New York Happenings: June 09 Edition

Friends & Family,

Well, its very sad that this is the first email you'll be receiving from me for quite a while.  That whole accelerated nursing school/selling jewelry/planning a wedding/studying for boards thing got in the way of a regular newsletter from me.  But I'm sure many of you understand and now that I am unemployed and not a student for at least a year, I hope to improve my game a bit and send these a bit more regularly!

It looks as though it has been 6 months since I sent my last email which is very sad.  But obviously a TON has happened since then!  The most exciting thing happened in the last week, which is that I passed my nursing boards and am officially a registered nurse and I get to put RN after my name.  What a good feeling that is!  I am currently searching for jobs but a bit nervous about finding an ER/ICU job (which I want) as a new grad.  I am going to hold out for a few weeks and try for these before I give up and attempt to get a med/surg job which I'd probably have to work for about 6 months before being able to transfer to an ER or ICU.  But I'm sure the experience would be good.  It just may delay my going back to school for a bit.

My last months of school involved community health, OB (of course I loved this) and my integration (basically an internship) in a post-anesthesia care unit (PACU) which is where patients go directly after surgery. Though the PACU doesn't seem like a place I'd choose to work, I met some wonderful wonderful ladies at Allen Pavilion (about 220th and Broadway) and learned a lot.  I enjoyed myself quite a bit. Pics are included in the link above. I started studying for my boards in late March and just took them on June 1st.  It was a long stressful time and Scott and my immediate family know I was a bit unpleasant during this time.  I apologize for that. ;)  

On May 20th, I had my white coat ceremony and received my diploma for my Bachelors of Science.  Click "white coat ceremony" to see pictures.  My parents as well as Erin and Steve came into town for the event which meant the world to me.  Also during that trip, Erin and another bridesmaid of mine, Jamie Lyn, hosted a bachelorette part for me at Japas, a sushi and karaoke bar in midtown.  It was one of the best times of my life!  I'd show pics but...then again...maybe not.  Lots of fun.

Scott is doing well.  Trying to get out to audition as much as possible.  He was cast in a paid, regional show in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. We were excited he got cast but sad to have to be apart for an unknown amount of time.  The show ended up falling through due to some reckless business men (the director and the producer) and Scott was stuck in Florida for an extra week because they wouldn't pay for peoples tickets back to New York.  They also still owe Scott a week's pay.  I am including a link  to an article about the whole horrible situation.  Not a good experience for a first paid acting job, but Scott remains upbeat which I am amazed at.  He got back to New York and immediately started working full time a Snug Harbor Productions, the general management company where he was office manager on and off before he left.  He just finished working there full time due to a few of their productions falling through, and has begun reviewing his drinks to get a bartending job. (He attended bartending school in February.)  He is hopeful about a couple recent auditions and we will of course keep you updated on his success. :)

So we've got a big day coming up 2 months from Monday!  That would be our wedding day! And we look forward to seeing many of you there!  Now that the boards are done and all I have to worry about is finding a job (all I have to worry about...ack!!!), I am beginning to get more excited and details are coming into place. I have learned that I am a terrible wedding planner and not a big fan of dealing with little details so I am very indebted to my mom and Scott's mom, Judy, for all their help!!

I hope that the past 6 months have brought you only good things! And i look forward to continuing our correspondence now that my life is a little bit more relaxed!  Love to all. Happy Summer,

Lauren Bachnick RN

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Check out the catalog at www.liasophia.com/laurenbachnick

And email me with your orders! 

Sincerely,

LB

New York Happenings: End of '08, Beginning of '09 Edition

Friends and Family,

Ok, I know I know. I've been a pretty bad newsletter writer/blogger the last few months. But as many of you know, I have a valid excuse! Not only have I been working my way through an accelerated nursing program, I've also started my own jewelry business. More about that later.

The holidays have come and gone.  My trip home to Minnesota with Scott was quite busy, visiting family and friends, hanging out with Zoe and Tyler (Scott's 3-year-old niece and 8 month old nephew who are a couple of the most fun people I may have ever met), and trying to support an ailing extended family member. There were ups and downs, one down being that Erin and Steve were in Wisconsin for Christmas which is never my favorite though I understand. (This is why I advocate marrying a Jewish guy :)  ). But there's always next year.  I also had my first wedding shower while we were home which was lovely. Scott's mom's friends threw a beautiful New York (Minne-Apple, Big-Apple) themed shower and spoiled us rotten. We are very appreciative.

I just started school up again today after my 2 week break, and while January will be an easier month school-wise, I did not want to go back!  Thus far, I have made it through my med-surg, psych and pediatric rotations.  I am struggling now as to whether I want to maintain my current acute care track (ER/ICU stuff) or if I want to switch to Peds because kids, even if they're screaming their heads off, can really brighten up your day. And I'm not going to lie.  A baby butt is much more fun to wipe than an adult butt.  I don't think that can be denied.  I'm trying to maintain an open mind, and hoping the answer will come to me.   

I've managed to keep my grades up in school, despite my new business!  As you may already know, I began selling jewelry through Lia Sophia this November.  Lia Sophia is a fashion jewelry direct sales company with awesome jewelry, a lifetime guarantee, great sales and or me, the opportunity to make my own schedule (while in school) and still make an income.  I'm not going to say it's easy to run a small business while in school.  But it is a GREAT distraction when I need it and an opportunity to supplement Scott and I while we're working towards our career goals.  This business works like this:  I ask people to host parties, I send out invites to everyone on their guest list, and I present the jewelry/the company/ the opportunity at the party.  And the jewelry really sells itself.  It is a quality product that I believe in, and now I have an amazing jewelry wardrobe which I utilize daily.  Right now I am considered an advisor (lowest one on the pyramid) but still make a decent profit, enough to put some back into the company and pay some bills.  I also have my first recruit!  My lovely older sister, Erin, is working under me (and she may just be better at this company that I am, but she has to give me credit for everything she knows...almost).  Once I have 2 more recruits selling under me, I move up to a manager position and get a 10% raise on my sales. My goal is to get my other 2 by the end of February.  With 8 shows lined up this month, I'm hopeful.  (To view the jewelry, check out my website at www.liasophia.com/laurenbachnick and click on "Our Jewelry".)

Scott was in a show in November which my sister and Steve got to see when they visited just before Thanksgiving.  Another small, unpaid show, but as usual, Scott shined in his roles.  His temp office manager position at Snug Harbor productions is (hopefully temporarily) over as their projects are ending, and with the economy and Broadway as they are (dark and dreary), they didn't know when anything would come up that they needed help with.  Scott will go back to his non-profit temping agency but really hopes to find an evening job so that he can audition during the day.  He also recorded a voice over demo after taking classes for a couple months which is awesome! To check it out, visit his blog at: http://happyactor.blogspot.com.

He is a pretty talented guy. :)  I think I'll keep him.

We're not terribly busy with wedding planning at the moment. We seem to do things in bouts whenever we have time, though I know things will be picking up as we are nearing our 6 months to the date point. We're excited!

Hope everyone had a good holiday season and is thus far enjoying their 2009.  Health, happiness and love,

Lauren

http://newyorkhappenings.blogspot.com

www.liasophia.com/laurenbachnick

Breath of fresh air...

I just saw a clip posted on a friend's facebook status of a former Hopkins High Schooler, Chris La Tondresse, on Fox News discussing a possible new direction for evangelical youth today.  (Chris and I happened to be in 2 choirs together in the good old days, and I will vouch for him that he is a very nice guy.) While I am a very liberal, proudly democrat and not a fan of the current stereotypical evangelical philosophy and political dynamic, I was blown away by Chris's explanation of why he voted for Barack Obama this year instead of voting republican as he had before. As I said  before, Chris is a truly great person, and while we don't see eye to eye on all things, I greatly respect and appreciate his current stance on the focus of his religion, which he articulated beautifully in the clip below:

Chris La Tondresse on Fox News

My Lia Sophia website is up!

For those of you who don't know, I've recently begun a new endeavour selling Lia Sophia jewelry.  So far, it's been lots of fun!  The jewelry is beautiful and affordable, and I love helping people pick pieces.  I just got my website up today.  Check out the catalog and let me know if you'd like to order anything! This month, if you buy 2 items full price, you get up to 4 at half price which is a steal!!  Check out my website and the catalog here.

Also, my goal for January is to have 8 parties so my manager will buy me a new display set.  I have 3 in the works so far, but if anyone is interested, let me know!!  

And thanks for everyone's support on my new business!! It will be so helpful for Scott and I during this stressful financial time.

Love,

Lauren

P.S. If anyone is interested in what I get for being a Lia Sophia advisor, don't hesitate to ask!

Plumbing Disaster

Living in New York City, usually in very old buildings, you expect some things to be a little faulty.  A dripping sink, a noisy radiator, even in our last building when the bathroom ceiling caved in from above us due to a neighbor's flooding.  In our current apartment, it's the bathroom.  The sink leaves something to be desired in the draining department....slow, slooowww draining.  And the bathtub is so old, it has the shower head in the middle of the tub and requires 2 shower curtains because of the way it is exposed and not between 2 walls.  Scott and I noticed on Sunday that both our drains seemed a little slow, and after a trip to Target (which left me sore because I bought far too much to carry home with me but did it anyways), we used some draino-type solution and unclogged both the sink and the tub.  We were happy as clams.

Yesterday morning, I noticed water creeping up my ankles as I showered and was saddened to realize after I got out of the shower, that the water was not receding at all.  In denial, I told myself it would go down before Scott showered an hour or two later.  However, while sitting in my Peds class, I received a frantic call from Scott to call our super because we had about 5 inches of water in our tub from both of our showers and the water wasn't going anywhere.  A few minutes later, I received another call from Scott which went to voicemail, and he told me that his wise father, Steve, had suggested we try plunging the drain to see if we could unclog the mess ourselves.  I got home from my 8 hours of pediatrics, and went to plunging. I got out 2 huge hairballs, one that resembled (in shape and size) a mouse.  But the tub would still not drain. And now we had brown crap, assumingly from the pipes, sitting in the water.  At this point, I ran up to the bodega near our apartment to buy some more draino, however all they had was generic extra strength drain cleaner for $2.50.  I wasn't especially hopeful, but I bought the bottle anyways, proceeded to pour the whole thing in the tub and nothing happened. 

So now our tub is full with brown muck and harsh declogging chemicals which are not in fact declogging anything, and Scott reminds me that he has an interview with a voice over agent tomorrow and it would be helpful if he could shower.  His wise father once again suggests to use that we scoop our the water into the toilet and flush it down so at least Scott can stand in the shower tomorrow.  After scooping most of the water our, I continue plunging until I realized I'm only plunging to procrastinate doing my homework. So I stop and write up a careplan and call my sister.  I talk to her husband, also named Steve, who was a plumber's apprentice for about a year, and he says the only thing we can really do without having to call a plumber (we're a little short on funds now) is continue plunging and flush the drain with hot water occasionally.  I try this for a while to no avail.  My arms are now sore, and the plunging action has officially taken the place of my work out for the day.  I think of it like CPR. People don't realize just how exhausting it is!

Scott finally arrives home from his play, to which no one attended so it was cancelled.  Eventually, he takes up the plunging and flushing with hot water.  But still no drainage.  We're about to give up when Scott again talks to his wise father Steve who suggests yet another technique to increase the plunging pressure. We try this late into the night...until about 11:20pm to be exact when we received a phone call from the doorman that our downstairs neighbor had issued a noise complaint. (After speaking with him today, he informed me it sounded like the ceiling was going to come down on him and his wife.)  Scott explained to the doorman that we were having some plumbing problems, to which he was scolded because we shouldn't be doing our own plumbing apparently (though I don't know if plunging can be considered plumbing at this rate.)  He suggests we fill out a work order form (we had already tried to call the super but he never responded, and I was convinced we weren't allowed to have the building maintenance people work on our apartment because of some details in our sublet agreement.)

This morning, around 9am, a friendly maintenance man arrives at our door with some sort of plumbing equipment. Half an hour later, he leaves with the drains perfectly patent.  Scott and I are sore and exhausted.  We have company coming on Thursday and a party to give on Saturday.  Who knew a little work order form could have saved us all that stress (and plunging.) Such is life I suppose!

Halloween '08 in 3 states!!

Happy (belated) Halloween!  I wanted to wait until I could get as many pictures as possible from people before posting this diverse  blog of Halloween experiences.

We start off our Halloween in the wild forests of Wisconsin, as Isaac, Erin and Steve's darling nephew, dressed as a fierce, ferocious tiger...who you just want to squeeze!!

Now we move to the streets of Vadnais Heights, Minnesota and the home of Fifi the poodle (aka McKenna, our good friend Jill's adorable daughter).

It's a tough job staying up late to get candy from strange people.  Sometimes, Mom just has to take over.

And here we are in New York, Halloween day (I didn't dress up until the day after, but I had my nails painted black in the spirit of my costume!) Also in the picture is Pirate, Kristen and Kitty Cat, Jen.  They're not impressed with my lack of costume.

Here are the real spirited Halloweeners, Judy (the school girl), Kristen (the tough pirate, argggg) and Jen (the sweet, yet sour kitty cat). These girls are in my Assessing Clinical Evidence project group and we are all suffering the terrible group project together.

Here I am on party night...being GOTH GIRL!!!! Freaky, I know.

We were the first peeps at the party so we took advantage and got a great pic of some clinical ladies! Emily (catholic school girl), me (goth girl), Alex (Mardi Gras) and Jen (Blair Waldorf of Gossip girl)

Emily was fortunate enough to get a pic with Flavor Flav!! (Jen's nice friend from Jersey.)

And sadly, part way through the night, my makeup started coming off and you can see specs of my pale skin under my white make-up (Thank God for Scott's stage makeup.)  Oh wait...you can't tell the difference? Never mind. Pic with Emily and Jen.

Nursing girls just want to have fun!!!!!  Here is a group of us from the Columbia ETP program showing New York City that we work hard and play hard!

Happy Halloween y'all. And make sure to get out and vote tomorrow!!