It’s a Miracle!

I passed my NCLEX-RN!!!! :D  This is the nursing boards exam that allows me to actually practice as a registered nurse! I took it yesterday morning and was 100% sure that I had failed. Yesterday was rough because I had to wait until this morning to find out if I passed or not. I’m sooooo excited!!! It’s a miracle from the LORD that I passed, because I felt like I guessed on half the questions. It was very difficult!! But apparently they think I’m competent enough to be a nurse now, and I’m happy with that! :)  God sure did answer a lot of prayers by having me pass!

Sorry I haven’t posted in a month. I’ve been studying and doing random other things since then, like going to the MN Zoo with my mom and my brother’s kids, going to my sister’s bridal shower, going to my cousin’s wedding reception… well, not that much really, but the past two weeks have pretty much been strictly studying. Now that I’m “free” from the burden of studying, I can do things like write in my blog again! Yippee! Oh and laundry, I get to do that again! ;) My husband will like that. He goes through clothes faster than I can clean them. Since we moved here, what, three months ago? I haven’t been able to catch up with laundry.

So, next week is my older sister’s (my only sister) wedding!!! It’s out in Massachusetts where her and her fiance met and live. They’ll be moving to Iowa after they get married because her husband will start working at Grinnell College, cool huh? Which means, they’ll be MUCH closer to us and the rest of the family! I’m psyched about that! :)  I’m glad that I passed my boards too so that next week I don’t feel down about it, but can just let go and enjoy the week. We’ll be staying in Boston for a day just to tour around, since we have never been there, and then on Wednesday we’ll head over to mid-MA where the festivities will take place and have a couple days before the wedding on Friday. One minor detail… I haven’t been fitting into my bridesmaid dress all that well lately, so I’ve put myself on a bit of a temporary restriction from all things sweet/carb-y…. cakes, cookies, crackers, pretzels, etc. And, I’m going to work out like nutso these next few days before we leave. Hopefully it will be enough to squeeze me into the dress!! It’s very pretty!

Off to eat the turkey chili that I just cooked up…. at 8:30am. :) We had no milk and I hardly ate anything yesterday, so I figured a nice healthy hearty meal/breakfast was in order. I like cooking a lot too, so it’s  kinda a way to celebrate.  :)

My nursing job starts on the 21st! Can’t wait!!

5:00am and 24 pages

That’s been my new bed-time the past two nights. And that’s the number of pages (15 of which were single spaced) that I’ve typed with my poor tired fingers during those two nights…

Oh how the end of college (38 days) is the hope that is getting me through this… and finally being a nurse of course. I’m excited to change the name of my blog to Newlywed Nurse! By then I won’t be much of a newlywed I suppose. So, will I just be, Nurse? Hmm… I’ll have to start thinking about that. ;)

Funny thing is that tomorrow I have to wake up at 5am… it will definitely be interesting to see how messed up my body gets with this healthy sleep schedule!

Two weeks till we move to St. Paul! :)

Scatterbrain much, am I?

Waffles and spiral staircases

Husband and I took a mini-trip to downtown N-field tonight to try out the new waffle/coffee house. It was cute! Kinda bland and too contemporary in my taste for coffee houses, but oh well, it’s a nice change from the ordinary. We tried out a waffle called The Andrews Sisters (shout out to my sister [Jen] and my maiden name!); it had sun-dried tomatoes, basil, and mozzarella cheese sprinkled on it- pretty good. I sure was craving the chocolate waffles though… maybe next time. ——–On another note, my husband has possibly found our future apartment in the cities that we plan to move to in a month or two. I sure hope they call us back and offer us the place! Please pray that God wills that to happen, because we sure want it to! :) Of course, he is sovereign and already has it planned, but I pray that this place is part of his plan for us. (It has a spiral staircase in it!!)  

Getting closer…

Less than a month now until the big day!! I am getting so super excited, it’s intense. Nine months of being engaged has felt like years honestly, and I advise other couples to keep the engagement as short as possible (within reason of course). People have incessantly been telling me “It’ll be here before you know it!” but, I know that it’s not yet here, and it’s felt like forever since we got engaged. Every day we aren’t together still is draining on us and even though the wedding is pretty near now, it’s still hard to wait 30 more days. Even my little niece Haley is telling me right now “Where’s John? I really miss him. Is he working today? Is he coming over later? I miss John… is he working tomorrow all day too or not?” Haha, it’s adorable. My parents usually ask me every day if John’s coming over too. My family misses him just like me!Anyway, sorry I’m kinda sappy and cheesy. There is still a lot of preparing to do before the 17th, so I don’t mind that we still have a month, but yeah, can’t wait for it to get here and not have to think so much about planning and details all the time. The other day I was driving to my friend’s baby shower and I was thinking too hard about favors and missed a really obvious exit. Ooops! Wedding planning can be dangerous too I guess!Ok, enough outa me as far as wedding stuff goes. I just want to be married, not planning! Perhaps other engaged people understand?

Being engaged is so…. confusing. We’re supposed to be preparing for marriage, yet we really can’t know or think too much about being married because we’re not. Or something. Ugh, it’s just very frustrating. I wish there were more good Christian books out there that dealt with the stage of engagement. It seems that most are about dating/courting or else marriage. At least engagement isn’t too long, for us it’s about 9 months, but lately I wished it was much less time. Then again, there is a ton to do to plan our wedding and also John and I need this time to prayerfully prepare for joining together in the Covenant of marriage. It’s no light thing! What’s interesting is that people are so excited and happy for me and John getting married, but some of those excited people are also people who say they will never marry and don’t see the point in getting married. So why are they so excited for me? I suppose it’s just because they know that I’m happy and will, Lord willing, have a joyful and enjoyable life with John by my side. It breaks my heart how the world is so infused with horrible lies about marriage, but that’s because to the world, the gospel is folly, and since marriage parallels with Christ and the church (which the world doesn’t understand), it’s no wonder marriage is not understood either. Satan is so clever, but man am I glad that he is a LOSER! I really need to pray more for the world, for those close to me who are so far from God and living a frustrating life of lies (trust me, I can see how frustrated and confused they are with how they live and deal with life’s problems). I really really look forward to when John is my closest neighbor, the closest person to me in life, because he inspires me, encourages me, supports me, rebukes me, loves me, and always points me to Christ, which is the very thing I need. Being in a home that doesn’t welcome a radical Christ exulting faith, that doesn’t even think about our Lord, the maker of all things, the very Being that has brought us life, can be so draining and discouraging…This is such a rambling post, but oh well, that’s how I normally process my thoughts – I ramble.