Paperless Post- My New Favorite Site

So, Sam and I decided to have a party! (Well kind of... as party-party as we can respectfully get during Lent.) It's more of a family/friends gathering for a rosary and lunch in honor of our new pope. I'm so excited to get everyone together to celebrate the new earthly shepherd of our church and pray for his intentions and his new papacy.

In so planning for our gathering, I spent quite a bit of time trying to put together the just-right (free) e-invitation.

Well. Let. Me. Tell. You.

Ifoundthemostsupercoolwebsiteever!! :takes a breath:

Paperless Post

Seriously, I am super impressed and I love almost love it! And did I mention? IT'S FREE! (There are some services you can choose to pay for, but you can do so much for free :)

Anyway, I found it to be really neat, because every step of the way, I could edit the card I made to totally personalize it, changing the fonts (btw, they have beautiful font choices), spacing, etc. I was able to import all of my contacts from my email, add personalized messages to individual recipients and even track the status of who's opened the email.

Here's what the front our invitation looks like:




I can't say enough wonderful things about this site.

Check.it.out.

A Catholic New Year!

I know, I know, it's been so long since my last post, but this post is definitly post-worthy...

We have a new Pope!!!

Ahhhh! I'm so, so super excited! I'm watching the white smoke live on EWTN's website, and I can't help but feeling this sense of joy as if it's New Years.

I'm so grateful that God has granted the Church yet another shepard to guide us on earth. Praise be God!

Anyway, I'll update again soon, but just wanted to share the awesome news!!

Speaking the Love

Hello World,

I hope you're doing well from wherever it is that you read my blog.

It's been a wonderful thing to be blessed as much as we. I realize it a little more each day. In God's sweet mercy, in how I feel- somehow, in some small or great way every day- God's intimate love for me. In my remarkably beautiful marriage to the man who I am so thankful to have. In our children, who give me many reasons to smile every day and allow me opportunities to grow in virtue :) In the way my parents LOVE me and my little family.
In the way my heart grows more thankful to my Creator for all He does for me, and in the way He gently guides my heart to desire His will more with each passing day.

Praise be God!!

It is a wonderful thing in itself to be joyful and content in resting in God's unique love for me. I think about it and am overfilled with humility, knowing I am not worthy to be carved into His hands but oh so thankful that I am.

I love you, Lord!

So, I didn't sit down with the intention of starting my post with everything I'm grateful for, but alas, it spilled out of me, because I am constantly mindful of it.

I hope all (hundreds and hundreds ;) of my readers are at peace this very moment, in your thoughts and in your spiritual lives. And in your family lives- that's important too!

In thinking earlier about how my parents LOVE me, my family, and my sisters so abundantly, I lead me to another thought: How do we show that we love the important people in our lives?

Several years ago, some good friends of ours introduced Sam and myself to a book,
The 5 Love Languages. The concept of the book is to realize that each person speaks a different "love language".

The languages are as follows:

1) Quality time
2) Words of affirmation
3) Gifts
4) Acts of service
5) Physical touch

The idea is that a person's love language is that by which they feel loved most. It's important for people to realize that others may have differing love languages, because when we speak to our spouse in our own love language, and not the one that speaks most to them, we may become discouraged at the lack of response or appreciation.

My love a languages, for example, are first, acts of service and second, quality time.

It means so much more to me when Sam cheerfully does the dishes or volunteers to get the kids ready for bed than if he bought me two dozen roses. His, on the other hand, are quality time and physical touch. (I haven't spoken to one girlfriend to hasn't included physical touch in her husband's top two love languages! :)

What's really neat, I think, is that my mom's love language is acts of service also, so she shows her love for her children by cooking great big meals and having all of us over, or happily offering to watch grandkids so we can all have a date night... yay!

Anyhow, I've just been thinking about that lately and really reflecting on whether or not I do my best to speak Sam's love language and that of other family members. It's a constant effort to not necessarily do/say what I would like to have done for me, but to take a moment to think how how that person might best appreciate a kind gesture.




Hope everyone has a lovely weekend with their families!

No good excuse

I have no good excuse really, so I won't attempt to make one. I love to get my thoughts out in a good blog post, but the thought of sitting down and trying to organize my them into cohesive and comprehensible (and let's face it, interesting) sentences it exhausting.

I follow several mom bloggers who I wonder: how in the world do they have time to write so often? And not only that, but they're simply amazing writers. I realize that I will never really be the kind to update my blog every two days, and neither really do I want to, but you, ladies, are my inspiration!!

So recent update...

I'll pick up where I last left off.

I took my CCRN certification for critical care nurses. And FAILED.

Super bummer. I took it at the beginning of September (or maybe August, I honestly don't remember), and I needed to answer 89 questions correctly to pass the exam. I failed the test by 2 questions. 2 stinkin' questions!! It makes it a little more of a bitter than a bitter sweet to be so close and not pass.

Sam really wants me to re-take it in the near future so that I don't give up on myself. True, true. He has a very valid point, and I am grateful to have a husband who is so supportive... However. I feel deflated. Confidence-wise anyway. I'm still studying, but less for the CCRN re-take than for cath lab.

Which brings me to my next update... I'm transferring to the cardiac cath lab!!

Woo! I'm really excited :D

I am so interested in everything cardiac, and I know this will be the best place to grow my knowledge. Plus, I've been in the same critical care unit for 4 years. It's just time to move on to a different type of nursing. I need to continue to grow professionally.

I'm still not sure how I feel about this yet, but one big change is that instead of working 3 12 hour shifts a week, I'll now be working M-F with variable hours. Some days start at 7am and end early afternoon. Other days start at noon and end around 7pm. I think that is what I'm still most nervous about. I'll not have the set schedule of 7a-7p shifts. And maybe that's a good thing. All I've ever known are 12 hour shifts, but who knows? Maybe I'll like it.


I recently bought these cute little hats from ScrubHeads on Etsy to add to my excitement for transferring to cath lab. They're cute :)









I still want to get all the same certifications I've aspired for, but for now, I think I'll get into the cath lab groove and take a step at a time. I will always be reading at least 1 book, and I'll always have the desire to learn, but I think I'll build up my confidence again before re-taking the exam (and paying $170 on top of my first test fee).

Anyway, that's the update for now.

I'd really like to post new pics of my darlings, but first have to charge my camera battery. And I guess I have to find the charger first :) Ha. Ha. Goodnight.

Workout ideas and birth control

So as I'm still relatively new again to the world of "active" people, I'm wondering if anyone has any good workouts to share? Especially in light of my recent chest pain episodes, I want to stay on the light side, but am totally up for a simple aerobic/cardiac routine along with good weight-lifting exercises.

What I really want to strengthen right now is my abs, so if you know of anything besides basic crunches, please share! I'm open to all suggestions! Maybe even a cool circuit traning routine :)

On another note, I know this is a random thing to follow the first part of this post with, but it's on my mind, so I'll share.

I am so, so thankful to have, as Melody, over at Blossoming Joy, puts it, a "faithful, faith-filled" husband. I'm so glad we share the same faith, and that we do so in our everyday lives. As practicing Catholics, we do not believe in artificial birth control. As a nurse, I do not believe in the benefits of birth control.

See below.

Did you know that the typical birth control pill is an estrogen-progestin combination, and that it is listed as a Group I carcinogen according World Health Organization? How is it that women aren't told this when they're prescribed birth control??

In case you're unfamiliar with what a Group I carcinogen is, here's some clarification. The WHO, in July 2005, changed the grouping of menopausal estrogen therapy and confirmed oral contraceptives (estrogen-progestogen), as "possibly carcinogenic to humans", Group II, to Group I "sufficient evidence of carcinogenicity in humans." Guess what else is in Group I... asbestos,Hep C, HIV, Agent Orange,formaldehyde.

Just to be clear, the WHO put out a report in 1999 stating that estrogen-progestogen oral contraceptives were Group 1. The meeting in 2005 confirmed it.

There are numerous other health effects of the Pill, but rather than making this post a scientific article, I'll re-post this video from Blossoming Joy :)

Kind of a long video, but well worth the time!


Disclaimer: Please keep in mind that I am not judging. I've learned a great deal about Church teaching and the health effects of the Pill after much time spent in research. This is my personal conviction, which I believe to be part of God's divine plan for human life. If you do not believe the same as I, I will not judge. It is not my place. I follow the truth I seek, and am more than willing to share my faith. Please be respectful in commenting, as I will in return.

Bottle it and sell it kind of motivation

I've been super motivated lately. I don't know exactly where it's come from, but I've very thankful it's here.

For the last three years, I've been putting off taking my CCRN exam (an exam for nerdy critical care nurses that want to be certified in what we're already doing :) Well about two weeks ago, I just decided enough is enough, and I registered for the exam. For one, I think I kept putting it off, because its a $300 exam, for which I will not receive a raise (God-willing I pass the test). At least our hospital doesn't for people with my employment status.

The date is set for August 13th.

Oh, and I'll post this also, because I'm proud of it, what with being the horrible procrastinator I am... I've started studying for it! Haha, I know this sounds like a no-brainer, but seriously, this is post-worthy for me :) I'm very excited to take the test. I'm a super nerd. For life.

Oh, (again) and following the CCRN exam, I plan to take two sub-specialty certification exams. The CSC and CMC (God-willing I pass those also) will certify that I am competent and able to take care of cardiac patients of acute illness, such as heart attack and open heart surgery. Both of these I do already, but again, out comes the nerdiness :)

So, when all is said and done, my new credentials will be:
RN, BSN, CCRN, CMC-CSC

Not too shabby, eh?

Haha, I'm not doing it so much for the letters, but because I know that having 100 hours of continuing education due every three years will MAKE me stay up-to-date on the most current critical care info, and being the procrastinator I already claim to be, I can use all the help (aka, mandatory education) I can get.

Besides getting a second wind in my professional life, I've also done so with my fitness life as well, being that I haven't had one in the last 3-4 years.

I'm so sad and embarrassed to admit, but since Sam and I were married, I've not exercised routinely or even not routinely at all. When I was in college and high school, I worked out all the time. Not in the obsessive, so concerned with my weight kind of worked out, but the maintain my muscle mass type.

Then, we got pregnant two months after we were married, and I honestly just lost all interest. I didn't see the point, although I do now. And not that it's an excuse at all, but I nursed Ella eight months, and was afraid to work out the whole time, thinking that if I did, I'd make my milk supply go down. (I think I read that somewhere- that if you do cardio/aerobics, it will do that. Probably bogus.) Then when Ella was eight months, we conceived Samy, and the same excuses perpetuated themselves, all the way up through the eight months I breastfed him. Sigh.

But in the last three weeks, I realized how much I missed breaking a good sweat and feeling like I'd done something good for my body. I talked to Sam about it and he was all supportive of me joining the Y and signing up for the nursery, so that I could take the kids with me to work out. So I did. It's been wonderful! I feel confident and strong, and dare to say it, sexy! Maybe the last part is due to the first :) Who knows?

Well, I've enjoyed it very much. But, alas, I'm having to slow down a bit and take a break. The last time I worked out, which was about a week and a half ago, I started to have chest pain. It's not chest pain in the usual sense, rather a pain I had in high school. The exact same pain, actually. Same location, same intensity, everything. I was checked out by a cardiologist at the time, and he couldn't find anything.

Now that I'm a CCU nurse and studying for my CCRN, I think I may know what it is. And believe me, I'm the last person to self-diagnose, especially the end of the world, worst possible scenario diagnosing types. But I think there's a difference in self-diagnosing my Google searching symptoms and an educated guess as to what it may be by assessment and findings as compared to legit medical/nursing references.

I dont' know what it is. I'm planning on going to a cardiologist for another evaluation in August, so we'll see then, but in the meantime, I'm going to start working out again, but maybe with less intensity.

Overall, I'm just really, really happy to be improving myself right now. I feel like God put a fire in me to be a better person. The Holy Spirit is with me every step of the way, gently guiding me in the way to be a better nurse to serve His people. And a better wife for my husband.

I want to live with a fire for life that doesn't dwindle because I'm used to the same 'ole, same 'ole. I want to be the fire that enflames others.