New ceiling and other updates

School

I finished lecture last week on July 17th. I seriously studied for this one class more than I think I have my entire college life. The entire class was hanging by a thread and I was in the middle C's which made me very anxious. I'm usually in the high B's or low A's. I was very worried about failing out of the nursing program all together. But I didn't! After endless hours of studying, eating junk or not eating at all, getting very little sleep, and attempting to sound coherent while talking I am proud to say that I earned a B in my lecture class!!! Most of my peers passed, but we had three people fail out of the program. Therefore that brings us down to 36/40. We have one other person fail out first semester. Nursing school is not an easy task, but so worth it! I am now doing clinical work at a local hospital three days of the week with the professor that is known to make people cry. We finish clinicals on Aug 14th. I've made through week one. Clinicals may seem easy but the massive amounts of paperwork make it not easy. This professor also has a nice "drill sargent/nazi" feel to her and she grills you while giving medication and asks you other questions about patient care. You better know your stuff or you'll get a lecture or a "You better go look it up now." She gave me a "good job" when she grilled me on my meds, so thank goodness I seem to be on her good side.... for now.

After lecture was over Tyler and I were invited to have dinner and go to the pool of one of my study buddies. She has a cute house in Dallas and such a nice backyard. We decided to go and had fun. Her parents were there and so was the other study buddy. I was asked to bring potato salad and a dessert. I had never made potato salad before and I didn't want to buy it from the store already made. I'm all for the homemade stuff. I found a recipe and went to town. Everyone really enjoyed and I was told to add it to my recipe box. For dessert I made up a strawberry shortcake thing that was delicious!

Here are some pictures:



The potato salad recipe can be found here.






The Strawberry dessert I layered angel food cake, strawberry jello, a mix of cool whip, vanilla pudding and milk (the white stuff), and strawberries. I just layered it as a trifle.

New Calling for Thais

I was called and set apart as a temple worker! I am super duper excited. They ask you to do one shift a week and I was able to choose when. I decided to do Tuesday evenings since that is the only day I am 100% I won't be in class or clinicals. I do have classes in the morning, but the temple is 6 minutes away from my school.

I start on Aug 19th. The Dallas temple is currently closed for cleaning and I didn't want to mess their schedule up because of my current clinical schedule. They are aware that I'm in school and that in January I may have to switch to a different shift, but the temple president was very sweet, he said he understands it because his wife is a retired NA (Nurse Anesthetist) so he knows all about the 12 hour shifts. I should be getting released from my nursery calling this Sunday. Several people have moved from our ward so they've been putting it off until they could reorganize presidencies and whatnot. I can't wait to be released from nursery. It's been an ok calling, but I have come home several times and told Tyler that there was no way we'd ever have kids because the nursery kids were soooo bad. It's funny though because if any of them are sad they always come to me. I was also able to get a new girl to stay in nursery without screaming the whole 2 hours. :-D I'm not sure if I'll get a "Sunday calling" but I guess that we'll see in the next few weeks.

The Ceiling Saga

Our ceiling is finally fixed! As of today. It has been over a week and it's taken forever! All the new sheet rock, the new plaster, the mending, the texturing, the painting. Our house has been in shambles. There's dust all over and it's been driving me crazy! The ceiling fell down because the pan that catches the water from the evaporator coil in the attic overflowed and leaked into the ceiling all day long while I was gone studying for my final. There are two pipes that are supposed to drain it away from the ceiling and both of them were clogged. So the pan overflowed and we got a hole in our ceiling. The AC guy is covering it. To top things off our AC has been tripping our circuit breaker. I have gotten home twice with it being 90 degrees in the house and the AC not functioning. Needless to say the AC guy is not going to replace our circuit breaker panel. I don't think I ever mentioned that our AC unit was completely replaced in early June (before I started blogging) we got several different quotes and ended up with a great deal and warranty on parts and labor for 10 years. Which has already come in handy! But the ceiling is now done and Eddie (sheet rock guy) is packing up. Here are some pictures of the process:

Tyler helping Eddie cut the damp sheet rock

The perfectly square hole

Tyler helping Eddie put the new sheet rock up

Eddie dilling the sheet rock into place


The patched up, plastered up ceiling. We had this look going for one whole week!


The final product!

The paint is not dry yet, but it does look nice. I'm glad this is over and done with and now the house can be clean again!

Other Randoms

April is in heat! Unexpected heat. She was an early bloomer. She started at 6 mos and 1 week. They usually don't start until 9 months. Our bishop is our vet and he was surprised and felt bad because I've been asking him for placed to get her spayed at. We had to put her in a puppy diaper. She's finally getting over the messy part. But holy molly.. that was a pain. I think I changed our sheets almost everyday, along with wiping the floor, and changing shirts and pants.

Here she is in her little diapers. Can you tell how much she loved them? :)


I also gave Oliver a haircut. The groomers I used to take him to moved so I haven't found one yet that I like the price. I think it turned out ok, not as good as when he goes to the groomer, but hey I saved us $50. Here is the before:

And the after:

On a last note. I finally decided to put some curtains up in our kitchen! When we moved into our house (2 yrs ago) the previous owners had some white curtains that were filthy so I took them down and never replaced them. I found some at Target that I liked yesterday and got them. We haven't used our breakfast nook to eat because there's always sun in your face! Now we can use it again!

Before:

Old picture with Fall decorations up. This chandelier is now in our formal dining room.

After! Now I just need to figure out what to add to the top shelves.

I think this about covers it all that's been going on! Hope everyone is doing well!