And now for something completely different

Studying for the NCLEX almost robbed me of the majority of one of my favorite months of the year. Fortunately, I strategically scheduled my test around one of my favorite October celebrations: Pumpkin Day.

This past Saturday marked the 5th Annual Pumpkin Day Celebration. What started as a small group of friends meeting for a homemade brunch and trip to the pumpkin patch has evolved into what may best be described as an organized festival of fun.

Our most recent pumpkin day celebration started with a 5K run, followed by an afternoon trip to the patch and ending with an evening pumpkin food potluck and pumpkin carving party.

If there's anything I've learned over these past five years of Pumpkin Day, it's that (in terms of pumpkin carving) my eyes are often bigger than my stomach. Andy documented my "catch and release" of the first pumpkin I picked out from the patch.

Ready to hit the patch and find the perfect pumpkin.

Um, it's really heavy.

I mean REALLY HEAVY.

Seriously, I can't even get it in the wheelbarrow.

I guess it just wasn't meant to be.


We took a moment to say our goodbyes.

Oh well. Maybe next year!

We ended up with three beautiful, albeit significantly smaller pumpkins. Now we just have to carve them and roast the seeds. I love this time of year!

Unofficial results are in...

and I PASSED!

Unofficially.

Now I just have to wait for the state to give me my license, and I will be an official registered nurse! This also means that I will hopefully have a job sometime in the near future.

I'm too excited to write anything more substantive.

I'm a nurse! I'm a nurse! I'm a nurse!

Update:

Holy cow, my license has already been activated by the state! Now I really AM a nurse.

Initial NCLEX update

It was awful and I feel like I failed. Unfortunately, I also feel like the girl who cried wolf -- my dear sweet Andy can vouch for my perpetual lack of confidence in my test-taking abilities. Please trust me, though, that I am not being melodramatic when I say this:

I have never felt more terrible about a test-taking experience for so many different reasons.

I'm trying to take comfort in the fact that everyone said I would feel awful when it was finished. Still, I have a really bad feeling about this. It seems cruel that we don't know our results right away. The wait isn't nearly as long as some other professional exams, but the time between now and Wednesday feels like an eternity.

I predict I will have no fingernails by then. I may also have eaten twice my weight in fried potato products.

Deep breaths... deep breaths...

Yesterday I took a glorious two hour nap in the afternoon, went for a lovely run, and crammed in one more practice test.

While the nap seemed like a good idea at the time (not so much when I tried to go to bed later that night) the run was undeniably perfect. The sun shone through the brilliant autumn leaves and the air was crisp without being cold. Also, I saw a bulldog. And he barked at me. My heart soared with the eagles! I almost forgot about my big test tomorrow.

Yes, I love October! It's usually my favorite month of the year. This year, though, it could either be the best (I pass the NCLEX) or the worst month ever (I don't pass). I'm kind of starting to wish I hadn't told everyone I was taking it tomorrow.

It's mere hours away...

At this time next week...

I'll probably be doing one of two things:

A) celebrating my new R.N.-hood with a ticker tape parade and appropriate libations
B) drowning my sorrows over my NCLEX failure

The Big Test is in T minus 5 days... and you can bet your sweet bippy that I'm paying the extra $8 so that I'll have my results by Wednesday afternoon!

P.S. I'm hoping for option A.

What's new, honeydew?

My little blog is horribly out of date. Seriously, though, you should thank me for it. My days are pretty boring. In fact, I had just started to write out a schedule for my typical day to share with you but it was too depressing. I had to delete it.

I still haven't heard anything back about the jobs I'd applied for in labor and delivery. At this point, with my test date only a week and a half away, I figure I might as well just wait until I have my license. That way it'll be more like taking off a Band-Aid if they reject me -- and less like I'm being strung along, which is how I feel right now.

I'll be honest, it has been more than a bit of a bummer.