160 Days

I'm thrilled that clinical year is passing by so quickly! My class mates and I are less than 6 months away (actually 5 months and 1 week!) from graduating, and we are officially more than 1/2 finished with clinicals (with 9 rotations, and Monday starting week 4 of rotation number 5, we're just barely more than 1/2 way, but hey, I'll take it!). Keep 'em coming...

So what have we been up to? Well, a few weeks back we went home for Mom's 60th birthday! I also took some of my empty pots and planters home so we could beautify them. I was excited about that! And of course it was wonderful to be home for a few days. Here are a few "after" pics of my plants.

This one needs to fill out a little more, but I still love it!

Last weekend, Bryan and Jack came to visit, and all three of the boys went to some motorcycle races! According to the big boys, Jack did very well with all the loud noises and fast vehicles. :)
Saturday afternoon we hung around at the pool and cooked out on the grill. Jack is such a cute baby that he got lots of googly eyes from the other people at the pool. And Bryan was such a good, careful daddy with his precious little boy. Here a few pics that Jack took of himself (ok, so I helped him a little) with my phone.

So with this year (thankfully) being half over, I've tried to stop and think about the things I know I'll miss once we leave Birmingham. So here's my list:

• Lindsay living within walking distance
• Being able to see the other girls at the drop of a hat if needed
• Living in the same city as all my classmates
• The city at night. When you're on interstates 65 or 20, if feels like you're on a catwalk exploring the city from high above. You don't drive on the ground level like regular folk. Oh no, you're several stories in the air on a floating bridge, or so it feels. 
• Lucy and Marley's veterinarian and office staff. They are SO kind and reassuring and understanding. Seriously the best vet I've ever been to.
• The butcher shop, Mr. P's. They have hamburger meat that it the BEST I've ever tasted. It's because they take leftover cuts of steak and grind that up to make the ground beef. Seriously. Divine. 
• Tip Top Grill. It's just a regular hamburger/hot dog/corn dog kinda place, but the views are so fun up on top of the ridge. Sometimes I can trick myself into thinking I live in a little mountain town. We ARE at the edge of the Application Mountains after all...
• The ridge behind our apartment in the fall. It's just covered in beautiful orange, yellow, green, and red trees. We get these views from our patio out front, and in the back when I'm walking the dogs.
• The views from St. Vincent's Hospital. Rain or shine, I seriously LOVE it. This hospital is huge and gorgeous, and just on the edge of downtown Birmingham. I've been lucky to have two rotations there. There are glass walls everywhere, so no matter where you are in the hospital, you are just about guaranteed a great view. 
• Highland Park
• The Mountain Brook Villages. Katie, Casey, and Mallory all live in Mountain Brook, so I always love driving through these Villages to get to one of their houses, especially around Christmas.
• Downtown Homewood ... well all of Homewood actually. The houses are so cute and I love driving around the neighborhoods with Adam to look at Christmas lights. 
• I also love that Birmingham is a big city without actually being a big city. It's big enough to have all of the really nice shopping malls and stores that Atlanta has, but it's nowhere near as big as Atlanta. Adam and I are very thankful for that.

Things I will NOT miss (I'm glad to report that this list is much shorter):

• Parking on campus = horrendous. Although Lindsay and I now have a carpool pass, and it's helped out a TON having that.
• The HORRIBLE roads around town
• The almost just as bad drivers. People run red lights around here like it's no thang at all. 
• Walmart on Lakeshore. It's pretty close to trash in our opinion.

Anyway, there are my lists. So, right now I'm in general surgery and I've gotta admit, I'm loving it way more than I thought I would. It helps that I'm working with a great surgeon, too. We do a lot of fistulas and grafts, laproscopic procedures, hernia repairs... but it's all been enjoyable. 

Next weekend we're heading home and we have some fun and exciting plans! I'll report on that later. Have a great month everyone. That seems to be how long it takes me to blog these days...

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191 days!

Six months and one week from tomorrow I'll be graduating from PA school. Thank. You. Jesus. (Seriously, thank you, Jesus!). I'm getting so antsy!!

Anywho ... a little catch up on what's been going on lately.

Sam and Tammy came to see us the weekend of Talladega (they had tickets to the race) and we had a great time with them. We went out to dinner, visited family in Tuscaloosa, shopped, and played around with my plants and succulents outside. Tammy and I added to my succulent lantern. It's hard to see the difference because a lot of what we added was on top, so I don't have any pictures to share. In fact, we took very few photos the whole weekend!

Dinner Friday night

Visiting Tammy's cousin, Gayle, in Tuscaloosa

A few weekends back Lindsay, Adam and I took our pups to a fun doggie festival called Do Dah Day in Highland! It was so much fun! And I was very impressed with the fact that Lucy was very well behaved. We never have to worry about Sadie and Marley misbehaving because they're wonderful little dogs, but my Lucy can be a little devil. Hence her nick-name Lucifer.

Poor Marley got tired of walking.... No, not really. Adam just wanted to be silly.

After Do Dah Day, we took the pups to Rojo to enjoy some chips, cheese dip, and margaritas. We sat outside so that the dogs could hangout with us, too.

That Sunday, I went to Lowe's and gathered the supplies to paint my own flowerpot. I've got a pretty serious obsession with succulents, and I've been thinking about starting a strawberry pot with some hens and chicks that Tammy and I had left over after adding to my lantern.

But I didn't want just a regular clay pot, so I decided I'd decorate my own. I really wanted to be creative with this, but the farther I got into the project, the less things were going my way. I had intended to follow Debbie Doo's blog on how to paint your own pot (you can find the post here), but mine was going to be in shades of purple. Here are the materials I used and the first shade of light purple.

In the blog I mentioned above, she did this neat thing where she used stencils to add wood filler to the pot, just to give it extra texture. I really liked the idea, but I wanted to either use paisley or lace of some kind. Hobby Lobby had cute paisley stencils so I went with those. Here's a picture after I've crackled it once and added a dark coat. Obviously it has the wood filler on it already as well.

Well I got close to the end where I was to add the second color...and mine just looked terrible. The colors weren't blending beautifully like Debbie's. I immediately hated it. By this point it already had several layers of paint and crackle medium on it but what was another layer gonna hurt? So I decided to repaint the whole thing with my light shade of purple again, add the crackle medium again (which was actually just Elmer's glue), and then paint over with the dark purple. Again. I finally achieved a look I was happy with, but it sure is obvious that there are plenty of coats of paint on it. Oh well. It just makes it look old. At least that's what I'm telling myself. I might sand over the paisley a little just to make them stand out more, but here's my finished product. It is what it is. And I think it'll do just fine to hold flowers.

Also, our golden beauty says hey in the background.

This past weekend, Jenn and AnnaBelle came into town! Lucy wasn't very nice to either of them, but I absolutely loved seeing them both! We did nothing more than lounge around the pool, watch youTube videos of crazy stuff, drink wine, and catch up. A lot. Oh, and take selfies.

This is my favorite photo from the weekend. And to save everyone from a ridiculous number of pool selfies, I'll just post a couple of our photos. 

I loved having her here. I miss that girl.

So, that's about it. You all are officially caught up. Have a fantastic rest of the week! Until next time.

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Five down, two to go!

So, I finished my first semester of clinicals, which means I'm officially 1/3 of the way through clinical year!! I honestly don't even know what to say or think about that other than I'm so happy that it's going by quickly and I've already learned a TON. I've been very, very lucky to have fantastic preceptors and clinical sites so far and I'm very thankful. I loved the emergency department. Always something different and new, always a surprise, always something to learn from, and always something exciting. I will definitely seek employment in the ED in Charleston. So Wednesday night was my last shift there, and some of the night shift nurses celebrated with me with breakfast and mimosas. It was very sweet of them to come out with me. :) And of course, at the end of each semester comes the traditional photo shoot with my favorite PA girls.

Normal.

Yay! Another semester down!

How we really feel...ugh. SO ready to be finished!

This is one of our newer adoptions. It's our semester check off and count down. Five down, two to go! I guess after one more semester, we won't be able to do this pose anymore (cause nobody has six fingers on one hand...)

:)

All the girls. :) Katie and Casey are about to load up and head to Montana for their forth rotation! Can't wait to see their pictures!!

Anyway, after my end of rotation exam on Friday, Adam and I headed to Georgia. I dropped him off in Atlanta to hang out with one of his friends, and the dogs and I finished the trip to Mom and Dad's. Saturday Mom and I did our usual thing when we're together -- Saturday morning shopping trip! I ended up with some really sweet Yellow Box flip flops that I'm super exited about! Saturday afternoon I went to Lindsay's parents' house for a fun bridesmaids get together. I loved getting to meet her friends! It's always a fun time at the Hale House.

Lindsay and all her girls.

The bride to be and MOH! :):):)

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I've really been thinking about Graduation a lot lately and I'm getting SO excited. It's coming quickly. I know it's only April (almost May), but if I break it down (which I'll do for you in just a second), if feels like it's fast approaching. 222 days. That's 32 weeks. A little more than seven months. That's nothing. I can do 222 days of anything. Ok, so that's not exactly true. But I can do 222 days of clinicals. Easily done.

Summer Semester:
Dermatology: I get to wear scrubs (!) -- elective rotation, so no end of rotation exam (EOR exam), which means I get a small little study break!
General Surgery: scrubs -- core rotation, so I will take an EOR exam
Psych: core rotation, EOR exam

Fall Semester:
Outpatient: core rotation, EOR exam
Trauma/Burn Unit: scrubs -- elective rotation, no EOR exam
Peds: scrubs -- core, EOR exam

Graduation: December 5th!!!!

So, this means I have four more big exams left (five including my boards) before I get to start living a life on the beach, free from tests and papers. G-L-O-R-I-O-U-S. It'll be over before I know it. I was talking with our program director recently and he told me that graduation is a super fun event, equipped with a full bar and everything! Sounds like a good time for sure. We'll be going out with a bang!

This week I'll be hanging around the apartment, cleaning, laying out and working out cause we're on break! And I'm most definitely going to live that up. Y'all all have a great week. I'll think about y'all when I'm soaking up the sun down by the pool. :)

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Anniversary, Easter, and the ED

Not much new here in the Birmingham Head House. Adam has been working, I've been studying and going to clinicals. I've gotta say, I've loved the emergency department -- lots of different and very exciting things that I've seen and done. They may not be too exciting to the average person, but the fact that I've been able to do a lot of this stuff is just awesome to me! I would be very happy with this as a career, and that's a good thing because it pays really well. :)

We celebrated our three year anniversary a few weeks back, which is of course always special, but being the broke graduate student that I am, we didn't do anything too exciting. Just dinner at home and it was wonderful. I can't even believe it's been three years since our wedding. My facebook status from our anniversary was referencing the fact that I've been in PA school for the majority of our marriage, which makes me sad a little. I hate that I've been hugely stressed for a large majority of our marriage, but I have a wonderful and understanding husband who knows that it will all pay off in the long run. And we are so looking forward to the long run. It's not too far away now ... 7.5 months! Unbelievable.

Easter is tomorrow, and I actually have to work the night shift tomorrow night. Adam and I have decided to have an Easter dinner tomorrow evening, which should work out with my sleeping schedule. It's been interesting flipping back and forth between shifts, but I really haven't minded it. My schedule for the ED has been easy-peasy compared to some of the other schedules I've heard my classmates complain about at other hospitals. I'm certainly not complaining. In my opinion, I've got it made. ;)

So anyway, not much has been going on here, other than bunches of cuddling. :) I'll leave you with a few fun pics. Take care! Happy Easter and have a great week! Tomorrow, He is Risen!

 Lindsay, Marley and Sadie

 Marley and Lucy

 The girls and me

Adam and Mar

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Spring break!

Can't believe it's already come and gone!

Sooo, I've started my ER rotation. I had a lot of fun my first week and I start my second week tonight. I feel like I really lucked out being placed at this hospital for this rotation because they've given me a pretty sweet schedule. This week starts my night shift week. The variety of shifts (evenings, nights, and weekends) that we're required to do will keep things interesting, despite the fact that they may also be tiring. I'll report back on it all later.

So spring break! As always, it went by way too quickly. We started the first weekend of break in Georgia, for Adam's high school reunion. The reunion was held in a large pasture behind one of his classmate's houses and it was quite an interesting experience to say the least. :) For real though, it was fun seeing everyone I went to high school with, though many of them didn't remember me because their senior year I was only a wee little freshman.

Earlier in the day on Saturday, I met Lindsay in Athens and we went dress shopping! Of course I can't post any photos of her trying on dresses, but I can share this. :) 

It was such fun! And I was so proud of her for being opinionated enough to actually say no to some of the dresses. (For those of you who don't know Lindsay very well, she can't make a decision to save her life. Love you, Linds!) :)

Adam worked from home Monday through Wednesday, and then Wednesday evening we drove to South Carolina to meet David and Natalie. Adam and I stayed at their place Wednesday night, then Thursday morning we all drove to Charleston together and unpacked in our beach house. David and Nat were both so good about taking photos, but I only took a few. I FULLY expect them to post photos and share them on facebook so that I can share them here. :)

 View from our beach house. Natalie did a perfect job picking it out!

Ok so this plant is HUGE. Here's proof:

 It's a century plant, aka American aloe, aka agave plant.

This is the view from a little seafood shop where we picked up dinner one night. It's where the plant is as well.

 Lucy and Sadie cuddling one night :)

 The famous pineapple fountain

So then comes the beach photos...

Pretty Marley and all the crazy beach foam -- she's so much better at smiling for photos than Lucy. I ended up with more pictures of Lucy because she just didn't want to sit still!

Lucy kept getting foam all over her face. She did a great job of staying near us on the beach so we didn't even put her on a leash. She's loving the ocean more and more! I think they'll both be great Charleston dogs. :)

Candid group photos. These were literally taken seconds apart. Hilarious!

I just love this one!

Adam and his dog. :) Again, very candid, but I think the water is so pretty in this photo.

That concludes the photos I have from the trip. I promise to share the others soon! But one more quick thing... In one of my past posts, I mentioned that I worked a gala with Katie to raise money for their mission trip. I'll leave you with the photos from that event. Enjoy!

 It was really cold, and we couldn't keep from shaking while taking photos of each other! Thus, some of the photos came out blurry. Oh well. But we had a great time!

Some nice medical student boys took this photo for us.

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