First Day!

Today was my first day on the job as an RN. I have a long week because of orientation and training but soon I will have my 3 day work week. I will have longer work days but at least I will be home at night and for most of the week. Spring has sprung here which makes us long to do more things outside for school. Everything is finally blooming, including some surprise tulips in our new yard. We have been doing some garden planning and outside clean up. We dug a firepit the other day. We have to get some pavers to line it but at least the hard part is done. We have gotten to spend the past two weekends helping my parents build a shed. Hoopy and Tman learned some valuable work skills from their Dad and Papaw during the construction. There is still some work to be done but Hoopy statred back working weekends at his summer job and Tman got a new job at a local ranch. BabyGirl is continuing at her job without me ( I miss working with her) and Roosie just celebrated her 15th birthday Friday. So many changes are happening ! Seasons *sigh* But as always God is good :)

Another Winter Storm

For the second time in little over a week we have more snow! After battling freezing rain, ice and snow last week; we woke up to more snow today. We have about 4" here and other places have less or more. I had 3 interviews scheduled today but had to reschedule 2. I'm sure I'll have to change the last one also. The goal is to stay warm :) Blessings!

Praise the Lord I Did It!

Its official! I passed NCLEX and received my license on February 11 :) I am now officially Nurse Nikki . Now that studying is over and done for me I can have time to enjoy the little things in life... like blogging!

Nurse Nikki

Tonight I officially became a nurse, not registered yet but soon :) The pinning ceremony was tonight and graduation is tomorrow. Its been a long road but we made it. So thankful for my family who stuck by me and bore the hardships and for God giving me the strength and courage to do it. Now I can have time to blog again :) Blessings! - Nikki

A little while back the Weather Channel posted a graphic that said the Southeast would be seeing a cooler than normal summer. I'm not sure the weather has seen that graphic because it is absolutely not conforming to it. *sigh* We have been floating in the 90's with high humidity for weeks and there does not seem to be any change coming soon. Maybe we will have an early Fall this year. Right now everything is drying up in this heat. My pretty spring flowers are a long gone memory. 
With the heat outside, we have been working on de-cluttering our house inside. Today we are finishing up our "desk switch a roo". BabyGirl bought a new to her desk at a local thrift store yesterday. She needed more space for her editing. She gave her old desk to Roosie who needed more space for her drawing. Roosie gave me her old desk for me to use in the kitchen since I needed less space than the big table I was using to study on. Now I think we are all content. 
Last week I worked in the kitchen trying to rearrange things so that it felt more open. I got rid of one of my storage shelves and moved some others around. I think I have it just about perfect. The kitchen seems bigger and brighter. I still have to switch around some things in the cabinets but I will work on that Monday. 
Toodles used my shelving unit I took from the kitchen to organize his stuff on the carport. By recycling items this week we have managed to meet a lot of needs for each other. 
My favorite part of this de-clutter and rearranging is that now my Mamaw's antique metal cabinet is used solely in housing our baking ingredients and pans. I used mason jars and post-it labels to create storage bins for things like chocolate chips, coconut and baking powder. It looks so nice and neat and it is easy to find things in a hurry now. Is anyone else doing any de-c;uttering this summer? Blessing!

Homemade Doughnut Holes

Happy Friday! Because it is Friday and stormy and well, it is just a "gimme somethin' sweet" kind of day ... (play fanfare)... I'm gonna share my easy peasy doughnut recipe. Ok , in reality they look more like doughnut holes but they are fried dough dipped in sugar so really, what does it matter? You are gonna love me for the simplicity of this recipe. At the very least you will like me a little more :)

Sorry for the fuzzy photo but my tablet would not cooperate today.  I have on my plate a pumpkin pie spice , chocolate , and plain doughnut hole.

Homemade Doughnut Holes
2 cups self- rising flour
1/8 cup white granulated sugar
2 tsp vanilla (use less if you don't like the flavor. :0 WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE?!?)
1/2 cup milk
** To make chocolate ones, add 1/4 to 1/2 cup cocoa. Adjust that measurement to your preference. Adding this dry ingredient means you will need to adjust your milk measurement.**
Mix together until you have a wet sticky dough. You do not want it to be runny. You can make it a drier dough and roll into balls but I just prefer to drop mine into the oil from a spoon so the wet dough works best for that.
Drop into hot oil and deep fry until golden brown. Drain on a paper towel for a minute and then drop into a paper bag filled with your mixture of choice. Mine is cinnamon, sugar and pumpkin pie spice. Shake the bag until the doughnut holes are covered ( do about 2 at at time). That's it :) Except for eating... which you will do. Do it fast though or your kids will beat you to it. This recipe is by no means healthy (it's fried dough so ...) but it is yummy and quick. Enjoy , let me know if you like it! Blessings!

Hello...again...oooh Pinterest

No excuses for this huge break in posts except  for : school. But that is done for summer and graduation is in sight; December 14 as a matter of fact. I am so ready for having some extra time. Every free moment I had this past semester I tried to spend with my family. Now we can have a much more relaxed schedule and just enjoy the "winding down" time of summer. We have some schooling to finish up for Hoopy and Roosie but just a few minor things. We will have it all wrapped up by month's end. Big thanks to my DD BabyGirl for making me a new blog set. I figured since the snow finally stopped ( here at least) then I should take away the winter theme from my blog.
The weather channel is calling for this to be a colder than usual summer for the Southeast but I find that hard to believe since we have been soaring into the 80s the past two weeks.  We have had some strange weather patterns to be sure this year.
With warmer temps and summer come the lovely summer holidays! Memorial Day and July 4th are just around the corner; so I have been perusing Pinterest to gather ideas for decorations and of course food. Check out my Pinterest board 'Merica ( yes, I know...but the kids and I find our country, redneck humor bone just had to do it) to see some great ideas for the patriotic holidays. Be sure to follow that board to see all the new stuff I pin. Blessings!