Heading to the big leagues with a career change. Again.

The end of the semester always has those couple weeks of panic as you question whether you've learned anything that semester, or at least enough to pass the final. You always feel kind of stressed out and the need to study, study, study. Well my miscarriage happened about a week and a half before finals and I had NO motivation to study. So I didn't. Sure, I stressed about it, but I can honestly say I studied less than an hour for all my classes combined. You can imagine my stress as I sat in class getting ready to take finals with my brain screaming, "WE'VE WORKED SO HARD ALL SEMESTER FOR AN A AND I'M PRETTY SURE WE'RE ABOUT TO LOSE IT. WAY TO GO, DUMBASS." Fortunately I did not lose my A's and passed with a 4.0 semester, leaving me with a 3.92 for my overall GPA for my associates degree. This also means that since I did absolutely no preparation for finals, I feel like the semester is not over, like I'm still dreading the long week before finals that is filled with studying.

But it's over! I won't have to do that! My brain doesn't understand that though so I'm in this perpetual state of anxiety in a way. I think I feel this way every time a semester ends and then I start summer school right as it's starting to wear off, but this summer I don't even have classes. Hot damn, it's going to be a good summer.

So this is where I stand with school: I am joining the big leagues (why is there a u in that word?) next semester and am finally at NAU. I will be applying for the nursing program in October (yes, nursing, I'll get to the explanation later) with the hopes of being accepted into the undergraduate program to start the nursing program in January. Then I have two and a half years of that and I have a bachelors in nursing! I'll probably work for a fews years, pay of loans, then go back to school to get my Nurse Practitioners license and do a lot of doctor stuff without having to actually be a doctor with hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt.

You may question my sanity at this point, wondering why I've gone from teaching, to nursing, to med school, to possible naturopathy school, then back to nursing. In the short version, med school is not worth it to me and I'm not passionate enough about it to make it worth it to me. Now for the longer version.

Before I was pregnant, when I thought about going to med school I knew it was going to be tough with a child, but didn't think it would be that big of a deal to have Vince essentially be the sole parent for a few years while I made it through the tough parts. He was fine with that and was willing to compromise knowing that it wouldn't last forever. Then I got pregnant and was like, 'Hellllll no, I'm not having Vince be a single parent. I'd like to raise our kid together, thank you very much.'

I read a lot of forums with women who were in med school who decided to have children, and almost all of them said being a doctor was ultimately the most important thing in their life and that they would make it work in any way possible because it was a lifelong dream. They were ok missing years of their children's childhoods because in the end, they'd be a doctor. Unfortunately, I do not feel that way at all. My family will always come first, no matter what, and I feel like that is not an attitude you can have and successfully make it through med school as a female. How can I say I won't be in class because my child has a kindergarten play coming up? It just wouldn't work.

I lived with my grandparents for a few years growing up and would go back and forth to my dad's house, depending on his work schedule. He didn't want to miss out on our lives so much, but as a single parent, he had to. He had no other choice but to work 24+ hour shifts or overnight shifts. Luckily us kids turned out just fine, but it's not something I have to do. I don't have to go days without seeing my children so I can put food on the table. I'd be choosing to do that, and for what? To say I'm a doctor? That title isn't that important to me and I know I can me a much more useful person as a nurse and make just as much of a difference in this world.

"Why don't you just postpone having kids," you ask? Simply put, I married an old guy and I want babies. Lots of babies. If I were to wait until I was out of med school, not counting residency, that would be at least six years away. Depending on what field of medicine I go into, I have a minimum residency of three years but if I do pediatric oncology, up to six years. So total time, I have 9-12 years of hard work left. That's a million years in uterus time and Vince will be in his mid-late 40s. I've got nothing against older dads, but I'm not going to choose to have my kids have an older dad if I can avoid it because by the time we got to kid two, three or four? Let's get real, he'd be grandpa's age.

So that's that. I'm happy with the decision, though not happy I've taken so may extra classes towards a different major. Ya, I now have an associates, but that doesn't mean anything except extra debt at this point!

Happy Things

I didn't mean to leave such a sad post up for so long! Here's a happy one to counteract the heaviness of the last post. It's good to focus on the happy things in life.

// Avocados have been 3 for $1 which means SO MUCH GUACAMOLE. Like so much I want to cry from happiness. As I'm writing this I'm eating a bowl of guac made from not one but two avocados and I don't have to save any for Vince. I get to eat the whole bowl tonight with some cucumbers and mushrooms because we have six more avocados on our fridge. I think Mexico might be heaven if it means fresh guac every day.

// Chia seed pudding that is soooo easy. And it is paleo. Tonight I'm making it with raw milk and it'll be even better.

// Laundry is finally finished. I know it seems like a simple thing to do, but I won't admit to how many times we've done (or haven't done) it in the past two and a half months. Once I was pregnant my body was like COUCH BED KITCHEN FLOOR ANYWHERE TO CLOSE MY EYES so I did nothing. When I say nothing I mean nothing at all but eat Hot Cheetos, apples, and drink insane amounts of water. I may have cooked once or twice when I felt so overwhelmed with guilt for making Vince do everything. And since Vince was doing everything, including delicious dinners, as well as working full time, we never got around to laundry unless we were out of underwear. And then we only washed underwear. (Gosh, I can't seem to just write a simple thing I'm happy about, it's like I'm writing a book.) Anyways, we never did laundry, it is now done, and we can now give away a ton of clothes to the thrift store so it's not taking up space and I can give it away clean instead of dirty.

// The semester is over. I shouldn't have to say more than that but I will because I can. The semester is over. The semester is over. The semester is over. I can't believe it. Once again it went by way too fast and I feel like I've learned nothing new but at the same time my brain is so full of anatomy and chemistry terms it might just stop working any minute. I also have all A's to prove I learned something as well as an associates degree. Oh, and this happened:

Yep, I've officially reached nerd status and it happened without my knowledge; I received the CCC Science Student of the Year award. Thanks to my mama for the beautiful flowers!

(Oh, and my hair? So frizzy here! I had to dry my hair with a blow dryer which I rarely do and clearly my hair didn't appreciate it. The picture on the right showcases it beautifully.)

Fellow Sci Club nerds and friends Jenn and Molly. We're all such awesome people.

// Mangos are also $.69. And they're organic. Not that it matters since I cut off the peel anyways. But $.69 mangoes means lots of mangoes being peeled and eaten like apples.

// This face.

// Raw milk is now at our local farmers market which means I can buy it whenever I please between the hours of 7am and 6:30pm. (5pm on Sundays.) It's a bit pricier than when I was buying it through the co-op, but unfortunately the lady running it had to move out of town but luckily she set everything up with the farmers market. Ultimately it's worth the extra price to have a consistent supply of raw milk instead of every couple weeks!

// I'm feeling good. I'm still having some physical side affects from the miscarriage, but overall I'm doing well. I'm extremely happy that it's getting warm outside so I can get my body back in shape and get healthy again. As I stated above, I had the appetite of a five year old and my body really didn't like it, even though it was forcing me to eat those things. So it's nice to finally get back on the mostly paleo bandwagon and be healthy. I had a little breakdown the other day because for .2 seconds I was so happy to not be pregnant and to be able to go on long hikes and eat normal, and then I felt so guilty for feeling that way. It was like I was happy to no longer be pregnant, which in a way I am!  I would have much rather become normal because I actually had a baby, though.  Luckily the feeling passed pretty quickly and it's something that comes and goes.

// Juice, possibly my favorite one yet. Lime, cabbage, apple, cucumber and kale. The lime just puts it out of this world.

 Tell me some happy things that have been going on in your life.

And then miscarriage happens.

Just wanted to give you a brief update on my life to let you know I'm alive.

I haven't been posting because I was pregnant and when you are trying to keep it a secret but want to start every post with, 'Boy, do I just want to barf on everyones shoes,' it's hard to write. So I just decided not to write.

Over the past week, however, I've been dealing with a miscarriage (it sounds like it should be a simple thing that happens and it's done with, but it's been kind of the worst eight day of my life that seems to continue dragging on forever) so now I'm able to write again because I have no juicy secrets I want to share. I wrote up a more detailed post about my miscarriage because I believe it is something that shouldn't be so taboo, I'm just waiting for Vince to read through it because it's not just my experience to share.

For those of you that Vince or I have talk to about this and shared your own stories, THANK YOU. It's been oddly comforting to hear about how we aren't the only ones who have gone through this. With 20% of pregnancies ending in miscarriage, it's hard to feel alone!

For the family and friends we haven't told about this and are upset that we haven't come forward with this information, don't be. It's been rough and we've only told the people we've had to tell because they had to know about the pregnancy for some reason or another.

Other than that we are happy and healthy, and I'm ready for the semester to be over after finals next week. Then I'll have three glorious weeks off of work to do whatever the hell I want. I have a zillion posts that are half finished that I hope to get to. And camping and hiking? I think yes. Let me know if you want to get together.

Spring is here and I'm off to watch my 8 year old brothers baseball game, take hime out to froyo with Vince after, and help him make a wizards hat.

Tucson Part II

Oh my. The week after spring break hit me in the face with a huge PUNCH. I almost wish we didn't have spring break because it throws me off so much! But then I think about how insane I was getting before spring break and I'm glad it happened. I'd like to continue with the day naps, though.

Anyways, moving on with the rest of our Tucson trip we took over St. Patty's Day weekend. Read Part 1 here.

After I took my Certified Nursing Assistant exam on Saturday I headed to Hotel Congress, the place we'd be staying for two days of our trip that was recommended by some friends. I had taken the car with me to the exam site and Vince and Roxi had just walked over since it was close to our other hotel, yet in a completely different part of town.

It wasn't quite time to check into the hotel yet, so we got a snack at the cafe that's attached to the hotel, Cup Cafe. I had already eaten so I just got a gluten-free dessert, a flour-less chocolate cake. It was phenomenal and they make everything in house! Vince got biscuits and gravy and said they were the best he's ever had; not super heavy or dry like most biscuits and gravy are.

After that we walked around downtown Tucson with Roxi. It was crazy to see such a difference in the area of town we stayed in the first night compared to the one downtown. Our Motel 6 was less than 5 miles away, but it was in such a shanty area and downtown at Hotel Congress was so full of culture and just amazing!!

You can tell Tucson has a lot of money because everything was gorgeous and surprisingly clean. Everything that could have a fun detail, like security gates, fences, trash can, ANYTHING, was special! The streets had no litter, the fences were all beautiful, even the bus stops were fancy!

One thing that was strange was that there weren't a lot of stores open on weekends. Almost all of them were only opened Monday through Friday, and if they were open on weekends it was only for four or five hours a day. So weird, it's usually the opposite! When we talked to our waitress about it, she said it's been kind of a ghost town the past couples weeks since there is a ton of construction going on, so it could have been modified hours for that.

We didn't go into any stores because we had Roxi, but it was still fun and relaxing to walk around for a few hours, let Roxi play in a few fountains, and take pictures.

This pink building is City Hall. So beautiful! (And that stupid light pole totally throws off the symmetry of the picture.)

So that's all for now. This post has way too many pictures as it is. I'll have one more most about the hotel!

I always want to spell it Instagraham.

I know, I still have to finish our Tucson trip and the post is almost ready! Maybe this is my way of holding on to vacation. Once I post about it, it means the trip is really over. As if having to wake up at 7am and go to school and work wasn't a good enough indicator. Whatever. Here's some Instagram photos.

Homemade paleo thin mints. Holy shit, these were the best cookie I've had, ever. I've made them three or four time in the past couple weeks. Go make them, now! And keep them in the freezer, they are a zillion times better. || Someone must have sinned pretty bad because Jesus was not happy with Flagstaff.

Roxi and I went on a run in the woods after it snowed and we both had the best of times. It was kind of magical. || Homemade raw yoghurt with frozen blueberries and a dribble of local honey.

Sarah at Yes and Yes recommended everyone buy a pair of Rockstar jeans from Old Navy because they are awesome, fit well, and go far enough up your back that your butt doesn't show, yet doesn't make you feel like a grandma. I've NEVER listened to anyones advise regarding clothes because my body is whack and doesn't fit in things right because I'm so tall and skinny, but I took a chance and bought a pair anyways. AMAZING. I need to buy more. They are normally $34, were on sale for $28, and I got an additional 15% off that along with free shipping. So worth it. I got a size up based on reviews and they are perfect! Oh, and they have short, regular, and long sizes! || Laughing is good for the soul.

Grapefruit is so dang good. || A peek at how we do our laundry using a Wonderwash and a Spin Dryer.

After the snow, the sun came back for a while meaning I could wear tanktops for a brief period!

Duh. || I had some extra juice leftover so I used it as the liquid for a smoothie. I combined frozen strawberries, homemade raw yoghurt, chia seeds and the juice that had celery, beets, carrots, broccoli stalks, kale, and Brussels sprouts. It was fantastic.

Sweet shirt I got on vacation. HP fo lyfe! || Roxi pooped on the lawn of a muti-million dollar house down in Phoenix. Then she rolled in the grass.

Another shirt I got on vacation: ZEBRAS! || Work life.

This lady at my gym. She had her shoes off, feet up, and was eating cotton candy and drinking a soda. Just go home. || New workout clothes. Thank you, Tar-jay.

Roxi guarding the door at Run Flagstaff while Vince was getting new shoes. || Warm weather means shorts for workouts!

I got my Joe Sorren trading cards and I can't wait to frame them for a future nursery! || Spring has arrived, wind and all, so I bought a new plant to add to the million I already have.

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