thing to do. The hard part is doing it.” -Gen. Norman Schwarzkoff

Totally unfair ’cause I swear I don’t know what to do. Jerk daily quote.

Comfort.

I don’t know why, because really it sounds rather lame, but having QVC on in the background makes me feel comfy. Sigh. I know, it’s sad. It really is, and I totally warned you, but I feel…home…when I can hear it in the background. Especially now when it’s fall/holiday season and they have the fall/Christmas shows. *hanging head in shame*

At least let me explain. When Dave and I got married we thought we needed EVERYTHING for our home. Not only did we think we needed everything, but we thought we needed to CHARGE everything. Oye. So our love affair with credit cards (2 of them) and QVC ($958390584 later) began.

Now, we did get some questionable things that I’m scratching my head about now (um, hello weird router thingy) but we also got my KitchenAid stand mixer which I LOVE and use endlessly, so we tend to justify our wrecklessness by that purchase alone.

But it was always fun to just lay in bed together and watch the darn addictive show (if you can call it that) and talk about the items we loved and wanted or the ones we thought were super heinous (like that sparkly sweatshirt…gah). So I guess maybe it’s more that having QVC on in the background while I play on the computer really reminds me of the slow, quiet nights I’d spend with my sweet husband as we snuggled up together, and not so much of the wreckless spending habits we still once had.

You don’t say.

I love kids. What’s more is that I love having conversations with kids. I especially love having conversations with Bradley. He is so wise and observant beyond his 4 3/4 years.

Dave, Bradley, and I were hanging out last night when I watched B sneak over to Dave and whisper something in his ear. Dave grinned and told B to come ask me. So B bounced over to me, smile on his face and the following conversation ensued:

B: Mama, when are you gonna get pregnant?
Me: (smiling) Why, baby, do you want a little brother or sister?
B: I want a brother.
Me: Ok sweetheart, I’ll see what I can do.

*sigh* I love that kid. He’s so great. And I want to give him a brother or sister. His dad and I both do. But I’m waiting. Waiting until I get in shape (some semblence of shape, anyway…not this round thing) and lose a bit of weight. I want my body to be ready to house another baby. To nourish and protect our next family member, so unfortunately, I have to wait. Well, more accurately, WE have to wait.

Sorry little guy…that little brother you want…he’s on backorder.

Reason #432 to stop eating fast food.

Ew.

Oh.My.Word.

My little sister cracks me up!  lol  Look at this e-card she sent me a little while ago:

LOL!  I love our twisted sense of humor.

Recycle your stroller!

That’s right!  I found an awesome company that will recycle or even donate your old stroller!  So if you’re not planning on having anymore kids or don’t know anyone else who can use a stroller (a la friends, family, freecycle) give Baby Planet a call!

It is SO nice to find a company who wants to keep perfectly good baby products from ending up in landfills just because people can’t use them anymore.  LOVE that!

Stephanie Jedlicka, RN?

So I took my nursing boards this morning.  Let’s just say that it was one of the most difficult tests I have EVER taken and that I didn’t think it was possible for one’s heart to actually beat out of one’s chest but that mine was this close to actually doing so and it scared the everliving poo out of me.

I got there about 15 minutes early and stewed in the parking lot for a bit.  Then I walked into the testing center with a friend of mine from nursing school and we got registered and fingerprinted (yea, the Board of Nursing takes the whole cheating thing VERY seriously) and began our tests.  Now, here’s how the NCLEX-RN works: you can either get 75 questions, 265 questions or any number in between.  Basically the BON wants to know with 95% certainty that you know what you’re talking about.  So if you get 75 questions and the test ends you either did really well or really poorly.  I got 75 questions.  GAH!  So I either failed that sucker with a vengeance, or I passed with the prettiest of flying colors.    Let’s hope it’s the latter.  I should be able to find out first thing tomorrow morning.  I’ll keep ya posted.

And wish me luck.  Tomorrow is my first day back to work in just over TWO YEARS!  I’m noivous!

Two posts in one day.

This is unheard of for me.  It really is.  I’m an excellent procrastinator.  It’s what I do, and to have two posts in one afternoon, much less one day, is tops!  So enjoy it while it lasts! heh.

But I’m SO proud of my itty bitty garden that I had to share some pictures with you.  I bought a raspberry bush and my sweet husband, who is all-knowing when it comes to plants, planted the sucker for me and we’ve been picking berries off each day to enjoy.  They are SO good and beautiful!

We’ve also got some green peppers coming in.  They’re kind of small right now, but I kid you not, they double in size everyday!

And we’ve got a tomato in a pot right now that we started from a seed.  Unfortunately the little sucker got attacked by something about a week ago, so Davey hung it up on our fence and covered it with screening to protect it.  Poor little ‘mato.

And you gotta love the compost, right?  No way else for the bounty to be plentiful!

And unfortunately these beauties didn’t come from our garden, but our local farmer’s market had an abundance and we couldn’t pass up the snackability of these babies.

BB wanted some flowers, too so he picked a sweet little handful of micro hydrangeas and carried them around with him pretty much the whole morning until he found the perfect vase for them.  He filled it with water and “flower food” and set those beautiful puppies in it.  Upon which he promptly informed us that these were HIS flowers to take care of and he could make any decision regarding them that he wanted.  So there.

And lastly (my word, I’m rambling!) the stand next to the flowers had these awesome honey/jelly combinations and we snagged two: honey & strawberry and honey & spicy tomato.  I kid you not, as loathsome as the last combination sounds, it is to DIE for!  So so good.  Not too spicy, but enough of a kick to make you take notice.  We bought some bread to put it on and I can’t wait to devour it!  Even B loved it!  No kidding!

So enjoy the abundance of pics, my dears. 
Cheers!

FUNday!

I’m not a HUGE fan of Sunday. (And yes, I realize today is Wednesday.) In fact, if I had a choice I’d change Sunday to Saturday and have TWO Saturdays per week. Don’t ask. It makes complete sense to me.

Anyway, on Sunday I decided I wanted to bake something. I felt so domestic and just wanted to put on an apron (which I actually ended up NOT doing…hmm. I don’t know why) and bake and clean and eat. So I flipped through my awesome new book to get some ideas.

This book is A-M-A-Z-I-N-G! It’s backwards! Instead of looking up a specific recipe, you look up whatever ingredients you have on hand and it will list recipes that include that ingredient. Awesome. At Whole Foods the other day, B and I picked up two packs of organic strawberries and I wanted to use them for something so I decided to try the strawberry bread. It sounded amazing and even more it sounded amazingly easy!

So I gathered my ingredients and we began. It is VERY important that when smashing the strawberries for this recipe that you only wear underwear. Otherwise, the bread doesn’t taste as good.

Mmmmmm. Heh.

So after we smashed the strawberries and combined all the ingredients until just mixed (that’s how easy this recipe is, guys) we got two loaves of fabulously moist and delicious strawberry bread.

OMG it is SO flipping good. The top is nice and crunchy and the bread is delicious and moist. And if you wait like 10 minutes for it to cool it’s perfection with a nice slab of butter smothered on top. Sweet mary.

So buy the book and PROMISE me you’ll make this stuff! It made a typical cruddy Sunday wonderful.