Lamp

I don't know about y'all, but I've had a fantastic weekend so far (and there's one more day!). My mom and mother-in-law came into town and I loved spending time with them. I wish they didn't have to go back home. :( We ate out a few times at delicious restaurants and we also cooked in for a few meals as well. By Sunday morning, we had so much food in the fridge that we didn't know what to do with! We'll be eating leftovers for days ... and that's perfectly fine with us!

So other than eating great food, we got some fun stuff done around the house. Adam was able to get his gymnastic rings hung in the garage (which adds at least two new elements to our workouts), Mom and Tammy cleaned the curtains for our patio and re-hung them, and all day Saturday we were on a mission to find a new lamp shade.

Ok, side story. A few days ago, Adam and I were having a conversation about adding a floor lamp to our living room just so we could have lighting in the evening without the harsh overhead light being on all the time. We both agreed that it would add a nice element to the room. Well, lo and behold, that same day Adam took the trash out like a wonderful, caring husband and you'd never believe what he came across standing outside the dumpster ...... a brown floor lamp! Well, and a mini trampoline, but we decided to leave that where it was. There was no lamp shade to go with it, but it was in great condition and had no apparent defects so we decided to bring it home. We threw in a bulb and plugged it in and voilà! It worked. :)

So, back to the original story. All day Saturday we were hunting for a new lamp shade. We bought a really cute one from Target, but it didn't fit the floor lamp because of something or another so we decided to put the new shade on an older lamp I already had in the spare bedroom. The shade on that lamp previously was very old according to Tammy (it was a hand-me-down lamp) so we decided to freshen it up a little. Mom and I then went to Hobby Lobby to look for another lamp shade (this time we knew what would and would not fit) and although we couldn't find the shade we needed to fit the floor lamp, we did buy an entire new lamp for my bedroom. Prior to having this new lamp, Adam and I only had one lamp in our bedroom and it was on my side. So Mom and I decided we could move that lamp to his side and put this beautiful new one on mine. :) And the best news is, the lamp was 50% off.  Thank you, weekly sales! So, at this point, I had a new lamp, a new lamp shade for the guest bedroom, and still no lamp shade for floor lamp in the living room, which was of course the whole reason this adventure started in the first place. As I've said before, if you give a mouse a cookie ....

Well, this morning after Mom and Tammy left, Adam and I rode over to Lowes to look for the special piece we needed to make a lamp shade fit the floor lamp. Not surprisingly, Lowes had just what we needed, and we also purchased a fun new lamp shade as well. It's a burgundy color with gold swirly accents and it has decorative beads hanging all around the bottom, which matches nothing in our yellow and brown, neutral colored living room. But I think that's what I love so much about it. Adam said that every living room needs an eclectic piece of furniture and that's what this is. Our eclectic piece of furniture. Isn't it fun when adventures have satisfying endings?

Anyway, Mom and Tammy have made it back home safely, and I spent my day studying. All in all, a great weekend, like I said before.

Oh! And tomorrow I'm going over to the hospital to do my first history and physical exam on a REAL patient! I'm not doing an entire physical, but I'm still ridiculously excited. :)

Until next week!

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This is PA school!

I am so excited, and such a nerd. I'm one week in to second semester and I'm already loving this WAY more than last semester. I'm realizing now, even as exciting as it seemed, last semester was a whole bunch of prerequisite silliness. This semester is where it's at. This semester we learn procedures, surgical techniques, history and physical exams, how to interpret x-rays ... super exciting stuff!! I can't wait to get further in. This is why we all came to PA school ... to practice medicine. And we're wearing our white coats now!

So this weekend, Casey, Lindsay, Adam, Chris, Katie and I all went to the shooting range and relieved some stress. :) There was a bit of a wait and they were out of a WHOLE BUNCH of ammo, but we still had a great time!

So much fun! We're definitely doing it again.

Alright, it's bedtime. Next week, my friends!

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Christmas Break

Just like that, I find myself two days away from starting my second semester of PA school. I'm so ready to OWN this semester. Things are going to be very different. I won't be the little weak newbie that I was last time. Nope. I'm ready. Plenty have gone before me and survived, there will be more after me, the important thing to keep in mind is that I need to keep on going.

So, I have TONS of recapping to do so without further ado ...

The first week of break, I cleaned our apartment like a crazy person. I had seriously neglected our home during finals. I literally don't think there was a single exciting thing that I did. No wait! I did have lunch with Mallory and Grayson. :) It was fun hanging out with them before they took off for Christmas break.

When Friday finally got here, Adam and I packed up the dogs and drove to GA. It was so nice being home, but we were only there for a quick second. Saturday morning we went to Columbia, SC for Chris and Katie's wedding. It was so much fun! Here's a picture of Casey, Katie and me in our signature pose. :)

After we left the wedding, Adam and I drove to Charleston for a few nights. Thankfully, some of Katie's amazing friends let us stay in their house in Charleston while they went home for Christmas. More on that in a minute. So, Adam and I have tossed around the idea of moving there after I graduate, but neither of us have ever been so we wanted to go exploring. After having been, it's safe to say we LOVED it. It wasn't really what I was expecting. I thought Charleston would be more like Savannah, GA ... after all they are sister cities. But in my opinion Savannah is more sophisticated, southern money, aristocratic. Charleston seemed a little more fun loving, laid back ... kinda like Key West meets marsh land. 

While we were there, we drove around a whole bunch just to visit the different islands of Charleston and to sight-see. We really liked Mt. Pleasant, but apparently according to Chris (Katie's new husband -- they both lived there. In fact, that's where they met!) James Island and Johns Island are cooler. I guess this means Adam and I have to go back sometime to explore some more. Dang. We ate at some fantastic restaurants, and I would especially like to give a shout out to Fleet Landing. It's a neat little hole in the wall kind of place right on the water. It's in downtown Charleston. I've never had shrimp and grits that delicious in my life - and I LOVE shrimp and grits. And the view was beautiful. We sat outside with heat lamps and blaring Christmas music and actually saw a dolphin swimming right outside the restaurant (which is apparently normal there). It was absolutely perfect. 

So this house we stayed in - it was on James Island in a super cute neighborhood. Two of Katie's friends live there, Jordan and Molly. Jordan just recently graduated from MUSC and is now working as a PA! Unfortunately I didn't catch what Molly does. :/ Anyway, if you will remember in my previous post I mentioned that I saw a sign, and that's where the "She" poem/book came from. Well here's the explanation for that ... so, hanging in one of the bathrooms of their house is this painting.

I hope Jordan's sister doesn't mind that I just posted her art on the internet. :) Anyway, when I saw this hanging in their bathroom, I realized that all of my hardships from this past semester were in my head. I can do this and I will make this happen. It's as simple as that. So I went to look up this quote and I found that it was from the book/poem that I blogged about before. I thought the whole thing was inspirational, so I hope you enjoyed it. :)

After we left Charleston, we went home for Christmas and I got to meet up with some friends back home. It was great seeing Carly and Jenn and Kelsey and Ashley! I've missed all of those girls. And then Friday night and Saturday we hung out with our big group of friends. I know everyone had a great time that night ... let's just say memories were definitely made ... for some of us. ;)

Unfortunately Sunday we had to drive back to Birmingham because Adam had to work on Monday, but he had Tuesday off! And lo and behold, Rob and Jenny happened to be in town! So we celebrated New Year's with them here at our apartment. And on Thursday I hung out with Katie all day and we took back some wedding gifts and bought some other stuff. It was fun helping her spend hundreds of dollars. :)

So this pretty much brings me up to here. My brother is coming to stay with us for the next few days (his army reserve unit is stationed near here), which will be fun! And I guess that's pretty much it. I know there's a lot of boringness in here, but I didn't want to make anyone feel left out! :)

Ugh, I just realized the next time I blog, I will have completed the first week of this semester. But that's ok. Bring it on.

Later friends!

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Inspiration

I have so much to update about with Christmas and visiting with friends and things of the sort. However, this is more important right now. When I was in Charleston, I saw a sign. It opened up my eyes! I'll explain more later, but anyway, after doing some research I saw that the sign was a line from a book called "She" by Kobi Yamada. I found a list of quotes below that I believe are more lines from the same book and I really loved it. I'm not sure why this book was originally written (it almost sounds like it's written for someone who has passed) but it's super inspirational and I wanted to share it with all of you! So here goes.

She 

She must be something special. She is. Celebrate her.
She loved life and it loved her back. Celebrate her passion.
She listened to her heart above all other voices. Celebrate her wisdom.
She pursued big dreams instead of small realities. Celebrate her priorities.
She saw every ending as a new beginning. Celebrate her resiliency.
She discovered her real measurements had nothing to do with numbers or statistics. Celebrate her self-esteem.
She was kind, loving and patient…with herself. Celebrate her tenderness.
She woke up one day and threw away all her excuses. Celebrate her accountability.
She realized that she was missing a great deal by being sensible. Celebrate her spirit.
She turned her can’ts into cans, and her dreams into plans. Celebrate her goals.
She ignored people who said it couldn’t be done. Celebrate her independence.
She had a way of turning obstacles into opportunities. Celebrate her magic.
She went out on a limb, had it break off behind her, and discovered she could fly. Celebrate her faith.
She discovered she was the one she’d been waiting for. Celebrate her self-reliance.
She added so much beauty to being human. Celebrate her presence.
She walked in when everyone else walked out. Celebrate her friendship.
She just has this way of brightening the day. Celebrate her radiance.
She made the whole world feel like home. Celebrate her warmth.
She decided to enjoy more and endure less. Celebrate her choices.
She decided to start living the life she’d imagined. Celebrate her freedom.
She colored her thoughts with only the brightest hues. Celebrate her optimism.
She was an artist and her life was her canvas. Celebrate her brilliance.
She ran ahead where there were no paths. Celebrate her bravery.
She crossed borders recklessly, refusing to recognize limits, saying bonjour and buon giorno as though she owned both France and Italy and the day itself. Celebrate her joie de vivre.
She held her head high and looked the world straight in the eye. Celebrate her strength.
She not only saw a light at the end of the tunnel she became that light for others. Celebrate her compassion.
She designed a life she loved. Celebrate her joy.
She took the leap and built her wings on the way down. Celebrate her daring.
She said bye-bye to unhealthy relationships. Celebrate her happiness.
She remained true to herself. Celebrate her authenticity.
She made the world a better place. Celebrate her.

By Kobi Yamada

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First Semester -- Check!

Well, the semester is over. My first semester of PA school. I can't even begin to describe the emotions I experienced over the past 4.5 months. I don't ever want to live through that again. It was terribly painful and stressful. I know I still have 6 semesters to go ... but there's just something about moving to a new city, making a new group of friends, starting a full-time program all over again after years of NOT being in a full time program, finding your way around campus ... it's just a big, huge adjustment. But don't get me wrong. I absolutely LOVE the program where I am and I have the most phenomenal classmates in the world. I still love it and want to be a PA - no doubt in my mind. I'm hoping and expecting next semester to be different. Still stressful but in a different way. I just know this is all part of the process and it's something I have to push through.

So, I haven't posted since Thanksgiving. Let's do a quick recap ...

1. Since Thanksgiving, I studied a whole lot. More, in fact, than I have studied all semester.
2. Casey and I had intentions of making a Christmas tree skirt, but Hobby Lobby didn't have the materials that we wanted so that fell through. :(
3. I went with some girls in our class to a Shane and Shane (and Phil Wickham) Christmas concert. Their voices were AMAZING. And I got a free Christmas CD out of it. Win!
4. We celebrated Adam's birthday which was so much fun! He had to guess his gifts (and the location of our dinner) based on clues that I gave him.
5. I wrapped some Christmas presents, which of course implies that Adam and I did some shopping.
6. Casey, Katie and I threw rocks at a huge tree outside of our school with the intention of knocking down some mistletoe (Katie had never picked mistletoe before, but Casey and I -- being GA girls -- had done it plenty of times before, from our driveways in fact). Unfortunately we were unsuccessful at this BUT we happened to have noticed that there was mistletoe hanging very conveniently in a tree that stood right next to the walking bridge to get to cadaver lab. I HATE that I didn't take any pictures of us picking it because we did kinda have to risk our lives, but we were successful in our mission and now it's hanging in all of our apartments. :)
7. In one week, Kristen and I successfully planned a double bachelorette party for Katie and Heather that we had this past Friday night. It was SOOOO much fun, and a perfect way to end the semester! I'll have to get appropriate pictures from someone else ... all of the pictures that I have contain unmentionables. :)
8. I have a new nephew!!! I love him so much and I've never even met him. :( But he is so so beautiful and perfect and I want to squeeze him! Here are some pictures! I can't not post pictures!

His name is Huston-Liam.

These are my favorite nieces in the whole wide world, aka the big sisters. They have my heart! Sorry about the trademark across the picture.

This is Emma-Grace, and yes, she's one year cancer free! Praise God! PA school buddies -- she had a Wilms tumor.

This is Molly-Kate. She's a little horse-back rider. I love them so so so much!

This is my other nephew, Gavin. He's a brother from another mother. And by that I mean, he's my other brother's son. He's one tough kid. Do not mess with him!

I love all of my nieces and nephews so very much. They're the best!! And they're all so beautiful. :)

Anyway, that brings me up to right now! I guess that's about it. Future topics to expect: Katie's wedding!! A quick visit to Charleston! Going home! Christmas!!!

Laters!

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Thanksgiving numero dos!

I had my first final of my first semester of PA school today and I must say it went swimmingly. Glad it's over ... one down, six to go. Bring. It. On. This girl is ready for Christmas break.

So last Wednesday afternoon before Thanksgiving, Adam and I drove to Atlanta to meet my in-laws at the airport so we could all catch our late night flight to Arizona. It was a pretty exhausting trip but it was so much fun! And so beautiful. I had no idea that it would be as pretty as it was. Before we left Adam kept telling me "it's just desert out there" ... but I was even excited about that because I'd really never seen "the desert" before. Everyday John, my uncle-in-law, would take us sight-seeing and each day the landscape became more and more incredible! I'll just post some pictures to share. I don't have many ...

This is me standing beside a giant cactus. But it's actually no where near the height of the tallest ones. 

 This is a jumping cactus. If you touch any one of its pricklies, the entire arm will fall off. I didn't actually see this happen in while I was in Arizona, but I did youtube it as soon as I got back home. Pretty neat!

 Exercising the panaroma mode on my phone

We also visited an ostrich farm while we were out there. :) I don't have any pictures of that crazy event, but it was silly fun and very educational! Oh, and Thanksgiving dinner was super delicious, too. :) As was In-N-Out Burger. De-licious.

I may not update for a little while. Finals are coming at us pretty heavy ... but Adam and I don't have any crazy and exciting events coming up anyway, well aside from that silly SEC Championship game this Saturday. Go Dawgs!

I'll holler at y'all later!

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Early Thanksgiving and Christmas Decor!

Adam, the pups and I went home this past weekend to have Thanksgiving with my parents since we're flying to Arizona for the rest of the week. It was a nice, refreshing weekend. I got my hair trimmed and touched up, Mom and I went shopping, and then we had a delicious dinner. It was a perfect weekend just hanging out with my family. Thankfully we only have two days of school this week, and then the other Thanksgiving festivities can begin! We actually have a lot of traveling to do over the next few days, but it'll all be worth it.

So before we left Birmingham last Friday, I decided to do something that I knew would make me happy ... and since it did make me happy, I really don't care if you think I'm crazy. I put up Christmas decorations!! :) :)

So, this is our Christmas tree (obviously). I wanted to show the glowing lights, but also just a regular picture so you could see our ornaments and tree decor. Mom and I bought the tree topper this past weekend, and I really liked the idea of it because it was different. I also thought it would add more height to our cute little tree. I'm actually not sure how I feel about it. Part of me likes it, part of me feels like it's a little too Harry Potter-esk. The star to the left of the tree is what usually goes on top. Maybe I'll leave it for a few more days to figure it out ...

This isn't everything I've put out, but I didn't want to bore you with the rest. :) Anyway, happy holidays!!

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