105 Days!

That's right! We're almost to 100's Night for PA school! Can't wait to be in the double digits ... and then singles. :) Adam and I are going to have to start looking for houses soon! Everything is moving so quickly and it's all so exciting!!

So, what have we been up to the last few weeks?? Well, we've been traveling home a lot lately, and the last couple of times we've gone out with Bryan and Whitney on their boat!

It's SUPER fun, and not gonna lie, being out on the boat is pretty convincing that lake life near family and friends can be just as fun as (if not more than) ocean life without family and friends near by.

This past weekend, Adam and I packed up and went out to Pensacola with the pups. We had a great time there, as usual. Here are a few pics...

Grabbing an appetizer on our first day at the beach

Dinner at Atlas on our second night

Adam and our rat-dog, Lucy

 Lucy's pensive pose

Marley's pensive pose. Both of these dogs need to be shaved badly. The good news is, that's happening tomorrow.

 Lucy just gets so worried about her humans being in the water! (This is her mid-bark)

 Our goofy blonde girl

Lucy, pooped out after a long day on the beach followed by a refreshing bath

Oh! And there are two big adventures from the beach that I forgot to share. First, we went parasailing! I had never been before, and Adam had only been once. The girl at the counter told us it was like being in a giant swing set high up in the air, and that's pretty accurate. I was secretly a tiny big terrified being that high up because I knew if I fell that would be it, but it was still a ton of fun. I wish we could have stayed up there longer!

Our second adventure we just happened to stumble upon. Adam had googled something along the lines of "fun in Pensacola" and suddenly found something that said "If you're looking for fun in Pensacola, then Rosie O' Grady's Dueling Piano Show is the place to be!" We agreed it would be fun and different so we cleaned ourselves up and were out the door. I'm not kidding you, we stepped off the streets of Pensacola and into a wild wild west parlor. It was frickin' awesome. And frickin' huge, too. This place had seven rooms and nine bars. The entire thing was decked out to be like something from a movie. It was super neat. Adam said it reminded him of Vegas, of course I've never been. All of the servers and staff had fun costumes that fit right in with the feel of the place. And they even had a magician floating around doing private magic shows for guests. We had appetizers for dinner, then headed a few rooms over to the dueling piano show. We stayed there for the rest of the night because it was so entertaining! As it got later and later, the singers got crazier and we really just had a great time! We will definitely be going back there again. It seems like every time we go to Pensacola, we discover something new about the city and we just love it.

The day after we got back, I went to Mom and Dad's for the week, and that's where I am right now! As usual, it's been wonderful catching up with family, haven't seen a lot of friends though.

Anyway, I had a very reflective intent for this post, but I'm really just not in the mood right now. Basically, I can most definitely see the light at the end of the tunnel. It's shining very, very brightly. The light is so bright, in fact, that it's a bit difficult at the moment to see from where the light is coming exactly. But day by day, the other side of the tunnel begins to show itself just a little more. I've come to realize that no matter who is the smartest in our class, or the hardest working or whatever, we'll all make it out of the tunnel one by one, alphabetically, as we cross the stage and shake the hands of our faculty members. 105 days.

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139 Days!

I love watching the days dwindle down. Just let it keep coming.

So I haven't updated since 4th of July. We went back home and had a jam-packed weekend! Friday we went out on a boat on Lake Burton with our Head family. It was incredibly beautiful. I'm telling you, it felt like a perfect eutopia out there. The sky was sunny and blue, it wasn't too hot (almost a little chilly), people were out on their boats but it wasn't too crowded, and there were even prop planes flying around. I was definitely in my happy place. I honestly didn't realize how happy I could be out on a lake. I always thought I was an ocean/beach girl. I guess we'll just see how life plays out... :)

Anyway, Saturday morning, Adam, his parents, and I went zip lining! Adam and I hadn't been since our honeymoon while the cruise ship was docked in St. Lucia. We had a lot of fun flying through the trees. We definitely would love to go back again.

Saturday afternoon we went to Bryan and Whitney's for a little group get together. We had a great time visiting, catching up, and hanging out in the hot tub. That night, Adam, Bryan, Rickie and I went to a concert in downtown Buford (which happens to be walking distance from Bryan and Whitney's) and we danced our hearts out! It was so much fun!! Bryan bought a boat on Saturday morning so on Sunday Adam, Bryan, and Rickie took the boat out on Lake Lanier (which happens to be 2 miles from their house -- I'm telling you they've got it made). Adam told me it was a perfect day for the guys to hang out together. I'm hoping next weekend we can go back and hang out with them on the boat again. I don't think I've ever been out on Lake Lanier so I'm excited!

On Sunday I went with Mom and my aunt to the nursing home to see my grandmother. Afterwards we headed back to Bama for my last week of general surgery. And speaking of, I've officially finished it and I really loved it. I was very worried about being in the OR because before this rotation I was pretty uncomfortable with it all. Obviously sterility is a huge deal and I was terrified I would mess something up! But I became very comfortable working with these two particular surgeons. And I was at my favorite hospital in Bham so that made me happy, too. After our end-of-rotation exam last Friday, Casey, Lindsay and I went to Cocina Superior to celebrate another rotation down! Only four to go!

Now I'm at an inpatient psychiatry facility and I have to travel about an hour to get to my site. It's veeeeerrrry interesting. Lots of big crimes have been committed by some of the patients there. So, it's very interesting indeed.

Anyway, last weekend Adam, Lindsay, and I met Katie, Chris, Cory, and Casey at a brew festival in downtown Homewood. It's always fun spending time with good friends!

Yesterday was Lindsay's 25th birthday and, poor her, it started out with a test in endocrinology and a presentation that she had to give.

 Afterwards we went out with Casey, Mallory, and Ginny to our favorite margarita place, Cocina Superior. We had a drink and an appetizer there, and then we came back home.

 Lindsay and Sadie came over for dinner, drinks, and a dance party at our place and that's how we ended the night! I had a great time, and hope Lindsay did, too. :)

In general, I don't like to post photos of drinking, let alone taking shots, BUT, it was Lindsay's birthday, we had both had a rough day as far as tests and presentations go, and these two pics are the only two shots we took. Promise! Anyway I guess that's about it! We don't have any crazy plans for the rest of the weekend, but we do have exciting things coming up in the next few weeks! So until then, friends!

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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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