a week in paradise

 Alright - where do I begin?? Life is still good. It's actually too good right now that I don't want it to change. It's gotta change at some point, but we'll talk about that later. We'll start with a couple weekends ago...

So the last week of April wad pretty ho hum at work and nothing else crazy happened, but Saturday was the highlight with a rad 10 miler and a fun day with Dremma. They had a couple things to do that day in my neck of the woods so they spent the whole day chillin with me which was fun. Started out the morning with a later morning long run. Dremma did 8 miles while I full sent 10. I actually felt suppperrr good. We chatted the first 7 miles hitting a comfortable 8:10-8:20 pace. It was nice to run with people again and the run flew by getting lost in conversation. Definitely something I miss when it comes to running. The last three miles I turned up the heat and dropped the pace little by little. I can't remember my exact splits but I think I dropped the last three miles to 7:30ish, 7:20ish and then the last mile was like a 6:37. Yes that sounds impressive, but it is a pretty down hill mile. Still impressive though that my legs were capable of that after the other 9 miles. The best part is still no back pain. I love it. 

We showered and re-fueled at The Pie with our favorite buffalo chicken pizza. The rest of the afternoon was spent lounging on the couch helping drew create my new and improved resume as a new grad NP. He did a good job and Im grateful he helped me crank it out (shoutout to chatgpt too). My resume has been on my to to list for awhile and Ive just been straight up procrastinating it. Probably for many reasons, but A. I don't have a deadline and B. I knew once my resume was all fixed up there was no excuse for not applying to jobs anymore which is a little terrifying. Im writing this as myself two weeks ago... I have since changed my mind and I'm actually really excited about some job opportunities, but there's some other bumps in the road that Ive come across. So the following week at work I was scanning USAjobs for openings in my desired states/cities and came across an opening that was labeled "women's health NP in Panama City Florida" HECK YES! talk about DREAM job sheesh. So I click on it and soon find out it's actually a VA clinic in Biloxi, Mississippi. Kind of a let down, but it was still on the coast and pretty close to where I wanted to be and it was women's health which is one of my top choices so I applied. I applied mostly just because why not and Im glad I did because I quickly learned that to jump from a Nurse to a Nurse Practitioner (with no other NP experience) in the VA I have to be a Nurse II. This is referring to the VA nurse pay scale which being a Nurse II means I'm a seasoned nurse. Well my boss, not too long ago, gave me news that I have been getting screwed on my pay for the last couple of years. Long story short, I should be a Nurse II, but Im not. SO we are working on getting me bumped up to where I should be, but everything in the VA takes donkey years so fingers crossed it happens soon because I can't be an NP (in the VA) without it. Which brings me to this week in my job search... two more DREAM jobs opened up. Primary care NP's in Tampa and Naples Florida. I didn't really care to get the job in Biloxi MS, but I actually would love to get either of these jobs so yeah... kind of just praying they don't give the job to someone before I have the opportunity to apply. Because lets be real - if I apply Im pretty awesome and I should get it haha. Ok there's my update on the job search. SO yeah... no longer procrastinating. Actually just really excited to get things going. Ok back to Saturday... after finishing up the resume we went on a little shake out walk and then they headed to a wedding reception. Fun Saturday and I was feeling very proud of my body. I finished up a few days of work and then headed to stg for 10 glorious days of vacation. I drove down on a Thursday and went straight to the 7pm temple session that mom and dad were officiating. 

Friday was a beautiful day spent by the pool while dad smoked us up some yummy tri tip for lunch. 

Is that not the most beautiful sight. Drew and Emma were in Mexico at the time and honestly all we were missing in Stg to make this day better would be to have a margarita. So I originally took a couple of weeks off work thinking I was going to go to Europe and spend some time out there by myself. After graduation I had imagined this spring to be full of traveling and spending my money and never being home and just always on the move. Well Ive realized that is so freaking overrated. haha I was so glad all week to be in st George over Europe. I feel pretty lucky to call stg home when it really is just a nice vacation. I mean I grew up in Kentucky where going to stg was our vacation. Yes, its home, but it's also a vacay and I feel lucky. 

Saturday started out on the west rim!! One of my requests coming in to town for this week was to do this trail. It's kind of sad, but dad and I haven't done this trail together in over 6 years which is literally crazy. Kind of insane to think it's been that long since Ive completed the trail. Now that we are both healthy I figured it was time to get our butts back up there. Nicholas joined us for the first 9 before he turned around and ran back. He's a crazy ultra-trail runner now. Out of our league for sure, but he was nice enough to drive us and go at our pace the first few miles. 

Beautiful as ever. 

A perfect morning. Couldn't ask for better weather. 

Nerds clusters for the win

So I might've crushed my 10 miler the Saturday before, but man I forgot how difficult trails really are. Still a fun morning, but I definitely over-estimated my fitness and struggled the last 5 miles. To be fair I think the biggest struggle was that it was all the down hill just killing my toes. 15 miles down and still in time to make it to Oscars for breakfast! And Im not lying when I say that was our motivation to finish the run was so that we could still order breakfast at oscars. 

So worth it - honestly think this was the yummiest breakfast Ive ever had. Could be the fact that all I had eaten was a granola bar and nerds clusters during that run, but also Oscars just always hits. 

Thanks dad for a fun morning. I was humbled for sure and quickly reminded that I am nowhere near the fitness level I once was. I was raised on the trails in XC so I guess I never realized the difficulty level it adds to a run. Guess I need to hit the trails more often (once my toenails stop hurting haha). Once dad and I got home we both took a good nap. I think I slept all afternoon actually. That evening was the adult session of Stake conference where dad was the headliner. He crushed it, but are you surprised? Dad, Im speaking to you directly because I know you're one of the only people who reads this anyways, but you really are a pretty impressive speaker. It really feels like everyone in the room all of a sudden pays attention when you stand at the pulpit. I think the biggest win of the night was walking out of there knowing he was done and didn't have to speak the next day. hallelujah. Stake conference was still good though. A lot of good speakers... dad did do a great job listing all the sustainings or whatever it's called. My only beef was singing this little light of mine. I just really feel stupid when singing that song. A good good weekend. 

Monday started off with getting our nails done. You guys - I mean I think I still saved a crap ton of money not going to Europe, but holy smokes I spent so much money this week in stg. It was the week of self care appointments galore. So first off... a pedicure. I had to white knuckle my way through it due to my bruised toenails, but now I have cute toes again. That afternoon I had a freaking amazing 90 minute massage by Megan. She's the best. No pictures, but Tuesday I got my hair done... Im super blonde again!! yay

Bahaha wednesday I treated mom to a scalp treatment/massage. We literally look like Russian soldiers or something, but it was wonderful!! 

That night we decided to hit up Mad Pita - always a good choice.

Thursday was two doctor's appointments. Dermatology and Rheumatology - no suspicious moles and no changes to my regimen for rheum! yay! its kind of nice showing up to Dr. Jensen's office and not having to figure out some new medication or change things up. Fingers crossed my back stays happy. 

Thursday lunch appointment with grandma! Our go to - Benjas! 

Taught her the art of a .5 photo. 

As if Thursday wasn't busy enough... I decided to do some stair repeats. five to be exact. 3pm and I think about 88 degrees. Besides my bad toes and raging blisters it was a 10/10. Surprisingly I wasnt alone on the stairs - there was more people than I expected brave enough to be out in the middle of the day. 

And to end my busy Thursday - Seth and I did initiatories that evening. Mom was in my both which is always fun. 

A little photo shoot post temple is important. Friday and Saturday were mostly spent by the pool. 

Another request of mine was Nonna Inna's. So dad made it happen. For mother's day we invited Grandy and I think they enjoyed it. A fun evening catching up and eating nothing but carbs. I couldn't let those carbs go to waste - so since I wasnt able to run this week due to blisters and broken toes I asked mom if we could go on an extra long Saturday morning walk... she never really said yes, but we did it! haha. 10 mile walk around little valley.  

Sunday we had huggy-ama over for mother's day dinner. It's always good to break her out and treat her to a nice home cooked meal. I would say she also enjoyed herself - I haven't seen her eat that much food in a long time! She had a ton of meat on her plate and would still go to pick more meat off the main plate. Plus finished dinner off with a yummy bundt cake. Im definitely lucky and have a lot of wonderful mothers in my life. Especially my mom obvi. I think she already knows how much I love her because Im always calling her or wanting to plan trips with her or really do anything with her. It's not her love language and I mostly just bug her I think, but it's my love language so she just has to deal with it. Really though moms are super heroes - I don't know how they do it. I look up to my mom a lot and am grateful for the way she raised me and the things she's taught me. Im definitely not kidding when I say my mom is my best friend. SO there ya have it - happy mother's day. I have the best mom hands down. 

Last but not least - I made this. Homemade banana bread from yours truly. I may have accidentally baked part of the butter wrapper into the bread, but thats a minor mistake. I literally don't like baking and I'm not good at it so I never do it therefore I was pretty proud of myself for this here loaf. Another reason I don't bake is Ive ate this whole dang loaf pretty much by myself so anyways. That was my awesome week of vacation. I drove back up north Sunday afternoon and settled into life again with some grocery shopping, meal prep and laundry. And now work - back to my regular scheduled night shifts. Which really sucks because I spent almost all my 10 days off trying to not nap during the day and sleep at night. I think I finally got on a good schedule three days ago and now Im just screwing it up again. Oh well. Life is good.