NCLEX

I have my date set to take the boards. It's coming up fast so wish me luck, send prayers, whatever it is you do! I know I can use it. This past few years I have overcome a lot. I went back to college, had cancer, had a baby, went back to college AGAIN and continued on. I went to nursing college and though at times it seemed like too much I made it and graduated with that Bachelor's degree. I am proud of all I have done and sometimes I sit back and wonder how the heck I did it.

I am relaxing tonight with family. My husband lost his grandmother this past weekend. We attended her funeral yesterday. The hubby's brothers were able to come and spend some unexpected time with us which is nice despite the circumstances. His grandma lived close to us and the my hubby's family is all in North Carolina. It has been very nice to have his brother's here. They stay up late visiting and playing cards. I take my little Gabbi and cuddle with her in bed. LOVE my cuddle time. :)

Technically Four Years

So I have always considered my date of remission the day they called and told me that I was cancer free after my PET scan. Well I discussed with my Oncologist at my last appointment that they consider remission the day of your last treatment, not including radiation. I am not sure why. This would mean my remission date is October 22nd and would make me technically four years in remission. This also means that as of this next October I will be going to my doctor every 6 months instead of every 3 for checkups. I still consider that day that I heard my doctor say there was NO cancer the day I was free from it. That was the day I knew it was gone. I'll be glad to be considered 5 years out in October and the fear of it ever coming back is minimal. I will miss seeing my doctor and nurses so often though. They are like family to me.

I still have to take NCLEX. Please send prayers my way! Things are really moving for me. Thanks for all the love and support all of these years since I began blogging!

What to Expect Prize Giveaway!!!!

Drum-roll please! The big winner of all three books in the What To Expect series is: Danielle!!! She followed me on twitter and followed what to expect as well gaining extra entries. Way to go Danielle!!!

I have an additional surprise now. I have 3 more books to give away! Each person will get one book. I will select the book to give you since more than one person might pick the same book. I will do it randomly. The winners of the 3 additional books are:

1. Leslie: You will get the What to Expect book, first in the series
2. Kristi: You will get the What to Expect the First Year book!
3. Sheryl: You will get the What to Expect the Second Year book!


Since I did not have a lot of entries this was a really great contest because I think the majority won something. Congratulations. I will be holding more contests in the future and I hope to get more entries next time. Remember to try for those extra entries. They are very easy to do by simply following me on Twitter, etc. :) I will be sending off the email addresses to the sponsor so we can get the books out and congratulations again!


Just to let everyone know I used: http://www.random.org/widgets/integers/ and gave each person or entry a number and that's how I selected the winners randomly by order of entry :)

Michael C. Hall Stands Up

Pet Peeve of the Week and My Giveaway

I really love to read news stories online. I rarely if ever watch the news on TV anymore. If I want to watch it I can watch it any time I feel like online. I love to do it and I catch up this way on current events whether they be related to an earthquake or even celebrity updates that I may admittedly get sucked into. I do however hate the way yahoo posts every news story I read on facebook. I don't think everyone needs to know what I'm reading. Do you? This is my pet peeve of the week!

Also please do not forget to enter my giveaway. Enter it for someone else if you do not need the books. These are great books. Whattoexpect.com graciously offered to sponsor this giveaway. I have a surprise. The big winner gets all 3 books, but I will be selecting an additional 3 entries to receive one of the books! So that is a total of 4 winners. I do not have many entries right now. Please scroll below to enter the giveaway. Also please leave your email address so I can contact you if you win! This is super important. There are ways to earn extra entries as well. Share the link, spread the word!

For your convenience I'm giving you the link to the giveaway! It ends January 14th. -->
http://www.pregnantcancer.com/2011/12/what-to-expect-giveaway.html

Enter My Giveaway!!!

Enter the Giveaway by clicking below:

WHAT TO EXPECT GIVEAWAY!!!! THREE BOOKS!

You don't want to miss this one. Share the link. Pass it around. This is three books from WhattoExpect.com. You can enter for someone else if you don't need the books. These would be the BEST shower gift. If you can use one, you can give the other to a friend. Follow the link to see the titles included in the giveaway and enter. Extra entries available!

What To Expect Giveaway

It has been such a long time since I have done a giveaway but I think I'm ready now that I have graduated from college. I love doing these things and now I have more time again finally.


I have four daughters. Each time I was pregnant I referred to the What to Expect series. Do you remember those books? They are amazing. I read them every single day. I marked my pages and referred back to them constantly. My sister was also pregnant at the same time as me during two of my pregnancies. I would relay the information to her as well. I had the answers because of these books! haha I have to admit it has been the source of a lot of the information I already had when I started nursing school. I had an advantage in the obstetrics and pediatrics courses because of the information I got in these books.


My favorite book was What to Expect When You're Expecting. I particularly loved the comparisons to the size of the growing baby inside me. It was just so amazing and really helped me to visualize how big my baby was. The books continue to What to Expect The First Year, and What to Expect The Second Year. I also referred to The First Year book. It helped me a lot and I continue to pull information from these books. They are such a great resource.


What to Expect.com has contacted me and offered to host a giveaway on my blog! I am honored to be a part of this as I whole heartily support these books. I know if you are pregnant or if you have a young child you will love these books! For this giveaway I will be giving away the first 3 books of this series including:

One of my readers will receive:

• What to Expect When Expecting
• What to Expect the First Year
• What to Expect the Second Year

To enter this giveaway you must follow Pregnant With Cancer publicly, and leave a comment telling me which book you will enjoy the most. Please include your email. You must do this before you complete any of the extra entries! You can enter for someone else if you wish. These would make a great baby shower gift as well. You can always share one of the books with a friend. 

Extra entries – leave a comment telling me you have done each of these: 

*Followed me on Twitter -  http://twitter.com/#!/sandilynn1975 

*Followed What to Expect on Twitter:  http://twitter.com/#!/WhatToExpect 

*Tweet about this giveaway up to once a day (leave the link in your comment)

*Post this giveaway on your blog (leave the link to your post)

This giveaway will end on January 14th, 2011. Good Luck!!

Birthday!

Today is my birthday. I celebrate another year of life! Yay :) Almost didn't make it here. Already got some good presents from the family. I'll post pics tomorrow. My birthday is the 29th. It's 12:05 a.m. I waste no time at all. haha

A Star is Born! Haha

Christmas and Birthdays

This month was always a big one for me. We have Christmas, my birthday, my mom's birthday and New Years this month. This will be the second year I have added the anniversary of my father's death from pancreatic cancer. He passed away December 27th, 2009. I miss my dad each and every day. He loved this time of year. There was nothing like Christmas and family and lots and lots of food for my dad. I can miss him now with a smile instead of all the tears. I do still get sad but I also remember the good times more than those awful sad times when he was so sick.

I also lost a dear friend on December 28th, 1992. I remember her as well. Her life was cut too short in a car accident at the tender age of 16. Miss you Rocky. Miss you dad. Always remembered! Never forgotten.

As for me, I will be another year older on the 29th. I am finally at the age where I no longer have the desire to TELL you how old I'll be. I don't lie but I do like to leave people guessing. haha Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and Happy New Year!

Village Photos

If you are reading through my blog and pictures are missing they should be back eventually. Village Photos has been down now for about 4 months I think. I am so upset because I have been paying for a service that I am not receiving. I am assuming they will see some lawsuits at the end of this. You can't have people pay for a service that does not exist. First their site was just down. I only got information from other people complaining on an ebay message board. Now I see a notice when I go to their page. They have made up a lot of excuses but it's come down to them moving their facility to a new location. The problem is their site has said they hope to be up in a week for a month now. I am beginning to lose hope. I have linked my pictures to my blog through them for a very long time now. Hopefully there won't be too many dead links. Just know that they should be back up. I just do not know for sure when.

Dairy Free Chocolate Chip Cookies. Seriously!

Since Gabbi has had this allergy to milk I have had to be quite creative. I have made her wacky cake which is dairy free. If you don't know what that is, you need to google it or go to allrecipes.com. There are many variations but I have my favorite. I have always wished Gabbi could have a freshly made chocolate chip cookie. That seemed like an impossible thing to whip up since it requires butter and chocolate chips. I managed to find the way to do it today! Here is my "secret".

First look for this at your local grocery store:

 The above is milk free. It does contain soy. The chips are made from chocolate liquor and cocoa butter which is vegan. It DOES say to add butter, however I substituted 1 cup Crisco plus 2 tbsp of water for the butter. The back of the container of Crisco says that this is the substitution for 1 cup of butter which is what these cookies require.

This is my happy little camper tearing into her cookies :)

And this is the actual cookie. They turned out nice golden brown. The texture is a little more gritty than a regular chocolate chip but great regardless. I thought they were wonderful and a great substitution for the milky alternative. :)

I Did It!

It's been many years since I made the decision to go back to school. I was stopped in my tracks by cancer not to mention having another baby. It was a rough road but I made it. I beat cancer, I had my baby, I went back to school AGAIN and Saturday my dreams came true. I graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Nursing Degree. Thanks to all those that supported me and encouraged me! I am on cloud nine and still can't believe it.

Nursing Books for Sale

I'm going through the ones I don't use anymore. I have quite a few for sale. I try to offer fair prices that compete with those on Ebay. If you are interested here is a link to all those for sale:

http://www.ebay.com/sch/trust404/m.html?_nkw=&_armrs=1&_from=&_ipg=25&_trksid=p3686

If you are not interested, well, don't look. I cannot wait until December 10th!!!!!!

Oh and I have my first interview on December 2nd. Wish me luck.

Graduation in 31 Days!!!!

I'm getting so crazy anxious and nervous with finals coming up. There is so much to do, and so little time. It's like HERE now. I am so ready. This blog has followed me through it all. I haven't spent as much time here lately because I've been focused on my studies but I'm on my way back! I am so ready to graduate.

I'm on the top row here 5th one from the left.

 

Here I am, all ready to graduate. December 10th, 2011. That's the day I will be in my cap and gown.