Updated with video

Thanks to a great future sister-in-law, I was able to post the proposal video on here! See the previous post.

Inadequacy Part II

To continue on....

At 6:15pm, he showed up in coat and tie, holding a bunch of gorgeous red roses, and a tub of mystery items that he wouldn't let me see. After getting the roses in water, we went out to Victoria's Italian Restaurant, a nice little place where we went on our first date, exactly 7 months before. We chatted and ate, and it was very nice.

We headed back to my place, because he said we were going to watch a movie. This is where I got a little sad. I had been hoping he would propose to me but trying not to predict, but now it was seeming like this was just another regular date, slightly more formal because it was our 7-month anniversary. He had been quiet and solemn during and after dinner and we had not really talked about anything out of the ordinary. So, I just sat back, told myself to stop being dramatic, and to be grateful that we had a whole night together during a season where our time has been short. But I admit, I was a tiny bit sad. He was not going to propose to me.

We arrived back at my house and things changed. He went down to my basement and pulled out the tv to watch this movie. Before it started, he read me a journal entry he had written back in February before we started dating. He started the movie, and from that point on, I was enthralled.

The intro started with an old home video of him when he was 3-4 years old, singing this funny song about boys and girls hugging and kissing. Then it transitioned into a different form, starting with an alarm clock going off and him talking to me. He was applying for a job--the job of being my husband. The footage showed him getting ready, pep talking himself in the mirror, trying on 5 different shirts, as if he was preparing for a big interview. He named off some of his strengths and qualifications, and how he was the right one for the job. And of course, as with any application, you need to have good references, and his were most excellent.

He had dozens of our friends, his family, co-workers, and random people on video telling me why I should marry Bob. It was AWESOME. I was completely speechless-I only had the occasional laugh and intermittent tears. There were so many people on there who are critical to us. His grandfather read a poem about us. His siblings all wanted me to be in the family. My favorite kid from church told me he wanted to be just like Bob when he grew up. My best friends were there telling me how great Bob and I are and how he was going to make me laugh for the rest of my life. People from different states and foreign countries had sent in videos to support the cause. I still cannot believe everyone kept it a secret and I didn't have a clue.

This boy is a keeper.

I sat stunned for a minute before I could accept his proposal. He pulled out a beautiful ring. We had the best time the rest of the night, ending with a kneeling prayer searching for God's protection and guidance in the years to come.

Years to come. Wow. That is crazy to think about-that I finally know the man I'm going to marry. And I'm so excited about a lifetime with him.

see facebook pictures here, courtesy of Amy Harris http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2085204&l=e491b&id=71002317

Inadequacy

Sometimes in life, there are no words. But, alas, I will try to use words (and the occasional picture) to convey what has transpired over the last several weeks.

Bob has always been a romantic and has always doted on me, surprising me from time to time with sweet, thoughtful gifts and actions. However, a while back, he stated he wanted the next few weeks to be "spectacular," and they most surely have been.

It started with random little gifts, usually left in curious places for me to find,

like this homemade book full of things he likes about me on every page.


Or this "Dating Survival Kit" filled with items relating to our many inside jokes.

Next came "a dozen I-love-yous", which were in the form of little yarn flowers specially made by a nursing home resident he works with. These were scattered all around my house for me to find after a long day of work, some attached to little cards with messages.

The day before I was to leave town for a conference, he gave me a journal in which to keep notes on all the little things I'd want to tell him when I got back. On the front of the journal, he wrote, "This journal belongs to Sarah Dill. This girl belongs to Bob Blanshan."

While I was out of town for four days, I was not to be forgotten. He made arrangements with my best friend Amy to give me little notes from him, one in the morning and one in the evening. They were the cheesiest, cutest things you can imagine, and they made me laugh and feel extra special.

The following days brought more cards and special attention. On Tuesday, he left a bottle of wine, some love songs on cds, and a "to-do" list for me to find. The to-do list was for Wednesday, and it included things such as placing the wine in the refrigerator, dreaming of tall, sappy guys, picking out something formal to wear for the evening, and being ready to go when he came at 6:15pm to take me to dinner.

I'm pretty good at following directions, so I did as I was told and waited for a tall, sappy guy to appear.

Only in Nursing...a Collection of Quotes

Me: “I want you to stick your tongue out like this” (I demonstrated, saying “ahhhh”)
Patient: “Oooo, you’ve got a nice tongue!”

Patient: “Where’s my husband?”
Me: “I think he went back to the hotel.”
Patient: “Oh, I thought he was dead.”

“Are you sure you’re old enough to be a nurse?”

“Where’s my waitress?” (Said while sitting on the bathroom floor after falling)

Me: “Your sheets are all crooked!”
Patient: “What? You want to come into bed with me?”

Me: “Now we’re just going to roll towards me a little bit….”
Patient: “I’ll squish you!”

“What are you, a student? Get me a real nurse!”

Me: “Do you feel like bugs are crawling on your skin?”
Patient: “No, they’re on the wall.”

“You’re not from here, are you? I don’t like no foreigners….”

Nurse-“Did you have an accident?"
Patient: "No, my belly button just exploded again."

"This is the first time I've ever eaten a hamburger naked!"

Random Thoughts

I did this a long, long time ago, but I like it. It gives you a nice little snapshot in my life. Since I'm sitting in a super-easy one-on-one assignment at work, it's 4:00am, and I don't feel like doing the mound of homework in front of me, updating my blog seems like a good idea.

What's lying around my house:
Several sample hardware pieces for the kitchen cabinets
The comfy, dingy love seat I got on craigslist
Mounds of neglected papers from my research class
A half-watched VHS of Fiddler on the Roof
Furry gloves and my grandma's quilt

What's in my fridge/pantry:
Cracked pepper and olive oil Triscuits
A smorgasbord of yogurts
Fair trade coffee and tea
Yummy soy milk
Sweet potato pancake mix

What's on my mind:
My busy patient from last night who couldn't keep a blood pressure and my stable, crazy patient tonight who keeps randomly yelling expletives
The fact that I've been a total slacker on schoolwork
Some crazy boy who keeps hanging around
The 24 hour community prayer time planned at my house next week
All the fun things planned for November (2 medical conferences, Thanksgiving, a trip to Central MN, seeing old friends)
Today would have been my granddad's 95th birthday were he still alive

Funny Quotes of the Week

A sampling of the funny quotes from the past week:

Taylor: I've had these shoes for a long time (looks intently at them). Maybe I could put a little caulk right here, and they'd be fine.

Dad: You got any tylenol?
Sarah: No.
Dad: Well, what are you good for?

Peggy: And you're Tyler?
Bob: No, his name is Taylor.
Taylor: Yeah, it's Taylor.
Peggy: That's what I said, Tyler.
Dad: Hi, I'm Ken.
Peggy: Oh, Kian.
Dad: No, Ken.

Dale: If you beat a cow when it's young, it will act that way its whole life.
Polly: Mr. Dill, is that true?
Dad: Um...I wasn't listening.

Taylor: Your legs are hairy.
Sarah: How do you know?
Taylor: I can hear 'em comin'.

Sarah: We could go to Oxbow, where they have an....animal museum.
Justin: Um, we call that a zoo, Sarah.

Taylor: One day, I let contact solution dry in my contact case, and it fermented.

Taylor: You're the perfect size to poke--not too thick it doesn't affect you, and not too skinny I think I'll break you.

Taylor: You only wish you were cool enough to have a turkey call on your phone.

TN Travelers

This last week has been pretty busy with my family visiting from TN. We had a great time together, and I must admit, I am sounding a little more twangy than I did before. I will have to work on reintegrating into MN life now to avoid being ridiculed.

We did a whole host of things while they were here. If you can't tell by my personality, my family likes to be busy. And with a new, fixer-upper house, I had no shortage of projects for them. Here's a list of what we accomplished in about 2 good days of work, in addition to cooking a lot of meals, meeting my friends, and attending a benefit lunch:

-repainted all the doors in the house so they are no longer two-toned
-painted half the cabinets in the kitchen (sparing the other half that are to be replaced)
-fixed a wobbly table
-completely reconstructed two mangled storm doors
-cleared out the backyard fence row, leaving me with a minivan-sized pile of brush
-fixed all the storm windows
-tore up yucky landscaping border
-painted doorframes and baseboards
-installed a few sets of blinds
-purchased a nice array of tools

I also coerced my family to meet a portion of my boyfriend's family over pie and hot chocolate, which was quite the entertaining experience, at least for me. :-) The colliding of two worlds.

My brother stayed two days longer than my parents, and we had fun. We went to a birthday party, had people over for a pancake breakfast, went to church, went to a zoo, watched a movie, and just chilled out. I like that boy.

I've been tagged!

1. Any nicknames? The Real Dill, the Big Dill, Little Dill, Dill Pickle, Sweet Pickle Relish
2. Favorite drink? other than water, coffee, chai, or limeade
3. Mother's name? Peggie Lucille
4. Tattoo? no, but I can't say I don't want one
5. Body Piercing? Four earrings holes
6. How much do you love your job? Quite a lot, most of the time. My favorites: feedings the babies, really supporting a stressed out family, being competent with an unstable patient
7. Birthplace? UMC in L-town
8. Favorite vacation spot? Where I've actually been--Washington State. It's got the mountains, water, and interesting people
9. Ever been to Africa? Only in my dreams and vicariously through others. Hope to go soon.
10. Ever eaten cookies for dinner? Yes. I've even done cookies for breakfast.
11. Ever been on TV? In high school I was the substitute anchor for our morning tv show
12. Ever steal any traffic sign? Not personally, but I was present when such crime occurred
13. Ever been in a car accident? Once, but I wasn't driving
14. Drive a 2-door or 4-door vehicle? 4-door
15. Favorite salad dressing? currently blue cheese
16. Favorite pie? Pumpkin--yay for fall!
17. Favorite number? 4--I don't really know why
18. Favorite movie? It's a Wonderful Life
19. Favorite holiday? Thanksgiving
20. Favorite dessert? Ice cream on a warm brownie
21. Favorite food? peanut butter, pizza, ice cream
22. Favorite day of the week? Sunday
25. Favorite smell? fresh baked bread
26. What do you do to relax? Go for a run, read a book, or talk to a friend
27. How do you see yourself in 10 years? That question overwhelms me right now. Tomorrow I'm going to work, hopefully.

For Emily Kathryn

What is reality?

Enter into my world for a second. The world of nursing.

Nurses are weird. We are jacks of all trades and masters of none (usually). We like gross topics. We can hold a sandwich in one hand and a bowl to catch some one's vomit in another. We typically like people, though we see the best and the worst of them. We work in an endless myriad of clinical and academic places doing an endless number of things: community health, hospitals, nursing homes, education, clinics, legislation, etc.

And then there are nurse researchers.

This takes weirdness to a whole new level. I don't think other researchers are quite like nurses. Here we are, trained in a very practical, tangible field of clinical things, yet we approach them with a highly philosophical, holistic worldview. This is one of the main differences between the medical model and the nursing model. For example, the medical model will look at a disease progression and try to figure out how to fix it physically at the cellular level. The nursing model will look at the disease progression, try to get in the person and see how they and everyone around them reacts to it, and still try to fix it, but in more ways than physically. No wonder nurses are so stressed and overworked many times.

But I digress. Nurse researchers: odd people. A nurse researcher would ask: "What is green? How do you know what green is? What if green is different for you than for me? What causes green? What does green lead to? What are the attributes of green?" Get my point?

This is on my mind because in grad school I am currently enrolled in Theoretical Foundations and Research for Nursing. It is the beginning of my thesis project (i.e. a several hundred page document about one very, very specific topic). Here we dissect everything. To the most minute detail. I am just starting to learn this process and am only a couple of weeks in, and already my office is a mess, with dozens of papers, notes, and highlighted articles staring at me in distress yelling, "GET ORGANIZED!" There is a small rain forest in the Amazon now gone because of all the paper I am having to use.

The way the thesis process works at my school is a little different than most, and is much to my benefit. Our professors already have areas of interest, and they already have databases full of information waiting to be analyzed. So, I will not conduct my own study like many schools do (praise the Lord!). I get to work with a group to determine new relationships between the already-gathered information and publish on that. So it is a thesis, streamlined.

Not to say that this is not a huge project. It will take over a year, but my partners and I are super-motivated to get done asap, so hopefully by this time next year we will be defending our thesis, and our thesis board will say with gusto, "You are fully prepared to be an advanced practice nurse, ready to change the world!" My chosen thesis area deals with recurrent ovarian cancer and couples. It is looking like the focus will be relationship quality and communication between these couples, and how these are affected by a certain variable (yet to be determined-probably length of relationship, number of recurrences, or religious participation). Specific enough for you?

So for now, my first assignment is to start to get a hold on these concepts. In particular, what is communication? How do I know it when I see it? What leads to it, and what does it lead to? But before I can really do that, I have to examine these research articles to see if they are of any quality and usable. Do they have an appropriate design? What about their assumptions of the concepts? Why did they choose the participants they did and is that appropriate? How do I know I got all the good articles, considering there are 6,000 new nursing journal articles published every day? And what worldview am I working from anyway? How do I see man? What is health?

You didn't know nurses were philosophers, did you?

I say all this not to bore you, but to let you know what my thinking is like now and to explain why I may be out of touch from time to time. Feel free to remind me why I am in grad school because I may forget.

And don't stay up at night trying to fully understand green. Leave that to a nurse.