School is over....for now

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from Daniel and I.


I am just writing to say that I have officially completed my first semester of nursing school! Boy...I'm beat! So I've already gotten my books for next semester and an assignment to read while I'm on winter break...yes we have homework-lots to read before the January 5th class.
So for now I'm enjoying my time NOT going to school after work and just sitting on my ass. And yes, for those who wondered...I am going to bed almost every night at 830 or 9pm.....I'm enjoying the sleep, especially since i"m usually in bed by 11ish, most of the time later than that! LOL
Anyhoo. I wish you all a wonderful and happy christmas with your families and a very happy new year! I'll probably write the next time after the New Year! So pray I don't get kidnapped in Mexico! hahahaha (that was a joke-maybe) MUAH

Oh and I forgot something....

Two good things that came this past week, besides me passing my first semester of Nursing school...we finally settled and put a downpayment on a venue for our wedding. Plaza Lecea was chosen..its beautiful and has everything possibly that we would need for our wedding ceremony and reception.
And we found our florist..HEB Central Market, surprisingly we're going to save over $175 by going with them...and the flowers are going to be fresher and exactly what I wanted...AND they're going to throw in a beautiful white rose "toss" bouquet...everywhere else would of charged me $65 just for the toss bouquet..no thanks!
So at least there was so good news that came out of the devestating news that we can't get married in Mexico!

UGH...another road block

Well..our dreams of becoming man and wife on New Years Eve has now been put on hold...possibly until the original March 8th wedding. We found that in order for us to get married in Mexico (out of country) we would have to get our certificates-my birth certificate and Daniel's american citizenship certificate-apostillated. Which is a fancy word for certified. Well thats much harder than it sounds!
I would have to send my birth certificate to Germany...yes Germany, because I was born abroad and the german government would have to apostillate my certificate and Daniel would have to send his citizenship paperwork to Washington D.C.
So needless to say, we won't be getting married in Mexico...not unless the judge in Monclova (Daniel's hometown) is in a giving mood and willing to waive the certificates...but we doubt it.
SO I guess I"m returning the beautiful dress that I bought. And no need to find great shoes that go with it! Pity.....

Triumph at last....

Hello all...after a very long day at clinicals yesterday I received a phone call from the engraving company that was supposed to engraving Daniels' wedding band...sadly..yet wonderfully they could not engrave his ring because the metal was too hard to etch a syllable...but at least I know that Daniel will hafta work very hard to destroy the blessed ring! Sadly, I cannot engrave my love for him to see on a daily basis..oh well. He already knows, right?
After picking the ring and receiving my refund for the job not done, I went to a new venue that we were thinking of using for our ceremony and reception. AHHHHH (Heavenly angels sing) we have found our spot!! Its absolutely beautiful and $500 less expensive....beautiful and we save money...HELLO! We'd be an idiot not to do it! So one done...now just need to find an officiant and choose a florist. Which, by the way, we have another appt tomorrow at 4pm at HEB Central Market to see if they can do flowers for me at my price, not a spoiled rich girls price! LOL
If all else fails, I will go to HEB and choose a bouquet of roses and walk with that and save about $300! LOL I'll write more later!
Week of exams are looming and I am just not finding that "oomph" to get off my booty and study! Sad, huh? Well, last week of school for 3 weeks...hallelujah!

One thing at a time.....but its going quickly

Hello..well today was a very busy day. I went to buy our rings and had Daniels' ring engraved-"por siempre" I think thats better than "don't remove" LOL Then I was off on a mission to find a nice dress to get married in on New Years Eve while in Mexico. And I completed my mission: I found it at Davids Bridal- on sale...love it! Its not white...its blue with a silverish/blackish netting overlay...hard to explain, so I've included a picture.


What do you think? I need some ideas for shoes though...I don't like the ones that the chick in the picture is wearing...help please...and remember, they have to be flats! LOL

And its up and then back down again.....

Well...for those that know me, know that I have had issues with my foot for about 7 years now. I have chronic nerve damage in my foot from the 5 surgeries that I've had on my foot. I fractured my foot twice while in the army. Once in the operating room when a 3000cc saline bottle fell on it just the right way and the second time was when I was deployed and I rolled it (and fractured it) running to a bunker. But I didn't know I fractured it until I came back into country 2 months later. blah
Well I have been seeing a pain management doctor for about 3 years now because the pain in my foot has gotten worse. It feels like electricity that runs from the side of my foot up to the back of my knee every time I take a step or when I stand a certain way or even socks or if the blankets hit my foot the right (wrong) way.
Well I have been pending a Spinal Cord Stimulator for a while now. Its where they place these special leads along the side of your spine where the nerve damage is and a rechargeable battery pack is implanted in either your butt cheek or your tummy fat and instead of feeling pain, you feel a slight tingling sensation. Its a two part surgery...temporary and then permanent.
Well FINALLY my insurance approved the temporary procedure...so I was so excited to finally have this procedure done and be somewhat pain free and be able to cut back on all the pain meds that I take daily. So I let my work know that I was approved for the surgery and did everything I needed to to make sure that I had the needed days off, etc.
SOOOOOOO....I was interested in my fees for these lovely procedures and well, needless to say...my dream of being pain free has been shot down. I would have to pay a $500 deductible on the day of my surgery...no problem. Then they tell me that they would only cover 80% of the procedure and I would have to cover the rest of the 20%. So there's 2 surgeries for this procedure....lets see 20% of $20,000 (yes thats how much each procedure costs) is $4000.00 and if the temporary procedure works great, it'll be another $4000.00 for the permanent procedure. WOW, being pain free costs a shit load of money! It sucks ass!!
So I had to call back my pain management office and cancel the much needed surgery. And the scheduler says "can't you do payments?" I'm thinking um, do you know how much I'm trying to save right now trying to purchase a house and pay for a wedding...but I nicely replied..."I just can't afford that" So sadly...I may have to go to the VA and let them do it for me....maybe I can convince the VA to cover the spinal cord stimulator with my civilian doctor??? I dunno?
Well, that was my day today. Just thought I'd share. So now off to study for my huge exam on Monday and then FINALS on Thursday! AHHH!!!! The insanity!
MUAH!

new revalations.....

Hello all...I hope your thanksgiving was good. Mine was great...daniel and I ventured through horrible traffic to head up to Killeen to see my family. It was pretty uneventful, lots of food and football in the backyard..lots of fun! Well the parents, daniel and I were talking about the new decision to purchase a house, and we also decided that we want to get married this new years (dec 31) in mexico when we go down there to see his family!! Yippee...so I'll be starting the new year as Mrs. Christina Coronado.
It will help us with the lending company and take a lot of stress off the wedding planning for the ceremony in March...since we'll already be married! LOL
Well I'm off to school...only 2 more weeks and I'll be done with my first semester of Nursing school. SO talk to you again soon. MUAH!

flowers, flowers, & more flowers

Well I can officially say that I DO NOT like flowers! After this wedding charade, I can justify that even more. I'm thinking of going to HEB and just put my own ribbon on it! Its absolutely absurd how much flowers cost.

As you can see, I had my florist appt yesterday evening and it was pretty uneventful..just exhausting. Well for starters..the woman I was supposed to have an appointment with was late...she decided to go to deliver flowers about 10 minutes before our scheduled appt...that proved to me "who cares" and I was already starting to not like this place. So she finally showed up and we discussed flowers. I honestly don't know what I want anymore. First I wanted to do just the plain Calla Lily bouquet with a white ribbon and then a pink ballet tied ribbon around the stems, but after being surrounded by millions of different types of flowers-I have no clue anymore.

So after a lengthy discussion about my wishes, we parted and now I hafta wait a week to find out what the damage may be. So this was florist #2 and the next one surprisingly will be the 8th of December at the HEB Central Market..yes I am going ot HEB, they actually have a less expensive but beautiful selection for a wedding and I"m willing to do anything to save myself and my parents some dinero!

So today I was supposed to have clinicals. Well I did, sort of. We all got there and started listening to morning report about our selected patient and then as we were off to do our initial assessments, our instructor pulled us into the waiting room to let us know that she had been called into work for an emergency heart surgery...dammit...so our clinical got cancelled because we can't take care of patients without her there. So luckily, I am home...cleaning for night of movies with my girl friends...and then studying until they show up at 7pm.

So I'm gonna get back to the duties that I don't want to do! yuck! Talk to you again soon.

New SpringWidget

My wild and crazy life

I decided to start this blog to document this time in my life which is NUTS! I am currently working full-time at BAMC (Brooke Army Medical Center) as a certified surgical tech, going to school full-time for Nursing and now trying to plan a wedding for March 2009!
(note to the reader)****Its been about 2 months since I've started this entry! Sad, huh? I've been so busy with work, school, and planning our crazy wedding! So I thought that I'd finally get this blog up and running***

My employer has FINALLY granted me my wish of dropping one day of work...but stay at a full time 36 hour...yep, which means that I'm working 9 hours a day for 4 days and have one day off a week. Whew...boy did I need that one extra day off....especially to do laundry...what a sad day when my laundry bin floweth over!

This is the second 8 weeks of school and boy am I brain dead. There was actually one point where I had to talk to my doctor about what I need to do to concentrate more...I honestly felt like I recently got ADD! I can't concentrate at work or school and I'm finding that my memory is starting to slide downhill....well come to find out...I'm too stressed out (surprise surprise) and so the lack of memory is not because i"m getting older, just that I have too much on my plate. So needless to say, I am trying to take one day at a time and take the time to actually breath and take things slowly, well at least for 5 minutes and then I'm back to running!

So the past couple of weeks have been running around to different wedding appointments...venues, flowers, caterers, etc...I never realized how much crap goes into a wedding. Also, how commercialized it is. Its nuts! So I've decided that we're not gonna have flower centerpieces, but edible ones...granny smith apples to be exact! The guest can look and then eat! The next couple of weeks I need to get off my booty and get out the invitations! We finally have our venue...but we're still waiting for the stupid caterers to give us a price and a menu option so I can send out the invitations and the guests can choose chicken or beef. So tick tock tick tock....always waiting for someone else.

Daniel and I decided to hire a planner...who works for 10% of our planned budget....but daniel is getting more and more upset with her because I'm finding the better deals. I've been setting up the appointments...shouldn't she be doing all this crap? So we're on the teeter totter right now whether or not we should just ditch her and complete this ourselves. Time will tell...if she keeps slacking, we're gonna hafta let her go! Today daniel made the comment that I should become a wedding planner because I find the less expensive deals.....always there to save money somewhere! Besides I don't see the reasoning behind putting my parents or ourselves in debt for a joyous occasion!

Well I"m off to get some studying in and then off to bed. Gotta work again tomorrow and then another florist appointment afterwards. Who would of known it costs so much for a bunch of flowers with ribbons on it. I'll be sure to update my appointment experience tomorrow evening and let you know the damage! Good night and I finally finished my first blog! Yippee for me!