Our Decision

We have weighed the options, spent a lot of time thinking/talking/praying about it, and we have decided what we are going to do with ourselves for the next few months.

We will be staying in Philly.  While some of the other options seemed more adventurous or fun, they just did not seem practical for us at this point.  We will only be here until close to the end of the year for sure.  After that, we will have to make a new decision about what's next for us.  But at least we have until then sorta mapped out.  So now we're apartment hunting.  Dishwashers are few and far between. :(  But we'll find something good.  

One Hundred

I have been anticipating our 100th post on this blog for a while now.  I have been watching the count closely for the moment when we would finally reach 100.  The numbers have been creeping up slowly as we have continued to post, and the blog's count finally informed me that my last post was number 99.  I was so excited that I could finally post my special 100th post.  But the next time I logged in, it told me we had actually posted 103 times.  I don't know why the count has been off all along and then it decided to correct itself right then, but what happens happens. So here's is what was supposed to be the 100th post (actually the 104th).

100 things about Zack that you may or may not already know:

1- He does not like belly buttons.  He thinks we shouldn't have them.

2- He plays percussion.

3- He is in the Penn band.

4- He always likes to wear shoes, even when he's at home.

5- He never buys new shoes until he absolutely has to.

6- He is very difficult to shop for.

7- He sleeps very properly- on his back with his mouth shut and his hands folded over his chest. It almost looks like someone laying in a casket at a viewing.

8- He always says he isn't even going to be the favorite Zack in the family (my sister is marrying a Zachary in June).

9- He hates folding laundry.

10- He cooks nearly every night.

11- He is good at cooking.

12- He has a talent for expressing himself, especially through writing.

13- He loves Raisin Bran Crunch.

14- He is a good driver.

15- He loves newspapers (good newspapers, that is)

16- He serves as the bishop's secretary even though he's so busy already.

17- He would be happy to stay in Philly forever.

18- He can brush his teeth for a long time without spitting.  He'll just sit on the couch watching TV or play around on his computer for ages.

19- He paces a lot.

20- He does not like to make plans horribly in advance because then they often fail (or need to be switched around).

21- He lost a box of books when we moved to Philly that he still laments over a lot.

22- He has short little fingers.

23- He finds time to be up to date on a variety of current events despite how busy he is.

24- He likes his underwear tops and bottoms to be roughly the same age (or in the same shape).

25- He has an extensive baseball card collection from when he was a kid.

26- He also has an extensive collection of legos from when he was a kid.

27- He is currently working on applications for grad school.

28- Some top options for grad school included: Illinois, Texas, Drexel.  This list is currently very fluid.

29- He loves the TV show 30 Rock.

30- He eats Macaroni and Cheese with a fork.

31- He loves Macs over PCs (because they are much better of course).

32- He has really long and pretty eyelashes (how come it's always the boys who get those?)

33- He really can't see well without glasses or contacts.

34- His glasses are not harry potter glasses.

35- He is a night owl.

36- He is good at finding deals (we pay $60 a month for both of us to have cell phones with 1000 minutes, unlimited nights after 7 and unlimited weekends and unlimited calls to anyone on Sprint, unlimited texting, and unlimited data usage (internet).  Can anyone beat that?)

37- He makes the phone calls when we need to call someone because I don't like to.

38- He is very assertive on the phone and

39- he is good at getting what he wants.

40- He thinks his toes are shaped funny.

41- He is not easily offended.

42- He wants to work as a research librarian someday

43- or maybe as an archivist.

44- He thinks that all babies/small children hate him.

45- He thinks cell phones are a nuisance/unnecessary.

46- He goes to school full time and 

47- works as many hours a week as Penn will allow.

48- He played the flute for a short time.

49- He is a University of Utah fan (go Utes!).

50- He loves the Cubs too.

51- He has a special place in his heart for the Phillies even though the Cubs will always be #1.

52- He thinks being cold is all psychological.

53- He used to run a lot until his knees gave out.

54- He was Sterling Scholar in English in high school and

55- also editor of the newspaper in high school.

56- In high school, he led a movement to get our senior class to donate our class gift to charity (after paying off debts from former years).

57- He won in every sense- but the school still decided on a electronic sign for the outside of the school, which several classes after ours ended up paying for (because they had no choice. What a gift, eh?).

58- He speaks Spanish fluently.

59- He went to the orthodontist as a kid and

60- had braces.

61- He clips his fingernails and toenails way too short.

62- He has a scar under his chin from a bike accident as a child and

63- he nearly bit his tongue off in said accident.

64- His tongue is fine today.

65- He hates doctors (no offense to any doctors out there).

66- He has never been out of the country (unless you count the Netherlands embassy in Washington DC).

67- He sometimes takes off his wedding ring and tosses it around.

68- He helped our marriage survive nursing school (probably all on his own).

69- He graduates in May.

70- He wanted to kiss me on our first official date but I didn't allow for an opportunity to do so.

71- His friend rear ended him on that date.  No cars were damaged.

72- We first kissed about 3 months after that.

73- I was the first person he kissed..

74- I am the only person he has kissed (cute huh)

75- He took me to the prom junior and senior years of high school.

76- He does not like to go on bridges or boats over water, although it has gotten much better. 

77- He served his mission in Dallas, Texas.

78- He was originally called to Venezuela but had some visa problems.

79- All American missionaries were pulled out of Venezuela part way through his mission so he would've ended up somewhere else anyway.

80- He often entertains himself during sacrament meeting by trying to write just like the font on the program (ok, ok I do it too).

81- This past week, he wrote our tithing slip in Serif font.

82- He always lets me wear his suit jacket during church because it's freezing.

83- He has gotten a speeding ticket before (rebel).

84- It happened on Bangerter Highway (in Salt Lake).

85- He hates Bangerter Highway, and not just because of that speeding ticket.  

86- Our parents live straight down Bangerter Highway from each other (also not why he hates it).

87- He often snags his socks on the nails in our wood floors.  It really annoys him.  It has led to many ruined socks.

88- He gives really good gifts.

89- He loves me a whole lot.

90- He gets good grades in school.

91- He was ranked 7th in our high school class (It was a pretty big class with 300-something people).

92- I'm almost like a New jersey girl because I pretty much never pump gas.  Zack always does it.

93- His birthday is one day before his dad's birthday.

94- He keeps mugs in the freezer so he can have a frosted mug of soda whenever he feels like it.

95- He decided to come to Utah from Penn for spring break one year so he could ask me to marry him.

96- He does not snore, even when he's sick.

97- He sat through a Rascal Flatts concert with me- that's love.

98- He let me decorate our bathroom in pink when we first moved here.

99- He gets sunburned on this one spot on his forehead, even with sunblock on.  That's often the only spot that gets burned.

100- HE IS SO AWESOME!

Oh yeah!

I passed my HESI exit exam so I am officially done with nursing school.  I just have to pass my boards and I am good to go.  WOO HOO!

I never have to see any of these people again. Lol, just kidding.  This is my clinical group from this past term.  I will miss these guys.

A decision

Thanks to all for the advice/opinions about the last post.  We have thought about it a ton, considered the many aspects and options, and prayed hard.  We have made a final decision.  I will write about it later though.  For now, I am trying to ignore the fact that I have my final HESI in the morning, and that is consuming all my time/energy.

Enjoy the suspense (or not, depending on your level of interest...)

What do you think we should do?

We are trying to figure out what our next step is.  We need to do so relatively fast.  We need to start looking for housing, jobs.  I need to pick a state to get licensed in so I can take my boards. We need to start thinking about plane tickets since my sister is getting hitched in 3 months. What do you think we should do?

Here's the run down.

Zack was going to start grad school this fall, meaning that we would've known where we were headed right about now.  Due to a complicated mishap which I will not go into on here, he needs to postpone starting grad school until January.  Our lease ends at the end of May, after which we will have 6 or 7 months until we will be moving on to another place for grad school (or staying here for grad school, as the case may be).

We can't decide what to do with that time.

Here are the options.

#1- Stay put.  We would have to find another apartment of course, but we would just stay in Philly while Zack figures out grad school stuff.  The pros: Zack already has a job here, it is in the field he wants to work in, and even if he wanted to find another job, he would have some connections.  We like Philly.  We know the area.  Cons: There's no secret that the nursing job market in Philly sucks right now.  When I went to a career inservice at school the other week, they told us to move if we can.  That's not to say that I can't find a job.  Just that it might take quite a while, which isn't really sensible since we don't really have a long while.  We can't live on Zack's income alone.  Rent is expensive here.  We have been relying on the generosity of parents and student loans to date, but the time for that has ended.  If I don't find that job pretty speedily, we could be in big trouble fast.  Other considerations: Zack may choose to go to grad school here, so even if we chose to leave, we might end up coming right back in a few months. On the other hand, the grad school here does have an exclusively online option, meaning he could complete the program from anywhere.  I don't think that's his preference, but it's possible.

#2- A hiatus in Utah.  The pros: We would get to spend some time with our families.  We would not have to fly to Utah twice this summer for my siblings to get married.  We could live with either of our parents for free.  The cons: We would not be staying in Utah for any substantial amount of time, no matter how you slice it.  There is no grad school program there.  If we pick this option, we will be moving to Utah and then moving away again near the end of the year. We have to move no matter where we go (since our lease is ending) but it costs a lot more to move across the country than it does to move across the city.  Neither of us has a job there. We could hopefully get one, but Zack's might not be in the field he wants to work in, and I don't know really know what the job market in Utah is like for nurses right now.  Other considerations: Zack doesn't love the idea of living with parents (although we love our parents dearly).

#3- We are young and free.  We could pick a city that is one of our top choices for grad school (Austin is the city we're thinking about right now) and just take a gamble.  We would move there, not yet knowing if Zack is accepted to the grad school.  Pros: How fun would that be? This is really the only time in life that we could get away with a thing like this.  Before too long (but not too soon either), there will be children and other life responsibilities mixed into all this, and an option like this would just be unrealistic.  We would get a change of scene.  It is cheaper to live in Austin than it is here.  I hear things are much better there in terms of the nursing job market than here.  Even just looking online, I have found many more opportunities there than here.  Oh, and it's warm there (82 right now... only about 58 here and in Utah).  The cons: Again, we don't already have jobs. Although I feel more optimistic about finding one there than here, I don't know that it'll happen instantly.  As with Utah, Zack may have some difficulty finding something in his field of choice. We might end up there with both of us jobless.  In the Utah scenario, that'd suck but it wouldn't kill us for a short time since we could mooch off our parents.  In this scenario, we'd be high and dry.  It is expensive to move.  We don't know if Zack will get into the school.  If he does not get in, or chooses to go somewhere else for school, we would have to move again (just like the Utah scenario).  Other considerations: Even if Zack did not get into UT Austin, the option still remains for us to stay there (aka not move again) and he could do the online program.  Neither of us have been to Austin.  Maybe we'd hate it.

Some final thoughts: It is still 2 1/2 months until the move.  If we picked a place now (and we need to really soon here), we could be looking for jobs in that time and hopefully have something lined up by the time we move.

Even though Utah and Texas would involve long/expensive moves, the cost of those moves would ultimately be offset by the potential lower cost of living (free rent with the parents, cheaper rent than Philly by a couple hundred dollars in Austin)

I know that no one can decide for us, but I am interested in what others think.  I will be bored by those "any of them sound good" kind of answers.  Gimme something I can work with people. We're looking for some outside perspective.

Celebrate!

Today was the very very last clinical of this program.  It may be my last clinical EVER! (unless I decide to do grad school at some point).  Next Saturday, 5 AM will come and go and I will never even know it.  I'm bringing back Saturdays the way they should be. Woo hoo!  Now just 1 more day of classes, 2 finals, 2 little HESIs and the big HESI, and I am done done done.

So I had a tune in my head, and I wanted to know what it was.  I really had no clue.  Zack thought it might be a theme song to some TV show, but that's about all we had.  So it was driving me crazy.  I was sad because I thought there was no way I would ever know what it was.  After all, you can't google a tune.  What are you supposed to type in?  Do do do dum do do do?  I'm sure that'd be really helpful. 

Guess what- there are totally websites where you can go and hum or sing the tune and find out what it is!  Seriously.  The one we tried was this one, which worked like a gem, and now we know what that tune is.  Awesomest thing ever!  Ok, maybe not, but you gotta admit that it's cool.

Tons of you probably already knew about this.  Excuse me for not being incredibly tech savvy.