Thankful Thursday | Look at all these colors!

This week I am thankful:

for my new set of highlighters

Previously, I was in possession of a single yellow highlighter, from the abandoned house.

It was working fine, but I found myself wanting more colors, mainly to distinguish things from each other on my weekly school schedule and my own weekly planner.

Sooo, I stopped in at Staples and bought a pack of many colors. I’ve never had this many different highlighter colors before, and they are making me very happy.

Definitely worth the $11.50 I spent.

And I’m sure I will get lots of use out of them during my nursing school semesters.

If you need me, I’ll be over here highlighting everything in sight. 😉

for a job that is so flexible

I just could not make it work to get out a blog post yesterday, and the wonderful thing about blogging is that it is ok to miss a day here and there.

Nothing dreadful happens. And I don’t get fired, because I am the boss around here. 😉

I also really appreciate that it is possible to use empty spaces of time to work ahead; I often do that when I have some extra time.

I see some of my classmates trying to keep a less-flexible job through this nursing program and oof, it is hard. I am so, so blessed to have the flexibility that I do!

for another good exam

One of my current classes runs for only 8 weeks, so there are just two tests: a mid-term and a final. I always prefer classes that have a lot of tests, because then no single test carries a lot of weight.

But I got 30/30 on this one, so WHEW.

Also, the final for this 8-week class is not cumulative, which means the final is not that scary.

for every bit of effort I put into my prereqs

When I was in Anatomy and Physiology 2, a nursing student popped in and my professor asked her to share a tidbit of advice with us. She said, “Work hard in A&P, because you will use all this knowledge in your nursing classes.”

I know I’m not very far into nursing school yet, but I can definitely agree with her so far. The work I put into the prereqs has most definitely not been a waste of time.

(Remember how I wondered, “Am I studying too much?” back in A&P1??)

Nursing school questions require a lot of critical thinking, and having a good foundation of knowledge about how the body works really, really helps with that.

Biology, microbiology, and A&P1 & 2 are chock full of information I’m using every week now.

(Chemistry, not so much at this point. Sorry to all the chemistry lovers out there.)

for my tire pump

I had to pump a tire this week and I was reminded of how much I love it.

My very old one burnt out last year at some point, so I ordered this Slime pump and man, this thing is so so so much better than my old one.

I really like that it screws onto the valve stem of the tire (it’s idiot-proof!), and I also love that both cables store neatly on the pump itself. That makes it very tidy to store in the middle console in my van.

that I always have jumper cables in my van

My car battery died the other day; I couldn’t start it up after an appointment. But happily, I keep jumper cables in my van, so I was able to get a jump from a car next to me.

(Relatedly, I am thankful that we can just google for car-jumping instructions. I’ve done it a lot of times, but the gap between car-jumping sessions is so large, I always forget which cable to attach first.)

I couldn’t remember when I’d gotten this battery, but I did remember that I had blogged about it. Having a blog is so very handy sometimes!

So I did a google search and realized the battery was from January of 2018.

It was definitely time for a new one.

Amazingly, my first battery lasted me for about 5.5 years, and so did this second one. I’m on a pretty good streak!

for how kind my lawyer is to me

Obviously, I mainly have her in my life for her years of legal expertise and experience, but I also appreciate that she is nice to me. She is always offering me encouragement, and she routinely ends our calls with, “Ok, beautiful. Talk to you soon!”

It kind of reminds me of how we are supposed to be in nursing: skillful and competent, but also kind.

that my thumb cut is better

A knife slipped while I was washing dishes, and I cut my thumb. It was nothing serious, but my goodness, having a cut finger is very annoying, as is trying to keep a finger band-aid dry.

So I am super duper happy that my thumb has repaired itself.

that Lisey got the shift she wanted

She’s been doing some overnight training at work and she has concluded that she is most definitely not a stay-up-all-night-to-work person. Overnight shifts = a miserable Lisey.

But the training is almost over, and she just told me yesterday that she got the shift she had asked for. So soon she can stop being nocturnal. Yay!!

always, always for the ability to talk to Lisey

Since I grew up in an era where long-distance calls were prohibitively expensive, I am constantly grateful for how easy it is to talk to Lisey. Cell phones and the internet make Hawaii way closer than it used to be.

The other morning I was freshly back from an exam, Zoe was getting ready for classes, and Lisey was on a break from her overnight shift, and we all got to Facetime together (which meant we got to see the stray cats that hang around the airport in Hawaii. We all know Lisey is gonna make friends with them.)

for a phone date with my friend Mia

She’s a busy single mom who just graduated from nursing school (and I’m a busy nursing school student) so mostly we manage to text each other. But this past weekend we managed to find a time to chat on the phone, and it was lovely.

for Chiquita’s tunnel

If she had opposable thumbs, I’m sure she’d edit my post every week to include this. So, I’ll do it again for her.

Seriously one of the best Buy Nothing acquisitions ever!

The Buy Nothing person had bought this for her cat, but that cat never was interested. So, this situation turned out very nicely for Chiquita. 🙂

What are you thankful for this week?

P.S. Thank you for your suggestions on yesterday’s not-a-post post. 

Among the ideas: repost an older recipe, or do a post that is just a, “Hang out in the comments and talk about anything” post so you guys can still chat even if I’m MIA (with the caveat that I need to at least include a picture of Chiquita in such a post, which is no problem because she is always hanging out with me, which means I’m always taking pictures of her!) Another idea: Use AI to write a post. Which would be a funny experiment to do once.