Fair skin is IN!

Hmmm yesterday I had an itch for summer and sunshine. I do like Winter, I like all the seasons, but sometimes this happens in January/February. So, to try to smother those thoughts, I recalled all the lessons I've learned about sun & skin. Currently, I work as a Medical Assistant at a Dermatology office. I love this job! But holy cow, I see a lot of FRIED skin. Luckily, early on in my life, I learned my skin didn't tan very well. My skin did have cycles all right. It could go from white, red, peel, white, red, peel, etc. I decided I'd just avoid the red and peel part and just stay white forever!

I learned this lesson again on my Honeymoon at the Bahamas. I think probably everyone in the history of the world knows all the stories of my honeymoon, because they are viral. It was a honeymoon to remember. Somehow, my SPF 50 got left on the Cruise ship, when we got to the beach, it felt soooo good and I never felt that sting of sunshine on my skin that I usually do in Utah that tells me it's time for more sunscreen. Several hours later, we were fried. And I mean fried, CRISPY! We spent the rest of our time at the bahamas jumping from shade to shade and we spent more money on Aloe vera than we did on anything else during the whole cruise. We laugh looking back, but then, I cried looking at Cody's back. And I cried looking at my FACE! It blistered up bad and I was wrinkly and scary looking...people would look at us and cringe everywhere we went.

Look at our unprotected fair skin...at the gorgeous beach...we had a blast!

This is on the uphill part...when we were back home...took so long for his back to heal!

Indications of 2nd degree burns...Cody had a huge blister that popped on his shirt. I had to peel his shirt off his open burned skin. 

This is me...the sunscreen Nazi. 

Now that I've been hired at a Derm office, all I hear from people is "I wish I stayed out of the sun" and "Stay out of the sun" as they have surgery to have cancer removed. Here are the top 10 lessons I've learned since working here, really lessons for myself that I hope I always remember.

1. Tanning beds=evil.
2. Virgin Olive Oil is the only thing found to reverse some of the radiation damage after a sunburn. I'd be careful putting it on your face though...because it could cause you to break out.
3. Face Moisturizer is the best eye makeup remover...ever. I'll never use that other greasy stuff again
4. Don't get pedicures or manicures...do them yourself...the infections we see from those places is disgusting.
5. Learn to love your face. Let yourself age gracefully. You can spend SO much money on Botox and fillers.
6. Get your moles looked at.
7. Clothes are the best sunscreen
8. Tan skin now=wrinkles and brown spots later (well at least for my skin type)
9. You don't need to exfoliate your face...it can cause problems...your skin does that on it's own.
10. If you have a scratch, or an incision, or wound. Keep plain old vaseline and a bandaid on it. It can keep it from scarring. If you let it dry out and scab over, expect a worse scar.

Muckluck Music Madness

I have the funnest family-in law EVER! Cody's dad, who I call K-dub, plans themed events each month that are so much fun! January 2011: Muckluck music madness (MMM)...if you don't know what mucklucks are--you are missin' out! They are mountain man slippers, for civilized people like us. So, for MMM event, we were each surprised with out own pair of mucklucks! (Before, only K-dub had a pair, and we were all envious). To get your pair though, you had to find it in the house, and if you found a pair, you had to unscramble the name on the front to see if it was yours, if not, put it back for them to find it. Me and Justein, we were the last ones to find out mucklucks.

Cody and I were in charge of the game for this activity. Since we knew it was named after mucklucks (and mucklucks are like socks) we came up with a funny sock-music game. Object of the game: have more socks on your one foot than your parter by the time the music ends. It's not so simple when you're blindfolded and have to wear giant snow-gloves. It's a MMM tournament! So funny...

Only missing K-dub & Vicky in this pic! 

Muckluck Family--each Muckluck unique!

My adorable sisters-in law, Aubs & Rocky w/ their mucklucks..ow ow

Racing Alicia & Jordan to win the Muckluck Music Madness tournament!

Go Cody Go!! You gotta use your mouth!

Ty & Justein 

This is us, being silly with our mucklucks

Scrub In Baby!

3rd semester in Nursing school: Med/Surg rotation! After watching too many episodes of ER/OR dramas, I'm way excited to be on the floor rotating through same day surgery and the Operating Room. To prepare me for my first clinicals in the hospital, the program requires what they call "front loading" labs. These are mandatory labs that are 4 hours long. Missing any labs, especially front loaders, is not an option. They're actually pretty fun. Fridays 7:45-12 noon. First one, scrub in! Surgical Asepsis, it's actually really hard to get in all that gear in a sterile manner.

Surgical Asepsis Lab--I'm 3rd to the right--in the blue

Front loading lab #1 part II included: IV therapy: drink lots of fluids so your veins will be nice and plump, and eat a good breakfast. Watch the instructor, practice on Mr. arm, then pick your favorite class mate and poke around until you get blood return--what a happy day if you did because you only get one try. I didn't. I was bummed, no blood return for me. So I knew I'd have to go it to open lab, or try again in clinical rotation at the hospital on some lucky pre-op patient :) 

This is just for labs on Fridays. Thursday is clinical day 6 to about 3:30 in the hospital. Wednesday is Nursing Research and Scholary Inquiry, Tuesdays is Care of Adults with Acute and Chronic Illnesses, then Pharmacology. Mondays---no classes---but tons of prep assignments. Thank goodness for Mondays!!

All my books I use almost on a daily basis. Cody likes it
when they're all lined up like this instead of sprawled across
the desk- It just doesn't make sense to him that I would
possibly really need 10+ books open at one time. 

Me, I miss pathophysiology this semester, luckily Pharm includes some of that. I think I need a bookshelf for all my books--I use all of them--really, I do. Someday, in my house, I'm going to have gorgeous floor to ceiling bookshelves with all my favorite books, all organized like. 

Up To Date...

I'm always looking for ways to pour out my soul into cyberspace, so I thought having a blog might be a good idea for me. Actually, I thought a blog would be a faster, easier, and funner way to record the happenings of our little existence togetha. So since I haven't recorded hardly anything since I even met Cody...here's the up to date. We live in a cute lil white house we call Home Base, or HB for short. I love this lil place and I just wish it was ours for keeps so that I could paint the walls, etc. So here it is...ya this picture seems to be more of someone's red truck...but I'm convinced the pic is better a little further back so you don't see the orange permanent marker art on the house exterior.

cute....eh?

This is the family room, it's nice a big...but simple :) And our TV that we LOVE that our friends gave us...it's a FAT screen TV...it fits right in, it's wider than it is anything else.

And this bed has the best memory foam you've ever slept on/in. There are so many windows (which I love, except I don't love the blinds) but it was quite the project lining them with plastic for the conserve heat movement we had after the first temperature drop this year.

And I love our kitchen :) This is just our kitchen table. The cabinets are the best.

And so this is where we live. And if I had the money there are so many things I would do to it. But I love living here with Cody! We're so lucky!