Lucky Sevens

Audrey tagged me, and while I don't always do what I'm tagged, this was a fun one that I've compiled a little at a time.


Seven things I can do:

1. Twirl a baton...yep, I still can after all these years! 2. Give out lots of IV morphine and dilaudid. When ordered by a doc, of course...which tends to be a lot. I should keep track how much I give one of these shifts at work, just for statistical purposes. 3. Organize. I CAN do it, but it doesn't mean it DO it. I know I really haven't done a good job of organizing my home since we've been here for 2 1/2 years. I think I just need someone to take my husband and kids for a week so it can get done! It's kinda a mental block thing at this point. 4. Only breathe out of one nostril. Yes, it's sad but true, it's how God made me. 5. Sew. Again, it's something I CAN do, but haven't done much of in a while. I haven't had a lot of patience for some of the things I enjoy lately. 6. Shovel snow. I'm the official household snow shoveler. Adam tells me to wait and that he'll do it when he's home, but I actually like it. When it isn't -5 (or below) or it's windy, I don't mind. I'll actually ask Adam to watch the kids so I can go outside and shovel. Twisted of me, yes, but it's so I can have some quiet time to myself. 7. I have a really weird memory, and I guess for the most part I can remember things that happened LONG ago, better than short term memory, oddly enough. Now, I'm not saying I remember stuff like the chick in Adam's medical school class did that claimed she could remember stuff from when she was 1 years old. That's just dumb and pretty much impossible. But I can remember most 'important' things from elementary, junior high, and high school. College is kinda blur, and of course I don't remember facts and figures the best, which totally irritates me. I wish I had a photographic memory like my husband. But I guess the things or people that I really liked in my past I remember quite well. Especially high school, I don't know why.

Seven things I can't do:

1. Whistle well. I can do it better than I used to but not loud. I need to read a book on how to whistle. I've always wanted to be able to stick two fingers in my mouth and let out a huge whistle. Maybe someday. 2. Lose weight and keep it off. Tried and tried over and over during these married years and will get successful but not enough and I fall off the wagon and gain it all back, plus some. I listened to Oprah talk about how sad she is for gaining 40 lbs and I think I understand her pain...as I know many others do. I don't think I'll ever see the 125 that I was when I got married, but that's ok. I'll continue to attempt that goal, but no guarantees. I think I'd settle for 135, and that alone may take many years to attempt. 3. Listen well to others. This is one something that always bugs me. It's gotten better, particularly with numbers since I've been a nurse, like "Melissa, that guys BP is 80/50" and I can remember that. But generally I'm so scared that I'll forget the exact numbers that I'm given, I write stuff on my hands if I don't have paper with me. My patients always think I'm a nut for this, but well...it's important to know whether a person's blood sugar was 130 or 330...I could potentially kill people I suppose which freaks me out. I'm a little paranoid when I care for people and I'm totally lost without my "brain"--which is my sheet of papers where I scribble ANYTHING and EVERYTHING pertinent to my patients. I've learned that to be the best listener I have to shut off my mouth, which can run in the backround in my head ready to respond at any given moment, in order to truly listen well. That's tough for me. 4. Insert IVs well. This really bugs me too, I think it stems from my bitterness that we couldn't practice on real people during nursing school and real people aren't like the silly fake models we practiced on. I get very uptight when I know I have to go do someone's IV because they really do make me uncomfortable...I don't like poking people more than once! I think it stems from trying to be a people pleaser, that I can be too much. 5. Live well without sleep. Common mom problem, but I think I'm just more whiney and verbal about it than most moms. I think others live in denial about it. No...I'm just whiney. Yeah, that's more like it. 6. Drive well in the snow. Scares me to death everytime I have to do it. It's mostly just the ice that scares me, I suppose it's a control issue...knowing that I may have completely no control over my car is pretty scary. I make sure we're all buckled in quite well during the icey-snowy season here. 7.

Seven things that attracted me to Adam:

1. Pretty blue eyes and athletic upper body build. 2. Thoughtful. Used to bring me flowers a lot, just when I needed them. Still does, maybe not quite as often though!:) 3. Laid-back attitude--balances me out! 4. Leadership qualities. I'll never forget (it makes me laugh still) his solution to this church commitee we were on as young single adults in college. He was the "in-charge" person, I can't even remember what the commitee was called. Anyway, there were a whole bunch of high council people from the four stakes on this committee and several stake presidents. I remember these meetings would last HOURS. Unneccesarily too, people would get way off track and not on topic and it was frustrating. So Adam's solution? He made people raise their hands if they wanted to talk. He also MADE people stay on topic, on the agenda. I will never forget watching Adam call on a certain stake president from one of the other stakes when he wanted to talk, and helping to keep him on topic and in proper timeframe. The image of this man raising his hand to talk still makes me laugh. Adam knows how to get things done, and correctly I suppose. 5. Good with my siblings, particularly I remember him playing well with Matthew--which meant A LOT! That kid can be quite difficult...still. 6. Returned missionary, and missionary minded. Knows so much about the Gospel. 7. Genius smart.

Seven things I say most:

1. No climbing Spencer. 2. Let's GO Justin. Get your hat, mittens, coat, and shoes on, backpack, lunchbox, and waterbottle (this is said about 12 times on Monday mornings. Literally.). 3. Get down Spencer. 4. PU-LEAASSSE???(whiney voice) 5. Blah blah blah. 6. REALLY? 7. I love you boys.



Seven goals for the new year:


Many of these seem to repeat from year to year....but here goes:

1. Lose weight. I've decided I've wasted a lot of years (hmm, my 20s?) being fat and that it just isn't right anymore. I don't want to turn 30 and be fat, so that's my goal. Lose the weight, ALL of it, over the next year...before my 30th birthday. A whole year, that should make it easy, right? Well, not 'easy' but doable. We'll see. Life has been stressful these past 9 years, and I'm not sure it's going to get much easier anytime soon. I guess it's a goal. It is what it is. 2. Read scriptures daily. This has always been a hard thing for me to do. I need to make it a habit that can't be broken. 3. Develop more patience. This will be (and has been) a lifelong goal. I was once told that I was born impatient, born 6 weeks early, and I've continued as such my entire life. So...developing 'more' patience seems a good goal. 4. Be on time to church. This is a fairly easy goal if I'm attending choir or playing the organ that day....And it should be an easy goal now that church is at 1pm. But we'll see. It's a goal anyway. 5. Continue blogging, journaling. I was a horrible journal writer the first 5-6 years of our marriage, I feel bad that I didn't keep good track of everything in Justin's first few years. So, blogging has been a good way to keep track of daily life. Gotta keep it up. 6. Read more. I somehow find myself trying to nap if I get a few minutes of peace and quiet. But really, I should be better about reading. It's not like I don't like to. It's just that naptime calls me, if there is such a thing for the day! So reading is good. I want to read all the books on this list I saved from high school, from my favorite English teacher, Mr. Donohue. I think he titled it something like "The 100 Best Books You Should Read Before You Die," or that's how I interpreted it anyway. 7. Get back to the unlazy CORRECT way of playing the organ...with the peddles! I was looking over the hymns to be played last Sunday and realized that "I Stand All Amazed" was something that I always used to play the peddles with because it's not 'that' tough. But did I do it with peddles? No--I was too chicken! Yes, peddles should be played. That's my goal for this year.

Seven favorite foods:

1. Anything containing sugar. Period. Especially right now as I'm detoxing from sugar! 2. I've really taken to green peppers and onions cooked up lately in a frying pan with a little olive oil, put in a tortilla with some shredded cheese, salsa, and a tiny bit of sour cream. Yum. 3. I should just list some of my favorite restaurants out here because pretty much anything from them: La Mesa, Taste, Famous Dave's, PF Changs, Cheesecake Factory, Red Robin, Melting Pot...to name a few. 4. Chopped Steak from Applebee's. Yes, I thought of another restaurant. 5. Homemade lasagne--see my other blog for the recipe. 6. Cake, yes more sugar... Chocolate Molten Lava Cake from Chili's 7. Chocolate. Ohh, I thought of one of Martha Stewart's recipe for triple chocolate cheesecake. So good (A bit expensive to make but worth it--makes a ton though, make it for a party crowd!).

Seven people I tag:


1. Kirsten 2. Tara 3. Amber 4. Jennifer Smith 5. Jenn Wright 6. Kristen 7. Janina