Week in Review - June 19, 2016
URRRGGGG! Can I just say that work is consuming me right now?
I truly love my job! I feel like I worked so hard to achieve this position and I feel very blessed to have it. However, with the addition of the three labs each week in addition to my regular classes I am buried! Thank goodness there are only a couple more labs this semester and by then they should have someone hired to help. I think that the labs are kind of fun - a more relaxed way of teaching - but there is a lot of prep work involved. This week the advanced class learned how to insert naso-gastric (NG tubes) and the fundamental class learned how to administer different kinds of medications such as IM and SQ injections. They even got to practice giving TB tests (of sterile saline) on each other. It was fun. But there was still lesson plans to create on heart medications and the different roles of nursing (patient advocate, teacher, communicator).
Because I put in so many hours this week my boss told me to stay home on Friday - but I still needed to work most of the day. Raelynn had been sick but was feeling better, but not good enough to go to the sitter. Kalel decided he wanted to stay here instead of going to Boys and Girls Club (even though I told him it would be a very boring day). Over all they were really good kids and let me get a lot of work done. Finally I decided that they needed a reward so I pulled out a couple of games and we played for awhile.
We played Walk the Dogs and Arggh! I was really impressed by how quickly Rae caught on. She didn't do too well with Dogs but she did great at Arggh! which is a memory-type game. Of course Kalel is the game-playing king since we have been playing games together since he was just little. It is so fun to see them enjoying game playing just as much as me. I think games are important. They create time to talk and laugh together. They teach about taking turns, sharing, and how to be a gracious winner and/or loser. They teach memory skills, strategy skills, how to read, and often math skills. It makes me happy to play games with anyone at anytime.
Right now Shandra is working every other Thursday and every Friday, Saturday, Sunday for 12 hours. Jason is working those same days (right now, but he rotates every 5 weeks) and so we have the kids all weekend. On Saturday Kim was busy so I took the kids and went down to my Offret family reunion. It is a low-key affair where we all bring our own lunches and just sit and visit for a couple of hours. It was nice to see some of my cousins, but I have to be honest, there were many people who I don't recognize or know. I need to be better. However, I am the only one from my family who goes, and at least I go!
After the reunion me and the kids rushed over to the movie theater to see, "Finding Dory" It was really cute and the kids loved it!
Today is Father's Day and let me tell you I am probably the worst wife ever! Poor Kim works so hard and I was too busy selfish to make time to do something nice for him. I didn't get him anything for his birthday either (of course he told me not to, but that shouldn't matter). Well, he was a trooper and said that he doesn't like Father's Day anyway so he was glad to just forget it. I on the other hand started down the path of how rotten I am. You know that path, the one where you think of one thing you messed up on and that leads you to another thing, which snowballs to the 5, 20, 100, and 500 things in your life which you are not only NOT perfect - but pretty much suck at! Even little things like: "I probably shouldn't brush my teeth so hard" spiraled into "I don't look good enough, I say stupid things, I'm sure that no one likes to be around me, I'm a lousy ________ "(fill in the blank) to "maybe I'll just crawl in a hole and never show my face again". All of this occurring before 9:00 church!
Fortunately I chose to go to church. I really do like church. I like meeting with friends and neighbors, I love learning about Christ and the gospel, I love singing, and I love hearing stories of others who have learned important lessons in life. I'll admit, there are times when I am tempted not to go - mostly because I am having a bad day or because I am just lazy, but I'm always glad that I decided to go once I am there.
This week I made a simple comment in Relief Society. We were talking about why people don't come to church. There were many comments and reasons given. I raised my hand and made a comment about one of the reasons that I really struggled with coming to church in the past - the fact that coming to church, especially Relief Society, makes some of us feel guilty. We hear all of the things that we are supposed to be doing (and honestly we assume everyone else is doing perfectly) and we feel that we can never measure up. We feel so much pressure to do so much good and we feel that we will never be good enough. (I don't struggle with that as much now, but I remember feeling it, and this morning was a day that I was battling the feeling). A little bit later the Lord sent me a tender mercy. One of the sisters, Laura Smith, raised her hand to make a comment. When called on she said, in a very teary, shaky voice, that she was always grateful when Audrey (me) made comments because they always made so much sense to her. She said that she hated missing Fast and Testimony meetings because she was always afraid that I would bear my testimony and she would miss it. She went on saying that she felt that my message was always directed right at her.
I'll be honest, I was embarrassed that she singled me out in front of the class like that. However despite the embarrassment I was amazed and so grateful! I had no idea that my comments were valuable to anyone else! Ok, that is not entirely true, I have been told before that people appreciate my comments, but I never imagined that my comments meant that much to anyone. Who knew? Here I was just spouting off about my shortcomings and fallacies and it helped someone? The only thing I can figure out is that I don't really hide my troubles so others can see that they are not alone in their troubles. Who knows? What I do know is that her comments made me swell with joy! I felt like shouting, "I'm important to someone!" It was an amazing feeling and one that I know the Lord knew that I needed to feel. How grateful I am for this tender mercy. And I'm eternally grateful for Laura for thinking of me.
I truly love my job! I feel like I worked so hard to achieve this position and I feel very blessed to have it. However, with the addition of the three labs each week in addition to my regular classes I am buried! Thank goodness there are only a couple more labs this semester and by then they should have someone hired to help. I think that the labs are kind of fun - a more relaxed way of teaching - but there is a lot of prep work involved. This week the advanced class learned how to insert naso-gastric (NG tubes) and the fundamental class learned how to administer different kinds of medications such as IM and SQ injections. They even got to practice giving TB tests (of sterile saline) on each other. It was fun. But there was still lesson plans to create on heart medications and the different roles of nursing (patient advocate, teacher, communicator).
Because I put in so many hours this week my boss told me to stay home on Friday - but I still needed to work most of the day. Raelynn had been sick but was feeling better, but not good enough to go to the sitter. Kalel decided he wanted to stay here instead of going to Boys and Girls Club (even though I told him it would be a very boring day). Over all they were really good kids and let me get a lot of work done. Finally I decided that they needed a reward so I pulled out a couple of games and we played for awhile.
We played Walk the Dogs and Arggh! I was really impressed by how quickly Rae caught on. She didn't do too well with Dogs but she did great at Arggh! which is a memory-type game. Of course Kalel is the game-playing king since we have been playing games together since he was just little. It is so fun to see them enjoying game playing just as much as me. I think games are important. They create time to talk and laugh together. They teach about taking turns, sharing, and how to be a gracious winner and/or loser. They teach memory skills, strategy skills, how to read, and often math skills. It makes me happy to play games with anyone at anytime.
Right now Shandra is working every other Thursday and every Friday, Saturday, Sunday for 12 hours. Jason is working those same days (right now, but he rotates every 5 weeks) and so we have the kids all weekend. On Saturday Kim was busy so I took the kids and went down to my Offret family reunion. It is a low-key affair where we all bring our own lunches and just sit and visit for a couple of hours. It was nice to see some of my cousins, but I have to be honest, there were many people who I don't recognize or know. I need to be better. However, I am the only one from my family who goes, and at least I go!
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| My cousins Teri and Jaye |
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| My Aunt Lona |
Fortunately I chose to go to church. I really do like church. I like meeting with friends and neighbors, I love learning about Christ and the gospel, I love singing, and I love hearing stories of others who have learned important lessons in life. I'll admit, there are times when I am tempted not to go - mostly because I am having a bad day or because I am just lazy, but I'm always glad that I decided to go once I am there.
This week I made a simple comment in Relief Society. We were talking about why people don't come to church. There were many comments and reasons given. I raised my hand and made a comment about one of the reasons that I really struggled with coming to church in the past - the fact that coming to church, especially Relief Society, makes some of us feel guilty. We hear all of the things that we are supposed to be doing (and honestly we assume everyone else is doing perfectly) and we feel that we can never measure up. We feel so much pressure to do so much good and we feel that we will never be good enough. (I don't struggle with that as much now, but I remember feeling it, and this morning was a day that I was battling the feeling). A little bit later the Lord sent me a tender mercy. One of the sisters, Laura Smith, raised her hand to make a comment. When called on she said, in a very teary, shaky voice, that she was always grateful when Audrey (me) made comments because they always made so much sense to her. She said that she hated missing Fast and Testimony meetings because she was always afraid that I would bear my testimony and she would miss it. She went on saying that she felt that my message was always directed right at her.
I'll be honest, I was embarrassed that she singled me out in front of the class like that. However despite the embarrassment I was amazed and so grateful! I had no idea that my comments were valuable to anyone else! Ok, that is not entirely true, I have been told before that people appreciate my comments, but I never imagined that my comments meant that much to anyone. Who knew? Here I was just spouting off about my shortcomings and fallacies and it helped someone? The only thing I can figure out is that I don't really hide my troubles so others can see that they are not alone in their troubles. Who knows? What I do know is that her comments made me swell with joy! I felt like shouting, "I'm important to someone!" It was an amazing feeling and one that I know the Lord knew that I needed to feel. How grateful I am for this tender mercy. And I'm eternally grateful for Laura for thinking of me.
THIS WEEK I AM GRATEFUL FOR:
Tender mercies that come when least expected.
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