My career path.

As most of you know I am working on becoming a Registered Nurse (RN). I am currently a Licensed Practical Nurse (LPN). I have been working on this goal for a long time now. A long, hard 8 years!

I have been have second thoughts about what I truly want to be when I "grow-up". I know as an RN I want to work in Labor & Delivery. When I was in nursing school I had one day in L&D. Only 1 day! I was able to see a cesarean and a vaginal delivery. Seeing a vaginal delivery was probably one of the most amazing moments in my life. At that moment I knew that this was the path I would take with my nursing career. From that point on I knew my future.

When my mom had me 27 years ago she went an alternative route and had me at home. She also did this with my younger sister. She had a nurse and doctor to come to the house but I don't think I liked that idea and came out before they got there. I was caught by my mother's friend who was a midwife in training. She was there to take pictures!

I have known for a long time that I want to have a natural birth. And I mean all natural. No pain medication. I know that some people may find that crazy but that is what I want. I want to have my children on my terms. Women have been doing it for thousands of years and I plan on doing it also. I also have previously thought that I would want to have my children at a stand alone birthing center. I now think that I want to have my children at home. One thing I know for sure is that I don't want to have my children in a hospital.

For the last year or so I have been contemplating the idea of becoming a midwife. I still want to finish and get my RN degree but I think I want to continue on to become a nurse midwife. I don't know everything this involves but I am pretty sure that this is what I want to do with my life. I respect everyones decision to have whatever birth process that they want but I want to be able to support people in the type of birth that isn't quite standard.

I have so much that I need to learn about before I make my final decision but right now it is the way that I am headed. I am kind of excited.

Geocaching Challenges

When it comes to geocaching I am all about a challenge. I get bored doing the same type of micro caches all the time. I also love having a list of things to do so I can cross things off and feel like I accomplished something. I don't always get everything done but I like doing it anyways. That is part of the reason I read books on book lists. Okay sorry getting off-topic.

Luckily, other geocachers put out Challenge caches. The main idea is to complete a theme or a pre-req before you can find the actual cache container. So it is not as easy as just going out there and making a find.

Just to give everyone an idea of what types of challenges are out there I thought I would share some of the challenges Craig and I have completed and some of the ones we are currently working on.

The first challenge we finished was called the Georgia Delorme Challenge. A Delorme is a type of atlas that breaks the state into a grid. Each grid square corresponds to a page in the atlas. To complete the cache you must find a cache on every single page of the atlas. Thus, we traveled throughout all of Georgia finding caches. Once we found a cache on every page the cache owner gave us the coordinates to find the final geocache. That was an amazing adventure for us. We saw so much of Georgia that we never would have.

The only other challenge cache we have completed is called "The Alphabet Soup Cache of Washington". To complete this cache we had to find a geocache who's title begins with every letter of the alphabet. So we found a total of 26 caches to qualify to find the final cache. That was an interesting challenge since we would pick and choose caches as we went based on which letters we needed to find.

Here are some challenge caches that we have finished the requirements for but have not gone and found the final cache:

• Cache by Numbers: Find caches with the numbers 0-9 in the title (3 of which must be spelled out)
• Fool's Errand- A Washington Challenge Cache: Find 150 caches in one month (plus, a special requirement based on what month you begin the challenge. Our special requirement was to find a cache in another state.)
• The Critter Cache: Find 25 caches with names of animals in the title (without repeating).
• The C5 Challenge: Cache for 65 days straight (We are currently at 72 days).

Here are some Challenges that we are currently working on (slowly):

• Washington State County Challenge: Find a cache (small size or larger) in every county in the state.
• Washington Delorme Challenge: same as described above but with the Washington Delorme Atlas instead.
• A Baker's Dozen Challenge Cache: On a given day find a certain # of caches 1-13. No more no less. To make it harder though at least one of the caches must be a mystery/unknown or multi cache. (We only have #12 left..so sometime when we have a chance we need to go out and find 12 caches in the day and have one be a multi or unknown.)
• Challenge of the Century: Find 100 Multicaches
• Challenge of the Century: Move (not discover) 100 travel bugs or geocoins
• ABC Challenge: Same as the Alphabet soup challenge but this challenge is for Oregon and all the caches must be found in Oregon.
• Color Challenge: Find 7 caches in Oregon with a color in the title. (2 of 7 completed)
• Counting Counties in Oregon: Get a cache in every county of Oregon (haven't started working on this one yet).
• Oregon Delorme Challenge: Same as above but in Oregon. (Haven't started this one yet either)
• Oregon's "Well Rounded Cacher" aka Oregon's Fizzy: Find every single difficulty/ terrain combinations (81 possible) and you must include one of every cache type.
• Oregon's Century Plus One Challenge: Cache for 101 days straight.
• The Oregon History Challenge: Find all the caches placed in the first year of geocaching (still active) in the state of Oregon.
• Washington History Challenge: Find all the caches placed in WA during the first year of geocaching (still active).
• Well Rounded Washington Challenge (Fizzy Challenge): Find all D/T ratings (81) including all cache types but must be in the state of WA and placed before 11/30/08.
• Washington's Double Century Challenge: Cache for 200 days straight (not sure if I am going to try for this one or not).

Many of these caches we are slowly working on. We usually just go geocaching and if we happen to find one that helps us complete the challenge then it makes it even better. The only one that we are truly working on is the 101 straight days of caching. I am the one that wanted to try and get this cache so it is mainly up to me to cache every day but Craig has helped out on a few occasions when I didn't have time. Since we are a team. I enjoy the work that we put into finding these challenges and completing them. It makes the final find that much sweeter. Craig and I felt a huge sense of accomplishment when we signed the log for the Georgia Delorme Challenge. Not many people can say they have done the same.

Maybe someday I will get burnt out on doing Challenge caches but I have a feeling I won't. Especially since we do them so slowly. I will try to keep you updated on whether we finish any of these.