Exit 94

I don’t know about you, but I am pretty damn happy right now. Why?

Not because of the ever growing pile of work I have to complete by next week. I don’t want to effing talk about that.

But we can talk about my new love. Exit 94. For the past 11 months that I have lived in Ankeny, I have had to drive through town 10 minutes to get to the highway. This is usually fine unless everyone is heading to work or school, coming home or if I’m late.

BUT NOW…. NO MORE! They have finally finished the new exit just a few blocks from my apartment! Apparently Santa was listening.

It’s shiny and new and I’ve been waiting for it so long I just can’t describe eke excitement about it. It’s the best damn thing. Now my friends have no excuse to not come and visit because it takes 10 less minutes to get here from Des Moines and you can take the highways from Ames.

I don’t want to tell you this new interchange has made my entire life better but it pretty much has. Did I mention the new gas station and other building that looks like it could be a fast food place? Seriously all we have up by my apartment is a Casey’s and the Fareway unless you drive like half a mile so this is huge for us.

The next two weeks are going to be hell for me but I promise I will return. Pinky promise. Until then take satisfaction in knowing each day my commute is glorious thanks to exit 94.

~Marissa

I need to have a purpose

I love blogging. I love it as much as I love talking. And oh my Chod that’s a lot.

I am a talker. Ask any of my friends or anyone who has ever talked to me, I love to talk.

But on thing I will never be described as is quick on the draw. I am terrible with come backs. I think most of my surfing can be traced back to my lack of come back skills. “umm…..well you’re an a**hole”. Story of my life.

But lately I feel like my whole blog life is just link ups. It does not reflect my actual life. I want my blog to be an outlet. Sure I love link ups but they take away from homework time during the week. I want to start utilizing my blog to reflect on what I learn in nursing school and relate it to the real world….plus some fun stuff here and there. I hope everyone stays with me.

My defining moment-

This week in my caring class we learning about the Pan Am 103 flight from London to New York which was overtaken and bombed in 1988 and how the citizens of Lockerbie, Scotland cared for each and every soul who departed after the plan crashed and claimed 270 lives (Wikipideia). It was an amazing story and I cried several times.

The people of Lockerbie had such compassion for these strangers, a great lesson for this soon-to-be nurse. I meet strangers everyday as a CNA and care for them for over 8 hours. In just 5 minutes when I first meet my patient I try to establish a relationship and do my best to make sure all my walls are down so my patients can trust me, not always an easy task. The people of Lockerbie placed flowers on caskets, washed ‘contaminated’ laundry and mailed it to the family members, and welcomed families from all over the world. After watching the love the people of Lockerbie showed all these strangers, I certainly want to visit Scotland as soon as possible.

During the video it was said several times how the people of the US would never have responded this if the situation had occurred in the US rather than Scotland.  Perhaps in some parts of the country but I live in Iowa and we are nice here. Your friend’s parents make say please and thank you, your neighbor forces you to try her fresh baked cookies, we don’t have the real kind of road rage where people honk, we just smile and wave. Whenever someone is ill or a family member passes away, you can bet your ass the rest of the community already has a benefit and 27 casseroles ready for them. At least in my town we do. My town would wash the laundry. And pick flowers. And bake casseroles. Because we’re effing nice, we just don’t have sweet accents. So I’m a little ticked whats his face on that documentary had the nerve to say we wouldn’t.

Watching this movie in class made me want to share this with my 10 whole followers. Maybe someone cares what I have to say about what I’m paying 20k a year to learn about. If not, whatever. Btw, I might be one of the few people who actually talks in class because no one else does and I hate sitting in silence while the professor tries to force us all to talk. So yes, I raise my hand at least 15 times a class period and speak multiple times to a single topic. Judge away. I just want to talk. :)

Now if you’ll excuse me, this 10 page paper that isn’t going to write itself.

~Marissa

I promise I’m still alive.

I’m still here under a pile of text books, an organic biochemistry project, a nursing resolution, and 32 different photos of eggs, I promise. I’d like to give you some great reason as to why I haven’t been blogging…

It can all be traced back to nursing school.  I’m exhausted, a major bitch, eat nothing but junk food and miss my old life. I do however dream about a life where I’m successful, that’s a good sign I hope.

Or maybe days like today at work when I didn’t get to sit or even post up against anything for over 6 hours. 6 hours of solid power walking from one end of the unit to another to help people go to the bathroom, turn patients, take vitals, check blood sugars, and admit patients. I love my job, I love my job, I love my job.

I have a good story to share about my GENIUS of a brother but that will have to wait until after class tomorrow when I am home in the comfort of my mom’s house with a beer in my hand.

~Marissa

I LOVE Fridays

My Fridays are a joke. Once I leave my nursing 215 class at 10:50, I am pretty well checked out even though I still have to make it through Organic biochemistry for health professions.

Would you be able to pay attention in a class with that title on Friday? 

What if you had a Hulu queue full of your favorite shows to catch up on? 

And a nap with your favorite furry friend to get to? 

Fridays once I get home from class, as long as I’m not traveling home or to Ames, I usually do laundry, clean and catch up on my shows via Hulu and Netflix. I’m working my way through the seasons of Bones currently. 

Today I decided I have finally had it with Sean’s two mountains of clothes. One is in his closet and the other in our room. I’m tired of looking at them so I told him to pile everything that is clean on the bed and that I was going to organize it all the afternoon. 

I told him we’re adults now (he claims I’m an adult and he’s just awesome) and he is a business owner starting next week so we need to keep our apartment looking nice and organized. BOOM. Perfect excuse to get him to start cleaning up after himself. I’m sure it won’t work though. I should start charging him for cleaning up after him so much. 

Carver makes folding much harder. 

 Sean had THREE baskets of assorted clothes I had to deal with. Carver, who loves to dig in baskets, made the entire process much more difficult.

This is not even all of his socks. I folded through all of Grey’s. 

Maybe it’s a good thing I don’t have much of a social life because nothing would ever get done around my apartment if I did. 

~Marissa

Oh How Pinteresting!

Yes it is! It is Wednesday already! Hooray! (I don’t pronounce it whore-a, I prefer who-ray!)

I seriously do not remember being on Pinterest that much this past week but my activity feed told me otherwise….I suppose I’ll go with it since I did also consume moderate amounts of alcohol on multiple occasions. But I’m linking up with Michelle for OHP regardless! 

Match Storage

Christmas Ornament Tree

‘Sea glass’ ornaments

Mirror Ornaments

 Check out these AWESOME wedding crafts from my friend Katelyn!

Wedding Invitation Ornament

Honeymoon Sand Ornament

Wedding Shadow Bow! 

DIY Chalkboard

Recycled Glass Stacking Bottles

He’s so ridiculous 

Coffee Stirrer DIY Wal Art

Manicure Jar

Happy Wednesday!

~Marissa

4 More Years

What a night.

I’m Sorry if you don’t like my man Obama, I love him. He’s done a pretty damn good job so far.

Did I do homework? No.

Did I drink beer? Of course.

Did I cheers my roommate and cheer like my high school football team just got the ball every time Obama took control of a state or won an electoral vote a state? Yes.

Are we out of hard alcohol and beer in my apartment? No but we put a huge dent in the supply and will need to get more before our celebration tomorrow. DRINK ALL THE BEERS! 4 MORE YEARS! (I LIKE RYHMES!)

I talked with my blog friend and real life friend Katelyn during the election results and boy were we a mess! Katelyn was crying WAY early! :)

I cannot describe how excited I am to see Obama win. I grew up an army child, I’m obviously a female who wants to make her own choices, and I am still in college so of course I wanted Obama to win! Plus my mom is a teacher and I plan on going into the health care field so I feel Obama is the best choice for our country in the education and medical field for the next four years( just my 22 year-old opinion though) .

I’m hope you’re as excited as I am or at least haven’t hated the last 4 years of your life. Mine have been pretty great!

No matter what, we can all be grateful that political ads, mail and phone calls are done! Yay!

Thank goodness for post-election Wednesday!

~Marissa

Tell me about it Tuesday- Puerto Rico can suck it

Sorry I’ve been gone for a bit…It’s been a LONG, yucky weekend.

BUT

It’s time for TMAT! I’m linking up with Emily, Helene, and Kathleen and their co-host Sarah!

So here’s the sitch-

Sean is on vacation in Puerto Rico for work at the owner’s R&R. Sounds relaxing right? He sounds like such a baller right? Technically Sean JUST got promoted and doesn’t start his new position until next week when he gets back but he still go to go on the trip because he earned it and has been working 7 days a week for months.

Regardless, Sean is in Puerto Rico and I’m in Iowa so PR can suck it because I can’t tell him to. I’m just a little bitter about it. I should have gotten to go but my college budget didn’t seem to have room for a plane ticket in it plus I can’t miss 3 days of nursing school and live to tell about it.

He posted this picture on Facebook today:

It’s okay to hate him

Did I mention this trip was totally free except the plane ticket?

And that I’ve been sick with a reaction to my flu shot all weekend? It looked like a breast cancer awareness softball was glued to my arm, no lie.

He keeps texting me what they are doing and asking me what he should wear. I replied “get so drunk you don’t care”. I’m good with advice.

He will be back on Wednesday and then the chaos of the new job will begin. Oh joy! :)

Happy Tuesday!

~Marissa

It’s OK Thursday

I had a long day yesterday and wasn’t able to post for OHP… :(

I had class, went to the art museum with Sean for a project due Friday, had to take my laptop in to be fixed, visit a friend in the hospital, thought I had to work, rushed home, rushed my homework to class before work and then got called off work!

SO

It’s OK…

That I worried my laptop would need surgery as if it was my dog or a family member. I have papers to write and social media to keep up with!

To hate shopping with Sean sometimes. He’s so picky and has to look at every item and stuck in this ‘I’m holding on to college but want some grown-up perks’ style mode that I HATE. He bought swim trunks with a pattern on them over a pair of solid ones on clearance for his work trip to Puerto Rico. I don’t get him

To question if our shopping roles are reserved in the relationship. He likes to wander and I wanted to get in and get out most of the time. Or maybe I can just tell when the store doesn’t have a good vibe and we need to move on?

To do a happy dance after finishing homework early

To be jealous my friend Callie got to take Jax out for Halloween and I was stuck quilt-eating mini twix bars and coors light. At least her candy was free. But I had beer. I guess it was a draw.

To want to sleep ALL the time. I’m in bed by 11 most nights and asleep by 12.

To miss my friends and having them nearby or in my apartment for late-night rants.

That I packed up my Halloween decorations tonight and replaced them with Thanksgiving decor.

To call my mom three times in one day and be counting down the hours until I’m home on Friday.

Have a great Thursday! I’ll be in class and then at work!

~Marissa