The Brothers Comatose

Here is another band that I discovered while at the Eugene Saturday Market and farmers market this last Saturday! I was walking around downtown on my way to my mom's booth, and I came across a giant crowd that was gathered around this band. I decided to stop and take a look myself. I loved them! If you like bluegrass, I bet you would to. Lots of hippie dancers were dancing around freely, without a care in the world. It was refreshing to stand in such a happy crowd enjoying the warm sunshine beating down our backs, the bright blue sky above us, the bright green grass around us, good food, and some good ol' bluegrass :)

Sometimes I wish I could be like the hippie dancers, out dancing without a care in the world, but I worry too much about what other people think. Why should I care so much? I don't know, but I do. I need to let go, not be so reserved sometimes. I think that I would enjoy life a lot more if I stopped keeping myself in my own cage of restrictions. Sometimes I think I miss some of the important fun little aspects of life because I don't let myself be free. That's what has been on my mind lately. I'm going to be working on that. Here is the link to the band at some bluegrass festival in 2009 if you want to check it out!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4a01kZnasFA

Project Half Marathon!

I've always talked about wanting to become a runner, but alas I have not taken any steps towards that goal.

Well folks, it's going to finally happen (I hope)! I'm on day two of running, and although I can barely run 2 miles without stopping and feeling like I'm going to die, I'm pretty proud of myself! My goal is to run the Eugene half marathon in May. At this point I can't imagine myself running 13 miles, but I have faith that by the time May rolls around, I will be ready for it. Of course I'm allowing myself lots of time to prepare for it, because God knows I need it :)

I'll keep you all posted on my progress!

Nurse Julie

Boy it's been a long time since I've blogged. I feel like it's time that I catch some of you up about what's been going on in my life!


On June 21st I began my adventure to becoming a CNA. Fast forward nine weeks later, and I am about to graduate from the CNA program at LCC :) I only have two more days of clinicals, and 2 more days of class to complete! It has sure been a tiring, yet rewarding experience.

CNA work is nothing like I expected. I knew that CNA's do all of the grunt work, but I don't think that I fully realized to what extent that grunt work would be. CNA work is both emotionally and physically draining. Through this experience I have learned more about what it means to really love others, how to be brave during times when I am outside of my comfort zone, and how to truly be patient.

My first day in clincals was probably the hardest day of them all. I had never set foot inside of a nursing home, so I had no idea what to expect. My teacher told us a little about them, but nothing could really prepare me for what I was about to experience. The first thing that I noticed when entering the nursing home was the distinct smell of must, cheap orange air freshener, and all sorts of human bodily fluids. Not a good smell as you might guess. It was dark inside and had an immediate feeling of gloom. I remember standing at the nurses station looking down the four long crowded hallways. People were rushing up and down the hallways with faces of shear exhaustion. Several extremely disabled elderly people sitting in their wheelchairs, some yelling, while others sat in silence. Inside I was panicking. Could I really do this? I had never been around so many sick people who looked so hopeless. Many of you who know me know that I am easy to get emotional, so it is to no surprise that the tears started rolling once I got into my car and headed home. I was not emotionally ready for this. This was a side of aging and sickness that I had never experienced before, and I think that many of us have not seen. A lot of the elderly in this nursing home are hardly ever visited by family or friends, and feel as though they have just been left there to die. It just absolutely breaks my heart. They feel as though they are invisible to society, and that nobody but the caregivers really care about them. I met one elderly woman who is one-hundred years old and is completely blind. She is still able to walk with a walker which is amazing! She is not diagnosed with dementia, so she is well aware with what is going on around her. She is one of the sweetest ladies I have ever met, and one of the saddest. She is completely embarrassed with the fact that she cannot take care of herself anymore. She hardly gets visitors, and she has lost everything she has ever owned. She repeatedly tells me that she wishes that she had friends, and that she just wants to go home and die. Gosh what do you say to that? She has every right to be extremely sad. I think most of all, this woman needs a friend that she can talk to. Someone that will take the time to sit down with her, hear her stories, and talk about life. This is something that so many of the residents need, and I suppose something that we all need in every stage of our lives.

I have been working at the nursing home now for 3 weeks and I feel much more comfortable with my job. I absolutely love the residents, especially the 18 pound orange tabby cat named Morris who snorts :) I will tell you a little bit about some of my favorite residents.

There is a woman who is 98 years old who thinks that she is 23 years old. I absolutely adore her. She has severe dementia and is very dependent on others for care. She loves to hold your hand over her heart, and she will just hold it for as long as you'll let her. One of the things that she loves to do is to drum the table and clap. She used to be a music teacher, so she can keep a good beat. I think that somebody should get her some bongos!

Another one of my favorites is a Ukrainian woman in her 90's. She loves her accessories. She wears her sunglasses pretty much anywhere she goes, and she wears a hat quite often too. She will just sit there and smile at you all day long :)

There are also some really cute old men as well. One of the men that I usually feed daily loves his grapes! He also winks at me quite often, and tells me that he loves me haha. There is also an old man that gives all of the CNA's little back scratches while they are caring for him. That is his way of thanking us for what we do. He's also one that will just sit there and smile at you all day.

It is these people, and knowing that what I am doing is bringing some sunshine into these people's lives that have helped get me through my clinicals. Seeing the impact that you are making on others is so rewarding. I absolutely love what I do. It feels right, and for the first time in awhile I feel like I am in my element, and it is so exciting!

I also had the opportunity to work for two days at the hospital with my class, and it was probably the coolest thing ever! I loved it there, and I am so excited to work at a hospital someday. It is extremely clean, organized, and there is a lot of light! I got to work on the surgical floor with all sorts of different people of all ages. It was nice to have a little break from the nursing home. I am definitely signing up for the next CNA 2 class which will allow me to work in the hospital!

Friday August 20th is my graduation. The nursing home is hosting the celebration for my class to show their appreciation of our work. There will be lots of food, and the best part is that I'll be getting my certification for completing my class, and will be ready to take the state board of nursing exam later this month! I'm ecstatic!


THE BUSKIRKS ARE COMING TO TOWN!!!! Every time that I get to see them is such a treat. My sister will be arriving August 16th, and will be here for 6 days. My brother-in-law will be here for 2 days and will fly in at the end of that week. It should be a fun week of spending time with the whole Adams family clan. I can't wait!

Another exciting event happening next week is my grandma's surprise 80th birthday party on August 21st! The whole family will be there, plus some of her closest friends. I'm really excited to see her face when she walks into our house. She thinks that she is just coming to a small lunch to celebrate my graduation, but little does she know we are celebrating her! Her real birthday is on September 17th, but this was the only time that the whole family could be there. It's going to be wonderful!

Today I have the day off from clinicals, and it has been refreshing! I woke up just before 10 am, ate my cinnamon toast crunch, and then went to run errands with my mother. We got all sorts of delicious fruits and vegetables from the local farm, and I have been downing the blackberries ever since we got home. Tonight my parents and I are going to the annual Scandinavian festival in Junction City. It is an outdoor festival that has AMAZING food, crafts, Scandinavian dances, and vikings walking around. You can't get much better than that!
Here's a picture from two years ago.


Now I am off to help the parents wash all of our windows, inside and out, and after I think I'm going to take Zoe to a dog park and let her play with some other dogs for a bit. I love summer days! Kind of reminds me of the song by Jerry Mungo "In the Summertime" minus the part about the Women haha.

These are the lyrics I love-

"We're no threat, people
We're not dirty, we're not mean
We love everybody but we do as we please
When the weather's fine
We go fishin' or go swimmin' in the sea
We're always happy
Life's for livin' yeah, that's our philosophy

Sing along with us
Dee dee dee-dee dee
Dah dah dah-dah dah
Yeah we're hap-happy
Dah dah-dah
Dee-dah-do dee-dah-do dah-do-dah
Dah-do-dah-dah-dah
Dah-dah-dah do-dah-dah "

Good song :)



Me and my fabulous hammock!
This is summer living at it's finest :)

Yesterday

Yesterday was a very eventful day for me, and not in a good way...

I fainted in the middle of class. I couldn't believe it! We were about halfway through class, and we were all standing by the hospital beds getting a demonstration on how to lift people from their beds and to a wheelchair. I had been feeling fine the whole day up until one point when I started to feel light headed. I thought that maybe it would go away, but it just got worse. I decided that I better sit down, so I sat down on one of the hospital beds. I started to feel nauseous and really dizzy, so I closed my eyes. Next thing I knew I was on the ground and my teacher was trying to wake me up. They said that I was out for a little more than 10 seconds. At first I thought I was dreaming, and then I realized, nope I'm definitely on the floor right now.

My classmates told me that I smacked the left side of my face on the concrete floor pretty hard, and man do I feel it. I bit my cheek really bad, and had a headache for the rest of the day. Luckily I didn't break anything or have a head injury. I'm not bruised either which I'm thankful for. I just have a really sore face =/ How embarrassing! My classmates were really nice though. A girl named Shelby sat beside me while I was laying on the the bed during our break, and another girl went and bought a cold soda to put on my face. They all were telling me their fainting stories, and that made me feel better. They also told me that I was the most calm and graceful fainter they've ever seen. I guess that's a compliment? Haha :)

We've concluded that the cause for my fall was probably a lack of water and protein. I think that I picked the best time to pass out. I was in a room with lots of hospital beds, and there were two nurses. God was sure watching out for me! I could have potentially gotten extremely hurt with all of the equipment that I happened to not hit when I fell.

On the bright side, everyone in class knows who I am now :) Hopefully class today will be less eventful!

AHHH!!!!!

Today it happened folks...

My middle toenail officially fell off while in class...

I first noticed that it was falling off about a week and a half ago, and it has kind of been freaking me out ever since. I just don't like the idea of my whole toenail separating from my skin. Today during the last hour of class I went to scratch my foot with my other foot, and I felt this sharp pain for only a second. I looked down, and yep sure enough my nail was loose except for at one corner where it was still attached. It was sick! I pulled the last corner off and after holding my whole toenail for a split second, I quickly threw it in the trash. There was a nail growing underneath the dead one, so now I have a really short nail that only goes halfway up my nail bed. It is colorless which now really sticks out since my toenails are hot pink. Our body sure knows how to take care of itself! Thank you God for creating our bodies to be so intricate and cool :)

New Bangs :)

Here they are! I can actually see :) Boy has my hair has gotten outrageously long! It's time for a trim, but that will have to be at the end of June...

I also got to talk with Alicia for 3 hours today :) It was wonderful!

Have you ever sorted through hundreds of moldy onions?

I hadn't until tonight. I didn't even know that onions could become moldy! Needless to say it was a pretty disgusting sight.

Every last Monday of the month, a couple of us from my home church volunteer at Food For Lane County which is an organization that gets food donations from surrounding restaurants, cafeterias, and businesses from all over the county. I absolutely love volunteering here. You meet some pretty cool people, and it's actually really fun! When you arrive you have to sign in, wash your hands, and put on an apron. I love any excuse to wear an apron. I don't know why I have a thing for them, but I do :) There are dozens of carts full of food items that need to be packaged into smaller containers that will feed families of four. There are people that get the bags ready, pack the food, and then people who write out labels for the packages. Tonight my duty was labeling which I love! There are several categories that the food is separated into and put into crates where it is then put into the freezer.

As you can probably tell from my other posts, I absolutely adore elderly couples! I think they are so stinkin' cute :) Well there is another elderly couple that I absolutely adore who volunteers the same time as me. I don't remember their names because I didn't get to talk to them today, and I met them probably 5 months ago, but they must be in their mid 80's. They are absolute sweethearts. They come out to volunteer together every week. Isn't that the coolest? I hope that my future husband and I do the same someday.

After we finished packaging all of the food items, it was time to sort the onions! Oh my! I've never seen so many rotten onions. We were given crates of them, and we had to decide whether they were salvageable and peel away the bad parts, or decide that they were too far-gone. I did cry a bit. Too bad I didn't have any onion goggles. Those would have been handy!

At the end, Dan who is head of the organization took some of us outside to the back of the building to look at their compost piles. Super cool! When I have my own house and garden I definitely want to start one. Back by the compost piles we saw a deer. It was probably only 10 feet away from us. Surprisingly it wasn't scared of us at all, and continued to eat grass even while we moved around. Once we came back in we had dessert. Food For Lane County doesn't give away dessert items, so any donations of dessert go to the volunteers who are helping :) Score! Tonight there were rice krispy treats and brownies. Yum!

Today has been both good, and frustrating. Registering for LCC has been extremely complicated and confusing. I've had to re-apply twice now, and they still aren't allowing me to register. The orientation class that I have to take before I can sign up to be in my CNA class is filling up, but since they keep miss communicating with me, I'm still unable to sign up which creates a dilemma. Hopefully they will have everything figured out by Wednesday. Another issue is that I can't sign up for my CNA class until the 15th of June. The class starts the 21st and I am afraid that I won't get in. My mom keeps telling me to stop stressing myself out about it. She says if I don't get in then I'll just take the class fall term, which is ok, but I wanted to do it this summer. If I don't get into my class, hopefully I will be able to take some of the classes I need to take this summer instead of the fall. We'll see. For now I just need to calm down and trust that everything will work out how it is supposed to.

Tomorrow I am going to call the college in Colorado that I am going to apply to, and learn more about their nursing program and see if I am on track. I'm pretty sure I only have Microbiology left, and I am going to re-take anatomy 1 and 2 and try to get an A. I also need to contact the school in Idaho that I plan to apply to and see if I am on track for applying there as well.

Today my mom booked my airline tickets! Idaho here I come :) I am so excited to get to spend a week with one of my favorite people in the whole world. My sister Jen is somebody that I look up to a lot. Her poise, grace, intelligence, encouragement, and loving spirit just amazes me. I don't ever remember a time where Jen and I fought. We've always had a close relationship, and an even closer one now that we have both grown up. I wish that I could see her more than every 6 months. The last time that I saw her was at Thanksgiving. That is why I wouldn't mind going to nursing school in Idaho. I would be living in the same town as her for once :). I am also excited to get to spend more time with my brother-in-law Jake, and of course their yellow lab, Samson. I love him!

My flight leaves June 1st at 3:05 pm to the land of potatoes, and I will be returning June 8th at 11:20 am. One thing you may or may not know about me is that I absolutely LOVE flying! If nursing doesn’t work out, I would seriously consider becoming a flight attendant. Airports fascinate me. I love watching the people. I always want to know where they are going, and where they have been in life. I have also always secretly hoped that I would run into a famous person while at the airport. Seeing Chris Martin or Guy Berryman would be just swell :).

Tomorrow I am getting my bangs cut and styled. I am way long overdue. My bangs are OUT OF CONTROL! Lately I have just been pinning them back because they are not cooperating. I am going to go for a different style than I have done in the past so I am a little wary, but excited. I don't know how to explain it, so I'll just have to post a picture. I am also going to skype with Miss Alicia Jean Keithley at 4:00 pm :D I suggested that we skype at 5, and she agreed. Luckily she reminded me that she is an hour ahead. I totally spaced that fact. I would have been late to our skype date haha. We have texted a lot since school got out, but we have yet to have a long conversation, so tomorrow we are going to catch up and it is going to be wonderful! While I am in Idaho, hopefully Alicia will make it down to Boise one day and we can hang out. After we skype, I am going to go to my church's college group which will be nice. I have been lacking in spending time with God lately. That needs to change.

This last week I was up in Newberg, and it was so wonderful! I got to spend time with and see some more of my favorite people; Margaret, Karina, Nick, Brandon, Heather, Carter, Lissa, and Mandee! Coming back to Newberg and helping out with Genesis reminded me of how much I love Fox and kind of rekindled my sadness of leaving such an amazing place. The students would ask me what year I was, and I told them that I was going to be a Junior at Fox, although it was not true. I just decided that instead of having to go through and explain the long story of why I am leaving fox, it would be easier just to not tell people.

So much of my life is up in Newberg, and it is hard to adjust to living back where I grew up, and not by my close friends. I just keep reminding myself that my goal in life is to become a Nurse, and in order for me to accomplish that goal I am going in the direction that will get me there. I also remind myself that in two years I would have experienced the same separation from my close friends. I am just going through the transition a little earlier. I also realize how my leaving Fox also affects the lives of my friends. Not only am I adjusting, but they have to adjust as well. No longer will they get to see me on a daily basis, but what is good is that I am only a short car ride and phone call away. I still want to be a big part of their lives, as will they always be a big part of mine.

This whole past year I have been praying to God asking him to direct me and show me the path to take, and he delivered. My last semester at Fox was by far the hardest one, and I’ve come to realize that God has something else in store. Although I love Fox so much, I feel that he is leading me in another direction to a whole new adventure. I wasn't feeling like Fox's nursing program was the right fit for me. I just couldn't see myself there, which surprised me since it had been my plan ever since my sophomore year of High School. I'm still unsure of where God's leading me, but I have complete faith that whatever it is, it is going to be awesome. Maybe he will take me to Colorado, or Idaho, or maybe he's got something entirely different in mind. For now, I am here in Eugene, listening and waiting and being present, here and now. I pray to God everyday that he will bring me a community of people here in Eugene that I can grow close with, I haven't found them yet, but I know they are here. I
just need to discover them!

Oh life... you are harder than I ever imagined. Sometimes I think to myself, “you’re an adult, when did that happen?” It sure sneaks up on you!