Updates and a Story

We still haven't heard back from the bank. Why it's taking this long even after opening up our case and making counter offers with us... we do not know. We've decided to go month-to-month on our apartment contract because we don't know where we will be in a few months. House? or the Falls? Patience is the biggest player in short sales. I remember specifically saying a few blog posts ago that patience isn't necessarily something I have mastered... *sigh*

I attended a Q&A Nursing School forum yesterday. Holy moly. It's kind of exciting and definitely overwhelming. I would never want kids during Nursing school. Never. And I would want to be working at least a couple days (or nights) a week when I do have kids... it's important to keep those skills because of how dynamic the medical world is-- because if you don't, you lose skills and you fall behind in the research which I personally think makes the whole gruesome process of going through Nursing school seem like a waste. Let's face it... I could be THAT mom who just needs to escape her kids for a shift here and there... for my sanity.

Enough catch up and let me get to a story...

I kind of embarrassed one of my kids (unintentionally might I add) last week in Sunday School. Max and I are pretty easy going when it comes to the kids wanting to chat before, after, and even during the lesson. We want them comfortable with us and want them to feel like they enjoy coming to Sunday School. But some days... the chatting gets out of hand!

Last week, we tried starting our lesson several times and the kids never really stopped talking (granted there were 1 or 2 kids recognizing what was happening and they tried to get their peers to quit it... but that didn't work this time). So we decided to split the class and each group would teach a portion of the lesson. Brilliant right?

It was interesting seeing who took over as "leader" and what the participation was like. We both thought, "this will be good. If they won't listen to us, they will listen to their peers." WRONG. Well, I guess it was wrong for the... and I hate to say it... the ladies. One of the young women got up during one of the group presentations, walked across the room to sit next to another girl (who was supposed to be presenting) and starting reading off text messages from her phone to her. Now I am in the opposite corner of the room and I can hear their chatter. I was distracted and I was so frustrated at her blatant disrespect towards her peers. So... I told her she could continue her conversation outside if she wanted. Now I've done this sort of thing before, but the kids just let it roll off their shoulders or laugh and it's fine. Nothing too serious and usually they will quiet down. But this time, the reaction was not so casual. She quieted down giving the "raised eyebrow" look (we all know that look). A few minutes later, she left the room and didn't return.

I felt bad because it wasn't my intention to embarrass and I felt bad about making her feel like she needed to leave. It's possible that she was just down right pissed at me, or that she realized she was being rude and was embarrassed for herself... and maybe it was a combination of both. There were different ways I could have handled it better, but I guess that's what life is right? Making mistakes and learning from them. I've got a whole lot of mistakes to make and a whole lot of learning to do. I'm only 23 for goodness sakes! I was just in their shoes not too long ago!

These 17 year old kids are very smart, very insightful, funny and enjoyable to teach and many times we are the ones learning from them. At the end of the lesson, we asked the kids what they experienced or what they had learned. Most of them expressed how frustrating it was for them to get the audience to stop talking. They felt humbled in a way and were able to get a taste for what it's like when you aren't listened to after trying to command attention.

Today... my student didn't return to class. Maybe she was out of town. Maybe she went to another class. Maybe she's still mad. Or embarrassed. But I hope that isn't the case. I have to make this right, and I'm not sure how to do it.

On a lighter note, our lesson today went really well. Lots of participation. Lots of insights. Lots of silly comments, too. Wouldn't be our normal Sunday School class without those :) I'm grateful for our class and our calling. We would much rather be talking to the young kids than to the big adults ;)

on a high

After multiple academic counseling appointments, it was starting to look like my BYU Human Physiology was going to come nip me in the rear.

Seriously.

There's this little thing called the Chancellor's Predictor of Success Formula for applying to the Nursing program. The formula combines the 3 pre-requisite science courses' average GPA, overall college GPA, English GPA--- and if you have any repeats in the science classes, it will deduct points from your overall total...thus it must be at least an 84% all together to even be considered.

I am currently enrolled in the Physio class at Sierra college. So the combination of my BYU class and my Sierra class would make it look like I did a repeat of the same course (which lowers the percentage I need to be able to apply to Nursing).

Finally, today I was able to get some answers as to how the Nursing department would look at my BYU class despite it being an upper division class (community colleges do not take upper division course work, but that doesn't mean the Nursing department wouldn't). I was told that they would NOT count my BYU class in the formula so long as I leave a note on my application recording the conversation I had with them reminding them that we had cleared the air on this one.

This is AMAZING.

You don't even know.

But maybe you know a little bit more now.

My day is going realllllllly well :)

house update

The bank countered. (Angry faces)
We countered. (Hopeful faces)
The bank came back at their original counter price. (Mad/Confused/Nervous faces)

Before deciding to accept or reject their very firm price point, Max and I met up with our realtor to walk through the house one last time. We already had a list of pros/cons to weigh out whether or not this will be the smartest move we could make or ... the dumbest.

I prayed and prayed for confirmation. I prayed we would walk through the house and have a feeling whether it was right or not. Well... we both felt pretty good. And we still love it. And it IS a pretty awesome house. AND the market is on the rise, which I'm sure the rates will follow in step. It's just... the time to buy! (So everyone tells us...)

So we told the bank we accept their purchase price! But... word of caution. Things can still go awry and we could still end up walking away from the house. It all falls down on two items:

1) the appraisal of the house by our lender 

and 

2) inspections.

In case you're not familiar... if the house does not appraise at the bank's purchase price, there's no way the lender would approve us for that much because it already puts us in a hole. Or you just have to be able to put a lot more cash down... which we can't do. So, we're hoping it does appraise for at least what the bank wants (even more would be awesome because it's like we're already making $ ha). If it doesn't appraise, we have to hope that the bank will bring down their purchase price to meet what the house appraises for. And that's just another gamble we'd rather not take...

And then there's inspections. If there's any real damage, we have to leave it to the seller to fix it and who knows how willing they really are about that since some sellers are adamant about not fixing anything! However, because of our type of loan, FHA, we won't be able to get the loan since FHA requires that all Section 1 work (the serious stuff) be fixed first.

Good news... we're prepared to walk away should any of these items come to bite us in the rear :)

Pray for us? (XXX)

The skinny on my life

1. Still waiting for bank approval of our offer. Longest 40ish days ever. Gives you a lot of time to doubt their acceptance of it. Gah. Day dreaming... Until then...
2. After this week, 13 more weeks left of school. That's not so bad right? It used to be 16. Now it's only 13...
3. I MUST get an A in my Physio class. MUST. Or else I'm in trouble. And that's no good for any body. Thank you Counselor of Sierra College for reminding me.
4. BYU doesn't have academic renewal. SUCKY. I should have realized that just because I could get into a class without taking the required pre-requisite, I wouldn't be able to have that class removed from my transcript later in the future when it mattered. That PDBIO class is coming back to haunt me.
5. Slowly losing my L-B's. Running and green smoothies are my friends now.
6. I have a nasty craving for carbs. ALWAYS. Why why why. I just love bread!
7. My hair is cut off (shoulder length). Love how easy it is to manage. Sometimes I miss my long locks, but not as much as I love my short ones.
8. I organized other people's crap treasures today and it felt wonderful. I needed a project. Organizing counts as one.
9. The number of pregnancy announcements are increasing. Sheesh. I'm ok though... really. My sister is one of them. Aunty again come February!
10. Is this list as pointless as I think it is?