November 27: I am thankful for coffee. It is one of my joys in life.

November 28: I am thankful for having found the bestest (yes, it is now a word, thank you very much) husband in the world. I am truly very blessed to have found such a wonderful man.

November 29: I am thankful for being done with Ortho in 2 weeks. Thank goodness!

November 30: I am thankful for cool weather. I may have already said this but it deserves a few more "thanks" than just one. Cool weather coming to Florida, finally! Woo hoo.

November 23: I am thankful for not having to wake up early to take the kids to school this week :)

November 24: I am thankful for an easy clinical day spent in the ICU and getting out an hour and a half early for Thanksgiving.

November 25: I am thankful for family time together on holidays, and for pumpkin cheesecake. Yum.

November 26: I am thankful for having older children so that I could sleep in today since I went to bed at 6am due to Black Friday shopping. I guess I might not have done this if they were like 2 or something. Phew.

November 19: I am thankful for Pollo Tropical's Cheesy Yuca Balls. Yum. Ok, so maybe that's a bad thing, but they are good comfort study food.

November 20: I am thankful for 24 hour Dunkin Donuts in which I can study in until very early hours of the morning with my study buddy/friend. I'm also thankful for the 3-4 cups of coffee that enabled me to study so long.

November 21: I am thankful for Rainex. I had Ray's car and it started raining, so I'm driving and all of a sudden, the windshield wipers break halfway in the cycle. Thankfully, my friend's hubby had some rainex and put some on the windshield for me.

November 22: I am thankful for passing my second Ortho/Neuro exam. Phew.

November 15: I am thankful for "fall back" time changes.

November 16: I am thankful for having 4 weeks left of school until winter break.

November 17: I am thankful for having good patients at the hospital.

November 18: I am thankful for sister-in-laws who come over to sit with the kids, at 9pm while they are sleeping, so I can go out and study and so my hubby can go to a football game with his brother and brother-in-law.

November 14: I am thankful for almost being done with some massive amounts of paperwork for my clinical that I have literally spent HOURS on. Like at least 10 hrs. Now if only I can be almost finished reading 80 pages for my lecture.

Nate Likes

smells apparently.

The other morning, or was it afternoon (can't remember, head filled with school stuff). Anyway, somehow Nate smelled my hair and then says, "Mmmmm."

I squint my eyes and look at him through the sides and asked, "What?"

"I like the smell. It smells so good, " he says.

"Of my hair?" I ask.

"Yes," he replied.

A day or two later, as he was waking up to get ready for school, I took my hair and put it against his nose. He sniffed and said, "Mmmmmm. Thank you." I laughed.

Last night at dinner, there was a plate with lemons. He started sniffing that and said, "Mmmmm. It smells so good." I asked him if he likes lemons. He said, "I don't like them. I like to smell them."

Silly me.

Guess he likes certain smells. Like my hair. And lemons. We'll see what's next.

November 13: I am thankful for Autumn. I just love this time of year. The changing colors of the trees (that of which I only see in pictures and TV), the cool, breezy air, the flavors and spices of Fall, the times when family does nothing but just be together. I even love the rich, earthy colors that represent fall- oranges, browns, yellows.

November 12: I am thankful for sleep and sleeping in. I can't wait to go to sleep and sleep in tomorrow. After 3.5 hours of sleep last night, I am TIRED!

Shhhhhhh. You hear that?

That's my pillow, calling my name.

Night night!

November 11: I am thankful for our veterans! Happy Veteran's Day!

November 10: I'm thankful for a nice clinical instructor who believes no one should have to learn scared. I like that theory.

November 9: Thankful for a lunch date, alone, with my hubby. Love him

November 8: I am thankful passing my first Ortho/Neuro exam!

November 7: Thankful for being able to finally go to nursing school. I've waited a very long time to be here, and I can't believe it's almost over. Six more months to go!

November 5: I am thankful for cool, fall weather. It always finds a way to lift my spirits and bring a smile to my face

November 6: I am thankful for my study group. Without them, I don't know where I'd be.

Things To Be Thankful For.....

Following along with my sis-in-law, Wendi and her blog, and some other people on Facebook, I will post one thing to be thankful for each day in November. Since it's the 4th day today, I will post 4 things today and then try to keep up each day.

First, I want to share with you some pics of Nate's knee. Last week sometime, Grace fell and scraped her knee pretty good at school. Like the day after that happened, Nate had a little scrape on his knee and told me he fell at school. A day or two later, his "cut" looked really weird. It was a circle, about the size of a nickel, and the skin in the middle of the circle was puffed out, kind of like a blister but I didn't see any fluid behind the skin as you would see in a blister. The circle was outlined by a faint red line. At first I thought he might have had ringworm but after looking online, it seemed too soon for ringworm to have developed. I asked Ray to take a look, but he thought it was just the cut on his knee and so I decided to just put a little antibiotic cream on it and a band-aid. A couple of days later, which was Monday, Nate wakes up in the morning and tells me his boo-boo hurts and he needs a band-aid. I see that he has another scratch mark above his first cut, but thought it was itchy and maybe he scratched too hard and broke the skin. I put a band-aid on it and left it alone. Then I noticed on Tuesday there was another lesion. I think something isn't quite right, but I thought maybe it was my imagination. Wednesday it looks really off. He has like 4 lesions, all perfect little circles, all doing the same puffy skin in the middle thing, and now they break and start oozing honey colored fluid. Ick. My very first thought is Impetigo. But I like to see pictures and the ones I could find online didn't look like what Nate has, so I second guessed my thought. None-the-less I decide Nate needs to go get this checked out, because what ever it is, it is spreading and who knows what's going to happen if I don't take him. I really dislike going to the doctor's office. Mainly because I feel like usually whatever the reason I "think" I might need to go to the doctor's office will usually turn out to be nothing. So, I feel like I not going because of that. But then I create a new dilemma. What if it is actually something? Usually, more so for myself than the kids, I wait until the last possible moment to go (like when I had the flu/pneumonia thing last year.....was sick for probably 4 days before I finally drug myself in). So Nate and I went to the dr. Lo and behold, Impetigo! Poor Nate. Now he is on an oral antibiotic, Keflex, 3 times a day and an antibiotic ointment.

Here's the pic (I had already put 2 band-aids on the little lesions I wasn't sure if they were part of this or not, and I had already applied the ointment to the lesions, but you can still see how nasty these look, which they look a lot nastier now then they did at first!)



Ok and now for things to be thankful for:

Nov 1: My family. They have been so wonderful and supportive, especially this last year since I started nursing school. I love them all.

Nov 2: Snuggle time with my kids. Sometimes, in the hustle and bustle of life, I take these moments for granted. I miss the times when they were littler and we snuggled often.

Nov 3: Financial Aid. Without it, I'm not sure how I'd be going to school right now. Well, I'd probably get some loans, but still. You know what I mean.

Nov 4: Cool weather. I just love cool weather. It really lifts my spirits, just something about it. Thankfully, we're getting a cool front tomorrow. How awesome is that?