Summer...

...is almost here!!

In the meantime, though, I've got 6 tests in the next 2 weeks. The 3 next week are my big exit exams (the HESIs), and then I have 3 finals the week after next. I also have one more clinical day next week. AAHHH!! And, Travis has a couple of more lab reports to write, a project due next week, and 6 finals to take.

We also:

• Have a gospel meeting at church next week
• Are moving out of our apartment in about 2 weeks (which means boxing everything up beforehand)
• Are trying to buy all of the food and get last minute details planned for the bachelor party (which starts on the same day we're moving!!)

Double AAHHH!!
All of this equals "way stressed out Erin and Travis" until May 11th.
Please pray for our sanity!!! :)
That's all for now...back to studying!

Blue Angels + Garlic Chicken + No Tests = A GREAT WEEK!

Well, it's been a great week so far! We went to see the Blue Angels on Saturday, and that was a lot of fun! Travis saw them last year in Mississippi, but this was my first time to see them. They sure are loud and fast. It's hard to get any good pictures of the planes because by the time you see them, they're practically gone already!

Last week I started community health clinicals. For these clinicals, I'll be doing something different each Tuesday and Wednesday. Last week, we had orientation on Tuesday, and then on Wednesday I did home health with a nurse from the county health department. It was pretty cool to see a different side of nursing than just being in the hospital all day. Today, I did WellBama...a program that my instructor started on campus to monitor to health of the employees at UA. Basically, I took a lot of people's blood pressure and checked some blood sugar and cholesterol levels. Tomorrow, I'm going to an inpatient hospice center on the VA campus.

Last night, we had two friends over for dinner, and I made Garlic chicken, corn, rolls, and brownies. It was yummy! I'd like to start having people over to eat dinner with us at least once a week until finals start. Being hospitable is fun!

Travis is as busy as ever right now. It seems like all his professors have been postponing tests and deadlines, and now they are all panicking and making everything due NOW! He's been working really hard though, and he'll deserve his 1-month break once finals are over. I think our last day of finals is May 8th, and he isn't starting work until after our trip to Fripp Island with my family at the end of May/early June! I'm so excited!

Speaking of work, I am hopefully going to work one or two days a week at the hospital doing what I did last summer. I don't think they really needs me that much, but I don't mind...I really just want to keep my foot in the door there. Plus, I can take my CPR recertification class and get my TB skin test (that I have to do every year for nursing school) done for free as an employee at Huntsville Hospital!

That's about all that's going on with us. We're excited about coming to Huntsville this weekend! Can't wait to see everyone :)

I'm so excited!

I think this means I'm getting old. I just saved a bunch of money on my grocery shopping today, and I'm super excited! Overall, I went to Winn Dixie, Publix, and CVS and spent $61.39 total. Here's what I got:

• Pantene shampoo, conditioner, and hairspray
• Lysol toilet bowl cleaner
• 4 packages of Ziploc bags (sandwich and freezer sizes)
• 2 bottles of hydrogen peroxide
• Colgate toothpaste
• Colgate 360 toothbrush (Travis's favorite kind of toothbrush!)
• 2 pkgs of Secret deoderant
• 1 bottle of All laundry detergent
• 2 bags of Doritos
• 1 bag of Ruffles potato chips
• 2 boxes of Klondike bars
• Carrots
• 2 boxes of muffin mix
• Fresh strawberries
• 3 packages of Crystal Light mix
• 2 boxes of cereal bars
• 6 2-Liters of Pepsi, Mountain Dew, and Dr. Pepper
• 1 bag of salad
• 1 cantaloupe
• 1 package of french onion dip

YAY!!!! So I spent $61.39, and my receipts show that I saved $67.98...that's 53%!!!!!
I've been doing a 4 week trial on a website my mom found, and it basically gives you a list for the different stores in your area of what the good deals are for the week. If you cut coupons from the Sunday paper and use them on top of a sale price, you can save a lot of money! That's what I did today!! The idea behind the website is that you want to stockpile items when they are at "rock botttom prices"...that way you don't have to pay full price when you need something like shampoo, laundry detergent, or Ziploc bags. And the website tracks the prices of different items in each store, so they know what's really a good deal or not. They say that a certain item, like Pantene shampoo, tends to go on sale about every 12 weeks...so you want to be sure that your "stockpile" will last you until the next time it goes on sale. Obviously, this won't work for things like milk and produce, but you really can save a lot of money on toiletries, makeup, and other household items!

Our Apartment in T-town

I wanted to take some pictures of our apartment since we'll be moving out in May and living in a different apartment this fall. After dusting, vacuuming, and scrubbing, I decided it was presentable enough for pictures. It will be neat to look back at these one day and remember our "first home". Without further ado, here are some of the pictures of our humble abode...all 425 sq feet of it:

We'll start with the bathroom. Not much to say about that, besides that fact that I really like our shower curtain!

Our closet...either we have too many clothes or not enough space!

Travis's desk...this is where you will find him 90% of the time he's at home (and he's usually doing homework)


Our bed (with clean sheets on it for once!)

Now onto the kitchen...

We have a "mini" stove and oven!

This is the other place you might find Travis...in front of the TV!

Front door of our apartment and the entrance to the kitchen

Living room and closet/pantry (with the door closed)

I organized all the stuff in our "pantry" before taking this picture!

Our kitchen table

Another shot of the living room

Hope you enjoyed looking at the pictures! I know several of you haven't ever seen our apartment before. We're really enjoying our spring break so far! We've done lots of boring "married" stuff so far....taxes, filled out the FAFSA, did some spring cleaning...but it's been SO nice to have a break from class and clinicals. Tomorrow we're planning to go to my parents' lake house for some R&R...the weather's supposed to be really nice, so we're excited! Hope you all are having a great week too!

Snow and Lessons from Lindsey

Never before in my life have I seen as much snow as I did last week. It was enough to last me for a long time. I didn't build a single snowman or participate in any snowball fights, but I did ride in the car through a winter wonderland for about 12 hours on Monday. Literally, once we got north of Atlanta, there was snow completely covering the ground (thankfully, it wasn't on the actual interstate) all the way to Richmond! And in Richmond, there was snow EVERYWHERE. It was in the parking lots and on all of the back roads in town. I love the way that snows looks on the trees...so pretty! I will try to post some of the pictures I took at another time. Our internet here is so slow (b/c we are using the signal from the library across the street) that it takes forever to upload pictures.

Probably everyone knows why I went to Richmond last week. My cousin, Lindsey, passed away after having kidney cancer for almost 4 years. She was definitely a fighter though! There were several times that things weren't looking good, and she always pulled through somehow. I can't even imagine what she went though. On top of having regular chemo and dialysis treatments, she graduated in 4 1/2 years from the University of South Carolina. Although I only saw her usually once a year on our week-long Cushing family beach trips, I will never forget the times we shared. I'm really glad I made the trip to Richmond with my family. I was able to see the rest of the family and to grieve over the loss of Lindsey. It was very much worth the hassle of contacting teachers, scheduling makeup tests, and missing clinicals. There were a few things that struck me about Lindsey from the comments made at the memorial service and throughout the whole time I was there:

1. She never said "Why me?" when dealing with her cancer. She simply said, "It is what it is." What a great attitude to have! Even though her life was ended much sooner than anyone wanted it to be, she fought hard and didn't feel sorry for herself.

2. She obviously made a difference in a lot of people's lives. There were over 800 people at her memorial service!

3. There were also several doctors and nurses that made a difference in Lindsey's life. One of her doctors spoke at the memorial service, and her dialysis nurse also attended. I hope that I can do the same for my future patients one day.

4. I really like the quote on the back of the program for Lindsey's memorial service. It was one of her favorite quotes: "Our lives are not determined by what happens to us, but by how we react to what happens, not by what life brings to us, but by the attitude we bring to life. A positive attitude causes a chain reaction of positive thoughts, events, and outcomes. It is a catalyst, a spark that creates extraordinarily results."

I have now lost 2 cousins under the age of 25 to cancer, one on each side of the family. I really hope that we will find the cure to cancer soon.

Hurry up, spring break!

I can't believe this will be my last spring break ever. This time next year, I'll be graduated and probably working somewhere in town. Travis might have to spend next spring break by himself! That means I want to take full advantage of this year's. We don't have any big plans, but we may go to the lake for a few days (if the weather is nice). Other than that, we'll probably just sleep late, throw the frisbee around, maybe go on a picnic, play tennis, and watch a few movies. I can't wait!!

Tuesday was my first day of OB clinicals. I got to watch a c-section, so that was pretty cool! That was probably the most exciting moment of the day. The saddest moment was seeing a stillborn baby born after only 20 weeks gestation. I pretty much decided by the end of the day that I would never want to work OB. Here are my reasons:

1. I wouldn't be able to deal with sad situations like stillborns or miscarriages.
2. There are too many dysfunctional family situations in OB. I pictured it as being all happily married moms and dads...but in reality, you see more women who aren't married, women in the middle of divorce, teenagers, and all sorts of other situations. It's just depressing to see babies born into bad situations like that.
3. There are so many ethical issues like abortion, IVF, surrogate mothers, etc. I'd rather just not have to deal with those on a regular basis.

Travis had one test today, and he has a couple of tests next week. I've also got 3 tests coming up before spring break. We'll both be busy bees until then!

Yummy food and a Valentine's Day recap

It's been a really fun weekend!! Here's the recap:

Friday - We ate dinner at Depalma's, an Italian restaurant in downtown Tuscaloosa. We hadn't been there in almost 2 years, but it was even better than I remembered! I got the Spinach Fettuccine Alfredo with Chicken in it...yum! We've heard that their pizzas are awesome too, so next time we might have to try one.

When we got home, I made a cheesecake from a recipe I found on allrecipes.com (Chantal's New York Cheesecake - http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Chantals-New-York-Cheesecake/Detail.aspx). It turned out really good! I followed the recipe exactly, except for the part at the end about leaving it in the oven to cool for 5 or 6 hours. That would have required me to stay up til about 3 A.M., and I wasn't that dedicated, so I only let it cool for about 2 hours before refrigerating it. Supposedly, letting it cool in the oven like that prevents cracking. Mine had a small crack in it, but it still looked good! Next time, I might add more butter to the crust because mine turned out a little crumbly.

Saturday - I made breakfast for Travis (normally he has to settle for cereal!), cleaned, and went to the Rec Center to exercise. For dinner, I tried another new recipe from allrecipes.com called Zippy Chicken Corn Chowder (http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Zippy-Chicken-Corn-Chowder/Detail.aspx). I loved it, and Travis said he liked it too. It actually turned out to be pretty spicy, but it wasn't too spicy that I didn't like it. I only made a few changes to the original recipe: I left out the red pepper and leeks and added some onion instead. I also substituted some cayenne pepper for the hot sauce and used milk instead of half-and-half. Yum!!

After dinner, we went over to Alisha and Katie's for their Valentine's Day Party. I took my cheesecake and some brownies I'd made, and we had a few other snacks. The big event of the night was the Photo Scavenger Hunt. We split up into four groups of four, and we had exactly one hour to go to as many places on the list as we could find and take our picture. At least 3 of the four group members had to be in the picture, so that prevented the group members from splitting up. The different places/things on the list had different point values, depending on how hard they were. I was in a group with Travis, Mollie, and Jason, and we got 2nd place!! Here are some pictures from the night:

This is everyone before we left!! We were getting our gameplans in order!

We had to take our picture in one of the engineering buildings by a lady named Ruth Garrett's picture. Doesn't Travis look excited?!?

Reading the Crimson White (campus newspaper) in front of the Ferg

Posing with one of the Crimson Ride bus drivers...she said we made her night!

Climbing a tree on the Quad

Doing our best "Rocky" impression on the steps of Gorgas Library

Doing cartwheels in front of Gordon Palmer (the math building)

Sliding down a slide outside of our apartment

There were several other fun pictures from the night, but it would take forever to load them on here with our slow Internet. We would have gotten a ton of points for getting inside Bryant Denny, but we didn't think we'd have enough time to find a way in and get all the way back to Riverside on time. We also would have gotten a lot of points for jumping into the Riverside pool, but none of us were that dedicated (the pool was pretty slimy), although if we had, we would have won! Alisha, Katie, Alan, and Kyle all jumped in though!! They were pretty hard core :)

Overall, we had a blast! I hope we do another scavenger hunt soon!