let's make it work.

Here is to my twenty-second year.

I may not have completed all of goals for life in Greenville, but I made the best of it. While I don't miss nursing school even a tinsy winsy bit, I truly miss the dear friends I made over the years there. I will always have a special place in my heart for the people that made Greenville a place worth living in.

So now I begin my journey this year. Soon to be married, soon to be a home-owner, soon to be an EMPLOYED registered nurse (whenever that may be!), and too soon-to-be twenty-three next year. Time definitely flies by... I didn't even really get to say goodbye to twenty-one and here I am one month into twenty-two. bizarre.

I really look forward to all of the things Jared and I will get to do together. He's my best friend and I love the time we spend together. We have a lot of goals for the near future. One of which is to start running together. I know that seems so simple, but running literally has a unique place in my heart. Running is associated with family and some of the most amazing memories that I have from my childhood. Now that Jared and I run together, it rekindles something special for me. So yay for that.

Having my own home with Jared is also oober exciting for me. I've always desired to have a place I could be glad to have people over to. Now I have the opportunity to fufill my hostess desires! Jared is glad too, although he's not too sure about hosting Thanksgiving or Christmas anytime soon.. I'm thinking more along the lines of endless game nights and dinner parties. But we shall see.

On the job front this is what I have to say: Dear Nursing Positions all over the Charlotte area: Please hire new graduate RN's! After trying since April to find a job and literally being turned down this whole past week from every job-opening I've called, I'm a smidge frustrated with the economy and the lack of jobs.. Well don't get me wrong, there are plenty of nursing positions available, however as one lady put it "we are looking for seasoned nurses..." Well I may be a bland new grad but how am I ever supposed to be seasoned if they won't toss me in the pot! But no worries, I have not lost heart. I know that God has bigger plans for me than I have for myself and something better than I ever thought will come out of this situation.

Speaking of the economy.. while I was in college I was pretty much oblivious to the "economic crisis" occuring in our country. I was going to and from school, soaking up my financial aid/scholarship money and really, I had no reason to notice what was going on in our country. Now that I'm home, no longer a student and have joined the unemployed crowd that is consistently growing, I feel a tiny slice of the pain and frustration that everyone else has been feeling for quite a time now.

This year has a lot of promises in it. I look forward to seeing where it takes me.

So hello twenty-two. It's nice to meet you. Let's make this year work.

fast forward!

well.

shame on me for not keeping up my end of the journal!

here i am, one day after graduation.

i feel free-ish but not completely free.

you see, i still have four days of review classes (for the state test).

four days that will last from 8am to 5pm each.

just when i thought nursing school had finally cut the chains, i realized they still had a rope around me!

but i'm fast forwarding to friday, May 15th 2009, my real date of freedom.

but then again, not really since i have the state exam.

(let's just forget about that for now :))

i will probably never walk into that nursing building again.

and most likely will never see some of those students again.

for once, there's no "have a great summer, see you next fall."

it's "hope you have a great life."

that's a pretty bizarre concept, but i'm ready for it.

after i take the state exam, i can set my mind free.

my time will be free.

my heart will be free.

my brain will be FREE.

that makes me very happy.

despite all of the stress, tears, heartaches, and headaches that came along with nursing school, i know that it was ALL worth it.

granted i can finally play video games, catch up on books that i've been putting off, and actually finalize wedding plans, i can also look forward to really making a difference in this world via my career.

sigh.

i will defininitely post more soon.

p.s.

my family is amazing. i love each and every one of them.

my friends are pretty great too.

"take it, it's all we have!"

so halloween was pretty awesome this year. i dressed as a cat, sara a fairy, beth a mouse, and talmage a prince. we had some people over to the apartment and played some games. somewhere around 8:30 when guests were still arriving the doorbell rang.

sara was like "stacie it's children!"

it took me a second to register, but then i was like, "oh trick-or-treaters!"

i grabbed our freshly stocked candy bowl and ran downstairs.

i opened the door and there was nobody there.

i walked further out and could see a man walking towards me and all i could think about was our friend jenn telling us that some gangs in greenville were planning on stabbing people on halloween night.

thank goodness that this non-violent man's precious children heard me yell to sara "did you lie to me about the kids" because they ran from around the corner towards me, otherwise i wasn't sure how i was going to exchange candy for a stabbing.

i was so overwhelmed with excitment that i lowered my bowl of candy and let the three kids pick their candy. the two older kids humbly took one piece but the 3 year old grabbed a big handful. that was when i realized i had broken the all-time trick-or-treat rule.

i was supposed to hand them candy. never in my life was i allowed to choose what candy i got. it was always fate that decided whether or not you got the milkduds or that dreaded black and orange candy.

had i known that those kids were going to be our only treaters i would have given them more.

needless to say, i was super stoked to have my first trick-or-treater experience and i just had to share.

fast forward.

sooo. a few weekends ago, jared and i had a cake-tasting. mama, donna, jared and i met with this woman in albermarle who was just delighted to be working with us. she handed us some books to look through while she got the samples together. unfortunately i happened to pick the album that had cakes she must have made 30 years ago. talk about lace and shoulder pads. so i grabbed the more modern album and began to collect ideas. i described to her what i wanted and here is my armature sketch of what my dream cake may look like:

it's gonna be vanilla on the top and bottom layers and chocolate in the middle. i'm pretty excited. and we also ordered a "groom's cake" (against jared's insistence that he "didn't want one")hah. it's going to be way cute to go with our luau theme of the rehearsal dinner.

the following weekend, christina and i reluctantly went to david's bridal. i'm all about trying on dresses but i'm a little hesitant when they make you sign your life away at the door, which is exactly what happened. well they didn't take my life, but close. i guess they don't want just anyone trying on dresses. anyhoo, i'm down to two dresses that i really like. and after i made a pretend appointment to "bring my mom back with me" we left. (but not before we tried on tiaras!).

well then jared came to visit this weekend and even more wedding-ness hit me. we met with my dear friends will and amy bell who do photography for fun. they took some really cute pictures of jared and i out at this park that had beautiful big trees. in the midst of the picture taking jared and i came to one big conclusion:

we cannot dance. and this is a big problem. well not a BIG problem when you consider the world and all, but y'all we can't dance! maybe on his own jared can dance. and maybe on my own i can dance (when no one's around!). but in one of the photos amy told us to slow dance like we will at the wedding and it was just a big mess of awkward stiffness and... boo. we need a dance-makeover! does that exist? what can i do to unstick the glue on my shoes when music plays and other human beings are around?! gosh, i sure hope that come next july, we wont be looking like fools on the dance floor. let's work on that.

but anyways, picture taking was great and there are some definite goodies. i just have to wait for amy to get them back to me on a disk. and then jared and i got to spend a lot of time this weekend talking about our expectations when we're married. it just boggles my mind that this is really happening and come next year i'll be living with jared in our house.

i'm doing my best not to fast forward through this next year. i have the tendency to get really excited about things to come and i end up missing out on the time in-between. so once more, here is to my twenty-first year and all that it has to offer!

some latelies...

well...
sara and i found our dream home! (even if it is just for a year). it was worth all the searching and heartache to find our new place. it's identical to kevin tara's place but better because we have a mini-view of the woods from our balcony. i'm all about hearing crickets and cicadas at nighttime.

and our new complex is fabulous. i would say it is 70% retired people, 20% grown-ups, and 10% college kids. do you know what that means after moving from a place that was 100% college kids? it means that instead of having STD's floating around in the swimming pool, my biggest concern is whether or not the retired people's grandchildren have accidents in the pool. i don't know about you, but i'll go for the accidents over STD's any day. at least the accidents are visible and will immediately be decontaminated.

we have only met one of our neighbors so far. his name is ty and he lives with his girlfriend and two very cute dogs. the guy below us is yet to be seen. so here's the story on him. he comes in late after we're already in and leaves early before we're awake. well one night we heard him come home so we walked outside so we could "check to see if our cars were still outside..." (aka check to see if we could see him). okay i know that sounds creepy but let's use the word adventurous instead. so we walk by and his lights are on and we can see the silhouette of him sitting on his couch. we round the corner and can "still see our cars" and literally within the 3 seconds we had been gone past his windows, all of his lights were now off. sooo we were no longer the lookers we were the lookees! we hastily made our way back upstairs.
we have been here almost a month now and it is about time we ran into him. let's work on that.

anyways. so this semester is bound to be interesting. mainly due to my enrollment in Mental Health. it sounds kind of intimidating, but i'm trying to look at it with positive thoughts. we have to have a 30 minute one-on-0ne with our psychiatric patients when we get there each week. i just hope i don't say anything to set anyone off! i mean over the years i have dealt with a handful of mentally challenged people and the only word to describe working with these people is "frustrating." there is nothing more frustrating than somebody who cannot understand things on the same level as you. and hah, when i put it that way let's add to that list and make that about ten handfuls of people that i've encountered.

wedding wise i am yet to do anything drastic besides selecting my date and my venue. tomorrow i'm going to arrange a cake tasting. and honestly i've never dreamed of having a cherry-lemon-rose-banana cake at my wedding. i'd just be stoked to have someone make me a funfetti wedding cake. perhaps ms. cake lady can arrange that... after i try her free samples of fancy pants cake of course.

and to conclude tonight's ramblings... how about those olympics ay? there is nothing like watching gymnastics all night and then walking around the next day like you're a gymnast too. i practiced my balance beam routine right here in the living room. i'm no shawn johnson but i know God smiled as He watched. and let me tell you about michael phelps. i'm not one of those "future mrs. phelps" girls, but i do admire his amazing talent as a swimmer.

here's to you michael phelps for winning a bazillion gold medals and being precious at the same time. sara and i plan on naming our next beta fish after you. you are also currently the wallpaper on my cellular device.


and to conclude once more here is a video of yet another reason we were relieved to leave our old apartment: (watch close!)

you tell me...

sara and i are highly qualified to be on HGTV's show house-hunters. except it should be called "meet lots of strange people and ugly wall paper." i seriously think we have seen every possible house/townhouse/condo/apartment/duplex in greenville. we haven't hit the trailers so maybe we've missed our "home-run." who knows but we are exhausted. here are some of the potential landlords and homes we have met:

joy: pretty much the opposite of her name. i think she was too busy re-asking us whether or not we had pets to actually give us a quality tour of the apartment. we gave her our email addresses... she never emailed us back.

david: precious old man who really wanted us to rent from him. we were a little wary when we called to make the appointment to meet. he said "i gotta brush my teeth and put on a shirt real quick and i'll be there." he ended up being super nice but we weren't sure if he'd agree to us "renovating" the bathrooms... wallpaper is a big minus (little did we know the worst of the wallpaper was yet to be seen).

michael: very helpful man with a little patch of white hair in the middle of his dark-haired head. he had some nice places but they just weren't available.

bo: typical southern gentlemen/golfer/real-estate agent. drove us around in his suburban to a number of locations. this is when we encountered quite possibly the worst house ever. evidently the previous tenants had literally JUST moved out the night before for an emergency reason (warning sign number 1). he warned us that he hadn't seen the house since the tenants moved out but if we went with an open mind then he'd take us. "suuure, why not" we said. we pull up and it there is a pile of trash at the street. we open the front door and a not so beautiful tile arrangement on the wall was right there to greet us. now i wish i could describe these tiles... let's just say imagine pictures of pilgrims and windmills but on tiles.. arranged on a wooden wall in the foyer of an old brick house. we continue through the house, random furniture still remained. when bo opened the garage door, a very bad odor introduced itself. it was like eight sopping wet dogs had lived in that garage for 100 years. it was very very bad. we made our way to the kitchen where lovely white tiles with blue dolphins lined the walls. (bad sign number 2: ugly tiles X 2). after making a hasty lap around the house we finally returned to the fresh outside air. as i made my way back to the car i took a moment to look down at my feet... hmm i thought.. "those little black dots weren't there before.." fleas (bad sign number 3). there were about 11 on my feet/ankles. just as i began to brush them off, poor little sara also noticed that she had been ravaged upon. she looked like she had been stung by bees. bo apologized and laughed when i asked him how much rent was.

freddie condo: was given the last name condo in my phone so that i'd be able to keep track of who he was. this became hilarious to us. we met freddie condo and his wife. their place was very nice, but a smidge out of our price range. we made sure to mention we were nursing students to get some honest bonus points. mrs. condo seemed impressed b/c she's a nurse, but i think freddie wasn't too intrigued. twas confirmed when the next day their craigslist posting was relisted in capital letters.

charlie townhouse: i think sara's exact words were "hell is about to open up and swallow us whole." but let me take you to the day before. we found a townhouse we liked and i immediately called the given phone number while we still sat out front of it. a very very strong indian accented man answered. i asked for more details about the townhouse and tried to replay the words he spoke over and over to try and translate what he was saying. apparently my facial expressions were one for the books because although sara could not hear him, she began to roll with laughter. this did not help my situation b/c not only was i trying to understand this man on the phone, i was desperately trying not to laugh. i asked him when we could see the inside and he said "you tell me." so i told him the next day and asked what time worked best for him. he said, "you tell me." so i told him 2. he then proceeded to tell me he had another condo off of some non-understandable street. i honestly had no idea what this poor man was trying to tell me so i told him, okay we'll meet you at this townhouse first and then we'll follow you to that condo (wherever it may be). we then continued to giggle about the hilarity of his "accent." Come 2:00 the next day, we bit our tongues. poor charlie was indeed indian but also had some type of dis figuration around his mouth. maybe a jaw surgery or reconstruction. whatever the case, bless his heart and forgive us for being so careless. when we got in our car to follow him to the other condo sara said the statement i mentioned earlier. he was so nice and we let him know how much we appreciated his time. he made sure to tell us that if we went inside this condo "we would never want to come out." too bad the girl wasn't home and he didn't have an extra key with him.

willy: old man. knew some nursing students who paid the bills by stripping at the silver bullet. was he implying something? quite a character.

mabel: reminded us of the previously mentioned joy. just add some nasty light fixtures and bad wallpaper.

kevin tara: such a tease. this was our home-run, grand-slam, cross your fingers, and jump up and down condo. i couldn't sleep for practically 2 nights just b/c all i could think about was how nice our new condo would be. we saw it, sara's parents came and saw it, we filled out applications, the whole nine-yards and then... after almost 2 weeks of banking on this place kevin tara finds out that his new house will be ready later than he expected and we would have to wait 3 extra weeks. boo hiss. we're not done with him yet.

audrey: our latest find. you can smell and hear the cigarettes when you meet her, but she was as sweet as could be. she was very helpful and we might not be done with her yet either. through our time touring some of her houses i learned two things: one: wall paper can get uglier and two: sara HATES wood paneling.

overall we have also spoken with about 5 rental companies and i have been stalking craigslist hourly. we have to be out of here july 31st. we have plenty of time... kinda. i know the right place will come along. it has to.

p.s. there have been way too many bugs in our current apartment lately. i can handle flies, gnats, and crickets, but here's a memo to the spiders and roaches: ew i do not like you. please stay off of my bed and go live in the room that nobody has access too. kthxbye.

therefore natalie dee made me smile when she posted this:

matt wertz

so erin, melissa, and i had a fabulous time at the matt wertz concert. it's one thing to really like an artist for their music but it's another to really like an artist for their music and their character. i was so impressed with his good sense of humor and his ability to really connect and interact with the audience. he also received an A+ in the humble department. after the show he was mingling with us fans. he walked up to us and said, "hey i'm matt, what's your name?" as if we didn't already know. hah. i just appreciate him treating us like normal human beings instead of talking to us like silly girls who adore him. it was a great time and i totally recommend everyone to be a fan of this great musician/singer.