Thanksgiving fun!!

sorry for the delay on posting, I think the end of the semester has got me quite busy. :) well, thanksgiving was a lot of fun. It was so nice to spend some time with family and friends. The company was great and the food was delicious. It was really great to spend some time with Najwa and the kids. They helped us decorate our Christmas tree, which was tons of fun. Our house looks all cute and christmassy. :)

well, i took a final this monday and did great (94%), so I just have 2 more papers left and then I am done with my first semester of PhD school. I am almost finished with one of the papers and plan to finish the other one on sunday. I am hoping to be able to work on them a bit tonight, while michael watches the cowboys game. Hopefully, I have enough energy. I find it is very challenging to get home from work and then begin working on papers and such. I am determined to stay motivated because if i can get part of the papers done tonight, that will give me some time to go shopping on sunday. :)

well, michael got some great news. He received an interview for the nurse anesthetist program at TCU (the one he wants to go to). The interviews are for early january, so he has started studying a bit so he will be ready. I am so excited for him. This is a big step in the interview process. Other than that, life is good. Work is ok, but what more can i say about that. i am looking forward to christmas. It is so nice to be home in the states and in our own home for christmas. We drew names this year from christmas and i drew my sister's name and michael drew elizabeth's (my brother's wife) name. I think it will be fun to shop for them and not to have to shop for a ton of people. we are trying to find some time to take a picture for our holiday cards, so hopefully we will be able to do that this weekend.

well, nothing really new to report. I am really excited about having a month off between semesters. I don't start class again until january 14. thank goodness for that. Also, my sis will be home for part of that break, so we will be able to hang out and have some fun. maybe she can help me go shopping, she is really good at finding cool clothes. well, i am off. hope you are all well and that your thanksgivings were great.

Happy Friday!!

I just wanted to wish everyone a very happy Friday. This has been a long week, but no matter how bad a week is, Friday at 5 can never be beat. What a great feeling? :) Have a great weekend everyone.

It is almost Turkey Day!!

I can't believe that Thanksgiving is next week. I am so excited to get a day off from work and spend some relaxing time with family. Also, i can't stop thinking about all the delicious food we are going to have. I am going to make the sweet potato casserole this year. I found a recipe in one of my Cooking Light magazines and it sounds quite good. unfortunately, michael is working on thanksgiving, but he will join us after work. On a better note, he is off for christmas, which will be nice.

well, life at work is going ok. After a week full of meetings, we have some new added responsibilities. I guess things aren't always fair, but you go with the flow until you just can't handle the flow anymore. i hope that makes sense.

School is kicking my butt. I guess I just never thought it would be quite this hard. I have been doing well thus far, but I did just get an 80 on a paper. But, it was a type of paper i had not written before. We have one similar due in a few weeks and I think I have learned more about what she is looking for, so hopefully i will do better on the next one. I think it just makes for very long days and weeks with both work and school. I feel like there is constantly something i can be working on. I have been trying to find some time to have fun and relax. We are going to six flags this weekend because our work is giving us free tickets. That should be a fun day full of no thoughts of work or school. :)

Other than that, michael and I decided we are going to take a short vacation at the beginning of january between semesters. we dont want to do anything crazy, just something small and low key to get some time to relax away from all of life's business. :)

On another bright note, I bought some new pants this weekend and they are 2 sizes smaller than what i was wearing before i started weight watchers. YEAH!! anyway, i am off.

Well, there is a first for everything

I have a tough patient at work today. To make a very long story short, she is refusing to have a c-section based on her faith. It is not for sure that a c-section will be necessary, but her baby is
very high risk, so it is a possibility. This is the first time in my hospital social work career that an order has been written in the chart stating that there cannot be a social worker in her room until after delivery. I guess I really made her angry (or she is a bit crazy), (I think it is the latter), so she asked the doctor to not let a social worker talk to her until after the baby is born. :) How crazy is that? anyway, since i am not here over the weekend, i am going to have to pass this case along to the ER social worker. I am not happy about this because I would really like to finish talking with her to ensure the safety of that baby. Anyway, that is life. No one ever told me being a social worker would be easy or fun all the time.

Well, Halloween came and went. We had a few trick or treaters at our house, but not that many. we have a ton of candy left over for our party this weekend. we did carve a very cute pumpkin. it is ghost and beneath the ghost it says, Boo!. it is very cute. well, i have mixed feelings about this weekend. I am really excited about our housewarming party on saturday, but i am definitely not looking forward to all the class work i have to do. I have a research proposal paper due in my monday class. This is turning out to be much more challenging than i thought it would be. I have never really written this kind of paper, so i am having to start from scratch and learn how to do it. In my tuesday class, we have a panel presentation on a theory of our choice that applies to our area. I have chosen social cognitive theory because it is very applicable for prevention programming. well, we have to put together a powerpoint and a nice, detailed presentation. I also have a meeting with my professor on monday before class to go over an outline (that i have not written yet) for my paper that is due in a couple of weeks. Oh my goodness. even typing this all out makes me feel overwhelmed. anyway, i have started on the powerpoint and the research proposal, but i definitely have a lot of work that still needs to be done. I plan on working on it tonight, saturday during the day (before the party) and then all day sunday. wish me luck. I think the middle of the semester is always the toughest time.

there are also tons of changes happening at work right now. It has been decided by our new president that the social workers and case managers are going to integrate. we are not merging departments, but we are integrating. it is still to be decided exactly what that means, but i am certain it cannot be good. case managers are nurses that do chart reviews and such to determine if a patient should be in the hospital. we have meetings from 8-5 tuesday through friday of next week to learn all the new stuff we will be doing. i am not sure how we are going to get all our work done, while we are meetings all day, but i have been told that the hospital staff on our floors are supposed to take care of it. we will see how all that goes. another big change is that the pediatric floor is being closed. so, i am also not sure what that means as far as my job duties. I might be asked to take on an adult floor which i really don't want to do. anyway, all this to say, there are some major changes going on at work. I plan to wait and see how it all goes and make a decision about whether to stay or go when everything is all said and done. the benefits here are just so great in so many ways. i will just wait and see.

anyway, i hope you are all well. have a great weekend.