Saturday Love: My friend Monica

Alright, so about 3 months ago I was telling Robyn that I wanted to start a weekly thing on my blog. Some of my favorite blogs do weekly updates like Heather's What to do wednesday. Thoughts have been rollin' around in the ole noggin for a while and nothing has clicked. Until tonight as I was looking at my friend Monica's photography website (http://monicareedphotography.com) thinking "gosh, Monica is so cool, talented, wonderful. i feel so special to be her friend." That's when I got the brilliant idea of writing a weekly blog about someone I love.
It's perfect.
I get to gush about these people who let me call them friends.
So, here's Monica:
We have known each other since oh about 8th grade, I think. I think we really became friends 9th grade when we started secluding ourselves from the rest of the world during lunch to sit outside on the cement by the locker rooms and chat about whatever. Next thing you know we were juniors learning the ins and outs of how to successfully skip school together (i know, horrible) then seniors who did nothing but check our horoscopes online during choir class. She's really great. Her heart is full of love, adventure and life. She's uber talented, just check out her blog or website and see for yourself (and no, she's not paying me for this plug). She has probably taken about a billion pictures and they are all good, no joke. You get the picture? She's fab.

Favorite memory together: Although it's hard to narrow it down to one, I think I have to choose bailing on our senior year choir mixer (after borrowing some chips and cookies) and attempting to find the place in DFW airport where you can watch the airplanes take off. We never found it, because we got lost and ran out of gas but had such a fun time driving with the windows down, listening to music, not caring.

I love her.
Who wouldn't love this face?

You're great my lil HarMonica.

Love, Allye

Week 1 report

I am a proud survivor of the first week of real nursing school.

That's a little dramatic.

It wasn't that bad at all. Lots and lots of information and learning but that's exactly what I expected. We learned how to suction out a patent's trach, that was a little shocking. When I was practicing on the manikin I kept thinking "I cannot believe I'm going to be doing this to a real person in a couple weeks." Poor people with trachs.

The first exam in monday. A little nervous about it. Then on wednesday we're going to the hospital to give people baths. Should be an experience for sure.

So far so good. I love the people in my class and am excited about getting to do this with them.

This weekend: working a lot and studying even more. yayyyy.

2 days down

Who knows how many to go...

But it's been good so far. I'm pooped. Both Monday and today I had class from 8-4ish, came home to change and grab a bite to eat and hurried to work at 5. It wouldn't be as bad if I didn't have to study when I got home from work, but since I do, it makes the day pretty long.

Monday was scary. The nursing instructors threw out so much information. It was intimidating and hard to keep up but after I got home from work and did some reorganizing and reading I felt much better about life.

Today was fun. We learned some basic skills (how to reposition a patient in bed, how to move a patient out of bed, how to walk with a patient using a gait belt, how to do range of motion, etc.) It was a nice break from the classroom with no windows, and got me excited to be in the hospital NEXT WEEK. Crazy. I'm not ready to help take care of a real human being.

Tomorrow I don't have to work and I am going to take a nap. I cannot tell you how excited I get just typing that.

Aside from school, work, and studying, nothing else is going on.

Real exciting, I know. I'll let you know if anything changes. Until then you can either find me at UMHB, at work, or in my room with my 5lb bag of sour patch kids, a cup of tea, and lots and lots of books.

love, allye

Ready or not...

...here I come!

That's what the school year is saying to me.
I bought books yesterday. Goodness, how I despise that. I nearly spent my whole summers earnings on dang books. The cool thing: I was flipping through them and it made me real excited to learn about these things. I feel reassured that I'm doing the right thing here, and that feels good. We'll see how I feel in a couple weeks when I'm up to my neck in things to memorize and study. The anticipation of it all makes me feel a little queasy.

On another note, I got a new windshield. I've been working and babysitting a ton. I've been very provided for with all the opportunities to babysit lately, and really, all summer. I think I'm going to chop the hair off soon. It's long enough to donate now, and the length is starting to annoy me more than I enjoy it. I go back and forth on it though. I woke up this morning with a sore throat and stuffy head. Talk about horrible timing. I bought some vitamin C and various other meds and am praying for whatever is going on to quickly disappear. Phil Wickham is going to be at UMHB on Sunday and I'm pumped about that.

I think that is it for now.
Love,
Allye

Ramble Machine

I just had the most wonderful days. I was the most content girl in the history of the world.

I have the day off tomorrow, I'm looking forward to that. I know I have to spend some of the day getting my car fixed, or at least looked at. You see, something very unfortunate happened last week. While driving to Georgetown a particle (very large, hard particle) of truck tire flew up and hit my windshield. I want to say I'm grateful because it definitely could have been so much worse, but I'm having trouble mustering up gratefulness because my windshield is definitely busted. Trying to be optimistic, I thought that I could drive it that way for a while, save some money up and heck maybe get the best lookin' windshield in town. But alas, as I was driving home (again from Georgetown..maybe I don't need to go there anymore) I heard my windshield crack a total of 5 times. Now that I'm officially freaked out that my windshield is going to explode as I drive, I'm going to get it checked out tomorrow.

Other than that and my lack of short term memory lately, things are just dandy. I've been reading Through Painted Deserts by Donald Miller and I'm enjoying it. It's not as good as Blue Like Jazz in my opinion, but it's way different so I'm not sure it's fair to compare them. A few things have got me thinking, and I figure that's always a good thing.

Here's an excerpt that I really enjoyed:
"Life is a dance toward God. And the dance is not so graceful as we might want. While we glide and swing our practiced sway, God crowds our feet, bumps our toes, and scuffs our shoes. So we learn to dance with the One who made us. And it is a difficult dance to learn, because it's steps are foreign...there is nothing I am missing. I have everything I was supposed to have to experience the magnitude of this story, to dance with God."

What I'm about to write might turn this post into a very long one, or it might not. I'm not sure how clearly this is going to come out. Anyway...
I've been missing a lot lately. By missing I simply mean longing for and desiring. This missing has made me a little cold at times I think. I've caught myself turning back to some old habits of trying to forget the bad and just live, and unfortunately (and fortunately, i suppose) that just doesn't work anymore. I mean, it will for a while but when I lay down at night, or when I'm alone at work with not much to do, or when I take Kenzie on a walk at sunset those feelings: longing, desire just creep up and bite me. And it stinkin' hurts. I really hate feeling sorry, sad, a little alone. I know I'm not technically alone. After all I live with 4 girls who love me, and I love them and I have a friend like I have never had before who will talk with me until 5am, and I love him. I'm not alone. I know that. I just feel alone in those moments, and it stinkin' hurts. The only thing I have figured out to do in those moments is to remember that even if the 4 girls who love me are gone, even if my favorite person in the history of the world is gone, I'm not alone. Ever. It's hard to think that, to really feel that, but I've gotten better at it. I'm happy about that one. It still stinkin' hurts, don't get me wrong. I guess what I'm trying to say here is that figuring simple, tiny things about life out feels good. Reminding myself that I'm never alone and that I never have been alone, even in the darkest times, that is simple stuff. But dang, it feels so good.

August (so far) in pictures

This post is 95.9% for Chelsea, because she asked for a picture of the the dresser I painted.

The other 4.1% is for Kelsey, because she graduated and that's exciting. Also, it's the only exciting thing that has happened this month (so far). :)

L-squared and Kelsey Mae lookin' cute.

20 days til school starts.

I'm soaking up summer like I never have before.

Finally

Things are coming together.
Lindsey, one of our permanent roommates moved in at the end of last week.
I finally found a dresser on craigs list (for $10 might I add). I painted it brown with green and orange drawers. I like it a lot.
Allie is moving in soon.
Kelsey soon after that.
We got cable. So You Think You Can Dance is an official member of our house.
Things are finally getting hung on the walls.
It's beginning to feel a little more like home.
I've been needing that.

Summer is still coming to an end. I was talking to one of my nursing buddies at church this morning and we both shared the same feelings: about an ounce of excitement and 200 pounds of fear. Also, I thought about having to buy books today and my stomach sank a little.
Speaking of books, I haven't read any more of the books I said I was going to read this summer. I'm such a bum.

That's all.
Love you.