Day 181: Ceil Blue

3rd day of orientation

scrubs!

I can wear all Ceil Blue or all White scrubs....I think I'm only gonna wear Ceil Blue

Quote of the Day:

"now I'm gonna wash your pocketbook"

"wow yall are very thorough...but I left it at home"

Day 180: Who's a RN?

2nd day of work: RN badge!

I have never been more proud of a name tag in my entire life.

I've noticed that I leave my name badge on like all day. I have this innate sense of pride in the fact that I get to brandish that little piece of plastic, and I get paid to do it! Who knew that having those 2 little letters could change so much... I feel like I am carrying around a shooting star, cause every time I look down at those 2 little laminated letters I feel like all my wishes are coming true...and its the most wonderful and strangest sensation in the whole world. I just feel so blessed!

Day 179: Orientation

1st day of work: Orientation to the hospital

aka: lots of time sitting in a room while people talk at you

its actually really important information...but it still gets boring having to sit there all day... So, I starting doodling in an effort to stay awake and pay attention, and all I had was my napkin left over from breakfast...by the way, it's really hard to draw on a napkin.

there were more napkin drawings but my pen kept ripping the napkins to shreds...this was the only one that survived. (and just by looking at this doodle, I know exactly what they were talking about when I drew it ~Employee Health Benefits. I drew the shark while they were talking about dental...)

Quote of the Day:

"that's the sheriff!" ~Pat

Day 178: Graduation Recognition

My parent's church recognized all the recent graduates today, so I got to stand up in front of a church again this Sunday...yay.

I also got to see Jake!

I just love him!

Day 177: Tybee Island

BEACH!

Things I learned while at the beach today:

1. Andi gets super cranky when she's hungry

2. Andi is the most pleasant person here once she's fed (her words)

3. Timothy and Andrew are sissys and laid on their towels to build mini-sand castles cause they didn't want to get "dirty" at the beach...

4. Timothy and Andrew are horrible sand castle builders

5. Andrew was mad at me for not letting him cheat off of me in Calculus in High School (I'm just surprised that someone wanted to copy off of me in Calculus)

6. Destin is SOOOOOOO much nicer than Tybee

7. The sand at Tybee gets REALLY hot. like burn the soles of your feet off hot

8. Timothy will not carry me across the sand when its so hot that I'm literally crying. He'll just laugh until...well he just kept laughing.

9. due to #7 I no longer have feet...just little nubs where they used to be

10. Its very hard to throw a football when you're shoulder deep in the ocean

11. something grazed Andrew in the ocean....and I remembered why I don't like getting in the ocean at Tybee...especially since we were out farther than the pier and they were catching fish, sharks, and stingrays at the pier that wasn't far away

12. Tybee got rid of the shower things at the pier

13. People go to the beach on Tybee with clothes on now...like jeans...in the summer...

14. there's a large population of bacteria or something in North Beach on Tybee that is making people sick...which makes me think that those people had to of been drinking the water...and if they did then they deserve to get sick, cause that's just dumb.

15. Andrew has a good swagger walk, Timmy does not....he's just too nice.

Quote of the Day:

"I need some aviators and a douche bag walk" ~Timothy

"Oh my gosh, you just hurt my feelings with your voice" ~Timothy

Day 176: Funny or True?

Last day of VBS! Which is kinda sad and kinda a relief! I am so worn out! and they made all the teachers get up and dance on stage during VBS today....so I'm pretty sure the kids are glad that's over too. After VBS I drove to Statesboro to hang out with some friends that I haven't seen in a while. We played games, went out, goofed off...

we had lots of fun!

and just a note for future reference, don't ever let ask a guy to take a picture for you...cause you'll end up with about 300 pictures of absolutely nothing

Day 175: Log Castles

My youth helpers loved playing with the kids...

Quote of the Day:

"I don't think I'm gonna go home today, I'm just gonna stay here and build a castle with these" ~Ashley

Day 174: Snakes

Today in the Bible Story time at VBS we learned about Paul surviving a poisonous snake bite (Acts 28:1-10), so during our free time today I told the kids to pretend to be snakes:

it was hilarious

Day 173: I'm allergic to emotions

Some of our VBS pirates... Ava's parrot is amazing!

...I'm jealous

I got my 6 digit number today, I am now officially a licensed Registered Nurse!! Woo hoo!

Day 172: What's a Pinetopper?

Today was the 1st day of VBS and I am absolutely in love with my 2nd graders! They are all very sarcastic which makes the day lots of fun cause we all joke around and they are pretty hilarious! After VBS we went swimming and then headed to a baseball game! Jimmy (our pastor) got to throw the first pitch! He did a pretty good job!

...well at least we thought so until this little girl from a local softball team came up and threw the 2nd "1st pitch" and her's was about 30 times faster than Jimmy's...and she couldn't be older than 10

Quote of the Day:

"Who are those little girls?"

"softballs" ~Sarah

Day 171: Estoy muy contento!

Sundays have pretty much always been my favorite day of the week for as long as I can remember. I usually spend most of the day at church either learning about God's word or having some good Christian fellowship, and we always go to lunch (Sunday lunch is really a pretty big deal in the South and I've only recently realized that its not like that everywhere...which is kinda sad, cause that's one of my favorite parts about Sunday). I always feel so refreshed at the end of the day. This Sunday was a very special day for me cause I officially joined the church that I've been attending for the past 4 years (long story for why I didn't join 4 years ago...extenuating circumstances). I absolutely LOVE this church, it's part of the reason that I decided to live in Macon and now that I don't have to worry about school and studying all the time, I get to really be involved and I am SO excited about that! In fact I only have a week of "freedom" left before I start my career (boy is that weird to say), and I'm spending it working with the kids for VBS. And as Jimmy talked about in his sermon today "Estoy muy contento!" I am very content, satisfied, pleased with where God has brought me in life and I am eager to know what He has planned next!

Today was also Father's Day! We went to our traditional Father's Day meal at Sticky Fingers

had to get a picture of Jeremy with his girls!

this picture totally captures Blake's silly personality. She was squeezing Jeremy's nose and saying "beep beep" ...love her!

Quote of the Day:

"Today is Father's Day. Do you remember how on Mother's Day it was Mommy's Day? Well today is Father's Day so its Daddy's Day" ~Ren

"and after that it's gonna be Jessica's Day?" ~Taylor

Day 170: Yay Pineapples!

Ren brought me back a hand made cutting board from Costa Rica

...its shaped like a pineapple!!!!!!!!!!! How perfect is that?!

Day 169: S.S. FHUMC

Here's the entrance for our VBS

our church goes all out with decorations...when the stage is finished I'll have to post of picture of it too cause it's pretty cool

Day 168: ...I saved Nemo

Decorating for VBS

Lorin and I made the boat...I don't know why there are fishes swimming behind the mast/flag thing...maybe it's a sunken boat...I have no idea, I just do what I'm told

So I didn't have my phone at all today cause I left it at home and by the time I realized it I was already working at the church but I figured that no one would probably even talk to me today anyways... boy was I wrong. I got home and found 18 text messages, 5 missed calls, and 3 voicemails...and my mom thought something had happened to me and my sister (cause apparently she was answering her phone either).

Quote of the Day:

" What are wing tenders?" ~me

"Congratulations on passing your drivers test!" ~Tucker

"Uhhh...I think the sprinkler is on fire..." ~Tucker

"I donated my hair to the oil spill...I saved Nemo" ~Ciara

Day 167: Yay!

I think today is the happiest day of my life thus far

Quote of the day:

"You're getting bigger! Jessica, you're growing SO fast! You're gonna be a GIANT!" ~Taylor ...thanks kid, love you too

Day 166: Staph

Happy Birthday Momma!

Today is my mom's 49th birthday. We went out for breakfast cause making our mom cook on her birthday just didn't seem very nice. Since there really aren't that many food choices in Effingham we went to Huddle House (cause it's only like 10 minutes from my parent's house)

The girls were excited about some waffles!

We also went and got pedicures today...which wasn't as fun as we had hoped, cause we all came out with injuries. Word of advice: don't get a pedicure somewhere just because it's convenient.

Quote of the Day:

"you weigh fabulous, that's all you need to know" ~Matt

"Happy Birthday! ...sorry we gave you got staph" ~Ren

Day 165: The NCLEX

So this is what they give you after you take the NCLEX RN Exam...a little pamphlet.

After 4 years of college, months of study and preparation, weeks of anxiety, and spending $300 just to take the stupid test, I get this little folded piece of paper...it's rather anti-climatic, and if you're wondering the stress doesn't just go away when you're finished with the test. Cause once you finish the test then you have to wait for the results...so yeah, still stressed!

...Good news, I picked up Ren from the church today, she just got back from her Costa Rica Mission Trip and she absolutely loved it! I kinda want to go next year...which adds one more to my list of mission trips that I want to go on next year (5 in total now: Haiti, Uganda, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Honduras, and Costa Rica....I will only be able to pick one)

Day 164: Just Relax

My fortune cookie had no fortune in it...

sad day

Day 163: Buddy Bracelets

Lorin and I made friendship bracelets today!

...well we started making them

Quote of the Day:

"I wonder why the workroom door is open....RUN!"

Day 162: Nu-Way

Apparently it is appalling to live in Macon and have never eaten at Nu Way...so we had to remedy that today. Casey escorted me to my very first Nu Way meal.

He was quite happy that I finally agreed to eat Nu-Way with him...he talks about Nu-Way like it's heaven on earth. I just couldn't bring myself to eat a hot dog...I have to be in the mood for those and the hot dogs at Nu-Way look like they can single handedly cause a heart attack... But this was my very first meal here, so maybe one day I'll work up to one of those CAD causing MI's in a bun

Day 161: JereME

I went up to the church today to help decorate for VBS and ended up alphabetizing Kelly's book shelves...or attempting to, I got side tracked when I found this:

apparently cocaine is a puppet master magician that dresses in all white and looks like an elderly Dick Dastardly, who knew?

I also kinda got to help out with the announcement video for church this week (I wasn't in it this time...I have been in them before but discovered that I kinda sound like a country hick). We had a short tour of the Wilson home, with our host JereME Wilson:

Day 160: Dang, Jesus Drives Slow Sometimes!

I had to take the girls to meet their Nana and Papa today. The car was so empty after they got out....

Speaking of cars, I follow a blog called Stuff Christians Like by Jon Acuff, and today's post was kinda about a car...well it was a good post so you should read it. Here's and excerpt from the post: Pretending the Steering Wheel is Enough

I think about names sometimes. Justin Timberlake's name seems kind of fake too. It's almost too awesome, like if my name was "Jonathan Mountainstream." Please call me that from here on out. The real reason I think about Carrie Underwood sometimes though isn't her name, it's her song, "Jesus take the wheel."

The benefit of a country song is that, much like a Steven Seagal movie, you can figure out the entire thing from the title. A girl is out of control in her life and needs Jesus to take the wheel. I get that, and often I do that. I surrender my life or something I am chasing to Jesus. I “Underwood” the whole situation and give Jesus the wheel.

But if I’m honest, most of the times I give him the wheel, but I don’t give him the gas pedal.

His hands might be firmly placed on the steering wheel, but I’m over in the passenger seat stretching my left leg and trying to press down on the gas pedal. Dang, Jesus drives slow sometimes! And it’s up to me to press his be-sandaled foot down hard on the gas so we can get this car that represents my life in the fast lane.

sometimes I wish Jesus would drive a little faster...

Day 159: Trash Day

Studying sucks. I took a practice test today.

Good news is I did really well...until I fell asleep....

Bad news: I fell asleep! like with my computer in my lap and in the middle of reading a question

...these are not good signs.

Day 158: Pet Resort and Spa

I took Sam to the groomer for a hair cut. He's all naked now. I felt bad for making him go through all of that so I let him stick his head out of the window on the way home

I actually wasn't even moving when I took this picture, the wind blew as a car went by and made his hair blow all into his face, it was perfect! (the person in front of me was taking 4000 years to make a left turn...grrrr)

Day 157: Swagger Wagon

I LOVE my church! Jimmy (the pastor) is preaching on parenting and influence and today in church we watched the Toyota Sienna commercial about the Swagger wagon, it's funny...you should watch it. We also have 2 groups going to Costa Rica on a mission trip and the 1st group leaves tomorrow (my sister and brother-in-law included). We got to pick up these prayer bracelets today (each bracelet has one of the mission team people's name with it and you're supposed to pray for that person every day).

Well, Taylor saw mine and said "I need one so that I can remember to pray for mommy and daddy while they are helping the little kids that don't have any shoes." So we got her a bracelet and she immediately said, "Jessica, can I say 'now I lay me?'" (referring to the popular children's bedtime prayer poem). When I told her no and why she said, "ok, can you teach me how to pray for mommy and daddy?" So we said a quick prayer and then Taylor said, "ok, that was good, but I'm gonna do it my way now." And my dear sweet 3 year old niece said the sweetest little prayer. I wish that I could remember it word for word because it was a better said prayer than even what some adults say, and it was so sincere....it kinda made me want to cry. That whole faith like a child concept is really beginning to have new meaning for me.

Day 156: Smile!

Blake will now smile on q when I take out the camera...

I've trained her well!

Day 155: Bible Wars

I also got another graduation gift today! Its a new bible! I'm probably one of the only people in the world to get this excited about a new bible. To explain, I've been bible shopping for about 6 years now. I just can't seem to find a bible that I like enough to buy to replace my old one. I've had my bible (the one that I know like the back of my hand) since 3rd grade and it has been threw a lot. Large sections of it's pages are falling out (like the entire book of Revelation). There are so many book marks and stuff shoved into it that I'm pretty sure I can turn to any book of the bible by sifting through the bookmarks. It was chewed on by a puppy that I rescued (now she lives with my sister-in-law's mom, been there for about 9 years), somehow survived the wreck that I was in when I was 15 (and miraculously doesn't have any blood on it...which is kinda a big deal since my dad's ear got cut off in that wreck), it went all the way up the east coast to New York and Canada and all the way down to Mexico with me, and it has been the one book that I have read almost every day of my life for the past 13 years....(I say almost because I will be the first to admit that I don't read my bible everyday, I know I'm a dirty heathen and I'm totally working on that). In December I bought a small bible to take with me to Haiti, but it has never taken the place of "my bible" if that makes since. SO today when I opened up the present from Daniel and Courtney and saw that I had a new big girl bible, I was pretty excited ...and a little uneasy because I'm having a hard time letting go of my old one...in fact I think I'm gonna keep it but just retire it from trips and church. ...We'll just have to wait and see if I can convert to this new bible...I'm not sure how this process is going to work out

I think it's pretty easy to figure out which bible I've had the longest

Day 154: Long neck

I went for my physical for work today, which sounds scarier than it is. All they did was check out my blood work and see if I could move all of my extremities and then they let me leave.

I also occupied the girls by taking pictures of them with my computer's web cam...

Tay was trying to push Blake out of the screen...oh sisterly love!

Quote of the Day:

"I wish I had a long neck...like Jessica" ~Emma (I didn't think I had a long neck...but apparently I do and it's a cause of envy...who knew)

"I feel like I need to unpack and pack it again....this is the part of me that has a sickness" ~Ren

Day 153: Stayoffmyrouter

Jeremy got a new AirPort Express for our internet so that it's secure and what not and he named our network: stayoffmyrouter ...and well it seems that my computer is listening to him...cause it won't connect to the internet now...yay.

technology hates me

Day 152: ειρήνη

It seems that my days pretty much consist of reading, cleaning, watching the girls, cleaning, reading, freaking out a little bit cause of all the information, praying, reading some more, then basically passing out from exhaustion. I had to cut down the amount of books I'm allowing myself to read right now, this is all I get to look at until June 14th...

This morning I woke up and read one of my little devotionals and kinda got the Holy Backhand.

Quote of the Day:

"The Peace that I give you transcends your intellect. When most of your mental energy goes into efforts to figure things out, you are unable to receive this glorious gift. I look into your mind and see thoughts spinning round and round: going nowhere, accomplishing nothing. All the while, My Peace hovers over you, searching for a place to land.

Be still in My Presence, inviting Me to control your thoughts. Let My Light soak into your mind and heart, until you are aglow with My very Being. This is the most effective way to receive My Peace." ~from the book Jesus Calling by Sarah Young (if you have this book, this was actually for May 31st...I was a day behind in this one)

Usually whenever I study scripture I pick a topic and then search like crazy through the Bible, reading different translations and even looking up the original Hebrew, Greek, or whatever language terms to see their meaning... Probably my 2nd favorite topic to study is Peace, specifically God's Peace, and lately I've been too busy stressing out to be at peace. So when I read this little devotional this morning (which is based off of scriptures), I was immediately reminded of a few of my favorite verses...

"Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus" ~Philippians 4:6-7

"I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world." ~John 16:33

"Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid." ~John 14:27

I hate when it takes me this long to figure out what God's been trying to tell me for weeks...I have no idea what He is planning on doing with me, but I can feel Him working. He's been laughing at all my plans and slowly guiding me down a path...more like up a path, I almost feel like I'm back in Haiti trying to climb up the mountains in the dark, relying completely on a small child to keep me from falling...but I guess that blind faith is better when you have a hard time letting go...

"Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful." ~Colossians 3:15