Not sure? I’ll give you a hint:

It’s the same girl who broke (demolished is a better word) wine glass in her bed (and on her new duvet cover) tonight while she was watching TV on her computer.

Skillz. I has them.

Once, as I was walking by the Game Room, I heard a commercial playing a song I recognized. The song got stuck in my head, but I couldn’t place it. I wrote “we are young” on my left forearm so that I’d remember to youtube it when I got home.

I’m (almost, but) not (quite) ashamed that I recognize the song from an episode of Glee.

So, I’m not sure how I feel about the whole song, but man. That chorus. It’s like an anthem, right? It makes me want to jump off of a tall cliff into deep, blue water. It makes me want to run through tall fields of wheat in a magical world where the light is warm and yellow and you can run forever and never feel tired. It makes me want to do 1,000 cliched things that cinematically signify that I’m living life. Including kissing in the rain–this song totally makes me want to kiss my man in the rain as the camera pans smooth circles around us. And have a food fight! This song makes me want to make out in the rain just after* a food fight.

What do you do when you want to burn brighter than the sun?

(*That would be good timing, cause, you know, those fights can get messy.)

What I didn’t realize, though, is that it hasn’t even been six months. Some of the nurses that were there tonight aren’t even off orientation yet. Six months isn’t a very long time. But in six months, we have all developed our practice to the point that we would be able to discuss our jobs with our co-workers in a way that our classmates (in different areas of the hospitals) wouldn’t understand exactly what we were talking about.

So much has changed in six months.

Today I had to insert a feeding tube into a patient. Inserting a feeding tube isn’t an overly complicated task. You just measure a tube, and then you put it in the patient’s nose (or mouth, sometimes). But there are different types of tubes, and some are more complicated to insert than others. Today, I had a patient who had the most complicated type of tube, so of course, the patient pulled the tube out about halfway through my shift.  I’d been in that kind of a situation before — a situation where a patient pulled out some tube that they weren’t supposed to pull out. The first time that happens, it warrants a freak-out. I called in other nurses and flipped a lid, and they all helped me through the process of fixing the situation, making sure they docs were aware, and then documenting all of the happenings accordingly.

Today, I didn’t freak out. I walked into the room, realized the patient had pulled the tube, and then I just… fixed it. I stopped the tube feeds, I got a new tube, and I put it in. I got an x-ray to make sure it was in the right place, just like I was supposed to do. Then, once the tube was cleared, I started the tube feeds again. And I did all of that because I knew what I was supposed to do. And not only did I know that all of that was supposed to happen, I knew that I was the one who was responsible for making it all happen. The situation didn’t call for me to get one of my former preceptors to walk me through what I should do step-by-step like I would have 4 months ago. The situation just required the nurse (that’s me) to use her brain and do her job.

I know that sounds kind of simple. I know it’s like, “Yeah, good for you because you did your job.” Or maybe you’re reading this and you’re a nurse, and you’re thinking, “Are you seriously making a big deal about dropping a Dobhoff?” And if you’re thinking that, I totally understand where you’re coming from. But bear with me, because the fact that I put in a Dobhoff without any other nurses in the room today isn’t really the point. (It is the first time I’ve done that, but, again, not really the point.) The point is that there is a change happening within me — a change that is taking me from a terrified brand-new nurse who doesn’t feel empowered to do ANYTHING without supervision, to being the kind of nurse who can see a problem, know what the solution is, and then make that solution happen. (And moreover, who is willing to make that solution happen without first consulting a whole gaggle of nurses and doctors to validate her thinking.)

Basically, what I’m saying is this: Today I felt like I knew how to do my job, and that, my friends, is a very good feeling.

Zack and I polished off our Impromptu Thursday Night Date Night (Chicken tacos, homemade margaritas and Drive [Ryan Gosling, w00t]) by doing a little FaceTime chatting with my family. Said FaceTiming was possible because my mom won a free iPad2* today from a bank** for refinancing her car***. So, feel free to just go ahead and call her by her new nickname, Lucky Liz.

*How many “iPad Giveaways” have you seen advertised since the iPad came out? About 3,500,000? Is that a good estimate? And how many of those have been legitimate? NONE? That’s my count, too. So how my mom tracked down (AND WON!) the only REAL iPad2 Giveaway on the planet is totally beyond me.
**Who wins things from a bank?! Banks don’t give away stuff! Ever!
***Who has good and fun things surprise them in life as a result of refinancing something?! Lucky Liz, that’s who. Lucky Liz.

For years, I’ve been waiting to buy the things I want to buy and decorate the way I want to decorate, because I knew that we’d eventually buy a house. And it’s so much easier to have a house before you decorate, you know? Decorating before you buy a house is like buying an outfit to match your shoes. (Don’t get me wrong — sometimes it works to go shoes first, especially if they are really great shoes, but it’s usually easier the other way around.)

As of today, we are have officially entered into a contract to buy a home. Because the act of home purchasing is far more complicated than any normal (non-real estate educated) human cares to understand, just know that being under contract doesn’t mean that we own the house yet. There are still approximately 4,039 more steps left before we have keys in our hands and a mortgage to pay. Nevertheless, I feel that now since we’re under contract, I can be cautiously optimistic about the outcome of this pending deal. Okay, fine. I’m just optimistic. I have no caution. You all know that.

And you know what not-really-all-that-cautious optimism means, right? It means that I’m mentally decorating the house. And by “mentally,” I mean that I’m decorating the house on my pinterest.

A butcher’s guide to dinosaur cuts.

This tree trunk print would be cool enough in and of itself, but the fact that it’s comprised of a billion little animals makes it umpteen times cooler.

World map, as dictated by airplane flight patterns. I love this for a thousand reasons, including (but not limited to) the simplicity; the fact that the boarders of each country aren’t really there, but are only implied; and the fact that it reminds me of Zack’s dad, who is a pilot. I like it enough that I don’t even begrudge it for reminding me of Geometry class.

Right? That’s totally a rule?

Anyway, tomorrow I’m'a get all domestical up in this joint. I must restore order to my life. Also, I must survey the current status of The Things We Own because it’s looking more and more like we are T-minus 1 month to moving, and that means this month I am going to show the bulk-trash pick-up guys a pile the likes of which they haven’t seen since the last natural disaster, ya heard!?

Watch out to-do list. I’m coming for you.

Sarah: … I’m not that great at science.
Dante: Not that great at science? Really? Aren’t you training to be an RN? Isn’t that all science?
Sarah: Yeah. I am really good at irony.
Dante: Naturally, apparently.
Sarah: No, I’m good with science, I guess. I just have to work harder with science than I do with language, etc. Which is why I got my first BA in Easy and I’m getting my BS in Way Harder.
Dante: Those sound like degrees from a pornography college.
Sarah: Damn, they totally do, but I didn’t mean it that way.
Dante: Yeah, I know, but the possibilities . . . Minoring in Don’t Stop! First Time Associates Degree!

Here is my reaction to making an offer on a house: SQUEEEEE! <Bouncing, some clapping.>
Here is Zack’s reaction: <Smile>, <reach for the iPad to immediately continue to do hours and hours of home loan research>.

You can expect many more home posts to be in your near future. For now, I will sleep, and desperately hope that this churning upset stomach that I have is a.) unrelated to telling someone that we wanted to give them all of our money and b.) gone before I have to go to work tomorrow. Working a 12-hour shift with a churning stomach would not be a fun time.