Being a Labor and Delivery Nurse

For the last three months I have been training as a Labor and Delivery RN. Let me just say this is the hardest thing I've done next to learning how to be married. It's been a rough three months adjusting to a new schedule that begins at 4:55 am three days a week and doesn't end til 7:30 pm. I used to have nightmares every single night that I would do something wrong and I would constantly wake up. Thankfully during this training period I've had a great preceptor with 28 years experience who's taught me so much about this field. While the birth of a child is magical, it is by no means pretty, and I have learned to be comfortable in this setting. One thing I was deathly afraid of in the beginning was catching babies, which is nurse-slang for the nurse who takes the baby from the doctor after it is born and attends to it. In the past 2 weeks I have come to love this job and often request it during assignments (usually I'm rejected and given a laboring woman instead :-) One of the toughest parts of this job was learning to fit into a group a women who have been doing this much longer than me and aren't accustomed to newbies. I tried to do this by working my tail off and rising to challenges. Hopefully I can continue to earn their respect. My absolute favorite thing about this job is meeting couples who truly desire a baby and experiencing the joy of the birth of their child with them. Whether by c-section or natural labor it's an awesome experience every day. By the way, I love having 2 days off every week!
P.S. Erik started law school this week and it's going well!

Our trip to Hot Springs, Arkansas

Last week I had 5 days off in a row (wow!) so Erik and I drove the 6 hours to my dad's house in Hot Springs. We went out on the boat, visited my 92 year- old great grandmother, went to Target, had a birthday party for my brother Austin, and watched A LOT of the Olympics. We had a great time.

Ethan Drake Shepherd, age 4, in my dad's minivan at Target.

Austin turned 19 on August 16th and Ethan and I made the cake for him.

Can you tell we're related?

Silly faces. I'm actually surprised at how many pictures Ethan let me take of him. Normally he runs from the camera unless it's his idea to take the picture. Then again, he's four.

Yum, good cake.

Happy birthday brother!

Two of the grandkids and Mimi. I'm the shortest one. :-(

Ethan all ready for a day on the boat! He has matching shark swim trunks and a hat.

Here he is "centering his chi." When he does this he actually says, "Ooohmm."

Every boat trip this kid's been on he falls asleep.

Erik and myself.

Too cute.

In other news Erik starts school tomorrow officially and I'm working like a crazy woman this week, so that's all for now!

X-Files - Season 1

Jessica and I just finished watching Season 1 of the X-Files. In some ways, this show was "before our time" but we thought we would like it...and of course we did. We are fans of shows like Lost, and I have been watching The 4400 lately...both are popular shows (well, The 4400 "was" popular) and both were influenced by the X-Files. I love Sci-Fi stuff and had seen an episode or two, but never got into the show. Anyways, we decided to rent the DVDs and really enjoyed Season 1. In the next day or so we will be starting Season 2.

P.S.
One of our favorite aspects of the series so far is Scully's early 90s fashionable women's wear...as seen in the following stills:

Books, books, and more books

The Waco library system has really been a friend of the Fuquas here lately. We make a trip once every week and half or so and load up with some reading entertainment. Lately I've been on Patricia Cornwell kick and her Kay Scarpetta series. It's a mystery series surrounding a medical examiner/lawyer from Virginia who gets caught up in all sorts of murder and trouble. I've also discovered the joys of library cookbooks. There are a lot of ancient cookbooks to sort through, but you can find a gem or two hiding in the stacks. Recently I've checked out one of Ina Garten's cookbooks, as well as Ellie Krieger and some baking cookbooks. Erik made some really good brownies last week out of one of these.
For lack of anything better to do with my time I decided to make my own cookbook using a downloadable application called Booksmart. It's a really neat program where you can design your cookbook, upload recipes and pictures, and then when you're done you pay a fee and they mail it to you. This is something I'm going to take my time on, since I'm always trying out new recipes and searching for easy and quick meals. I figured this would be a good hobby for me and worth the investment of my time.
In other news, the highs this week are 106 and 107. Yeah, it's hot here.