Today's weight:

233.2

Today:
Started Jenny Craig again. :) Next week's goal - 229.9. :)

So - It's been almost a year. 39 weeks, to be exact. I was reminded of my LJ by a dear friend today and decided maybe it's time to start writing again. :)

Updates.

-Still in school. For the fourth time, I've changed my major. Now I'm an Elementary Education major, and to be honest, I'm more sure about this route than any route I've ever taken before. I feel very confident that I'll be a terrific elem. school teacher, so I'm very excited. This semester I'm taking 5 classes, so I'm a little overwhelmed, but by God, I WILL do well. :)

-Hoping for a full time nanny position. I'm not longer at SLCH - not something I want to talk about - but working there definatly turned me off of nursing. I'm still at Shriner's, just PRN, and also working for a nursing agency. But I'm really hoping one of these nanny interviews will turn up a gem and I'll be able to work and go to school at the same time without all the stress. :)

-Jake. <3 We've been together over a year now, and he's back in pre-deployment training, heading to Afghanistan in a few weeks. I'm pretty scared/nervous/upset about it - but I knew when I started dating him that he was in the Air Force Reserves, and it's his job. Hopefully when he gets home things will get very serious in a relatively short amount of time. ;)

-Weight loss. Stalled. 'Nuff said.

I think that's about it. Everything else is pretty much the same - just working, school, and now that Jake's gone, not much else. ;)

I'm going to start writing my monthly goals (and progress!) in here for people to read and comment on. :) It'll help keep me on track.

September Goals:
1. Lose 8 lbs.
2. Save $300.00.
3. Drink 3 glasses of water per day.
4. Read my book for my Monday night class.
5. Start taking a daily vitamin.

Well, my boy left me on Friday, November 28th for a six month tour is Saudi Arabia. He emailed me on Monday to give me his address and I already sent out the first (of many!) care packages. I was so happily suprised to find out that the USPS has a flat rate for shipping to APO boxes, regardless of weight! HOORAY! So, my 8 lb. care package was only $10.95 to ship. :) Now I know that, I don't feel so monitarily stretched about sending things more often. In fact, I've got a second package half-packed to ship after Christmas, and I might send one from home, too.

Last night I stopped at Walmart and found a Star War light saber to send to him - I think that if I were gone, I'd want some fun things stuck in packages, too. The first one I sent him had tons of medical things (bandaids, Tylenol, etc), and snacks, and thrown in there was a Game Boy and a Star Wars keychain, too. (Did I mention that my soldier is a Star Wars FREAK? Yes, a whole room in his house devoted to it!)

So anyway. I'm doing okay - I miss him like crazy, in fact, last night was the first night that I haven't cried, but I'm getting better. I'm keeping busy with extra hours at the two hospitals, (which helps me money wise!) and with my trip coming up, I'm trying to get things done around the house so I don't have to worry about cramming all my chores into the week before I leave.

Work has been crazy - we've been SO full and busy that I ended up working almost 5 12 hour shifts in a row...so needless to say I've been pretty exhausted...although I haven't been sleeping well, worrying about Jake. Hopefully once he gets settled, I'd start getting a few more emails. *sigh* I did find a really great online message board/support group that has a few girls who are going through what I am, so it's nice to have someone to talk to.

Well, I should get off of here and start some more things around the house - Shannon might be bringing Gracie over for me to watch while she runs to the hospital to visit her grandmother. I'm going to write these lyrics to the song I just found - heartwrenching. *sigh*

PS: IF ANYONE HAS ANY IDEAS OF FUN THINGS TO INCLUDE IN MY CARE PACKAGES, PLEASE LEAVE A MESSAGE! RECIPES FOR COOKIES ARE ALSO GOOD!!! :)



Sleeping with the Telephone
Reba/Faith Hill

I knew who he was when I took his name
But somehow knowing is just not the same late at night.
He knows the danger, but he does what he does.
He calls it duty, but I call it love.
So here I am, while he's gone
to some foreign land.

And I cry 'cause I'm all alone
And the nights get so cold and long
And I try not to think he won't come home
But I'm sleeping with the telephone.

A yellow ribbon on my neighbor's gate
Always reminds me that someone's awake just like me.
I hear the sirens, and I watch the news.
He laughs and leaves with his gun and his blue uniform
And I pray God keeps him safe from harm.

And I cry 'cause I'm all alone
And the nights get so cold and long
And I try not to think he won't come home
But I'm sleeping with the telephone.

I lose him in my darkest dreams
Yeah, my blood runs cold and my heart skips a beat
So I get up, I can't take anymore
Sometimes I hate how much I love him,
But everyday I love him more.

And I try not to think he won't come home,
But I'm sleeping with the telephone.

Something awakes me from where he should be,
I reach for him...the telephone rings.

I will be home for Christmas this year from 12/24-12/30. If you would like a day with me - call. You all know how my crazy family is.

Happy Halloween! (Okay, so I'm a few hours early)

Things have been crazy here lately - with midterms, work, being sick, weddings - life has been so busy! I did really well on my midterms (3 A's and 1 B), and am looking at some really great grades thus far. Next semester I'll be taking 2 psych classes, Spanish 2, and an Intro to Fiction class. Well...hopefully the Fiction class- I'm paying out of pocket, so I'm pretty broke. Gr.

Anyway - Life has been good lately- Jake and I are still together (two months!) and doing well, although he's been gone since 10/12 in Texas for training for his deployment. We've been able to text every night and he'll be home on Saturday! I am SO excited - I can't wait! :) He's such a sweetheart and treats me so well - I'm going to have quite an issue when he leaves at Thanksgiving. :( *sigh* BUT...hopefully I'll be so busy with school that the six months will fly by.

So, I think I might have decided on a final career path - I'm thinking that I might want to go into School Psychology. (Yes Bec- THAT is what I've been trying to catch you to talk about!) It's a good mix of psych and pediatrics - and there's a terminal master's programat UMSL that I could be considered for. The head of the department came to speak to our class last night, and I was pretty surprised and interested in what he had to say. We'll see.

Well, I should be going - I've got a lot of stuff to do tonight before hitting the sack early and going to class and working 3-11 tomorrow night.

Have a safe and Happy Halloween!

Hello friends - it's been two weeks since I've graced your friends page with my updates, so here goes.

1) Life is busy. With a full time job, a per diem job, and 14 credit hours - life gets crazy. I can happily say I've got A's in three of my four classes, potentially the fourth as well, but I don't get my grade in there until next week. Hooray for good grades! :)

2) I continually happily date Jake - although the time where he is being deployed is inching closer and closer. Last night we went to dinner and a movie (we went and saw Quarantine - do NOT see it - it's basically The Blair Witch Project of 2008) and it'll be the last time I see him until November 1st. So, because it'll be 19 days - he gave me nineteen kisses before I left. One for each day until I see him again. :)

3) I don't think I'm going to go home for Christmas. I'm hoping to go home in the spring at some point, maybe during spring break. Tickets at Christmas are so expensive, and I'd like to be able to come home for more than just three days. I'd much rather go to Cinci for Christmas and relax with THAT family...and I don't want my PA family to get on my case about not losing the amount of weight that they think I should have lost by now. (Which, according to my surgeon, I'm right on track.)

4) Finances are TIGHT. I mean like, way tight. I'm hoping to pick up a lot of extra hours over Christmas at Shriners - (another reason I don't want to fly home!) - and I think I'm only going to be able to take 10 credits next semester. I can't wait for tax return time!! Hopefully I'll be able to pay off my credit cards this year and not worry any more.

5) (Goes along with #2) Jake is leaving for Saudi Arabia the day before Thanksgiving, and I'm making lists of things to send him while he's gone. I already had pictures taken at a studio, 10 of them, one for each package I send. I'd really like some fun, exciting, original ideas of things to send, along with the usual cookies, snacks, personal items, etc. His likes? Star Wars (yes, he's a HUGE Star Wars collector!), and he watches/reads Sci-Fi. (Traci, I'm counting on you to have good ideas with this project!) So, please please leave any ideas as comments. I know that some of my readers have had family/friends/signifigant others deployed - what did YOU send?



I think that's about it- I'm off now to get some sleep - I'm working a night shift tonight, then working 3-11 at Shriner's tomorrow. Looking forward to the comments, all! :)

So, here it is, almost the end of September, and I'm once again finding myself way behind in updating all of you with my life's craziness.

Before I begin - I promised myself two things lately. 1)I wouldn't like the Twilight series. and 2)I wouldn't like the new Jessica Simpson country cd.

I failed on both counts. Oops.

Anyway. Life here has been busy - I started my classes, Intro to Philosophy, Intro to Criminal Justice, Spanish I, and a fourth class will be starting in two weeks (a Psych class). I'm doing fairly well in all of them - I've got an A in both Crim. Justice and Spanish, and I took my first Philosophy test on Monday and I have a pretty good feeling about it. A solid B, I'm thinking - but even if it's lower than that, he drops our lowest test score. So, either way, not bad. And the fourth class? ENtitled, "Why Choose a Career in Psychology?" and only seven weeks - can't say I'm all that worried, hahaha. :) It's just a lower level class I need for my major.

So, I'm pretty decided on the PA school route, although I'm still looking into Optometry school and Chiropractic school. I'm really not 100% certain of a path at this point. Time will tell. I do know that I need to bust all to get my science GPA up to be competitive for grad school.

In other news - I went back to Denver on Thursday and my MD was very happy with my results. I'm not losing as quickly as some are, but it's a consistent 2 lbs a week, and hopefully I'll be at my goal by my birthday.

I also met someone - he is 26, an actice duty Military Police Officer in the Air Force Reserves, and is named Jake. (And Jakes are 99.9% of the time hot. And he's no exception!) The good things? He's amazingly kind, a good family man, owns his own home, has ambitions for after his years in the AFR. He makes me laugh and we have a good time together - we don't get to spend more than a day or so a week together because of our schedules, but it works. The bad part? He's being deployed the week of Thanksgiving for six months. *sigh* WHY, WHY, WHY DO I CHOOSE UNAVAILABLE GUYS!?!??! Because I'm crazy. We had the whole "what's going to happen when you leave" talk, and it's pretty much decided that we'll pick up where we leave off when he gets back. Plus, this give me time to send some pretty kickass care packages. Anyone who has any ideas of what to send, please - comment!

Well, that pretty much sums it up - I've got some mad cleaning around this apartment to do and I just bought some things at Big Lots to decorate for fall. :) Plus, I'm burning Pumpkin Pie scented candles, which always put me in the fall-ish mood. :)

'Til Later!

So, I started back to school on Monday - and to be perfectly honest, I had a little bit of a breakdown on Sunday night, being stressed about just about everything in my life. I ended up spending the night with Ashok - sometimes it's just nice to be held when your life is falling apart around your feet. He is the one person out here who loves me the way I am - who can see a bad day on my face and can read me like a book. I walked into his apartment Sunday night and he got up and said, "What's wrong, Balu?" And I immediately started sobbing my eyes out. I'm a strong girl, but there are days when it gets to me. Work is heart wrenching at times, and where Ron was my sounding board for a month - he's not now. (Although I'm indebted to him for the fact he was there when I lost my first pediatric patient. Not being alone that night was a blessing.)

So anyway. I started classes this week - I don't think that my Spanish class should be TOO bad - although I'm already slightly confused at Como/Cuar. Hopefully it'll clear up a little bit before too long. It's hard going from knowing French to learning Spanish. It helps a little bit that I took one year of Spanish in HS, but that was a joke, seeing we had Mr. Edgell instead of Srta. Sanella. My Philosophy class seems like it could pose a bit of a problem, only because of the reading. Not that the reading is HARD, it's just going to be a lot of it. We read Martin Luther King's Letters from a Birmingham Jail this week - long, but good. And my last class? Well, let's just say that my Into to Criminal Justice class is going to be one semester long debate on the merits of being black vs. being white. It's going to be a long semester.

I started playing my guitar again - Suraj came to visit me the other day and asked me what my outlet for stress was - and imagine my surprise when I had to answer honestly that I don't have one any more. In high school, it was singing or painting or art - here? I've forgotten the things that I love. I went to sing karaoke the other night and completely punked out. Now, I know I can sing (as do the rest of you), but I'm such a different person out here than I was at home.

On that note --- I HATE the person that I've been lately. I've been this uncomfortable, untrusting, neurotic pain the ass that is annoying not only my friends, but myself as well. This is NOT me - I am the person that was so comfortable with myself over the summer - the girl who worked seven days a week at Children's and Wyman, who took risks and learned new things about myself every day. I am the girl who works 40-60 hours a week and doesn't take sick days, I'm the girl who spends hours cleaning and rearraging my house because I get bored, I'm the girl who was so intent on getting into a good school and seeing my future through that I mustered up the courage and applied as a Pre-Med major and have been reading nonstop about medical schools and getting in. I'm not this girl who feels like she's not enough for people, who feels like I'll never be enough for people. I'm someone who makes lists and completes them, someone who makes New Years Resolutions and follows through. I'm dependable. I'm someone who doesn't care what people think - someone who takes the microphone at Breadstix and sings my heart out. When did I lose that courageous, independent part of me?

I can tell you exactly when I lost that part of me - I lost it when I met this person out here - this person who reminded me so much of Travis and so much of the me before I was hurt, before I had experienced loss. Someone who made me feel like I didn't have stress - someone who made me freaking laugh at stupid things, and made me feel courageous, and that I could finally talk about things in my life that I hate and that I think are unfair. I don't talk about my financial situation much - I mean, a lot of my friends at home know how badly I was screwed over inheritance wise, but not details. This person just made me so comfortable - and if I'm honest with myself? Maybe I cared a little too deeply - maybe I shouldn't have seen the best in someone who might not be the best. I have a tendency to look past exteriors and see a person for who they are - a skill that I love and hate equally. I wish that I would've met this person six months down the road, post my own heartache and post my own weight loss, so I'd feel comfortable in my own skin, post his heartache. I try to remember that sometimes things fall apart so other better things can fall together, but it's a hard lesson to take to heart.

I didn't even feel this way when I ended things with Ashok. I remember the day so clearly that I ended things - I was on my way home from work, and we were talking and I just had this gut feeling that it just wasn't right anymore. It wasn't fair to move in with and marry this man who was so in love with me when I couldn't reciprocate the feeling. I didn't have that butterfly-in-the-stomach feeling anymore. It was just...gone. It was like I woke up one day and couldn't imagine waking up next to him forever. I could be content, but I wasn't going to be happy. I loved him, but I wasn't in love anymore. So, the split was amicable, but the heartache is still there. We've spent a few nights together this week, one of the nights being me just laying there, crying and needing to be held. Life is just..crazy sometimes.

Why is it that you always want the person who doesn't want you? Why can't you CHOOSE who you care about? If the human race is so advanced that we can choose our careers, choose our detiny per se, why can't we corral our hearts enough to decide who to fall in love with?

Logically, I know what I want - I want someone who is handsome, who has a decent, well-paying job, someone who I can be myself with, despite that fact that I want to wear sweatpants and my glasses and eat Ben and Jerry's after a long day at work, someone who is honest and kind, who has a good heart and makes me laugh until my sides hurt. I want someone who's going to be a great father, someone who's never cheated (BIG ONE), someone who thinks I'm beautiful and looks at me like I'm the only person in the room. I want the physical attraction, the kind that makes me want to pause a movie at the best part because I can't go another minute without touching them. I want someone who's got a college education, someone who pushes me to finish my schooling, someone who understands that I work long hours now and when I'm done with school, the hours will be worse, but they want me to succeed anyway.

I guess I want the ideal. I want someone who compliments me, and I want to be the missing piece in their life. I don't want to get married right now, in fact, at the point in my life, I can't imagine taking on a responsibility like that. But I do want someone that I could see that with, be it down the road, or starting now. I suppose this stress right now comes from the fact that this person I met? He seemed like he could probably fit the high expectations I have. There were a few things that weren't perfect, but overlookable. He told me that he thinks I'm in love with him - based on the fact that I'm affectionate. I will NOT admit that - but I will admit that he's the kind of guy I COULD have fallen in love with. He's someone that I wanted to make happy - someone that I wanted to see smile and laugh and all that stupid girly stuff. And all of you know how I do NOT cook? Well, I find myself wanting to make dinner and be all freaking domestic. How crazy is that...that's not me. Not at all. And in the end? He's seeing someone else - and appears happy. At least, seems it to me. And I want him to be happy - if it's not with me, at least he's happy. I'm jealous, yes. Do I wish it was me? Of course. Do I think that I fit HIS perfect mold? No...he's told me that. But does he fit mine? No. Who knows. The thing is...is that stressing about things doesn't make them any better, but that doesn't make this whole thing any easier, either.

Dear God. This is the longest entry in forever, and I think my Philosophy class is going to lead to many more of these.

Off to class.

Hello all!
I just wanted to write a quick note and say...

I PASSED MY CERTIFIED PEDIATRIC NURSE EXAM!!!!!!!!!!

Today I weighed in again at JC --- down another -4 lbs! :) That's 4 lbs in 6 days, because last week I weighed in on Thursday. So now I'm down 18.2 lbs since surgery, and 15.2 lbs since July 10th!

My goal next week? Another 3-4 lbs to make it an even 20 since surgery.

Well, I'm off to get a body wrap - I need it. I've been SO stressed lately.