My Welcome Home Surprise!

I had a wonderful six days visiting my beautiful sister and her family in my birth state of Massachusetts.

We hung out, went on a whale watch, and just enjoyed each other's company!

I boarded my flight home this morning around 8am, totally exhausted from lack of sleep and the early wake up. I was eager to see Mirza, but not so thrilled on the idea of coming home and right back to work tomorrow.

Mirza was relieved to see me. Usually, when I go away he greets me with a cute homemade card or flowers, but this time he told me that he and Abbey wrote me a song, instead. I didn't think anything of it since Mirza is a musician and often writes me silly songs. In hindsight, he did seem especially more giddy than usual, but I figured he honestly was just bored without me all week.

As soon as we walked in the door, he was ready to play me the song. I thought nothing of it...it was cute. The lyrics rhymed and talked about how he and Abbey (the cat!) missed me so much and they never want me to leave again, and he sang, "Will you marry me??" over and over at the end in melody...and ended it with, "Somedaaaay, some daaaay." I kind of gave a sarcastic, bitter look like, "pft, yeah, someday...thanks!!!" haha. The song ended and he's like, "Did you like my song?" and I said, "Oh yeah, it was nice.." I didn't take it as a literal proposal, of course.

He then got up and proceeded to the other room saying, "I have something else for you...something I made," to which I replied, "Oh yeah, did Abbey help with this one, too?" thinking it was a card. And he said...Nope, just him.

He walked back out to me on the couch with something behind his back, and then pulled out the box, got on his knee and proposed!

I immediately was shocked and laughing yelled, "SHUT UP!!" and proceeded to interrogate him with, "Is this for real?? what?? where did you get this?? is this from a machine? are you messing with me? na-ah,..REALLY???" hahhaha. I also grabbed the ring during the process and just couldn't believe it.

We've been together 8 and a half years this month and we've known practically since day one that we'd be married, but were waiting until we both finished school, etc. There was never a question of if, just the timing of when.
Let's just say that it was a great "welcome home" surprise, for sure!
The proposal was so "us," in that we're both pretty low-key, private, and modest. He said that he did have other ideas with the airport involved, but he thought that I might just be embarrassed and he was right.  I really loved it because he incorporated his music side, as well as the silly-side of us. It could not have been more perfect for us!!

I love my ring!!!! It is so "me"...elegantly simple and beautiful. Unfortunately, it needs to be resized, so I had to drop it off and won't get it back until tomorrow evening...and I am working. boo!!

Love, love, love...

A Motherless Daughter

It's been 7 months since I became a motherless daughter. It is now, unfortunately, something my mom and I have in common.

I was lucky and got to "have" my mother for 25 years. My mother, however, lost her own mom at the age of 5 or 6 when her mom died from a pulmonary embolism after a car accident. She was only 36 (?) and left behind seven children ranging from infant to early adulthood. One of the sad parts of losing a parent is not being able to verify the exact ages and dates of these events. You just never feel the need to remember them yourself since you always expect them to be around to tell you, but that's not how it works. 

My Grandma (never met) and Grandpa.

I know that my mom was obviously very affected by the loss of her mom at such a young age.

My mom with Santa!

In fact, I always remember a book that she kept around the house. It was by Hope Edelman, titled, "Motherless Daughters: The Legacy of Loss." Growing up, I did not give much thought to the whole idea of losing a parent. All I knew was that it was sad and I felt bad for my mom, but besides that, as a child, it wasn't on my radar. I do remember, though, when my Aunt died of cancer and left behind her two daughters; my cousins. My mom gave my cousin  a copy of that book.

After my mom's memorial service and the days following, I made sure to grab that book from her shelf.

I certainly wasn't ready to read it or even open it, but I knew it meant a lot to her, so I felt that I needed to keep it...at least for her. For 7 months, it sat on the bottom of my night stand, along with a book of poems that she had given to her father. I like to open book of poems to the random dog-eared pages. I wonder if the little pieces of papers and creased pages were from her or from my grandpa. I like to imagine what they liked about that certain poem...

I was brave enough to open, "Motherless Daughters" the other night before bed. At first, I didn't feel like I was entitled to read it, like I wasn't a "motherless daughter," and I had fears that the book would belittle my own loss since I lost my mother at age 25...and not as a child. But it doesn't. Edelman touches on the age group of young adulthood and just losing a mother at the pivotal time in your life when you're starting out, beginning your own life. Let's just say, I pretty much balled my eyes out the entire time reading it, but it felt good to release. I only got a chapter or two in, but it's a step.

I feel like it might be one of those books that I come back to over and over like my mother did.

I try to think of the positive and not the sad...like how sad it is to know that my own mother flipped through these pages and cried. I read the parts about losing a mother at the age of 5 and think of her. The book is turning yellow and the pages feel thick from age. 

 I try not to think of how sad it is that I have her autopsy report on my desk. It isn't right. 

Sometimes when I drive home from work (I tend to do a lot of pondering at these moments), I am in absolute disbelief that all of my parents (mom, dad, and stepdad) are dead. I keep thinking, "what? I'm not one of those people...I'm not the type of person to have dead parents. That's someone else."

But nope, it's me, too.

Nicole, the motherless daughter.

Some of the worst parts about losing my mom are the days when I'm lounging on the couch and I call her up to ask random questions or pieces of advice. These would range from, "what do you think about online classes?" or "omg, turn on channel __ to see __."  She had an opinion on everything, of course. And I always called to ask about cooking. She was a great cook. Now? I could easily ask these questions to anyone that I admire or peruse the internet, but that isn't the point. She was there for me in countless ways even when she wasn't at her best.

There is no one quite like your mom.

 After 7 months, I know I do have tons of support from loving people around me, but absolutely no one has really sat down and said to me, "Nicole, how are you dealing with the loss of your mother?" I'm not even sure I would like someone to do this, but it's just a thought that I had. I try not to talk about it much, but maybe I should?

I will never stop grieving the loss of my mother. I wonder if people understand that? 

For more posts on my mother, check out this link

The Indian in the house

Right now Mirza is making Indian food. I don't know if I've mentioned it on here before, but Mirza is obsessed...obsessed with Indian food. We call him the Bosnian Indian.
He doesn't just love to eat it, he also loves to cook it. And he does it really well.
He buys his spices from a local Indian food shop, too. In fact, we have an entire basket in our pantry devoted just to the Indian spices, mixes, beans, etc. It's kind of ridiculous, I must say.

At the moment he's making butter chicken and chana masala. He's still perfecting his naan bread, but it gets better each time.

While his food simmers away, my whole wheat blueberry muffins are cooling off.

The recipe is from Emily's blog. They're whole wheat, vegan, and were super easy to whip up.

Meanwhile, Abbey has made her home in a laundry basket prison!

She grows more and more each day. Every morning that I wake up, I swear she's grown from a kitten to cat.

We'll eat dinner soon and then relax for the night. I have work the next two days and Wednesday. After that, I fly off to Boston to visit my wonderful sister and nephews. The last little hurrah before school begins.  In regards to my last post, I have decided to go with just online courses for this first semester considering the courses are on the  "easier" side. Once I take pharm and patho, then I will definitely go to campus.

Online debate

Graduate school begins in about 19 days!

I'll be enrolled part time to become an Adult Nurse Practitioner.

It will take me three years, or seven semesters. I'll be (almost) 29 when finished. Hopefully I will graduate December 2013.

Initially, I was registered for Theoretical Foundations of Advanced Nursing Practice as an online course, and Ethical Legal Nursing on campus. I know it might sound silly, but I wanted to take one course live, so I actually felt like I was in school. Plus, in general, I hate online classes.

However, now my plans are totally shot because I just realized that the university has cancelled my live class!! Now, everything is online, which screws up my whole deal. I did not want to take Theoretical Foundations on campus because I heard that it's pretty boring.

What should I do?
1. Switch Theory to on campus and just go with it...

or

2. Keep all my classes online for now since next semester I will take Patho on campus, anyway

Pros and Cons of both :

• If taken in class, I will actually feel like I'm in school, which I wanted
• However, the class may be incredibly boring and the tests could be vague/theory
• But I HATE online classes!!!
• I would also have a 45 minute commute every Tuesday afternoon, but just once per week
• Not a lot of leeway with work schedule if on campus
• will need to pay for parking
• For online, there is  $90 fee for each class

It seems like more cons to on campus, but I'm still not sure...

Thoughts ??