One more RN Marches onward

Well,

I have always tried to be the best husband I can be, but we all have our weaknesses and faults.

One of my biggest weaknesses came out this week. Nancy sat for her NCLEX examination in Oklahoma City on Monday.

I have always known my wife is highly intelligent. After completing her first degree in Sports Medicine she sat for the National Licensure exam for the National Athletic Trainers Board of Certification (NATABOC) and passed it on the first sitting. It is rumored that only 30% of those who take this exam pass it the first time.

My wife also graduated Cum Laude from Texas Women's University with a BS in Nursing. Most of the time she hardly even studied much to the chagrine of her classmates who spent many sleepless hours preparing for the exam.

Even though she wasn't a straight 'A' student in Nursing like some of her cohorts, when it came time for the benchmark exams, she blew the roof off them. I told her that it must be because she is absorbing the data and not cramming in the minutia of the details required for A's on individual exams. Those people who were getting the A's on the individual exams didn't do as well on the Benchmark exams.

Well, due to beurocratic red tape in Oklahoma, Nancy had to be submitted to a curriculum audit in order to get permission to sit for the NCLEX exam. This took almost 3 months to happen. Meantime, she is working as a Graduate Nurse in the ER here.

Nancy only got 75 questions on the exam. This is the bare minimum. The maximum is 256 questions. The test is an adaptive test. This means that for every question you get right, you are given an even harder question. If you get a question wrong, you get a slightly easier question and more of the same to determine if you know the material. The purpose of the test is to determine if you are proficient in the material or not.

By only getting 75 questions means either you are extremely proficient or you are extremely non-proficient. Since she got quite a few pharmocology questions, which are a weak point for her, she thought there might be a possibility of her failing.

Now here is where I wasn't the best husband. Everyone was telling her that they knew she passed the test. My response......"What is the plan if you don't pass?"....groan.

I'm the kind of person who prepares for the worst and all I could think of was her failing. I knew she was smart, but I have this running theory that the elements are out to get me and everyone around me. So, by marrying me, Nancy gets to deal with the bad luck that comes from being me.

Nancy tries to tell me that she's always considered herself lucky and that by marrying me, I have inherited her luck.

Well, today, I think her luck beat out my bad luck. I logged on to the Oklahoma Board of Nursing site and saw that she passed her exam and is not a Registered Nurse in the fine state of Oklahoma

When one door closes, another window must be opened.

Well, this marked the first week that Nancy started working the shift that she was hired to work (3PM - 3AM). It started on Sunday night.

To me it was no big deal, I'd head over to my brother's house and eat some food and watch his family play the PS2.

Well, as soon as Nancy took off, I decided that I would install the new programmeable thermostat we got from Lowe's. I just cannot stand to use a thermostat where you set it and have to change it manually whenever you want the temperature to change.

Firstly, the part of the wall that holds the thermostat isn't in an easy to get to area. There is a treadmill in the way and an antique china hutch. So I had to move the china hutch to the left to make room on the wall for the new, wider thermostat.

Naturally, it wasn't a simple task like I thought it would be. First I had difficulty figuring out how to remove the face off the old thermostat so I could get at the screws to detach it from the wall. Eventually I had it figured out but not after a few choice words were rolling off my tongue.

I prefer to work these kind of projects when my wife isn't around because I don't have to be subjected to her disapproving stares when words that are on the "banned" list are uttered.

So now I have the old thermostat removed and I lined up the new thermostat and found out that the holes in the wall from the old screws were in perfect alignment to the screw holes in the new thermostat. I was sure it was a good sign. I screw the back of the new thermostat in, snap the wires into their appropriate place and put everything in it's place and step back to admire my handiwork.

At this time I knew I wasn't going to make it to my brother's house by 5:30PM for dinner, so I call to tell him. He tells me to just show up whenever I can make it.

Well, I go to program the thermostat and noticed that the thermostat wasn't flush up against the wall. So I pop the face off and notice that the screws don't tighten down to the wall. So unscrew the entire thing because I was going to use the little thingies that came with the thermostat that you stick into the drywall to give the screws some "bite". Well it looks like I was lucky and I could just push the "thingies" into the wall and tap with the hammer to push them flush.

I wasn't that lucky. One tap of the hammer caused the thingie to bend over sideways. I was pissed and more "banned" words began flowing. So I pulled out the instructions to see what size drill bit is suggested. I go out the garage to get my drill bits and a pair of needle-nose pliers. I use the pliers to pull out the thingie and use the drill bit to open up the hold some more.

I'm the kind of person who throws all the extra parts from projects into my tool box. So I spent the next 30 minutes looking for some extra thingies because I don't tend to use them. I was sure the one I ruined was not useable anymore. I wasn't lucky enough to find a thingie of the same size so I just grabbed one from the tool box and mumbled my way back to the thermostat.

Well, I got lucky and the the thingie was still useable so I tapped both of them into the wall and was able to screw the thermostat plate tight against the wall and got the thermostat reassembled. Everything seemed to be working.

So I called my brother to let him know that I was done with the thermostat and all I needed to do was feed and walk the dogs and head on over.

So the dogs got taken care of and I decided I should put my tools away before heading to my brothers. So I head out to the garage and as I make my way through the door, I pull the door behind me out of habit so the dogs won't run out. As I walked into the garage, I heard a click and immediate turned around screaming, "NO!". I knew what I had just done. I locked myself out. I reached to check the doorknob fully aware that the answer would be that the door wasn't going to open.

You see, the new house we are in has a locking doorknob. There isn't a deadbolt like what I'm used to. I'm not used to the lock being on the doorknob so out of habit, I just closed the door since I have always had to manually lock the door iwth a key.

Well, the first thing I did was looked to see if there was a window that wasn't locked. Which there wasn't. But there was a window, that for some reason wasn't on it's track.

I called my brother to tell him I wasn't coming because I was locked out. His first suggestion was that I break out a window. I didn't like that idea because I didn't want to piss of my wife or the property manager. His next suggestion was that I knock the doorknob off the door. This would cause the part of the door that has the lock on it to be removed and therefore rendering the door openable. Well, just as luck would have it, the hammer was locked in side.

My sister-in-law suggested that I try to find something flexible enough to slide through the side of the door to pop the latch, but that was unobtainable too.

Well, I decided to walk up to the property manager's office to see if there was anyone there, but there wasn't. So I walked back.

Well, as I was digging through my toolboxes for the umpteenth time, I noticed a roll of very stiff electrical wire that was left over from an installation of a garage door opener and I looked at it with a hint of possibility. I was wondering if I could fashion a loop on one end and fish it through the crack in the window and pop the other latch. After about 10 tries I got it and was in. Granted the window only opened a little bit and I had to do a limbo number to get through the window.

Well, I was going in feet first because I'm better balanced that way and step in dog crap. Apparently, my dogs snuck into that room and pooped on the floor near the window. But it didn't matter, I was in the house.

I immediatly called my wife and let her know I was no longer locked out of the house just in case she got the first message I left when the ordeal all started. So that she would know that I wasn't sitting on the back stoop with only my cellphone.

Afterwards, I called my brother and let him know I was in the house now. He asked me if I was still coming over and I told him that I would if he was still willing to accept the company. He asked me to grab a few Texas beers I had in the fridge (beer from Texas has a greater alcohol content than Oklahoma beer). I grabbed 4 Shiner Bocks and hit the road.

That beer sure hit the spot....mmmmmm

Elsevilla's Girl Lc Style

My brother has posted another coloring piece. Per his DeviantART page:

This was a quick one about an hour to an hour and a half, with 45 minutes later on as clean up.

You can view the original page here.

You can view the original line art here.


Elsevilla's Girl Lc Style by ~impwerx on deviantART

The Acceptance of Charitable Service

Well, on Monday I drove down from Oklahoma City back to Houston. For all practical purposes, I made a 450 mile trip so that I could mow the lawn on my house in Houston I haven't been able to sell thus far.

When I got to Houston on Monday afternoon, I wasn't able to mow the lawn because it was pouring outside.

So I was able to get the lawn mowed this evening. After cooling off and getting shower, I went across the street to return to our neighbor their keys we had in case of an emergency.

Well, my neighbor is LDS and he was trying to get me to allow him to mow my lawn so that I don't have to drive all the way and back just to mow. I'm having a hard time accepting his offer of charitable service.

I think it has to do with one or both of two things:

1. I was always taught that one doesn't get something without an expectation of something in return.  In other words, if he mows my lawn, he'll expect some kind of favor in return
2. I am somewhat of a micro-manager and I wouldn't trust that it would get done to my satisfaction

This is really bothering me