Beginnings...

Lately, I have been pondering beginnings. My beginnings, specifically. I have felt quite nostalgic...My soundtrack theme, if able to be heard by others instead of just myself, would have been the music playing in the background when Anne and Diana stood at the edge of a cliff, watching the sunset...



I am almost done with the second semester of teaching the nursing students, who happen to be all girls. They remind me of my younger self....the one who could stay up late cramming for a test and still survive the next day. This group has been through personal heartache, lost friends too young, said good-bye to fellow classmates too soon, and sweated through many dressing changes of complex wounds...without fainting.

I am so proud of them. I know what they are going through, and I know they will never forget these days. Crushing medications for tube administration will become less exciting as they learn more, and trach care will be as simple as brushing their own teeth.

But right now, those things are enough to cramp your stomach with nerves on clinical days...it is enough to wake you up every hour, afraid you will oversleep. It is enough to make you question the whys of this journey and maybe lose sight of the reason.

I would know. I've been there.



I am still there.

And that is why I wake up on Saturday morning, one of my two days off, to remind them they are making a difference. To hopefully inspire them to dream a little longer..a little bigger.




To learn from them the "why" of my journey.

In a few weeks, I will find out if I have been accepted into a doctoral program to further my nursing journey.

I like to think that someone will be to me what I am to these students...

But more than that, I like to imagine that these girls will always remember these stomach-cramping days....and share their love of life and people with students just like them.




The picture of me in purple scrubs was taken the first day of nursing clinical ever. I still remember this day so clearly, even though it was taken at 4:30 am by my dear roommate, Anna Lee. You can see the excitement on my face, and it still makes my heart smile.

A Green Gables Goal Completed

You may remember my previous post about home goals for 2011. I finally created a spring wreath, and I succumbed to the poofy mesh world. Don't misunderstand me, for I love the look of vibrant pinks and greens, polka dots and lime accents. I'm just such a simple, burlap-trimmed girl, and it shows in my creations.

I had grand ideas of a monogram "S" nestled in this poofy wreath, but an old egg garland from Target was begging for a new job besides sitting in the closet. I made a spiraling but simple nest out of the garland accessories, and I chose three eggs to represent my little family.




The sherbert green is beautiful in person, but it is hard to see the contrast against the polka dot ribbon from far away.




It is an imperfect wreath, but it will see so many treasured faces enter our home, and that is what makes it beautiful to me.

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze

Continuous as the stars that shine
and twinkle on the Milky Way,
They stretched in never-ending line
along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
tossing their heads in sprightly dance

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
in such a jocund company:
I gazed - and gazed - but little thought
what wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.
~William Wordsworth


About a mile from our house, through a four-way stop and around a curve, a treasure of daffodils blooms each spring. Caramel-colored pine needles carpet the land; towering trees hold hands like siblings. A squarely simple graveyard from decades ago rests in a far corner, but it is not forgotten.

Cars cluster like ants along the road, as determined adults carry and direct their brood around and between the daffodils, searching for the perfect spot. Weathered wooden benches, antique rocking chairs, nana's quilt...all are nestled strategically in columns of light that filter through the canopy of trees. Ruffles and lace, plaids and stripes envelop the children as they sit like statues in front of flashing lights from mother and father photographers. Occasionally, a free-spirited, dimply legged baby toddles through and on top of the daffodils, despite the sweating mother's pleas and crazy father antics.

Voices of love and spring bounce off the barks of the trees, as priceless moments are lived.


Jonah, 18 months, March 2011

It is but for a short time. The flowers wilt as the weeks march on, but hope remains. The daffodils return, year after year, to welcome both the children of years past and the children of the years to come.


Jonah, 6 months old, 2010

Savor the daffodils...

Savor the times...

Take a picture.