More Callings

Oh, and in other, more happy news, Jordan and I were called to be in the Activities Committee. We get to help plan the Trunk-or-Treat, the Christmas party, and the Summer Picnic! Our friends, Adaire and Will are the committee chairs, so we get to plan with them. Joyness!

Mice. Gross.

For the past few days, I've been finding little black pellets on the counter-tops. At first I thought they were bugs, and so I'd throw them away only to find more the next morning. Well, the idea popped in my head on Saturday, "What if it's mouse poop!!?" So I called maintenance and had them come check our house out. They left us with some mouse traps and cockroach spray (just in case). We set the traps and today, at 6:38 AM, Jordan heard the tell-tale snap of the trap. I got a little nauseated and then went to check it out. Yep. There was a mouse in there, and he was wriggling, trying to escape. Eventually he died. :( I am so grossed out that there was a mouse in our house! I've been cloroxing the counters and pots and pans every time I use them because I'm so freaked out. I hope there aren't any more.

The New Job...Finally!

Well, it's official! I got the job at a rehabilitation center in the West End of Richmond. The Director of Nursing (DON) called me on Tuesday and offered me not a part-time job, but a FULL-TIME job!! I was so ecstatic! This means I won't have to search around for another job any more. I'm going to be eligible for benefits too, which I've never had in my life. The center is only 1 mile away from my house; it literally takes me 5 minutes to drive there. I had orientation yesterday, and I was the only RN there. It looks like there are four wings, with an RN Charge Nurse (CN), two LPN's (licensed practical nurses), and several CNA's (certified nursing assistants). I'll be on one of the rehab units. And oh my, the rehab facility is SOOOOOOO nice! They just built it and it cost 4 million. They have everything down there! These patients are taken care of very well.

I have been getting my "nursing bag" ready for work. It will have all my papers, clipboards, stethoscope, highlighters, pens, snacks, peppermints, masks, essential oil...all good nursing stuff. The only downside I've really found to this job is that I have to wear ALL WHITE. Boo. The problem with white is that it gets dirty so easily. Thank goodness they'll let me wear my Dansko's though (they're black).

I have another day of orientation on Wednesday where they'll test my nursing skills and medication knowledge. Then I have five days of orientation and I'm on my own! I'll be working every other weekend and three days during the week (not sure which ones yet). Yay for being a nurse...and having a job!!! :) :)

Richmond Mormon Chorale

I totally forgot to tell everyone about this! I have joined what is called the Richmond Mormon Chorale. Basically, it's a serious choir in our stake that sings all around Richmond and even Washington, D.C.! I'm so excited to be a part of it. I haven't really sung in a serious choir since high school, and it's great to be involved in something that will help to spread our love for Christ throughout Richmond.

Last week I had to try out (!!!) and the director, Donna, put me as a first alto, which I'm so excited for. I love singing harmony. Apparently I have a big range, so that was nice to find out too. We have practice every Sunday except Fast Sunday from 6:30 to 9:00. The first week we went through ALL 20 something songs! It was crazy. Yesterday we focused on four new pieces they are adding to the mix. It's going to be so great!!!

Interviews

Well, the interview at the rehabilitation center in the West End of Richmond went very well! I went there this morning, filled out an application, and then interviewed with the Director of Nursing. She kept commenting on how young I am and how she was worried that the CNA's would take advantage of me. I'm looking forward to using my leadership skills to hopefully not let this happen. I think I convinced her that I'm very excited, willing to learn, and desirous of helping patients in their own ways.

The center is amazing. They mainly do rehabilitation for people after strokes, surgery, and other accidents. The rehab place has a kitchen where people can learn how to cook for themselves, a car so they can learn how to get in and out, and all the other basic rehab stuff. I'm amazed! There are three different wings (I think). Two of them hold all rehab patients and are super busy, and the other holds half rehab patients and half long-term care patients. I would most likely be floating around to all the different units, because they are basically the same. Once she clears my references, I will orient for about a week (!!! - short!) and then start working the 3-11 shift a couple times a week. Thank goodness! You have no idea what a relief it is to finally have a possible job. Our savings are continually dwindling and it will be nice to finally start them up again.

I'm going to be reading and re-reading this awesome book I got for new nurses. It is so comprehensive. I'm worried that I will have forgotten everything that I worked so hard to build over the past four years, but all my nursing friends keep reassuring me that I can't have forgotten :) I'm just SO SO SO excited to finally start working and taking care of people!! Yeah!

Musings

Just some random thoughts here...

In Relief Society last week, one of the sisters (an immigrant from Africa) talked about when she joined the church, her family disowned her. She made the most of a difficult situation and developed her friendships within her own ward and then realized - the church is her family. This is how it should be, isn't it?

We are all brothers and sisters of the same God who created this world. We should treat each other like family. We need to love each other, care for each other, and be there for each other. Just treat each other with pure love and Christ-like love (charity) that we all deserve.

Jordan and I recognized this example at a fair our stake held today. He commented on how it seemed like a big family reunion. Everyone knew each other and was talking, playing, eating, just having a good time as member of the church. They acted like family members.

It's my hope that I can have the influence of the Spirit in my life so I can be an example of Christ's loving kindness to everyone I come in contact with.

Job Status Update

Well, so far, I've applied to 32 jobs. I've been rejected from 22 of them, and am still waiting on a couple hopefuls. I've gotten an interview next Monday at a Nursing Rehab place that's only about a mile from my house. This is for a part-time job. The positive thing about part-time is that it usually pays better than full-time and that I can get another part-time job somewhere else. I won't get bored as easily and will be able to interact with twice the amount of people. The bad news is that it's still only part-time, and I need to make a certain income to keep living where we're living. I still haven't gotten any other interviews, but I'm going to be calling all the jobs I applied to in July and August to see if they need any other information and send them an updated resume. It's discouraging but I'm still trying to keep my hopes up.

Jordan's New Calling

Jordan got a new calling yesterday as the Ward Moving Coordinator! Since our ward has a lot of students, there is tons of turnover every year, and hence, lots of moving. This will be a great opportunity for him to serve in the ward! He's excited :)

Charlotte International

Last Friday, I packed up an overnight bag and drove down to Charlotte, North Carolina, for an International Convention for ACN, my business! It was awesome. I was able to spend time with my friends that I hadn't seen for quite a few months: Melodie from New Jersey, Curtis from Salt Lake, and Kyle from Tooele. We had a blast! Saturday morning, Melodie's husband drove us to the convention center and dropped us off. We found some seats among 40,000 other excited representatives way up in the nosebleeds and got ready for an awesome day!

This picture is not rotating for me, sorry!

Several of my favorite people spoke, including Greg Provenzano, ACN's president and co-founder, Tony Cupisz, ACN co-founder and Vice President, Robert Stevanovski, ACN co-founder and chairman, Simon Abboud, Mindy Deeble, and.... GEORGE ZALUCKI!!! Wow, what a day. I love these events!

I was sad to not be able to stay for Sunday. Donald Trump, who endorses our company, was going to be speaking to the 40,000 representatives there that weekend! For more information about ACN, visit my website here.

Kyle and I

Curtis and I

Shenadoah National Park

Our good friends Alan and Lyanna invited us to come camping with them in Shenadoah National Park (about 2 hours away from us) over the Labor Day weekend. Unfortunately, we don't have any camping equipment except for camping chairs and marshmallow roasters. So we decided to join them on Saturday for a nice day of hiking, tinfoil dinners, games, and s'mores. It was so fun!

We decided to go hiking on a trail that led to an old Episcopal Mission. I thought it would be awesome to see, plus the hike was only 4 miles round-trip. The hike was easy (compared to Utah hikes), with just some rolling hills. The forest was amazing. I couldn't get over how thick the forest was; the trees were towering and the wildlife was abundant. We had been strolling along for about 45 minutes when Jordan said he thought we had gone farther than the hike was supposed to be. Uh-oh. I thought for sure we were on the right trail, but maybe we had missed a turn? No, we had stayed on the main path the entire time. We did pass by a rotting shanty, could that have been the mission? No, missions don't look like that. We were so confused. So we decided to keep hiking a little longer and then turn around if it didn't look promising.

We hiked for approximately 3 miles in before we turned around. Jordan pulled out his iPhone, amazingly getting service, and the map said that we had almost hiked to the edge of the park! Wow! All-in-all, the hike was a good experience, and next time, we'll follow the trail markers more closely. I still have no idea if that trail was the one we were supposed to be on.

We joined Alan and Lyanna and started building a fire. While our tin foil dinners cooked, we played Scrabble, which I lost horribly at. All my letters were U, M, and Q. Can't really do anything with those! Dinner was delicious. If you've never had tin foil dinners before, this website has some really good tips.

We had s'mores and talked for a while then headed home! It was such a fun experience and we look forward to going to Shenadoah National Park again soon.

Welcome to the Hendersons!

The week of Jordan's orientation and White Coat Ceremony, Jim and Wendy came out to visit! It was SO great to see them. We had missed them so much! So much happened that week. First thing we did was go to Costco and Sam's Club. Can you say food storage?? It was awesome. We went couch shopping and decided on a black leather 4-seater at Ashley's Furniture, which is about a mile away from us. They were having a Friday the 13th sale, so everything was 13% off, and shipping was only $13.00!!! Compared to a couple hundred! I was very pleased.

I felt so bad on the fateful morning Jim and Wendy decided to go running. They ended going about five miles in the wrong direction because all the streets fan out, and had been running in about 90% humidity for three hours. They tried to find out where they were on the iPhone, but kept going in the wrong direction. It was awful, but Jordan saved them and picked them up near our grocery store. It's so hard to tell what direction you're going because there aren't any mountains, which Utahns generally rely on for direction. Hopefully next time they come, Jordan will be able to run with them so no one gets lost.

We also toured around a bit to see Richmond and the sights. Before Jordan's ceremony, we went to the Holocaust Memorial Museum in downtown Richmond. It was very interesting and informational. I love to study this time period in history. It reminds me of my mom's dad, Buppi, who grew up in Communist East Germany during World War II. Unfortunately, we couldn't take pictures inside.

We then walked around the capitol building, which was this gorgeous white building hiding in a park in the middle of downtown Richmond. I believe this statue is of George Washington, but I can't remember. There were dozens of statues.

Inside the capitol building, there is a life-size statue of George Washington. This is the only statue he ever posed for.

Robert E. Lee, inside the capitol building.

Then we walked to another old building (the Justice building I think), which looked like a church on the outside and a castle on the inside!

We saw a few movies with the Hendersons: Dinner for Shmucks (hilarious!!), and Eat, Pray, Love (Inspirational to me :)). We had an amazing time while they were here, and hope the humidity didn't deter them from wanting to visit again! Thanks for all your help!

New Calling...Again!

Well I've got another calling...Relief Society Pianist! YAYYYYYYY!! I'm so excited to have something to do. I've been so bored, and now they are going to give me a key to the church to practice hymns (among other things.) They hadn't had a pianist in the RS for over a month, and when we moved into the ward, they were very glad to hear I played. I'm glad too!

Virginia Beach

On August 28, Jordan and I decided to head out to Virginia Beach for the day. It was AWESOME! We went hiking along the bay in First Landing State Park, which is where John Smith and the other people from England first landed when they came to America. We almost got lost because of the 20 million trails intersecting, took some pictures, experienced the flora and fauna, and then went to the beach to relax. Like Washington, D.C., Virginia Beach is less than two hours away from us. We LOVE living in such a central location! When we got to the beach, there was a wedding holding up all the people trying to get on the beach. Those people got married and left, and when we were about to leave, there was another wedding, haha! It was a gorgeous day. We also discovered, thanks to a tip from Wendy, that baby powder removes sticky sand from your body. It really works! We just dried in the sun and then sprinkled baby power all over and then rubbed it off. Yay for no sand in the car :)

This is for brother Jordan...a glimpse of a really nice car lol

The swamp we hiked through

Mysterious hanging moss

Awesome tree - check out those roots!

Virginia Beach

Washington, D.C.!

I know Jordan already talked about my birthday, but I wanted to write about it also. For my birthday this year, I really wanted to go to Washington, D.C. I love that city and love doing lots of touristy things there :) We went up on August 7. The drive is less than two hours, so we got there in the late morning. First we went to the Anacostia Community Museum, which is part of the Smithsonian. The main reason I wanted to go here was because of the free parking, which is hard to find in D.C. The thing I didn't know, though, was that it was in the middle of the hood. Seriously. And we were planning on walking 3 miles through the scary neighborhood to the Metro to get to the other Smithsonians. Don't know what I was thinking - it looked good on Google Maps!

Then we discovered that there was a shuttle that ran for free from the Anacostia Museum to all the other Smithsonians! Yay! So we toured the very small museum, which told the story of a man who studied African American history, and then waited outside for the shuttle.

Anacostia Community Museum

The hood. I was scared.

Once we got to the Smithsonian strip and the Mall, things got a little easier. I knew where I was at least :) We then went to the African Art Museum, which was pretty sweet, and then tried to find some lunch. We went into the Smithsonian Castle (below) to see what they had. $10 wraps? No way! We decided to walk to a McDonalds and get tons of unhealthy food for half the price. And free drink refills!

The African Art Museum

The Mall

Then we decided to go to the American Art Museum. I was sad I didn't get a picture of it; it was by far my favorite museum of the day. We only could stay for about 20 minutes, definitely not enough time for that huge place. I could spend all day in that museum! There were original paintings of all the presidents, founding fathers, and historical figures from early America, in addition to sculptures, painted brooches, and golden coins from Spanish America.

After the American Art Museum, I discovered that the shuttle stopped taking riders 2 hours previously. Lovely. No matter, we had planned for the Metro anyway! We hopped on what we thought was the green line and ended up going in the opposite direction, on the yellow line. So we took the yellow line back to the green line and then ended up at our destination an hour later. Ha. Ha. Jordan and I took the wrong direction out of the Metro, so we had to walk underneath the freeway and down the highway to get to our car...3 miles away, remember? I wanted to take pictures of the neighborhood so badly, but I was scared that someone would try to steal my camera. Seriously.

Jordan and I played a game. Whoever sees the first white person wins. We were almost to our car when we saw the first white person besides ourselves...a police-woman. How ironic is that? Sorry if that sounds racist to anyone. It's just how it was! Some of my favorite memories of this walk were:

A door on the outside of a second story...with no steps.

A rotting house with barred windows and rotting steps, but was obviously being lived in.

Tons of trash littering this one little patch of grass.

Black people staring at us the entire time.

All the gangsta's driving their black Cadillacs.

Telling Jordan that no one will rob us because we look dirt poor anyway.

Point of the story: don't ever park at the Anacostia Community Museum just because it's free.

After getting to the car, we drove in heavy, heavy D.C. traffic to Woodbridge, VA so we could get home furnishings from IKEA. You already saw how loaded down the car was here, but this is how many things we stuffed in our car!

On my actual birthday, I was feeling sad because none of my family was there to celebrate, plus it was a Sunday, and birthdays on Sunday are never fun in my opinion. My sweet friends in our new ward, Alan and Lyanna, brought me cupcakes for my birthday. I was shocked! How I love good friends.

Jordan and his mom also conspired (sneaky, sneaky!) and sent me a Nothing Bundt Cake through the mail. It was SO delicious! Thank you so much for making my birthday special whilst we are far away :)