Results...

For those who are keeping up with my life.. I took my boards today.



When you finish, they hand you a piece of paper....



Mine said:



YOU PASSED.


I am now officially a PNP-AC (Pediatric Nurse Practitioner - Acute Care)


Thank you to everyone who talked me off the ledge in the past few weeks.

Staying busy...

After much soul searching, I've decided to keep my exam date for this Friday.  If I pass, it's over.  If I don't... well... I can always take it again after studying some more.  

In the meantime, I haven't applied for any other NP positions since the one over the summer.  There are three online that I'm interested in, but at this point, I've decided to wait till I pass the exam.

To keep myself busy, and make some money, I've started doing pediatric home care.  I'm only working two or three days a week right now (mostly because of the holidays coming up and trying to get used to working again).  So far, I've done one shift.  My patient is totally adorable.  It's a total reversal though to have the parents asking if there is anything they can do for me, instead of me asking that question.   I have another 12 hour shift with her overnight tonight.  I'm getting an amazing amount of knitting done while she sleeps.  I'll have to post another pic of the fish I've managed to finish.

I do still knit...

I've been in a bit of a knitting funk lately.  I haven't been enjoying it nearly as much as I used to.  The warm summer just makes me never want to look at wool again, and it didn't help that I had two projects that have been just lounging around forever.

#1: No picture, because they're not done... the pair of socks I started in FEBRUARY!!!!  UGH, I'm just not in a sock mood lately.

#2: A gift for my preceptor.  She ice skates and wanted very fitted leg warmers.  So I took her measurements at her ankle, at the bottom of her calf and the top, plus the length of her leg and designed these...

Not the best yarn choice, but I needed something warm and in a DK weight.  There aren't many of those in my stash, so I chose this one.   It's Decadent Fiber's Pulled Taffy that I bought many years ago from their orphan bin.  I knit these two at a time from the same center pull ball via magic loop.  What I soon noticed, and what you can kinda see in the first picture, is that the yarn on the outside of the ball was a much lighter pink than the yarn on the inside.  I'm going to soak them for a bit and see if the dark one fades a bit.  My first try at a knee height "sock".  I need to find a better way to increase, but other than that I'm happy with them.  Actually, I'm happy they're done, by the middle of the project, it weighed a ton on the needles.  

#3: Still working on the fish blanket, it's going faster now that it's colder out.

Getting excited about Rhinebeck!

Rhinebeck is going to be bitter sweet for me this year.  My girlfriend from school is getting married on the same weekend in Arizona.  The wedding was originally in November and I was really looking forward to going, but there's no way I can get it together for October.

On the plus side, I finally signed up to take a class.  This will be my first ever class at one of the sheep and wool festivals and I'm excited.  Oddly enough, it has nothing to do with knitting or spinning.  J. and I are taking the felted soap class on Saturday afternoon.

Which mostly means that I'll have to make sure to hit Brooks Farm early in the morning and worry about everything else on Sunday.  Since I'm still broke and unemployed, this may be a good thing.  $45 for a three hour class, I could spend WAY more than that in three hours.

I'll be sharing a house with my mom and some friends again this year.  Plus, I'll be up there early on Friday (so I can get to the CIA and get my apple pie).  I may have to invite a few people over on Friday night to celebrate all that has happened since August (I'm taking my boards Sept 26th, so I'm being a typical superstitious nurse and not saying anything else).

A few more vacation shots... (since all my yarn is packed)

The trainer threw a football for the dolphin as a treat after doing what he was supposed to do.  I was happy to get this picture, my camera doesn't have the fastest shutter speed.

Midnight buffet on the cruise, I love the carving and decorations... didn't eat a thing though.

Where we went for the dolphin adventure in case any of you are ever down in Nassau and want to go.

My mom with the dolphin, isn't that CUTE????

Towel Animals

Since the pig was so popular, I thought I'd post the rest: 

First, the piggy again.  If you leave your sunglasses out, they use those.  We never left any out though.

I have NO idea what this one is supposed to be.  My guess was a giraffe because of the long neck, but who knows.

This one was so cute!  

Sorry for the bad picture, this one was from my camera.  Great walrus though.

On the nursing front.  I got my authorization to test and now need to pick a test date.  I'm thinking the end of September.  I've also signed up with a local home care company to work a few shifts a week so I'm not totally broke for Rhinebeck.  No news on the job front, there are two jobs I'm interested in that have yet to be posted.