Where to Begin?

Graduation is past. People have asked if I've felt a huge relief? Well, kind of. Why not this overwhelming sense of completion and relief? In order for me to be fully licensed as a family nurse practitioner in a state that grants little to few restrictions on scope of practice (i.e. I can be an independent practitioner without physician supervision) I have to pass a national certification exam.


Most of my graduate professors recommended beginning our studies for the exam at the beginning of our training because it is so tough. I took their recommendation to heart and did that which extra emphasis on studying in the past 6-9 months with review courses, review books, and listening to review CDs. My kids even get in on the action. For a while T Rex had heard the CDs in the car so many times that he'd start asking me multiple choice questions like, "Mom, what do you want to do today? A for aquarium, B - go to the zoo, C - go to the library, or D for Discovery Center?" (He was mixing mnemonic memory devices suggested in the CDs with multiple choice questions - cleaver I thought.) Then his questions started getting tougher, "Mom, is my asthma inhaler an insulin sensitizer?" Here we see that clearly he is not understanding the content and not a medical genius at 4 years old but he is picking up on some interesting vocabulary words.


With all that being said, I've had this impending exam looming over my head for months or years so getting through graduation was a big milestone but getting through the exam and passing is basically the end all when I will feel that huge relief. Well, T Rex Dad took today off to take the kids to "A for aquarium" while I went to the testing center and sat for 2 1/2 hours taking the 150 multiple choice American Academy of Nurse Practitioners national certification exam. I finished well within the time and with a shaky hand clicked submit. After about 30 seconds (or what seemed like forever) a screen popped up saying I had passed. 

Whew...


So now, where to begin? The kids have been having some wonderful adventures the past couple weeks since I've been out of school. I cannot believe I've been done with school for over two weeks. I've spent a great deal of my time studying but when not hitting the books we've had many adventures - all good ones. 

Once again, though, I am not sure where to begin documenting the fun and having more fun without worrying about logging study hours. With that being said, I'll leave you with a couple of photos from my nephew's trifecta BBQ celebration last weekend - 14th birthday, confirmation, and junior high graduation - all celebrated this past weekend during a solar eclipse. It was fun having so much of my family together. Here are the kids watching "the sun turn into the moon" as my little guy so eloquently stated it. I think this is appropriate because it feels like things around here are finally going to change from fun being overshadowed by studying to simply being more fun. 

By the way, the kids are viewing this through five levels of sun protection - not to worry about their wee eyes. Now what shall I post about next -recent crafts, visiting the goats/chickens, our caterpillars and ladybugs, the carnival, or the giant jelly fish?